Positive Liberty

It’s the fifth day of Christmas, and time for one of those posts about just…stuff I like. Perhaps my enthusiasm about some of these things will rub off on some readers and I’ll be the cause of them discovering a new joy in 2006. Note that these are not all my super-duper top number one favorites in their categories—just, a few things I really like.

1) A favorite book: Confessions of A Failed Southern Lady by Florence King. I think Florence King was the best writer in America before she retired. Her columns for National Review were easily the best thing about that magazine, and books such as With Charity Toward None, Southern Ladies And Gentlemen, Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye, show a true master writer demonstrating the excellence of her craft. (And check out The Florence King Reader, in which she revises sections from many of these works and only makes them better.)

But Confessions transcends the category of “excellent book” in which all the others are placed, and reaches the level of Great, at least in my opinion. Here, King is, as always, marvelously funny—combining wacky situation comedy with brilliant, burning wit—but more: the book has tragedy at perfect pitch, self-discovery, insight, quirkiness—it’s indescribable. And it’s all delivered in the prose of an absolute master, whose word choice and syntactical rhythm are lessons for all aspiring writers. To take one brief example, King describes how, after the death of her lover, she drowns herself in meaningless one-night stands to overcome her grief; lying in bed next to a drunk redneck one night she looks at him and thinks “…but he said ma’am, and he said grace, and he loved his countries—both of them.” I could write all my life and never make a sentence that perfect. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

2) A favorite album: Some Day My Pince Will Come by Miles Davis. An often overlooked masterpiece. The title track, particularly, is brilliant. This was the last album to feature Miles and John Coltrane collaborating, and Coltrane only appears in the title track and on “Teo,” a brilliant fast little number that takes some getting used to. Best of all, though, is Wynton Kelly’s piano solo in the title track. Magnificent. This is a jazz album for people who don’t like jazz albums—quiet, smoky, intimate music perfect for grey, overcast winter days. In fact, it falls right in the middle between Davis’ two great periods: the early balladeering of cool jazz and the flamboyant wildness of such late ‘60s albums as Miles Smiles. Lots of Miles Davis albums are great, and some are better than this one, but this album is usually overlooked by critics, and it shouldn’t be.

3) A favorite blog: Sunny Side Up. Most blogs that focus on families are boring recitations, like looking at someone else’s wallet photos. But dgm’s blog is clever, strange, and enormously charming. Check out her Festivus Airing of the Grievances.

4) Favorite coffee-dunking cookie: No question here—Mother’s toffee cookies. There’s lots of cookies, and even some doughnuts, that are good for coffee dunking, but far and away the best is Mother’s toffee cookies. They really soak up the coffee, and add a sweet—but not too sweet!—element that leaves the whole experience soggerific!

5) A favorite bookstore: Hein & Co. in Jackson, California, or, as I call it, the crooked cat bookstore. (Crooked, so help me—the cat is crooked. His whiskers, his tail, the way he walks; it’s all at an angle.) The prices aren’t great (except in the $1 section) but they always have something really unusual. Like a miniature Powell’s, and far less crowded. Worth the long, pleasant drive up the 49.

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