Listening while driving

Wed 8 Oct 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Went to Brooklyn to the Community Bookstore for Kelly’s reading, met lots of good people there and found that the store is as good as ever: they have a huge and tempting NYRB section, comfy seats, piles of interesting books not seen on other bookstore tables, and these people know books. Wish it were our local bookshop. But we have good ones here, so la. Also found there is a huge ad for Pretty Monsters in The Believer and one in The New Yorker (wow!).

Got to listen to the debate on the radio on the way back up to Northampton, which is one of the best car inventions there is, although there are some that aren’t that much, you can learn about it at this news online. Apparently Obama seemed to be debating the Penguin (“Eh? eh?”). These debates are completely misnamed. They should be renamed Presidential Candidates’ Talking Points as there’s so little actual debate. What about just letting the two of them have at each other and see if a discussion ensues? Sure, they must find each other tiresome, but Mr. V. Putin isn’t going to accept ” Two-minute answers, followed by one-minute discussion for each question.”

At some point as President one of these guys is going to have to actually get off the script and it would be nice to see them doing so. Obama at least tried to have a conversation a couple of times but apparently that’s not allowed to happen.

As for there only being 3 debates for the Presidency and 1 for the VP slot, there’s more debate at the average 7-11 over who should have slushees and who should have ice cream. Bah.

It was fascinating to listen to the debates and then to the various call-in shows as we avoided road works somewhere in the depths of Connecticut. No one seemed persuaded by the other guy and Obama seems to be taking the high road, so got to love that. One more debate to go, then 2 weeks of these two guys playing nice to each other and Palin doing all the mud-slinging, then it will all be over. Can’t wait.