Friday, August 20, 2004
Whew! I never noticed that this city has so many smells! Maybe my nose is just extra sensitive, but the scents were blowing me away today! One particularly potent one was at the library used bookstore. A person there had this personal odor that was a mix of coconut and musk. It was too much for me to handle. Fonrtunately the shop was closing so I didn't have to smell it for long! Right now a charred plastic smell is wafting into my apartment from the street. Since they have been doing construction down the street, there have been some, uh, interesting smells around here.
So I just read The Verificationist by Donald Antrim. It was pretty bad. Let's put some numbers on this. I give it 3 out of 10 stars. OK, maybe I just didn't get it. It just seemed like the protagonist was completely crazy (I understand that was part of the story) and totally obsessed with sex. Maybe I just live in a simpler world, but I don't assume that everyone is having affairs with everyone else. I kept reading on thinking that maybe the story would get better or redeem itself in some way, but no. Crappy all the way through. Happily I have moved on to The DaVinci Code now.
