Hangman game!

from tori amos:

"And if I die today, I'll be the happy phantom
And I'll go chasin' the nuns out in the yard
And I'll run naked through the streets without my mask on
And I will never need umbrellas in the rain
I'll wake up in the strawberry fields every day
And the atrocities of school I can forgive
The happy phantom has no right to bitch

Ooo-hoo, the time is getting closer
Ooo-hoo, time to be a ghost
Ooo-hoo, every day we're getting closer
The sun is getting dim
Will we pay
For who we've been?"

When I was in Korea, I had great moments, profound moments, sad moments, shitty moments...all kinds of moments. I'm thinking Perry Smith's time in Korea was filled with more of the sad and the shitty, what with him fighting in the war police action and all. I only hope he had some of the profound, too. I'm also thinking that in my time on Earth, I have been privy to more great moments, overall, then he had in his time on Earth.

"So if I die today, I'll be the happy phantom
And I'll go wearin' my naughties like a jewel
They'll be my ticket to the universal opera
There's Judy Garland taking Buddha by the hand
And then those seven little men get up to dance
They say Confucius does his crossword with a pen
I'm still the angel to a girl who hates to sin

Ooo-hoo, the time is getting closer
Ooo-hoo, time to be a ghost
Ooo-hoo, every day we're getting closer
The sun is getting dim
Will I pay
for who I've been?"

One thing I had in Korea, one thing that was more than a moment, was in fact a thing that filled my mornings, my thoughts, my evenings and occasional weekends (what with field trips and telephone teaching and graduation...), and in the end also filled my heart: this thing was pre-school. Ahhh, my pre-school. I love those little five-year-old nutcases. I might add that they were some of the sharpest tools in my Ding Ding Dang shed. I have chronicled many of our (mis)adventures, but today I recall a particular thing that delighted them.

They liked to play hangman. They liked it a lot. And I, in turn, liked to play hangman with them. Liked it a lot. Because it was easy, and ate up like fifteen minutes of the class, and it was in fact a great way to learn the language. Without exception, my older classes hated it. If I turned to the board and started drawing the little upside-down L-ish thing, they would chorus (here, imagine the tone of an eye-rolling teenager), "Ohhh, teacher. No hangman game!" But preschool? Quite a different story. As soon as my dry-erase marker had drawn that 90-degree angle, fifteen little voices, a couple of whom could ordinarily be counted on to speak about as much English as I spoke Korean, would cry in unfettered delight, "HANGMAN GAME!!!!!" And we would play.

(Don't forget the added benefit it had of helping them practice an important sentence structure: "Is there a D?" "No there is not a D" etc. Correcting the ones who said, "Is it an A?" and so forth)

I just finished reading In Cold Blood. First, some of their fellow inmates on death row, and then, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith themselves went to the gallows. It was pretty intense.

I was thinking about the game of hangman. I was thinking about how sometimes people admonish me and sometimes I admonish other people to be careful of their word choice, even in seemingly innocent instances of usage. For example, the other day I was irritated in Civil Procedure when my teacher spoke of an "astonishingly sexist article by a feminist professor," eliciting a laugh with his loaded words, which laugh I think he cultivated. Even if he was trying to prove an opposite point, he was playing into dangerous characterizations of the f-word, a word people willfully, obstinately refuse to understand. For another example, the other week I dashed off one of my law school "e-newsletters" to friends and family in which I self-deprecatingly referred to myself as "hippie-dippie," contrasting this state with the "just plain ignorant" state of some of my classmates. My friend Kim rightfully called me on it, urging me to be careful with my word choice, lest I bolster the negative perception of a certain free-spiritedness come to be known as hippie-dom. You can agree or disagree with me about hippies and feminists (I rather like being known as either of those things, actually, and I loathe most labels) and you can still understand my point.

Which is, how is it that I can have a room of five-year-olds ecstatic over the prospect of a hangman? A detached, literally disembodied, dangling "man" on a dry-erase board, his fate in the hands of some children who have no idea that they'll have better luck with R, S, T, L, N, E and should stop guessing Z, X, and Q right off the bat. And then, when either he is dead or they are triumphant, they whose fates are briefly intertwined with this hanging man, then the points are distributed to the winners and everyone cries, "Let's play again!"

"And if I die today
And if I die today
And if I die today
A-ha, chasing nuns out in the yard..."

---'happy phantom' - Tori Amos---

"The killer in me is the killer in you..."

Perry has this to say about the expected outcome of his trial: "Those prairiebillys, they'll vote to hang fast as pigs eat slop. Look at their eyes. I'll be damned if I'm the only killer in the courtroom." -- page 289

Later, his Army buddy who has come to Kansas to be a character witness questions whether Perry can really be as cold and lacking in contrition as he appears. Perry tells him, "Why? Soldiers don't lose much sleep. They murder, and get medals for doing it." - page 291

Oh, I like that last one quite a bit!

True, much of this is the posturing, to say nothing of the lashing out, that you get from a murderer on the verge of conviction. The in-your-face and yet I'm-not-that-bad writhings.

But it's interesting to contemplate nonetheless.

As are Smashing Pumpkins lyrics!

"Disarm you with a smile
And cut you like you want me to
Cut that little child
Inside of me and such a part of you
Oooh, the years burn
I used to be a little boy
So old in my shoes
And what I choose is my choice
What's a boy supposed to do?
The killer in me is the killer in you..."

-- from 'Disarm'

Perry, Perry, Perry...

I am so fascinated by Perry's little life in the "girls' cell" off of the undersheriff's kitchen. I am fascinated by the letter from his Army "buddy" he vaguely knew in Korea. I am fascinated by the two tomcats prowling courthouse square, and I am fascinated by the Garden City pastors' and reverends' and such-like folks' general opposition to the death penalty. This is the one thing I have always liked about some religious leaders, like, say, the Pope. Especially the recently deceased pope. I didn't agree with him on family planning, but I always appreciated his anti-death-penalty and anti-war stances. (I know historically popes have waged war. That's not the point. At least it's not mine.)

I am a bucket of fascination with regards to In Cold Blood. I love this book and I am so glad I chose to read it! I have just read the part where motion after motion was denied. The poor defense attorneys. Of course, I loved that chapter and related to it differently than I would have prior to coming to law school.

And, I LOVE what Capote did in the driving-across-the-Southwest-confession chapter. Did anyone else notice this? As they are bringing the prisoners back from Vegas to Kansas, in separate cars, they finally get Perry to start talking. And he writes the scene in present tense! The book has been telling the story in past tense, but this one part switches to present. It was so intense. So visceral. You're totally there in the car. Duntz says...he lights a cigarette...Dewey looks back...etc. What a brilliant writerly move.

I love this book.

Wow.

I'm off to go see how it ends...surely my appellate brief can wait a few hours more...

Holy CRAP!

ohmygodohmygodohmygod. This book is SO good!

Omaha, Kansas, hitchhikers, barns, bad checks, Miami, blond boy collecting bottles by the roadside while poor sickly Gramps shovels in the pancakes...it's all so amazing...and then, and then, and then...
---> hear the fever pitch to which I build <---
they've so got them! in Vegas! and they drop it, that word Clutter, and it elicits the desired shocking reaction, and then WHAT?!
"It was Perry...He killed them all"

Oh really, Mister Wild Dick Hickock?

I want to keep reading!!! How can a girl be expected to go to class at a time like this?!

"Open a map...point your finger--maybe that's it"

OK, now that we've got all that childhood reminiscence out of the way, and now that I've had my first official Law School Classmate In Cold Blood Encounter, in which she approached me in the library upon seeing my paperback on the table in front of me and we entered into a discussion about how this isn't really a true crime book ("I realized," she said, "that this is what all those other true crime writers are trying, and failing, to do"), yes, now that all that is done -- can we just talk about how awesome is the landlady of the Las Vegas rooming house?!

She is just fantastic. "Uh-huh. Came all the way from Kansas on a parole case. Well, I'm just a dizzy blonde. I believe you. But I wouldn't tell that tale to any brunettes." -- p. 176 I love it. She's so funny. She also, apparently, misjudged Perry. (Or did she?) She, even though she chugs her beer and gives it some thought, doesn't think whatever they want Perry for can be anything too big. She thought he was a little punk, is all.

So, did Dick corrupt him? Or what? I know, I'm not there yet. Then again, maybe I am. I don't know if we ever get to delve as deeply into Dick as we do into Perry. Also, I found myself impressed, almost like pleased, that the prisoner friend decided to inform. I picture him so vividly, lying there in his cell hearing the news reports, and knowing that the information he handed on to Dick about the Clutter family has in some way led to their deaths. I am aware that snitching is much to the dismay of hooligans everywhere. Alas, part of his fear was that he might be an accessory to the crime. Of course I look at that differently after taking Criminal Law last semester. The difference between knowing about a crime, as opposed to knowledge plus aid and purpose, which is to say, wanting it to succeed, can be a huge difference. Capote points out that the Kansas investigators would have soon made their way to this fellow anyway, as they tracked lead after lead after lead. Well, whatever. I was somehow proud of him. I wonder how it would have turned out differently had he not told?

