In the labyrinth

NOW READING:

• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald M. Stern

I have decided that the following passage from The Name of the Rose, spoken by William about the labyrinth, is a description of law school and possibly life:

"Some rooms allow you to pass into several others, some into only one, and we must ask ourselves whether there are not rooms that do not allow you to go anywhere else. If you consider this aspect, plus the lack of light or of any clue that might be supplied by the position of the sun (and if you add the visions and the mirrors), you understand how the labyrinth can confuse anyone who goes through it, especially when he is already troubled by a sense of guilt. Remember, too, how desperate we were last night when we could no longer find our way. The maximum of confusion achieved with the maximum of order: it seems a sublime calcuation. The builders of the library were great masters..."
-- p. 217

Teachers, keep on teachin'...

NOW READING:

• The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald M. Stern
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
  

As I read The Buffalo Creek Disaster, I am more and more convinced I have no desire to be a lawyer, and as I near the end I am actually questioning more and more things about this triumphant lawsuit. Like, maybe we *should* distinguish the "psychic impairment" claims of the thirty-three plaintiffs who were not even there the day of the disastrous flood from the claims of the hundreds of plaintiffs who were present and experienced the trauma. I understand that these "absent plaintiffs" also lost homes, property, loved ones, and so forth. But I think their claims are different. When I say this, it puts me on the "side" of the Evil Greedy Corporate Lawyers who represent Pittston, the deep pockets of responsibility. And that's lame. Because as with most polarized things in this world, I smell a false dichotomy.

And maybe, just maybe that's part of my problem with the lawyering and litigation process. It's really, really funny that I didn't think about this until just now. And not funny-ha-ha, but funny-freakin'-scary. I hate the "two sides" approach. Example: I hate the two-party political system. And not just because our two parties of choice are full of jackasses (as opposed to just the one party that has a jackass for a symbol). I think the two-party system is ridiculous and I resent being asked, "Are you a Republican or a Democrat?" What if I'm neither? Better yet, what if I'm both? And what if I'm both right-brained and left-brained? What if I liked English and math all through school while everyone was trying to draw some line between science people and humanities people? What if someone is both gay and straight? Kinsey would say many of us are in between, you know. What if I like L.A. and New York? What if I'm "a little bit country?"

OK. So. Litigation. This is where it gets complicated. Sometimes the art of lawyering is beautiful. Example, in Torts class last semester, where brilliant Professor Walker demonstrated clear, precise logic in all its beauty. ("What explains the coincidence is the quail." Ahhhhh.....) But today, reading about Buffalo Creek, I get angry, because sometimes I read Mr. Do-Gooder Lawyer's tale and while I love that he stands up for the citizens of Buffalo Creek, who really got screwed over, I also resent the implication that I should be on the legal "side" of the plaintiffs in the face of a good point made by the Pittston corporation, and I further resent that I should then be considered to be denying the plaintiffs' suffering. This is immature, Bush-like thinking: "If you're not with us you're against us."

Which brings me to William of Baskerville, in The Name of the Rose. He left behind the messy business of being an Inquisitor. He's wicked smart and doesn't want to go around torturing people. What's more, he recognizes that this "two sides" business is crap. In the maelstrom of debating popes, politicians, abbots, emperors, philosophers, magicians, scientists, and so-called heretics, William explains to Adso that sometimes everyone is right or no one is right and, most importantly, doctrines are bled together.

Furthermore, the fact that people are often wrong when they try to slap on black and white labels does NOT mean that there are no absolutes. I hate when people mix that up, too. Of course there are moral absolutes. Of course there are things that are inherently wrong (lying, violence, war) I hate when people are like, oh yeah, because you hate either/or labels you must think EVERYTHING is a shade of gray. No. I hate labels that show immature thinking. That show someone is incapable of thinking through the matter or the complexity of the situation. Whereas our boy William is eminently capable of thinking through complexity. Man, I like him. I so feel like I'm hanging out with him and Adso. I am positively savoring this book. Which is why it's OK that it's taking me so long to read it.

Well, that's my preliminary statement on the matter. Clearly now is not the time to abandon The Name of the Rose. In fact, it might help me get through final exams. William is like a beacon, something to strive for, a man who uses his learning and powers for good instead of evil...

