If you're writing a book that takes place in New York in the moment, you can't not write about 9/11; you can't not integrate it. My main character's view is the Statue of Liberty and the Trade Center. It doesn't have to take over, but it has to be acknowledged.
-- Richard Price --Have a great Monday!*******
The average person lives 74.1 years and sleeps 1/3 of that time.
If you break it down, 74.1 years = 649,400 hours. Multiplied by 1/3rd [or .33] that equals 214,302. So, the average person sleeps about 214,302 hours in their lifetime. Wow!
The above snapshot captures one second of my own allotted sleep time.
I don't know who took the picture [I was sleeping] and I'm not even sure how young I was [it's obvious it was prior to my development of breasts] -- but the thing that intrigues me is this….
I was THINKING something.
I would love to know what I was thinking. What I was dreaming.
Last night I dreamed that I was buying a car and I was arguing with the salesman over the issue of power steering. Apparently, the reverse-anachronistic car I was buying did not have this option.
Honestly, this is what I was dreaming. How crazy is that?
I bet the dream I was having when this picture was taken was way better.
More interesting. Far deeper. Involving less day-to-day issues.
It seems to me that I was dreaming of things that grown-ups know not of.********
Have a great Friday!********
"…I feel that we read to learn new things, sure, absolutely, but more often than not, what we really get out of the good books we read is self-recognition. We read and discover stuff about life that we already knew, except that we didn't know we knew it until we read it it in a particular book. And this self-recognition, this discovering ourselves in the writings of others can be very exciting, can make us feel a little less isolated inside our own thing and a little more connected to the larger world."
-- Ray Mitchell in Richard Price's, Samaritan --Have a great Thursday!*******
You know that look women get when they want sex?
Me neither.
-- Steve Martin --Have a great Wednesday!*******
I'm sitting here tonight thinking...<--
I recently paid $25,000 for a new car and it never even came with this new Burger-Holder© option?
I'm furious! Can you imagine the time that such an invention could save me, not to mention the convenience factor?
I could drive and eat! Skip supper altogether.
More time for reading!
That's it. I'm taking my Mazda back and asking for a refund.********
Have a great Tuesday!*******
Let's imagine a child and an adult in Paradise who both died in the True Faith. The adult, however, has a higher place in Paradise than the child. The Child shall ask Allah: 'Why did you give that man a higher place?' 'He has done many good works,' Allah shall reply. Then the child shall say, 'Why did you let me die so soon that I was prevented from doing good?' Allah will answer: 'I knew that you would grow up to be a sinner, therefore, it was better that you should die a child.' Thereupon a cry shall rise from those condemned to the depths of Hell, 'Why, O Master, did you not let us die before we became sinners?'
-- From Nadeem Aslam, Maps For Lost Lovers --Have a great Monday!*******
From time to time, I write a boring blog.
[Actually, you do it quite frequently, Cipriano!]
Oh, shush!
This one is going to be even more boringer than usual.
Truth is, I haven't been doing much.
And I like it that way!
I ain't complaining.
The biggest news is that today is my birthday.
I am now officially 47 years old.
Or, as the Romans might say XLVII.
My friend is visiting me and we've been having a real terrific time doing nothing for the past couple of days. Took the day off work yesterday. I'm chilling out.
Renewing my Inner Lazybones.
Living in the "Now" a la Eckhart Tolle!
Today, in honor of 47 years of existence I bought myself a gift. A new backpack.
For a while now I've been researching backpacks, my old faithful Targus one giving up the ghost -- it's all tattered, and the zippers were failing to…….. zip, etc. It's bad enough that a lot of my clothes are in the same state of dilapidation!
So today, after a marvelous breakfast at Richtree, we sauntered in to the Apple store and purchased the best laptop backpack in the universe. My friend got one, too.
The brand name is Level 8.
Or as the Romans called it, Level VIII.
[See. I warned you that this blog was going to be extremely boring….]
Seriously though, if you need an impressive laptop backpack, I can confidently guarantee you that you will never find one better than --> THIS.
So, other than ogling this new self-bought birthday gift, I've been sitting around without any pants on, reading an excellent book, drinking Asahi [Japanese] beer and being extremely lazy.
