"We are the theatre, they are the people—dressed up to be seated, lookin’ upwards and dreamin’. We’re the projectors, we’re hosting the screening. We’re dust in the spotlights, we’re just kinda floating." ~the hold steady

I love doing nothing. I finished two books yesterday. That's all I did. It was wonderful. I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the Pulitzer Prize last year, and I absolutely loved it. I cried, even though I knew how it would end. It's such a detailed portrait of a family whom I felt like I knew after reading it. There was a lot of Spanish in the book and I understood some of it (I was proud of how much I understood). It's about a Dominican family, so I felt like I could relate because I recognized pieces of my students' lives in it (my students are Dominican). I highly, highly recommend it.

I also read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie (he is such a talented writer). It was funny and heartbreaking and a really quick read. It won the National Book Award. I laughed aloud often and didn't want it to end but didn't want to put it down at the same time. It's his first book for young adults and I hope he writes more, because some eighth graders at my school read this and loved it (and kids at my school don't like to read).

Hm, apparently yesterday was my day for reading award-winning books with really long titles.

I'm leaving you with this video just because I'm in the mood. Chess is my favorite musical (and I am familiar with a loooot of musicals). I collect Chess recordings, and I have a lot (when I narrow my iTunes music library to "Chess," I have over 400 songs, from various sources: the Danish cast, the Swedish cast, different London casts, different American casts...). Anyway, this is a good recording of Judy Kuhn as Florence singing "Nobody's Side." Judy Kuhn is awesome, even though I'm still not sure whether I prefer her or Julia Murney as Florence.


Something to look forward to: I'll post my list of the year's best albums tomorrow. I've been thinking about it.