brian 's Reviews > Dear Life

alice munro - great contemporary writer and bigtime oxymoron* - has a new collection coming out nov 13, just 3 days after i'm to be married. which is great as i'm expecting to be all reflective and nostalgic but also forward-looking and hopeful, a mishmash of sentiment and emotion and whatnot; which works out as nobody conjures up all that conflicting crap better than munro.

so, a few days after the wedding, we head down to del mar and, our first night walking the main drag of the tiny seaside town, we see this sign outside the local library:



giddy at the prospect of what 'read to dogs' actually means, we head back to our room deep in book/dog conversation. my new bride passes out early (red wine) & i head to the balcony, break out one of the many cigars i've acquired over the wedding weekend, and smoke and read. (munro is more a wintry, woodsmoke smell, but damp oceanair & cigarsmoke, as it turns out, works just fine)

next morning we head to the del mar library and discover that 'read to dogs' really is as good as it sounds: a program whereby young kids come to the library and, well, they… read to dogs. so me and the wife sit there all permagrinned in a circle with a bunch of kids and a bunch of dogs. i met two great guys in particular: caleb and cody. i read an excerpt from 'corrie', a story from dear life. check me out kissing caleb:



and here's his glamour shot:



so, dear life. not one of munro's best, but as per the woodman:

Woman: I finally had an orgasm, and my doctor said it was the wrong kind.
Isaac: You had the wrong kind? I've never had the wrong kind, ever. My worst one was right on the money.

yeah, even the 'wrong kind' of alice munro is right on the money.

a few more things: del mar is so awesome that even the fucking seals leave the ocean to try and hang out there.



look at that guy! he walked up onto the shore and hung with people! i have a theory that seals & sea lions are actually just dog mermaids.

and check this out:

"The 2010 United States Census[5] reported that Del Mar had a population of 4,161. The population density was 2,341.9 people per square mile (904.2/km²). The racial makeup of Del Mar was 3,912 (94.0%) White, 10 (0.2%) African American, eight (0.2%) Native American, 118 (2.8%) Asian, three (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 25 (0.6%) from other races, and 85 (2.0%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 175 persons (4.2%)."

10 black people live in del mar! we went to dinner and saw a black couple and i couldn't help thinking that we were sitting in a restaurant with 1/5 the black population of del mar. i wanted to stare and point -- like spotting a grizzly cub pawing down a city street. the weekend was extraordinary but i couldn't get this outta my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiyLtM...



* 'badass candian' -- a distinction shared with neil young, my next door neighbors, pamela anderson, geddy lee, & peter north.