things fall apart

as Yeats once said, and they just keep on falling apart round here, which is why I keep going on unexpected temporary hiatus. And in a few days we're going to the beach for vacation, so I get to spend a week with my family, who have made it clear they think I'm a freak. But at least I'll get to see the ocean.

So, let's see. News briefs from my literary life, which I'm enjoying far more than real life right now: I saw Road to Perdition last night (which, after all, is based on a graphic novel and therefore is pertinent to this blog), and it's a great movie, really fabulous, blah blah blah, but my god! They whacked Captain Wentworth!! And they did it in agonizing slo-mo too! The hell!! I was so excited to see Ciaran Hinds when he first appeared, and then he goes and gets himself killed by the mob! jesus. It was disturbing, let me tell you.
Speaking of disturbing, don't read Neil Gaiman's The Sandman before bedtime. Each volume is better than the last, so I stayed up late finishing A Game of You, but trust me, not a good idea. I mean the whole thing centers on Morpheus, the King of Dreams, and some crazy shit happens whenever he's around, so it makes you a little nervous and hyper-aware of your mental state when you're trying to fall asleep. And then you think of all the characters who can't fall asleep and go crazy and are living in waking nightmares, and it just goes downhill from there.
On the poetry front, I am just about halfway through Immortal Poems, and it only took me two years! I like to take my time when it comes to poetry; I read it when the spirit moves me, which is fairly often actually. More often than most people, anyway. I just have to trudge through To a Skylark and I'll be done with the section on Shelley, thank god. I agree with Helene Hanff, give me a poet who can make love without slobbering. Though, bizarrely enough, and to my great surprise, I kind of liked Adonais, all eight long-winded overwrought flowery pages of it. Must be the meter, I'm a sucker for a poem with a strong meter. Anyway, after To a Skylark I get to start on 12 pages of Keats. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing yet, I haven't read much Keats.
I should probably put Leaves of Grass up there while I think of it, I've been working on that since high school.

Lieutenant Hornblower tomorrow. Seriously. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.