Oh yes, and watching John Mayer's concert DVD, Where The Light Is.
In closing, here is a clip from that concert.
I cannot watch it with being profoundly moved… I mean emotionally moved, at such a display of talent and musical genius.
Listening to this may be the most important IX minutes XLIV seconds of your day!
Have you accepted cheeses into your life?Have a great Friday!*******
Oh Christ, the exhaustion of not knowing anything. It's so tiring and hard on the nerves. It really takes it out of you, not knowing anything. You're given comedy and miss all the jokes. Every hour, you get weaker. Sometimes, as I sit alone in my flat in London and stare out the window, I think how dismal it is, how hard, how heavy, to watch the rain and not know why it falls.
-- John Self, in Martin Amis's Money --Have a great Thursday!*******
Have a great Wednesday!*******
Today at work, in a tedious, silent moment, Matthew asked a general question, addressing the entire congregation….
"If you could be an animal, what animal would you be?"
I must be 100% honest and confess to you that I forget what most of the people said, [I was too busy morphing into my own beast] I only remember that Matthew himself became a lion.
And so -- it finally came around to me, and I had the answer.
An eagle.
For one thing, I truly admire flight.
Aside from this, I have never seen even one nature show in which an eagle is being carted away in the jaws of some other slavering beast. No.
Usually, they are the ones majestically swooping earthward and snatching up some unsuspecting equivalent of a moving hamburger!
And see -- I LIKE that!
Plus, the whole flying thing in general, the way an eagle can ride the airwaves…. float around forever, over the Grand Canyon say, and not even flap its wings for half an hour -- see, all of that appeals to me.
I want to be an eagle in my next life.
Reminds me of a poem I wrote once…. anyway -- what would your answer be?
What's your inner beastie?********
A man in Calgary calls his son in Toronto the day before Christmas Eve and says,
"I hate to ruin your day but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough".
"Dad, what are you talking about?" the son screams..
"We can't stand the sight of each other any longer", the father says. "We're sick of each other and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Vancouver and tell her".
Frantically, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone, "Like hell they're getting divorced", she shouts, "I'll take care of this".
She calls Calgary immediately and screams at her father, "You are NOT getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back and we'll both be there tomorrow… until then, don't do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?" and hangs up.
The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife.
"Done! They're coming for Christmas - and they're paying their own way." Have a great Tuesday!********
Have a great Monday!*******
A Peahen ComplainsThank God for that sun-roof idea. Those two giraffeswere about asphyxiated before Shem cranked it open.What angers me most? None of us asked for this. Follow the ostriches. Follow the emus. Follow followfollow. If I had hands I would have taken that air hornand flung it into Ethiopia. We marched like animals.Granted, nearly anything is better than drowning. Butthe noise and smell is killing me. On the intercom I heard that the Captain sent out a reconnaissance dove.Rumour is we land tomorrow. Listen up now, Horatio.Evolve some better tailfeathers! Something with planetson it -- Something your future daughter cannot resist.-- © Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010 --Have a great Friday!*******
I refrained from going to a terrific book-reading event tonight.
David Sedaris was at my local Chapters store this evening [the same one Sara Gruen was at a few weeks ago] and I deliberately did not go.
Why?
Because I know I would have bought at least two copies of his most recent book, squirrel seeks chipmunk.
I have looked through this book several times and it is so exactly the type of thing I would love to read.
It has animals in it!
But, for those of you who have been following closely my November Adventures in the realm of book-acquiring, I have already purchased just under 40 books this month. Umm -- that is insane!
I can't keep doing this!
I've got to put a lid on this thing!
Tonight is a hopeful sign -- I had the fortitude to flee the temptation.********
If time is money, then fast food saves both.-- John Self, in Martin Amis's Money --Have a great Thursday!Happy Thanksgiving Day, America!*******
Have a great Wednesday!"Don't worry 'bout it!"*******
This posting is in response to the comment of "C" in my blog of last night.
Regarding my duplicate copies of White Noise -- ahh, it's too bad -- it would have been a nice friendly thing to do, to give you my extra.
But immediately after work today I went back to the Book Mark store [same guy sitting there behind the till, same chair, cobwebs from his head to the leaning tower of books behind him…] and I explained the situation. He allowed me to browse and select a substitute.
