Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides

Now here's a modern classic.  For those that haven't read, this is essentially the story of a hermaphrodite telling the story of him/her-self from a gleam in the grandparental eye up until his/her late forties.  So that I can stop doing the him/her thing, I'll let you wonderful readers know that the name of the protagonist in Middlesex is Cal.  Or Calliope.  Or Calli.  Identity, I think, becomes quite complicated when you have a penis and a vagina. That, in basic terms, is what the book is about.  Who we are, and why we are, and how all parts of ourselves merge together over time to create an individual that has some semblance of a modern man or woman.

Now, there are a number of points this book touches on, so I'll take them one at a time.  First:

History- Eugenides, with his strong voice and straight-forward style, is a historian.  He takes the fictional (albeit seriously realistic) life of a confused young person in the 70's, fast-fowards to their forties in the 00's (this is my denomination for the beautiful age of no-time we just spent a decade in), and has that person tell the story of their grandparents and parents, starting in a small town in Turkish Empire (see Ottoman...)  Sounds complicated right?  Like, whoa man, can you hold all the threads together?  Nope.  Eugenides is concise and detailed; Cal as a narrator is unfaltering in both his (I'll explain the masculine later) omniscient reproduction of a life he admits to only sort of know, and in the engaging way in which he tells it.  The book really starts in war-torn Turkey/Greece.  It describes the horrible conquering and massacre of the war of Smyrna (something that actually happened and we as Americans, at least me, have literally no idea about), the lives of a silk-weaver and her brother that become lovers on a refugee ship to the U.S.A, and then their blossoming as a married couple in pre-depression emerging auto industry Detroit.  Zuitsuits, speakeasies, prohibition, the invention of the Cadillac, the riots in Detroit, the slow deterioration of a once great nation.  I'm telling you guys, Eugenides really knows his shit.  It is always, always a pleasure to enjoy the narrative of a story and then learn about real parts of this world without having to do two things at once.

There is some more to history, but this book is dense so that's it for now...on we go.

Authorial Style-  Let's just say that I checked numerous times to see if Eugenides was a hermaphrodite, to see if this was based on a true story; I parsed the pages to see what was real and what was fiction.  Cal gave life to a sexual and identity struggle through humor and history, and Eugenides gave life to Cal.  It is like reading the diary of some brilliant person (this blog...perhaps..eh, eh??), seeing the inner workings of a complicated mysterioso that seems to have some cool business going on.  Cal takes you in and makes you feel like you've known him for ages and finally, finally get to hear what he thinks.  My only comparison is that of Garp, in The World According to Garp by John Irving, in which after reading the book I realized how much I had thought was true, true to this political fact recording world, that he simply made up.  The style is not flashy or presumptous, it uses long sentences and short ones, correct commas and semicolons, but it brings with it the force of authority and some degree of labor.

Genetics- Now a big part of the hooplah about this book was its genetic bent.  Eugenides writes often like a scientist (another profession?) in describing the physical and genetic disposition that Cal has.  This makes little sense to me.  He explains it well, as you would read in a journal on modern science, and I tend to blow by this. I'm sure (the back cover tells me so) that many people enjoyed this aspect immensely (I think Eugenides covered his bases by being a historian, a scientist, and a novelist; we all had to love it).  I did not connect scientifically, but rather Biblically.  I felt his categorizing and serious use of genetic history to mirror the awfully long sections of our beloved Western dominant paradigm: the lists and lists of genealogy.  Blank begat blank begat blank.  Now, yes, dull it seems, but I feel Eugenides used an old idea and brought it to life.  He traced the life of his narrator back before his narrator was born, and in doing so, much like the Bible, gave us all little lessons from a multitude of times, helping us along our own way.

