A Summer Reading List, Part 2

Continuing from Wednesday, here's part 2 of my thoughts on all the books I read this summer.

8. Brooklyn, Burning by Steve Brezenoff

One of my weaknesses is young adult literature. Even better when it's kind of a romance. I can't help it! I've always really liked the way that sort of thing goes. Brooklyn, Burning is a really unique example of YA romance, however, and I really especially loved it. The romance isn't the only point in the book, large amounts of it concerning an arson investigation. Also, the main character's relationships with their parents, peers, and adult friends are very much important parts of the novel. A lot happens in a short space, and it happens really well. Plus, this book just hits a lot of the right emotional chords with me, with a lot of emphasis on music, movies, cities, and poetry. It took me a bit to warm up to everything, but when I did, I found myself engrossed in this book. A wonderful example of young adult, romance, and LGBT literature.

9. Rhinoceros and Other Plays by Eugene Ionesco

When I was in high school, I only ever got to perform in one play. And if it could only be one, I am glad it was Ionesco's Rhinoceros. Avant Garde absurdity about people turning into rhinoceroses? I'd never have looked at it before, but it exposed me to a lot of the things I love in studying literature. Plus it was just a hell of a lot of fun to perform. This was my first time rereading it since then, and it was such an enjoyment. This edition also includes The Leader, which is a lot of fun and not subtle at all, and The Future Is In Eggs or, It Takes All Kinds To Make A World, which is.... weird. But that's the point! Social commentary through batcrap craziness is something we could use a lot more of these days. Worth a read, but not for the faint of heart.

10. Looking for Alaska by John Green

There's that young adult stuff coming up again. This was great. After a long time of being told how awesome John Green is, I finally decided to see for myself. I watched some of his famous YouTube videos, and I really loved them, so it was only natural that I decided to go pick up some of his books from the library. I decided to start where he started, with Looking For Alaska. This is an excellent book. It took me a moment to get into it, because the characters were not what I was expecting. The biggest problem I've often found with YA literature is that my teenage years were rarely like it. But once I got past some of my preconceived notions, I actually found a lot in this book that hit home with me. I'm honestly kind of envious of the way John Green writes his characters: recognizable and consistent, very likeable, but also with a lot of realistic depth. This will certainly be one of my inspirations as a writer.

11. Ballistics: Poems by Billy Collins

My first exposure to Billy Collins was through his appearances on the incredible radio variety show, A Prairie Home Companion. My second exposure to Billy Collins was through his wonderful book, The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems. My third was through so many literature classes. He's a fantastic poet, and he writes meaningful, accessible poems in a literary climate that doesn't like to call someone a true poet unless they deliberately obscure any sense of actual point in smug, jumbled pretense. That might be a generalization, but I assure you, Billy Collins is still a breath of fresh air among a lot of today's poetry. This particular collection does seem much more melancholy than usual, but melancholy has never been something Collins has shied away from. I might not recommend Ballistics as much as The Trouble With Poetry, but I assure you that reading it would not be a mistake.

12. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Well, I can't acquaint myself with John Green without reading his most popular book, now can I? The Fault in Our Stars was one of those books that really appealed to me as a reader and a writer. It has this wonderful focus on literature and the way people can develop personal relationships with books, which probably is a good part of what makes this book so beloved. Besides that, the main characters are very enjoyable, and their unique insight to the nature of mortality doesn't take away any of their familiarity at all. Plus, who can resist a novel that discusses the nature of Swedish hip-hop? (protip: check out Movits!)

13. Happy to Be Here by Garrison Keillor

This is a collection of short stories by one of my heroes: Garrison Keillor, the creator of A Prairie Home Companion. It was something of a slow read for me, as short story compilations tend to be, but I very much enjoyed it. A great mix of subtle comedy, absurd humor, and distinct melancholy fills this volume, just like all the best things Keillor has done. The best stories in this volume are the ones about radio – well, they were to me – but the others are good as well. There's a story that wonders what Washington D.C. would be like if it were more like Hollywood, there's a staff report for the world's least qualified baseball team, and there is a great tale about a young man in a high school punk band as they debate whether or not they should bite the head off of a live chicken. It's a great book, and even if you just read it a story at a time, I recommend it.

