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History in Books

I remember hovering over "Dear Zoo", lifting the worn flaps, hissing for the snake, my dad's voice grumpy for the camel.  The puppy at the end was the happiest picture in my small world, the close second was the "Dolly Dolphin" picture in the Go Fish game I played.  I remember sitting on the stairs crying over the Go Fish game because my dad wouldn't let me win one day.  But that doesn't really have anything to do with the worn, dog eared picture book that henceforth stereotyped all zoo animals in its narrow parameters.

When I was very young, perhaps seven or eight, my second cousin from England came to stay.  She wore make-up; at first I thought she was a witch.... but then I decided I loved her.  I remember her standing in the archway between the living room and kitchen in our house, and saying "The best book I ever read was the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  You should read it too."  So I did, and it was that book that taught me to long for another world.  I fell in love with Puddleglum, I wanted my God to be a Lion.  It was a deep magic from that book that made me forever morally Christian, even if it is my destiny to be devoutly atheistic. 

It was this book that made me want to be a writer.  I was so frustrated with the ending, and Aslan's promise of a "Final Chapter" that never came that I tried to craft my own.  I decided that for the rest of my life I'd devout my existence to writing this "Chapter".  It lasted for about three pages.

Doctor Dolittle, still young.  Three series of books happened for me at once, really.  Doctor Doolittle, the library at school, the yellow pages, the musty smell of age.  Naturalist, Polynesia, I had a parrot like her, or at least I told myself she was like that parrot, she sat on my shoulder and talked in my ear.  She became part of my reality.  She, and the Wizard of Oz.  Those books were from the school library too, they were cloth bound.  I traced all the pictures.  If Puddleglum was my first crush, the Scarecrow was my second.  And there I was, three Wizard of Oz books on my desk in 5th grade, and I wanted to tell everyone how great they were but I ended up hiding behind them as I was taunted.  I hated the movie.  The scarecrow was wiser in the books.

"Off to the Faraway tree, Jo, Bessie and Me."

The year after that was the year I lost time.  Every class period for six months, the class would do a review book after reading time for about half an hour a day.  I just read, probably under my desk.  the teacher didn't notice.  I didn't notice.  When he realized I wasn't turning in my reviews (finally) I was lost and confused and in tears.  I couldn't remember that slice of time where the reality of the books finished and the reality of math began.  That was the year of the Farthing Wood, the day when we escaped the forest with fox leading that was being cut down and i traveled with badger all the way and mole and it was cold sometimes but everyone ended up safe and we could hear whistler up in the sky and it was dappled sunlight and clear.

Brother.

The horizon was broiling.  Hera could feel the foam prickling her skin.  The breeze cooled her ankles. Her wet garments slapped at her thighs and knees.  Salt water blew in her eyes.

He didn't like being disturbed.

What?

I am penetrating the... her voice was lost in the burgeoning thunderous wind.

When he blinked, the stars twisted into a temporary new shape.

Anna Contemplates

Subtle nuance with you.  I am. In.

I imagine...

When you...
I
then....

I am aware of the way I blush.  It burns my cheekbones.  I feel it in my chin.

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Sugar Bowl

"These owls, they're everywhere man."

Phil flashed an odd carnival smile at Katy and Robert who had just ambled into the Sugar Bowl, holding hands.  Robert gave Phil a deadpan look and walked to the counter where a kid wearing a hawaiian shirt stood expectantly waiting for his order.  Katy sat down across from him, her green eyes sharply penetrating him before she looked up at the TV in the corner.

The Pope was dying.  For some reason he was always dying here.

The seats were orange, the food was greek, but greasy and often fried.  Phil was picking chunks of onion from his normal gyro out of a greasy paper wrapper.  He looked at her with vague confidence.  "Owls"  he repeated, nodding at the table.

For half a second Katy thought she caught a glimpse of wings moving in the speckled linoleum, but it faded as soon as she focused her eyes on it.  She sighed.  "Look Phil, stop acting all crazy for no damn reason."

Three years ago she had broken up with Robert for three months.  During that time she made out with Phil.  She couldn't remember much, she had been a little drunk at the time, she just remembered worrying his lip some as he awkwardly pawed at her curves.  She knew Phil remembered it every time he looked at her.  He was gnawing his finger nail right now, looking over her shoulder, flashing his eyes to her face and chest.

"Sorry Kat.  I don't mean to worry you."