Identity- Now this is the nitty-gritty of the book.  The stuff that is past words and past plot.  This book won a pullizter and is read by Oprah, people have talked about it and an impact has been felt. Why?  Because we are all somebody.  We all look at ourselves at some point and wonder, who am I?  Who do the eyes in the mirror reflect, there is light there and we know it means life, but what are the details?  Eugenides supplies the details of an intensely complicated person, and makes you feel connected.  Identity is the core of this book in two ways: it is a definition of self through ones literal history, who our ancestors were and how their lives will forever shape our own.  It is also identity through the chance of fate, in this case, the blending of sexes to create a confused, beautiful, puberty-wrought girl that turns into a boy at the age of 14 and spends the rest of their life becoming comfortable.  I think the power in this book lies in the fact that we all struggle with these things. Everyone hates puberty, everyone wonders at some point how they look in the eyes of their peers and sexual equals; it hits the issues head on but from a seemingly more complicated and confused perspective than our own, and in doing so gives us hope.  Because, well, Cal found hope. We can all breathe again knowing that someone so predispositioned to confusion can come out ok. Eugenides teaches us that all skin crawls, all locker-room situations are less than satisfactory, and that, most important, we decide who we want to be.


Getting pretty deep here.  Book review, for real yall.  Also, this is starting to look like an academic paper.  Sorry about that, I haven't written a paper in so long I must be craving it or something.  This was an incredible book.  Read it, please.

p.s. after the age of 14 Cal decides to be a man, and therefore is a "he" for a large portion of the book and that is why I use "him" to describe him in most of this post.

p.p.s I love reading!!

Oh the places you'll go...

Bloggers! Hola. Sawadee-kap. Oy. Sup. I am greeting you more than once because I have been away too long, and also because languages are interesting when transliterated.  So, my internet is finally up.  Huzzah! I can, again, waste hours a day looking up random facts and, well, blogging.  I took too long of a break.  I should have gone to a coffee house and ordered a tea with little bits of milk and honey, sipped and typed and let you all in.  But I didn't.  I've actually been a little bit out of the writing habit, which is a shame because I was doing a pretty good job for me.  So this is the first step (again) of getting into a habit.  Hit me with your literary nicotine patches, cover me like that pretty man from that smoking movie, give my blood something to scream about.

Because I have been absent for longer than I'd like this particular post is a little post-dated.  I had the idea about a week ago and couldn't get out of my sweatpants long enough to type (in jeans now!), so here we go.

Jobs.  Employment, position, co-worker, proletariat, hands over cash, the river of green and the lost treasures of paradise.  I STILL need a job.  But this isn't me complaining, this is me posting about all the various lives I could be living right at this very moment.  Here we go (yes, again, keys in ignition, rev rev):

Ventura Theater Company- There's me, black AmerAper hoodie, checking the date on your ticket as you try and hide the little joint that sticks out of your shirt pocket.  It's cool, dude, Snoop here encourages the puff puff.  I set up the mics backstage and maybe wipe the floors clean after a show, sticky from beer and dropped thiz pills.  I work weekends and have started a band, I'm stoked but obviously don't get paid enough (minimum plus pity tips) or get enough hours.  My fun free time is eaten away by nights laid awake wondering if I should have given Pepper my demo or how that new chorus is starting to sound an awful lot like honkey tonk blues.  But I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

Nature's Grill- Do you want fries with that?  Not really, I mean, they serve blue tortilla chips with salsa and are super hip low-fi class, but I am taking your order and wiping the tables after you leave. I've met the relatively few number of true hippies in Ventura; don't get me wrong they have punk tendencies like everyone else but they do enjoy the Grateful Dead a bit.  I know where Lassens is and what is in that fake hamburger crap.  No, I still won't eat it.  But I'm pretty happy.  No pity tips, but rather real change due to good friendly service and my awesome hair that did not manage to get into your food.  I've met people my age and can bike to work, and slowly, yes slowly, I'm writing that quintessential novella that defines what it means to be an honest hard-working college graduated hippy bum spirit-life-seeker.  I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

