Chicago: They paved a fetid swamp/and put up a parking lot

Burger Bar, down at North/Clybourn, is good with both the beer and the grub.

That have a dinner coming up with half acre I believe.

I see that place

N'mind.

What's up with Clark and Division? It's a little island of crustiness in the sea of fanciness.

Clark And Division is mentioned in my longtime and still very favorite book, Museum of Love. The protagonist comes to there after being in a fugue state in Canada.

And it's never mentioned again.

I wish anyone else in this world liked that book. I've been reading it over and over and over since 1997. I read it all the way through several times a year.

Apart from books I had to read for school, I can think of only one book that I've ever read more than once: Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine (in 1993 and 2000).

Your approach to books is similar to your approach to music!

I've been in one of those strange meditative moods where I listen to the same song over and over for days and sat through Fata Morgana without falling asleep even once, even for a second. Maybe I am in a fugue state.

I meant that first comment as an xp to Jesse

Also I slept for NINE HOURS.

Your approach to books is similar to your approach to music!

Really? I think it's the same as my approach to movies or TV shows. But I'll get obsessive about a song or album often enough. Literally right before I read your post, I played Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting" for maybe the 5th or 6th time in the last week. (I guess maybe that's not quite "obsessive" to some people. But it's an itch I want to scratch.)

Oh haha I didn't see your second post. Never mind!

I was actually thinking of my tendency not to reread books the other day, when an ILB thread and an assignment at work inspired me to take Don DeLillo's Underworld off the shelf. When I read it in December 1997, it became my favorite novel of all time. (It was an impressionable age: I think Stereolab's Dots and Loops became my favorite album of all time that very autumn.) So part of me wants to reread it in the hopes that I will get the same enjoyment out of it as I did back then; another part of me doesn't want my positive memory of it to be besmirched.

AJ let us know when you want to go to the Barrelhouse!

Books I regularly read over again: Infinite Jest, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. I'll surely read The Night Circus again. These are like comfort books.

Books I did not finish because I disliked them immensely: Museum of Love, The Mezzanine, Underworld

Dots and Loops was my favorite album at that same time, though!

Will do JB!

I generally only read short books / comics over again, because I'm a very slow reader and it seems ludicrous to spend so much time on a book I've already read. But I'm not against re-reading in theory. I've re-read childhood favorites like "A Wizard of Earthsea" over a bunch of times.

Oh comics! I re-read 1602 a lot. Love that comic so much.

Books I did not finish because I disliked them immensely: Museum of Love, The Mezzanine, Underworld

Ha, well, I'll have you know that I liked The Mezzanine much less the second time I read it, when the gimmick of it seemed less mind-blowing and I found myself focusing on how the main character seemed like kind of a d-bag.

I'm a very slow reader and it seems ludicrous to spend so much time on a book I've already read.

^this

I tried to read Infinite Jest, but I couldn't do it. I liked what I read, but I am not smart enough to handle it, I guess.

don't worry, neither am i

Other books I rererererere-read:

Any and all of Kate Christensen's books (Courtney will tell you she does the same)

The Sound and the Fury

a couple chapters of Finnegans Wake

various David Sedaris books

I tried to read about a page of Finnegans Wake once, but frankly it seemed impenetrable. Love Ulysses when I read it in college though.

There are definitely commonalities among books I love (female authors/characters, external conflict) and books I dislike (male protagonists gazing at their navels).

And yes, I am much much smarter tha Amanda and Jesse because I've read Infinite Jest. I judge you both on that constantly and secretly resent you because I'm intellectually slumming it by being your friend.

No, you've read IJ because you are much smarter, not the other way around. You're probably envious of our carefree zeal for life that you can't really even approximate because you are too smart to coast through life merrily like we do ;)

merrily

I am waiting for someone to arrive and diagnose our sink problems and I am getting impatient.

I wish I'd read Ulysses and The Sound and the Fury in college, because there's very little chance I'd plow my way through those on my own.

I think the Newberry Library has sometimes oftened a seminar on Ulysses. Looking at their seminar offerings now, and they're doing War and Peace this term. (Intriguingly, there's also "Jesting and Moral Questing in the Journalism of David Foster Wallace.")