So, since I am really enjoying this crazy Martin Amis guy I am currently reading I found another by him, called London Fields.
So, que sera sera -- next time I buy a duplicate book I will keep you in mind.
The way things are going here -- you won't have long to wait.********
I used to eat only natural foods, but then I heard that most people die of natural causes.
-- Cipriano --
Have a great Tuesday!*******
<-- This photo is proof that I am suffering from MBBD.
Multiple Book Buying Disorder©.
On Saturday evening I met a co-worker at a bookstore downtown, The Book Mark on Rideau Street.
From this rendezvous point we then proceeded to a nearby Guinness Emporium to sink back a pint or two. Or three.
He snagged a real nice hardcover Tropic of Cancer and I picked up this Don DeLillo book, White Noise.
Hmmmmm……. which DeLillo did I get, right?
Aren't there two of them there in the photo?
Well, that's just it.
See -- I paid the bill at the bar that evening, and when I wasn't looking, my friend put his share of the tab into White Noise. I came home and put the book on my shelf [alongside the hundred other books I have not read yet] and today at work he asked me, "Did you find that money?"
When I got home tonight I checked that new DeLillo and sure enough, it was full of moolah. But as I placed it back on the shelf I just happened to notice, right there at eye level……. another copy of the same book. I bought it about two months ago.
Should I seek therapy?
I am buying so many books I'm forgetting that I already own what I am buying!
Is there any known cure for such an affliction? Any remedy for such literary gluttony?*********
Have a great Monday!*******
Occasionally I will post a song just because I love it so much.
And tonight I have been listening to this one over and over -- something about it really moves me. It's from one of my favorite artists, Alan Parsons.
The song is called Blown By The Wind. From his 1996 CD, entitled On Air.
Wishing you a terrific weekend.
-- The Cip********
People often say that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.
-- Salma Hayek --Have a great Friday!********
…About me and reading (I don't really know why I tell you this -- I mean do you read that much?): I can't read because it hurts my eyes. I can't wear glasses because it hurts my nose. I can't wear contacts because it hurts my nerves. So you see, it all came down to a choice between pain and not reading. Not reading -- that's where I put my money.
-- John Self, in Martin Amis's Money --
Have a great Thursday!********
Then I clanked next door to the place where a caged chick cashes cheques around the clock but seems to keep half your dough as commission for this fine service. Actually it's more than half, or feels that way by now. It goes up all the time. One day I'm going to come in here, write a cheque for fifty quid, slide it over, hang about for a while, then ask: 'Come on -- what about my money?' And the caged chick will look up and say, 'Can't you read? We keep all that now.'
Why does it say he "clanked" next door?
Because this is describing the actions of John Self, the anti-hero protagonist in Martin Amis's [1984] novel Money. And if John is not in the act of drinking booze, he's in the act of at least carrying it somewhere… as is the case, above.
He is living a life of unbridled hedonism -- I have just started the book but it is already proving to be one of the downright funniest things I have ever encountered in fiction.
John Self is a brilliant [or as Amis would call him, a "brill"] lunatic… with enough money on hand to not worry in the least about how he rids himself of it.
Which brings me to the very issue I feel like discussing tonight.
The evolution of The Money Mart©. The very fact of it.
The above citation from the novel made me think of my own questions that have festered for so long…. I see these places everywhere! And I don't UNDERSTAND them.
<--There is one just down the street from where I live, and I drive past it all the time…. and amazingly, there are nearly always PEOPLE IN IT!
Sometimes a line-up!
I don't get it.
I could understand if they were serving hamburgers at the cashier end of the thing!
But, when all is said and exchanged... what are they selling?
Money? And charging you for it?
It does not make sense to me.
Haven't any of these people in the queue ever heard of a BANK?
Umm… where you can store your money for a very minimal fee [if any] and have the added advantage of writing your own cheques [sometimes free of charge] and having the added bonus of even a credit line to draw upon? And maybe even earn some interest on your money in the meantime?
Why would any rational human being even go to a Money Mart at all?
It sometimes gives me the shivers and/or heebie-jeebies to just drive past one!*********
And the sign said long haired freaky people need not apply.
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why.
He said you look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do.
So I took off my hat I said imagine that, huh, me working for you.
