_Catcher in the Rye_

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Of course, Catcher in the Rye! Everyone has heard of Catcher in the Rye. A heckuva lot of people have read it. I decided i had to finally read it after Six Degrees of Separation. The con artist in that book does this whole discussion about how so many serial killers have this book.

Plus, it looked short. This was a nice diversion from the very long books I haven’t been finishing lately.

Well. Having finished the books mere moments ago, and having read absolutely no criticsm of it, I can give my opinion.

Holden Caulfield is an incredibly annoying kid. I don’t know why all the people in the story were so nice to him.

It’s hell to be an adolescent. All dressed up and nowhere to go, basically. Holden is stuck in a very stuffy period in history, growing up in the very late 40s.

But I guess his main problem is that he can’t find a way to get to where he wants to be. He is so caught up in all the details of his life, he doesn’t know what he wants. He gets vague and foggy ideas from the books he reads and some snatches of moments. But in the end, all he comes up with is empty.

He seems so involved in his dissaticfaction with his life that I’m not even sure he wants to be satisfied. Once in a while, he seems to want to find something that makes him happy. But he can never grab onto it.

Is that how every kid felt in the 50s? Like Rebel without a Cause?

My dad was in high school then. He tells me he felt that way a lot. What is up with that?

Is that the sort of vague dissatisfaction the was the 50s? Is that what led to the sort of vague protest of the foggy “establishment” that was the 60s?

Maybe serial killers like this book because it is so vague. It lets them bank the fire that fuels the logicless reasoning for their actions.

I don’t know. I’ve met some rather disasffected youth., and a lot of times I’ve felt like sitting them down and talking with them.

That’s what Holden makes me feel like doing.

But with the fictional Holden, and with the real kids I’ve known, it’s a little harder than a single convesation. The problems are not in their heads.

But the solution, at least the start of it is in the individual control. I do believe that.

But really. This book is also about more than just Holden’s problems.

what i DID like about it was the way Salinger wrote it. He wrote in a way that would drive English teachers nuts. Repeating, and inarticulate sometimes.

But the book is from Holden’s perspective, and the way Salinger writes takes the reader exactly into his head. He writes inarticulately because Holden is 16 and inarticulate.

I love the fact that this book is so “canon” while being so technically ‘bad’. I mean, If I were peer-reviewing this book, I would have to redpen the crap out of it.

And I hate doing that. Because i don’t like the arbitrary and inaccurate rules about what makes “good writing” in an English class.

So. I don’t think that Catcher in the Rye changed my life, but it was worth the time to read it.

Guns, Germs and Steel

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Every once in a while, and all too seldom, I come across an book that takes me to a new vantage of understanding. Maybe it opens up a new field of knowledge I’d never discovered. Maybe it answers a question that I’d been unable to answer on my own. But these books are real gems, the sorts of things that I mull over and chew on because there are so many good and useful ideas inside.

Guns, Germs and Steel is one of those kind of books. In this case, it answered a question that I’d been wondering for a long time. I’d phrased it like this, “What is up with Africa?”

Africa seems to be perennially fucked. They seem to be cyclically starving to death, they seem to have massively corrupt and uncaring goverments. They always need water and medicine.

Other places don’t seem to be starving to death all the time. Why Africa? What’s the real roots of the problem?

GG&S deals with that. And they deal with an even bigger issue: why the peoples from some areas conquered other peoples in different areas.

THAT is another question I wonder about.

Why did some peoples colonize and others BE colonized?

GG&S breaks it down into some really practical and understandable elements. To generalize: some people were better fed. And they were better fed because they had better food around.

Some PLACES had better food available than others. As enticing as it is to consider the people group to which I belong as superior, there are actually circumstantial and incidental reasons having to do with LOCATION that makes one group successful over another.

That’s a real, practical and effective argument against racism as well. Another advantage to reading this book!

It won a Pulitzer, as well it deserved. I would hope that this book would go on to be read by students and others for years and years to come.