Paradise Pantry- No, no I don't work at a sex shop.  I work at a wine and cheese shop.  The people come here right before the sex shop down the street, get drunk and lactaided up, have a good night overall.  I wear a nice black apron and my converse, but other than that I'm still lookin' like me. Maybe my not-yet-happenin' beard is a little long because in the dark small space that I make money, all those long bottles and mildewing cheese, I feel that the extra hair gives me an edge.  I'm getting to know all the different varietals, how that particular brand of cow crap gives that particular year a little zest, a little nudge in the acidity.  I begin to speak as if I've been to Italy three times (oh, wait, I have, culturelaugh) and as if I go to France bi-monthly to check on my small but reasonably well off vineyard estate.  My parents home in Petaluma is actually now in Sonoma County, it kisses up against a long, stalwart Pinot traditional to the area.  Cheese has taken on a whole new meaning. "Cheddar"? What do you mean by "cheddar," sir?  ....Man, even I can't bullshit knowing about chesses, sorry guys.  Look at me in the wine and cheese shop, I'm a little snooty and I know A LOT about cheese. Brie. Goat. String.  I make a decent wage and feel that these skills will get me far in life.  I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

Patagonia- AHHHH this mountain is so gnarly bro!  DUDE that wave almost ate your life.  OH MY GOD that piece of paper was so recycled.  Do you like this really cool shirt?  Do you want it?  Its twenty-five bucks.  No we don't take cash, we don't use paper here.  Credit card?  Sorry, plastic hurts the environment pretty seriously.  Have you seen the news about climate control?  You can wear it in the store, I guess.  We are organizing a Reiner hike to clean up the water-bottle trash near the summit.  Want to come??  Um, will you be in sub-zero temperature zones?  Go shop at REI then. -----So I'm using my pretty powerful tools of humor to humiliate a company I really want to work for.  If, somehow someone from G.P reads this, I'm just jokin' around man.  If I were there I'd be getting decent benefits, going hiking often, and wearing snazzy expensive American made clothes. I would also be part of the future young space explorers mission to Patagonia's semi-near planet called RUGGED.  Sounds like fun, right?  I'm healthy and fit and know how to not get killed by ice and poison oak.  I have beefed up a tad. I'm good, see.  I've got a job.

These are the potential lives I could be living people. Don't you want to know all of those dudes? Currently the front runner is a coffee shop that just opened, has no employees, and will hopefully need at least one in the next coming weeks.  Working there I would just be, well, me.

Love peace and happy times, fellow bloggers.  Till we meet again!

p.s. the only part of this that has to do with writing is that this post was pretty creative.  Also, there was a job as a music journalist that I literally just remembered but don't want to doctor the post majorly to include, so....hargenshnargen as music journalist: super freaking happy.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man-James Joyce

So I'm trying out the book review thing.  This is for a number of reasons, but the main one is because I have spare time and I love to read.  My thoughts, of which I have many, usually come from books.  And, believe it or not, I have an opinion about the books and authors I read.  Thought I'd share.  Thats what blogging is right? Sharing? Caring? Anyway...

James Joyce.  For some reason I always thought he was a she.  Not like a pen name or anything, but because the last name Joyce seems feminine to me, I just skipped right over the James.  So I picked up the book on an old bookshelf, saw lots of notes scribbled inside (thanks Lelah) and decided that yes, I now have the time to read a classic.  And it's not that long, so why not give it a shot?

Mind equals blown, ladies- and gentle-bloggers.  How did I not know about Joyce?  He's coarse and cryptic, his words slip and slide across the page and through the mind of the reader, but he is so incredibly savvy with the English language, it astounds me.

Here is a book about his infamous character, Stephen Dadelus, growing up and discovering himself. He goes to Irish prep school as a younger boy-confused and bossed around by priests-, then as a teen among fellow Irish teens-still confused and slowly turning into a priest-and then as a college man by the end-confused in an enlightened sense and renouncing all he's ever known (sounds like college). "Portrait" is the story of a young, self-conflicted, mildly depressed, incredibly smart soul growing up in the early part of our last century.  Ireland is painted in grey and blue hues, the deep green of the countryside usually overshadowed by an impending cloud bank reflecting across a morose pond, all of which mirrors the mood of our young protagonist.  Dedalus is said to be an image of Joyce himself, and so as I read I felt as if I were connecting with the author, always a great pleasure.

