i've always been a terrible reader. italo calvino's cosmicomics were, for me, great inspiration because they have a sort-of whiz-bang quality to them. at face value, these fable-esque stories of signs hanging off distant galaxies and jealous primitive life forms forming the first shells were like everything i ever did in college...uh...and today. all flash.but there is a stark difference between those incriminatingly bad stories i wrote and the delicately crafted works of italo calvino (outside of the obvious parameter known as talent): mr. calvino's stories have something smart people call depth. so in re-reading a few of the stories, i've come to realize that i, in my laziness, never really put a book down after reading it and ask myself, "now, what was that about?" and "how does this book effect my life? does it?" and when writing about time travel and superheroes, i never think, "what am i trying to tell people with this?" i just like the thought of talking dinosaurs.
i was talking to graham of iron cobra last week, who mentioned he was reading mr. calvino's if on a winter's night a traveler; since i wasn't currently reading anything seriously (i had started to reread u2 at the end of the world, one of my favorite books) it got me wanting to return to mr. calvino and see if i couldn't use some smarts and read this like an adult. i'm about a quarter of the way through.