traces of fireworks--long exposure on a point-and-shoot ELF!
I work with the steering committee for a poetry reading series usually housed in our local library. The other women on the steering committee are also working writers. That is to say, they write and seek publication (and frequently get published), and they spend a lot of time reading as well. We met recently, and when I walked up to the table, the others were discussing what they were reading this summer. Made me glad that I was the last to arrive: I have been reading low-fiber stuff, for the most part. True, I am reading L’Etrangère en français, dictionary in hand so that I don’t miss out on Camus’ fabulous diction, but the rest of what I am reading is not only light-weight, but re-reading. I feel a bit embarrassed about how often I return to something I have read before. Usually, what I am seeking in the repeaters is a particular scene with a particular emotional tone, a particular interior landscape if you will. Most recently, it was a scene in The Devil's Cub, a Georgette Heyer Regency romance, and I'm not even going to try to summarize the set-up. (Earlier, it was a few of the Harry Potters. My husband is recovering from a knee replacement, and J.K. Rowling has made it possible for him to permit his leg to be iced long enough to give some real relief. Seeing the Potters around and talking about them with him made me want to go back. Still effective, btw. Now he is referring to people not in the know as Muggles, and to various obdurate bad guys as Voldemort. It works.) I've also been re-reading various essays of Josef Wechsburg, a lover of music and food and kultchah in general. He wrote a gorgeous piece about the late lamented Budapest String Quartet, and a fittingly worshipful account of visiting La Pyramide of Fernand Point. I'm a long ways from either one right now, I must say.