Some interesting writers techniques: Joyce combines words.  He throws them side by side and they are brilliant: "cricketcap" "drinkingbout""gasflames."  It goes on but I can't find any more examples at the present.  From a writer's perspective, it is always loveley to see an author make up his own language.  Joyce does this with specific attention to detail, and all of his combinations seem to have always made sense, as if they were supposed to be that way in the first place.

Another technique: Stream of thought.  This book is so hard to read (objectively speaking) because of it's haphazard storytelling.  Sometimes you are an omnipotent reader, sometimes inside Stephen's head as if this were always his world.  And sometimes, thanks to Joyce, you are just floating on a drift of words.  He seems to want to write, simple as that is.  He loves words and wants to put them down, the way he sees his homeland and his people, and so there are vast passages that have little to do with anything plot or character or even book related.  This, I feel, is refreshing.  I write like this too sometimes, and because I have now seen Joyce do it, I feel that there is some precedent for my reigning bouts of confused word play to skip across the page of a novel as well.

A quote, read it aloud: "It broke from him like a wail of despair from a hell of sufferers and died in a wail of furious entreaty, a cry for an iniquitous abandonment, a cry which was but the echo of an obscene scrawl which he had read on the oozing wall of a urinal."

We see Joyce employing a great amount of repetition, something I try and avoid, but he does it with diligence and therefore builds recurring moments or revelations that follow us as we read.  He also blends all of his lavish wordplay with simple, understood physical description, such as the wall in a urinal.  I guess people were doing that then, too.

The last part of this book I want to comment on: the religion.  Being as interested as I am in this subject, "Portrait" was a goldmine of information and delectable imagery.  A large section of the book occurs when Dedalus attends school to become an Catholic priest, and in doing so we hear the vast array of description given to young impressionable men in that time period.  Hell is weaved through our mind, the repentance of sin and the feeling of unlivable guilt.  He tells it all with such passion that it reminded me how religion is alive and well, good or bad, and that everyone should know a little more about it.

Overall, this book opened my eyes.  Joyce caressed me with his words and left me actually wanting to read Ulysses, and so I recommend this to all who dare.

p.s. this is my first book review, and I have read a book and a half since reading Portrait, so spare me the lack of examples.

Home Sweet Home

Blog viewers! I am back, sorry for the painstaking delay.  No, I was not delayed on account of weather or terrorism; I moved.  And so I am currently piggy-backing on a local corporation's unprotected wireless internet.  Oh the things I do for you.

Yes, I moved, and I am stoked.  My posts will be slightly sparse in the coming days because of all the commotion, but I will try and throw some new stuff on here.  It turns out when you rent a house they don't also give you a job, so I am still looking for gainful employment and therefore still have serious time in which to blog, once the internet is a little more stable.

It is so nice to set up your own house.  Holy bajeesus.  I love the sponges I bought and how the burners burst to flame.  Our shower is warm and soft, our fridge is way too big for us, and we don't have any furniture.  It's a delight.  I am currently on a rolling ottoman (spelled like the Empire!) in front of a kitchen table that has no chairs.  But it's not ghetto, the walls are well-painted and there is ample space for all the stuff we don't have yet.  Coolest item yet: rad (yes rad) psychedelic reflected shower curtain.  It's a trip.

I think that finally having a house of your own (as opposed to sharing it with four other people), especially with a significant other, does an incredible amount for your daily routine.  And lets be honest, the daily routine of a writer is what makes or breaks his output; did you write a novel or a page?  All depends on your schedule.  So, in setting up my place, in putting paintings just so or the wine rack in that corner, I think I am finally moving closer to scheduling some writing into my life. I also put up a bunch of words on the fridge, they call that magnetic poetry, but I will attempt to make it prose.

With that said, this blog as been excellent practice.  I feel as if I am writing more, and eventually it will transfer over to fiction as well.  Question for writers/people with thoughts: How do you schedule writing into your life?  Do you at all?  Do you give yourself a page quota for the week?  For the day?  I am curious what works for you, because I have never found a consistent pattern.  I usually just write when inspired and then sleep for hours.  Answers are appreciated, but you can also just think about it...