Suddenly Phil stood up, and walked over to the pinball machine in the corner and waggled the toggles a bit.  There was an "Out of Order" sign on the console, so he didn't put a coin in.  Katy was watching Robert, he knew that.  He never checked, because he knew.

He looked up at the TV.  He could have swore the Pope died last week.  But maybe that kind of stuff just didn't change here.

Anna and the Curtains

"You are very kind and non-confrontational."

Anna looked at the curtains, which waved at her slightly from the corner.  She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.  "I am not... not... crazy, I swear.  I don't follow you around like a goon.  I know you're not perfect or any bs like that.  You're frickin' nuts is what I think."

The heating vent turned off.  The curtains hung in wide ripples, still, silent. 

"You notice me, don't you?  I can't tell you, can I?  Inopportune, crazy, mess."

She dug her fingernails into the hem.  Heavy cloth.  Dank yellow color.  It didn't respond. 

"I don't believe in destiny.  Destiny is bullshit.  And you... you'll never know what I see you as.  How can everyone else think you're so unexceptional?  I've done the stupid teenager thing.  I cried.  I did the mature adult thing.  I questioned all this.  All this.  It's not like I didn't talk it out with myself.   It's not you who changed me, it's myself.  I made sure of that.  I just needed a chemical reaction to set me off."

There was a long pause.  She looked down at her feet.  The laces of her shoes were muddy.  The heater gasped, and the curtains breathed. She looked up; they were swaying.

"My... catalyst."

stars

It wasn't enough to walk along staring at the way the sky played with the clouds, dragging them over the stars like a child dragging a blanket over its toys.

That was yesterday.


She was undergoing another transformation now.

Owl

there was a popular idealization, an icon, this owl.  He was there, his backpack tossed over the back of the chair, his hands folded behind and buried in his head of auburn hair.  There was a fashion now where the owl was popular, smeared across book bags, and t-shirts, icons, figures, somehow, always there.  Big yellow eyes.  Something to do with Harry Potter, maybe.  Some virus that wraps around the masses' hearts and dives into their wallets.

So the ceiling, one of those foam board tile things with pinpricks.  He looked up, and there it was, the owl.  Some kind of pictorial creation.  Flitting like a stop animated cartoon from slab to slab.

Hera

The Mother stood on the edge of the beach.  Her black hair curled around her temples and down her shoulders, the slick wet of them sticking to the nape of her neck with the rain that fell from the oblivion sky.  Newness of life, she was, she brought forth.  Women, we are the only ones who feel the pain in the nascent fog, heavy with wet, and life.

Hera was still lithe, still regal in her bearing.  A goddess mother after all has a form that is nothing more than a skin around imagination and eternity.  Her loose light garment stuck to her body, both were pale white, a person who grabbed the garment and pulled may at first have wondered at the elasticity of her skin.  The sea, it’s foam white horses rushing at her knees, drew back the sand under the soles of her feet.  Tiny enamel clams encrusted her toes.  Seaweed wrapped itself around her ankle.   She didn’t kick it off, but started to walk along the shore, dragging it with her as her brown eyes stared at that point in the mist where the sea and the sky merged, the pulsing line where water and air converge.

She couldn’t remember how long she had stood on this shore.  She wasn’t sure if her skin was new or a husk reawakened with the moisture in the sky.

Goddesses do not fear; they have no life to lose; they cling to the backbone of existence.  But as she stared at the horizon line, Hera noticed that the mouth of her human skin had dry lips.  Perhaps something was pushing through her pride, a certain turmoil at the sight of the indescribable pulsing against the horizon.

  She saw her brother.  He, not a mother, needed no form that wasn’t the movement of the waves as they battered the shore and the sky.   

Play List: How I feel.

How I'm feeling right now, in five songs:

I'm lookin' to squeeze out sparks of light, and "the right to be ridiculous is something I hold dear"

 

So confused... everything I do...

I keep feeling like I'm going to need to sacrifice something... not sure what.

Things have changed for me... but that's okay... 

But as long as I become more and more like myself, my limits decrease...

Fun Fact:

When the future seems wobbly, and you're overthinking about it a lot, resting your head on an Asimov novel decreases your stress level by 50%...

Zen Badger Says...

No matter what, don't let anyone, no matter how seemingly wise, quell your inner thoughts, your deepest music.  Don't let the growth of your crumpled wings be stunted.  Don't let your sense of humor be normalized.  Don't let anyone tease you into believing you aren't the only hero who can bring the things you imagine out, gasping into the world.