"Powers, keep on lyin'
while your people keep on dyin'
World, keep on turnin'
'cause it won't be too long.

I'm so darn glad He let me try it again,
'cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin.
I'm so glad that I know more than I knew then.
Gonna keep on tryin' till I reach the highest ground..."

--lyrics by Stevie Wonder

Buffalo

NOW READING: The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald M. Stern

OK, so I have been trying to be a Good Student, and to that end I have not been reading The Name of the Rose. I have not touched it for more than a week. And frankly, I have not really found myself accomplishing all that much more for my classes and final exams than I was previously accomplishing. So maybe I will allow myself to read a few Umberto pages per day, even during this dreaded exam period. After all, let's be realistic here. It's hardly The Name of the Rose that's to blame for what are sure to be some hideous grades on these finals.

But for the moment, I'm quite engrossed in my Civil Procedure reading, and that is largely because we are reading The Buffalo Creek Disaster and it is a book! An actual book, not a casebook, text, appendix of supplementary legal materials, etc. And it is my favorite thing I have read for Civ Pro in two semesters of the class.

I think it's really interesting even if you're not a law student, and it's a quick read. The "disaster" in question was that the coal mining company had nasty refuse pile "dams" and one day when it rained it was just too much and tons of black water and debris flooded the Buffalo Creek Valley wiping out entire towns, settlements, and hundreds of lives. I'm curious if any of you "old fogies" who read my blog remember when this happened. I'm curious about the news coverage it got outside of West Virginia. I'm curious about your recollections. Please, recollect away.

As law students, we are reading this in Civ Pro as a kind of synthesis/review of the entire semester's worth of material, tracing all the procedural mechanisms of launching (and winning!) an enormous lawsuit. I actually think it's a brilliant teaching move on the part of my professor, and I'm rather enjoying it.

Here are some places you can learn more about the disaster...

West Virginia Division of Culture and History
The Charleston Gazette
Appalshop

...but I highly recommend the book!

April showers bring May roses

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

I'm not really sure that I'm going to be able to finish this book in a timely fashion. What I mean by that is: finals are coming. Oh boy, are they. They are looming so large in my entirely NOT distant future. What that means for The Name of the Rose is that I probably won't finish it until the end of May. Because I probably won't touch it for the next four weeks. Because even I, procrastinator extraordinaire, cannot justify reading that (as much as I want to!) with the vast amounts of reading I need to do for my finals right now.

Sigh.

Maybe I'll read a page or two a week anyway. It's such a good book! I so encourage you to read it. I really feel like I'm hanging out at the abbey with William and Adso, traipsing about, talking to monks, no one above suspicion, everyone revealing little things here and there, and sharp-as-a-tack William seizing upon them all. He's so Holmes-ian, that William. Sherlock or Oliver Wendell. (Wow, I've never until this moment thought about those two both being named Holmes. That's fun.)

On an unrelated literary note, in the last week I've discovered that the vast majority of my reader friends were admirers, fans, devotees of Kurt Vonnegut. I never knew. They never mentioned it, but suddenly Vonnegut died and they all spewed forth into the blogosphere their unbridled love for him. I've only ever read Slaughterhouse Five but I'm starting to think I'd best add Cat's Cradle to my as-soon-as-finals-are-over to do list, right after The Name of the Rose.

Simple Minds

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

It's kind of weird (but fun, interesting) to contemplate the history of the Catholic church in Europe. I suppose I should say "Europe, etc." The powers that were had this way of taking over more and more of everything and subjecting everyone to their will. They "converted," indoctrinated, tortured, and otherwise brought people into the fold. Sure, there were battles along the way and some people put up quite a fight, but they just seemed to get more and more power. Even when the popes and the emperors fought among themselves, the common people could never seem to get the upper hand. There was a lot of greedy storing of treasures acquired from the Middle East and other distant lands, all to make the rich richer and more powerful. And don't forget the total disregard for the truth if it flew in the face of the church-state's agenda.

When you consider that this went on for centuries, it kind of seems like we've got it easy with only eight years of the Bush Administation.

