Reading, and Listening to Podcasts

"Something was going on which I didn't get."--Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

In the week and a half since my last blog post about a book, I've been reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man for a book club meeting February 19. I would probably not read this book if someone else hadn't selected it; it's not in my usual genres.

I find myself reading Invisible Man slowly because the narrator is frequently bewildered. If, in contrast, I understood the events he witnessed, this would be dramatic irony. Since I don't understand, either, it's simply confusing.

Savage Love Podcast

So sometimes I make transit time more tolerable by listening to podcasts instead of reading. I tried this several years ago with an MP3 player, and found the downloading and updating inconvenient. I tried again with a second-generation iPod nano, and the synchronizing is automatic, now that I use iTunes instead of WinAmp. I can listen in the car as well as on the bus, using a cassette tape adapter. On my iPod currently are .NET Rocks!, 43 Folders, AA Meeting: The Academy-Awards Related Obsessions of David Schmader (and Guests), and--because sex has always fascinated me--Dan Savage's explicit Savage Love sex advice podcasts. Several of these are Seattle locals.