It varies, depending on the type of show, sometimes on the size of my role, and on the length of rehearsal, but this still tends to be pretty universal.
Pre-rehearsal. I got into the show! Yes! This is gonna rock!
Early rehearsals. This is gonna be so cool. We're, like, doing stuff, and it's cool stuff, and it'll be so great.
Middle Rehearsals. Okay. Maybe it won't be as cool as I thought. But it'll still be fun.
Week before Tech Week. Can this just be done with already?
Tech Week. UUUUUUUUUGH JUST SHOOT ME NOW.
Opening night, before show. I'M GOING TO MESS UP AND DIE.
Opening night, after show. THAT WAS SO COOL. I love this show and I love everybody at all associated with it and I love all the people who think it was cool and and and...
Closing night. This show is so great and I could perform it forever and... wait, it's over? Crap!
Week after. Emotional let-down; depression; often, getting sick.
After that. Awesome memory. Any bad parts edited out.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Storytime
[Our assignment for Acting today was to write a story based on two words we were given. My words were "road" and "bruise." I don't particularly like this story, but for the Gentle Reader it may entertainingly waste a few minutes.]
When the girl lay down on the road, all she could see were the stars. She could not see the burned, charred, black road around her, the piles of bodies, the skeletons of cars and trucks, the hulks of tanks. She could not see the road winding on and on, bleakly across a bleak world, starting nowhere and ending nowhere. Looking at the stars she could imagine she was dead, that she had finally come to peace, that she lay in a box in the earth and that the stars were her only friends. We are all made of stardust, she had been told, and she had laughed.
She had been brilliant, once. The smartest ten-year-old on the face of the earth; possibly the smartest ten-year-old who ever lived. They sent her up in the rocket ship, the one that would reach Mars, the one that would guarantee humanity’s survival when the destruction unleashed by the last war was complete. Her words, beamed from the spaceship to the ears of all humanity, just as the ship broke earth’s orbit, had become famous. People loved them and quoted them. She always thought that they did this because they made her sound like a little girl, because they made her sound human, rather than like the divine being most people imagined her to be.
“It looks… like a bruise. We’ve made the world look like a giant bruise. This was never what man was supposed to be.”
And in the six years it took them to establish the Martian colony, in the years it took her to turn from a warm, brilliant, adorable little girl to a cold, manipulative, power-hungry woman, her words had apparently touched off a war, one even worse than the previous war, one in which humanity unleashed its most horrible weapons and, finally, destroyed itself.
The Martian crew managed to find the survivors, the last several hundred humans locked deep underground. They were taken onboard the spaceship; they told the story of earth’s final six years. They blamed the girl, and rightly so. It did not take long to make the decision; and the decision was unanimous. They exiled her. They set her on the ring, the highway that man had built to encircle the earth, the scene of the worst and most brutal battles of man’s final war. They ordered her to walk it until the end of her days, to walk it until she, the last remaining human, was gone. The captain delivered the sentence; the captain knew she would never have the strength to take her own life.
Staring up at the stars, the girl heard a noise behind her. She jerked upright. The noises couldn’t be coincidence; they had been following her all day. Either someone was out there, stalking her, or she was going insane. Either way, perhaps her death would come soon.
A figure moved in the darkness. Her instincts, unwanted, flared up; she leapt and grabbed the figure and brought it down, smashing its face into the road, her hands flying and pummeling by instinct and nothing else. When the figure stopped moving, she rolled it over, perched above on the edge of the road. The sea below heaved incontinently. Her stalker was a boy, of about her own age. The boy was breathing raggedly.
“Who are you?” the girl hissed.
“You’ve… you’ve killed me…”
“Who are you?”
“I… fought against… your exile. When you left… I followed you. I lost you for a while… but now I’ve found you again.”
“Why? Why do you care? I’ve destroyed all of humanity. Everyone knows it.”
“And yet… I love you…”
“Love me? You don’t know me.”
“I grew up with you. I… always saw your face on TV.” The boy was growing more animated, starting to recover himself. He was bleeding from several places, but he ignored this. “No one ever loved you. They admired you, they feared you. But I loved…” he stopped, and began to cough. The fit prolonged itself, and he turned his head aside and spat blood. He groaned and lay his head back down with a clunk on the road.
The girl thought she had cried all of her tears away, but now she began to weep. She bent down and kissed the boy firmly on the mouth. He kissed her back. His arms closed around her and with the last of his strength he used his body to toss her, backward, over the edge of the road. He rolled over and watched her plunge toward the sea. Then he lunged after her.
For a moment the two bodies hung in midair, becoming smaller and smaller until they were specks indistinguishable from the whitecaps of the roiling sea below. Then they were swallowed up. The sea roared on, like a great bruise blotting the face of the earth.
When the girl lay down on the road, all she could see were the stars. She could not see the burned, charred, black road around her, the piles of bodies, the skeletons of cars and trucks, the hulks of tanks. She could not see the road winding on and on, bleakly across a bleak world, starting nowhere and ending nowhere. Looking at the stars she could imagine she was dead, that she had finally come to peace, that she lay in a box in the earth and that the stars were her only friends. We are all made of stardust, she had been told, and she had laughed.
She had been brilliant, once. The smartest ten-year-old on the face of the earth; possibly the smartest ten-year-old who ever lived. They sent her up in the rocket ship, the one that would reach Mars, the one that would guarantee humanity’s survival when the destruction unleashed by the last war was complete. Her words, beamed from the spaceship to the ears of all humanity, just as the ship broke earth’s orbit, had become famous. People loved them and quoted them. She always thought that they did this because they made her sound like a little girl, because they made her sound human, rather than like the divine being most people imagined her to be.
“It looks… like a bruise. We’ve made the world look like a giant bruise. This was never what man was supposed to be.”
