"Pheidippides" Robert Browning, 1879

So, when Persia was dust, all cried, "To Acropolis!

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!

Athens is saved, thank Pan, go shout!" He flung down his shield

Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the fennel-field

And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,

Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine through clay,

Joy in his blood bursting his heart, - the bliss!






4 hours, 50 minutes

_Decline and Fall_ , Evelyn Waugh, 1928

"Frankly," said the Doctor, "I am at a loss to understand my own emotions. I can think of no entertainment that fills me with greater detestation than a display of competitive athletics, none--except possibly folk dancing."



9 hours

_The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner_ Alan Sillitoe, 1959

"Off like the wind along the cobbled footpath and rutted lane, smoother than the flat grass track on the field and better for thinking because it's not too smooth, and I was in my element that afternoon knowing that nobody could beat me at running but intending to beat myself before the day was over."




31 hours

What's up? A minor rant in the key of tired.

This is maybe the busiest week of my life. I haven't had a single day off in weeks and weeks, and my first one will be this Saturday, when I will leave the Jewish Educators' Conference I'm attending to run 20 miles and then go back to the conference. It'll be another full week before I get another "slow" day. This week, in addition to my multiple other jobs and appointments, I'm basically running 5 Israeli dance sessions in 8 days.

I'd love to write a real post, but I'm exhausted. In the meantime, thank you so much if you have donated to my fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and if you haven't donated yet but are still considering it, please donate to me on my friend Brandon's page. Please. You get double the appreciation!

Thank you.

DFW, JDS. RIP. l,l,l, RDB

Right before J D Salinger died, I tweeted about still mourning the loss of David Foster Wallace. With JDS, though, the probability of reading more stuff he wrote *increases* with his death, while with DFW it's the other way 'round. Still, the silence is deafening.

And I just re-read Franny and Zooey, on the occasion of recommending it to a friend, and finally read both The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way.

And just happened across my own posting of the Spot-the-Salinger game we used to play. Read it.

Wishlist Blast from the Past

So I have this wishlist on amazon.com, right? And even though hardly anyone ever uses it to buy me something, it's a great list to remind myself of things I want (I can look at it when I'm browsing in a used bookstore, for example). I try to keep it updated, so every once in a while I'll look through it and remove a few books that I have acquired since adding them to the list or, more rarely but still sometimes, I'll remove something I no longer want.

Just now, I removed a VHS tape I had on there. I mean, I still wouldn't mind owning a copy of Casablanca, but on VHS??!! Ha!! I apparently added that to the list in 1999. Maybe I should have left it on there for posterity.

Ah, the good ole days. And ten years - see what a dedicated Amazon user I am?!

The Irresistible Henry House

I sometimes get advance copies of books to review, through the Early Reviewers program over at LibraryThing.

The books I've received this way were all pretty good and pretty much my style, but the one I read most recently was way beyond that - it was terrific. The Irresistible Henry House, by Lisa Grunwald and scheduled to be published in March, is a fantastic story that would appear to be totally whimsical and yet is based on a true practice: Henry is a "practice baby" supplied to a college home economics class by a local orphanage and raised by seven or so different "mothers" who are students in the course. As it turns out, the story is indeed irresistible - Henry is compelling, his life story is fascinating, and the historical background of the 1940s-1970s in which the book takes place is brightly illuminated. Many small differences between daily life then and now added a fascinating sepia-tint to the landscape of the story, and the novelty of now-common icons of popular culture (some new thing Disney is working on down in Florida? some movie that new band the Beatles are making?) brought the era to life in a wonderful way, especially to someone who didn't live through it. (And I'm pretty sure anyone who did live through it will love the nostalgia of this recent history also.)

I recommend it.

JogBlog 4... and FOURTEEEEEEEEN

Well, I ran 12 miles a couple of weeks ago, and it was brutal. I mean, it felt fantastic to have done TWELVE MILES, but it was on a very hilly course (by design) and it was haaaaard. Took us 2 hours and 15 minutes.

And then I didn't do squat, running-wise, for nearly two weeks.
On Thursday I did four miles on my own, around my neighborhood. Here's the playlist:
NPR: 10-17-2009 Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

And then this morning, I ran...
wait for it...

FOURTEEN MILES!!! Yeah, baby, 14. For cancer research. 2 hours 25 minutes!!! Oh, that's more than a half-marathon? No sweat!