I think that is all for now, more soon.

p.s. I wonder which room I'll write in most...

How many more times?

Makin' me feel the way you wanna' do.  This is the first of possibly many posts that begin with Led Zeppelin.  Bow down to the glory of, please, everyone.  This is also possibly the first of many posts that begin with Led Zeppelin but don't actually have anything to do with them.  Sorry bros and bras, mangs and melons.  This blog is, instead, about how many more things I can fall in love with that are about writers.

Let me list a few, in no particular order of greatness or incredibility: Californication, Mad Men, Bored to Death, The World According to Garp, Dead Poets Society, Shakespear in Love, Castle....my mind begins to lose steam, wheels slowing.  Funny how an idea can seem to incorporate every little thing you do and see, and then when asked to list it on a blog just a few atoms come up.  My point, and I will elaborate a few of these to make my completely random claims, is that as a writer, I absolutely LOVE media that has to do, specifically, with writing.

The first conscious awareness I had in this realm was Californication.  Here's a show about a lot of things (sex and David Duchoveny mostly...wait are those different? ZING!), but it is, at its core, about writing.  I stick to that honey laden Showtime wonder like a bee eaten by a bear.  The first season is an endless amount of Saturdays wasted for me.  And then, round two, season two, they cut the writing.  It is dramatic and sexy and lewd, but Hank the writer does not do all that much writing and doesn't seem to care that his book was stolen.  I realized as this second season fell into an abyss of suckiness what the writers (ironic no?) had forgotten.  A novel.  A new book.  Not a memoir of a rockstar.  Hank is almost literal fiction, an excellent genre, and they moved on.  

Then take Mad Men, the best (yes Dad, THE best) show on television as of yet.  It's about booze and women and secrets, but Donny D, the main man, is at heart a writer.  He has a book of creative work, he needs pencils and paper or he's screwed (too bad Iphones weren't around in the '60s), and he takes to heart what the world looks and feels like.  They may be working for the man, but the better part of that show is the creative acts of a new generation, and that will always be interesting.

I think the real thing that cemented it for me, even after these brilliances, was Bored to Death.  I am now realizing that all of my expanded examples are T.V. shows.  I clearly have too much time and an excellent internet connection with which to torrent.  Bored to Death is me: it is funny and abstract, it is heartfelt in a random act sort of way, and it is actually about a struggling writer.  Hank Moody has his books made into movies.  Don Draper...well it's quite obvious how amazing and well-respected that guy is.  But in Bored to Death, a young Jewish writer has completed his first novel (soon to be me?? hopeful eyes), works for a literary magazine, and is desperately trying to finish, a.k.a. start, his second great work.  He struggles and ends up being a private investigator via craigslist, a career-path I have yet to choose, but all the elements are there.  After watching that show I seriously thought about how dope it would be to work for a magazine and get paid enough to live and then try to write the great next thing on the side.  Or in the middle.  Or wherever, hopefully in New York, just like Ames and his wild antics.

Side note: another serious theme for me and this subject is the undoubtable presence of New York, the city of cities in this world of metropolistic future.  I love New York and I want to live there, write in the snowblown winters and dark maroon falls, thunderstorm summers and Central Park.  New York is a siren of old.

Anyway, I decided to talk about all this because I watched Wonder Boys the other night.  Never heard of it, never saw it, did not blip on my radar.  And then suddenly we are plunged into the world of academia and writers and publishing and funny stories that happen with dogs and fake capguns. And I am transfixed for an hour and a half and want to watch it again.

Possibly there is something in the adventures always told in the stories about writers; their lives tend to take random chance, danger, and a lot of substances and come out on the other side with something interesting.  It makes me wonder if I should take more chances, if I should go out in the dark night with a gun and flashlight and just see what comes at me.  Maybe even without the flashlight.  Or get in fistfights or answer weird craigslist ads or talk to strangers.  But even more possibly, I am semi-certain that the strange in life does come through me, that it blows and whispers and spikes the well of my creative water, and that my work does reflect this in a way.  Sometimes I just feel as if I need more.  Travel was good for that.