And in the six years it took them to establish the Martian colony, in the years it took her to turn from a warm, brilliant, adorable little girl to a cold, manipulative, power-hungry woman, her words had apparently touched off a war, one even worse than the previous war, one in which humanity unleashed its most horrible weapons and, finally, destroyed itself.
The Martian crew managed to find the survivors, the last several hundred humans locked deep underground. They were taken onboard the spaceship; they told the story of earth’s final six years. They blamed the girl, and rightly so. It did not take long to make the decision; and the decision was unanimous. They exiled her. They set her on the ring, the highway that man had built to encircle the earth, the scene of the worst and most brutal battles of man’s final war. They ordered her to walk it until the end of her days, to walk it until she, the last remaining human, was gone. The captain delivered the sentence; the captain knew she would never have the strength to take her own life.
Staring up at the stars, the girl heard a noise behind her. She jerked upright. The noises couldn’t be coincidence; they had been following her all day. Either someone was out there, stalking her, or she was going insane. Either way, perhaps her death would come soon.
A figure moved in the darkness. Her instincts, unwanted, flared up; she leapt and grabbed the figure and brought it down, smashing its face into the road, her hands flying and pummeling by instinct and nothing else. When the figure stopped moving, she rolled it over, perched above on the edge of the road. The sea below heaved incontinently. Her stalker was a boy, of about her own age. The boy was breathing raggedly.
“Who are you?” the girl hissed.
“You’ve… you’ve killed me…”
“Who are you?”
“I… fought against… your exile. When you left… I followed you. I lost you for a while… but now I’ve found you again.”
“Why? Why do you care? I’ve destroyed all of humanity. Everyone knows it.”
“And yet… I love you…”
“Love me? You don’t know me.”
“I grew up with you. I… always saw your face on TV.” The boy was growing more animated, starting to recover himself. He was bleeding from several places, but he ignored this. “No one ever loved you. They admired you, they feared you. But I loved…” he stopped, and began to cough. The fit prolonged itself, and he turned his head aside and spat blood. He groaned and lay his head back down with a clunk on the road.
The girl thought she had cried all of her tears away, but now she began to weep. She bent down and kissed the boy firmly on the mouth. He kissed her back. His arms closed around her and with the last of his strength he used his body to toss her, backward, over the edge of the road. He rolled over and watched her plunge toward the sea. Then he lunged after her.
For a moment the two bodies hung in midair, becoming smaller and smaller until they were specks indistinguishable from the whitecaps of the roiling sea below. Then they were swallowed up. The sea roared on, like a great bruise blotting the face of the earth.
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Current Thoughts
There are certain songs, and even certain verses of certain songs, that have entered my being at a microscopic level. That is, I don't necessarily quote them or even think of them often any more--though usually I did both, once--but they are in there, in my mind and heart, as a concrete symbol of what and who I am, or at least what and who I want to be. One such verse is from "Jericho," by Wolfstone:
Don't run from the bad and the beautiful
Or all the hurting they provide
Don't hide from the sad and the cynical
Look for the diamonds inside
I've tried, Wolfstone. I've tried.
Don't run from the bad and the beautiful
Or all the hurting they provide
Don't hide from the sad and the cynical
Look for the diamonds inside
I've tried, Wolfstone. I've tried.
Monday, August 16, 2010
YA Authors and their Wisdom
I have been reading a slew of YA books recently, because I felt like it. And while I may have said disparaging things about YA authors in previous posts, I sometimes find them extremely wise. I think there is a certain wisdom gained by authors in any genre, who are privileged to spend a large part of their adult lives as authors; this may be particularly true of YA authors, at least of good ones, for they are writing at a level of childhood, a level where first and often lasting and affecting impressions are formed--they are writing to the people who will influence the people of tomorrow, who will become those people. Witness Susan Cooper, reflecting on her privilege in the afterword to her book Victory:
Another thing I notice in Cooper here is her humility. The Dark is Rising is perhaps one of the most famous of YA book series to come out in the last forty or so years, and Cooper would be justified in assuming that the type of people reading her Author's Note would be familiar with it. However, it is not famous enough to warrant the assumption of universal familiarity and her reference to "a sequence called The Dark is Rising" therefore does not come across as condescending.
Also, while I have read and loved The Dark is Rising, that note made me rather want to read King of Shadows.
Another author in whom I have noticed the latter-day presence of both wisdom and humility is Avi. This fellow has written a veritable slew of "YA" and "Teen" books over the past three or so decades. Some I have found worth my time; others I have thrown, justly or unjustly, by the wayside. But always he seems to be writing what he wants to write, and not what others want him to write, and for this I respect him.
Recently I read his The End of the Beginning and A Beginning, a Muddle and an End (2004 and 2008, respectively), which are both about a snail and an ant who have philosophical and epistemological discussions, often to arrive at counterintuitive conclusions. The books are somewhat in the tradition of Winnie the Pooh, and I found them great fun. A note at the beginning of the second book goes like this:
Besides the fact that Avi is right, this is quite a remarkable little note in a few ways. Notice the experienced writer deferring to the child who wrote to him; notice him calling the child "wise." I can think of no other living writer who would be likely to do this. Neil Gaiman, maybe. Maybe. Of fully "adult" fiction writers that I know anything about, I can picture none saying something like this. Could it be that our childrens' writers know something the rest of us are missing?
Finally we come to Kate DiCamillo. I read her books The Tale of Desperaux and The Remarkable Journey of Edward Tulane a while ago, both of which became favorites in their own way. It was not until recently that I got to reading her first couple books, Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tiger Rising. I don't know that either will become out-and-out favorites the way Desperaux and Edward did; but both are masterfully crafted, grace-filled stories.