-- © 1970, 2002 Five Man Electrical Band --Have a great Wednesday!********
The universe is a million billion light-years wide, and every inch of it would kill you if you went there. This is the position of the universe with regards to human life.
-- Martin Amis --
Have a great Tuesday!*******
So much of a child's life is lived for others… All the reading I did as a child, behind closed doors, sitting on the bed while the darkness fell around me, was an act of reclamation. This and only this I did for myself. This was the way to make my life my own.
-- Lynne Sharon Schwartz --Have a great Monday!********
This evening I read the following passage in a work of fiction. It's from The Conversations at Curlow Creek, by David Malouf:
It was one of the many contradictions of Adair's existence that though he was by nature a man who would have liked nothing better than to see the sun rise and set each day on the same bit of turf, he had spent all the years of his manhood, thirteen to be precise, in one foreign army or another far from home -- if by home one means not four walls and a roof, with a fire and a chair before it, but the place of one's earliest affection, where that handful of men and women may be found who alone in all the world know a little of your wants, your habits, the affairs that come nearest your heart, and who cares for them.
Of all of my siblings [five of us in total] I am the one that has settled furthest from the nucleus. Atomically speaking, I am, far and away, the furthest flung electron. And I find that as my parents have now both passed on, the idea of "home" has indeed shifted a bit, for me.
There was a time when going "home" for Christmas etc., had a certain inimitable feel to it. I still have the desire to go back to the place where I grew up, and all that, but now I feel just a little bit more as though I am imposing myself on others. As though I am a guest. In someone else's "home".
As the only one of us five that have never married nor produced offspring, there is a tendency for me to sometimes feel as though I am in the way.
But GOD, I love my family, every one of them.
They are constantly inviting me to spend time with them, in their "homes".
When I first read the above passage tonight while drinking ten gallons of coffee at Starbucks, the part I loved best was where Malouf's narrator mentioned "home" as being "the place of one's earliest affection."
I agree and I disagree.
Thanks to the wonder of Google Maps, the above photograph is the very house I most think of, as "home".
I grew up there, on Argyle Street.
I could not believe that I so easily found it tonight, with a simple search.
The truck in the driveway? I do not know who owns it.
But that green building behind it?
That was once my "home".
And yet -- it isn't my "home" today.
There is an inner closet wall in that house -- up in an area that will never have reason to be repainted -- that says, in scribbled pencil "I was here."
I wrote those words in November of 1972, when I was nine years old.
The current tenants [whoever they are] walk past those words of mine every day, not knowing that they exist. And if they ever found them, they would not know who put them there.….
[How precociously prescient of me, to use the past tense "was".]
My point is -- I agree with the idea of home being "the place of one's earliest affection."
But what is said next in the Malouf excerpt is even more important.
For me, the above building, the "four walls" of it represent "home" only insofar as my parents are still alive in it, inviting me for a visit.
This place here, where I am typing these words tonight, basically saying to you, my blogger friends, "I am here"……. this -- this is my new home.*********
Reading is an act of interiority, pure and simple. It's object is not the mere consumption of information… Rather, reading is the occasion of the encounter with the self… The book is the best thing human beings have done yet.
-- Lewis Carroll --
Have a great Thursday!********
Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
-- Ernest Hemingway --Have a great Wednesday!*******
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery--even if mixed with fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man…. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.
-- Albert Einstein --Have a great Monday!*******
One person's garbage is another person's treasure.
Well, maybe in this case "garbage" is too strong of a word… at any rate, I capitalized on what other people did not want, this weekend.
I went to the 49th Annual Rockcliffe Park Used Bookfair and I picked up a total of 32 books for $68.50. That's an average of $2.14 per book.
And I mean, these are gorgeous, lovely books! Some of them are hot off the press, like Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow, which I was going to buy at full price.
I think I paid $4 for it here!
Wow -- some real beauties were to be found -- let's not call them "used".
Let's call them…. "previously loved." Discarded by original owners. Nabbed up, literally adopted by me -- and I have cleared out an entire shelf of old slip-cased National Geographics to make way for these lovelies.
My shelf issues are at a critical Stage of Displacement… in other words, if anything is to go on, something else has to come off.
My question tonight involves first editions.