Like - how would it have changed the encounter with my new favorite character, the skanky rooming house landlady in Vegas?! I think she's eclipsed Mrs. Myrtle Clare the postmistress, at least until we wend our way back to Holcomb and Garden City. But now, in the far western states, we're on our way to go see sister Barbara in California. Dear sister. Dear, dear sister of the not-quite-a-lecture letter.

It would seem that two of the characters in whom I most delight -- Myrtle and Ms Landlady Thang -- are kind of similar. Sassy, tough, middle-aged, seen a lot of shit pass them by in their day, laughed at most of it, remembered some fondly. But where does Perry fit in? Does everyone - or anyone - relate to him, too? Is it just me?

My kick-ass law library has a new thing: law-related feature films that we can check out! The other day, a cart appeared with a selection of DVDs, everything from Inherit the Wind to Erin Brockovich. And, guess what, In Cold Blood is among them. That is so fun! I love the law library. (Remember last semester when I rejoiced as they urged people to chill out for two seconds of their stressbag rising blood pressure legal lives?) I am excited to check out the movie, once I finish reading the book. This week, I checked out Regarding Henry instead. I applaud my law library. It's up there with Torts and the LIRR in contention for the Best Thing About Life Since Coming to Hofstra award. I really just want to go read In Cold Blood instead of, say, all the pages of Contracts and Property I should read for tomorrow...

What--I was supposed to be writing some appellate brief this week? You want me to think about school? With Al Dewey and Perry Smith and Dick Hickock galavanting about the nation variously chasing and escaping each other? And themselves?

God/murder clarification, plus geeks and freaks

Let me just note, in case my last post was unclear: I applaud my mother. I applaud her for introducing me to many things (traveling the entire country, good music, fabulous books and movies being just a few). I applaud the support for free speech, new ideas, and critical thinking that went into her letting me watch scary movies (but always the GOOD scary movies) when I was young. Rosemary's Baby. The Shining. Not insignificantly, she repeatedly denied my sister's and my requests to rent Faces of Death on our little sojourns to the video store. (Also she did NOT allow me to watch Platoon, which I really, really wanted to go see, for reasons of too many f-bombs, I think. Funny, to think about now, if you think about how prevalent that word is in my random conversation...)

I applaud her recognition, as well as my various teachers' recognition, that I was smart and had kind of moved beyond Beverly Cleary. (We basically skipped right over the whole Judy Blume debate. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret had nothing on Jaws, or Squeaky Fromme.) I find it hilarious that my sister and I would sit there prattling on acting out The Shining during the day and then I would be scared at night, and then the next day I'd act it out again like nothing had happened. And isn't that why we watch those movies, anyway? We want to be scared, even though we don't want to be. And now, since I've outgrown movie-induced anxiety, I no longer a)want to be scared b)get scared by movies. So I don't watch them. But I fondly remember when I did.

For a recent example, let's take The Ring. Not something stupid and random gore-ridden like Saw, but let's say The Ring, which came out and it was garnering critical praise and people were swearing it was "really, truly scary" and I was like - whatever. I just have no desire anymore. It's weird. I think it's funny. As a child, I would have been, like, ditching school to go see it I think. Mom would have taken me to see it and then we would have gone to lunch. Now, I haven't even bothered to rent it. Or The Blair Witch Project. Everyone but everyone was up in a snit about that movie. I would have been ecstatic at age twelve. But I saw it in my twenties. I thought it was stupid.

My elementary school best friend also has ended up here in New York. Not long ago we got together for lunch and were reminiscing about various childhood things, as we are wont to do, and I found it amusing that she remembered me being allowed to watch those movies and she remembered being jealous, too, even twenty years later. And by the way, she was the other smartest-girl-on-the-block type of thing, so it wasn't about that. It probably helped my case that I was the youngest in my family, and she was the oldest of six kids. She had good examples to set. Not me. I copied my sister in everything right as she did it and refused to ever accept the suggestion that I should "wait my turn" a couple years, and was often exposed to or involved in things ahead of my time, as it were.

And I almost forgot about The Amityville Horror! Who could forget that! The freaking flies! My sister was totally onto that one. In fact, I remember her actively trying to get me interested in that one, despite initial resistance on my part. How happy and nostalgic does it make me now, every time I'm at the station awaiting my train on the Long Island Rail Road, when the LIRR conductor calls out the train bound for Babylon, "making stops at...Massapequa, Massapequa Park, Amityville..." Someday I will ride that train to Amityville. Just to ride the train to Amityville. Maybe when my mom and sister come to visit?

But you know I was at best on the periphery of the cool kids circles, what with my being "comprehensively dorky" and all, and even at a tender age already roundly digusted by people I didn't consider smart. I would make friends at Girl Scouts or softball or wherever, but at some point I just didn't care about Care Bears/shopping/Michael Jackson and later boys/parties/trying pot, unless I was intellectually challenged as well. (This is why the thespian crowds of high school were sweet relief.) So sometimes if my sister didn't know a particular thing, then I had no hope. Like one time, that smart best friend and I came across the word "geek," scrawled in graffiti on a skateboard ramp. I think we were maybe eight. We immediately decided it was a cool word, and we started making up all sorts of uses for it. In the dictionary (clearly outdated?) we found only the definition of a circus performer who bites the heads off live animals. This, too, struck as cool. We even started some sort of club with Geek, as we conceived him, as our mascot. This all lasted until my older, daughter-of-the-hippie parents, far more worldly, other best friend (with whom I did things like discover in the gutter a discarded issue of Hustler magazine which we hid in her room and secretly looked at later) informed me that I was an idiot and a "geek" was someone totally nerdy and uncool. Duh. Touche.

My point? Did I have one? I hate censorship. So the whole notion of refusing outright to let your child read something makes my blood boil. Harry Potter, anyone? Although I personally have no interest whatsoever in the little wizard, I will passionately defend him when the book-burners start their rants.

My other point? I really did always wait for that projectile vomiting scene in The Exorcist. And now I hate vomiting. And spit. Shudder. Is there a connection? Who knows?

Still another point? Do we really know when our kids are ready for anything? When I was in Arizona over winter break on my "21 Days, 21Movies," quest, I was thinking of taking my three-year-old nephew to the theater, to see either Happy Feet or Charlotte's Web. (Since he owns Cars on DVD he had already inducted me into the world of Lightning McQueen.) Well, this necessitated discussion with my sister on whether either of those flicks would be appropriate for him. In the end, I ended up going to see Happy Feet without him, and while I don't think it would have been inappropriate, it might have just flat-out not held a 3-year-old's interest, because it packs such an "adult" moral/political punch. And p.s., I love it. The penguins rule.

As for Charlotte, my sister of course knows that story intimately (because we did also read the children's classics, before we moved on to Helter Skelter -- let's not forget that my parents had my sister and me reading by age two! I don't remember a time when I didn't know how to read) and she and my brother-in-law were worried about the ending. Was my nephew ready for death? Well, I didn't really press the point. I don't really care if nephew gets to see Charlotte's Web this year or in three years, and besides if I don't take him to the movies, that's just more popcorn for me. But I remember thinking, just sort of philosophically, how do we know? How do we know when he's ready? What does it mean to be ready? What about when someone dies in real life, and the fact that no one is ever READY for that?

Like in Holcomb, Kansas. Or Benedict Canyon and Los Feliz. And I was thinking about this as I read In Cold Blood some more in the last few days. First of all, I really, really like this book, OK. A lot. It's so good. I'm currently in the chapter where Perry is going through his belongings as they prepare to leave Mexico, and the letter from his father to the parole board as well as the letter from his sister to him made me nearly burst. It's so hard to explain the effect reading those words has. This book is so good. As I've been pondering these questions, such as why do we read about crime? and criminals? and why did I used to love to and now can't be bothered? and what is the point of the True Crime section? Well, I think it's kind of bizarre that I was several days into reading and blogging (you might say rambling) about this book before I realized it's about the humanity of the killers.

Like, I still relate to Perry, even as we learn more about how messed up he is. Maybe because we learn more about how messed up he is. He's a packrat, trying to get rid of his earthly possessions that he might travel on unfettered, but there are some things to which he simply must cling. And his guitar! I cried for him and the loss of his guitar! And sure, I might not believe in literal maps and chests filled with gold, but don't I really operate as if somewhere out there, on some level, a buried treasure lies just waiting for me to find it?

It's like the movie Downfall (Der Untergang), Oscar-nominated a couple years ago but bound to lose to The Sea Inside. Der Untergang is about the final days of Hitler, in the bunker, and I remember that as it garnered its slew of awards there was the usual (censoring? moral? "moral"?) outrage that someone could play Hitler as a human. When in fact, that was the point, as the actor said on several occasions. You would do well to remember that Hitler, and Osama bin Laden, and Perry and Dick, were/are humans. They're not machines, robots, or monsters. They are humans, and they are deeply, tragically flawed, and it is humans who do things we label evil, not random evildoers who are somehow not human. There but for the grace of God go...all of us?

