Matt,
It is nice to read your account of what has been occupying your time. It, as well as Liz Lawley's juggling of blogging and travel, gives me some reassurance that the dry spells and writer's block that I have been reading about in a particular cluster of academic blogs are not intimately connected with a rebound effect from what was the texture of blogging in some quarters about a year ago -- just a theory about collective memory of high affect periods and the "anniversay effect". Good luck squeezing all that activity in one week!

From the sound of it, (rimshot), I think I'll have to put Pelecanos on my summer reading pile. Curious though, is the CD an actual "sound track"? That is, something to be read in sync with the novel (thereby assuming a certain pace of reading), true accompaniment? Or is more a companion to the book, perhaps the songs play a role on the printed page, and the CD is a quick access contextual provider?* A sort of sonic gloss. I've seen some flash comics (Broken Saints, and the Little Ninjai)attempting to mix printed words with a paced soundtrack, with mixed results, and a colleague has told me of the existence of a printed comic with sound accompaniment, though neither of us have experienced it first hand.

*In that sense, it would be a perhaps more carefully currated supplement than similar projects conceived for "hip hop" novels I had heard about a few years back (no idea if the genre -- which may only have made it as far as the drawing board of record labels -- has any relation to the "street lit" getting so much buzz from newspapers these days), though I don't know if any of those every played out.

Thanks, Francois. MP, you're right, the "soundtrack" is much more like a simple companion to the book. Pelecanos's novels comprise an almost archeological excavation of popular music from the fifties to the present, and no one who's read one hasn't had the experience of saying, "Gee, I wish I could hear that right now." So it's a bit of a gimmick, but no one has earned the right more than GP. I'd definitely recommend anything he's written for your summer reading.

Wow... so neat to see the items crossed out. Inspires me to some list making of my own. Good luck on the remaining three items.

why did'nt you tell me you were giving a printing course on mom's birthday!!you could have added a happy birthday to the web site-march 26-remember!!!!!! and why when i search your site for "linda", "no pages found pops up"??
PS I find watching charlie do the laundry fulfilling!!

Ah, family. ;-)