Got this from Joe.

1) Total number of books I've owned: Like Joe, I assume this asks for all-time book ownership. And I get to thinking about Value Tales, The Great Brain and all those old Peanuts paperbacks. And college textbooks. I’ll say 700.

2) The last book(s) I bought: Grey Area by Will Self

3) The last book I read: What’s the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank

4) Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order): Franny and Zooey by Salinger; It Came From Memphis by Gordon; Lolita by Nabokov; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Chabon; To the Lighthouse by Woolf

Okay, Crystal, Pat, Prigge, Beth and Ryan: Your turns.

Hey, the more Pernice fans the better, I say. But it really took two people to write this?

CD review. Expect these things weekly most of the time.
Been a fair amount of upheaval in my professional life lately -- some of it good, some not so. Hence the scant postings.

Anne Bancroft

Nice to see the R.I.Ps for Anne Bancroft from people I am happy to know (here, here and here). The Graduate sure got its hooks in many of us, even if we aren't baby boomers (and even if the film's flaws are among the sobering realities of adulthood). Mrs. Robinson's leg is forever watching me... courtesy of the movie poster located to my left as I type this.

And I'd like to put a further word in for The Pumpkin Eater, a creepy and haunting domestic drama with AB, Peter Finch and James Mason. Screenplay by Harold Pinter. Maybe we'll get a DVD of it soon.

Here is a review of a deservedly ballyhooed album.

Ventured over to another section of the City Paper for this piece.