When a boat is “listing,” it leans to one side. Usually this is caused by one of two problems, cargo that is unbalanced or a leak. However, I wasn’t really going to use that meaning at all. Other than my cargo might be unbalanced, or my brain might be leaking, hence me listing to one side.
The way I was looking at it, though, in the January 28 (2008) New Yorker magazine, there’s a short piece about Art Garfunkel’s lists. He pays a fan to maintain a website, like most artists do, and he keeps a list, for like, 40 years or so, of every book he’s read.
While I couldn’t even begin to compile such a exhaustive list, I did start keeping a list on the site, just as a personal reference, more than for any other reason. There’s only a few years into this idea, but it’s easy for me to maintain. Makes it an attractive idea.
I’m unsure of the source of the idea, but increasingly it’s difficult to wrangle a herd of books around. The size and scope of my library has shifted in the years. I got to a point – the joy of living in a trailer in South Austin – where I didn’t want to keep too many books on hand, just books I was going to read and books that I read. I had to amend that to books that I read, liked, made notes in, and thought worthy of hanging onto because I was going to refer back to the text, or, better yet, reread the novel again at some point in the future.
Which is something I do, from time to time. The author Rudolfo Anaya, from Albuquerque, NM, I was introduced to his work in a literature class. Basically one novel, from decades ago, that solidified his academic rank as Mexican-American, Chicano, Latin, whatever is the right term, man of letters. Can’t even call the group “men” of letters because half the authors are female.
There’s one scene, from his latter works, one of the first couple of novels in the Zia / Sonny Baca series, and I recall the scene, although, I’ve been unable to locate it. For that reason, I have five, nice big hardbacks in my library. Not getting rid of them, because I do, from time to time, reread them.
I’m still looking for that one scene. It was a piece of magical realism, although, if I had to name it, despite the literary legacy, I’d call the Zia series mostly romance. Part of the plot, boy meets girl, boy dumps girl because boy has commitment problem, and fill in the rest. They live happily ever after. Maybe. Memory is shot, which why I keep a list of the books I’ve read; I know when I last reread one of those novels.
Two Meat Tuesday (the book)
astrofish.net
(cure for the common horoscope)
Pink Cake A commonplace book.
Bexar County Line
