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We have a connection...
Sep. 25th, 2006 09:43 amI arrived at my parents' house last night around 6 pm and was asleep by about 9 pm. Despite the absence of unusual stress during the day, it had still been a long one, and I was tired.
I'm sitting at the big table in the dining room right now, downloading an mp3 from RFI, both to listen to later and as a test of download speed. Although I'm not getting the 70-80 kBps I was getting in Houston (which beat the 50-60 kBps I typically get in Pagosa), I am getting about 15 kBps, which is better than straight dialup (and, in fact, better than what I can get over a network in Baikonur), but most important: I am online!
The icing on the cake is that I'm not hogging the house phone, as my dad is expecting a call from the funeral home at any time between now and, um, noon local time. (It occurs to me the man spends a lot of time waiting for callbacks; then again, he's got lots of time in which to wait, but I digress...)
I slept for part of the flight between Houston and Atlanta yesterday, and read part of David Allen's Getting Things Done, which I had trouble finding yesterday morning because Galina had absconded with it the night before, and which she had found to be занудная, a marvelous word connoting - to me- a steroid-enhanced bore. I cannot say that I disagree entirely; the book is not an easy read, I think.
So perhaps it is understandable that, upon passing a bookseller's shop in Concourse E in Atlanta, I would pop my head in just to admire the titles. One caught my eye, titled The Colorado Kid. There were two and a half reasons for this. First, the name of the state established an immediate connection. Second, the cover art - depicting an attractive young woman and executed in the illustrative style of the 40s and 50s - was eye-catching. And finally, as reason two and a half, was the fact that the tome had been written by Stephen King.
With all due respect to King's talent, I must admit his stories don't move me to want to buy any and everything he writes, as does the work of, say, Robert B. Parker (though even then, I've been remiss of late in catching up to his production), but in this case, his name probably tipped the balance in getting me to take the book off the shelf and read the back cover, the content of which intrigued me and tipped me over the edge, so to speak.
So, rather than spend money on food, I bought the paperback, fully intending to read it on the flight to JFK.
That didn't happen.
I fell asleep again, for most of the flight. Upon awakening, my neighbor had tuned in Windtalkers, a movie lots of people love to hate, yet one that I find watchable, despite the Hollyweird-induced goofs, so I dialed the same channel up on the screen mounted in front of my kisser, and settled down to watch until we touched down in New York.
In any event, I started reading the book while waiting for my luggage, and I was able to get all the way to page 89 before my bag appeared on the conveyor. It never occurred to me to have reading material on hand during this particular phase of travel, but I think it's something to consider in the future, especially when flying into JFK on Delta.
I finished the book while on the train home, and it certainly lived up to the blurb on the back cover. In the afterword, King muses that readers will either love or hate the book, but while I do not hate it, I cannot say that I exactly love it, either.
"Did I get my money's worth?" you might ask. Yes.
I think.
One question that has tapped around the inside of my cranium is this: Would this book have been published if King hadn't been the author?
By this, I don't mean to imply that the book was poorly written. Indeed, the question may be more of a self-indictment, an unwitting declaration of a failure to realize how much skill must go into writing something that unfolds as naturally as a blooming rosebud, holds my attention, and has me wanting to turn the page even past the end. And yet, the exposition of the story is so natural... can there be such a thing as too natural? So perhaps the right question to ask is: Would this book have been published if it had been written by someone not as "salty" - in the writing sense - as King? I don't know.
The book will be worth a second, more analytical read, methinks.
Daylight is burning and I have a translation to finish.
Cheers...
I'm sitting at the big table in the dining room right now, downloading an mp3 from RFI, both to listen to later and as a test of download speed. Although I'm not getting the 70-80 kBps I was getting in Houston (which beat the 50-60 kBps I typically get in Pagosa), I am getting about 15 kBps, which is better than straight dialup (and, in fact, better than what I can get over a network in Baikonur), but most important: I am online!
The icing on the cake is that I'm not hogging the house phone, as my dad is expecting a call from the funeral home at any time between now and, um, noon local time. (It occurs to me the man spends a lot of time waiting for callbacks; then again, he's got lots of time in which to wait, but I digress...)
I slept for part of the flight between Houston and Atlanta yesterday, and read part of David Allen's Getting Things Done, which I had trouble finding yesterday morning because Galina had absconded with it the night before, and which she had found to be занудная, a marvelous word connoting - to me- a steroid-enhanced bore. I cannot say that I disagree entirely; the book is not an easy read, I think.
So perhaps it is understandable that, upon passing a bookseller's shop in Concourse E in Atlanta, I would pop my head in just to admire the titles. One caught my eye, titled The Colorado Kid. There were two and a half reasons for this. First, the name of the state established an immediate connection. Second, the cover art - depicting an attractive young woman and executed in the illustrative style of the 40s and 50s - was eye-catching. And finally, as reason two and a half, was the fact that the tome had been written by Stephen King.
With all due respect to King's talent, I must admit his stories don't move me to want to buy any and everything he writes, as does the work of, say, Robert B. Parker (though even then, I've been remiss of late in catching up to his production), but in this case, his name probably tipped the balance in getting me to take the book off the shelf and read the back cover, the content of which intrigued me and tipped me over the edge, so to speak.
So, rather than spend money on food, I bought the paperback, fully intending to read it on the flight to JFK.
That didn't happen.
I fell asleep again, for most of the flight. Upon awakening, my neighbor had tuned in Windtalkers, a movie lots of people love to hate, yet one that I find watchable, despite the Hollyweird-induced goofs, so I dialed the same channel up on the screen mounted in front of my kisser, and settled down to watch until we touched down in New York.
In any event, I started reading the book while waiting for my luggage, and I was able to get all the way to page 89 before my bag appeared on the conveyor. It never occurred to me to have reading material on hand during this particular phase of travel, but I think it's something to consider in the future, especially when flying into JFK on Delta.
I finished the book while on the train home, and it certainly lived up to the blurb on the back cover. In the afterword, King muses that readers will either love or hate the book, but while I do not hate it, I cannot say that I exactly love it, either.
"Did I get my money's worth?" you might ask. Yes.
I think.
One question that has tapped around the inside of my cranium is this: Would this book have been published if King hadn't been the author?
By this, I don't mean to imply that the book was poorly written. Indeed, the question may be more of a self-indictment, an unwitting declaration of a failure to realize how much skill must go into writing something that unfolds as naturally as a blooming rosebud, holds my attention, and has me wanting to turn the page even past the end. And yet, the exposition of the story is so natural... can there be such a thing as too natural? So perhaps the right question to ask is: Would this book have been published if it had been written by someone not as "salty" - in the writing sense - as King? I don't know.
The book will be worth a second, more analytical read, methinks.
Daylight is burning and I have a translation to finish.
Cheers...