And most of all, remember that melodrama is the most reliable source of humor... :-D

On Dignity

Dignity is stupid.  It is the most retardedest thing in existence.  I mean seriously?  It's like there's this sort of protocol out there for people who are older or wiser than you when you freeze up and act like a proper stiff, when in reality you'd rather be hanging from a tree by your ankles saying WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

If I had my way, I'd tell jokes non-stop.  I'd tell jokes until even the people who don't think my jokes are funny laugh, because I'm trying so hard to get them to laugh I stand on my head and fall flat on my face. 

Yeah, so if you've seen me act like a moronic broomstick with social issues that just means you make me nervous.  In reality I'm laughing on the inside.  I laugh a lot because at least that part of dignity was stripped away a while ago.  Laughter solves most of my dignity issues. 

I guess to a certain extent seriousness is necessary sometimes.  You have to show people you can be serious before you show them you can be goofy.  I dunno. 

OH WHO NEEDS RATIONALITY ANYWAY??!!!


OOGABOOOGAOOOGABOOGA!!!!!!!!!  :-D

Randomness II

Oh to write happy things well!  What an amazing accomplishment that would be!  Let's write random happy sentences, shall we?

Laughter is grey in the sky over the north pine lakes, which stab the sky and spill the light from the moon.

Stickiness runs like a bright smile over your teeth and over my hands as you tumble through my hour.

The merry crayon box sonata trips over the cracks in the sidewalk as it runs over the edges of the curb and into the street.

Under the strange daisies that I use to count off the bumps in the pavement that I feel under my wheels, I sleep a subconsciously spring dream about yellow dragons.

Writing happily is so much harder than writing melancholy things. 
.

Randomness Part I

I'm in a random mood tonight.

Bees sing sweeter in the night with drops of umbrellas in their skin.
Trees sing now on a lark with bones for wings and white feathers.
Smooth white stones and trees for darkness that slips across my mind like a silk glove.
Maybe in the red moon a purple star will fall beyond what it can call it's shack of pearls.
Differences is a Micky Mouse Puppet falling on ceders across from a Wal-mart with a quiet fuzzy green sweater scratching the hands of the child that plucks at it.
Why do we run in moons across a sky grey with toilet seats and ceramic bayonets?
Horses run swifter on glazed days with spring in their manes and bones through their ear.
Why are you scratching a xylaphone?
I will appropriate the world, and ten faded blue jeans from Bosnia will rise up in protest.  Why, they will say, why on cold nights do the stars shine broader than the quiet sound of the easter bunny in a spaceship on a hot summer's day?

Phew.  Good to get all THAT out of my system...

Mysteries of the Universe

Edit

I posted this on facebook, then realized that it belonged here instead:

There was this book that always showed up in my hands when I least expected it. It was by an author I love but it was short stories and I'm not much into short stories so I didn't really think to pick it up, and now that I wanted to browse through it and see if I could assign one of these stories to my hypothetical class in the syllabus, I can't find it. So now that it's late and I'm thinking too hard (again) I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever find that book, and if I'll ever read it. So that got me thinking about all the books that have ever got sifted down to the bottom of my "too read" pile. There's a bunch of them up in my parent's attic. I wonder if the books I've never read ever feel kind of lonely up there (even though they are grouped with others of their own kind) and wonder if they accept their "chosen but not read" status. And then I wonder if I'm missing some kind of sliver of genius in those books which, while it may not result in the cure for cancer, might somehow be appropriated (that's my new favorite world btw) into the world by some other means, maybe not in a paper or a piece of writing of my own, but maybe by a status update on Facebook, or maybe when I'm talking to my friends in a restaurant the waiter will over hear me mentioning this fantastic idea and think about it and decide that he should tell his sister who tells her friend who tells her mom who makes up a story about it to tell her son or daughter who is then raised by this amazing idea that I have never read about yet.

So that, verbatim, is exactly what I'm thinking about right now.
And why the heck didn't the creators of Facebook appropriate the word "Facebook" into its spell check dictionary? Ah, the mysteries of the universe

Goals

I know why I'm in Grad School.  But you know what, this sounds pretty cool too. 

Maybe one day I'll appropriate it into another aspect of my life.