"He explained to me that all his life preachers had told him the Jews were the enemies of Christianity and accumulated possessions that had been denied the Christian poor. I asked him, however, whether it was not also true that lords and bishops accumulated possessions through tithes, so that the Shepherds were not fighting their true enemies. He replied that when your true enemies are too strong, you have to choose weaker enemies. I reflected that this is why the simple are so called. Only the powerful always know with great clarity who their true enemies are." - p. 192

Jesus wept laughed!

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Among the other issues presented in this book, some of the monks in a chapter I recently read argued about laughter. Namely, is it OK? Is it OK to be funny? Did Jesus ever laugh?

Now, of course I'm not really expecting to agree with many monks on many fine points of theological debate, especially seeing as they tend to do this whole taking-the-Bible-literally thing waaaaay too much for my liking. But this I found interesting, and I'd like to gather with Brothers William, Adso, Ubertino, Malachi, and the like to discuss it. And Salvatore. Even though with him it's not really a discussion; he just sort of rambles in his incomprehensible language blend, but I'm rather fond of his incomprehensible language blend. Salvatore is my favorite. He has only had two scenes so far, but I'm hoping for many more.

Anyway the one part I found most interesting was the question of Jesus laughing, and specifically what one of the monks says about it: that he had no reason to, because he was omniscient. Whereas we laugh so often out of surprise, shock, etc., this divine-like being knew everything so you couldn't surprise him! No April Fool's fun hanging with Christ, that's for sure. Although, his big holiday comes right around that time anyway, so maybe you have bigger things to worry about than April fooling. Anyway, I thought this was a bizarre notion. Imagine being all-knowing, and then no longer being able to laugh.

Luckily, I don't believe in any omniscient beings. But I do sometimes refer to The Universe, which I may or may not have characterized as all-knowing, especially when it helpfully delivers me cosmic signs about what I should do with my life by playing a song on the radio or something. However, if said cosmic signs and my resulting life are any indication, then The Universe absolutely, positively knows how to have a good laugh.

Take it away, Depeche Mode!

"I don't mean to start any blasphemous rumors,
but I think that God's got a sick sense of humour,
and when I die
I expect to find
him laughing..."

Dulce et decorum est...

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

There's a whole lot of Latin goin' on in this book.

I like it. First of all, I like languages. This we know. I also like being able to figure out Latin based on my 1)English fluency 2)skill in various romance languages 3)resourcefulness 4)random religious/judicial/choir-singing background and training.

But there's a lot in this book. And sometimes I can't figure it out. And then I frown. And wish for the monks to start speaking in the "vulgar vernacular" again.

That's all for now.

"I've even heard her singing in the abbey!"

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

This one is definitely filed under 'At Long Last.' I first heard about The Name of the Rose years and years ago when I did my brief year at ASU, in between my first "unfortunate incarceration" undergraduate university and my "final resting place" undergraduate university. I took an English class at ASU called Medieval Lyric. It was quite honestly the most specialized class I took throughout undergrad. I can't for the life of me remember the name of the woman who taught it, either, despite the fact that I liked her, and she even had us over to her house at the end of the semester. In fact, she was the first person I heard talk about Dolores Claiborne, too. And we all know what a life-changing experience watching Dolores was for me.

Well, in good ol' Professor What's Her Name's class we talked about lots of medieval things but we also talked about lots of medievel women things. In fact, that was where I first heard of Hildegard von Bingen, too. Wow! I learned a lot in there. Why don't I know her name? Anyway, the class was small. About 10-15 of us. There was one girl in the class who seemed to have read every book on the planet. She was sort of intimidating, in that college-student-feminist-granola-fiercely-smart way. I liked to read, but this girl put me to shame. She brought up The Name of the Rose during one of our medieval women discussions. She said I would love it and "HAD to read it." I was mighty intrigued and pledged to do so. Well, years later I finally make good on this promise.

In the intervening years, of course, we have seen the phenomenon of folly that is The Da Vinci Code. Now, don't get me wrong. I was all over Dan Brown's little mystery, too, and in fact was the first on my block to read it. (And I have a great story about that, too, as anyone who has spent enough time in a bar with me knows.) But I had the misfortune to work in Borders during pretty much the entire reign of The Da Vinci Code; I'm pretty sure it finally came out in paperback sometime while I was in Korea. (The movie came out while I was there, too, but near the end of my time. I still haven't seen it.)

