Triumvirate of Oddities

A couple of days ago my Penpal told me about a book that sounded so like me, so appealing to me that I literally went right out and bought it, without even flipping through it. I started it last night after work, and finished it this morning. What an excellent little diversion.

I was completely gone, hooked by the first sentence:

One night last summer, all the killers in my head assembled on a stage in Massachusetts to sing show tunes.

The book is Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. In it, Sarah takes several road trips visiting sites associated with the assassinations of three presidents: Lincoln, McKinley and Garfield. I learned quite a bit from it, but this is not all dry history and politics. Vowell is hilarious. And getting the scoop on Robert Todd Lincoln (not to ruin your enjoyment, but he was at all three assassinations....oooh, eerie, no? She coins him "Jinxy McDeath") is worth the price of the book. You should check it out. Really.

Then I came home and watched a good little film, The Station Agent, which starred three great actors (keeping with the triumvirate theme today) Peter Dinklage, Bobby Cannavale and most especially, the always marvelous, Patricia Clarkson. This is a film about one man's seach for solitude, to be alone, and how he comes undone by the human desire for companionship. the characters are likeable in their flaws, and my only complaints about the film are that I don't have any interest in trains and the ending came too soon.

And finally, today is Herman Melville's birthday. On my last day of work at the old store, my manager and assistant manager took me out, and spent an hour and a half talking about fishing, working on fishing boats in California, and my manager's favorite novel Moby-Dick .

To celebrate Melville's birthday, NPR repeated this quote from Moby-Dick:

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian

I don't know if it's true, but I sure think it's funny. Oh, and Melville also makes a cameo in Vowell's book...