In The Tiger Rising, a withdrawn young boy meets an angry young girl, and against all apparent odds the two become friends. There is a lot of grace in the book, especially in their burgeoning relationship. One of my favorite passages was this:
Honestly, I don't know if this is wisdom, or folly, or simple conceit. But I love this passage. I love it because this is how I feel when I encounter overwhelming beauty. I feel as if I've been punched in the stomach; when I'm talking about it, sometimes I feel exactly as if my words have that oof sound. I don't know if this is noticeable to anybody else.
The whole of Winn-Dixie, which somewhat incredibly is the author's first novel, is littered with wisdom. It is harder to pin down than the works quoted above. One bit of wisdom is made concrete here:
Recently on facebook I saw a friend of a friend of a friend (I saw this because I find facebook-stalking a good way to kill boredom) comment on someone's status. The status was of the genre of status in which the poster wishes to 'be a kid again' in one way or another; the response was something along the lines of "Childhood should be remembered well, but maturity and growing up valued more highly." This sounded like a certain genre of post comment I have encountered, that of the Thinking Christian, and the implication of every comment in this genre is that every Thinking Christian should agree. And I sort of did at the time, though something rankled me about it. And then I realized that at least one of the reasons for this rankling lay in Matthew 18; and while this as a response to the post I am referring to may be out-of-context and therefore not be fair, this all works as an illustration summing up what (if anything) I had to say in this post:
Sam Robbins's encounters with Admiral Nelson are not historical; they came out of my imagination, and I loved writing them. Perhaps I wrote this whole book only for a chance of meeting one of my greatest heroes, just as I was lucky enough to meet Shakespeare in a book called King of Shadows and Merlin, long ago, in a sequence called The Dark is Rising. Writers are fortunate people.
Another thing I notice in Cooper here is her humility. The Dark is Rising is perhaps one of the most famous of YA book series to come out in the last forty or so years, and Cooper would be justified in assuming that the type of people reading her Author's Note would be familiar with it. However, it is not famous enough to warrant the assumption of universal familiarity and her reference to "a sequence called The Dark is Rising" therefore does not come across as condescending.
Also, while I have read and loved The Dark is Rising, that note made me rather want to read King of Shadows.
Another author in whom I have noticed the latter-day presence of both wisdom and humility is Avi. This fellow has written a veritable slew of "YA" and "Teen" books over the past three or so decades. Some I have found worth my time; others I have thrown, justly or unjustly, by the wayside. But always he seems to be writing what he wants to write, and not what others want him to write, and for this I respect him.
Recently I read his The End of the Beginning and A Beginning, a Muddle and an End (2004 and 2008, respectively), which are both about a snail and an ant who have philosophical and epistemological discussions, often to arrive at counterintuitive conclusions. The books are somewhat in the tradition of Winnie the Pooh, and I found them great fun. A note at the beginning of the second book goes like this:
Some time ago one of my young readers wrote to me about writing. Among the many wise things he said was that a good story consists of "a beginning, a muddle, and an end." It was the smartest description of a story I've ever read. I wish I knew his name. Perhaps he'll read this book. If so, I thank him for giving me a title.
Besides the fact that Avi is right, this is quite a remarkable little note in a few ways. Notice the experienced writer deferring to the child who wrote to him; notice him calling the child "wise." I can think of no other living writer who would be likely to do this. Neil Gaiman, maybe. Maybe. Of fully "adult" fiction writers that I know anything about, I can picture none saying something like this. Could it be that our childrens' writers know something the rest of us are missing?
Finally we come to Kate DiCamillo. I read her books The Tale of Desperaux and The Remarkable Journey of Edward Tulane a while ago, both of which became favorites in their own way. It was not until recently that I got to reading her first couple books, Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tiger Rising. I don't know that either will become out-and-out favorites the way Desperaux and Edward did; but both are masterfully crafted, grace-filled stories.
In The Tiger Rising, a withdrawn young boy meets an angry young girl, and against all apparent odds the two become friends. There is a lot of grace in the book, especially in their burgeoning relationship. One of my favorite passages was this:
"Oh," said Sistine. And Rob realized then why he liked Sistine so much. He liked her because when she saw something beautiful, the sound of her voice changed. All the words she uttered had an oof sound to them, as if she was getting punched in the stomach... Her words sounded... as if the world, the real world, had been punched through, so that he could see something wonderful and dazzling on the other side of it.
Honestly, I don't know if this is wisdom, or folly, or simple conceit. But I love this passage. I love it because this is how I feel when I encounter overwhelming beauty. I feel as if I've been punched in the stomach; when I'm talking about it, sometimes I feel exactly as if my words have that oof sound. I don't know if this is noticeable to anybody else.
The whole of Winn-Dixie, which somewhat incredibly is the author's first novel, is littered with wisdom. It is harder to pin down than the works quoted above. One bit of wisdom is made concrete here:
"Come here, child," Gloria Dump said. She reached for me and pulled me close to her and whispered in my ear, "There ain't no way you can hold on to something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it."
Recently on facebook I saw a friend of a friend of a friend (I saw this because I find facebook-stalking a good way to kill boredom) comment on someone's status. The status was of the genre of status in which the poster wishes to 'be a kid again' in one way or another; the response was something along the lines of "Childhood should be remembered well, but maturity and growing up valued more highly." This sounded like a certain genre of post comment I have encountered, that of the Thinking Christian, and the implication of every comment in this genre is that every Thinking Christian should agree. And I sort of did at the time, though something rankled me about it. And then I realized that at least one of the reasons for this rankling lay in Matthew 18; and while this as a response to the post I am referring to may be out-of-context and therefore not be fair, this all works as an illustration summing up what (if anything) I had to say in this post:
At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
An Open Letter to Barnes and Noble
Dear Sirs:
You have disgraced yourselves. I am sorry to have to be the one to inform you of this; I, who have spent many happy hours perusing the shelves of your bookstore, who was weaned, as it were, on the smell of the new books emanating from your bookshelves.