On Nuances II

Catching nuances is hard work.  They slip so easily through your fingers that you're never sure whether or not they were there in the first place.  A little like fairies, I think.  Or handfuls of beautiful colored leaves on a windy day.    Or dandelion seeds.

Oh those beautiful nuances.  So delicate and rare.  So hard to catch hold of.   Sometimes ridiculously exotic with twisty curly feathers.  Sometimes plain and blank with nothing but soft down holding them together.

How many can I catch?

On nuances

I've always thought that subtlety is the most incredible art in the world.  So often I feel as though I am stumbling through life like an inappropriate Donkey, banging into things, knocking down answers, prayers, ramrodding into the easily cracked siding of life. 

I love reading into things, like I'm slowly pulling each individual petal off of a flower, to get at the curled, delicate bud inside.  Books, forms of texts, and people are so incredibly complex, yet simple.  Like there's layers and layers of simple thoughts, emotions, and feelings in them.  I read a book called Simplexity once, which if I remember correctly covers it pretty well.  If you are complicated, it's okay, it just means you have more inside of you.

There is always more under the obvious.  ALWAYS. 

And opening up is the most beautiful thing in the world, because then the bud uncurls slowly, quietly.  What does a flower sound like when it opens?  I want to imagine that sound when someone opens up to me... even a little bit... and smiles.

Moby Dick Quotes Part III

"Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships.  No mercy, no power but its own controls it.  Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe." (299)

One image that I reach to whenever I doubt my ability to create is that of  wild sea-foam horses charging into the beach from the sea.  I like the mad battle steed better.

"Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself?  For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee!  Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!" (299)

I am amazed at how connected with himself Melville is...

"... it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever present perils of life.  And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale boat, you would not a heart feel one white more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side." (307)

This is oddly comforting, to think that perhaps in our heights and terrors of emotions, one man does not differ much from the other. 

"Oh man! admire and model thyself after the whale!  Do thou, too, remain warm among ice.  Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it.  Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole.  Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.
   But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things!  Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter's!  Of creatures how few vast as the whale! " (334-335)

I only hope that I can be vast enough to absorb your teachings...

"But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel's great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of Cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing?  Not at all. -- Why then do you try to "enlarge" your mind?  Subtilize it." (362)

Yes.  Anyone can think big thoughts, but the profound ones can grasp the subtle microscopic nuances.  I wonder if I am profound?  I suppose you can't really know that.  It's hard to discern between flattery and sincerity.

"For I believe that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone.  I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are.  A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul.  I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of the flag which I fling half out to the world" (382)

*straightens her back*

"By merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was.  The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul.  Not drowned entirely though.  Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world gilded to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs.  He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. " (453-454)

Pip, the little cabin boy, is lost at sea for an hour, and when he comes back is mad.  I can imagine madness like this.

"But even Solomon, he says, "the man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain" (i.e. even while living) "in the congregation of the dead."  Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me.  There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.  And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces.  And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar." (465)

Thank you Dr. Richards for pointing this passage out to us in class.  It implies that having a goal, a purpose, an obsession is sometimes better, or at least more noble and awe inspiring (even if you fail) than if you have no greater purpose at all.

Mellville, Herman.  Moby Dick, or The Whale.  New York: Penguin Books, 1992.

This series of posts dedicated to Dr. Richards.  

Here's to you, Phil.

So some people have gods, other people have imaginary friends, and I have... well... Phil.  It's no secret to most of my friends that I'm a steady atheist, I have been ever since age 14 or 15.  I don't mind the idea of god, I just don't think there's much anyone can really do to get me to believe that he's real.

But what I do have is imaginary friends.  When I was much littler I had dogs, and now I have a pal called Phil.  Phil started out as a little hover-robot who followed my alter ego Katy around making snide and sarcastic comments while she was busy assassinating things and saving the galaxy.  At first (when I was in high school), there was this Vulcan dude called Soron that was pretty serious and stoic and such who was Katy's boyfriend/husband/mate/whatever Vulcan's call it.  But eventually Phil morphed (when I hit college) from a little sardonic  robot into a skinny red haired poet who talked a lot of smack on the outside but was lonely and melodramatic on the inside.  I remember describing him as a guy with carnival eyes; someone who gave you the impression that he was a one way ticket to fun 'n good times but ended up derailing halfway between sad and desperate.  Once he morphed into a dude instead of a bot, he was involved in a love triangle (kind of one sided on his part) with Katy and Robert, who was almost a vulcan, but in a human way, which was a lot less romantic, and in retrospect, a little depressing.