I call the Da Vinci craze folly because I was working in heavily Catholic Massachusetts and I got really sick of people coming in all in a snit about the book. For two reasons. One, these people acted like "God" had just strolled into their bedroom and announced "he" was taking back everything "he" had previously "said," and I just wanted to say, "It's FICTION people. Get over it. When did Dan Brown become your pope/prophet/pastor?" Whatever.

Second reason, though, is because I found nothing all that contradictory to Christianity as I knew and somewhat liked it in the book. Toward the end of my time as a religious person, I was also becoming quite the philosophical feminist, and I pointed out on more than one occasion that Jesus was clearly a feminist and that The Church has hidden certain things over the years and the Bible best illustrates truths when it's not being taken literally and so on and so on. Now that I'm entirely over religion, I don't really care about most of that anymore, but I still marvel at people who are clinging to their religious fervor on whom none of that has dawned quite yet.

Anyway, this is why I am very much liking William, with whom our narrator hangs out visiting the abbey. William is a brilliant monk, inquisitor, judge of human nature and more...and he seems to be challenging some traditional notions of what is good/bad/sin/holy. I like it.

Long live the trobaritzes!

This fate has been brought to you by the letter E

OK, here's how it happened. After my glorious journey through Philip K. Dick's dystopic Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, it was time to select an 'E' author, and the finalists were Louise Erdrich, George Eliot, and Umberto Eco. Only George Eliot was probably never really more than a courtesy finalist. I mean, I may have even picked up Silas Marner once before in my little lifetime, or was it Middlemarch? At any rate, didn't get past a page or two. But as much as I've meant to read her, this little A to Z quest of mine has turned out to be not so much about "classics" and more about twentieth century modernish literary men.

Notice, men. That was one of my main thoughts going into letter E. It was about damn time I had a woman author. At the same time I didn't want to let that stop me from reading something I otherwise intently wanted to read. For example, a book by Umberto Eco. Namely, Foucault's Pendulum, or, even more highly anticipated for even longer, The Name of the Rose.

Well, but then Louise Erdrich, heard so much about her, too. So perhaps it was time for fate to settle this once again, fate having worked out so well with the way it stepped in and chose a Philip K. Dick novel for us.

This time around, I asked fate what to do by going to the Hofstra undergraduate library. After spending enough time in front of the George Eliot shelves to confirm I wasn't really in the mood for her, I moved on to Louise Erdrich, where I was happy to find The Painted Drum, the one of hers by which I was most intrigued. I flipped through some of her others and then decided to stick with that one. All right, then, on to Umberto Eco...and if The Name of the Rose wasn't there, fate would be telling me to read Louise Erdrich.

First I had to remember that what with Umberto being Italian and all, he was on the next floor down (argh, I still say, to Library of Congress call numbers), and then when I finally got there, there was in fact no Rose. That was kind of a "Pam Bachrach moment." Pam was a woman I worked with in L.A., when I spent most of my time in the throes of indecision about what to do next with my life. We'd sit chain smoking on the balcony and she'd give me lots of good advice, most of which I'd ignore. Well, one day as I agonized between two choices she said, "Flip a coin. You'll know while it's in the air how you want it to land."

Ahhh, truer words were never spoken. I've often used this piece of advice since. And while I didn't flip for Louise and Umberto, I realized after fate told me which one to read that I already knew which one I wanted to read, and fate and I didn't agree. (As for me not being on the same page as fate, see also e.g. this year's NCAA tournament.)

Later that night after I finished my law schooly things I was heading back across campus when I recalled that a friend who lives in my building is a fan of The Name of the Rose, so I texted her asking if she owns it and can I borrow it. She responded that she would look right away but wasn't sure if her copy was here on Long Island with her. Perhaps all was not lost. When I got to the parking lot of the building, there she was searching her car, but to no avail.

Well, that was two strikes. But by this point, I had talked to my partner in reading project crime, and it turned out that when I'd pitched The Name of the Rose to him a couple days before I'd been more convincing than I'd realized, and he actually was sufficiently intrigued to read it. Well, then, I couldn't go ahead with Louise, now could I, if I'd sold someone ELSE on Umberto as well?

