The Cannonball List

I finally stopped to think about what a hot mess my right hand navigation would be by the time I hit 100 books, so I'm going to stick the reading list here. Questions or suggestions, please feel free to post in the comments!

1. Future Jihad, by Walid Phares
2. La Bella Figura, by Beppe Severgnini
3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
4. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
5. Parliament of Whores, by PJ O'Rourke
6. City of Falling Angels, by John Berendt
7. The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova
8. A Lion Among Men, by Gregory Maguire
9. Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman
10. A Wolf at the Table, by Augusten Burroughs
11. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, by Susanna Clarke
12. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
13. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon
14. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
15. Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Fall On Your Knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald
17. People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks
18. The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
19. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon
20. I Am America (And So Can You!), by Stephen Colbert
21. Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett
22. The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez-Reverte
23. The Stranger, by Albert Camus/The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy
24. The Custom of the Country, by Edith Wharton
25. Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty, by Isaiah Berlin
26. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
27. Gladiator, by Dan Clark a.k.a. Nitro
28. Diplomacy, by Henry Kissinger
29. The Future of Freedom, by Fareed Zakaria
30. Teacher Man, by Frank McCourt
31. Blinded by the Right, by David Brock
32. Grand Avenues, by Scott W. Berg
33. The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman
34. The Culture of Fashion, by Christopher Breward
35. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
36. The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker
37. The Vile Village, by Lemony Snicket
38. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Rashid
39. The Girl in Hyacinth Blue, by Susan Vreeland
40. Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
41. The Gunslinger (Dark Tower series), by Stephen King
42. Only Say The Word, by Niall Williams
43. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz
44. Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
45. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
46. The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan
47. The Flanders Panel, by Arturo Perez-Reverte
48. Sweet and Low, by Rich Cohen
49. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Ann Barrows
50. The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir

Cannonball Read #13: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon

After I put down The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, I stopped reading for three days. I needed time not only to process the huge expanse of intricate detail that I'd finished, but also to recover from the emotional strain of the story.


We talk a lot about heroes and heroism in our society, and normally, we divide these topics into small packets of specificity. Heroes like firemen are kept separate from Superman and Batman, and both are in turn are split off from the single mom making it work on one paycheck types of heroes. Still, the same kinds of things lead us to identify certain people as heroes, whether they are the rubber, spandex or sweatpant wearing kind...honor, valor, empathy, morality. In literature, you often find adherence to one type or the other, with the occasional nod towards a blending of type in the form of stories about the Everyday Lives of Superheroes. In my experience, it's fairly unusual to find multiple types of heroism tackled successfully with true depth in the same work, but in Kavalier & Clay, Chabon somewhat miraculously pulls this off. To a certain extent, the entire book is comprised of tiny moments of heroism, be they personal or selfless, appearing from all corners of the rich, golden New York that serves as the stage. It's a little bit like cracking open a pomegranate for the first time; from the somewhat grotty exterior, you'd never guess that you would find so many tiny, luminous pips inside, each one catching the sun and holding the opportunity for growth. The story of Kavalier and Clay is not always cheerful - in retrospect, the bare bones of the plot are generally fairly depressing - but the moments that Chabon describes to tell it are what buoys it all up, full of light and good. This is a story about all kinds of heroes, even the grubby ones who fuck up sometimes.

I wish I had the vocabulary to describe the plot in enough detail you to see how wonderful it is without giving it all away, but I don't, so I'm not going to try. I'll throw out a brief overview, but seriously...you have to read this book. Make it your one giant book of 2009. Make it your holiday reading. Take it on a trip. Just don't pass it by. I promise it will be worth it.

The story follows two young boys as they grow up...American Sammy Clay, and his immigrant Jewish cousin, Joe Kavalier. Joe has escaped Nazi forces by the skin of his teeth, and the two boys forge an immediate bond. Joe's artistic skills are exceptional, and thanks to Sammy's boldness and storytelling skills, the two wind up drawing comic books for a sort of benignly unsavory businessman. Their work in comic books ushers them into a fantastic life more or less by chance, and from there, they meet all sorts of people, including the future loves of their lives. A number of threads wrap and weave around the core of Joe and Sammy's maturation...Joe's dedication to bringing his family to the US, Sammy's social anxiety, Joe's violent internal struggle against the German enemy, the genesis of the comic book industry and the boys' part in it. Eventually, the boys begin to grow apart, until a horrible accident cuts their ties entirely, and Joe more or less falls off the face of the Earth. Thanks to Chabon's skill, the reader is able to follow both sections of the story after this split, never losing track of either one. After this separation, the growth of the two men continues, seemingly separate but never too far apart. The ending is...frustratingly perfect. There is no perfect ending for this story. Just like all of our lives, there's simply too much going on for any pat ending to make any kind of sense at all. But the ending that is written is exactly as happy and exactly as fitting as reality could ever allow, and it is simply stunning.

You can't really discuss this without talking about the author's prodigious skill. There is a lot of crap out there, and there's even a lot of very absorbing crap. I think this pares down our hunger for complex, well-written literature, and encourages us to settle for less. Michael Chabon is quite simply not having any part of that. Not only is his style wildly expressive and tonally impeccable, but his vocabulary and mastery of the English language is a cut above almost every piece of modern literature in recent memory. The writing is everything at once - stately, exuberant, mournful, precise - and it is an absolute goddamn joy to read. This book is so many different things that it's useless to even try picking one. It's at least five different kinds of love story, a sweeping history of the Golden Age of comic books, an account of the impact of Hitler's Germany on expatriates before, during and after World War I, an examination of the social pressure on homosexuals in the 1940s (ugh, in a word), a story about the weirdness and discomfort of war, a book about children, art, music, religion. The real magic is in the way Chabon manages to juggle all of these topics, each of which has had reams of paper printed up on it in its own right, and interweave them so skillfully. I found it truly exciting to find small threads of previous pages picked up carefully throughout the work, used as little emotional indicators to ping the reader and emphasize a moment. This is truly the product of a brilliant mind. I would give anything to be able to write like Michael Chabon.

636 pages

Boy, I Sure Do Love THINGS!

Okay SO the power is back on, yay! It came on Thursday night or Friday morning (I was not at home so it's a little foggy in my memory), and all is...mostly well. The house no longer smells like fireplace, and the cats have been restored to their normal habitat which naturally made them freak out extravagantly, because if there is anything that makes me panic, it's being in a place I recognize. High five, cats.

I have been trying to get more serious about finding good body products that do what I want them to, and to that end I have a couple items I would like to share the love and tell you about. There will also be a section on why my boss and immediate coworker are awesome.