14. The Raven and Other Poems by Edgar Allen Poe

I was browsing the “Last Chance” bargain bin in a Barnes and Noble when I came across this really lovely publication of some of Poe's poems. I really liked the visual style, and I knew I needed to further acquaint myself with this legendary writer, so I picked it up. Though it wasn't the best book I read all summer, and wasn't the best poetry collection I ever read, I still very much enjoyed it. I don't really have much to say about Poe's poetry - I like it, but I'm not in love with it. Besides, what can I say here that hasn't been said much more eloquently by people who studied his work much more thoroughly? I will say that it definitely piqued my curiosity to further experience his writing. And again, it was very attractive, visually.

That's part 2! Part 1 is A Summer Reading List, part 1. Part 3 will be up on Monday!

A Summer Reading List, Part 1

This blog has been a little bit neglected for the past couple weeks, much to my own disappointment. I've just been very busy with preparing for my return to school, and sometimes that got in the way of the writing and updating I've been meaning to do daily. I have been doing it some, though, which I am very glad of. And I know neglecting this won't be a habit; updating this blog and daily reading and writing have been a source of great pride for me this summer. I will continue to do so.

But since summer draws to a close, I figured it would be a good idea to share my thoughts on what I have been reading over the course of May through August.

1. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
2. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

I've always really enjoyed Sherlock Holmes since I was a kid. Growing up, I read a short story here or there, watched adaptations on Wishbone, passively enjoyed a weekday morning cartoon that placed him in the 22^nd Century, things like that. And since then, I have loved the BBC's current adaptation, and have found myself pleasantly surprised by the films starring the incomparable Robert Downey, Jr. So this year, I managed to track down a few of the books and read them. Honestly, these two books could not be more different from each other. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of some of the short stories, and each one is quick, direct, and concise. It's not bad, but sometimes it feels like the story ends just as it gets interesting. The Hound of the Baskervilles, on the other hand, wonderfully takes its time. There is a sense of enjoyment that comes from just the nature of the narration, the way words flow together and describe things in such a slow, lush way. This novel definitely takes the reader along with it, which stands in stark contrast to the short stories often featuring an arrest long before most of the evidence is even shown. I did enjoy both books, but it is not a stretch for me to recommend The Hound of the Baskervilles much more highly.

3 and 4. Kingdom Hearts volumes 1 and 2 by Shiro Ama

Not everything I read this summer was high literature. In this case, some of it was a manga adaptation of a popular video game franchise. In this case, it was Kingdom Hearts, a JRPG video game crossover between Square Enix's blockbuster Final Fantasy franchise and assorted Walt Disney films. If that sounds like an odd choice of things to crossover, it is. But the games work well due to enjoyable gameplay and beloved characters. You kind of lose the first half of that with a manga adaptation, though. But I can't really give this much of a review, since manga is a difficult medium for me to really get into. The way storytelling moves along in often cluttered pages is not something I find easy to read, at least when it comes to action series. But fans of the games and manga enthusiasts might have a different take on this.

5. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I've been meaning to read this for the longest time, and I am quite glad I did. It was a very enjoyable read. It's always an interesting experience reading something that you know only from adaptations. I was surprised to find that Alice was not as sensible and blameless in things happening as some versions have suggested. Altogether it is a very fun children's book, and it can be read as a very interesting study on post-modernism, regardless of what the original intent was. Hey, I never said I wasn't pretentious.

6. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Though I read a number of good books this summer, if it came right down to it, this would be my favorite of them. I adored this book from beginning to end, and I had troubles putting it down. When the final page ended, I went back and read the publication information, praise blurbs, and every single other word in the book, just so that I didn't have to stop reading it. I could get into the plot, but that would take so long, and there are probably many other places that can summarize it coherently. I can say though that the characters are fantastic, the plot is great, its interpretation of Revelations is really interesting, and it is extremely funny when it tries to be funny, incredibly exciting when it tries to be exciting, and incomparably heartwarming basically all the time. Read it, you fools!

7. The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa

This is the seventh book in a series of Japanese light novels that I am thoroughly enjoying. There are actually somewhere around ten books in the series, but they are being officially translated into English and released gradually. In any case, this was probably the best entry in the series since the fourth book. The pacing was good, and I was pleased to see almost every character get some development over the course of the book. A lot of the books will focus on just a few characters, or feature stories that really only develop one, but this novel managed to grow the roles of each main character and even one of the minor characters. A lot of questions are answered in this volume, and more than a few more are raised. This is definitely a great book in a great series.