So, yeah, that's how it happened. Erdrich's The Painted Drum is lying on my floor, ignored, and Eco's The Name of the Rose, procured at Borders, is in my bag, all 500+ pages of it. Hey, it's spring break. I'm more justified than ever in reading a nice luxuriously long non-law book!

"Now, some people say that you shouldn't tempt fate
And for them I would not disagree
But I never learned nothing by playing it safe
I say fate should not tempt me..."

--mary-chapin carpenter, 'i take my chances'

Tears and Roses

I am thinking of electing Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said to my top 10, despite my lack of being able to say anything profound about it here. A book's entry into my top 10 is always a significant event, most recently achieved by Nabokov's Pale Fire in -- what was that -- 2003? Well, unless you count War and Peace. But the W & P just sort of occupies a place of its own; it defies ranking. As novels go, it transcends the medium. About the top 10, the last contender for a spot was Lust for Life by Irving Stone, but in the end that book met a fate much like that of USC's this weekend: it tried, it merited semi-finaldom, but it did not travel to the championship. I still love Lust for Life, though, don't get me wrong. But it really brought me something beyond Top Ten-ness. It brought me Vincent Van Gogh. Totally different.

Anyway, while my mental jury is still out on Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, we have moved on to The Name of the Rose. Is it fated to crack the Top Ten as well, seeing as it makes a lot of top ten lists of a lot of people I've known over the years? I'm so glad I'm finally reading it. Actually, I have something to say about fate's role in the selection of this book...but Property class awaits...stay tuned!

About the rabbit...

See, there's this story that a woman in Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said tells Jason about Emily Fusselman's rabbit. And it's got to be the most amazing story about a rabbit, ever. Giving Watership Down a run for its money, even. In a handful of pages (unlike Adams' allegorical tome) Emily Fusselman's rabbit comes to life, breaks your heart, inspires you, and makes you shake your head at your very existence. I can honestly say that in my decades of reading I have never quite experienced a moment like reading about Emily Fusselman's rabbit. I want to tell you about it, but I also want you to read it. I want to send you scurrying off to your local bookstore/library to read just that chapter, but at the same time I don't think it would be as meaningful out of context, even if it does come out of nowhere. Would it? How do we ever know?

One Big Drug

It's funny, because earlier this week a friend and I were talking about drugs and comparing stories of big drug trips we had experienced/witnessed. And then along comes the revelation (SPOILER ALERT!!) (not that any of you are reading the book!) that Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is basically an alternative reality concoted by Alys on a maniacal drug trip. It's really bizarre, though, because I wonder why when they come back to reality Felix still doesn't know Jason. Is he lying? Or was part of his brain killed along with Alys? This, this, this is the crux. I tried to develop a theory about this, but it fell apart.

With wondering awe, I ponder a drug that can pull others into its spell. It's like when we were kids and always used to ask each other, "What if this is all just a dream I'm having?!" Except then the other would be like, no, it's a dream I'M having. We all want to be having the dream. It keeps coming back to that, to these questions of self, and identity, and I-think-therefore-I-am. Even on a big drug trip, eh?

Who am I?(Or, "Jukeboxes never made mistakes")

I love to ponder things such as Los Angeles, celebrity, and the so-called shallowness found in the glorious locale that is SoCal. This may be part of why I connected strongly to certain parts of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (which I loved, have I mentioned that?) I find it annoying when people, especially people on the East Coast, talk about Los Angeles with a dismissive wave of their hands of judgment. They accuse people there of being shallow, of driving everywhere even if it's only three blocks away, of being obsessed with celebrity culture, and just generally doing things that everyone else in the nation/most of world also does. I have long since determined that most of the scathing indictments of L.A. that you hear are born of ignorance, jealousy, or both.

I love it there. I miss it, even though I had to move on. I feel conflicted about it in many ways. I was miserable there for a short time, and I was deliriously happy with life there. I would say that it was in fact life in Los Angeles that taught me how to live.

