I confess to being more than a picky reader, which prevents me from being all that well-read. I pick up a book in the store and randomly flip to a page in the book. If I don’t like the way the words sound, I don’t buy the book because I know I can’t read it. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, I’ll never get Hemingway and his boorish eight-word sentences. It’s like getting smacked in the face with beef.

But then there are authors. Amazing poets that really send me away from myself and into their worlds. Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, Inherent Vice, appears to be one such work of fiction. At the risk of getting sued by Penguin Press, let me give you but one sample of the delicious words that keep me turning the pages of this book:

Club Asiatique was in San Pedro, opposite Terminal Island, with a filtered view of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. At night it seemed covered, in a way protected, by something deeper than shadow – a visual expression of the convergence, fron all around the Pacific Rim, of numberless needs to do business unobserved.

Glassware behind the bar, which might in some other type of saloon have been found too dazzling, here achieved the smudged cool glow of images on cheap black-and-white TV sets. Waitresses in black silk cheongsams printed with red tropical blossoms glided around on high heels, bearing tall narrow drinks decorated with real orchids and mango slices and straws of vivid aqua plastic molded to look like bamboo. Customers at tables leaned toward each other and then away, in slow rhythms, like plants underwater. House regulars drank shots of hot sake chased with iced champagne. The air was dense with smoke from opium pipes and cannabis bongs, as well as clove cigarettes, Malaysian cheroots, and correctional-system Kools, little glowing foci of awareness pulsing brighter and dimmer everywhere in the dusk. Downstairs, for those nostalgic for Macao and the joys of Felicidad Street, an exclusive fantan game went on day and night, as well as mah-jongg and dollar-a-stone Go in various alcoves behind the beaded curtains.

Doesn’t tell you much about the story, in fact, it doesn’t tell you shit. It’s just the words – the images. The way they fit together in two paragraphs and tell the whole story of a place in California. I guess I know who I’ll be looking up after I’m done with this book. Thank you, Rolling Stone!

We finally figure out the obvious and start buying banks, Gene Simmons buys a record company, and masturbation becomes a healthy ((not to mention natural and zesty)) enterprise in this latest of news roundups for DFE. Lets whip out some stories, shall we?

• Buying jets with bailout money is for pussies. How about this: take bailout money, then host a conference call filled with influential business leaders and lobbyists to try to break the back of the Employee Free Choice Act. Why not take taxpayer money and then use it to spend on lobbying politicians? And so you can break the bank of the unions that fight for the taxpayers you just bilked?
• The Obama Administration sees the banking industry sliding farther and farther into trouble and it’s beginning to look more and more obvious that some “nationalization,” or the government buying a controlling interest in distressed banks, may be necessary. As a side note, see Dean Baker for why shareholders of bankrupt banks actually make out quite well in such a scenario. Hint: a few bucks for paper worth nothing is a good thing.
• Corning expects that of the 3,500 jobs they’re cutting back across the enterprise, 650 of them will be local jobs. Bad news, people. I feel for ya.
• Peanut butter recalls continue. It was reported last night no less than twelve incidents at the offending company where testing revealed traces of salmonella and they sent the stuff to market anyway.
• Gene Simmons announced on his website that he’s starting up a new Universal Records company in Canada, eh? Can’t wait to see Gene in full KISS regalia on the Canadian $5!
• It’s been a long couple months for Toyota. In addition to posting it’s first annual loss in its history, now they need to recall a million vehicles for defective seat belts.
• Calling all mad hatters! If you thought the salmonella outbreak in peanut butter was fun, get ready for the long-term effects of corn syrup laced with mercury. Yessiree, Bob! Bad news: you may go insane or this may have something to do with the increase in Autism. Good news: you’ll more easily be able to find your way home after you’re diagnosed with mercury poisoning.
• People are flocking to small business ownership as a way to avoid the layoffs going around right now. Why you would think that selling pizza would be a way to save yourself is beyond me, but interesting, nonetheless.
• Finally, mixed news for the porn industry: studies show that masturbation among teenagers increases the risk of prostate cancer, yet masturbation among the 50-something set actually decreases it. I guess based on the bell curve, I’m free to whack it whenever I want.

If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, LENNDEVOURS is a great semi-local blog that discusses wines and wine making. There’s some really fascinating stuff that’s totally worth a read. You can check out their stuff right here on this blog, in the RocWriters.com Blog Updates widget to the right.

But this article by Evan Dawson on why wine continues to have an elitist stigma in this country got me to thinking. He’s right that one reason that wine is so ubiquitous in Europe is because there are so many wine regions that if you live in France, you’re probably right by a great winery. If wine is everywhere around you and people you know work at wineries, there’s probably going to be a certain obviousness about drinking wine. But does that mean drinking the wine from your own region?

And that made me think of Genesee Beer, whose work is cherished in other parts of the country but not here. We’re major beer drinkers here in Rochester, yet the local stuff gets short shrift. Personally, while I don’t drink much beer these days, I always liked Twelve Horse Ale when they still made it.

So, do the kids in Bordeaux have the same hang ups about their local concoction? And do androids dream of electric sheep ((It’s a book reference))? I dunno. Just extemporaneous blogging, here.

There’s a new blogger in town, here in DFE land, and his name is Jamie Piazza.  His first post is an interesting republication of an article about the legendary gods of Goth, The Cure, and the controversy surrounding their song Killing an Arab. How timely in so many ways!  Maybe it’s a good thing to remember that anti-Arab hate is not a new or original thing, born solely of a misplaced anger over 911.

Go check him out and say hello!

What does it say that the man who invented acid lives to be 102? Probably nothing, but I’m glad this man got to live a long, long life. He changed my life, like so many others, and I’ll never hear Yes Close to the Edge the same way again. Thanks, Al.

Father of LSD takes final trip – World – smh.com.au

The father of LSD and the first person to experience an “acid trip”, Albert Hoffman, has died aged 102.

Swiss-born Hoffman was renowned by chemists, pharmacists and hippies the world over for stumbling across the world’s first synthesised hallucinogen, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), in 1938.