Okay, first group of things that are excellent comes from the Body Shop. I had a Body Shop party at my house a little while ago, and wound up with a bunch of cool stuff...you may also remember that I have waxed poetic about Body Shop items before. Every semester, I play this hilarious game with myself, during which I decide I Am Not Going To Drink So Much Coffee This Time. Then, about four days after the start of the semester, I'm asking Awesome Patti at Charlie's to inject a cafe Americano directly into my veins. I've kind of embraced this cycle of denial and eventual willpower collapse, so I continue to look for supposedly energy-producing stuff in the feigned effort to get off the coffee. Item number one up there is a collection of "Total Energy" well being products, which are full of good stuff like guarana and bergamot, which do in fact perk me right up. Are they equivalent to a stiff cup of coffee? No. But they do make the morning shower and prep time more revitalizing, and they smell good. The body wash is a great exfoliator, which I always need, and the body gel is fantastic. It's not like a lotion or a body butter, which I tend towards normally, but it's a more fluid gel that feels...not unlike aloe going on a very light sunburn (i.e., cooling and soothing, not that "ohmigodohmigod please make it stop" shock of putting aloe on a burn you got from falling asleep for four hours at high noon. Not that I have done this). The smallest container there is a pulse point balm, which is a nice pick-me-up in the middle of the day. There is a certain citrusy aspect to it, and again, it's not a Red Bull, but it does perk me up. Would that I could have had this during my 2.5 hour Ideology and Revolution class.

Item number two is a Deep Sleep pillow spray, which I totally love. Rich loves shopping at places like CVS when he's sick, and is much more willing to medicate himself than I am, for all manner of things. When I do give in and turn to drugs, I prefer to go for a more organic approach, and for this reason I decided to try this sleep spray out. It really does knock you out faster, and I find it helps me to better sleep through the night - I am the locus for a lot of cat activity (they like to be with me, sometimes under the covers...I kneed poor Flyboy in the head this morning because I didn't realize he'd wormed his way under there), and this means that I often am woken up and thus look like death the next morning. The active ingredients in the spray are jujube date, geranium, juniper and patchouli oils, and I'm not sure why it works so well, but it does.

Number three is Hemp Hand Protector. I have skin that's prone to occasionally ejecting every drop of moisture for no apparent reason; my feet get calloused very quickly, my elbows sometimes could be used for Brillo pads, and my hands do this thing that LOOKS like leprosy but as far as I can tell is not. Now, I'm also extremely judgy about people's handshakes, so as a result, I assume everyone is like this, and this turns into extreme neurosis about the whole pseudoleprosy thing, which means I'm always looking for really intense moisturizers. The Hemp Hand Protector fits the bill, not only by moisturizing extremely well, but it also seals in its work, so the moisture STAYS there. The smell...is not my favorite. It's very earthy and planty, but it's not aggressively so, which for me makes it well worth the benefits.

Number four is Monoi Miracle Oil, which I use for...everything. I put it on my feet, I put it on my hands, and I use it to finish my hair, which tells you everything you need to know about the lightness of it. It has this wonderful, super-light floral fragrance, and it makes your hair really shiny and soft, as well as moisturizing everything you put it on. I am particularly loving its addition to my Morning Hair Extravaganza, because I am fairly rough on my hair, and it rights all the wrongs I perpetrate on it. I usually throw some Humectress conditioner in, then some mousse (whatever I have, currently something from Garnier), and blow dry it upside down a little. I then set it in thermal rollers, and blow dry some more. Previously, that was it...I'd take the rollers out and gave it a little run through with a brush, etc., but now I put some of the oil on my hands, rub it around, then run my hands through my hair, and it makes it all shiny and stuff, and I usually finish by going in and harassing Rich to touch my hair. I am kind of an annoying fiancee.

Finally, we have a Moringa body scrub. One of the many things I like about Body Shop stuff is that they tend to last a really long time. I tend to find that a lot of scrubs and exfoliants require giant dollops of the stuff to really work, but with this one, it takes the teeniest scoop. The scent is really pretty and floral, and has some staying power, which I like. I tend to choose products on scent fairly often, but with shower stuff, I frequently find that the scent is going to wear off as soon as my foot hits the bathmat, and that's always disappointing. Not the case here, plus the exfoliating particles are hardcore without being excessive.

My Aunt also gave me body stuff for Christmas (YAY CHRISTMAS!), and it is fabulous. Origins does such a great job with their scents and quality of products, but there isn't one immediately convenient to me like there used to be in DC, so I tend to forget the extent of their awesomeness. I had never smelled this particular scent before, but I am stoked about it. It's a very light floral, and according to Origins, it's comprised of Tahitian tiare, jasmine, petitgrain mandarin, bergamot and basil. It's really lovely and unusual, and the specific items are fantastic as well. The body cream is moisturizing without being oily or pasty, the bubbly bath syrup (NB: Is "bubble bath" too low-tech?), and the perfume comes in a ROLLERBALL, YAY, which makes it nice and portable without risk of damage. Fabulouso!

So let's talk about my awesome coworkers. We've had a lot of shifting around over the past year or so, and now that things have settled, I am sharing a desk with the woman I work opposite days from. I have a fairly strong nesting instinct, so I put up a bunch of pictures and such on my side of the desk, one of which was a print of Alphonse Mucha's Princezna Hyacinta lithograph. Upon seeing that print, my coworker a.) recognized it as a Mucha work, and thus that b.) there were more of them, and proceeded to c.) find a stunning Mucha pendant for me for Christmas! How freaking cool is that? I love my coworkers. She picked the print above, which is one of Mucha's "Summer" works, and the photo above does no justice to the vibrant color of the print. Plus, the backing is a MIRROR, so you can check your lipstick, blind your enemies with reflected light, whatever. Awesome. It appears to be from Etsy Person Oliviamoon, who has a ton of different patterns and shapes.

In other awesome coworker news, my boss also gave me jewelry, in the form of a beautiful glass pendant on a steel cord, both from Happy Owl Glassworks. The above is just a sample of what they do. Mine is a rectangular bead that's white, with a sparkly, swirly green over the bottom two thirds or so, with a little spray of black on the edge of the green...it's an abstracted horizon line with the outline of a tree! It's so fly. Plus, as we all know, my desire to have things other people do not is extremely strong, and this is a one-of-a-kind item, per the Happy Owl folks.

More posting soon...Christmas, ice storm and follow-up snow storms threw me off big time, but I promise, more to come. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Cold, Snowy, Examy.

Fact rundown:

• Still no power.


• The cats and I are firmly ensconced at my parents' house, which has had power throughout. It sucks a ton.
  
• Rich has been bouncing back and forth between my parents (all clear), his parents (lost power for a while but have it back now and are hosting the fish), and our house, to watch out for looters, scam artists, freezing pipes and falling limbs - so far none of any of that.


• The town of Holden has been BLOWING UP my email with updates, for which I commend them. Last estimate was that 55% of the town was up, and our neighborhood was very hard hit...so badly so that the Governor came to visit and the National Guard has been out and about there.


• This week's forecast includes freezing rain and snow. It snowed today.

That's my hand, holding a piece of the branch that came down in the driveway. I have small hands but that's ridiculous. Part of why there is only 55% power right now is the way the electrical infrastructure grabbed its ankles for this storm. We heard at one point that 80% of the infrastructure was damaged, and even MORE of a problem is this kind of stuff...if you can't see what's going on here, the electric meter has been ripped off of this house. You probably have not considered this, but if this happens to you? It's YOUR job to fix it. So the whole street could be lit up, but you'd be shit out of luck because your damn meter's sitting on your driveway.

