Dean Bakopoulos has written a book that is just right for summer, and is the first novel written by a member of my generation (that I've read) that is sad without being too sad. He grows up in Detroit- I grew up on a farm in Iowa, but there are just some cultural resonances that make me feel like I lived a bit of what he lived, or at least, what his narrator lived.
Dean also does a great job of writing a novel that seems autobiographical while at the same time pushing the reader away from thinking it is too autobiographical. A bit magical and therefore not completely real.
Also, on the art and culture scene, I dug out Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot the other day to re-listen. I'd been listening to a lot of new albums (side projects) by Jeff Tweedy, including the new Golden Smog and Loose Fur projects, but thought to myself, why not listen a bit to the album that first made you a Wilco fan. It's everything as good as it was two summers ago, and this time, I paid more attention to lyrics. There are some gems, like:
Our love is all of God's money
everyone is a burning sun
--
the cash machine
is blue and green
for a hundred in twenties
and a small service fee
I could spend three dollars
and sixty-three cents
on diet coca-cola
and unlit cigarettes
--
Oh I've got reservations
about
so many things
but
not about you
--
distance has no way
of making love
understandable
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