(Ok, lots of sweat. It was HOT today! I love L.A. I definitely needed that dose of Vitamin D or whatever Vitamin Sunlight is.)

Aaaaaaaand I forgot my knee brace at home, so I ran without it, and it didn't hurt at all! Until I stopped running. Then I was in screaming pain. Literally. Ouch.

But it's ok now. Oh, I have a show tomorrow? I'm sure I'll be able to walk by then :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A Life in Books

I just finished reading the fantastic Marathon Man by William Goldman (no relation) (that I know of), and this being the last day of the year, quickly wrote it down on my list of books-read-in-2009. And this being that sort of a time, I counted how many books I read this year and the number seems to be 38, which is a lot lower than I would have guessed; I thought I read about 50 books a year, but it appears that over the 8 years I have been keeping track (which is to say, the 8 years since I was bored at work and decided to learn some html to pass the time and keep the list online), my average is 42 per year. And this being that sort of end-of-decade looking-back tallying-up kind of day, (and also because I should be getting ready to go to a New Years party but we all know how terrible at going to parties I am so - hey, look, I better wash those dishes before I leave!) I went back and made you this little neat summary of the highlights of the books I've read since I started keeping online-nerdy-html track.

IMPORTANT NOTE: CLICK ON ANY OF THESE LINKS AND YOU WILL GET TO AMAZON.COM AND THEN EVEN IF YOU GO BUY SOME OTHER BOOK, EVEN *NOT THE ONE I'VE LINKED TO*, I WILL GET A SMALL MONETARY KICK-BACK FROM YOUR PURCHASE. Which is to say: PLEASE CLICK THROUGH! I haven't gotten a referral-bonus in ages :)

2009	38 books read	This was the year I read all four of the Twilight series books. Not sure if I even get credit for the good stuff, considering. (WHY DID IT END? GIVE ME MORE!) (Just kidding.) (Sorta.) (And I'm not alone, even at my age: this article claims to get it.)
2008	44 books read	I loved Eat, Pray, Love so just shut up. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and The Pillars of the Earth.
2007	55 books read	LOTS of great stuff, including A Tale of Two Cities, The Moon and Sixpence, The Corrections, and The History of Love.
2006	39 books read	notably The Princess Bride, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Frankenstein, and The Satanic Verses
2005	40 books read	A year of beautiful books: Truth & Beauty and The Time Traveler's Wife, and Everything is Illuminated
2004	38 books read	Only War and Peace. Only not really only. Also Unintended Consequences and Madame Bovary, for two.
2003	40 books read	The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and this was the year I really read the Bible, one parsha every Friday night.
2002	43 books read	Anna Karenina! and The Brothers Karamazov! and Of Mice and Men! AND Infinite Jest. What a year.

Happy New Year.

JogBlog2 (and 3, let's say)

I couldn't go to my mid-week team run on Wednesday, so I ran on my own on Thursday, around my neighborhood. In keeping with RDB's patented method of not-boring-your-socks-off, here's the playlist. I did not choose this in advance; apparently my iPod wanted me to have a very mellow chick-singer run:

Somedays / 3:22 / Regina Spektor
Crucify / 4:59 / Tori Amos
Silent All These Years / 4:12/ Tori Amos
Happy Phantom / 3:17 / Tori Amos
Me And A Gun / 3:45 / Tori Amos
Work Your Way Out / 3:41 / Ani DiFranco
Tom's Diner / 3:47 / DNA feat. Suzanne Vega
Days Go By / 7:08 / Dirty Vegas
Bittersweet / 6:13 / Big Head Todd and The Monsters
Blues Pt2 - crazy extendo-version / 11:46 / Blood Sweat & Tears
(but I only got about halfway through that song.) I ran about 4.5 miles in about 49 minutes. My mom was visiting from Florida this week, so we went out together, I to run and she to walk. I was criss-crossing my neighborhood and she was walking up a street, so there were a few minutes in the middle there where we met up and stopped to chat, so I wasn't exactly worrying about my pace. It was a lovely morning.

AND THEN WHAT DID I DO YESTERDAY? WHAT DID I DO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE?

I. Ran. 10. Miles.

TEN MILES.

in 95 minutes. Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Have you contributed to my fundraiser yet? Like, the whole reason I'm doing this? Thank you so much to those of you who have!!!!