Notice the constrast between brick and...
Oh hell, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
Aaron’s Top Five Desert Island Books
Generation X
Aside from the fact that it coined a label for a generation, this is a pretty darn cool book. Complete with glossary, little cartoons, etc. David Foster Wallace would have been nowhere without this.
The Godwulf Manuscript
This is the book that really got me into crime fiction. In the seventh grade no less. Forget Robert Urich on ABC or Joe Mantegna on A&E. Until Robert Parker began getting too touchy feely in the later novels, the Spenser series (of novels) was the best in hard-boiled contemporary. If anything, it teaches you how to talk like a wise-ass. (It helps if you’re carrying a fire-arm though.)
Bright Lights, Big City
Most writers have that thing they read that made them want to become writers. This one’s mine and frankly, I wish it wasn’t such a trendy, embarrassing choice. The second person narrative may be gimmicky but I still feel that it captured the eighties like no other book besides…
American Psycho
Yet another piece from the literary brat pack. Especially after the movie came out though, it seems to have garnered a little more respect and if people protest it, it’s automatically cool anyway.
The English Patient
Whenever I want to see the closest thing to poetry in narrative, I always check this one out. Everything on the page is so spare.
There’s a lot of other cool books that sunk with the ship or airplane. (I mean, I must have been traveling to get stranded on a desert island right?) J.D. Salinger, Rick Moody, Susan Orlean, Don DeLillo, Dave Eggers, various issues of McSweeney’s, Bill Bryson, more McInerney and Easton Ellis, Raymond Chandler, W. Shakespeare, various Kevin Smith and Robert Towne and David Mamet scripts, the first four Anne Rice vampire books, Michael Chabon, a couple things that I wrote, and Nick Hornby would all make me very happy if they washed up to shore.
I don’t expect this list to grow much though. I’m implementing a new rule. Until I’ve finished the hypothetical fiction book I’m currently reading, I can not buy any more fiction books. Unless they’re really cheap at Costco. Or if it’s non-fiction. Non-fiction doesn’t count.
We’ll see how long this rule lasts.
Saturday, October 6, 2001, 12:00am
Freelance work is really beginning to pile up. Good thing I gave myself a little vacation. The Hilton Hawaiian Village is a helluva place. And Round Table Pizza kicks ass. I was just trying to help Hawaii's economy. Yeah, that's it. Regardless, it totally goes to show what a difference staying in a hotel makes with the right person. The Kahala Mandarin may be nicer, but now I'm scarred for life from that place.
All things considered, there are a lot of good traveling deals out there too. If I had the bank, I'd definitely be in Vegas. $59 a night at the Hard Rock.
Still not sure if I'm going. Vacations Hawaii actually raised the price of the ticket that my father sold back to them. $600 for a flight to Vegas and to stay at the Fremont is just ludicrous. A friend is heading to Vegas on Monday and airfare plus the MGM Grand is $480.
But anyway, the Hilton Hawaiian Village is a lot of fun. It really is like a little quaint, umm, village. There's all these little nooks and crannies with statues and penguins and flamingos and stuff like that. The beach is pretty clean with a nice sort of lagoon to splash around in. If anything, this spate of unemployment is gonna get me a real killer tan.
The cityline is really pretty at night too. I actually took the laptop out and did some writing on the balcony. That's really cool. I gotta get me a condo with a view. Actually, I gotta get me a job.
Out of all the Michael Douglas In Jeopardy movies in existence, Don't Say A Word is the weakest. The whole gimmick of psychiatrist must get secret from the head of a fucked-up neurotic girl just isn't very appealing. If anything, that particular premise seems like every relationship I've had with someone from a private school.