To me, it was not hard to read. As technical as some of the subject matter became, the author made it very relevant to the reader.

Also, it gave me some new trains of thought about how to manage the future. We are all in this together, all of us humans from all over the world. We inter-relate a lot, and it would be best to understand the past so that we can make wise decisions about the future.

I can hardly stop talking about this book to all the people I know. It was very exciting to read it.

Member of the Wedding

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It’s tough when you are twelve. Nothing you liked to do when you were younger is interesting anymore, and you are not allowed to do anything else yet.

Frankie is dying to leave her town, longing to get out and do exciting adventurous things. Her brother is in the army, and she adores him for the adventurous life she is sure he is leading.

And when he comes home to introduce his new bride, that is only one more adventurous romantic thing that Frankie is dying to be a part of.

That’s the main thrust of the story’s action. But the relationships between the main characters (Frankie, Bernice, and John Henry) are more important than Frankie’s delusions.

Bernice is the black cook. Her life, revealed in little peeks, has been far from dull. She cares very much about Frankie and her little cousin John Henry. She is very sympathetic to Frankie and tries to help her every way she can. John Henry gets the short end of the deal in the end.

It’s funny, too, how they all end up acting like kids. That happens! Adults, like Bernice, get drawn into the logic of the children. If you spend that much time around kids, you do start to think like them.

Frankie is trying so hard to be the grown-up that she doesn’t know how to be yet.

Missundaztood

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Pink is pissed. But in a good way.

Her album reminds me a little bit of “Jagged Little Pill” by Alanis. She even has a song “Just like a pill.” Homage? hard to say.

But where Alanis is introspective, Pink is in your face. Her songs say how she wants to have fun, and she does have fun. Songs like “Get the Party Started” really are lots of fun.

She’s punky, and in-your-face. I dig her.

X Men-Everybody has their stuff they have to deal with

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Every day has some “stuff” in it. I mean, little thorns and snags of life. Things you would like to change, or wish you didn’t have to deal with.

Sometimes they are not so little. Sometimes they feel, to you, like monumental struggles–rapids on the river of history.

This is why I like the X-Men. Boy, have they got problems. They are gifted, sure. But their gift is a curse.

And even if it were a true gift, they aren’t sure how to deal with it. Because they are each absolutely unique in the universe, an undiscovered and uncharted force in nature’s fabric.

Like me.

And like you.

You and I don’t have the elemental force of weather at our command, like Storm. And it won’t kill people if we touch them, like Rogue. I don’t have claws that rip open my knuckles when I fight.

But I have my gifts. My powers, though not “super” are to be reckoned with.

I finally watched the XMEN movie last night. I love to see how these dramatic super heroes deal with their stuff and the stuff of those around them.

How does Rogue manage to be so sensitive to others, when she cannot ever reach out?

And how does Wolverine manage to be so brave in the face of all the pain he deal with?

How does Jean Grey stand up before congress and stay calm when pleading the cause of herself and her friends?

Theri problems are more exciting than mine, I have to say. But courage is courage. Self-control is self-control. Caring is caring. No matter who you are.

Xmen are so cool!

7 days in May

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America has never had a military coup–That we know of.

This story is about a “what might have been.”

We see it in other countries all the time. Popular general-weak president.

The general sees fit to take over as president. After all, it seems to make a lot of sense.

I like this story because it had a lot of intrigue. You don’t know what is going to happen, how things are going to work out even at the very end. The power play between such powerful figures is fascinating to me.

FFFSSSHHhhhhttt…..

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I got to work early today. There were some European time zones that had to be reckoned with.

But even so, I couldn’t sleep very well because I was worried that I had killed one of my plants.

A favorite plant.

What can I say? Some things wake you up at 4 a.m. At that hour, it is hard to put things into perspective.

But honestly, I am still worried about my plant. I hope it makes it.

Anyway, I’ve been here since 6:45 and I’m running out of steam. I’m supposed to go replace a piece of equipment that is malfunctioning intermittently. I’ve been supposed to be replacing it for a couple weeks. It will be kind of hard to do.

