From the music and behind-the-times desk: Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”

Okay, so I feel like I should have something coherent to contribute to vegetarianism discussion, seeing as how I’ve been a vegetarian since I was twelve (although I do eat fish, making my claim to vegetarianism shaky in many eyes). I’ve dealt with and contemplated many of those issues, including the strange hostility that merely saying “No thanks, I don’t eat meat,” tends to produce. However, I feel like I need to take a little more time before saying something…which segues nicely into my theme for the post, which is that I often find myself behind the times, pop-culture or literary-culture wise. I feel like my response-time functions just a little too slowly for this culture of ours sometimes.

Perhaps it’s my disinclination to seem like a bandwagon jumper, or simply laziness, or a superstitious tendency to let books and bands and movies and TV shows drift into my life, rather than taking a more pro-active approach, but I often find myself enthusing about something long after the cultural moment has peaked. Someone once pointed out that my bookshelf by my bed was full of “big books” from the 90s, as apparently I can only enjoy the literary bestsellers of 1998 in 2007.

 

From the transportation desk: Plow the f*ing roads

Hello all. As many of you know, I live in Madison, Wisconsin, which means the winters are long and frequently bring lots of snow. That’s fine. I’ve lived in New England and Minnesota, so I know how to handle snow. I enjoy snowball fights, love to watch snow falling, and have multiple pairs of long underwear. I also expect northern municipalities to deal with snow efficiently. This has not been the case so far that I’ve lived in Madison.

 

Travel Report: Cry of the Loonies

This weekend, I drove about three and half hours upstate to the “Cry of the Loon” lodge, for the annual Creative Writing department September retreat (and, this is the second to last retreat EVAH, which is sad). The cabins were right on the lake: i.e., the lake was mere steps away, unlike my family’s cabin in Canada, where the lake is located down a perilous slope. Minnesota is, famously, the land of a thousand lakes