And then--oh my god oh my god!!--Korea, and Worcester, and New York!!! So Perry was in the Korean war. He spent time in Korea. This, I know, affects a person. (See: historical origins of this blog, etc.) And then he's off trying to find his Army buddy in Worcester, and is this about the best description ever of a city or what: "a Massachusetts factory town of steep, up-and-down streets that even in the best of weathers seem cheerless and hostile." -- p. 137 That is SO Worcester. And Worcester is an intricate part of my family on the Napikoski side, so I'm totally allowed to say that.

And then it's New York, and his room at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue, in which neighborhood I have spent much quality time, wandering from Penn Station after I disembark from the Long Island railroad in pursuit of whatever thing I'm in pursuit of that day in Manhattan or beyond... Perry recalls:

"In over three months I practically never left the Broadway area. For one thing, I didn't have the right clothes. Just Western clothes--jeans and boots. But there on Forty-second Street nobody cares, it all rides--anything. My whole life, I never met so many freaks."
- p. 138

Perry's mother went alcoholic and left. She left on many levels, both before and after she physically left his father, and her family. Two of his siblings killed themselves. The one who remains alive and writes him the long, amazing letter while he is in prison, the letter he keeps with him and can't bear to discard, even if he's angry at it, the letter she's sorry (or is she?) has to pass through the hands of the censor -- well, that sibling is the one who ended up leading the "normal," married, picket-fence, devoted-to-children, baths/bedtime/clothing sizes, no-time-to-read-anymore-raising-a-family life. Do I see my sister in there? Do I still see myself in Perry? His prison friend Willie-Jay comments on the letter (in still another amazing passage) and urges Perry not to be too upset and to consider what it's like to be his sister, and what kind of dialogue they can really have with each other. She inhabits an utterly different world from Perry, even if she started out in the same one as him when they were young.

What happens to us? How do we make our choices and our life paths? Is there a freak, a geek, a murderer, a traveler, a parent, a censor, the potential for a horror show, the potential for redemption, lurking somewhere in all of us?

"I will hide and you will hide, and we shall hide together here, underneath the bunkers in the row. I have water, I have rum, wait for dawn and dawn shall come, underneath the bunkers in the row." -- R.E.M.

God and murders and things

I think that part of the reason I've never read In Cold Blood is that I don't really like reading about murder, really. Capote's masteful writing makes me want to keep reading this book, but it's so disturbing, on so many levels, what atrocities people are capable of. And I'm not even very far into it; they've just found the bodies and are in day two of the townspeople's reflections.

When we were young -- too young, some would say, for it to be healthy -- my sister and I developed what might be called a small obsession with the Manson murders. We pored over our mother's copy of the book Helter Skelter, although I definitely skipped most of the actual reading apart from the descriptions of the killings, and I just kept going back to the section in the middle of the fat paperback which had the crime scene photographs. Then there was the TV movie. It really is quite good, as TV movies go, and who could not love the Vincent Bugliosi character after the way he puts "Charlie" in his place? My sis and I could proudly recite the details of those August 1969 nights, including the victims' names, the places in the house where each body was found, how Linda Kasabian got immunity, who shaved and carved what into their heads...

Yeah, I know. Creepy. I was, like, ten. I also was, bizarrely, allowed to watch pretty much any horror movie I wanted. (But The Last Temptation of Christ and Fatal Attraction were out of the question.) I saw, admittedly at home under Mom's supervision, Nightmare on Elm Street...The Shining...The Exorcist...and boy, were some of my friends jealous. I think I have friends whose mothers STILL don't want them to watch The Exorcist. I grew up with that movie. I even remember the first few times; my sister (two and a half years older than me) was pretty into it but all I wanted was to watch the intense scenes with the priest and the head-spinning and, yes, the projectile vomiting, but my mom would be like, "Come on, get in here and pay attention to the movie" as I wandered about to, oh, I don't know -- maybe play with something more appropriate for a NINE-year-old?

The consequence of all this? I think there are two. One, I was pretty much constantly terrified at night during my pre-teen years. I was forever checking behind the shower curtain as I got ready for bed (Psycho, one of my mom's all-time favorites). During the light of day it was all well and good for my sister and me to imitate the twin girls in The Shining -- we'd stand at one end of our hallway and call to our mother to watch us do "Come and play with us, Danny! Forever. And ever. And ever." -- but at night I would lie in bed petrified, heart racing. If I wasn't healthy and in good shape from gymnastics, swimming, softball and the like, I might have catapulted myself right into heart failure. As an adolescent, desperate for independence, I had decidedly mixed feelings about staying home alone. None of this affected me during the day, but at night? I was a goner.

So that's the first consequence. The second is that I think I got them out of my system. Both the horror movies, and the murder fascination in particular. I can't remember the last time I went to a scary movie or even a creepy one in the theater. It must have been The Sixth Sense, or 8mm, I think. I liked the former, but the latter just disgusted me. And when I do watch them, which is rare, I don't get scared. I am 100% blase. I see now that you work yourself up into that anxiety; it's a conscious choice. I have no concept whatsoever of how adults can be scared by movies. It so seems part of childhood to me. I have no interest.

So here I am reading In Cold Blood and thinking -- wow. The writing is great, and I'm glad I've finally got around to reading it, but why didn't I read it when I was an adolescent? I remember my mother reading it. Maybe I got burned out after The Shining. I'd been watching that movie for years and when I was twelve I decided I was going to finally read the book, for my book report. We were all in the junior high library selecting books and I informed my teacher that nothing appealed to me and I was going to read a book I already had at home. When I told him which one, he insisted I get a note of permission from my mother. Which she happily provided. But of course I was up until forever late the night before the report was due, so not close to being finished. That was a long book! My pals selecting young adult fare like Cages of Glass, Flowers of Time may have been on to something!

So now I read and I just shudder. Creepy creepy creepy. Murder is creepy. The fact that the True Crime section exists is kind of weird. However, as I said, Capote is remarkable. And the book is not even that creepy yet. There's been hardly any description of anything disturbing at all. And that's what's almost more creepy of course, because you know these people were murdered, and you know vaguely how, and you're just floating along reading about this until-now-idyllic town in western Kansas, and you really get the sense of how it is for the townspeople, that this event is just so misplaced, so shocking, so wrong.

Quoting people's responses, a lot of the Holcomb and Garden City folk express their dismay and horror and shock that it was the Clutter family of all people. One schoolteacher says,

"But that family represented everything people hereabouts really value and respect, and that such a thing could happen to them--well, it's like being told there is no God. It makes life seem pointless. I don't think people are so much frightened as they are deeply depressed." -- p. 88

Now, of course, in my youthful, blood-and-gore watching, fearmongering, terrified, ghost story and Ouija board-loving, convinced-something-was-coming-to-get-me-in-the-night state, I happened to believe deeply that there was in fact a god, a God the Heavenly Father to be precise, and I also was pretty well convinced that his son Jesus was murdered and bled and died for us all. Is it a coincidence that both of those worldviews have disappeared from my life? Who's to say?

But I do think it's interesting that when I read that line, I knew exactly what that woman meant. Even if "no God" doesn't resonate with me as some sort of ultimate betrayal by the universe.

Also, I must say that I rather enjoy the postmistress Mrs. Myrtle Clare. She's all tough and sassy and weathered and thinks everyone is just working themselves into a needless frenzy.

But I wouldn't have related to Myrtle when I was ten.

"Oh, the dissatisfied with the satisfied..."

Is it scary that I relate a little bit to Perry at one point?

I mean, I find him sinister of course. I was just last night noting how masterful Capote is; he can describe without slanting his writing or passing any judgment, and he's already conveyed that Dick and Perry are sinister, while Nancy and Kenyon and the other Clutters are not. Such evocative writing. Astonishing. But in the letter Willie-Jay writes to Perry on the eve of the latter's departure from prison, he says:

"You exist in a half-world suspended between two superstructures, one self-expression and the other self-destruction. You are strong, but there is a flaw in your strength, and unless you learn to control it the flaw will prove stronger than your strength and defeat you. The flaw? Explosive emotional reaction out of all proportion to the occasion. Why? Why this unreasonable anger at the sight of others who are happy or content, this growing contempt for people and the desire to hurt them? All right, you think they're fools, you despise them because their morals, their happiness is the source of your frustration and resentment. But these are dreadful enemies you carry within yourself -- in time destructive as bullets." -- pp. 43-44

I mean, come on. I think people have said some of those exact words to me. Not the least of which people were a couple of my Borders general managers. Which, if you think about it, could be fitting because working at Borders was kind of like being in prison sometimes. And here I am at law school all the time regarding the fools around me with utter contempt.

Yet, I have decidedly mellowed on some levels. I still think "if you're not outraged you're not paying attention" and all that, but I'm also remarkably content on the whole emotionally, and I don't know that I would have described myself as remarkably emotionally content, say, ten years ago. Is it because I discovered mindfulness and meditation and yoga and other buddhist-tinged things along the way?

I took a lot of flack when the "morals" and "happiness" of the BYU Happy Valley people were the "source of [my] frustration and resentment." But I also think I changed things for the better by fighting back and standing up for our persecuted selves during my freshman year. AND changed myself for the better.