Aaaaaaand here's the larger problem. It's like this EVERYWHERE. Some brave/stupid souls tied plastic bags and stuff on downed lines that were overhanging the roads so you could see them as you drove past. While I roll my eyes in the direction of their potential electrocution, I also appreciate not being garrotted as I drive through the streets in the dark.

You can see some of the damage to the treeline here. Once everything stopped being so horrid it was all quite beautiful. You can see how quickly this came up; there are still some leaves I would have expected to have fallen off. NB: I went to Frankercize at 5:30 on Thursday, and it was deserted...making fun of the dumb reasons people call out (fog, drizzle, dog ate homework, etc.) is something of a pasttime at Frankercize, and at that time, it was doing NOTHING but raining, so we spent some time making fun of the call-out folks. I left Frank's at 6:45 or so. At 12:15, our power was out.

This is looking up the main street that OUR street is off of. Lots of stuff down.

This is a really beautiful tree on the corner of our street and Hemlock. It actually sprang back pretty well once the ice melted, but there is another stunning tree behind it that just got decimated. Really sad, but so pretty, no?
This was the worst hit house we saw...it's around the corner from us. This giant tree split in three, then fell on their house and across the road.
Looking down our street before it meets up with Lovell. Pretty bad, and almost impassable towards the intersection.Looking at our house (second house from the right) from the Oakridge/Hemlock fork. Our immediate neighbors have a lot of trees in their front yard and as a result got hit badly.
This was our most problematic damage, thank goodness. We had branches down in the back yard, but they aren't obstructing or breaking anything so it's not a huge deal. Some more came down after we took this picture.

Did You Know?

I am usually a couple weeks behind on web-trivia like this, but School Friend Cindy sent me this clip a week or so ago, and I have really enjoyed watching it and kind of mulling it over. Check it out and see what you think.

Smash Smash Smash Bang Whomp

Some of you may have heard that a really weirdly specific area of Massachusetts got nailed with a big ole ice storm this weekend. It was bad enough that Massachusetts has declared a state of emergency, as have many individual towns, including Holden, and at the highest point, an estimated 1.5 million people were out of power. Bad news. They are doing a kickass job of getting things back on track but our power is still out and there's lots of damage. Rich and I went for a walk yesterday and took pictures but have not put them on the computer yet. More to come. Though these pics show our damage, we were not too badly hit.

This is the road between us and Route 31, which was impassable for most of Friday and Saturday. This road got hit really hard (I actually had just passed some National Guardsmen when I took this picture.) but this picture shows less of that and more of the damaged treeline.

This is the view out of our front door. Our neighbors to the left got hit really hard. This picture was actually taken before the biggest chunk of tree came down across the street; you now have to drive under it like an alarming, creepy, potentially electrified overpass.

More front yard.

Here's some of the damage in the back yard. Tons of stuff down in the woods behind our house, but not too bad actually within the yard. More came down from this tree later on.

End-of-Year Miscellany

First of all, I apologize for the dearth of Cannonball Read updates...I've been so busy with school that while the actual reading is possible ("Study break!"), it's been hard to find time to write about them. I want this project to be productive and informative, so I don't want to just throw something up all "Neat book. High five."...I want to examine them and let you know why they are good or bad or interesting or what. Now, at this point, I'm about six books ahead of my blogging, so I'm probably going to regret having to catch up, but I just wanted to note that I have not yet begun to fight, etc., etc., etc., oh except finals and yluuuurgh. So. Back to your regularly scheduled nerdery in a week or two. I plan to really read my ass off over break, that is UNTIL I GO DOWN TO DC FOR THE INAUGURATION in which case I will probably be too drunk and/or hopped up (on life, God, get your mind out of the rehab center) to focus on things like books.

Secondly, I sang my first Lessons & Carols concert with the Assumption College Chapel Choir last night and it was freaking great. It's an advent service, which means that...anyone? Anyone? That's right, it means you get to sing the AWESOME music, like my personal favorite, the Hallelujah Chorus. I wore my pretty green dress with a white bow at the waist with tails that go all the way down to the floor, and a white pashmina over it. I am such a dork about getting dressed up, so I totally loved all of this. We processed in singing O Come O Come Emmanuel, and then we alternated readings about Jesus' birth with songs. It was very nice, and we sounded GREAT. We closed with O Come All Ye Faithful, and man, that sounds so great, particularly at the end when you get the organ all let out of its cage like WHOMMMMM WHOMMM WHOMMMM with the floor shaking and everyone rocking it out. It has been so good getting back into singing, and without blowing smoke, the director of Chapel Choir and my new voice coach, Jane, is freaking phenomenal. Even after just my short time with her, I see more potential in my voice than I ever have, and lest we forget - I'm pretty full of myself generally, and was even more so in connection to my singing in high school. I have always had a good voice but with Jane's help I think it could be great. Cool as hell.

Finally, my last day of classes was yesterday, so now I'm all depressed and shit. I am particularly sad about Terrorism being over...I realize that sounds kind of creepy and alarming, but that class was so good and I kind of wish it would just go on forever. Luckily, I have Nationalism & Fascism to look forward to! (Do not let your children be political science majors.) The professor was really sweet on the last day, saying that if and when he taught the course again, he wouldn't change the format much (which is unusual for a new course), but regardless of any changes, it would be unlikely that he would "get a group of thirty students like you guys." Awww. I HATE the last day of classes. UGH. Just a couple exams left to go...Philosophy of Nature tomorrow, followed by Italian on SATURDAY which should be ILLEGAL. I also have a paper due on Saturday, then another one on Wednesday, and the Terrorism exam on Monday. Then, six whole weeks of no class. Bleargh!

Back to more posting soon.

Lest We Think the Neighbors Have a Monopoly on Weird

On Thursdays, I work reception instead of enjoying sweet, sweet freedom upstairs where at least the people calling me are known quantities of weird, as opposed to the hellmouth that is the main phone. I got in this morning and went to put postage on something, and was confronted with this:


Just a pile of random mailing crap, you say? Shows what an ignoramus YOU are, you damnable philistine! That is a work of PUBLIC FUCKING ART, and don't you forget it. You know how I know it's art? Because it's an epic portrayal of the dignity of the human spirit and its imprisonment in the drudgeries of the capitalist society. The air in the packyfilla symbolizes the childlike wonder we so frequently are forced to constrain to meet societal norms, and the broken UPS box stands rigid but not triumphant as the sheer force of human will struggles against the workplace's attempts at domination. THAT'S how I know it's art.









Actually, it's because it's labelled.

"Ice Sculpture," Artist Unknown. Mixed media. 2008.

I think maybe people are not busy enough.

And the Glory, the Glory of the Looooooooooord!

Remember a couple days ago when I was all "oh people who upgraded from magenta gorilla to giant lighted cross, you so crazy"? I took a picture.

Now, I took said picture because I attempted to take one last night on my way home, but when you look at it through the lens of your modern cell phone, all you can see is A BLAZE OF ETERNAL GLORY SPEAKING TRUTH TO MAN WITH TONGUES OF FLAME!!!!That right there is the electric bill from hell.

In other Weird Neighborhood Decor News, which appears to be the theme of the week, on the same street, one household has erected a full size, authentic-looking tepee. In their yard. In suburbia. As one of my coworkers said, "I guess they have family coming for Christmas?"

