Something I Typed After Hooking Up My New Turntable, Not Even Sure If It Makes Sense (Thank You Misters Leinenkugel and Smirnoff)

This week I started reading Steve Erickson's Our Ecstatic Days but didn't get too far into it before returning it to the library. I'm sure it's my fault and not Erickson's - he did after all write two of my all-time favorite books: Amnesiascope and American Nomad. I should tackle a book like Our Ecstatic Days in the non-summer months when my reading (and writing and listening and observing and ... etc.) abilities are in better form. Oh, and hey - Twin Cities wussies who are convinced that our winters are "harsh": I'll take the coldest day in winter over this heat wave bullshit we're dealing with this month. I guess that makes me a summer wussy, but I'll take the mild winters in Minneapolis over the oppressive summers hands down. Summer sucks, winter is great!

Anyway, I hope to look into the latest Erickson novel again in the non-summer. Summer is best reserved for so-called guilty pleasures. Though like the Cosmic Slop guys, I don't buy into the Guilty Pleasure Concept. Either you like something or you don't - why feel guilty about it? (Can't remember if that's the reasoning that Chuck and Joel used, but I'm going with it.) So this summer for me book-wise it's for the most part been 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King and crime novels by James Ellroy and George V. Higgins. (Higgins, RIP, could write circles around just about any writer you can care to name. Check him out, especially if you dig great dialogue writing.)

Oh, and back to the Erickson novel and why I originally sat down to type this post ... the book starts off with an amazing quote by Rilke:

... for beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror
           we can just barely endure

I haven't read any Rilke, but if anybody has any recommendations please comment or email me.