Are you catching my drift yet, noble sirs? Why would I put book in my opening paragraph so many times?
I will cease the semantics, sever the cleverness.
I am talking about this abomination you call the Nook.
Perhaps there is a place for e-readers: perhaps. I am thoroughly unconvinced on the subject, but we will grant it for the sake of argument. But if there is a place for them, and if they must be sold, this is not the way to go about it.
Placing a large, rather sleekly garish desk directly in front of the entrances to all of your stores, with sleekly cool-looking men or sexlessly attractive women with grins on their faces and a general attitude as if they are Jehovah's Witnesses here to convert all of the sheeple to their new faith is both blatant and blatantly wrongheaded. We are the descendants of people who formed a new country because the old one was forcing unwanted tea upon us: what else can you, using the abovementioned tactics, expect from these people but outright rebellion? And while rebellion is a heady topic for literature, it is not conducive to the selling of electronics.
Which brings up another point: the fact that this product is, essentially, a more useless iPod. Why are you selling such a thing in your store? The obtusely illustrative stack of books with prices comparing their print versions to their e-versions is potent advertising, it is true. But the fact remains that this product costs $149, plus the cost of whatever books one wants. The latter cost, while more affordable than new hard copies, is not much (if at all) less than one could pay for an actual book at almost any used bookstore.
This is where you are particularly wrong, I daresay even disgraceful, my good sirs. For books are, have long been, and ought always to be something for the masses. They ought to be something that not only the well-dressed businessman or working parent with more disposable income than ideas of how to spend it can afford. Their very appeal lies in the fact that they are affordable to the poor college student, the vagrant off the street, the child with his or her allowance money or hard-earned yard-raking or lawn-mowing or grifting money. There is much appeal to the fact that one can come in with a ten-dollar bill and leave with a brain-stimulating classic or a soul-satisfying romance. There is, furthermore, the fact that one can leave a seven-dollar paperback behind on a bus, or have it rained upon, and treat the matter with a shrug and conceivably buy a new copy the next day. Now, if a $149 e-reader gets left behind on a bus, or rained upon and ruined, even the increasingly small percentage of your clientèle who can afford said bauble will probably treat its demise with more agitation than that.
Speaking of agitation, I have one (or possibly two) more complaints before I post* this. What is greatly agitating is the amount of advertising for the e-reader that occurs in your store. I am often looking, in an access of perfect happiness, at a literature or a science fiction section full of good old (well, new) books, only to have thrust into my sight a sign advertising SAVE MONEY WITH THE NOOK, or similar Advertising Department drivel. The amount of signage and other advertisement begins to make your store take on the aspect of a desperate high school nerd begging a girl who is, as they say, way out of his league, to go to prom with him: PLEASE LOVE ME, the Nook ads seem to say; OR PLEASE NOTICE ME, AT LEAST! AT LEAST CONSIDER NOTICING ME! PLEASE?
Finally, there are the rumors that go around concerning the Nook. I am sure you are aware of them, and I myself am certainly aware of how outlandish are the claims they make. Still, the sheer amount and the terrier-like persistence of said rumors does make one wonder. You know the ones: The Nook eats babies, The Nook is a tool of the Devil, The Nook eats the soul of its owners. Things like that. Clearly unfounded speculation.
Sirs, I have stated my opinion. It was probably a useless thing to do, but at least it made me feel better. It is my hope that you take these things into consideration, and do not end up like the nerdy kid, sitting at home on prom night, weeping because the girl he loves went to the dance with the big dumb football player who reads actual books. But you won't let that be you. Right?
Yours Truly,
Captain Stormfield
P.S. I have a solution: Take all the money you are pouring into Nook advertisements, and invest it in installing special B&N bars next to your cafes. Think about the sheer amount of writers who have been alcoholics; probably a greater number than ever frequented coffee houses. Think of the mural! Twain and Hemingway, over their respective Scotch and Absinthe, laughing over a fallen Scott Fitzgerald, his jug of moonshine clutched to him the way he once held Zelda... Plus, if your store had a bar it would scare away those people who come to your store only to flirt because your store doesn't have a bar. All I ask is that you think about it.
*Note that "post" here can refer to the posting of mail, i.e., the traditional way to send a letter, even an open one.
You have disgraced yourselves. I am sorry to have to be the one to inform you of this; I, who have spent many happy hours perusing the shelves of your bookstore, who was weaned, as it were, on the smell of the new books emanating from your bookshelves.
Are you catching my drift yet, noble sirs? Why would I put book in my opening paragraph so many times?
I will cease the semantics, sever the cleverness.
I am talking about this abomination you call the Nook.
Perhaps there is a place for e-readers: perhaps. I am thoroughly unconvinced on the subject, but we will grant it for the sake of argument. But if there is a place for them, and if they must be sold, this is not the way to go about it.
Placing a large, rather sleekly garish desk directly in front of the entrances to all of your stores, with sleekly cool-looking men or sexlessly attractive women with grins on their faces and a general attitude as if they are Jehovah's Witnesses here to convert all of the sheeple to their new faith is both blatant and blatantly wrongheaded. We are the descendants of people who formed a new country because the old one was forcing unwanted tea upon us: what else can you, using the abovementioned tactics, expect from these people but outright rebellion? And while rebellion is a heady topic for literature, it is not conducive to the selling of electronics.
Which brings up another point: the fact that this product is, essentially, a more useless iPod. Why are you selling such a thing in your store? The obtusely illustrative stack of books with prices comparing their print versions to their e-versions is potent advertising, it is true. But the fact remains that this product costs $149, plus the cost of whatever books one wants. The latter cost, while more affordable than new hard copies, is not much (if at all) less than one could pay for an actual book at almost any used bookstore.
