NP: The Replacements: “All Shook Down”

Last night while using the Internet to do research on the subject of Internet research (hey it’s the same as watching movies to study movies …right?) I came across a really helpful site. The Librarian’s Index to the Internet” is a searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 9,000 Internet resources. Each site is selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness to users of public libraries. The sites are ranked according to usefulness. There is also a free weekly mailing list for updates on recently-added resources. They have an entire Internet section including a very helpful Evaluation of Internet Resources section.

Next subject...The Ice Storm is one of my favorite films. After seeing the movie I went back and read the Rick Moody book it was based on. Lately, I’ve been trying to keep up with Moody’s Slate diary. Updated weekdays, it’s thoughtful and evocative – and written in the precise, unflinchingly honest voice that made “The Ice Storm” so powerful.
In today’s entry Moody ruminates on leading the supposedly glamorous life of a successful life – all while trying to deal with the reality of his personal existance:

“So, is this my job? The job of Party Witness? The job of transcriber of voices? Is my job the job of pimping the book? Is my job having my picture taken? Is my job talking on the radio about the drug-induced hallucinations of my 20s? Is my job talking about the psychiatric hospital? Is my job going to the airport on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday? Is my job trying to remember which store I was in last year or the year before that? Is my job remembering all the names? Is my job the dead spots in the next month when all I can do is fiddle around with these pictures of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden until they look like the hallucinations of my teens and 20s? Is my job putting words into books for publishers with excess punctuation in their name? …. Or is my job simply writing the novel that I haven't been able to work on all week, because I was flying home from Idaho, because I was dealing with a friend's drug problem, because I was counseling my fiancée on her job situation (as best I could), because I was doing interviews, because I was going to a book party, because I was going to a really great reading by Barry Hannah?”