This Is What Christmas Is All About, Y/Y?

This house is between me and my singing lessons. I am sure I don't need to mention that this extravaganza also flashes and moves. It is glorious.

A Series of Open Letters to My Neighbors

Dear People With The Pergola For Ghosts,

I don't know what possessed you to turn a clawfoot tub into a planter...for grass. I don't know what pushed you from one or two well placed barn stars to wallpapering your random garage shed with them. I don't know how you decided on that exact shade of lavender for the mysterious outdoor sink you have. I don't know why you use gravel where most people would opt for mulch. (Maybe it's just because our neighbor across the street is not on hand to encourage you to steal our other neighbor's mulch because he still hates their ten year old house that they did not personally build.) I don't know how one comes to own a sculpture made out of gardening implements, and I really don't know what that weird long, short building is all about.

What I DO know is that we need to hang out, because at some point you decided to build a patio (fine), put a pergola over it (okay), hang chandeliers from it (um), put a series of indoorsy-looking furniture under it (huh?), top said furniture with a selection of definitely indoor-intended vases, knickknacks and pillows (what in the sam hill), and frame the whole thing with a bunch of filmy curtains that prompted our friends whose parents live near you to refer to the whole affair as "the living room for ghosts" in an agitated tone.

Call me!

Love,

Me

***************************************************
Dear People With The Busy Lawn Decoration Schedule,

I'll admit, after last year's display with the magenta carnival-prize stuffed child-sized gorilla draped in Christmas lights, and the Halloween display featuring faux gravestones saying things like "McCain's Dreams," I did not see the six foot illuminated decorative cross coming. Bravo.

Love,

Me

***************************************************
Dear Trailer People,

I commend you for consistently making your totally normal and non-mobile ranch house in Holden look like the sketchy kind of mobile home via the skillful deployment of select lighted decorations. I am kind of sad that a For Sale sign has materialized in front of your house. I hope you plan to leave some kind of manual for the new owners.

Love,

Me

***************************************************
Dear People With The Lighted Deer Whose Heads Move JUST Slowly Enough That I Get Startled And Think There Are Live Animals On The Loose Like Maybe That Bear That Was Sighted A Couple Streets Over Before Realizing That They're Just Really Creepy Lighted Deer And Then Wondering If They Are Actually Moving Or If I Am Just Hallucinating, Which Leads Me To Stand In The Driveway Staring Intently At Your Stupid Lighted Deer Just Long Enough To Concern The Other Neighbors And Create The Possibility That I Will Make An Appearance In The Police Blotter Section Of The Landmark,

Fuck you guys.

Love,

Me

This Is Your Brain On Academia

For Terrorism In The Modern World this semester, each student chose a terrorist group to follow throughout the semester. Over the course of the class, we have turned in five short briefs on various aspects of the group (history, funding, organization, etc.), and for a final paper will mash all of these together, provide a threat assessment, and then have what will doubtless be a totally horrifying exit interview with the professor. I totally fucking love this. I picked a group called al-Jihad, also known as Egyptian Islamic Jihad (or a million other things), which has been subsumed into Al Qaeda, though unlike many other groups that Al Qaeda has basically eaten, al-Jihad has retained a good amount of autonomy and its members take up six of the nine seats on Al Qaeda's leadership council. Because of this, I've kind of been writing about both al-Jihad qua al-Jihad and also about it in its current role as a part of Al Qaeda.

I have a ton of large final papers to hand in, so I decided on Wednesday to get out in front of them, and started writing my threat assessment. I began with the idea that al-Jihad members might return to their roots with some good ole fashioned political assassination, then moved on to one of two major ideas that I think might fit Al Qaeda's modus operandi and historical tradition. I described a scenario in which the group carried out a coordinated bombing attack in mutiple cities. I wrote for a while and did some statistics tinkering to back it all up, and then put the project aside to focus on downshifting for the holiday.

Well, don't I turn on my TV on Thanksgiving morning post-workout and see that the goddamn Deccan Mujahideen stole my fucking idea and carried out a coordinated bombing attack in Mumbai and the surrounding areas. I would like to note however that MY idea focused on specific cities because of a particular distinguishing characteristic, and that these choices make my plan SUPERIOR to that which the Deccan Mujahideen RIFF RAFF came up with. And in other news, Deccan Mujahideen, you fucks, I KNOW you're an Al Qaeda offshoot, okay? I KNOW! I am on to your tricks. All up in India's shit, right near Pakistan, using Al Qaeda techniques, coming like a bolt out of the clear blue sky...YOU ARE AL QAEDA.

Now, I realize that I've kind of reached a new height of weirdness, having actually reached the point where I am squabbling over credit for ideas with a terrorism group, but I just would like the record to be crystal goddamn clear, regardless of how much I like being right.

Cannonball Read #12: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

I think that a writer has truly succeeded when they have made you believe that there is magic in the world. It doesn't have to be the illusionist type of magic or the kind done by grizzled witches over cauldrons. There is so much magic in the world...the magic of the written word, the magic of flowers blooming despite my best efforts, the magic of running into your old friend in a city miles away from where you first met, the magic of looking just like your grandmother. When a writer has truly arrived when they can tap in to any one of these strains of everyday magic, and remind you to believe in and hope for them.

Sometimes, though, it's about everyday magic AND actual incantations-and-ghosties magic, and Neil Gaiman is an expert in spinning tales abut this particular variety. The Graveyard Book is no exception, following his previous works about the magical worlds whizzing along underneath our ordinary lives. This is a children's book, which makes it exactly 0% less awesome for adult readers, but makes me personally 100% sure that Neil Gaiman is exactly the kind of uncle you would want for your child...someone who will challenge them to think about right and wrong in new ways and understand that they will have to apply it in their lives. So many kids get this weird idea that the difference between good and evil is mostly academic, and I think it's largely because they're frequently told about it rather than learning it through experience and consideration. The Graveyard Book affords the reader no such luxury; you MUST consider how and why good and evil work.

More than the lessons available within its covers, The Graveyard Book works within this incredibly rich world that blends our visible, known world with an unseen universe of ghosts and ghouls and most of all, houses the people who live between both parts. The story follows the young life of Nobody Owens, a boy who came to the graveyard after his family was brutally murdered by a mysterious man named Jack. The small boy winds up in the care of two ghosts, and really of the whole graveyard. His guardians believe that the man Jack is still looking for Nobody in the outside world, and to protect him, they insist that he grow up inside the graveyard, being taught by the ghosts and what his protector, Silas, brings in. Nobody makes several forays into the world beyond the graveyard gates, and each one ends poorly, even as it reveals a little more of the mystery of Nobody's identity and pursuers.

To explain more would be to wreck a brilliantly rendered ending, and I'm certainly not going to be the one to do that. This, though, is the story you read your smart eight year old to make them a lifelong reader. The beautiful illustrations in the book from Dave McKean are just enough to make that transition from picture-heavy books into chapter books, and in their own right are simply gorgeous. It's really a treat for the reader when an illustrator and author find such amazing synchronicity, and it's clear that Gaiman and McKean have something truly special, and have been cultivating it throughout their long relationship; regular Gaiman readers will doubtless recognize the name and corresponding work from the Sandman series.