Can it be that this is a dangerous tendency, that toward passionate outrage? It often makes people uncomfortable, I'll grant that, but I always just think those people are secretly jealous that they don't stand up for what they believe. You know, another friend of mine was just blogging about this: why is it acceptable for people who don't care to tell the people who are outraged they're out of line, but it's not OK for the outraged to condemn the apathetic?

Back to Perry. Are we the same, and only the circumstances of our lives (or was that the whims of fate?) drove us to different results?

I see the other side of the coin, too. In my aforementioned remarkable contentness, I feel like people are often put off. Example, law school, where it's like a daily challenge to find someone who can actually relax and not take everything so seriously 24 hours a day. I feel like when I'm galvanting through the world road-tripping to Indigo Girls concerts and trying new things and moving to Asia and doing what I like and really believing that we can all change the world if we put our minds to it, people who are settled in their cozy homesteads behind their white picket fences are peering out at me and silently disapproving. Sometimes even not so silently.

I never wanted to hurt anyone though. Willie-Jay definitely calls Perry out on wanting to hurt people.

I think maybe I have more to say about this, but I first need to sort it out from its current state of total jumble inside my head.

But I think Perry and I both do give a damn, despite any indications to the contrary. And I think the same can be said for a lot of humans who do and who do not go astray.

Dude, where's my human hive?

On page 32, Capote describes Dick and Perry as "scrubbed, combed, and tidy as two dudes setting off on a double date..." This is interesting to me because of the use of the word "dude" and how it has evolved, about which some of you know I've long had a theory.

First of all, reading this today you might skip over the word "double" entirely as the notion of "two dudes" on a date is not that strange, if thinking of two men, although then you would say wait a minute, Capote so didn't write that then did he? Then you realize it's a double date they're setting off on, of course. With girls, presumably.

But also, "dude" is not just a guy here; it's that whole city-slickin' and primped connotation, right? I would be so fascinated to go back to the 1950s and early 1960s to hear that use of the word "dude."

Now, in the 80s, "dude" joined the Valley Girl-style speech. "Like, omigod, totally fer sure" etc. My generation will say the sentence, "Dude, that was amazing!" And we are nowhere in there referring to a male of any sort. It's just an exclamation. It's perfectly synonymous with "Wow, that was amazing." Or, in the 50s, maybe, "Gee, that was amazing!"

I discovered that we differ sharply from the previous generation in that respect --and I developed my theory -- back when I worked at Marketplace. One day I said, "Dude, something something" and my co-worker friend born in 1967 said, "Don't call me dude." Only, I so wasn't. And it was interesting to me that she would even hear it that way. I began to explore. I knew my sister (born 1972) used it the way "my" generation did. Where was the cut-off? I've since decided anyone born before 1970 lives in a different world vis-a-vis the word "dude" than those born during the great and glorious decade of bell-bottoms, shag carpet, and disco.

Also, I think the pendulum has swung back, though I think the early 80s kids still use it in that not-referring-to-any-person way. I hear, Hey! Where's my car?! while people around me hear Hey, buddy! Where's my car?

I'm reasonably certain this is endlessly fascinating to only me.

I also like the next two pages, wherein Capote describes sleepy little Holcomb, Kansas, which we all know is about to get not-so-sleepy, and the neighboring bigger town of Garden City, where despite citizens' denials class distinctions are in fact observed as clearly "as in any other human hive." Capote talks about people praising the good schools, friendly people, fresh air, and so forth of the community: "I came out here to practice law. A temporary thing, I never planned to stay. But when the chance came to move, I thought, Why go? What the hell for? Maybe it's not New York -- but who wants New York?"

I might venture to answer that. It's funny how often this has come up lately. I have such a major, vast appreciation for the wide open spaces and the small towns from which my family members hail and all that. But I do think, in the end, I could raise my hand and say, Me! Me! I want New York! I just don't need that so-called simple life that Capote is really evoking during these first few dozen pages. So many people want that. Are nostalgic for it even if they've never had it. I like visiting it, and then moving on.

East is East, and West is West

So far, reading In Cold Blood, I am struck by many things, not the least of which are Capote's excellent writing and how much reading this 50s/60s-evoking book reminds me of reading Peyton Place. But I am also struck by how vividly I picture the West and am so glad I have lived both in the West (all over it, in fact) and on the East Coast.

I have more to say. Don't worry. But, as my friend Maija's t-shirt said, "Don't mess with Kansas, either!"

Love it.

In Cold Blood, that's good enough for me!

When it came time to select a C author, I did consider a few. Colette, for starters. Always have meant to read something by Colette. And the big one, whom I consider the runner-up: Conrad, specifically Heart of Darkness. I have no idea why I've never read that. There are a lot of people in my life who have no idea why I've never read that. I have even owned it before -- and failed to read it. Suckage!

But really, as I perused the 'C' shelves, when my eyes fell upon Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, in that moment my decision was made. Everything else that was on the table was cleared off, in one fell swoop, like so many shattering dishes and clattering spoons.

And, well, there is the point to consider that In Cold Blood isn't really a novel. Well - oh well. It's such a literary book. It hangs out with novels. It's written by a writer of novels and just lots of other things too. (Funny, that's what I aspire to be.) I accept it for my literary A-Z blog quest.

My edition: a paperback, with ISBN 0679-745580

(Happy) (ending)

OK, um, I finished Naked Lunch. I think. It's hard to tell, really. I mean, it's not as if there's a plot, or story. That would apparently be too traditional. And my man Burroughs was clearly about breaking with the traditional.

Furthermore, the edition I have, the so-called "restored text," has seen fit to include NINETY pages of "original additions and introductions by the author" and "Burroughs texts annexed by the editors." None of which, I might add, I feel particularly compelled to read. But the book itself (as it were) is only two hundred pages. I don't think the additions and such should be half again as many pages as the book. That's just asking too much of my poor, graphic-images-addled brain. And p.s. it's kind of like when someone buys Cliffs Notes for, like, The Catcher in the Rye. The notes are longer than the book. What's the point?

Anyhoo, I could rant about Cliffs Notes, or I could rant about Burroughs. Or maybe I'll rant about nothing and just go enjoy my snow day.

I did read one of the "original introductions and additions by the author," before I read the book. I read "Letter From a Master Addict to Dangerous Drugs" which is dated 1956, before the publication of the book. I decided to save the other "original introductions and additions by the author," which were apparently written in the 1960s, after the book, for after I read the book, see? But now, I'm like, um, OK, do I really care? Yeah, not so much.

PERHAPS I will idly read some of them only while I am on the train on my way to the bookstore to purchase In Cold Blood. That's right, the man Truman Capote is my choice for 'C.'

And yes, I am ashamed to admit I haven't read Capote yet. But I am suddenly far less ashamed that I hadn't previously read Burroughs. I'd still hang out with him, I'm pretty sure. But now I picture it'd be like, me and Allen (Ginsberg, you plebes) in one corner of the bar totally getting all passionate and arguing about something, much to the eye-rolling "There they go again" dismay of our gathered friends, and maybe Neal(Cassady of course) would hang at our table, too, but he'd kind of be bouncing around talking to everybody, while then Jack(Kerouac. tell me you knew that one) and William S himself would disappear for hours at a time into the darkened back rooms and crevices of our world to indulge in other things, and I'd be all, "Where'd they go?" all the time and roll my eyes right back.

That's what I'm doing, I guess, to Naked Lunch, to appropriate a concept (and half a quote) from Pretty Woman. William Burroughs is disgusted with the world? Indeed. Me too. But I roll my eyes right back.

I'm amused by how much this book could offend people...

And I imagine that Naked Lunch did in fact offend many people when it first burst onto the scene, as it were. I still find it so repetitive and random that it's tiresome to read at times, but occasionally I come across really wacky and hilarious passages. No need to explain who's speaking or what's happening in the story, because there aren't really characters or a plot per se in this book, so I'll just share the fun.

A random person randomly starts talking about religious figures. He's like, Christ? He should have been at a trashy carnival... "Step right up folks, the one and only Son of Man will cure your..." Well, and then he gets a little vulgar, which wouldn't be appropriate for my family blog, so I'll leave it to your imagination.

Next, he says Buddha is a "notorious metabolic junky" who is sitting there in the lotus position manufacturing his own junk in his cells to keep himself high, and getting away with it because he's declared himself to be a holy man, now, dig?

And then, "Mohammed? Are you kidding? He was dreamed up by the Mecca Chamber of Commerce." - p. 96

It's really funny. But maybe you had to be there. I don't see how that could possibly be the case though, as that would imply some semblance of continuity or sense in this book, both of which are decidedly lacking.

Good times.

What can you say about a maniac?

When I think about this book, I want to say things like, "Wow, Burroughs is a total freakin' maniac!" but then it's like, well, duh.

It's such a weird book. Its random, fragmented, crazy-vision, piecemeal approach to storytelling is so not what I'm in the mood for right now. I didn't realize that until I started reading this. So, once again in my little literary project I have found myself reading slowly. But it's not that I don't like the books I've selected. It seems like that, doesn't it? Oh, well. Things aren't always what they seem. As any of these psycho addicts(or all they are just Burroughs?) in the book would surely tell you.