One of the most awesome books I snapped from the Realm of Obscurity was this pristine edition of John Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent.
<-- The thing is PERFECT!
One of my favourite arguments I like to muster in any sort of literary environment is, "Who is a better writer, Steinbeck or Hemingway?"
You'd be surprised at how this innocent [yet devilish] question will turn the calmest of folks into raging piranhas. It's a downright barracuda of a question to drop at your next gathering!
Anyhoo -- my answer is always Steinbeck.
I just love him. Yes, better than Papa.
So, as you can imagine -- the only disfigurement on the dust jacket of this book was from the bit of drool that fell from my mouth as I slapped the thing into my book box.
And now -- my question...
I have since wondered if this is a FIRST EDITION.
My research has revealed that the book was published in 1961 by The Viking Press.
With this very dust jacket on it.
My book is a 1961 Viking, but nowhere in it does it SAY "First Edition".
My fellow Bookovores [<-- should be an official tax-exempt cult]… can you please help me on this conundrum? Do first editions always have to declare their... Firstness?
Is it possible that I may have nabbed a first edition for $3.00?
In which case I will be very content, this winter? Should I be setting aside a special exalted place on my shelf for this serendipitous gem?
Or should I just place it amongst the other rescued orphans?
********
NiagaraExhibitionism in nature is just that, natural. Yourobservation has no effect, one way or the other.You might drive in the very opposite directionthis morning -- hating the world and all planets.Glaring, not saying the words. Feeling them burnholes in your soul is punishment enough, today.Imagine that before you were, and after you shallbe, a torrent over a lip of rock tells misty secrets.c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010
Have a great Friday!********
Our secular and scientific culture has not replaced or even challenged these mutually incompatible, supernatural thought systems. Scientific method, skepticism, or rationality in general, has yet to find an overarching narrative of sufficient power, simplicity, and wide appeal to compete with the old stories that give meaning to people's lives. Natural selection is a powerful, elegant, and economic explicator of life on earth in all its diversity, and perhaps it contains the seeds of a rival creation myth that would have the added power of being true - but it awaits its inspired synthesizer, its poet, its Milton…. Reason and myth remain uneasy bedfellows.
-- Ian McEwan --Have a great Thursday!*******
I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me.
-- Richard Feynman --
Have a great Wednesday!*******
Last Tuesday I mentioned that bestselling author Sara Gruen was going to be in my neighborhood. Well, tonight was the night and I was there.
Sara began by sharing some vignettes of her experience with meeting the bonobos from the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa -- then she read from her latest novel [Ape House] and fielded questions from the audience.
She spoke very lovingly of the bonobos, and recounted a fascinating incident between her and Panbanisha [to whom she dedicates her novel]. When Sara first met Panbanisha [a Congolese bonobo ape] she showed some photos. Pictures of Sara's dogs evoked no response from the ape. But when Panbanisha viewed images of Sara's children in a bathtub, surrounded with soapsuds, the ape spelled out on the lexigrams "Babies/washing/bubbles".
They immediately established a friendship, and when Sara left, Panbanisha "said" to one of the scientists "Where's Sara? Build her nest. When's she coming back?"
Sara Gruen was so interesting and down-to-earth and lovely.
Overhearing the conversation between her and the two ladies ahead of me in the lineup to meet her -- I learned that the movie version of Water For Elephants is due for release in April of 2011. It will be starring Reese Witherspoon and Sara will have a cameo appearance in it.
When taking the photo above [with yours truly in it, spoiling the shot]…. Sara said to the photographer [a Chapters worker]… "OK, say 1 - 2 - 3 and then snap it!"
She then turned her face towards me [a wonder-filled moment, I assure you] and then whipped it back on "3".
"It's the only way I can look natural," she said.
This is when I spelled out, on my lexigram thing --> "Natural/yes/very".
"You cannot have a two-way conversation with a great ape, or even just look one straight in the eye, close up, without coming away changed."
-- Sara Gruen --********
Have a great Tuesday!******
That's what lying had done to the world. All the lying that people had been doing since the dawn of time, all the lying they were doing still. The price everyone paid for it was the death of trust. It meant that no two humans, however innocent they might be, could ever approach one another like two animals. Civilization!