This is where you are particularly wrong, I daresay even disgraceful, my good sirs. For books are, have long been, and ought always to be something for the masses. They ought to be something that not only the well-dressed businessman or working parent with more disposable income than ideas of how to spend it can afford. Their very appeal lies in the fact that they are affordable to the poor college student, the vagrant off the street, the child with his or her allowance money or hard-earned yard-raking or lawn-mowing or grifting money. There is much appeal to the fact that one can come in with a ten-dollar bill and leave with a brain-stimulating classic or a soul-satisfying romance. There is, furthermore, the fact that one can leave a seven-dollar paperback behind on a bus, or have it rained upon, and treat the matter with a shrug and conceivably buy a new copy the next day. Now, if a $149 e-reader gets left behind on a bus, or rained upon and ruined, even the increasingly small percentage of your clientèle who can afford said bauble will probably treat its demise with more agitation than that.
Speaking of agitation, I have one (or possibly two) more complaints before I post* this. What is greatly agitating is the amount of advertising for the e-reader that occurs in your store. I am often looking, in an access of perfect happiness, at a literature or a science fiction section full of good old (well, new) books, only to have thrust into my sight a sign advertising SAVE MONEY WITH THE NOOK, or similar Advertising Department drivel. The amount of signage and other advertisement begins to make your store take on the aspect of a desperate high school nerd begging a girl who is, as they say, way out of his league, to go to prom with him: PLEASE LOVE ME, the Nook ads seem to say; OR PLEASE NOTICE ME, AT LEAST! AT LEAST CONSIDER NOTICING ME! PLEASE?
Finally, there are the rumors that go around concerning the Nook. I am sure you are aware of them, and I myself am certainly aware of how outlandish are the claims they make. Still, the sheer amount and the terrier-like persistence of said rumors does make one wonder. You know the ones: The Nook eats babies, The Nook is a tool of the Devil, The Nook eats the soul of its owners. Things like that. Clearly unfounded speculation.
Sirs, I have stated my opinion. It was probably a useless thing to do, but at least it made me feel better. It is my hope that you take these things into consideration, and do not end up like the nerdy kid, sitting at home on prom night, weeping because the girl he loves went to the dance with the big dumb football player who reads actual books. But you won't let that be you. Right?
Yours Truly,
Captain Stormfield
P.S. I have a solution: Take all the money you are pouring into Nook advertisements, and invest it in installing special B&N bars next to your cafes. Think about the sheer amount of writers who have been alcoholics; probably a greater number than ever frequented coffee houses. Think of the mural! Twain and Hemingway, over their respective Scotch and Absinthe, laughing over a fallen Scott Fitzgerald, his jug of moonshine clutched to him the way he once held Zelda... Plus, if your store had a bar it would scare away those people who come to your store only to flirt because your store doesn't have a bar. All I ask is that you think about it.
*Note that "post" here can refer to the posting of mail, i.e., the traditional way to send a letter, even an open one.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Uh Fought
Good friends are like bad drugs. While they're around, in your system, it's wonderful, but when they go away the withdrawal can be a terrible thing; and the only relief for the symptoms of withdrawal is more of the drug. The only relief for the loneliness caused by the absence of friends often seems to be more friends. Often, when particular friends are missed, the only relief seems to be a return to those particular friends whether literally or somehow by proxy.
Because of friendship and the pain it causes sometimes I wish my heart was truly cold, was closed away in some sort of room where love and its contingent heartbreak was a distant reality, something that happened to other people but never came near. But always when I have these thoughts I find myself returning to the words of CS Lewis, in The Four Loves:
Because of friendship and the pain it causes sometimes I wish my heart was truly cold, was closed away in some sort of room where love and its contingent heartbreak was a distant reality, something that happened to other people but never came near. But always when I have these thoughts I find myself returning to the words of CS Lewis, in The Four Loves:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Adequate Sleep
Good grades, adequate sleep, a social life: pick two. Welcome to college.
-Overused but true adage
I have noticed a few times in the past several weeks that I have awakened in the morning to the sound of my alarm clock and have hit the snooze button not because all of my limbs felt bone-tired and my body seemed to be craving extra sleep, but because sleep simply felt nice and I wanted a bit more of it. On getting up, I then noticed that it did not feel like a war to simply stay standing up and get myself ready for the day. Midway through the day I did not feel the need to have a shot of caffeine in order to get through the rest of the day. Every time I sat down I noticed a distinct lack of attempt on my body's part to crash and go to sleep.
This "getting enough sleep" thing is certainly a new and novel experience. I can't decide if I like it or not.
-Overused but true adage
I have noticed a few times in the past several weeks that I have awakened in the morning to the sound of my alarm clock and have hit the snooze button not because all of my limbs felt bone-tired and my body seemed to be craving extra sleep, but because sleep simply felt nice and I wanted a bit more of it. On getting up, I then noticed that it did not feel like a war to simply stay standing up and get myself ready for the day. Midway through the day I did not feel the need to have a shot of caffeine in order to get through the rest of the day. Every time I sat down I noticed a distinct lack of attempt on my body's part to crash and go to sleep.
This "getting enough sleep" thing is certainly a new and novel experience. I can't decide if I like it or not.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
On B&N
I am informed, by my mother, that Barnes and Noble is a "meat market." Apparently people go there to flirt if they don't like bars. Now, I enjoy flirting as much as the next guy--depending on who the next guy is, I very well might enjoy flirting somewhat more than he does--but if someone tries to flirt with me at the bookstore it will be a problem. See, as much as I like flirting, I like books a manifold amount more. It's not even a contest. It's like if I was a die-hard Star Trek fan, and flirting was watching Star Trek while books were meeting Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart, and Gene Rodenberry all at the same time. It's not even that I wouldn't necessarily flirt back in a bookstore, though it's eminently possible that even a very cute girl flirting with me while I was looking at books would be very annoying. What is most occurring to me is that if someone tried to flirt with me while I was looking at books, I might not even notice. I'm really curious whether this has happened, actually.
