September 8th, 2012 → 8:50 am @ Lea // No Comments

“I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs.” – As You Like It

Author and performer David Rakoff died last month, and after listening to all the tributes to him on radio and in the news I bought his last book, Half Empty.  I was familiar with David from his This American Life contributions, but I’d never read one of his books before.  Half Empty is a paean to negativity and melancholy, which is a perspective that is often right up my alley.  While the book is more raunchy than I expected (and at times liked), so far it has been a fun read.  And I wholeheartedly sympathize with the joy of being a pessimistic cynic, especially in the face of some people’s candied optimism.