I have not read a book cover-to-cover in months. Lots of driving and poker instead. But I had this really long plane flight from Austin to Las Vegas after Thanksgiving and read an article about Intelligent Design in the New Yorker. At least I think it was the New Yorker. I think instead of teaching evolution or Intelligent Design in school the teachers should just hand out coupons for free hamburgers at McDonald's and smile. You have a better chance of understanding the nature and origin of the universe through a Happy Meal than through the public school system, regardless of where you live. Grimace is his own sort of supreme being. Think about it.
Anyway, there was also a story by Alice Munro which involved a bus, a naked girl, and an old man. I wasn't blown away, but that's probably because I was continuously being interrupted by offers of free peanuts. The other articles I read were about Iraq and Iraq and Iraq. Every article about Iraq seems like total crap, regardless of the perspective of the author and the magazine/newspaper/website where it's published. It's like they figure that since the war is completely pointless and stupid that their articles should share those same traits. Again, maybe it's just the peanuts talking. Anyway, I, quite regrettably, don't bother keeping track of Iraq because all of the information is so blatantly slanted that I feel insulted whenever I try to read it.
Anyway, there was this other magazine I bought at the airport. It was called PASTE and had a picture of Fiona Apple on the cover. December/January issue. One thing about PASTE was that the type is REALLY SMALL. So I didn't want to strain to read it. It was a disappointment because I was hoping Fiona Apple would have something intelligent to say, like, "The world is bullshit," but whatever she said was written too tiny for my eyesight and altitude. It's a nice picture on the cover, though.
Soon enough, I'll be returning to the whole book-reading thing. I think I'm going to read D F Wallace's "Consider the Lobster" and some Gary Lutz this week. Yeah, that sounds like a good use of my time on this planet.