When I first started doing things online – way back when, Mrs THE IPC bought a new Mac and it came with a thing called iWeb. I started writing about movies out there and would occasionally throw in a book review back when I did a lot of book reading. I eventually made a book review site called isaacsbookreviews or something and I loaded them all up over there and then started reading blogs and quit reading books so I haven’t updated that site in a few years. I think it still exists if you want to look for it, Kim : ) Anyway, I went to the bookstore to get some Christmas presents for people and ended up spending almost 300 dollars on gifts for myself and others – including a new book by someone I grew up reading named Gene Wolfe. He’s considered a Sci-Fi writer but, even though it is science fiction, it’s not all spaceships and robots and shit. They are mostly very, very thick fictional dramas with loads and loads of characters with arcane names and mystifying plots. The Book of the New Sun (four novels) are probably his most famous (and confusing) pieces of work; a stand alone novel called There Are Doors is one of my favorite books that I read while I was a teen. I have a lot of Wolfe’s work on my living room bookshelf:
So, while I was browsing the TPBs, I turned around and the Sci-Fi aisle was behind me and I noticed that there was a new Gene Wolfe novel down there in the Ws and thought to myself, “You know what? I’m going to go read a fucking book!” and I ended up buying several new things to read during my adventures in New Smelly Jersey, and then ended up using five “and”s in one sentence. Also, since books rarely come with pictures that I like to pepper my posts with, here’s a picture of two of our other bookcases:
If you are at all familiar with Wolfe’s work –> nothing is an easy read. His worlds are very complicated and complex and, like I said earlier, his characters usually have arcane names so it’s hard to figure out who’s doing what and who’s who. He also generally has things going on in the background that get no explanation as to what they are or why they’re there, but the payoffs are usually worth every difficult minute I spend deciphering things.

The Land Across is a different type of thing, I’m saddened to note. It’s not at all a bad book, but it’s almost like, now that he’s turned 90 (for real) he decided to write something while wearing his robe and slippers and get his jive on.  Sometimes the book is almost silly in the things that are going on and the first person narrator says things like how much he wants to “make it” with this woman or goes on too much about the blisters on his feet.

The narrator is also an American in a foreign country so he translates the dialogue of the people he interacts with into BROKEN English for some strange reason. For example, (this is not verbatim):

I looked at Naala and her beautiful Puraustayan face, with her high cheekbones and her evil grin. I really wanted to make it with her, you know, as you would. She handed me the shards of the vase she had just smashed. “I make this Amerikan object broken for you. Or do I? You know the most. You tell me. Or do you? We are partners, yes?”

The ENTIRE read I kept thinking of Sofia Vergara from Modern Family.Example 2:

If you’re interested, the story you can get from the back of the book or the Amazon description so I won’t bother with that. I’ll just say that you’re in for, severed hands, ghosts, Vlad the Impaler, naked crucifixions, lots of people called Papa this or Papa that, broken English and lots of cafe dialogue where people explain things that they’ve already explained in the context of the text. This was definitely not my favorite of his but…. I would definitely take There Are Doors, Free Live Free or The Death of Doctor Island over this one. I would also suggest The Urth of the New Sun but you might not get that one unless you’ve read The Book of the New Sun series…

Next up: The Library at Mount Char

I do have something totally inappropriate to add to this that has nothing to do with the book or any movie…

*Somehow I’ve gained a lot of new readers over the holidays who may or may not be used to me yet – so – don’t read after the gif if you’re easily offended*

I know I come out here and make analogies to porn movies and state that I’ve never seen a porn but I think we all know that might not be 100% solid truth even though I’ve never seen a porn. Especially not on V/H/S. Now that that’s out of the way, I can really state that I have never been around a sex worker (that I know of), for real. I mean, I DID get a BEEJ from some lady in L.A. when I was 17 or so (who my friend knew) who needed some rent money, but I don’t think she was some pro or anything out Hustlin’ for a living.

The point of that is that just now I was standing in line at the beer store and this short chick was on her cell phone, not being very demure about it. This is what I overheard:

*Note – I didn’t hear the beginning of the call as I was fishing my box of beer out of the beer vault*

“I live at _________ and ________”
“It’s a condo”
“I’m white”
“Sound good?”
“See you at ten”
“Oh wait”
“Upgrades are available for”
“I said upgrades are available for a hundred dollars. Bring hundreds.”
“Hundreds for upgrades.”
“See you then”

When I got to the counter and she left with her two cans of beer and Newport straights, I asked the clerk if he thought she was talking about what I thought she was talking about. He smiled and said “sounds like the hump-de-hump” to which I replied “the Hibbity Bibbity” which I don’t think he recognized since I am not at all cool and hip, although he did say “I should have got her number.”

Oh well, I just thought that was a funny story : ) HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!

#thehibbitybibbity