SO hot, so humid, so April, it’s time to read Candace Bushnell’s “Sex and the City.” Or not. This is one of the rare times when the television series and the movie are better than the book.
But it’s the bookworm’s nature to read even the most boring books. This doesn’t mean “Sex and the City” is boring, but it could have been more interesting, a page-turner like Michael Crichton’s “Jurassic Park.” But Bushnell is not Crichton, and her book’s main characters are New Yorkers, not dinosaurs.
Carrie Bradshaw appears later in the book, which is actually a compilation of Bushnell’s “Sex and the City” columns in “The New York Observer.”
I thought Carrie would appear on the first page. Instead, the first page has an “English journalist” who “came to New York. She was attractive and witty…” Wait, is that her?
I’m reading “Sex and the City” when I’m already too old for it. This must be the fact that’s creating a huge gap between me and the book. When I watched the TV series, I was still young and could relate.
The books that resonate with me now are those about writing: Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” and “The Right to Write.”
Even Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” floats above my head as I try to grasp its essence. The power of the present? Forget the past? The future will take care of itself?
Its first chapter has me rereading sentences, unable to understand where they’re going. It looked inspirational in the bookstore — read its first page, read some middle pages, and read the blurb. But now, I wonder why I bought it. That’s why I’ve stopped buying books — they’re all starting to sound the same to me.
So, if books sound the same to me now, why do I still love electronic dance music? EDM practically has the same rhythm that prompts my head to nod to the beat.
I remember dancing at a club in New York where the muzak sounded like EDM, but it wasn’t called that then. That was the time when “Sex and the City” was my favorite TV series. So long ago. Now, I’m wearing reading glasses while writing this. I mean, I’m now ninang at weddings, not at baptisms.
At our family’s Easter Sunday lunch, I mentioned Barbra Streisand as this author… And everyone reacted: Streisand?! Proving that even the family’s young ones know who Streisand is. I had to correct myself: Oh, Barbara Cartland! And then, I had a belated senior moment — juice colored, I still remember Barbara Cartland.
At least, books can be classics and can be handed down from generation to generation. But I gotta feeling the younger ones prefer J.K. Rowling. Here’s a pleasant surprise, though: my niece-in-law is also reading Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way.”
I tend to have several books on the nightstand. Yeah — why, oh, why? But there are times when a book becomes too heavy, requiring a switch to a lighter read, meaning, with more illustrations than words such as Yolanda Nave’s “64 Ways to Beat the Blues.”