Maybe I'll be more aware next time I go to a bookstore. But probably not. One new Gene Wolfe novel, and I'm lost to the world.
Maybe I'll be more aware next time I go to a bookstore. But probably not. One new Gene Wolfe novel, and I'm lost to the world.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Pirates and Stuff
Lately I have found myself somewhat surrounded by pirates. This is not necessarily by design, though it may be a result of predeliction.
Bought The Gigantic Book of Pirate Stories, which I named (accurately, I think) Possibly the Coolest Book in the Entire Universe. It has stories, histories, ballads, poems, and other random stuff like ships' charters and a section on the last words of famous pirates. Plus I traded a bunch of stuff in to the used bookstore where I got it, so I didn't spend any money and got rid of a bunch of no-longer-wanted books in exchange for it.
Then I was reading Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second book of the Gentleman Bastards sequence, which is cool simply for combining the epic fantasy and con artist genres--really effectively--and halfway through that book turns into a sort of pirate story.
Yesterday I read the beginnings of a few different YA novels, and was reflecting on how dismal the Young Adult genre can be. Then I picked up Victory, by Susan Cooper, which Yes! is largely about sailing ships (though being much about Admiral Nelson the ships are of a less illegal variety). I read the first couple pages and sighed in relief; Cooper's writing was like diving into a swimming pool after a long time toiling in the hot sun. There's something about a good writer who has been writing for years, a writer whose sentences and paragraphs and rhythm are so self-assured that there can be no question she knows what she is doing, that is completely different from any other reading experience in the world. The sense of this crosses genres; one can get it as easily from a book intended for small children, young adults, or anyone else.
All these nautical encounters will, sooner or later, lead to a re-watching of Pirates of the Caribbean--either all three or the first one multiple times. Maybe both. I can feel it. I was thinking earlier that one of the best parts in the first one is the bit just before the Black Pearl and Barbossa's ship have at each other--when the two ships are pulling alongside each other, all stops pulled, battle about to be joined, and the crews yelling and screaming wordless hostility. It creates a moment of almost unendurable tension before that tension explodes along with the charges in the cannons.
Bought The Gigantic Book of Pirate Stories, which I named (accurately, I think) Possibly the Coolest Book in the Entire Universe. It has stories, histories, ballads, poems, and other random stuff like ships' charters and a section on the last words of famous pirates. Plus I traded a bunch of stuff in to the used bookstore where I got it, so I didn't spend any money and got rid of a bunch of no-longer-wanted books in exchange for it.
Then I was reading Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second book of the Gentleman Bastards sequence, which is cool simply for combining the epic fantasy and con artist genres--really effectively--and halfway through that book turns into a sort of pirate story.
Yesterday I read the beginnings of a few different YA novels, and was reflecting on how dismal the Young Adult genre can be. Then I picked up Victory, by Susan Cooper, which Yes! is largely about sailing ships (though being much about Admiral Nelson the ships are of a less illegal variety). I read the first couple pages and sighed in relief; Cooper's writing was like diving into a swimming pool after a long time toiling in the hot sun. There's something about a good writer who has been writing for years, a writer whose sentences and paragraphs and rhythm are so self-assured that there can be no question she knows what she is doing, that is completely different from any other reading experience in the world. The sense of this crosses genres; one can get it as easily from a book intended for small children, young adults, or anyone else.
All these nautical encounters will, sooner or later, lead to a re-watching of Pirates of the Caribbean--either all three or the first one multiple times. Maybe both. I can feel it. I was thinking earlier that one of the best parts in the first one is the bit just before the Black Pearl and Barbossa's ship have at each other--when the two ships are pulling alongside each other, all stops pulled, battle about to be joined, and the crews yelling and screaming wordless hostility. It creates a moment of almost unendurable tension before that tension explodes along with the charges in the cannons.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Product of Boredom
A rose bloomed in my window
Outlined in the falling snow.
The world turned white under an old,
Cold, worn blanket that covered
The land and bent it to its own will.
A petal fell from pane to sill
And stained my white world crimson;
Crimson drops seeped across
The white wood of my floor.
I lay down in them and would weep
But the depths of sleep took me instead.
I slept and I dreamt that I saw
That the world was a great white maw
Into which the Creator wept
Tears of crimson from a great red rose
(That was Himself) and as I close
I awake, somehow, with a great thirst slaked.
Outlined in the falling snow.
The world turned white under an old,
Cold, worn blanket that covered
The land and bent it to its own will.
A petal fell from pane to sill
And stained my white world crimson;
Crimson drops seeped across
The white wood of my floor.
I lay down in them and would weep
But the depths of sleep took me instead.
I slept and I dreamt that I saw
That the world was a great white maw
Into which the Creator wept
Tears of crimson from a great red rose
(That was Himself) and as I close
I awake, somehow, with a great thirst slaked.
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Complete Works
A while ago in a class about British literature of the Romantic and Victorian eras, my prof (a nationally-known Dickens scholar and one of my favorite teachers of all time) was talking about authors whose complete works he had read. He had done all 14 1/2 of Dickens' novels, all 7 of Austen's, most of Thomas Hardy's, among others. Currently he was (probably still is) working on Anthony Trollope, of whom there are only 47 novels to get through. This digression had the effect of making me think of which authors' complete works I wanted to read through.
Of course, saying one has read an author's "complete works" can be a bit of a tricky thing. Does this mean all novels? Novels and short stories? What if the author also wrote essays, plays, songs, screenplays? What if the author's writing in one of these genres, well, sucked? What about things that went unpublished during an author's lifetime, or manuscripts that have been completely lost?
