Flag Day (The holiday not the song by the Housemartins)

(Photo by Tom from his recent Memorial Day Weekend trip to Boston. Almost looks as good as the World Series Champs banner that was draped on the Green Monster last year.)

The true sign of an obsession with a writer or writers, it has been said, is when you start to collect their journalism. Happily, in the case of Anthony Bourdain, it has been done for us. His latest, The Nasty Bits, is from page one not very vegetarian friendly as he describes in great detail the sharing the delicacies of a seal with a family after a recent hunt. Blackberries soaked in blood? I consider myself willing to try almost anything once but none of the seal parts even remotely whetted my appetite. But the world weary traveller makes a point about how these expeirences can not be captured on the page or even by film. But he proceeds to do just that capture the moment in an evocative manner.The book is mish-mash of various pieces written with usual gruff charm and his 'Wait, how did i get here again?' attitude . I love a writer whose favorite bands are MC5 and The Stooges. I was introduced to him at the Dublin Underground by drooling drunk cook friend of mine after Bourdain's book reading upstairs at Prairie Lights. He said I looked like a cook. (It was before I cut all my hair off). I took it as a compliment. I wish I had the Food Network as I have not caught any of his most recent series.

I also might have to get cable for the summer since the third season of Entourage is coming soon. Just started watching season 2 and I recommend it. It is a breezy comedy that has no laugh track and never devolves into soap opera plots that often befall the usual sit com characters . The core cast is solid, Jeremy Piven is note perfect as the agent, and guest stars abound, Val Kilmer as a Lebowskiesque dope dealer, Gary Busey as, well, Gary Busey, who is clearly no longer even attempting to play another role except himself.

Reading an amusing novel English, August: An Indian Story by Upamanyu Chatterjee. Blurbs compare it to Confederacy of Dunces and Catcher in the Rye. And the truth is probably somewhere in between. The publisher's (New York Review Books) website has a pdf file of the intro and first chapter and it can be found here.... Funny is also a collection of poems from Jennifer Michael Hecht, weaving old jokes and philosophy together and producing poems that bear reading. ICPL has both of these books (although currently checked out).

http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product-file/12/engl5412/chapter.pdf