That's the first seven books on this list, making this part 1 of 3! I'll continue this on Friday.

No Age Limit

"Aren't we a little old to be playing in the ball pit?"

"The fact that you phrased that as a question means you do not know the answer.  And if you don't know the answer, then to me that means the answer is no."

"Jackson Craine, I am serious."

"You're always serious, Steve.  That's the problem.  You need to learn to be less serious sometimes."

"Jackson, people are going to stare at us."

"I should hope so, it would be a shame for them to miss out on our combined attractiveness."

"Jack..."

"Steve, listen.  If people stare at us, that is their business.  And that's something that they are going to do no matter what.  This is a ball pit.  This is a safe space.  This is harmless, innocent fun."

"I don't understand."

"Look, I can't even hold your hand in public if you're afraid of people looking at us funny.  Because unfortunately, that's the way it's going to be.  So you have to get used to people looking at us.  And I can't think of a better way than this."

"So this is what, immersion therapy?"

"Think of it like a vaccine.  A vaccine exposes you to the problem - such as people staring - in a harmless form - such as having a blast while playing in the greatest invention of humankind, the plastic ball pit – and builds up your defenses so that the time the real issues begin, you'll be ready for it."

"I don't know about this, Jackson..."

"Of course you don't, you're always worried about what people will think so you never let yourself play in a ball pit."

"I thought this wasn't about the ball pit."

"Are you kidding me? Everything is about the ball pit!"

The Poet's Diary

7:00 am: Woke up. Brushed teeth, shaved.

7:05 am: Fell back asleep.

8:14 am: Woke up. Showered, put on bathrobe. Went downstairs. Brewed coffee. Waited.

8:29 am: Poured coffee, sat down in chair on the porch.  Watched the birds.

8:34 am: Saw a cardinal. Bright red, bigger than some of the others.  It's a very lovely color.

8:35 am: Realized that 'cardinal' both describes the bird and the color. Wondered for a while which terminology came first.  Both seem equally likely.  The vivid hue would be the perfect way to describe the bird, despite the females not sharing it.  But the bird would also be the perfect way to describe the color, since nature makes it almost unique to the bird.  An interesting question indeed.

8:38 am: Prominent bishops in the Catholic church are also called Cardinals.  This is getting confusing.

8:40 am: A gold finch flew by.  I don't see many of those out here any more.

8:45 am: Cardinal can also refer to directions and numbers. Threw coffee mug at bird in frustration.

8:46 am: Went inside to get more coffee in a different mug.  Made note to buy another.

8:50 am: Got dressed in comfortable working clothes. Dark to hide ink stains.

9:00 am: Sat down to write first poem of the day.

9:30 am: The paper is blank. Can't stop thinking about cardinal.

9:33 am: Found cardinal in dictionary.  "of prime importance; chief; principle." That doesn't help at all.

10:03 am: Gave up on both poem and cardinal.  Needed inspiration.  Put on hat and jacket, walked to library.

10:44 am: Found book by Billy Collins. Good poet. Writes very naturally.

11:30 am: Read entire book.  Very short.  Very depressing.  Not used to Collins being so sad, not that you could often describe him as happy.  Still can't think of poem.

11:40 am: Went for walk to be inspired or to clear my head.  Honestly, either works.

11:45 am: Saw a cardinal. Now they're just mocking me.

12:15 pm: Stopped at a cafe for a scone and some black tea. The poet's natural habitat.

12:22 pm: Inspiration strikes.  Wrote poem.  Page and a half long.  Kept writing and writing.

12:24 pm: Put away notebook. Kept thinking about poem. Finished my scone.  Cinnamon Chip.  Delicious, but dry.

12:29 pm: Left cafe. Something nagging mind.

12:35 pm: Decided to have second look at poem.  Took out notebook.  It's bright red.  Contemplated.

12:37 pm: Decided it was not quite the right shade of red to be Cardinal.  Opened notebook.

12:40 pm: Read and reread poem.  Not so sure about it now.  Put notebook away.
12:44 pm: Headed home.
12:46 pm: Stopped at a pond on the way.  Admired its natural beauty. Thought about poem.

12:54 pm: Took out notebook again.

1:04 pm: I hate this poem.

1:05 pm: Tore out of notebook. Crumpled. Lit crumple on fire. Threw in pond. Headed home.