Also I have learned the spelling, or at least a spelling, of slang words that I now realize I have only ever heard spoken and never seen/written. I would share, but this is a family blog. Although one could make a convincing case that by deciding on Burroughs as my B author all notions of family blogness basically went out the window.

Oh yeah, and sometimes the things he writes are just painfully cringe-gross. I'm talking not just violent sex acts but also all these maniacal doctors and surgeons pop up from time to time doing really weird things and they are rendered quite vividly. I have involuntarily made some intense faces on the bus and subway while reading. I have possibly even gasped. I have elicited looks.

I would love to comment on the plot, but I have yet to discern exactly what that is. I'll get back to you if I figure that out.

Spinning Heads

Some aspects of reading Naked Lunch are amusing.

But I still suspect it resonates better with people who've done crazy obscene amounts of drugs. Or who really want to.

Anyway, it's a little boring, nonsensical and repetitive, but it has randomly brilliant passages that pop up here and there. I imagine life with the Beats might have been like that.

"They didn't know the music was in my soul..."

Yeah. Well. Did I mention I haven't done enough drugs to catch all the endless references in this book?

I don't have much to say so far, thirty-something pages in. Except, at the risk of blaspheming all that is beatnik and holy and good, my initial reaction is a very Catcher-in-the-Rye-like "What's the big deal?"

The great thing about the above paragraph is that the only thing I could say here to offend more people than saying this "amazing vision" Naked Lunch is not all that great is reiterating my belief that J.D. Salinger just doesn't do it for me like he did it for previous generations. Oh, well. Onward!

"Did you do too many drugs
I did too many drugs
Did you do too many drugs, too
Baby
You were born too late
I was born too soon
But every time I look at that ugly moon
It reminds me of you..."

-- violent femmes, 'american music'

B is for Naked Lunch

All right ladies and gentlemen, if there be any among you. William S. Burroughs. I'm ashamed to say that until now I have actually not read anything by him. What indeed is up with that? And I call myself a Beat-lover. Let's see. If I were accused of being a Beat Generation devotee, would there be enough evidence to convict me?

• I read On the Road as any disillusioned 18-year-old should, while traveling across the country (specifically, from Washington D.C. to Flagstaff, Arizona)
• In Contemporary Poetry class sophomore year of college, I wrote my huge semester research paper/project on Allen Ginsberg and argued that he remained relevant (yes, I was a sophomore in college before he died) even if the beauty had faded...so to speak
• "Hey, Jack Kerouac" was in fact my favorite song on 10,000 Maniacs' In My Tribe
• I mourned when Allen died, even more than I'd mourned Jerry Garcia's death
  
• To this day, I subscribe to the "Beat News You Can Use" e-newsletter, wherein I keep up on all the goings on of the folks who run the Beat Museum in San Francisco and regularly take the Beat-Mobile out on tour
• I read Joyce Johnson's Minor Characters and even got my mother to read it
• I've participated and won prizes in poetry slams
  
• For god's sake, Douglas Brinkley's The Majic Bus and the likes of Ken Kesey are responsible for major life decisions of mine, and are the very reason I'm at Hofstra! Isn't that rather Beat-like of me?
• I do quite often like to think of the best minds of my generation as starving and hysterical, although some of them should probably keep their clothes on.

And yet somehow Burroughs has fallen through my cracks. Well, this shall now be remedied as I eagerly devour my Naked Lunch (ISBN: 0-8021-4018-1).

Here's one thing that interests me even before page one. You know how lots of books' initial pages are filled with excerpts from the best reviews, the more prominent the paper the better? Well, while this one does include quotes from The New York Times ("booty brought back from a nightmare") , Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times Book Review, it's somehow more impressive to me that I find quote after praise-laden quote from some of the brilliant (albeit in a genius/madness kind of way) minds of the twentieth century: Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, Anthony Burgess...

And I'll just say flat out, I'm not entirely sure I've done enough drugs to keep up with all the references in this book. Man, was Burroughs a fan of the opiates. This edition ("the restored text") includes additions by the author, including one "Letter From a Master Addict to Dangerous Drugs" he wrote in 1956. It's a very straightforward analysis of different drugs and his experience with addiction to or withdrawal from them. It's quite informative, actually; I found myself oddly entranced as he matter-of-factly explains why alcohol and prolonged sedation are terrible for curing opiate addiction, while anti-histamines are a bit better.

In the past few years, I have observed very closely from the sidelines as in more than one area of my life a person very close to someone close to me has struggled with heroin addiction. I daresay it's actually kind of creepy how in a matter of a few years I was faced time and again with people figuring quite prominently in my life who had a heroin addict figuring quite prominently in their lives. I learned a few things, but still feel on the whole rather ill-equipped to deal with such a mind-boggling, intense addiction.

This book is already interesting food for thought, and I'm still perusing prologue and addenda!

"And then there is the information, which is nothing, and comes at night."

It has come to my attention that I have been reading this Martin Amis book at a pace that can be described a few ways. One of those is "slow." This has been pointed out by more than one acquaintance/friend/blog reader.

Well, listen people. I'm a busy woman! I was -- um -- busily doing nothing in Arizona! I had movies to watch. Enchiladas to eat. Trivia to conquer. (Do you think I'm still atop the rankings of Big Daddy's Grill?) Then I came back to New York where I have been exTREMEly busy. You know, settling into a new semester. Watching more movies. Getting reacquainted with my local bars.

No, I mean, a book is meant to savor, isn't it?

OK, you're right. I read The Information at a glacial pace. I bought it and came up with the vision for my quest and then promptly finished reading that silly Van Gogh mystery before I even dove into Amis. Then it was law school semester two, and I really do have reading to do for my classes, so I had to get my Contracts-Property-Civ Pro-Transnational-Appellate routine all sorted out. And it IS Oscar season, so how can I not attend to my waiting Netflix discs?

Or maybe I was just reading Martin Amis so slowly because I was trying to build an audience -- a following -- someone who cared whatsoever -- about my little blog project. Yeah.

But I finished it! I did! It's done. And now I am moving on to B. So I'm a week or two behind. I'll catch up. I am nothing if not a procrastinator, and procrastinators are good at one thing: getting crap done when the best time to do it has already passed. I'll be back on track before you know it.

So who's with me? Who's going to read the next selection? B is for Burroughs. Naked Lunch. My edition is ISBN: 0802140181.

Also, I have a lot more to say about Amis! For one thing, in general I thought The Information was very good indeed. In the end, it was cool that Gwyn had his own revenge going but he was just such a smarmy one, and I found myself really rooting for diabolical Richard. Boy, was Richard ever doomed.

And haven't we all known a book like Amelior, Gwyn's post-modern fairy tale about which the world suddenly, inexplicably goes nuts? (Tuesdays With the Harry Potter Code, anyone?) I was viciously amused and sad for Richard as if he were a real person when the profundity requital winner was revealed...

Oh, now I've done it. I've insulted Harry Potter. This may be grounds for getting struck by that stupid lightning bolt on his forehead or wherever. I'll just crawl off to start on Naked Lunch (classes? what classes?) and leave you with a few choice quotes from The Information. Maybe they are better when you read them in context. Maybe you should do that!

"So he really didn't want to be wallowing and languishing, with Gwyn, in that twenty-first-century nautilus, that regency spaceship of fish tanks and startling energy bills, where every room had three televisions and five telephones (American luxury having much to do with the irreducible proximity of televisions and telephones)..." - p. 238

"Phil's full name was Phil Smoker. Richard thought it might save a lot of trouble to be called Richard Smoker, particularly when you were in America." -- p. 352

"It seemed to him that all the time he used to spend writing he now spent dying. This was the truth. And it shocked him. It shocked him to see it, naked. Literature wasn't about living. Literature was about not dying.
Suddenly he knew that writing was about denial.
Suddenly he knew that denial was great. Denial was so great. Denial was the best thing. Denial was even better than smoking." - p. 337

"On the other hand, he was free to wonder why so many writers' women killed themselves, or went insane. And he concluded: because writers are nightmares. Writers are nightmares from which you cannot awake. Most alive when alone, they make living hard to do for those around them. He knew this now--now that he wasn't a writer. Now that he was just a nightmare." - p. 314

And if you do yourself no other favor today, stroll into your local bookstore and at least read pages 236-237, about junk novels and airports!

Thanks, Martin Amis. It was fun hanging out with you.

Writer, party of one.

Ah, but of course. Of course, in the end, Richard hits upon the perfect plan by which to sabotage his friend the writer. It's so obvious; why didn't I think of that?! I feel like I shouldn't say what the plan is, that I shouldn't "spoil" it. That would of course require someone for whom it is to be spoiled to be a)reading this blog b)reading the book c)caring one way or the other if the ending is ruined. Group A is so small in itself, and B might not even exist, necessarily making C non-existent as well.

