Rigmarole

So it's June. I really don't know where May went--it was just starting and then suddenly flitted away. So summer is more or less in full swing--I like to be ambivalent about absolutes--and the irises are in bloom and are lovely. I'm beginning to think that Iris might also be a nice name a la Iris Murdoch who is somewhere on my never-ending reading list but certainly not this summer. My reading list is coming along nicely, and I have the highest hopes that for the first time I will actually read everything on my summer reading list. I just finished The Secret History by Donna Tartt for book club and even though this is the fourth time I've read it, I really love the novel. Of course my favorite part is the first book which could be subtitled "et in arcadia ego" a la Brideshead Revisited. In both novels, the bucolic enchantment which flavors the beginning is irresistible though it soon veers, sadly and inevitably, towards tragedy. I shortly expect to finish Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine by my favorite literary and religious critic, Harold Bloom--a major deity in my personal and undefined godhead. Perhaps his book's greatest accomplishment is its valid refutation of any so-called Judeo-Christian tradition as the new covenant of Christianity did not fulfill some old Jewish covenant but rather subjugated the Tanakh and held it hostage under its new revision as the Old Testament. His analysis of the literary characters of Jesus and Yahweh are interesting and sometimes outrageous if not always persuasive. Nevertheless, his secular and gnostic reading of the New Testament and the Tanakh will send one running back to the Bible to read it for oneself. I've also made it a great deal further in Little, Big which, as I cannot emphasize enough, is amazing. Hopefully, I will finish it this week. Then I can finish Revolutionary Road and American Gods, both of which I am about half-way through, before moving on to the rest of my list.

I broke down and bought Abnormally Attracted to Sin by Tori Amos on iTunes, mostly to prepare myself for her concert in two months. I usually like to buy albums in the physical CD version--it's just how I prefer to listen to an entire album. However, the digital version included a bonus track. So far it stands in stark contrast to all of Amos's previous work and not necessarily in a good way. Perhaps later I'll give it a more in-depth review, but currently I am on a self-imposed one-week Tori Amos cleanse/detox. I've been listening to her so much lately that it has started to become unhealthily excessive. So in the meantime I am reacquainting myself the rest of my music library. and looking forward to Regina Spektor's new release later this month.

At the Marriott Library my full part-time hours have been reinstated as John, who is gorgeous, has turned in his two-weeks notice. So that's happy (and just a little bit sad). I also picked up a shift this Saturday at the City library which was not nearly as hellish as I suspected it would be. The last time I worked there--in March--was awful which can be expected of all new jobs. I had no clue what I was doing, the manager wasn't there, and nobody was helping me. This time I was kindly taken under the guidance of Aubbie and others and now have a much better understanding of what the hell I am doing. I had fully anticipated parting ways with the City library after this weekend, but it was enjoyable enough that I have picked up more shifts. I still have yet to receive my name badge that was ordered back in February, nor has a new parking card been ordered for me as per my request a few weeks ago. But things are starting to look up. maybe. Well that's about all I have for today. It's not a lot, but I felt the need to put something out there. Shalom.