Notes to Self

How much do I love writer/poet Kyran Pittman's blog, Notes to Self?

Good lord, like a lot, lot.

Her post, Cat's Cradle had me in tears, and it certainly wasn't the only one that did. (Why you gotta make me cry, Kyran Pittman?!?)

An excerpt:

Children turn time into a game with string. When I was eight years old, fall through spring took an eon, summer was an era, and childhood was an eternity. Now I realize that it all passed in a blink of my parents' eyes. The structure of our life together as a family —so elaborate, so permanent-seeming — collapsed between their hands when that time was done.

She's funny and eloquent and thought provoking. You should check her out.

Iliad and Odyssey review

Every once in a while I run across a "review" of Jamie's Iliad and Odyssey on the internet, and I just ran across this one from some guy's blog in 2005 and thought it was very nice:

Kevin turned me on to a site, which I'd like to introduce to the lot of you. This guy Jamie Rieger has a site that I might not have thought twice about, but there's something really amazing there. He decided to read Homer's epic poems The Iliad and The Oddysey. Just for shits and giggles. When he discovered how daunting the task would be, he decided to take comedic notes as he read, and he indexed those notes for the Iliad here and the Oddysey here. I strongly encourage you to stop by and give him a read. You might want to empty your bladder first, though. Start with the backstory to the Iliad, which had me in tears.

Now. Here's the question. Who reads The Iliad for funsies? I seriously have to give this guy mad props for undertaking the Sisyphean task of not only reading it, but taking notes the whole time, then taking the time to catalog those notes for our pleasure. And then to make it all be funny?

Jamie: He so awesome

Jamie's very-funny summaries of the Iliad and the Odyssey, by that one Homer guy, got a nice writeup at Joel Segal Books, a bookstore in England. Anyway, check it out and read the summaries if you haven't and then be sure to tell Jamie that he really should think about publishing them already!