Summer in NYC

Well it certainly has been awhile since I posted something that wasn't an excerpt from a book I was reading! I do like to share what I am reading (this week its The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman because I really liked The Golden Compass in my YAL class this semester) but I suppose a little somethin' somethin' wouldn't entirely be awful. I will cut to the chase.

I am spending the summer in New York City.

I somehow managed to snag an unbelievable internship with Simon and Schuster this summer! I didn't think it was possible, but like I told Sara...I was going big or going home. After one disastrous phone call with Harper Collins (in which they hung up on me almost immediately after I asked if a phone interview was possible), I thought I was pretty much set with Northwestern University Press in their acquisitions department. But then alas! S&S called, and here we are.

I leave at the end of the month and will be there through the first week of August. (!!!)

Ana was right, 2009 was bound to be better than 2008. And now almost six months into it...I think she's right!

When we listened to the wind together, we understood exactly what it was saying. When we sat close in the dark, we could feel each other's broken hearts beating.[AH]

Oh how I love Toni Morrison

The easiest thing to do would be to build a case our of her foot. That is what she herself did. But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer. The end of her lovely beginning was probably the cavity in one of her front teeth. She preferred, however, to think always of her foot. Although she was the ninth of eleven children and lived on a ridge of red Alabama clay seven miles from the nearest road, the complete indifference with which a rusty nail was met when it punched clear through her foot during her second year of life saved Pauline Williams from total anonymity. The wound left her with a crooked, archless foot that flopped when she walked--not a limp that would have eventually twisted her spine, but a way of lifting the bad foot as though she were extracting it from little whirlpools that threatened to pull it under. Slight as it was, this deformity explained for her many things that would have been otherwise incomprehensible: why she alone of all the children had no nickname; why there were no funny jokes and anecdotes about funny things she had done; why no one ever remarked on her food preferences--no saving of the wing or neck for her--no cooking of the peas in a separate pot without rice because she did not like rice; why nobody teased her; why she never felt at home anywhere, or that she belonged anyplace. Her general feeling of separateness and unworthiness she blamed on her foot. [TM]

Something I Actually Like About Catcher

The best thing , though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got the scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way--I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it. [JDS]

Huck Finn Everywhere

Recently I was assigned to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for my Young Adult Literature class.

Then I was assigned three articles in the Argumentative Writing class to read for homework, and lo and behold...there was an article about Huck Finn.

Who knew?

I find this article very interesting. Thoughts?

Cross-Country Snow

"Maybe we'll never go skiing again, Nick," George said.

"We've got to," said Nick. "It isn't worth while if you can't."

"We'll go, all right," George said.

"We've got to," Nick agreed.

"I wish we could make a promise about it," George said.

Nick stood up. He buckled his wind jacket tight. He leaned over George and picked up the two ski poles from against the wall. He stuck one of the ski poles into the floor.

"There isn't any good in promising," he said.

They opened the door and went out. It was very cold. The snow had crusted hard. The road ran up the hill into the pine trees.

They took down their skis from where they leaned against the wall in the inn. Nick put on his gloves. George was already started up the road, his skis on his shoulder. Now that would have the run home together.

[EH]

Chapter XII

If it happened right down close in front of you, you could see Villalta snarl at the bull and curse him, and when the bull charged, he swung back firmly like an oak when the wind hits it, his legs tight together, the muleta trailing and the sword following the curve behind. Then he cursed the bull, flopped the muleta at him, and swung back from the charge his feet firm, the muleta curving and at each swing the crowd roaring.

When he started to kill it was all in the same rush. The bull looking at him straight in front, hating. He drew out the sword from the folds of the muleta and sighted with the same movement and called to the bull, Toro! Toro! and the bull charged and Villalta became one with the bull and then it was over. Villalta standing straight and the red hilt of the sword sticking out dully between the bull's shoulders. Villalta, his hand up at the crowd and the bull roaring blood, looking at Villalta and his legs caving.
[EH]