last month, I read:
Starstruck by Michael Joseph Gross (Bloomsbury, 2005) - it's about the whole atmosphere of celebrity-dom (celebrities, fans, collectors, publicists, fan services, webmasters, etc.), including the author's personal participation.
It, mainly, focuses on movie and tv stars, although the author recollects his engagement with Ronald Reagan.
[Makes me think back on the few times I've been starstruck -- once, was when I and a friend were about to approach, the late, Glenn Seaborg for a radio soundbite. He was a 2-time Nobel Prize winner, and we were at the national high school science fair at the Nat'l. Academy of Sciences in DC.
We, both, were trying to remember what he won his prizes for, and what we ought to ask him.]
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I've bought a couple books over the past month, including travel guides on Shanghai and China, a Czech language text and cassettes (Colloquial Czech by Naughton), Gina Marchetti's first book (about Hollywood movies and portrayals of Asians), and an art book about the posthumous exhibit of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (The Dream of the Audience).
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upcoming book reading/signings in the mid-Atlantic:
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
a novel by Lisa See (author of On Gold Mountain)
Monday, July 25 7pm
Politics and Prose Books, 5015 Conn. Ave., NW, Wash.,D.C.
Tuesday, July 26 7pm
Friends Select School, 17th & The Parkway, Philadelphia
Haven't posted in a long time.
Well, I've been busy, although not doing all the things that I oughta.
Nontheless, last month was quite active. For example:
I visited southern Maryland, for the first time. Stopped by such strangely-named places like Scotland and California. (Did not stop in Hollywood. One crazy place (i.e., the one out west) is enough.) Had a softshell crab sandwich in an old restaurant in Ridge, with a view of the mouth of the Potomac as it meets the Chesapeake Bay.
Transit firsts for me - took MARC down to DC... took the light rail from the Cromwell / Glen Burnie station into town.
Faulty gaydar - met an out-of-town gay at a convention and spent too much time talking to him. (When I'm tired, I have a tendency to continue instead of stopping.) I didn't realize he was gay until a good ways into the conversation. As time went on, he started thinking that I might be interested in more than just conversation. (Sorry, not my style.). Some trivia I learned about him: he owns guns and had seen the movie, Ben Hur, 10 times.
Listening: on "heavy rotation" (radio dj lingo) in my car cd player was Astronauta by the Brazilian musician, Joyce. It's a jazzy homage and interpretation of MPB, Musica Popular Brasileira.