-- Michel Faber, Under The Skin --
Have a great Monday!******
Tonight, appropriately enough, I finished my 2010 Halloween Selection.<-- Under The Skin.
By Michel Faber. [Published in 2000 by Harcourt].
I always try and read an eerie or creepy book to coincide with the night of chills and spookiness, and this one was NOT disappointing at all. It was a terrific book, and probably one of the strangest novels I have read in a long while.
I got my copy from the Library. Can you see the little sticker at the bottom of the spine? It is a face in aghast pose, hair standing on end, and the genre designation is "Horror".
Typically, this is not my type of book, but I had read Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White and so I knew that the man can write. Hearing that this one was "creepy as the first third of Psycho" [Booklist] I thought I'd give it a shot.
Wow.
It was a real page-turner.
Michel Faber lets the reader into the story on a very gradual basis… we are continually learning more and more about what is really going on, right up until the very end. I was telling my co-workers about the book as I went along on the first day, just a couple of chapters in. I described the scenario, but I myself was unsure as to what exactly was going on.
The protagonist, a "woman" named Isserley [read the book to find out why I have the word woman within quotation marks] picks up hunky male hitch-hikers ["hitchers"] along a stretch of Scottish highway, anesthetizes them while still driving along, and then -- umm -- takes them [unconscious] to the secluded Ablach Farm, where she lives.
See, I was describing this to my co-workers [first day] and they had many questions that I myself could not answer. Questions like, "What happens to these guys?"
On the second day [I am a painfully slow reader] I knew more information but it was still quite sketchy, and the thing is, my co-workers wanted answers. I knew a bit more, but still, it was like shining a flashlight on a cave wall -- you can only see so much at any given moment, the big picture is darkness.
Now, on the weekend, I have devoured the rest of the book and I want to recommend the thing to all who will read my blog… if you like a suspenseful, thought-provoking -- and yes, creepily disturbing read -- Under The Skin is a book I think you should get your hands on.
It blends elements of science fiction / horror / thriller -- and presents a riveting story in a package that is true literature, in the sense of relevant, important, timeless.
I can't wait until tomorrow when I can finally answer all of the questions I was asked about the mysterious elements of the story.
********
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings.
-- Richard Dawkins --Have a great Friday!*******
I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system -- with all these exalted powers -- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
-- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man --Have a great Thursday!*******
Have a great Wednesday!********
I am a bit astounded at some of the negative comments I have read, here and there, about Sara Gruen's latest novel, Ape House.I think she is getting an unjustified bad rap!
[Wrap?] <-- Whatever the correct term is, reviewers are being mean is what I mean!
Most of the criticisms seem to be involving the idea that the book is not really about monkeys, in other words, the main characters end up being people [God forbid].
See, for this I was thankful. I don't really like monkeys all that much. Even though I myself tend to drag my knuckles now and then, overall -- I still find people a lot more interesting.
OK, so the book is hilarious and serious all at once. Always a great mix for me.
And the hilarious stuff isn't too goofy, and I appreciate that. I hate goofy. Hilarity in fiction, for me, has to be restrained and appropriate.
Gruen stays within these Bookpuddle-induced limits.
There is stuff simultaneously funny and not-at-all-funny about the entire premise of the book.
An apiary is bombed by activists. No. Wait. An apiary is where bees are kept.
Ummm... an ape……. thing…. no [better yet] an ape house is blown to smithereens by militant whackjobs who think the bonobos [<-- a species of Congolese ape] would be better off unconfined. Funny, yet not at all.
Isabel Duncan, the fully-dedicated Jane Goodall-like proprietress is horribly injured. She's taken to the hospital for reconstructive surgery, and during this time the apes roost in the surrounding trees, as the media trucks are put into high gear to catch every moment of the impending drama.
I don't want to spoil the book for readers who have not been there yet, so I don't want to say much about the pornographer guy that buys the escaped apes and creates his own subscriber-funded reality show, exploiting them with the help of cameras that capture their every now-domestic activity -- or the Joe Six-Pack type of honest reporter from the New York Times [or is it the Weekly Times? A tabloid? Only we, the reader need to know…] who takes a special interest in the case and writes the ground-breaking story that will finally emancipate our distant ancestors.