The first Gaiman book I read was Neverwhere (another fabulous gift of awesome from the book club), and I immediately yelled at the book clubbers for keeping Gaiman from me all this time, then ran out and got my hands on everything I could of his. This book would prompt the same reaction from me, and should in everyone...Gaiman is flawless as always.


320 pages

Election FLASHBACK

So over on Pajiba, they frequently link to an excellent individual who runs a blog called Mighty God King, and every time I hit one of those links, it is hysterically funny and great, and I think "why don't I read more of this blog?" Well, I finally got my ass in gear and while it's worth your time merely for the funny, it also pulled a hardcore one-two punch on the election.

First- funniest election "coverage" this side of the Daily Show special. (NB: Everyone was on Alex Castellanos' nuts that night, eh? MGK refers to him as the "GOP Official Hispanic Guy Alex Castellanos" and Jack texted me around 7:30 that night with the early winner for Funniest Goddamn Text Message Of The Evening with "I want to strangle alex castellanos with his guido mustache.")

Followed closely by one of the best discussions of race, American politics, the state of the world and the general tao of Obama I have read to date.

I have been trying to keep my excitement about this election limited to the actual non-partisan awesomeness that surrounded it, or, failing that, under wraps completely, as I seem to have a lot of conservative friends all of a sudden, but I just thought these two things were really fab and worth mentioning. Enjoy.

Cannonball Read #11: The Ladies of Grace Adieu, by Susanna Clarke

When confronted with an eight hour flight from Italy and an exhausted reading supply, I picked up Susannah Clarke's ponderous tome of historical fiction, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I had seen it before, and had started dancing a ginga around it much like the one I'm currently doing with a stunning new binding of War & Peace that came out last year, but the bricklike heft of it and the exclusive availablity in hardcover held me back. In the Roman airport though, I saw a paperback edition for a pretty reasonable twelve or thirteen Euro, so I picked it up and dug in. It took significant effort to fully engage in the book, not because it wasn't great, because it was, but rather because I personally have some difficulty with adjusting to thinking in a whole other world (this is why I have a hard time getting enthused about science fiction). The work was well worth it - Clarke created an intricate, beautiful story rich in detail and set in 1808, where competing magicians fall in and out of each others' lives. The writing has a great older feel...kind of like Thackeray with a very light modern filter over it?

My aunt, who is a retired librarian and reader's aide, was also on the trip, and asked what I thought of Strange and Norrell. I told her much of what I've already said above, and added that oh, my freaking God, were the footnotes driving me up a wall. There are a lot of goddamn footnotes in that bastard, and the thing is, some are brief and to the point, and some are pages long (No, for real. There was one that was three pages long, in that tiny footnote text). My aunt mentioned that Clarke had gotten her start in short stories, and indeed, it seemed that as she wrote, she came up with smaller side stories that she just wanted to include, so she threw them into footnotes. They're good short stories, they're just...really long footnotes, which means you run into the Footnote Problem, that being the question of whether to stop and read them as they come, or to carry on and only read them in the moment if the narrative doesn't make sense without them. (I usually opt for the latter.) I made a mental note to check out the short stories later, and then went back to school and forgot about pretty much everything not written down on a Post It Note and kept somewhere visible.

So, imagine my surprise when one of the Book Club members from across the pond had selected the very same short story collection for this round of mailings! This is a chain letter-y kind of book club; each person selects a book that they like, and they are assigned a person they pass books along to. Each month, we mail the book we have on to our assigned people, and we get to read a whole bunch of cool books. I received Grace Adieu about a month ago and promptly lost it for about three weeks in my heap of BookMooch books I've been stocking up on for this project. You may have noticed that I've had Nabokov's Pale Fire as the Book In Progress since 'Nam...that one and this book have taken on a certain weird Bermuda Trianglar vibe. I just cannot seem to buckle down to read them. When I finally did sit down with this one, I punched it out in a day, so I suppose I should just sack up and lock myself in a room with Pale Fire (two shall enter...one shall leave).

In any case, I really enjoyed these eight short stories, and I think it's in large part due to the kinds of books that my grandmother and parents read to me when I was a kid and the similarities between Clarke's end product and my personal approach to writing. When I was younger, I got the standard fare, but my family also was in to reading stuff like The Princess and Curdie, which is a fairy tale in the style of those older, trippier, scarier fairy tales from before Disney got to them and sanitized the shit out of them. Fairies are not innately good, they're not servile to human beings, they're not your friends...they have their own society and laws, and are not to be trifled with. Clarke just completely loses herself in this world, and it makes for truly exceptional reading. She has managed to create an incredibly dense, detailed world for her characters to inhabit, and the payoff is huge. It makes it very easy to get into the time and place of her books and stay there, which as I mentioned, I frequently have trouble with. She also has a terrific grasp of the historical mode of speech that she employs. I find that a lot of writers who aim for older dialects wind up sounding very forced, and that the tone often clashes with some of the more modern thoughts and concepts in the story itself, but Clarke is so down in it that it fires on all cylinders. It's a skill not to be scoffed at, because that shit is no walk in the park.

I also love the feeling of these stories...they are so light and easy, and yet still have a solid, grounding core. Much of my creative writing begins with one moment or brief episode that I like the feel of, and then I can pull that feeling out to tell a whole story. This means writing with a lot of aesthetic notation, and a conciousness of how the story's environment works, and Clarke's stories carry a lot of the same feeling. My favorite of all of them was called "Mrs. Mabb," wherein a woman's sweetheart is...kidnapped? Spirited away? Waylaid? by a mysterious woman named Mrs. Mabb. As the woman tries to get to him, she is constantly attacked and confused by strange phenomenae, all of which have a strange connection to the natural world. I can't really explain more than that without spoiling the (excellent) ending, but the real kicker for me was the lush vibe of the story as Clarke detailed the English countryside and the natural elements of the story. The descriptions conjured such wonderful images as I read, and when I finished, I felt like I'd just gone for a walk outside in the spring.

Definitely recommended, as is Strange & Norrell if you have the time and dedication to the project. Neil Gaiman fans will also be excited to see his stamp on the work - one of the stories ("The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse") is set in Gaiman's world of Stardust, and he is a clear influence on Ms. Clarke throughout. Also of note are the stunning illustrations of Charles Vess', who of course was a Gaiman collaborator as well. His illustrations are found throughout the book, especially as fronticepieces for each story, and have this lovely art deco feel to them, with trailing banners and intricate detail. They actually remind me very strongly of W.W. Denslow's illustrations in a copy of The Wizard of Oz I had when I was a kid.

235 pages

Lost In Translation

I am not very good at Italian. That being said, I do make a stab at it every now and then in a social context, and success comes and goes. However, sometimes even my success gets rained on by that bastion of bastardization, FreeTranslation.

Here's an email I wrote:

Il semestre e quasi sopra e cio significa c'e lo tempo per uscire con gli amici! NESSUNE SCUSE, usciamo per il gin. O il vino. O il coca-cola. C'e il usciamo che significa!