Being a nerd, I have spent some time pondering these questions. My basic conclusion is that it's plenty impressive to have read an author's published work (meaning published in their lifetime, or generally included in the canon of critically considered work by an author), or sometimes to have read an author's major works (Thomas Hardy, for example, has several novels that are almost universally considered lesser works, and nine or so that are considered his major ones). The caveat to this is that there is the possibility of cheating: one can say "I have read all of William Golding's major works" when what one actually means is "I have read Lord of the Flies."
At any rate, the only author whose every work I intend to read (or as close as possible) is, of course, Mark Twain. I have read all of his at-all-major works except two of his later travel books; I also have a couple volumes of his more obscure newspaper columns and letters. When I have read those two travel books I can say with a clean conscience that I have read every at-all-major work by Mark Twain; after those two more obscure volumes I will have to begin digging to make sure there's nothing even more obscure I have missed.
I have also read the complete works of Laurence Sterne, which is less impressive when you realize they consist of two books: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Spain. However, the first of these is one that English professors slog through in grad school, if they finish it at all, and that I read and loved as a senior in high school.
One of my goals this year is to get through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's major works; this consists of 4 1/2 novels and about an equal amount of short stories, 4 or 5 volumes' worth. Once I finish Tender is the Night I will only have his half-finished final novel and all his short stories left.
I have apparently read through most of Stephen Crane (author of The Red Badge of Courage), but that was mostly by accident and occurred in late middle and early high school.
According to Wikipedia, I have read about half of Ernest Hemingway, but that seems like quite enough. I have covered most or all of his major novels, some of the minor ones, and enough short stories to last me... forever. The only work of his I still consciously intend to read is A Moveable Feast, simply because of its profound influence on so many authors.
By the same reliable source, I have read 10 of 19 of Joseph Conrad's novels, and (debateably) 9 of his 12 or so at-all-major ones. Conrad is someone else I intend to read all or most of. He is another one people in college and grad school slog through; most--pretty much all--of what I have read so far I did in high school.
Other authors I want to read in some sort of full measure, just off the top of my head:
Oscar Wilde (about 1/2 read)
Jane Austen (2/7 read)
P.G. Wodehouse (just for kicks--he has 150 or so novels and story collections)
G.K. Chesterton (have read deplorably little of him so far--maybe 3 volumes)
Lord Dunsany (must research his bibliography a bit more)
Edgar Allen Poe (and I have a convenient 1-volume complete works)
Neil Gaiman (have read all of his prose, except a couple YA type books)
E.R. Eddison (1 volume out of 3 1/2)
Gene Wolfe
James Joyce (2 out of 7 or so--and the real monsters yet to be conquered)
Shakespeare
...and this list will continue to increase. Of course, there are some notable absences: Tolkien, CS Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, Ursula Le Guin, Connie Willis, Ray Bradbury, and Terry Pratchett are examples of authors I adore but whose utterly complete works I for various reasons do not intend to go about reading.
Of course, saying one has read an author's "complete works" can be a bit of a tricky thing. Does this mean all novels? Novels and short stories? What if the author also wrote essays, plays, songs, screenplays? What if the author's writing in one of these genres, well, sucked? What about things that went unpublished during an author's lifetime, or manuscripts that have been completely lost?
Being a nerd, I have spent some time pondering these questions. My basic conclusion is that it's plenty impressive to have read an author's published work (meaning published in their lifetime, or generally included in the canon of critically considered work by an author), or sometimes to have read an author's major works (Thomas Hardy, for example, has several novels that are almost universally considered lesser works, and nine or so that are considered his major ones). The caveat to this is that there is the possibility of cheating: one can say "I have read all of William Golding's major works" when what one actually means is "I have read Lord of the Flies."
At any rate, the only author whose every work I intend to read (or as close as possible) is, of course, Mark Twain. I have read all of his at-all-major works except two of his later travel books; I also have a couple volumes of his more obscure newspaper columns and letters. When I have read those two travel books I can say with a clean conscience that I have read every at-all-major work by Mark Twain; after those two more obscure volumes I will have to begin digging to make sure there's nothing even more obscure I have missed.
I have also read the complete works of Laurence Sterne, which is less impressive when you realize they consist of two books: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Spain. However, the first of these is one that English professors slog through in grad school, if they finish it at all, and that I read and loved as a senior in high school.
One of my goals this year is to get through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's major works; this consists of 4 1/2 novels and about an equal amount of short stories, 4 or 5 volumes' worth. Once I finish Tender is the Night I will only have his half-finished final novel and all his short stories left.
I have apparently read through most of Stephen Crane (author of The Red Badge of Courage), but that was mostly by accident and occurred in late middle and early high school.
According to Wikipedia, I have read about half of Ernest Hemingway, but that seems like quite enough. I have covered most or all of his major novels, some of the minor ones, and enough short stories to last me... forever. The only work of his I still consciously intend to read is A Moveable Feast, simply because of its profound influence on so many authors.
By the same reliable source, I have read 10 of 19 of Joseph Conrad's novels, and (debateably) 9 of his 12 or so at-all-major ones. Conrad is someone else I intend to read all or most of. He is another one people in college and grad school slog through; most--pretty much all--of what I have read so far I did in high school.
Other authors I want to read in some sort of full measure, just off the top of my head:
Oscar Wilde (about 1/2 read)
Jane Austen (2/7 read)
P.G. Wodehouse (just for kicks--he has 150 or so novels and story collections)
G.K. Chesterton (have read deplorably little of him so far--maybe 3 volumes)
Lord Dunsany (must research his bibliography a bit more)
Edgar Allen Poe (and I have a convenient 1-volume complete works)
Neil Gaiman (have read all of his prose, except a couple YA type books)
E.R. Eddison (1 volume out of 3 1/2)
Gene Wolfe
James Joyce (2 out of 7 or so--and the real monsters yet to be conquered)
Shakespeare
...and this list will continue to increase. Of course, there are some notable absences: Tolkien, CS Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, Ursula Le Guin, Connie Willis, Ray Bradbury, and Terry Pratchett are examples of authors I adore but whose utterly complete works I for various reasons do not intend to go about reading.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
I bought some powdered water, but I don't know what to add to it.