Here's another thing about writers. OK, Amis (as Richard) is SO DARKLY FUNNY about poets in this book. Richard's wife went through a period before their marriage but after they two had initially been together in which she saw other writers. And by "saw" we of course mean knew. In the biblical sense. So he has this whole spectrum on which he places the writers and it's really cyncial and funny. Like, of course she's going to sleep with poets, but novelists? That hurts. And so on. And he relates it to a theory that the harder things are to write, the less the writer gets paid for them ("just ask the poet at the bus stop") ... and that particular continuum ends with screenplays on top. *smirk*

But he's even funny about poets besides that, earlier on. He says nothing happens to novelists: they're born, they get sick, they die... "They learn to drive, unlike poets (poets don't drive. Never trust a poet who can drive. Never trust a poet at the wheel. If he can drive, distrust the poems)." But then he adds, "Although they don't or can't drive, poets get around more." - p. 95

So it's really funny when he returns to this riff on poets and their other-ness later in the book. I definitely get a sense Amis could be a bit like me (and a million other writers, surely) who went through a poetry phase, or maybe never quite left it, but never really called ourselves a poet and nothing but a poet.

That word, poet, is one that's hard to take upon oneself. There certainly is a lot of pressure. I'm with you, Amis. Whither poetry, eh?

But don't forget, Amis is flat-out hilarious sometimes, like while they're on the U.S. tour:


"At Denver's Stapleton International Airport, at five o'clock in the morning, nobody wanted to work. So they had a robot doing it. A computer, with a robot voice: female. Richard thought that the robot, considering it was a robot and every inch a slave, didn't take any shit, always telling him to move on, to unload quickly and move on, to deposit bags quickly and move on." - p. 258

I so want Martin Amis to be my friend. He makes still another point, however, about writers: that in the end, they really are at their best when they're alone. He uses this point to illustrate that it therefore follows that they're hard to live with. But there are still larger implications.

It is perhaps these observations if nothing else that convince me I am in fact a writer.

And it's all I thought it would be

I am now officially loving The Information. Because Richard Tull's cynical observations about New York, D.C., Miami, Chicago, the United States, the obsession with the automobile that's slowly killing all of us, it's all just fantastic.

I now officially and delightedly recommend that you all read this book. In fact, I strongly urge it! Because it is genius. When you get to part three, it is all kicked up a notch.

*sighs contentedly*

Because, you see, here's the thing Richard. These observations you make? Wherein you really take Americans to task for their ridiculous behavior, while at the same time exhibiting a slightly wary or possibly even a bit jealous respect for all there is on offer? Well, some of us United States-ians feel that way, too.

But does he fold down pages?

Richard Tull does indeed do the U.S.A.! As it were. I am now in Part Three of The Information and I am happy to report that our hero has landed in New York (yay!) where he watches Gwyn (his writer friend of whom he is totally envious) be interviewed and make a prat of himself except the interviewers don't realize it because they're ridiculous too, and it's awesome so far.

But first...oh, first first first there was a scene about 200 pages into the book, a hangover scene, two pages of pure comic cynical self-deprecating genius. That hangover scene alone justifies you reading the book, I swear. I laughed out loud multiple times. I will not let the irony go unmentioned that coincidentally, the morning after I read that particular scene I had my own world-weary head to contend with in the a.m. Funny that. You know, I went through a period of several years in which I was quite diligent about hangover avoidance. I faithfully followed my three simple rules of water, bread, and painkiller before sleep. Copious amounts of water, that's the key. If there was no bread to be had, in dire situations some crackers or potatoes or whatever handy starchy thing was lying around would do. Lately I guess I've been slacking off and I'm not sure why. I can justify skipping the food once in a while, but not drinking the water is just unacceptable.

This morning I woke up with my bottle of Dasani next to me in bed. Still completely full. It just lay there, as if it were a peacefully slumbering significant other or something. Full, neglected bottle of water. Hello? Paved with good intentions, my friends.

It took me about an hour to convince myself that yes, I was, indeed, going to get up. It was another 45 minutes or so before I did so. I would like to point out in my defense that this particular massively dehydrated and fatigued state was worsened by the fact that I missed my Long Island Rail Road train last night at the transfer point in Queens by, like, ten seconds. I saw it pulling away as I stepped out of the elevator onto the platform. The next train came ONE HOUR and THIRTEEN MINUTES later. Outside platforms, there, at Jamaica Station. Yeah, cold, drunk, 3 a.m., pitiably tired... I wanted to cry. I really did. I talked to a fellow traveler who had just missed her train to Far Rockaway. She'd approached me asking where she could buy a snack for her hour-plus wait. Fat chance, I told her, in the wee hours of the night at Jamaica. I hoped she'd want to share a cab but we were going in vastly different directions and a solo cab would be way too expensive from there.

I sometimes feel like I spend my life transferring at Jamaica, and there are all kinds of trains going in all directions, but the 2:30-3:30 a.m. hour is just not a good time. And there is nothing but NOTHING in that sketchy ol' neighborhood. I think even the pizza slice place is closed at 3 a.m. I once popped into one bar around the corner, and while I had a great time chatting with all the men, locals, among whom I was a complete and total fish out of water but a bemused one, the beers were only $1.50. That made me suspicious it's a money-laundering front or something. Dollar-fifty beers? In New York? So I don't really hang out there. Anyway, it was also closed at 3 a.m. It was just me and Martin Amis, and a few other beleaguered souls.

Wow, do I digress. Back to Richard.

"He knew American fiction, and he knew that fiction, considered in aggregate, would not lie. For him, coming to America was like dying and going to hell or heaven and finding it all as advertised. " -- page 221

I love it. Not just for its insight into the U.S. (oh, yeah!) but its subtle and only partially sarcastic comment on literature as well. Truth can be found in fiction. This is a notion I often emphasize when discussing, say, the Bible with people. Of course literature and mythology and tales we tell reveal truths, even when they are not a representation of facts and nothing but the facts.

Also of note, on that same page, Richard says "he knew, the instant he arrived on its streets, that New York was the most violent thing that men had ever done to a stretch of land..."

Last night after I had died and gone to the Long Island Rail Road, I might have agreed. But I've been thinking about this a great deal lately, about what living in New York (the state, the proxmity to the city) is doing to my love for New York (the City). For starters, I have called Long Island a pit on not a few occasions. An armpit, even. I think and dream and ponder about living in Manhattan for my next two years of Hofstra -- if not now, when?, eh -- but then I try to convince myself it makes sense to live closer to campus and just play in The City.

But I'm getting off the subject of my blog. I just -- love Manhattan. The energy when you step on the sidewalk. I never would have thought to characterize it that way, as violence done to the island. But I folded down the page, because that made sense to me, too.

I'll be sad to see this book end. Although I'm a week behind in my quest, and I so need to get crackin' on my B author. (FYI, Borges, Burroughs, and Barth appear to be the finalists.) I have folded down a lot of pages. That means I like the quotes, the things Martin Amis has said, the way he puts them. I used to have these two other voracious reader best friends in L.A. and they would chide me and my page-folding habit. I don't do it with hardcovers, only paperbacks. That somehow makes sense to me. They couldn't bring themselves to do that damage to a paperback either.

New York, New York. And oh, the things Richard does.

TV and Information

Everyone keeps telling me (well, I say "everyone" -- but really, it's more like the all of three people or so who have had anything whatsoever to say about Martin Amis) that I've selected the wrong book of his to read. I really don't hate this book, though. I just want to find someone with whom I can talk about it. One person has even suggested I switch. I kind of like this book, though, and want to know what happens. And it isn't turning me off of Martin at all; I'll definitely want to read another of his...which I'm gathering should be Money.

I've recently read the part where the crazy criminal/entrepreneur guy enters Gwyn and Demi's house as a burglar. Among his ruminations about possessions in various houses, whether luxuriously fashioned or sparse, whether there are candles or couches or mahogany or plastic, he notes that rich or poor we all have this common denominator of the gray square, the television.

I like to remember the times when I actually didn't have one. Those times shocked people. They were basically -- when I lived in my studio apartment in Hollywood. Before my friend moved and gave me his old TV on his way out of state. I've had a recurring theme in my life of people giving me their old television sets. Oh! And our sophomore year of college, in that apartment with Mara, Ranj, and Kristen. We didn't have a TV. We were definitely the odd girls out. On many levels. I love that I had three whole roommates who also didn't need a television.

It's just - if it's there, you'll watch it, you know? But life without television is really fine. And of course, I use it now for watching DVDs. Quite often. (I'm all about the Netflix. All about.) Another ex-roommate, Renee from Boston, once questioned why I make such a distinction between watching movies (which I adore, recommend, and can't understand how anyone could NOT do) and watching TV shows (which I scorn, am picky about, and avoid).

See, my whole thing is that a film is a complete work of art, much as a book or a play. Or even when you read a magazine, if you read a magazine cover to cover. When it ends, you are finished. You've completed something. At that point you might stretch, stand up, go get something to drink, call someone, go out, go to school, go to work, go to bed, go jogging -- basically, you go and do something else. Television is the one that doesn't really work that way. When you sit there watching TV, a show ends and then you get sucked in to the next one, because before there's any settling, processing, or contented sigh it's "UP NEXT! DON'T GO AWAY!" and so on. Sucking you in. You're never satiated.