1:29 pm: Got home, sat down in front of paper.

1:30 pm: Previous poem was a masterpiece. What was I thinking.

1:34 pm: Tried to remember it and rewrite it.

1:46 pm: Wrote this instead.  

On Dreams

"I had a dream about you this morning," I told you as I peeled an orange carefully above the sink.

You raised your eyebrows at me over your tea.  "Did you? What sort of dream?"

"It was the sort of dream where you're half awake and half asleep and occasionally wake up during it only to fall asleep again and continue." I broke off a bit of the rind, sniffed it, and put it in my mouth to chew.  "You know that sort of dream, right?"

You smirked. "No, no no. I mean, what sort of dream nudge wink."

I spat the chewed rind into the sink and finished peeling the rest. "No, it was not that sort of dream." I put the peeled orange in a bowl and washed my hands.  "A one track mind, I tell you."

"Mm, that's a pity," you said, laughing softly as you took another long sip of tea.  "Well then, what was this dream about?"

"I don't recall," I said, and I moved around the counter to sit down next to you at the table.

"You don't recall?"

"No, I don't recall."

"Uh huh." You nodded abstractly.  "Well this has been an enlightening conversation and I am better for having it."

"Well, bits and pieces here and there." I pulled off a piece of the orange, ate it in one bite and wiped my hands on my pants.

"Go on," you urged.

"Well," I said after swallowing another piece.  "There's not much.  There might have been police.  Or a building, maybe a house? The color blue."

"You're right, that's not much."

"But I think I remember this bit with a photograph.  You were showing me this photograph, and I asked you who was in it.  And you said you were in it, but I couldn't see you, or really anyone in it.  Then you showed me another and said you were in it, but there were two people in it, and I couldn't figure out who either of them were, but I was too embarrassed to ask which was you." I put two more pieces of orange in my mouth and chewed them with more attention than I would have given them individually.

"I see," you said. "I wonder what it means."

"I dunno," I told you. "Been thinking about that.  Maybe it means that I really don't know a single thing about you."

You drained the rest of your tea, a sizable amount. "Ahh, everyone puts too much stock in dreams and their meanings. Don't think too much about that."

I looked at you, taking in your features.  "Well, you asked."

You looked at me, your eyes flashing into mine. "You love me, don't you?"

"W-well of course I do," I stammered.

You kissed my cheek. "Then that's all that matters, isn't it?" You stood up and put on your jacket. "I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah," I said, not sure what to feel.

"Hey, smile!" you told me.  "You could stop traffic with that smile, you know.  I'll see you tonight." And you walked out the door.

Sins and Stages

On Monday, I woke up without you. I showered, running the water a little bit because I remembered you didn’t like to go in unless it had warmed up enough. I made breakfast and set two places. I read all day, looking up every time I thought I heard someone pass the door. Dinner was for two, romantic, candle-lit, rigatoni in meat sauce with sauteed pea pods and an unopened bottle of 2005 Merlot. I went to bed and fell asleep waiting for you. I dreamed myself in your arms with nothing between us.

On Tuesday, I couldn’t stand the thought of you. I picked up all the pictures I had of us, stuffed them into a mason jar and lit the crumpled mess on fire. As it burned, I just kept thinking how much better off I was, how I never needed you. I told myself that you held me back and now that you were gone I could finally prove how great I was and how everybody loved me and you just prevented me from shining and them from getting closer to me. When the flames settled down, I picked up the jar of ashes and melted plastic and threw it at the television. I sat down and cried until I passed out.

On Wednesday, I tried to think of how to change things. How it could have been different. I wished I had your grace and your charm. I resented that you had been so good at everything and so good to me while I was awful and spiteful to you. I wondered if I might have been half the person you were, might I have been able to keep this from happening. And then I looked through all the things you left behind. I watched your movies, hoping something could take my mind off of this. I put your Nintendo up for sale online.

On Thursday, I didn’t get up at all. I hardly moved all day, not leaving the bed, looking up at the ceiling, wishing for the cold or the numbness of death. I didn’t care that I stained the pillows as I drank the rest of the Merlot by myself. I didn’t check to see if anyone bid because I didn’t really care if they had. I drifted in and out of sleep. The awful dreams weren’t enough to make me get up.

On Friday, I waited an acceptance that will never come.