Guardiamo le sue prossimo poche settimane e parlarmi quando voi avete un notte libera per uscire e divertirsi con noi. Scusarsi mi italiano cattivo...sono buonissimo per sarcasmo e giochi di bevere! ANDIAMO AVANTI!!

And what I intended for it to say (which it roughly does):

The semester is almost over and that means it's time for going out with friends! NO EXCUSES, we are going out for gin! Or wine. Or a Coke. It's the going out that matters!

Look at the next few weeks and tell me when you have a free night for going out and having fun with us. Excuse my bad Italian...I'm better for sarcasm and drinking games! WE GO FORWARD! [NB: I just like saying "avanti" with wanton enthusiasm.]

But lo, what miracles FreeTranslation creates!

The half-year and almost above and ioc means us and the time to go out with the friends! NO EXCUSES, we go out for the gin. Or the wine. Or the cocaine-cola. Us and the we go out that it means!

We look at little his neighbor weeks and to speak me when you have a free night to go out and to amuse itself with those. To excuse itself me bad Italian. ..sono good for % and games of bevere! We GO AHEAD!!

I'm now fairly sure that irresponsible use of FreeTranslation lead to at least a handful of international wars. It CERTAINLY explains the Italian government. This is why you need to not write your papers with FreeTranslation, ever, people.

Cannonball Read #10: A Wolf at the Table, by Augusten Burroughs

I love Augusten Burroughs.

The first of his books that I read was - like everyone else's first - Running With Scissors, and while it's an insane, unique story, what makes it so good is not the story but the manner in which it's presented. Burroughs' writing is crisp and clear and perfectly conveys not only the facts of the case but the feeling of it all...the claustrophobic Stockholm Syndrome of his time in the care of his mother's deranged "psychiatrist," the unnerving paranoia of his family life that made the psychiatrist's home seem like an upgrade, the feeling of the vibrant personalities around him that taught him and got him through it. Long ago, I read A Child Called It, which is an alarming account of one of the worst cases of child abuse on record, and while it was horrifying in a "my God, that HAPPENED" way, it lacked some of the immediacy of Scissors, because the latter showed how a wide variety of types of people could devolve into madness, and it showed how organic it was, how natural, how easy.

Within a month of reading Scissors, I read Sellevision, Dry, and Magical Thinking, discovered that Burroughs occasionally popped up on NPR, and then when Possible Side Effects came out, I bought it the day it hit shelves and had it read by the time I went to bed. I was totally thrilled to hear about Wolf at the Table, expecting more Augusten-y goodness, and in a creepy, voyeuristic way, probably anticipating more stories about the guy's fucked up formative years. I mean come on...like his Dad could possibly be the one stable figure in the joint and still merit a book?

Maybe my anticipation stole my own juice, but I am left sadly uninspired by this outing. The writing is still good, of course - I find that it is almost always inspiration that leaves writers, and not talent - but the story just isn't as engaging as I expected. It's fucked up, yeah...his Dad, like seemingly everyone else in his young life, is seriously deranged and a menace to just about everyone. But something about the tone of it all seemed like Burroughs was grasping for evidence that his Dad was super extra horribly bad, and not that the actual horror of an unhinged parent was coming through the writing organically. In his other books, Burroughs mentions that he tends toward the melodramatic, but this is the first book in which I felt he really came off that way. And the thing that is so weird is that the shit his Dad pulled throughout his childhood is horrible and is worthy of note and is a study in the kind of insidious child abuse that doesn't tend to get noticed until it's too late, so it's not like the story isn't worth telling or that he's making it all up. It just comes off strangely, and there's even a section of the book that works as an accidental metaphor for the whole exercise...

To my own ear I sounded like a toddler proudly proclaiming, Today I made a pee. And I made poo. And then I walked outside. And then I found a rock. And then the rock was round and so I kept it. And then I found another rock. Only this one was flat and so I kept it, too. And then tomorrow I am going to paint a horse with real paint and paper and everything! And it sickened me, but I could not stop and had to come back for more.

Maybe that's just where Burroughs is at this point - mired in his past for the moment, unable to do anything but regurgitate his daily goings on and how he got there. The thing is that the writing is still so good. It's not that he has lost his touch, just that he's in a holding pattern.

There may also be an element of societal counterbalance at work. With the Internet, any number of pop psychological TV shows and the vogue for memoirists, it seems like we as a culture are stuck in this constant battle of oneupmanship. My childhood was more fucked up than yours was. My parents were shittier than yours were. I had less food. I had less money. I had a harder time. Feel sorrier for me. The reverse of all this is a certain attitude of disdain for those who cannot bear up through all this and become better, stronger, faster as adults. To a certain extent, I feel like we're at a point where if your shitty parent stopped short of testing out the popular methods of the Marquis de Sade and Vlad the Impaler on you, people respond with more with an attitude of "so what's the big deal? Sack up, ho" than one of sympathy. I wonder if some of this thinking has colored my reaction to this book. Like I said, it's beautifully written, very evocative, yet I feel like it's missing a certain extremism that would make the story stand out amongst the sea of woeful tales. I don't know. I think a lot of that very culture that engenders this attitude is dumb as hell, so I respond negatively to that, too, but maybe it's kind of leached into my worldview in spite of me.

This is worth reading, but only after you've treated yourself to the much better earlier works of Augusten Burroughs. He is a wonderful writing, and his books are truly affecting, for better and worse.

242 pages

That's Not The Assignment.

I'm going to hit you with the latest round of great professor comments now, before I start losing all my hair and freaking out over finals...hooray for learning! I think!

"You guys remember the uh...'rock star' Prince? There are just no words for people like that. Well, I guess he thought there were no words for him, because he wanted to stop using words for himself, he wanted to start using a symbol? Remember that? *pause* There should be capital punishment for people like that."

"Think of verbs as a strawberry banana milkshake."

"I know that in this country you make brownies with marijuana."

"I know what you're thinking...my paper, the exit interview...is he insane? That's not the right question. I MIGHT be insane, but that's not the point."

"If you know your stuff, it'll be a breeze. If you don't, it'll be a nightmare. From which you'll never recover."

"I don't have a charm button."

"I mean, Schwarzenegger, when he was at his buffitudinest, didn't look like that."

"Nothing good comes of snow, and post-exam angst...and sledding. *pause* Have you guys read Ethan Frome? Are you getting my references here?"

"Descartes says 'yes', Newton says, 'no way, dude.'"

[Prof's phone rings while I am reading a passage aloud] "Oh my god, that's so embarassing. *pause* My sister's probably having her baby. Continue."

I am going to be so weirdly sad when this semester is over.

1600 Pennsylvania

Bill Bryson talked about DC in his book The Lost Continent, explaining how you walk through the city thinking it's fine and all, but then you bump into some building that houses, say, the World Bank, and you get a somewhat startling reminder of how enormously important the city and the organizations in it are. I totally agree. I remember being several months into my internship and walking out of the front of the building to find the National Symphony Orchestra rehearsing on the Capitol lawn, and just having the whole enormity of DC hitting me at once. I sat for a while listening to the NSO, then turned around and just stared at the Capitol, thinking nothing but "I...work there." While I'd always had an affinity for the city, it was that moment that I fell completely, stupidly, irresponsibly in love with it.