On the other hand, I can totally be self-deprecating and also I can laugh at quirky things, and L.A. is nothing if not quirky. So, for example, I rather appreciate lines from Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said such as this:

"'I hate L.A.'...
'So do I,' the pol said...'But we must learn to live with it: it's there.'"
-p. 122

Yet I also appreciate the much bigger and broader statement that this book makes about celebrity, identity, and self. The whole plot of the book, of course, questions whether without your identity you would really exist. Think about that for a second. The answer probably goes the other way, really, in that once you exist you begin to construct your identity. So, Philip K. Dick probes this and takes it to another level. If you were Jason Taverner, a celebrity performer whose television show is seen every week by 30 million viewers and one day you woke up and suddenly, inexplicably, no one knew who you were, even the woman(en) you'd been sleeping with, and there was no record of your birth, your fame, your place in the world, what would that mean for you?

In the imagined dystopic police state Dick has created in Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (which, by the way, have you noticed I'm not abbreviating that title? I really like the title) it would mean for starters that you need to get your hands on some identity cards, and quick, lest you be shipped off to a forced labor camp or taken out by a pol or a nat. And that is what our hero sets out to do, setting the weird book's plot in motion. But later when his identity is regained (and didn't we know it would be, really?) you're forced to think about what it would mean to lose yourself like that.

Like, if a celebrity fell in the forest and there were no paparazzi there to snap pictures, would it really matter? That sort of thing. But what if YOU fell in the forest? Don't we all just want people to care about us? I used to think about this all the time. Especially when I lived in L.A. and I started knowing more and more people who were related to/dating/working with famous people, ever reducing the degrees of separation. Or who had some notoriety and/or became famous themselves. It never really bothered me that people are interested in someone who knows someone famous. I think it's a lot like high school. I mean, how do there get to be popular people? Sure, some people are friendly and outgoing and involved, and exponentially their "fame" grows, but that doesn't explain it all. At some point popularity feeds upon itself; that's why by senior year you can often predict the same four people who will get nominated for homecoming queen etc. It's the same as someone like Paris Hilton, who becomes ever more famous just for being famous.

Jason is so happy when he gets his identity back, and the reader is SO happy for him. With him. It's quite the exciting moment, there in the coffee shop, when Ms. Pottery Thang innocently strolls back from the jukebox and is like, OK, I'm playing your song. Suddenly, Jason (not to mention me along with him) is in a daze, What?! It's there?! And he continues to marvel, through many playings of the song, at his very existence. Which has been reinstated.

"'Again I'm real,' he said. 'But if it could happen once, for two days--' To come and go like this, to fade in and out--
'Maybe we should leave,' Mary Anne said apprehensively.
That cleared his mind. 'Sorry,' he said, wanting to reassure her.
'I just mean that people are listening.'
'It won't hurt them,' he said. 'Let them listen; let them see how you carry your worries and troubles with you even when you're a world-famous star.'"
- p. 180

We have this great thing here at law school called anonymous grading. On our exams, and on this most recent (huge, dastardly) assignment in our appellate advocacy class, we put our given final exam number instead of our names, and only after the thing has been graded is the product linked to our identity. I see why it happens. It amuses me none the less. Also they are five digit numbers and mine begins with two, so I kept writing 2-X-X-X-X, and in my head then I would start singing from Les Miserables, "Who am I?! Who am I?! Two!-four!-six!-oh!-one!!!!!!!" What a dramatic moment it is when Jean Valjean reveals himself, he who has gone into hiding and come out of hiding, always protecting people he loves and striving for the greater good. Well, I mean, Valjean has a lot of dramatic moments of course. Anyway, I was also thinking during one of my exams last semester as well as during this appellate brief we just wrote that my professors who KNEW me would know it was my exam whether my name was on it or not. I've long been told my "voice" (the figurative one) comes through in my writing, and I can see it happening, usually.

Well...look at me. More information, but still a lot of rambling. I must say, though, that I LOVED this book. When I read the ending, on the subway last night, the last words made my heart skip a beat, made my spirit swell. And I'm totally going to say more about that. Tomorrow.

MADness

All right. It has come to my attention that since my recent discovery of my love for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, I am giving a lot of random and vague ramblings, without giving a lot of information. Although, hello, isn't that what blogs are for? But that's not the point. The point is: I'm BUSY, people! I'm also almost done with the book. Which I love. And about which I plan to say something specific and enlightening and profound. Soon. Very soon.