Oh the stories we all tell ourselves.

p.s. i don't have an idea for this one but I like the tradition of post scripting.  It comes from the latin post scriptum and means "that which comes after writing."  (Thank you wikipedia, thank you NOT Britannica, viva la revolucion technologica).  Isn't what comes after writing just life?  

The End of an Era

So, dear people, I think this will be a short post.  I know everyone loves my essay length thoughts about lots of "topical" things, but I'm feelin' a quickie.

The Era this title speaks of is a simple phrase, a phrase pushed into our skulls by modern advertising and common usage.  "Can you hear me now?" Short enough.  Pretty easy to say, pretty obvious what is going on, pretty clear that Verizon has questionable service all over America (I mean all that guy seems to do is ask if people can hear him...), but no more!  This is, indeed, a post about current technology and T.V.  Sorry for those who enjoy more esoteric topics.

Verizon, our beloved four-g, letter z using, Carson Daily look-alike contest winner of a company started an ad campaign many years ago that defined a new nation.  We need service.  We need to know where people are and what they are saying.  And we need to make sure they can hear us, because in this modern world if your voice does not make it through the mobile phone, onto the little invisible particles that are sent into space, and back again through the atmosphere into a friend's ear, we will perish.  And quickly.  Verizon sits high and mighty with AT&T (my personal provider, whadup unremarkable logo.  Is it a world?) as the two big phone networks in the U.S.

The campaign of "Can you hear me?" is actually pretty likeable, or at least I think it is, and through this Verizon is recognized.  Fairly recently, actually maybe at the Superbowl (see my American Tradition post), a new ad was released.

The camera follows a sleek black tablet-esque object through space.  The bands on its side shimmer in the distant galaxy's sun, it flips and turns and just pulsates with brilliance like no other object has in society before.  Epic music is playing.  People are probably making babies with this thing.  Oh, wait, it's an Iphone.  Damn, should have seen that coming.  The ad does this for a little while, pauses its music, pauses its visual; a silence is audible through America as many people hold their breath, and Verizon spokesmen Paul Marcaerilli (I looked it up) says, "I can hear you now."

What?  Did the invention of a single phone (invented quite some time ago I may add) just change a longstanding slogan for a national company?  I couldn't believe my ears.  The Iphone is great, really it is I have one and can't sleep or move or eat without knowing it has a charge and is listening, but it doesn't change the essence of a company.  I was shocked (as you can tell) that another product, another fiscal competing corporation (everyone watch out for Apple Phone Networks), could decide to do business with a company like Verizon, and in turn get hailed as "the answer."  I think they call the Iphone genius in the commercial after the jaw-dropping recognition of service.

Anyway, this is what I thought was interesting today.  In term's of writing, well I dunno.  It blows me away that a company would answer a logo based entirely on a question because a new model of an old phone came out.  This is the sort of culture change that interests me.  So if you don't have an Iphone can nobody hear you on Verizon?  That is what I'm thinking.  I don't know how this managed to turn into a longer post.  Too much free time on my hands.  I can hear you now, lateskies.

p.s. who saw the competing AT&T ad with the guy forgetting his anniversary?  Isn't stupidity and inattention to your spouse funny??

The Spiritual Words

So, hello hello.  If anyone reads the comments on here my mother (thanks mom) listed a pretty decent list of possible topic ideas.  While the fair majority of them are not-so-subtle ways to get to know her son better through his blog, one really stuck out.  So I thought I'd do a post on it.  Spirituality. Religion.  The big G.O.D (or whatever you wanna call it) that lives in the minds and hearts, or drags out the heart and mind, of every person on this planet.

What can be said about a topic so big?  Firstly, I did study this to some degree.  I have a bachelors in the subject, and so have approached it in a variety of ways over the years.  When I decided to major in this field in college I had to create an individual major (they did not offer it at UCSC, I guess religion just ain't that pertinent anymore, is it College 9??).  In doing so I had to write up a statement of purpose, a "why is this important to you, the college, and the world?"  I said big idealic things like religion is the fundamental element of life on this planet, the common denominator that has united man since they knew what they were, and that the study of it is there essential and relevant to all aspects of modern society.  I was an agent for change.  For understanding.  The bullshit slid and slipped a little on the slope of hope, but overall I still believe all that stuff.  The committee that approved me liked it, too.

