7.18.2005

TPWC excerpt



...My wife’s attitude was different. The way she reacted that morning to the prospect of having new neighbors only illustrated this point, for it was Amanda who awoke, letting a torturous slit of sun creep in through the blinds as she gave me the blow by blow on the ruckus next door. I continued to doze, or at least tried to.
“I think there’s, what, maybe five of ’em in all,” she said, leaning against the window glass. From our second-story window, she could see over the hedge that divided the two properties.
“Yup. One, two, threeeee, No. Four in all.”
Having judged the size of this colony settling in on the opposite side of our property line, she continued, the little suburban anthropologist that she was, taking verbal notes, and relaying them to me as I shoved the pillows against my head.
“Listen, she whispered. “What’s that they’re speaking? They must be Italians.” She always pronounced the word “Italian” with a long “I,” as in “ice.”...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Warren and Mr. Noyes,

Just when I’m close to surrendering all hope that the printed word and image still have a functional life outside the cult sphere of Harry Potter and the Bible, suddenly an uncharted asteroid of an alternative book project like yours appears on scene that is positioned on a direct collision course with earth and that threatens to land right on top of my paper-starved eyes, thus intellectually impaling my brain with the pulpified elements of your creative visions and crushing my deeply held cynicism about the will of the American people to actually hold the alternative printed word in their hands that has been created by an artist and writer who actually know what a paper-cut is all about and who aren’t being hawked and soul-sold-out on the Oprah Book on the Month Club!

Congratulations to the both of you on the release of this outstanding project!

I can’t wait to get my hands on it and read it. I plan to take my copy to Barnes & Noble in Reston, grab myself a priced-gouged Starbucks latte from the store next door, position my butt into a long-term relaxed I-ain’t-going-no-where-for-some-time-now-and-I-ain’t-here-to-buy-none-of-your-40% discounted-Karl Rove-memoirs-I’m-just-here-using-your-air-conditioning-so-I-don’t-have-to-pay-to-use-mine-at-home-so-leave-me-the-hell-alone-so-I-can-read-a-real-book and then periodically stop every employee and ask them when they’re expecting additional deliveries of “The Problem With Chemistry” since mine is getting a little worn around the edges from me resting its spine on the polyester fabric of their store chairs while I sip my drink and eat my bagel imported from Safeway!

Sincerely,

James