For now, another fun quote:

"'Is she insane?' Jason asked him.
'I'm not in a position to know, sir,' the man in the brown uniform said."
-- p. 160

Tear-flowin' love

Love it. Love it love it love it. So much love for the Philip K. Dick. I totally want to go read other things he's written, like right now! I might do that. Speaking of what to read next, for anyone who cares to vote, I'm looking at Eco Eliot or Erdrich for 'E.' (That's Umberto, George, and Louise.) Speaking of voting, and Georges, today I got the brilliant inspiration in the midst of the signs posted for all the "Vote for me for president of law school student government" etc. signs that are up right now, as the campaign for next year's officers is in full swing, that why don't we vote George W. for president of Hofstra Law SBA and then he can step down from "his" current position? That got me a dirty look. Anyway, I digress. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is so good!

It's funny, like, "I hate L.A., too, but we have to live with it. It's there."

It's totally amazingly deep, as I tried to at least mention in my last post.

And furthermore I totally want to know what is going to happen!

I LIKE this Alys character, a lot. Except now she's ... well, bones? Maybe? What exactly happened there?

I definitely recommend this book.

Off to Indigo...

Love gained

First of all, I now love Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. That's right, I said love. I also love that I'm reading it. I don't know what great secrets of the universe are contained in Valis and the others, but this one is transcendent. WHO KNEW. Love it.

And speaking of love, how brilliant is Philip K. Dick? Because oh, you know, along about chapter 11 he just completely defines love. Hello? Have we not, collectively, as a species, been trying to define love via song, philosophy, scripture, poem, art, action, thought, drug-induced frenzy...for millennia? And along comes Philip to just throw it out there. Love: it overcomes the instinct for survival!

Thing is, even if I didn't have to dash off to Property at the moment, I'd have an incredibly hard time explaining this, and my attempts to paraphrase him would be pathetic. But it is so intense and so good, this book!

And dash I must.

Emily Fusselman's rabbit. Holy. Crap. I will have more to say here.

The Writer's Last Sigh

First, Kathy is MESSED up. Just putting that out there.

Second, I've been giving some more thought to my dislike of sighence fiction and what I think of Philip K. Dick. I have fleshed out my theory. You see, what bugs me is that nearly all sigh-fi writers have the same weakness. They've got this wacky world going on where people live on Jupiter or where there are no more murders or where there are microtransmitters planted in everyone's brain or where the fire department burns books or what have you, and you're reading along, and they drop some hints and provide some things with subtle exposition and good storytelling and context, and then it's like suddenly they go Oh, crap, I have to explain to my readers that in this world everyone has a brain transplant when they turn twelve so suddenly two characters have a totally implausible conversation and one says, "You know how in this world we all have a brain transplant when we turn twelve?" and the other says, "Yes, right, that's so they can collect our old brains for the aliens who come to take the best cells out of them" and it's like -- THEY WOULD NOT BE SAYING THAT! And not because I can't suspend my disbelief about the brain transplant but because they ALREADY KNOW that and it's stupid and it just shows the weak sigh-fi writer has become lazy about subtly exposing and wanted to take a shortcut and I hate it.

So that has happened. On the other hand, I think this book is rather literary. He is forever making literary allusions. Sometimes he comes out and cites "'And leaves the world to darkness and to me,' he thought, reccalling a line from Thomas Gray's Elegy. A long cherished favorite of his..." (p. 79). Other times he just alludes. "Another loser, among many. Many are called, he said to himself, but few are chosen. That's what it means to be a pro." (p.62) One can tell that Philip K. Dick is smart and writerly. But I did sigh a little bit. I haven't sighed for many pages now. We shall see what happens...

Also, I still love Heather. She is my new Myrtle Clare. (And p.s., how rad is it that the real Myrtle was IN THE MOVIE In Cold Blood?!) Heather is so cranky. Psycho Kathy had some Talking Tina-esque doll that knows about people and it told Jason to find Heather in an attempt to get out of this "why don't I exist, suddenly?" predicament. So he calls one of Heather's unlisted numbers, and turns out she doesn't have any more recollection of him than did his agent or the birth certificate files or anybody else, but there is clearly more to come there. Their conversation is hilarious, and she thinks he's some "twerp fan" and keeps calling him that and demanding to know how he got her private number, but it's just so randomly hilarious how she is so feisty. I love it. He's like, Heather, Heather, I'm a six! And she responds, "A six what? You have six legs, is that it? Or more likely six heads. " (p. 58) I can just hear her spitting those words at him. I LIKE her. Immensely.