Bryson's commentary gets right to the heart of it all, but misses one small, important detail...you cannot escape America in DC, either. Around every corner, there is some small piece of history, be it a street named for an obscure patriot or a hidden memorial. We all know about the big ones...the Lincoln, the Washington, Vietnam, WWII, Korea, the Jefferson...but it's the small quiet ones that always floored me. The Jefferson is my favorite major memorial, and I used to go to study and relax there, but I also adored the World War I Memorial down on the Mall. When I worked at the Department of Commerce, I used to walk down to this one for lunch. It's practically hidden, but I think it's somehow so eloquent - simple, classic, beautiful - and I can't really think of any better way to remember all those who gave their lives to us all in their stand against the darkest forms of human evil. The World War II Memorial is spectacular, for sure, but to me, this one is exactly as history must inform us all. We cannot let our struggles dominate our worldview but instead remember their lessons and allow them to teach us how to move forward and remind us that we must always be vigilant.

For me, DC will always be a city for all of us Americans...the immigrants, the people born in Pennsylvania, the people born in Los Angeles, the people who don't know how they wound up where they are...there is room there for everyone. One of my favorite memories of downtown DC is walking through the display of state trees after the Pageant of Peace with my friends, looking at all the trees and talking about the ornaments and chatting with people so casually about their respective state trees and why they were there and what they were doing and what the holiday and the city and the country meant to them. I've walked through that display many times, sometimes That's why, when I saw this fantastic display of 1600 Pensylvania Avenues on Ironic Sans via 24 Free Dinners, I just about lost my shit, because it shows so well the insane disparity between types of people and neighborhoods and life in America. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the President's Residence...it's also smaller than you expect, visible from a completely ordinary sidewalk that people walk on to get to work and the Metro and the museums. As it turns out, it's also a whole lot of totally ordinary American homes and business. Check it out.

West Mifflin, PA
Terre Haute, IN

Savannah, GA

Prospect Park, PA

Oreland, PA

Los Angeles, CA

Glendora, CA

Des Moines, IA (Doesn't this one just make you want to move in? So pretty!)

Dallas, TX

Croydon, PA

Colton, CA

Brooklyn, NY

Bremerton, WA (where C is from!)

Baltimore, MD

"I Want To Blame You, Then Kill You."

Dear Drivers of Worcester,

I realize I left the city for Holden but as a Worcester Consortium student with parents still in residence in Worcester, I DEMAND that I receive my portion of whatever drugs they are handing out at the DMV, because seriously people, what. The. Fuck.

Yeah, guy who pulled a full, illegal, pointless u-turn at a major lighted intersection for no immediately apparent reason at TWO GODDAMN MILES AN HOUR, proceeded to nearly take the back end off a mail truck, and then somehow - and I say somehow because despite watching this happen I STILL do not know how the fuck you accomplished it - managed to steal someone's parking space WHILE THEY WERE PARKING IN IT? Fuck you, guy. Fuck you long, hard, and pointlessly. Also, when I honk at you, do NOT act like you have no idea what I could possibly be irritated by, because there is no way you do not realize the consummate douchiness of your driving skills.

Moreover, you two jackasses who decided to engage in some kind of tag team match with my car while I was at the game by parking about six inches off my front AND rear bumpers can catch fire and die horribly. Dude on my front bumper, YOU were parked illegally and also I think obstructing an entire lane of traffic. Jank-ass Corolla behind me, I'd just like to note that there were about THREE GODDAMN MILES OF OPEN SPACE behind you, so I'm going to assume you just have some kind of mental defect that keeps you from parking like a normal human. But I really want to know...are you just really fucking bad at parking? Do you not understand how it works? Are you a fucking moron? To paraphrase a very smart man..."when I see that, I want to blame you, then key the everloving shit out of your car."

And WHILE WE'RE ON THE TOPIC, Worcester Parking Police, you people are why atheism happens. If I parked even HALF as poorly as these motherfuckers, my car wouldn't even be COOL by the time you ticketed me, and yet these dipshits park like blind people piloting oil tankers and they blissfully sail through life without fear of parking fines.

Listen to me, people...share the crack rocks they're doling out in Drivers' Ed and start driving and parking like civilised human beings, or I am going to ram you with my vehicle.

Love,

Me

Cannonball Read #9: Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

There have been many attempts in both film and literature to explore the normal lives of superheroes, and honestly, there's only really been one that seemed realistic to me. Crazy, right? Realism and superheroes, not really a pairing you'd think to look for, but I feel like there's certainly plenty to work with there. What do you do when you spend half your life as one person, and half as another? If you have x-ray vision...does that turn off? Can you have a martini if you have super strength, or do you just snap glass stems all the damn time?


Most of the time, it seems like the tendency is to paint superheroes as very regular people, like they're really just these totally mundane people, and the humor comes from how damn boring they are when they take off the cape. That just rings false to me. There are two components not being addressed here; first, the psychological effects of superherodom, and secondly, the physiological effects. If your job has become - for whatever reason - smashing people around, you're going to have some feelings about that. What would those feelings be like? Plus, think about the states that some of us wind up in as we age, even with just average activity. Imagine the stresses on superhero bodies - if I can jack up my knees with just some sporatic running, what the hell happens to someone who's lifting freight trains?

The film I felt came closest to portraying the real-life superhero existance was The Incredibles, which...seriously you guys, if you have not seen it, you need to get your ass out and get on it. It's just wonderful to look out, and it's so damn smart. I guarantee that you will just love the hell out of it. Soon I Will Be Invincible comes close, but I think might just be trying to cover too much ground in what could easily be two separate books if expanded in either direction. The story splits between two main characters, who each narrate their respective chapters. The first character is a supervillan, Doctor Impossible, and the second is a human/robot hybrid named Fatale. Like The Impossibles, Grossman dispenses with any attempts to pretend superpowered people can simply set aside their powers to lead bland lives. The characters that populate the story have lived out their lives in headlines and in front of the public...they are known and regulated and studied.

Fatale is joining a resurrected superhero team called the New Champions (guess what the old version of the team was called) on the eve of Doctor Impossible's most recent escape from prison. She's struggled to fit in, for the obvious reasons, and so too has Doctor Impossible. Had their struggles been slightly more similar, the comparison would have been a lot more compelling, but as it is, it falls short of its potential. Instead, it can be used as a commentary on the nature vs. nurture debate, which is less interesting and not as well suited to the characters and story. That's kind of the story of this story...it comes close to executing some cool social commentary, but winds up not quite getting there.

That all being said, it's a very enjoyable read, and Grossman has created some really fun characters. It's always interesting to see someone screw around with aged tropes and stereotypes, and the author here does have a real knack for it. The flaws of these superheroes aren't overwrought, nor are they too minor to really make you question the nature of superherodom. Grossman strikes a great balance here in showing some FAIRLY human characters who are motivated by wide variety of reasons towards the same end. While I wish Grossman had split the book into two parts (or two books) and unpacked Doctor Impossible and Fatale a little more, this is certainly worth your time and will get you thinking about how you view the people you work with and the people all around us; what makes us us? What makes us do what we do?