Or not.
By way of many revolving subplots, Sara Gruen shows us [and I think she does it in a very entertaining and convincing way] that our own alleged evolutionary superiority can be validly questioned as we observe how we may yet be susceptible to the exploitation of innocence when it comes to our fascination with the [as yet] animal kingdom. There are times when all of these apes are, without exception, more evolved than we are. [<-- Funny] And times when true reality kicks in, and we realize where we are on the favorable evolutionary side of things. And this fact should never give us license toward exploitation. It should always point to greater responsibility, and respect for others.
No matter who those others should be. [<-- Not so funny]
I think it is a remarkable book.A final word, and then I am going to go and eat a bunch a bananas, regurgitate them, and then eat them again --> I liked this book more than I liked Water For Elephants.
And go figure -- I like elephants better than monkeys.
One week from tonight Sara Gruen shall be a mere few blocks from where I am writing this -- at my favorite bookstore, and I shall be there.
I hope that in the crush of other people lined up like so many shrapnel-stricken bonobos, I have the presence of mind to say "I loved your book" as she signs my own copy.
To get yours -- click --> HERE.
*********
A little coffee place I saw this weekend, on Bank Street.Hmmm… is Yann Martel receiving any royalties on this?Have a great Tuesday!*******
If the entire course of evolution were compressed into a single year, the earliest bacteria would appear at the end of March, but we wouldn't see the first human ancestors until 6 a.m. on December 31. The golden age of Greece, about 500 BC, would occur just thirty seconds before midnight.
-- Jerry A. Coyne, Why Evolution is True --Have a great Monday!*******
My friend sent me a link to an incredibly interesting Reading List.
Almost every book on there is one I want to eventually read. If Sam Harris thinks I should read it, that's good enough for me.
So, tonight I was [big surprise] at the Bookstore and I had a look at one of the books, it's called On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not.
Written by Robert A. Burton.
I leafed through it and even at a peripheral level, found it intriguing. One day I'll buy it and read it in detail. It's full of experimental exercises meant to illustrate how we "know" what we think we know.
At one point, the author asks us to recall where we were at three significant moments in history. Where were you, and what were you doing:
1) When President Kennedy was assassinated.
2) When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded.
3) When the events of 9/11 transpired.
I am explaining it badly here, but, basically, Burton goes on to point out how the account[s] of what ought to be very definite and unchanging stories can tend to change with the passing of time. A morphing takes place… sometimes to the point that a person will be essentially saying that the events of September 11th [for instance] took place at night, because their [years hence] explanation of what they themselves were doing at the time the event actually took place is completely out of sync with the events themselves.
I am explaining it poorly.
The exercise made me think of where I was when the events mentioned, happened.
For #1, I was peaceful floating in a sea of amniotic fluid. Twelve days later I was born.
The other two events were fraught with misinformation.
For #2, on Jan.28th, 1986 I was sleeping. My mother ran into the room and was shouting me into a state of startled panic! "One of those missiles exploded" she hollered. I ran to the TV in the living room, thinking that the end of the world was nigh. A MISSILE? I thought that a worldwide atomic war had been initiated. It was terrifying. I then watched and re-watched the tragic reality of the events on TV for the rest of the afternoon.
For #3, I was at work in a warehouse, all alone. I had not heard the radio, or any outside information all morning. At about noon, one of our delivery drivers came to my building to pick up the morning's orders which I had prepared. As the roll-up door was raised, he said, "Did you hear what happened? Two planes have flown into the World Exchange Plaza."
What?
See -- in the city I live in, there is a big building downtown called The World Exchange Plaza, and so I looked out the door in that direction, looking for smoke! My apartment is downtown -- I was horrified! I could see no smoke at all in the distance, so I asked this guy what the hell he was talking about…. and he said it again, but the right way this time -- Ohhhhhhh! Big difference. The World TRADE CENTER in New York! Now I get it.
Anyway, the book at the store made me rethink these moments in my life -- and I assure you, my own stories are the unvarnished, unembellished truth.
Especially for #1. I was like TOTALLY in the womb! Absolutely certain of it!*******
“But we have received a sign, Edith - a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm… in the middle of the web there were the words ‘Some Pig’… we have no ordinary pig.”