I'm also rather on the edge of my seat to find out more about this whole six business, I must say. All we know is that they're some kind of elite group of people who were made to be sixes. No idea what that really is about.

Sigh.

Flow My Tears, the 1st-Year Law Student Said

So, yeah. We chose Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. By "we" I mean, variously: me, the whims of fate, my fellow reader/partner in comprehensively dorky crime, the buyers who are responsible for inventory selection (or lack thereof) at behemoth bookstores...

Here are my findings, so far.

• I like the cover. (My edition is ISBN: 0679-74066X) It reminds me a little bit of our poster for The Vagina Monologues, come to think of it.
  
• I can pronounce the title. But can I understand it? It is supposed to come from a poem that composer John Dowland set to music in something like the 1600s. But the references to that piece write his lyric as "Flow, my tears..." In other words, it's a command. So where's Philip K. Dick's comma? Yeah. Exactly. He only puts one, later, preceding "the Policeman Said." Maybe I will understand this when I meet a policeman character later on in the book. Maybe I won't. Stay tuned.
  
• I've read four chapters and have met as many weird characters.
  
• I don't know what I think about it yet. When I first started reading it I was in a wretched mood, brought on by the Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Am Making Substantial Progress. The other day it was more like the Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Had Barely Started. I hated everyone I saw, but really I maybe just hated the world of research and procrastination in which I dwelt. And in the first chapter of Flow... there was a cranky woman who hated everyone and perfectly matched my mood and I loved it.
  

  "He had never understood her dislike for fans; to him they were the lifeblood of his public existence...'You shouldn't be an entertainer,' he said to Heather, 'feeling the way you do. Get out of the business. Become a social worker in a forced-labor camp.'
  'There're people there, too,' Heather said grimly."
  

• Yeah, forced labor camps. Why? Well, because it's a weird world. It's a science fiction book. It necessarily has weird flying machines and mind control and a dystopic society and all that other crap. I don't dislike it; it's just so -- well, science fictiony. Sigh. Science fiction makes me sigh. Hey, I should call it sighence fiction! Brilliant! Oh, I'm so going to do that. But I digress.

  My old reading pals in L.A. and I would talk about our Walls. We each had a Wall with regard to books. I think one friend's wall was Latin American magical realism and such. Another person might have a Wall with romance. We're voracious readers, but stop short of reading "everything." My Wall, I think, is usually science fiction. Even when it's good, it takes a lot for me to read it. Plus, I'm not entirely sure I think it's all that good when it's Good Science Fiction. Example, Fahrenheit 451. Loved the message, but frankly I liked the interview with Bradbury included in the back of the 50th anniversary edition better than the book itself. (In the interview he commented among other things on the insidious aspects of television and their similarity to things in his book).

  The only science fiction book I've ever really liked, really, is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Often when I say that, people say, "Well, and that isn't even really science fiction..." Exactly. Nonetheless, I have long been intrigued by Philip K. Dick, and I really wanted to read something by him. Plus I had this idea of him that he was kind of scisighence fictiony, but also kind of postmodern weird fictiony. And I like that very much. Pynchon and the like. So I'm still reserving judgment, and I'm trying to break down my Wall, but so far when I think about whether or not I like this book, I just think, "Well, it's really sighence fictiony..."

• Also, I don't really have time for much of anything until I finish this dastardly Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Am Making Substantial Progress. But I sneak in a chapter of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said here and there on the train. And it makes me happy. Because, well, anything is better than the Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Am Making Substantial Progress. To which I must now return.

Which one, which one, which one?

If anyone has anything to say to me about which Philip K. Dick novel to read (he has been elected to represent 'D') then text me in the next few hours or forever hold your peace. Sara, I have taken into consideration your pitch for Valis, even though we really had narrowed it down to Ubik or Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said... Quite frankly, I'm leaning toward Flow My Tears... if nothing else because I know how to pronounce it. (oh, hush, don't take me so seriously all the time)

By the way, this is fun: http://literature-map.com/

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---