310 pages

Addendum: Reading Habits

A while back, I wrote a Guide to Encountering a Reader. I am testing the effect of books on the populace today...my boss gave me some books basically as a thank you for not a.) leaving or b.) hiding in the supply closet and refusing to come out when basically the whole department was out, unexpectedly, at once. For the better part of two months. Things are good now. So okay, she gave me these books (yes, she is awesome), all of which I am excited about. I have them on my desk today, and unfortunately, said desk is the reception desk, so there is a lot of traffic. As a result of this experiment, I have several addenda to the original guide.

1. Stop touching my shit. It is not your book. If you would like to look at it, a simple "do you mind?" will suffice. I realize I am more anal retentive than most but seriously, it's my shit, leave it alone, or I'm going to go to your desk and rifle through your purse.

2. I cannot say this enough...there is no place in my heart for Janet Evanovich nor any other dreckpeddlers of her kind. The writing is shit, the stories are at best fucking stupid and at worst an affront to every positive -ism ever, from feminism to humanism, and they are all the same. Why in the blue fuck would I want to read the SAME STUPID ASS STORY NINETEEN TIMES? I would not.

3. To this end, please learn to identify how books are typically grouped. I mentioned this previously and it still stands true. If you are confronted with a pile of books from Augusten Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Michael Chabon and Neil Gaiman, just swallow whatever romance-novel-oriented lunacy you were about to get all over me and go the hell away.

4. Let's just all agree to not criticize anyone's reading choices before actually reading the book in question, shall we? You know how I know Danielle Steel reads like People Magazine for remedial high schoolers? Because I have read it. Do not look at the "scary" picture on the cover of a book and say "Ooh, A MEMOIR OF MY FATHER! I don't know if I want to read THAT! Why would you read THAT?" Because I am allergic to stupid and I read books like that to innoculate myself against contagious people like you, is why. The literary benefit and mind expansion potential that books provide...that's just gravy.

5. If you are the creepy guy at work and I am eating lunch with a book beside me, try to refrain from coming over in complete silence, hovering over the book, and then making a weird comment. For real now. If you're the creepy hoverer in GENERAL, just do the planet a favor and cut it the fuck out. You are alarming me, all observers, and probably any small children in the vicinity. It is not socially acceptable.

6. I realize that we're reached a point as a society where people don't read "hard" books, which apparently now means "anything over 150 pages, in small text, that isn't about Harry Potter or vampires," but I really don't think it's asking so much for me to expect you to make the mental leap from the presence of "hard books" to my having bought them because I like them or want to own them for some reason. I really don't. Why has this been an issue throughout the whole fucking day?

Connaitrez-vous Jonathan Lee Riches?

Every now and then, the global gene pool churns out a human being so divinely nutty that you can't help but marvel at them. I hope, with all the teensy little quarks in the atoms of the molecules of the tissues of my heart, that you have heard about one such individual...Mr. Jonathan Lee Riches, Chief Executive Officer of Being Nuttier Than Squirrel Shit.


Mr. Riches is a guest of the State of South Carolina (wire fraud, in case you're wondering), and he wiles away his time by filing some of the most spectacularly demented lawsuits the legal world has ever seen. At this juncture, I would like to thank Wikipedia, which thanked me for using it to figure out what prison this dude was in by informing me that he has filed over one thousand lawsuits since January of 2006. MAGIC.

Like any great artist, his works' quality waxes and wanes, but here's a sampling of the best of the best.

• There was that time he tried to get in on the Hamdan decision because Donald Rumsfeld was torturing him.
• He also decided to sue Perez Hilton into shutting down his website, because it was endangering his life...just how it presents a hazard is kind of in the eye of the beholder. He also says that he and Perez dated and he committed a somewhat thrilling array of crimes for Perez's sake.
• Then he sued Barry Bonds and Bud Selig for violating...most of the Constitution. There was something about selling drugs to nuns. He was doing business as "The White Suge Knight" at the time. Saddam Hussein was also involved. If you only read one of these filings, make it this one.
• Did we mention the time that Steve Jobs hired OJ Simpson as a hitman, and aimed missiles at Riches' brain?
• One way you may have heard of Riches before is via his lawsuit against Michael Vick, in which he demanded 63 billion gold-and-silver-backed dollars for the theft of dogs that were later sold on Ebay. Yeah.
  

I bring all of these to you to celebrate the filing of one of Riches' newest works, in which he claims GORDON GEKKO as an alias....no, I'm sorry, he actually lists himself as "d/b/a Gordon Gekko" which is a.) hysterical, b.) remarkably self aware, given the volume of completely frivilous lawsuits he's brought to the world, and c.) fucking GREAT. Did I mention that the particularl business that Riches is DOING as Gekko is suing a variety of people connected with World of Warcraft for making him commit crimes as a result of having to fight "cybermonsterrivalhackergangs"? I enjoy this so much that I would like to move that the US declare November 3rd Jonathan Lee Riches Day, to be celebrated nationwide through the filing of the most deranged lawsuits the general public can concoct.

Thanks to Above the Law, Quizlaw and the Smoking Gun for monitoring Riches' various suits and presenting them in handy formats.

Special Edition

For those of you interested in politics, if you are not reading the Newsweek Special Edition, you are missing out.

Newsweek Special Edition

Basically, campaign people tell Newsweek a lot of junk on the condition that Newsweek wait until after the election to print it. It's always fascinating, and frequently horrifying. I tend to be of two minds on the ethics of holding the types of information involved with the Special Edition back. On the one hand...it's competition. Secrecy is an essential component of government, politics and certainly of campaigning, and it should be. That being said, some of this stuff should probably have been brought into the light ahead of time, and not just the items that are ostensibly "bad," but also those that are "good." Do I really need Newsweek to tell me that Sarah Palin was hard to manage, pretty ignorant, and not a great candidate? Not really. Do I need Newsweek to tell me that Bill Clinton was a drag on the HRC campaign who complicated shit? Not really. But I can't help but feel that we as a political community would be able to choose our candidates in a much more intellectual way if the revelations about the good, and the upstandingness about these men were allowed to see the light of day.

The Special Edition is full of revelations about Obama's character and reason, but more importantly (to my mind, anyway), about the reason and character of John McCain. He resisted much of the dirty politicking that went on, and that really impresses me. I don't know that this is that revelatory for me, since I've been complaining for a while that the McCain campaign had been showing me a very un-John-McCain-like McCain, but it's nice to see proof of that. Let's be real about this...there's nothing in the Special Edition that makes me wish I'd changed my vote. I voted for Obama because I had serious reservations about John McCain's ability to end this particular war, to handle effective domestic policy and to face a modern world against jihadism that will be with us for a very long time. I've talked about my concern regarding the particular military experience that McCain has (i.e. that experience required for successful Presidential command is different from that required for successful on-ground operations), and moreover, I doubt McCain's ability to adapt enough to successfully fight the new enemy, which is ununiformed, disparate, extremely fluid, and almost completely impossible to fight through conventional military tactics. Nothing in the Special Edition makes me think that this is incorrect, but the behind the scenes view is fascinating. I highly recommend it.

PS - New blog format, and thanks to Celia for tipping me off to the Cutest Blog on the Block people, even though their blog title makes me want to start puking and never stop. Like, no like, ambivalence?