Moved

In Los Angeles, the delightful gadfly called spring has pushed its way past the heavy-lidded thug we call rainy season.

I was promoted to a new desk. They’ve moved me one cubicle closer to the window. If I back my chair up 5 feet from the desk, look 57 degrees to the left, and crane my neck, I have a very adequate view of this building:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4541963

But thankfully my view isn’t of the shiny side.

I promise I will learn the intricacies of HTML and seamlessly incorporate my links into my text. But it’s been a busy April.

A book recommendation: Saturday by Ian McEwan. His last book, Atonement, began with 40 pages of prose so morassingly turgid and quicksandishly expositive that I resisted Saturday. I tried three times to get past those 40 pages. I couldn’t do it. But I’ve read about 100 pages of Saturday and it’s my favorite book of the second half of the second third of the millennium. Sure, Ian will still slow things down a little. But when he spends 10 pages describing a squash game, every word is delectable, precise, and well positioned, but in a dancerly way. He’s the Paddy Macaloon of literature. His defense of men sitting down while peeing is masterful. It’s almost enough to get me to dive back into the mud of Atonement, where I promise this time I’ll start on page 41.