Three Things I Read This Weekend

1. "Sleep" by Haruki Murakami. (Thanks to Carolline for the link.) As a very good sleeper, I find the opposite of sleep fascinating.

2. "Picturing Auschwitz" by Alec Wilkinson, in the New Yorker. I read this while drinking tea before preparing to drive home from Riverside early in the morning. It made me woozy - the entire disconnect between my peaceful morning and photos in the face of death - but the discovery of a treasure trove of photos from the assistant to the commander at Auschwitz is
truly extraordinary. (More pics from the album online too.)

3. Why Gen X still matters, an article in the LA Times about a new book by Jeff Gordinier. I am a Gen X cusp baby. Technically I was born three years too late (which makes me a Millenial, per the article, but I don't buy that. What happened to Gen Y? Aren't the Millenials the teens of today?) but Gen X values still intensely shaped my early cultural awareness. I discovered music right as Nirvana and Pearl Jam burst onto the scene, and I adored "Singles" and "Reality Bites" and grunge and everything else. I felt utterly Gen X. And even though the lovely dot com boom era polished a lot of that away, I still feel very close to my X-er past.