blogpost wishlist

As my BLT co-blogger Theophrastus noted a few days ago, our “posting will be light” this month.  We are definitely excited about a few things, and I’m glad my co-blogger Victoria posted about Sundown: Whispers of Ragnarok and then promptly updated as she got more news on it. Our other co-bloggers, Suzanne and Craig are away doing many other important things.

I myself am afraid I’m terribly busy with things in real life that take me away from writing blogposts. However, as if this might prompt me some day soon, here are the items I wish I could blog about:

1. The Great Gatsy film (both in 2D and 3D) – I’ve seen both versions and disagree with most of the critics who have panned the novel’s movie adaptation that came out this month.
2. The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges – It’s a translation into English by Andrew Hurley of the Spanish originals:  Manual de zoología fantástica (“Handbook of Fantastic Zoology”) and then El libro de los seres imaginarios.  The whole effort is fantastic as both a rendering from one language into another and also a re-editing of two originals as a third original by the original author with all of his intentions.  And then there’s the content and the rhetoric of Borges to talk about.
3. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.  This is one of the best novels I’ve read in a long long time.  It is part history; part loose autobiography; interwoven stories told by various protagonists in multiple voices and media; mostly English, much varied Japanese, and some literary and some vulgar French; science and religion; East and West; male and female.  I’ve both read the book and listened to Ozeki reading the audiobook version.  I highly recommend either or both, and I’d love to blog a review.
4. Political Jesus has posted its third in a series asking, “Can The Subaltern Blog?” Rod has kindly included something I’ve blogged some time ago, and I would love to comment at length on his asking these important questions he’s asking.

Thanks for being patient as we get to the BLT blogposting.