You don't really do that with something else. If you finish a book, you don't reach over and pick up the next one that very instant (except possibly in circumstances of extreme sickness). In the theater, you finish watching a play or a movie and then you go home. (Unless you're a rebellious teenager trying to sneak into another flick for free. I've found that just makes your ass hurt by the end of the day, really, if you watch too many.)

Note also that this is why I don't really like watching movies on commercial television, and I am generally OK with watching TV shows on DVD. (Have I mentioned that I love Netflix?)

Television strips away your ability to recognize when you should be finished. It is inherent in the medium. And that is how it wins. And is pernicious. And takes our money. And so on.

Renee was right -- there are some crap movies, and some quality entertainment on TV. It's just that the medium is the message, you know. (And if you think I made up that last, I shall further mourn for the general state of things.)

Please note: I look highly upon television's ability to bring us together for shared events, be it a prominent person's funeral, 9/11 coverage, etc. Also, the announcement of the Oscar nominations, brought to me live. (Although last year from Korea I watched them streamed live on MSNBC.com...)

More pain?

The more I read The Information, the more I think it is memoir-ical. (I just made up that word.) Not totally, in the "all-first-novels-are-thinly-veiled-memoirs" way (thanks, JSFoer) but in the sort of "oooh, that paragraph probably really happened to him" way.

And, I am still finding passages that are biting, sharp, funny but then also when you think about it quite sobering. Example:

"The target is driving along. Without a care in the world, as they say. Although of course no one old enough to drive is without a care in the world. No one old enough to drive a trike is without a care in the world. Everyone is right up there at the very brink of their pain limit. That was one of the reasons why it was so easy to hurt people: they were never ready. More pain? Nobody needed that. Nobody thought they could possibly have room for any more, until it came." -- p. 147

So, our buddy Martin Amis appears on the cover of Pages magazine this month. There's an interview in which I learned things about him, including that The Information apparently sold only about 40,000 copies. I sort of think that half or fewer of the people who buy a book ever get around to reading it, but even if it's more, plus factoring in libraries, used bookstores, and borrowing from friends, let's say 40,000-50,000 people have actually read this one. Could that be true? It's sort of mind-boggling to contemplate. Let's say I tack on a few more out of generosity and imagine 60,000 have read it. Let's say based on population of large English speaking countries that not quite half of those readers are in the U.S., so I'm down to 30,000. This puts me at fewer than 1,000 per state. Even though I've lived in California (biggest population) and Boston (uber-literary city) and New York (the best of both of those worlds) I'm suddenly less surprised that I don't know a soul who's read it.

Perhaps I should indeed have selected Money or The Rachel Papers...

But I like this one!

Richard Tull does America?

One of the most interesting parts about my experience teaching English in Korea had nothing really to do with Korea; it had to do with the expat scene, which consisted largely of Canadians, and had also quite a few English and Irish, a fair amount of Australian, and even some New Zealanders and the occasional South African. In other words, the English-speaking world converged, and it wasn't all Americans. I found this refreshing (except for that brief moment Thanksgiving week, 40 days in) and I also got used to it, so I forget that it's still a new and interesting concept to a lot of my acquaintances here in the United States when it comes up in conversation.

Besides the general goodness of getting a different perspective on one's country and my fun new friends from around the world, it was also fun that some of my friends jokingly made me an "honorary Canadian" at the end of my sojourn. In fact, the first thing one of my Korean co-workers said to me when I got to the school that first day was, "You don't look like an American." I was never entirely sure what that meant.

In The Information, Richard Tull is trying without success to burst the bubble of his friend Gwyn's success. Richard is insanely jealous of Gwyn, because Richard's writing career is beyond lackluster at this point. He decides to anonymously send Gwyn the Sunday New York Times with a note: "Something in here that might interest you." This, he thinks, will send Gwyn into paroxysms of desperate seraching for the thing that will stroke his ego and/or confirm his place as a bright start in the literary firmament. After having some trouble getting his hands on The New York Times in a timely fashion in London, he is in a shop with The Los Angeles Times and he's like Ah!! Even better! It's even bigger and fatter and more full of crap. So he wraps it and even checks the Book Review, Arts, Calendar, News, etc. sections to make sure there ISN'T really something about Gwyn in it. He sends it anonymously.

The next week he is playing chess at his friend's house and sees the newspaper spread across the coffee table and innocently asks, "What, do you take the Los Angeles Times?" And his friend is like, no, some bloke who doesn't even identify himself as more than "John" sent it... but get this. Of course. Gwyn has found the item; luckily, he says, his glance just fell upon it. He could have been looking all week.

And so of course, Richard has to then do exactly what he'd wished upon Gwyn, poring over the pages until he finds a listing in the classifieds: wanted, a first edition of Gwyn's first book.

It's all rather amusing, as is the way in which Martin Amis subtly comments on these two particular U.S. newspapers. He also comments not quite as subtly about the U.S. :

"Richard was struck by an unpleasant thought: what if there was something to interest Gwyn Barry in this particular issue of the Sunday Los Angeles Times? An eight-page symposium on his work, for example. Or a whole Gwyn Barry Section. As in the UK, Amelior had first been a flop, then a sleeper, and finally a smash in the United States...this fact inflicted a wound that still out-throbbed all the others: out-throbbed the gouges and gashes visited on him by the book's apparent popularity everywhere else on earth, which he got to hear about piecemeal, from Gwyn's offhand grumbles: this importunate Argentinian journalist, or camera crew, that interminable questionnaire from Taiwan. But America. Come on..." -- pp. 85-86

And, see, that in itself is hilarious and telling, but read further and in a mere two sentences you get this:

"Could it be that Gwyn had stumbled on the universal, that voice which speaks to and for the human soul? No. Gwyn had stumbled on the LCD." -- p. 86

I love this book. I love reading it. Now Richard is in talks with Gwyn's agent, who mostly represents people who are already famous for something else before they write their books, something such as cooking or being an athlete or politician. I love that comment on the so-called literary scene as well.

For various reasons, Richard is slated to go with Gwyn on his eight-city U.S. book tour for the new novel. I hope this happens. I read on, eager to find out.

Information

Well, here are my initial thoughts about Martin Amis: the man is clearly brilliant, he is sardonic as all get-out, and I think I would most enjoy spending some time with him over a few drinks. Or possibly many drinks.

As I mentioned in the original post, in which I launched my Project Read Through the Alphabet 2007, The Information is a novel about a novel writer. I love that. Here's an example of the hilariously morose cynicism with which it is filled:

"For an hour (it was the new system) he worked on his latest novel, deliberately but provisionally entitled Untitled...In the drawers of his desk or interleaved by now with the bills and summonses on the lower shelves on his bookcases, and even on the floor of the car...lay other novels, all of them firmly entitled Unpublished. And stacked against him in the future, he knew, were yet further novels, successively entitled Unfinished, Unwritten, Unattempted, and, eventually, Unconceived. " -- p. 5

And so we have our writer, Richard Tull, who watches his friend Gwyn meet with fame and success and in what is purported to be a gloriously happy marriage, while Richard himself is no longer getting even marginal critical acclaim and has not only cheated on his wife but is pretty sure she must have cheated on him by now too, just because their marriage (he) is such a wreck. It is said that his first two novels weren't exactly comprehensible, but no one could quite say they were awful either. Now, his lack of agent and publishing prospects certainly seem to be rendering a verdict. And so he slogs through his days hoping to make it to the next drug or other intoxicant offered up by his failing life.

A girl has to wonder how much of this Amis himself has felt! I mean, he certainly is still a darling of the edgy-intellectual-literary world, isn't he? He's also hilarious. But not in a David Sedaris or even a Christopher Moore or Calvin Trillin way. I don't laugh out loud as often on every page as in reading those others, but I laugh good and deep at Martin Amis. He's also brilliant. (This next part is going to sound really snotty so prepare.) I really like reading someone and just thinking, 'Shit, he is so brilliant. He's clearly so much smarter than me. Could I even hold a candle...? Would he still have a drink with me...?' because I really feel (these days?) that finding brilliant people about whom I think, 'Wow, he's decidedly smarter than me' happens less and less often. What's that about? Age? Prozac? As the Bush administration goes, so goes the nation? Too much time spent on Long Island? Or out of public radio?

Whatever. There are even words I swear I've never heard or seen before, and not just the British slang (of which there is also a good amount). Anyway, the plot is meandering along introducing us to some of Richard's bitter jealousy, and that he has hatched a plan to "bring down" Gwyn, although we don't really know what that plan is yet. But mostly so far I'm luxuriating in Amis/Richard's ruminations on his miserable writer life.


"Writers don't lead shapely lives. Shape they give to the lives of others: accountants, maniacs." - p. 48

Remember, that's The Information by Martin Amis. My edition ISBN: 0679735739. You can get it for 75 cents on Half.com! I love Half.com! And I am definitely starting to love Martin Amis.

New Year Reading LAUNCH!

I'm very excited! Today I decided to finally set in motion a literary plan I've had rattling around my head for a while. I have been very caught up in appreciation for new years, fresh starts, launching plans and projects, making resolutions, etc., so I decided to finally do this one.

