. Book of the Month

The thing I like about minimalist writers (Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff) is that they leave stuff out. They leave things to your imagination. They let you do some of the work. And that's fun.

The only thing left to your imagination in "To The Lighthouse" is whether or not anyone will ever go to the bloody lighthouse.

It's about a bunch of toffs hanging around their fancy house at the beginning of the 20th century, doing very little, and thinking a lot about it. Every thought they have, or half-thought, or thought about a thought, is detailed and dissected in the interior monologuing stream-of-consciousness style that Woolf is famous for.

The dramatic highpoint of the "plot" involves one of the characters nearly snapping at another one when he orders a second bowl of soup.



The other thing I like about minimalist writers is that they use short sentences. Woolf's sentences are so long that by the time you get to the end of one you've forgotten how it started. This kind of thing is no good for people like me with our small brains and smaller attention spans.

"To the Lighthouse" is considered by many literary types to be one of the best novels ever written. I can see why they would think that. It's clearly very good indeed. I just didn't enjoy a single page of it.

Next moth we will be reading "The Making of Star Wars - The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film" by J.W. Rinzler.

. Comic Store Fail

Quite how Mission Comics and Art manages to stay in business is beyond me. It fails as a comic store on so many levels.



It doesn't trade exclusively in superhero books and Freddy Krueger action figures.




It doesn't assault you with death-metal or the the original motion picture soundtrack to Hellraiser.



It isn't cramped and dimly lit with a grease stained carpet and the smell of last week's farts.



And it isn't run by a cabal of socially retarded goths.



Surely it cannot survive much longer.

. Favourite Beer of the Week

Being a terrific snob, my feelings about canned beer look something like this:


But these days not all canned beer is crap.



Just like screw tops on wine, cans are becoming increasingly acceptable to pretentious toffs like ourselves. They keep beer fresher, they chill faster, they stack in the fridge, and they're better for the environment.

People have been recycling beer cans since the olden days.



For 18 years John Milkovisch covered his house with over 50,000 flattened beer cans. That's 52 beers a week.


“Some people say this is sculpture but I didn't go to no expensive school to get these crazy notions.” –John Milkovisch



John is dead now, but you can still visit his house. The address is 222 Malone Street, Houston, Texas. Admission is $1. Guided tours are $5.



The beer can house is currently being restored by the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

I bought this beer in a can -



It was delicious.

You can by it on Virgin America flights.



Or from a shop.

Unfortunately, like all cans, beer cans still come lined with toxic BPAs.

Fortunately, I read that the BPA levels are higher in a tin of tomatoes than in a tin of beer.

Unfortunately, I like tomatoes.