Every Day's the Fourth of July

Sometimes I wonder what people think of me as they pass by. I wonder what that little child with his ice cream pop thinks I am doing. I wonder what thoughts I cause in the people who speed swiftly down the street on bicycles, coupes, inline skates, what images I conjure in the minds of poets who might be strolling down the street, looking for a muse, a simple idea or picture or comment that might place one word firmly behind the next, and then more words following in a line or a stanza or a battalion of rhetorical soldiers.

Perhaps they look at me and see me at face value, just a frail old man sitting on a bench, jotting in a notebook while feeding pigeons on the sidewalk that leads into the entrance of the park. Perhaps they try to suppose my life story, my circumstances, maybe thinking my wife could have died years ago from terminal brain cancer, my children moved away to the corners of the world, the notebook filled with all the words I would have said to my wife, the pigeons filled with all the bread I would have given to my children.

I look at the pigeons, I look at the people, and I can't help but smile a bit. And I look down into my notebook, and my smile turns to a grin as I write the words I've been waiting my whole life to put down:

“Phase One Complete.”

“Delta Strike is Go.”

The Magic of Childhood

Like most people my age, my childhood ended when I found out Santa Claus was real.  I think it hit me harder than it hit most people I knew.  Maybe because I was the youngest of my friends.  I just wasn’t equipped to handle the harsh truth of Santa Claus and what that means.

It happened when I was six years old.  I woke up in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve to hear a loud clatter rising from the rooftop.  More sounds followed: my parents shuffling from their room, scraping from the chimney, a heavy thud from the fireplace, and the muffled tone of my mother and father talking.  You’re just dreaming, I told myself. Go back to sleep.  And I would have, but then I realized mother and father’s voices were accompanied by a third.  It was deep… almost downright jolly.  I knew right away that I had to investigate.

When I climbed downstairs I could hardly believe my eyes.  My own parents, who had for years told me that they bought me all of my presents every single year, stood helping an enormous man in a red suit unload a bag full of boxes. I wasn’t upset because mother and father had lied to me. Well, maybe a little bit, but for me, the hardest part was that I finally knew we didn't live in a world governed by observable laws.

I burst into tears, and the adults turned to look. My mother gasped, my father shook his head, and Santa looked away, as if he had seen this too many times.  Mother softly tried to comfort me, but the questions I kept asking just got harder and harder for her to answer.

I suppose I was being naïve to believe that matter could neither be created nor destroyed, or that the earth orbited the sun due to the sun's greater mass and gravitational pull. But when she told me that the stories were true, even all powerful genies and the chariot that towed the sun, I cried for hours. It was childish, sure, but I just wasn't ready to learn that I could save the life of a fairy just by believing in it enough, and if it touched me I could just think happy thoughts and fly through the stars and straight on until morning.

But again, I was only six years old. Mother made me swear not to tell my brothers about Jack Frost and wood nymphs until they were old enough to find out for themselves.  It’s for their own good, she’d told me. And she was probably right.  How could a three-year-old sleep if he knew about the boogeyman or alien abductions. These things are big, and children are impressionable. So you tell a kid that a rainbow is just an illusion created by refracted sunlight to keep him from searching for gold and getting mauled by a leprechaun.

When I have kids, I'm sure I'll take great lengths to hide the magic beans that grow stalks high above the clouds to the land of giants. But their questions won’t be easy. I don't know how I'll explain thunder without telling them about the angels going bowling or lightning without worrying them about Zeus or Thor striking them down at the slightest provocation. Life would just be simpler without them having to use mirrors to check around corners for basilisks or gorgons. I wish that could be the case.

I wonder if I could use this to my advantage. If I envisioned it hard enough, who knows? I could be able to create a new world for them. A new world where the things I believed in as a child were true - conversion and conservation of energy, a light speed that nothing could surpass, a recordable cause for every effect. Maybe, just maybe, somewhere there could be a universe where life finds a way to adapt and change and pass on traits in response to natural causes rather than the inscrutable whims of  jealous and petty gods.  Somewhere out there is a world that is billions of years old instead of a mere six thousand, in a universe that can be explored and known through careful study and reason.

Heh, listen to me, I must sound like a little kid with a storybook, don't I?  Sorry, I guess all that stuff is still pretty fantastical.  Wishful thinking.  I guess I get carried away with my imagination sometimes, just wishing that the world was a little less magical.