But not that hard.

I am apparently fabulously lazy. It would probably worry me less just to take care of it.

But it would take effort.

And I don’t want to make any efforts right now.

What I really want is to go over to the vending machine and buy that butterfinger that is in C34.

It’s been waiting there all day.

But I’m trying to eat healthy.

Is it really impossible to go through my day without this butterfinger?
Perhaps I should go get it and be done with it.

Or perhaps I should go get the key to the storage room that had the equipment I need to swap out in it.

And be done with it.

Or maybe I should tell myself that I get to have the butterfinger as soon as I’m finished with the equipment.

But I don’t really want to deal with the equipment.

I have a feeling that I’m not going anywhere.

Who me?

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Right away back from Philadelphia, I had to go do a story about an artist for my off-line journalist gig.

Urartu cafe was having an opening for their new art installation.

As I was sitting outside, bopping to the excellent jazz combo, this guy asked me what if I was doing a story.

Why yes, I was.

He had heard of me. He reads the newspaper that I write for.

!!

Somehow, it had not actually dawned on me that people read this stuff. He knew my name! He knew my stories.

I am still astounded.

Below average

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So, I just got back from this cool wine-’em-and-dine-’em conventiony user group thingy for Video Conferencing.

I had a fun fun time! And YES, I was working. It was a lot about tech stuff and strategies.

But the people that work for this company are so young and fun. Plus, everyone is having babies…
But that’s a different story.

I got back on Friday night, and the first thing that I took away from this conventiony thing was:
“I need new shoes. CUTE shoes.”

‘Cause those young fun females were all sporting their lacquered toes in hip little sandals. In PHILADELPHIA!
LA is even more of a naked toe environment.

I have been bashful to try these kinds of shoes. I admire them, and i do think I have attractive feet.

But I am of below average coordination.

FAR below average.

These ladies with their little teeny straps holding the shoe to their foot….I don’t think so.

I like something FIRMLY attached to my foot. I tend to be very absent minded. I am very likely to leave my shoe behind if it is not fully fastened.

And if you add HEELS to the equation-well…i fear for my ankles.

But what is practicality in the face of cute?

I went shopping.

I got some GREAT shoes. Some super high boots, with the new thin but wide heel. Very sexy, in a art deco macintosh pattern.

But these are not the CUTE shoes I am looking for. They are very hip and sophisticated, but not CUTE.

Perhaps I fear cute. I want to be taken seriously. But I want to be surprising, too.

Cute shoes. I must persevere to the cute.

There were some incredibly cute sandals for sale. They had beaded staps, and a big gem flower between the toes.

But I couldn’t decide which color. Hot pink? Electric Blue?

I chickened out.

Naked toes.

But there were some other sandals on sale. They were a comfortable black, but they were studded with red stones.

They were pretty.

But they only had one little piece of leather over my foot. And they were about 3 inches of heel.

scary.

I’m wearing them today. Cute feet at work. It’s a little difficult, trolloping around in my strappy shoes, trying to remember to walk in such a way as to keep my feet in my shoes.

I’m catching myself, just as I slip off the edge of the shoes, or teeter on the verge of snapping off my ankle.

Beauty is hard. I wish I were a little more coordinated.

Maybe there’s a class I can take.

But i still feel very cute.

damien rice

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Heard this guy interviewed on a local college radio station. And of course, I heard him play some songs.

Amazing lyrics, wow. The music that I heard seemed to be non-intrusive, you know? mellow, sparse. But the lyrics broke through and stopped me. I had to really listen, once I started to listen.

He was saying some amazing things, about how he had been very successful with his band Juniper. He got really tired of what it meant to be a big musician star. He took some major steps back, and out…He left and remapped his path to his own creativity.

I have so much respect for that kind of introspective work. And I believe that his new album ‘O’ is reflective of his originality.

Check it out. I’m going to, as soon as it comes out.