Word Up

Daniel Mason gave this cool word to me:

estivation/ˌestəˈvāSHən/Estivation (or aestivation) is a state of animal dormancy characterized by drastically lowered metabolism and inactivity. Often called "summer sleep," it is triggered by high temperatures and drought. It allows animals to conserve energy and avoid desiccation until environmental conditions improve.

Definition comes from HERE.

A Far Country by Daniel Mason

 

A Far Country & Burl Ives 

Finished my second Daniel Mason book last night and will be starting my third 👆 (his second) in two minutes. I almost wanted to wait and let The Piano Tuner (his first, my second) linger in my mind for a while*, but I'm too anxious to read more from this fine writer. So let's go.

* Man, what a superb book. My aged brain doesn't hold on to too many details from what I read these days, but there are scenes from this book that I'm sure will remain with me for a decade (assuming I have that much time left to me, which is a big if at this point).

P.S. It's funny (but not ha ha funny) how if you dip deep into a writers' oeuvre, you see the same pieces pop up. In A Far Country (so far...I'm only on page 26, which isn't very far) it's music (fiddle this time), a kiss on the back of a girl's neck, and shims to repair cracks in musical instruments. Here's betting there's more to come. Oh...I forgot rivers flooding.

Ok. (5) burning fields as a farming procedure.

Attention E. L. Doctorow Fans

E. L. Doctorow's second novel, Big as Life, is hard to find, expensive to buy, and pretty much forgotten. 

But you can read it for free on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/bigaslife0000eldo

No, no...thank YOU.

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

 

I was going to wait until I finished reading this novel to comment on it. Maybe even wait until I had finished reading all of Daniel Mason's books, as I intend to do. But at page 110 of The Piano Tuner, my enthusiasm overwhelmed me, and I thought that I had to give a shout.

This is such a great fucking novel!

And it was published in 2002, when he was a mere 26 years old. I don't know how such a young fella could know so much about Burma and rare pianos.

It's just amazing.

There was an episode wherein a deadly tiger is being hunted, and it was so intense and distressing that I didn't really read it, I watched the movie.

And this is just his first novel. I am looking forward to some sweet reading for the next couple of months.

You come too?

Asimov = 🐖

I've been enjoying Murder at the ABA (by Isaac Asimov*) for a week or so now. There have been some minor misogynistic missteps, but that's pretty much par for the course for Isaac. (Not saying that makes it ok, btw.) And then he did this:

What the fuck, man. Granted this is a character speaking, but given Asimov(*)'s reputation,  it's not a very big leap to see him in sync with this. 

Fucking hell, man...how could such an intelligent man be so stupid?

* 🐖 

P.S. Yet this is how Asimov's (writing in third person) sees himself:

For fuck's sake.