Since it's been literally two years or so, I decided to do an "Update on life in general and random thoughts, you can read and care if you want to" type of post. In my head I also call this an "Anan-style" blog post, though instead of a song lyric I started with a Steven Wright joke.
Can't say I'm sorry school is over. That is, I already miss some people, and will miss some more as the summer progresses, but currently I'm enjoying not having any deadlines hanging over my head, and having only one young person who is likely to burst into my room at any given moment and try to drag me off on some inane-but-fun adventure. Also the food is better here.
Now, what would make my mostly-contentment just about perfect would be if I could find a regular job. My dad has a 9-4 job weekdays for an indefinite period of time, which limits my options to getting a job in town or getting evenings, weekends, and/or overnights. I think I'd rather like an overnight job--10 PM to 6 AM seem to be my most natural hours to be awake anyway. Otherwise a job in town would be nice, something I could walk to. I've applied at most of the at-all-likely places in town already this past week, and will hit a few more on Monday. I also plan to make up a poster advertising my willingness to do... pretty much anything that will make me money, in the style of an old broadsheet: "Children cared for WITH THE UTMOST TENDERNESS! Yard work done... WITH ALMOST MAGICAL RESULTS! Subjects tutored by one of the most learned minds OF THE ENTIRE MIDWEST!" Something like this.
Over the past few days I watched the entire long version (only 312 minutes) of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. Bergman is someone that people like my mom suffer through in film school, and people like me grin and enjoy every minute of. (Usually in film school one watches his The Seventh Seal or Wild Strawberries, neither of which I have seen.) At any rate, this was a momentously incredible movie, of the kind that is not really describable but which leaves one with the general summary impression of: "Wow. Woooooow." One thing I appreciated was that it was about a family of theatre people (granted, set in 1907 Sweden, but theatre people apparently don't change that much). Another thing I appreciated was how bloody bizarre it got. Also, over the course of 312 minutes, the only time I ever got close to being impatient or bored with a scene was right at the end of the whole thing, which is pretty remarkable. (Granted I did not watch the whole thing in one sitting, but it wasn't necessarily meant to be watched that way.)
Thanks to Mr. Gee, I've started listening to Tom Waits, who you really just have to experience to understand.
My reading lately has consisted of Son of the Mob; a book of all the recorded words and dications of Joan of Arc; a book arguing seriously that Atlantis existed (which was greatly entertaining); The Thackery T. Lambshead Book of Eccentric and Discredited Diseases (in which a bunch of fantasy writers play around with disease, also hugely entertaining); and the latest book by R. Scott Bakker, one of the most bizarre modern writers of epic fantasy.
The short summary of my last three paragraphs is that my cultural diet lately has consisted largely of the arcane, outlandish, fantastic, weird, and bizarre. Needless to say, it makes me happy.
Can't say I'm sorry school is over. That is, I already miss some people, and will miss some more as the summer progresses, but currently I'm enjoying not having any deadlines hanging over my head, and having only one young person who is likely to burst into my room at any given moment and try to drag me off on some inane-but-fun adventure. Also the food is better here.
Now, what would make my mostly-contentment just about perfect would be if I could find a regular job. My dad has a 9-4 job weekdays for an indefinite period of time, which limits my options to getting a job in town or getting evenings, weekends, and/or overnights. I think I'd rather like an overnight job--10 PM to 6 AM seem to be my most natural hours to be awake anyway. Otherwise a job in town would be nice, something I could walk to. I've applied at most of the at-all-likely places in town already this past week, and will hit a few more on Monday. I also plan to make up a poster advertising my willingness to do... pretty much anything that will make me money, in the style of an old broadsheet: "Children cared for WITH THE UTMOST TENDERNESS! Yard work done... WITH ALMOST MAGICAL RESULTS! Subjects tutored by one of the most learned minds OF THE ENTIRE MIDWEST!" Something like this.
Over the past few days I watched the entire long version (only 312 minutes) of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. Bergman is someone that people like my mom suffer through in film school, and people like me grin and enjoy every minute of. (Usually in film school one watches his The Seventh Seal or Wild Strawberries, neither of which I have seen.) At any rate, this was a momentously incredible movie, of the kind that is not really describable but which leaves one with the general summary impression of: "Wow. Woooooow." One thing I appreciated was that it was about a family of theatre people (granted, set in 1907 Sweden, but theatre people apparently don't change that much). Another thing I appreciated was how bloody bizarre it got. Also, over the course of 312 minutes, the only time I ever got close to being impatient or bored with a scene was right at the end of the whole thing, which is pretty remarkable. (Granted I did not watch the whole thing in one sitting, but it wasn't necessarily meant to be watched that way.)
Thanks to Mr. Gee, I've started listening to Tom Waits, who you really just have to experience to understand.
My reading lately has consisted of Son of the Mob; a book of all the recorded words and dications of Joan of Arc; a book arguing seriously that Atlantis existed (which was greatly entertaining); The Thackery T. Lambshead Book of Eccentric and Discredited Diseases (in which a bunch of fantasy writers play around with disease, also hugely entertaining); and the latest book by R. Scott Bakker, one of the most bizarre modern writers of epic fantasy.
The short summary of my last three paragraphs is that my cultural diet lately has consisted largely of the arcane, outlandish, fantastic, weird, and bizarre. Needless to say, it makes me happy.
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