And now for something completely different.

This week I read two books that I’m willing to gamble most of my (3) readers have never heard of. I'm not saying that makes me cool - I'm just saying, you know, I'm mixing things up, yo. I had never heard of them either.

Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl
I’ll admit it. I read this because a cute boy recommended it. And now, after reading this little gem, I not only have practical, everyday angst, like How am I going to pay my rent? and Will I make it home in time for ‘Laguna Beach’? but now I also have existential angst to keep me awake at night. Thank you, Viktor, for making me wonder what the Meaning of My Life is, and for recommending logotherapy to help me find it.

For chrissakes. This is all I needed.


Drinks Before Dinner, a play by E.L. Doctorow
The flap of this book reads:

“A chic apartment in New York. The preliminaries of a fashionable dinner party. The host and hostess are showing off their children. ‘Forgive me,’ says Edgar, one of the guests, ‘but let’s not have the evening we all expect to have.’ And to ensure that they don’t, he pulls a gun.”

Yes!! That sounded promising. And… it was a good read. But not necessarily for the reasons I thought it would be. The whole thing is a study in dialogue, language and discourse, audience, points of view, rhetoric, a little Gertrude Stein. Anyway, mostly it reminded me of graduate school. I would have eaten this up with a spoon in grad school. I was all about language theories in 1994, and I did enjoy reading this play this week - not so much for the plot developments, but because I liked feeling like I was thinking, like I was learning something interesting, like I was back in my little ivory tower again. I’m such a snob.