Sometimes I get just flat out sad at how very many books there are out there that I want to read, and sometimes in my Borders wandering and shelving I would especially look at the fiction and think that even one such as I, who is ostensibly a writer and who has often been accused of "reading a lot," has still neglected to read many an author. I would think, 'Some day I am going to start with "A" and work my way through the fiction section, selecting one major author from each letter of the alphabet that I've always meant to read and never got around to reading, and read something by that author, then move on to the next letter...'

Friends, that "someday" is today! And what better day, seeing as this afternoon one of my favorite new friends called me "comprehensively dorky, but also practical."

I'm not sure if it was because I've been restless with reader's block lately, having commenced and left unfinished at least four books in the past few months and mostly reading The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly, and Poets & Writers of late...or if it was because I've been so assigned to within an inch of my reading life due to law school that I need to bring some structure to my leisure reading in order to get back into novels again...or if the inspiration of New Year's resolutions was the perfect time to launch said plan...or maybe because it was ultra-convenient that there was a Borders across from the movie theater where I had an hour to wait before seeing Notes on a Scandal (see my supporting actress rant)...I think it was a combination of all of these things.

But I am totally going to do it. I figure, two letters per month. Yes, I am aware that that makes only 24. Unless George W. declares an extra month in the year so he can be president usurper longer. And I am equally aware that there are 26 letters in the alphabet. (George may or may not be aware of this.) I figure I'll throw an extra letter in a month here and there...or just extend the party through January 2008. No big deal.

And the best part is that it can give this here literary supplement blog a bit of a focus again. You will recall that when I launched it a year ago I meant to blog unceasingly about War and Peace, but I ended up getting distracted by about a hundred other things right while I was reading The Book (friends, alcohol, the play, a life in Korea, life back home, whatnot). And since then it's just been random nonsense here and there. So I hereby resolve--law school notwithstanding--to read and blog through the alphabet this year, twenty-six authors I've always meant to read. And you can join the discussion! (This may be more appealing to some of you than reading War and Peace was.)

So here's how it works: I walk into (presumably) Borders (but it could be another store, I suppose. It was Borders today, at any rate, the one at Scottsdale Fashion Square) and stare at the appropriate letter in Fiction. Today I began with "A." The rules are:

1. It has to be an author of multiple books who has received some critical acclaim or is well-regarded in literary circles.
2. It has to be an author I've never read but have meant to read.
3. Then I look at the books by that author and select one to read. It doesn't have to be that author's most well-known work if another appeals to me more.

And then, it is hoped, some of y'all might also want to read along with me!

All right, I know you're breathlessly awaiting the announcement of our first book. (I'm a regular Oprah, with all this suspense I'm building around my book club choice, eh.) Just hang tight, we're almost there. Today in the "A"s there were many authors who ilustrate the level of acclaim to which I refer, but who were eliminated from the running because I've read one or more of their books already: Edward Abbey, Chinua Achebe, Richard Adams (Watership Down), Louisa May Alcott, Isabel Allende, Dorothy Allison, Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen.

So, with them out of the running, on to the contenders, all of whom I would be ashamed to say I've never read except this is not about shame! This is about taking steps to go forth and read and next year know way more authors than I do this year! systematically! Here are the contenders: Julia Alvarez, Rudolfo Anaya, Martin Amis, Paul Auster, Sherman Alexie, Jorge Amado.

Jeffrey Archer would have been a contender, except as it happens I have recently picked up (and not finished) his False Impression. I was intrigued because it's a mystery with a plot swirling around a painting by my boy Van Gogh, and if you've been reading this blog AT ALL since we finished War and Peace you'll know Vincent is my new inspiration about whom I have had a MAJOR artistic/creative madness epiphany of late. So technically I have read Archer, even though I'm not through with that book. Anyway, enough about him.

In the end it came down to Martin Amis or Julia Alvarez. I found it interesting that I was most drawn to Amis' The Information and Alvarez' !Yo!, both of which are those writers' novels about writers. This whole plunge-back-into-good-fiction-and-I-mean-business clearly is related to my New Year's and even old year's Artist's Way-driven getting-down-to-business about my writing and myself as a writer...

And in the end, while I did read the beginning of !Yo! and mentally note to return to it one day, the first member of Linda's Alphabet Stew Book Club is none other than Martin Amis! Congratulations!

The Information is about a novelist who is watching his friend become the darling of publishers, awards committees, TV interviewers, etc. as his own writing/self seems to be flailing. He is envious, and he wants to spoil his friend's success, but how? The book has been described as "blackly hilarious," "pleasantly wicked," and "funny and disturbing." Amis himself has been called "genius," "provocative" and "demonically alive."

I'm now on page 20. Join me! This weekend I shall start posting about the book in earnest. Also--anyone out there have any thoughts on Martin Amis you'd like to share?

The Information by Martin Amis ISBN: 0-679-73573-9

Just one mockingbird canvas

If you've read this blog at all this fall, you know I became obsessed with the tortured artist brilliance that is Van Gogh as I read Irving Stone's Lust for Life.

The one quote that spun me right round, as it were, was:

"If I had painted just one canvas like this, Vincent, I would consider my life justified. I spent the years curing people's pain but they died in the end, anyway, so what did it matter? These sunflowers of yours, they will cure the pain in people's hearts , they will bring people joy, for centuries and centuries--that's why your life is successful, that is why you should be a happy man."

Just one? Sometimes I ponder this. Really, just ONE canvas(/play/book/movie/work of art of some sort) could leave a mark on the world and justify a life? The thought cries out for a skeptical response. And everyone knows that Vincent painted more than one centuries-of-joy canvas, in the end.

But recently, I read a book called The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Mean the Most to Them edited by Roxanne Coady and Joy Johannessen. And no, it's not the "one canvas" to which I refer, but I was struck by a few things in reading this book. One thing was the variety of books selected--everything from children's poetry to Sherlock Holmes to the Bible. Another was the adoration that poured out for The Catcher in the Rye. I basically consider that book the most overrated book of the twentieth century. I read it, it's fine, it's good even, but good god, the fuss! That's my take on it. I am aware that it affected my parents' generation differently. Another thing that struck me was while some of my favorite writers were going ga-ga over Catcher..., writers I've snubbed persistently, such as Patricia Cornwell and others relegated to the "Genre Fiction" shelves, had quite impressive and deep thoughts and made interesting choices that made me want to read their work, even though I usually avoid mystery/romance/science fiction/fantasy.

But finally, and here's the part about the "one canvas" -- I was struck by the fact that multiple writers chose To Kill a Mockingbird. Now, you talk about your just one canvases. Ms. Harper Lee writes this brilliant work and then up and disappears. And it has wrought untold effects! I could totally understand why it would be THE book someone remembers. The very essays about it in this collection made me emotional, remembering my experiences with Mockingbird.

I might add that the film lives up to the book--and that one of recluse Harper Lee's rare emergences was at the request of Gregory Peck's widow to receive an award in 2005 at a literacy charity dinner, award presented by Brock Peters who played the man falsely accused of rape. So, the book and the movie acknowledge each other's truth. There is just so much going on in that story. It is moving, sweet, strong, beautiful, political, compelling, easy-to-read, profound, and a million other things. If you haven't read it -- I just don't know what to tell you other than you seriously should go do that right now.

I would say it proves Irving Stone/Dr. Gachet's point: just one canvas, Vincent, can justify a life.

Why, Insomnia, Why

Last night I couldn't sleep. That was terrible, because I had to get up for my Contracts final this morning, and I was totally afraid of oversleeping. But I used some of my "I-can't-sleep" hours to finish reading The Why Cafe. For those who are aghast at the very notion of my doing any leisure reading when I could/should be studying, let me just say -- go away! Also, this book is more like a pamphlet. Think Who Moved My Cheese? It doesn't actually take much time out of one's life to read it.

What it DOES do is present a fable written by a businessman who's not a particularly spectacular writer but who had an epiphany (again like WMMC?) and so decided to write a book that gives you some things to think about with regard to your life. Such as:

Why are you here?
Are you fulfilled?
Does doing what most people are doing help you to fulfill your purpose for existing?
And...one of my favorites...you can't be afraid of dying without having done something if you've already done it, or if you are doing it every day.

This book was a totally random find.

It also has a cute picture of coffee on the cover.

This morning on my way into the law school building for the Contracts final, I saw a classmate. We exchanged the usual knowing how-are-yous. Then he said, motioning to my DD cup in hand, well, if you're able to drink coffeee...! And he trailed off. Implying that others were perhaps too stressed/jittery/anxious to drink coffee.

Give up my morning coffee? For a FINAL? Are you kidding me? From my cold dead hands!!!

America runs on Dunkin', you know. That's what they tell me anyway. Korea does not RUN on Dunkin' but there is certainly enough of it there for it to do so if it so chose. I personally ran on Dunkin' while I was there during the week, and I ran on Starbucks on the weekends.

Pity to those of you in some western states and various international locales that aren't Korea and wherever else DD has spread who don't know what I'm talking about, who never get to experience the glories of the morning cup o' Dunkin!

(And by the way I don't like doughnuts.)