But anyway, Phil ended up talking to me a lot, and picks up a lot of my ex-christian praying.  He's a good guy to reason things out with, and he's a good guy to kind of half-heartedly pray too, 'cause he just shrugs and says, look, I can't do too much, you gotta do it yourself.   That's when he's not running around and climbing trees and generally acting like the playful snarky tomboy (who IS a boy... tell me how that works).  He's not really sad now that he's not in a love triangle, which I appreciate to no end.  I don't really know where Phil is going or what he's doing, he's just my bestest imaginary friend ever.  Maybe one day I'll try doing some creative-type writing again and he'll finally get the leading role he deserves, but til then well, here's to imaginary friends like Phil, and the creative juices that make 'em.

On Eccentricity

Eccentricity is often visible, though not always in the way one would think.  Those who are eccentric are either slightly harried looking, or sometimes impenetrable.  The impenetrable ones are those who are self aware, and know that they must present a certain image of theirselves to society.  Those who are harried looking either don't care, or just plain don't have the time to look impenetrable.

I look impenetrable sometimes.  At least I hope I do.  I can't wait until I feel comfortable looking permanently harried, though.

Moby Dick Quotes, Part II

But I now leave my cetological System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower.  For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity.  God keep me from ever completing anything.  This whole book is but a draught -- nay but the draught of a draught.  Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience.  (157)

I think the most daunting thing about writing is completion.  Perhaps this is a hint... I do not have to finish.  Maybe I should try writing again sometime. 

 "He lived in the world , as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri.  And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age, Ahab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom!" (166)

Yes, depression is like that.

"Swerve me?  The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run.  Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!  Naughts an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!" (183)

Yes, being stubborn is like that.  I'm slightly concerned that I seem to be relating to Ahab so well.

"I plainly see my miserable office, -- to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with a touch of pity!  For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it.  Yet is there hope.  Time and tide flow wide.  The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside.  I would up heart, were it not like lead.  But my whole clock's run down; my heart the all controlling weight, I have no key to lift again." (Starbuck, on Ahab, 184)

Argh, Starbuck, argh.

"Gnawed within and scorched without, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some incurable ideas..." (202)

uh huh, have those kind of ideas often.

"Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way?  Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a clor as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snow -- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink?  And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues -- every stately or lovely emblazoning -- the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtle deceits, not actual inherent in substances, but only laid from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic that produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge -- pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him.  And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol.  Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?" (on the whiteness of Moby Dick 212)

Whew, long quote, but an important one, I think.  Beautiful language, though it might have something to do with racism... for the purposes here though, I'm just going to bask in the beautiful language and think of the way that sometimes it feels like a smooth white stone overcaps my mind, blanking out everything in it.  That's what this passage makes me think of. 

"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.  However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing.  He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs,and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints."  (247)

Still reminding me of Douglas Adams. 

Melville, Herman.  Moby Dick, or The Whale.  New York: Penguin Books, 1992.

This series of posts is dedicated to Dr. Richards

On Playfulness

My ambition is to always be child-like (not childish, childishness is something completely different).  Play to me is creating, imagining, and learning.  I think some people think that the things I think of and dwell on are kind of dull, but in reality they are not.  They are subtly joyful spirited expressions of my soul (and yes, though rationally an atheist, my creative side still believes in "soul").  As I said in a previous post, I love reading about things no one has thought of before, and that extends to the way I think.  I want to think about and write about things no one has thought of before as well.   Reading is a way to discover new things; I am more an Indiana Jones styled archeologist when I read more than anything else.  I love studying things that are unstudiable, like televisions shows, adverts, music videos.  I love theory because it helps me understand the things I am thinking about. 

To me, play is a focused endeavor.  If I read, I read, if I play a game, I play a game, if I draw I draw.  I have a problem letting go of ideas, and am obsessively stubborn.  But I must be involved and included, or I steep myself in the media too much.  I can't stand movies because I insert myself into the characters.  I cry horribly at movies, to me they are too cathartic... too much emotion in to small a space.  If I watch something, I'd much rather watch a tv series, something that involves more character development than splashes of crazy feeling emotion.

Playfulness is different from fun.  It is not an objective, it is a state of mind. 