“Well”, said Mrs. Zuckerman, “it seems to me you’re a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.
“Oh, no,” said Zuckerman. “It’s the pig that’s unusual. It says so, right there in the middle of the web.”
-- Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White --Have a great Thursday!*******
"…I feel that we read to learn new things, sure, absolutely, but more often than not, what we really get out of the good books we read is self-recognition. We read and discover stuff about life that we already knew, except that we didn't know we knew it until we read it it in a particular book. And this self-recognition, this discovering ourselves in the writings of others can be very exciting, can make us feel a little less isolated inside our own thing and a little more connected to the larger world."
You know that look women get when they want sex?
I'm sitting here tonight thinking...
Let's imagine a child and an adult in Paradise who both died in the True Faith. The adult, however, has a higher place in Paradise than the child. The Child shall ask Allah: 'Why did you give that man a higher place?' 'He has done many good works,' Allah shall reply. Then the child shall say, 'Why did you let me die so soon that I was prevented from doing good?' Allah will answer: 'I knew that you would grow up to be a sinner, therefore, it was better that you should die a child.' Thereupon a cry shall rise from those condemned to the depths of Hell, 'Why, O Master, did you not let us die before we became sinners?' 
From time to time, I write a boring blog.
A man in Calgary calls his son in Toronto the day before Christmas Eve and says,
If time is money, then fast food saves both.
This posting is in response to the comment of "C" in my blog of last night.
I used to eat only natural foods, but then I heard that most people die of natural causes.
<-- This photo is proof that I am suffering from MBBD.
People often say that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves. 
…About me and reading (I don't really know why I tell you this -- I mean do you read that much?): I can't read because it hurts my eyes. I can't wear glasses because it hurts my nose. I can't wear contacts because it hurts my nerves. So you see, it all came down to a choice between pain and not reading. Not reading -- that's where I put my money. 
The universe is a million billion light-years wide, and every inch of it would kill you if you went there. This is the position of the universe with regards to human life.
Reading is an act of interiority, pure and simple. It's object is not the mere consumption of information… Rather, reading is the occasion of the encounter with the self… The book is the best thing human beings have done yet.
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery--even if mixed with fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man…. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.
<-- The thing is PERFECT!
Our secular and scientific culture has not replaced or even challenged these mutually incompatible, supernatural thought systems. Scientific method, skepticism, or rationality in general, has yet to find an overarching narrative of sufficient power, simplicity, and wide appeal to compete with the old stories that give meaning to people's lives. Natural selection is a powerful, elegant, and economic explicator of life on earth in all its diversity, and perhaps it contains the seeds of a rival creation myth that would have the added power of being true - but it awaits its inspired synthesizer, its poet, its Milton…. Reason and myth remain uneasy bedfellows.
I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me.
That's what lying had done to the world. All the lying that people had been doing since the dawn of time, all the lying they were doing still. The price everyone paid for it was the death of trust. It meant that no two humans, however innocent they might be, could ever approach one another like two animals. Civilization!
Tonight, appropriately enough, I finished my 2010 Halloween Selection.
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings.
I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system -- with all these exalted powers -- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
I am a bit astounded at some of the negative comments I have read, here and there, about Sara Gruen's latest novel, Ape House.
By way of many revolving subplots, Sara Gruen shows us [and I think she does it in a very entertaining and convincing way] that our own alleged evolutionary superiority can be validly questioned as we observe how we may yet be susceptible to the exploitation of innocence when it comes to our fascination with the [as yet] animal kingdom. There are times when all of these apes are, without exception, more evolved than we are. [<-- Funny] And times when true reality kicks in, and we realize where we are on the favorable evolutionary side of things. And this fact should never give us license toward exploitation. It should always point to greater responsibility, and respect for others.
A little coffee place I saw this weekend, on Bank Street.
If the entire course of evolution were compressed into a single year, the earliest bacteria would appear at the end of March, but we wouldn't see the first human ancestors until 6 a.m. on December 31. The golden age of Greece, about 500 BC, would occur just thirty seconds before midnight.
My friend sent me a link to an incredibly interesting Reading List.
“But we have received a sign, Edith - a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm… in the middle of the web there were the words ‘Some Pig’… we have no ordinary pig.” 
