Stolen Blog Posting

Check this out.

I'd write a couple things about it, but I got the link from an HTML Giant post, and their comments are the same as anything I'd say (Who knew Dick Cavett blogged? Love Cheever's voice. No commercials!) The only thing I take issue with is the Giant's "not an Updike fan" comment. I'm a total, blubbering devotee. Harry Angstrom...hello? Making do with Janice...cardiac arrest on a boat with his granddaughter...the car dealership...his fuck-up son, Nelson...come on, it's terrific stuff.

Oh, and I thought "The Swimmer" was incredibly interesting, and fresh for having been written mid-twentieth century.

John Updike

Word that John Updike has passed. What a chronicler of all the messy things people, at his writing perigee, didn't want to talk about.

I feel so lucky to have sat next to him at a reading. Even though I didn't know it at the time.

I remember that when he showed up at subsequent readings that summer at Skidmore, and the room was crowded, he's quickly take a seat on the stairs, not wanting to get in the way. One time, someone who knew him called "John," and beckoned for him to take his seat. But Updike just raised his hand, smiled, and kept his seat on the stairs.

Revolutionary Road

This book is good. It sticks around with you. The underachieving, unhappy young husband. The fussy wife. A flat-footed pregnancy. Flirting with infidelity. Enervated suburbia. Loss. Hopelessness.

My favorite image: the housewife viciously mowing the lawn on a Saturday morning, her hung-over husband watching from the front door.

It quickly reminded me of Rabbit, Run. Updike's book was published in 1960, and Yates' in 1961. I can't help but wonder about a possible connection.

Google is a wonderful thing. Because I don't have to be satisfied with wondering. I can run a search and find an answer from someone much smarter and more well read than myself. Unfortunately, the answer deflates my balloon of the two men drinking scotch and playing pool.

Too Smart For My Own Blog

While waiting for tonight's reading to begin (Lee Abbott and Binnie Kirshenbaum, both very enjoyable) I looked over at the person next to me, an older gentleman, and silently remarked to myself the chances of seeing someone at a literary event who looks like John Updike. He had his thick grey hair, his sport jacket, his characteristic nose, everything your mind flashes to when picturing the great novelist. And so while Lee Abbott read, my mind wandered (although Lee's story was engrossing, really) and I wondered how my situation would make an interesting blog entry--sitting next to someone at a reading who looks like John Updike. I really turned it over in my head--the generous smile, the brown leather loafers, it all fit the "type" of John Updike.

Later at the reception, a workshop mate tipped me off to the fact that John Updike was in fact in the audience. And yes, he was sitting next to me. I hear he has a house nearby, and sometimes drops in for the Skidmore readings. Usually, writers of stature sit in the cordoned-off front row. But he chose to slip into the audience...and next to a spacey young woman.

So what was going to be a funny blog entry is hopefully still that, but in a different way. I never mind when the joke is on me.