Kid TV Shows

Have Awesome Opening songs nowadays.  Seriously:

Moby Dick Quotes, Part I

"Here was a man... thrown among pepole as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship;always equal to himself." (On Queequeg, pg. 56)

I like the statement "always equal to himself".  How does it feel to be unequal to yourself?  I think I've felt that before, an uncomfortable, shaky feeling...

"... no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part." (60)
 
I remember when I was a teenager, I always spent an hour and a half falling asleep at night, spending time with myself and dwelling on things.  Sometimes we do find ourselves better in the darkness.

"Oh sweet friends! hearken to me.   It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt" (on clam chowder, pg 74)

nom nom nom...

"A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy!  All noble things are touched with that." (on Pequod, pg. 78)

True, I always feel a little noble when I'm sad. 

"I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshiping a toad-stool; or those other creatures in certain parts of the earth, who with a degree of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of a deceased land proprietor merely on account of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name." (90)

Ha!  This reminds me a bit of Douglas Adams (or does Douglas Adams remind me a bit of Melville?).  Brilliant, though one gets the feeling that he's a little less tolerant than he'd have you believe... but then again it might just be the climate of the times.

"But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself.  And much this way it was with me.  I said nothing, and tried to think of nothing."

Ugh.  Much better to face the facts Ishmael, Ahab's a loon. 

Melville, Herman.  Moby Dick, or The Whale.New York: Penguin Books, 1992.  


Thanks Dr. Richard.   

On the Awesomeness of Puns

Puns are great.  People don't realize just how amusing a pun can be... puns are a form of wordplay that can involve references to different ideas and thoughts that others don't know about.  For me at least it's like a huge network of inside jokes.  Sometimes puns are obvious on the outside... take the Merit Badger in the post below.  Outwardly we can all have a giggle over the goofyness of having a badger instead of a badge, but since badgers are of cultural significance to me in a way most people don't know of, the Merit Badger takes on a deeper meaning. If to me badgers are loyal, faithful, compassionate, trustworthy creatures (through over a decade of reading children's and adolescent novels about these critters... "Redwall" and "Animals of Farthing Wood" anyone?), the merit badger gains deeper metaphorical meaning.  And add on top of this different meanings of the word "badger".  Who do we badger?  On what topics do we badger them?  Perhaps badgering is, in a way, a trait of someone who is loyal and compassionate (at least, I hope so, I do a lot of badgering).  Which leads to the next idea:  puns don't have to be funny.  In fact, puns are more meaningful if they're not funny.  In fact, puns can evolve, through that network of inside jokes and metaphors, into something that is deep and layered in nuances.

When I pun, I do not always joke.  The joke is just a side benefit of the pun. :)

Therefore, puns are awesome.

Books and other texts

For me, books are very sacred, special things.  I love cracking their spines, dog-earing their pages, highlighting favorite passages, and generally making a mess of them.  If a book is especially special, pages will fall out upon picking it off the shelf. 

The best sorts of books are those that make you think of things in a new way.  I had an excellent professor as an undergrad, who taught both Milton and Science Fiction, and who would go off on a passionate rant whenever he came to a passage like this.  "Argh!" he would say (paraphrased) "I'm nothing man!  These guys were thinking of things no one had ever thought of before!  Isn't that incredible?"  So from that point on, I have loved books which have described things in a new way.  Traditional literature is full of this, but in this day and age I believe that science fiction is becoming especially poignant in this sense.

One thing I hated doing in grade school was writing book summaries.  Why the heck would you write a summary of a book you could just pick up and read?  When I got older, I realized that summaries were just the start of writing ABOUT books.  In college, I came to the realization that the reason to teach and read literature is to learn things about yourself.  For me, life is a constant search for and reworking of my identity.  When I was a kid (I was perhaps the most awkward individual ever) my mom told me that one day I'd burst forth from my cocoon (I'm assuming this cocoon was somewhere between my heart and lungs) like a butterfly.  But no, I can see now that that is a cliche. Identities are not absolute.  Ever moment of every day reforms my identity.  I changed myself to be this here, and now I'm changing myself to be someone completely different.  What changes me of course includes life experiences, but in my case also involves a lot of books.  I think about what I read ad nauseum, and if I decide something is important enough, construct walls and pathes of my identity around and through it.

This blog is about important concepts I find within (mainly books) but also movies, games, TV shows, and so on.  It is also about the construction of my identity.