But my real reason for studying religion, and this is a sentence I've said for the past four years, is that I love religious phenomena so much that I want to write about it. I love watching the history of mystical experience grow into a tangible human engine of world-wide change, and a novel or haiku or epic seven-book fantasy series that creates something similar, something parallel in scope and importance, is what really gets me going.  I want my fictional works to take their seeds from these seminal ideas of humankind, to reflect them.  I have always felt that these are the truest stories ever told, and the beautiful tales today are simply a re-telling.  So this is what I want, my aim my goal, and it is, as all things seem to be with me, wrapped up in religion.

Some examples?

Examples.  Hm.  How bout the guy born from the never-been-kissed and yet has a husband mother who defies and empire, gets strapped to a barbaric tortue device for three days, dies, returns from death in a flash of light, and levitates into the heavens, declaring a future age of weights and scales, thunder and lighting.  It gets more complicated and people do a lot with it, but that is arguably the story that our society is founded upon.  Themes?  A severed family, massing of a proletariat, the finger to the man, death, birth, salvation, betrayal, and above ALL, Harry Potter fans, love.  Love spilling from the fingers of a man through his invisible father, like a wand through his dead mother.

Examples, examples.  After ten horrendous plagues in the land of Sun Ra and The Mummy Returns a people, approximated at 40,000 inidivduals, fled together through a sea that parted into a desert. There they ate food that fell from the sky, prayed to a golden cow, watched a mountain thunder and lighting and then saw a voice, again from the heavens, saw it swing down through each of their souls and bind them together.  Their leader was an old stutterer and they were slaves.  Notice any similar themes?

How bout the prince who is exiled to the jungle.  His wife gets stolen by an evil demon who hordes a demon army, the prince tries to get her back and does so with a monkey king and his vast horde of monkey warriors.  Love war and a lot of drugs, I am guessing.  Or maybe the prince who renounces his throne, gets sick by a river and then finds the truth under a tree.  He spreads his message and inspires a modern rock band.  Or the prophet who saw an angel, wrote a book, and now holds the hearts and clocks billions.

I could go on, but I don't want to bore you. My point in all of this is that these stories, real or not, are fascinating.  This is what I want to create.  They touch on all the points of our selves our books today strive to.  And if you look hard and long enough you can see that the whole thing is like Regeanomics, it trickled down through the ages.  I want to be a part of the society that creates our society, I hope that doesn't seem odd.  A professor of mine once told that up until the Enlightenment in Europe, almost all great minds were religious scholars.  Religious issues were the greatly debated, they were political and powerful and about the masses, they affected all parts and life and to be on the stage of the world was to be a person of spiritual importance.  Maybe I'm just into old things.  I do love antique shops and yard sales.

The last (I think as I write) part of this that I want to discuss is the form of the stories.  Today we like our narrative, our I, you, he/she, our individual authors and publish dates and spell-checks. One of the coolest (I'm not a nerd I swear) aspects of all this religious crap is the way in which they wrote it. Parables in the New Testament, take what you will from this please.  Jesus taught and taught and here are some veiled versions of what that was so that you, the reader, can find peace in your own life.  They were less wordy than today's literature, but they certainly were creative.  And the repetition, you can see them sitting around fires putting everyone into a hypnotic trance as the wars of Troy trickles from the lips of some bard.  The need to get the story across, to plant it in your mind so that your soul can recognize it when life happens to you, these are seriously didactic stories that are told with power.  I love them for that.

So this is some of my spiel on religion and spirituality.  It is my passion you see, and so I can write forevs on this stuff.  I appreciate those of you who read.  I really do.  Also, I am currently reading James Joyce and he is really amazing, spews the spiritual catholic irish mentality out like nobody's business.  I love it, love it all.

p.s. god=dog?  think about it.