I think I love IJ so much because I first read it at a very rough time in my life and I connected deeply with the themes of loneliness, isolation, and self-destruction.

xp what's up with yo sink?

Jeff took the cover off our kitchen light because one of the tubes was burned out and LO the cover was filthy and our kitchen is not as dark as I thought.

And yes, I am much much smarter tha Amanda and Jesse because I've read Infinite Jest. I judge you both on that constantly and secretly resent you because I'm intellectually slumming it by being your friend.

I want to share with the class the tale of Jenny being dissed by the author of this book

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/412Y042NE2L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

We were all wasted, chillaxing on my futon in GSO and the Jenny and the J!ll!an, who was not yet published at the time, were talking literature. Jenny said she loved Infinite Jest. J!ll!an was not impressed, and she asked Jenny about various other authors who neither Jenny nor I had ever heard of. When Jenny said she hadn't read them, she repeated their names adamantly, and said "They're in the canon!"

jaymc, I highly recommend the audiobook of The Sound and the Fury. My wife and I listened to it on a multi-day drive last year and it was absolutely thrilling -- a great way to be led through a difficult text.

Jenny got took down a notch by a DISABLED PERSON. LOLOLOLOL

I wish I'd read Ulysses and The Sound and the Fury in college, because there's very little chance I'd plow my way through those on my own.

Yes. The Sound and the Fury is fucking flat out amazing, but I probably would never have read it if I hadn't had a lot of help from my professor and class.

in other news, I recently got hired as director of my library. I officially start on Monday, though I've been acting director since June so it won't really change much immediately.

But of course literally the day after I found out I got the job, we discovered various issues with our foundation and so now all this work is being done and I had to close the library 3 hours early yesterday and today our children's floor is totally closed too. Just venting'.

That's prett great! Right? A promotion and stuff?

Great news! Congratulations.

yaaaaaaaaay! it's about time.

(better the foundation of the library than the foundation of your own house, though amirite)

will this guy ever get here? am i going to have to slug around in my sweatpants all day?

extreme hardship!

Sweatpants are a practical way to be comfortable and warm without having to be in bed the whole time. Sweatpants are ACTIVE pants!

yes it is a massive promotion and I'm very excited about it! I mean the raise and the extra vacation and the phat office are enough, but obviously it will also be able to have the authority to DO things.

But I am a bit stressed too.

"it will also be nice to be able" rather

omg you have an office! And a raise! That's great. The stress is pretty normal, I think.

Yay. We have to go to the Barrelhouse now to celebrate!

The only book I've read more than once is 20k leagues under the sea.

I read short stories, essays, poems, and plays many times, more than full books.

I think Clark/Division used to be a real "side of the tracks" divider between the Gold Coast and Cabrini Green. Now the projects are mostly gone, Old Town is spiffy, but the Mark Twain SRO and the rest remain. I wonder what the real-estate story is behind that, since you're right, Jesse: it would be the perfect spot for the kinds of stores near the Chicago and North/Clybourn stations.

Congrats, AJ! I will buy you a beer next time I see you.

Thanks!

Shouldn't you be buying all the beers now?

I finally got around to taking the water flow regulator out of our shower head (our water pressure is just okay, not great, and I want great water pressure (yeah yeah firstworldproblems I know)) and in search for a diagram of which part actually is the flow regulator, I found this hilarious how-to page:

http://www.freeexistence.org/highflow.html

Next time somebody asks me why I think libertarianism is ridiculous, I'm going to just point them to this page and be done with it.

Haha. The desire for a good shower makes for strange bedfellows.

My shower is all muffed up. I have a showerhead that I take with me to any apartment I've ever rented (got a new one when I moved to Chicago from Gso) and it finally cracked and it sprays all over.

That's manageable, but what really sucks is that the hot water is 120F, and the cold water pressure that fluctuates greatly. It's a pretty crappy shower experience, having to keep the water lukewarm so that when the cold water drops off, there will still be enough cold water to keep it from being scalding.

jeff is right, I should be buying all the beer

Now that you're in the 1% with your fancy, high-end library job and all.