Finished "The Blind Assassin" just now.

Atwood's writing is so good it leaves me breathless, shaking my head, muttering "Whoa... how good is THAT!" And it ain't a question. Atwood's mastery of voice is in the forefront here - she tells the story through various layers, from various directions, but by the time she's winding up, the voice of the story is consistent throughout, and the seemingly disparate narratives are welded into one, inevitably, predictably (you've figured it out with glimmers and flashes over the past couple hundred pages) and with ironclad certainty. This is a truly wonderful book, I couldn't recommend it more highly, and Atwood is a truly wonderful writer.

Speaking of musical things that NEVER fail to make me smile

The clip below was recorded something like 30 or more years ago. It is - in my opinion - a perfect performance of a nearly perfect song. It is also a demonstration of two very talented friends sharing their talent and having an absolute blast doing it. (It seems to me).

Check especially the little break Goodman does in this piece. I'm sure it wasn't improvisation, but it has that "just tossing some stuff off for my pals" feel to it that he did so well. It is hard to fathom that Goodman's been gone almost 30 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOTbg39-I5Q&feature=related

Sometimes my iPod surprises me

with a particularly interesting sequence of tunes on its shuffle. This is especially felicitous when it's the first few tunes on starting up the pod after pulling out of the driveway on the way to work. This morning I was greeted by John Prine's "Illegal Smile" (the live performance version from John Prine Live), which always makes me smile, followed by Scott Joplin's New Rag, though Max Morath does play a skosh too fast for my taste, it's still a piece that makes me grin & laugh out loud, then on to Tony Bennett and a near-perfect offering of "Who Can I Turn To" - I agree with Frank Sinatra about Bennett being just about the best pop singer ever. After that the shuffle broke down and I had to skip a track or two before I got to Django & Stephane's "Sweet Sue" and after that a track from "Not Your Same Old Blues Crap" and a little Norman Blake, and a very early Stan Rogers track. After that it got pretty normal (for my iPod).

Random blurts

I've been reading Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin; I'm about 80% through (metric courtesy of Kindle). It wasn't so long ago we'd have expected something like "I have about 100 pages to go" or the like. This is only the second of Atwood's that I've read – read The Handmaid's Tale ages ago, back when it was new. I highly recommend Assassin; for the prose, for the story, for the very intelligent and engaging postmodernism. Postmodernism is my current self-edification topic; revisited a little Vonnegut some time back (Player Piano) and introduced myself to Don DeLillo earlier this year (White Noise). Atwood is a master stylist and very engaging storyteller. More later – in this morning's treadmill installment, I think the denouement is beginning to unfold.

Watched The Big Sleep last night for the umpteenth time, for lack of anything more engaging on the scheduled channels. I don't think I ever noticed Marlowe's ear-tugging business before. It's a pity Elisha Cook Jr didn't have more to do in this film, he was always fun to watch. Sleep is one of my favorite Chandler movies and Bogie's certainly my favorite Marlowe. Bob Mitchum was too old when he did "Farewell" though he made a decent try of it, and Eliott Gould was never anything but a joke. The others are also-rans, IMO. As a Bogie film it's not quite up to The Maltese Falcon or The African Queen (though to be fair it's hard to say whether Queen is a Bogie film or a Kate film).

Have joined a local writers' group at the public library. What fun, not unlike the informal online groups but more effective to be in F2F contact and sharing thoughts in real time I think. Stay tuned as this unfolds.