High Standards - Overrated?

Okay, so the title of this post is kind of meant to get your attention. I am actually a fan of high standards and what having them can do to improve your life. I will likewise have high standards for my child and encourage him to have them for himself and others. However, one of those "things I've learned while getting older and more adult-like" is that high standards are - sometimes - wrong standards. Or at the very least wrong-ish. There are many things in life to which I can apply this lesson--times when I thought I was having high standards but really I was just foolishly creating a false set of expectations outside of which lay different and, more importantly, preferable options.

Many of us do this with potential life partners. Come on, this isn't a surprise, as much as we are shocked when it becomes an actual realization. We all know that we build a resume of our ideal partner--a set of standards for the person who would make us the most happy and full of feelings of achievement. A "look who I bagged, I must be pretty special!" kind of thing. We are told by all sorts of fictions from classic lit to romcoms, and our family and friends who are, like us, at least partly products of that cultural environment, that at some point we must wisely and sheepishly put away the list in our keepsake box and "settle" for a more reasonable (and available) match. This is in no way (well, maybe part-ways) an argument against the search for passion and excitement--but it is an expression of disagreement in the idea that the reasonable choice is somehow always settling for a lower standard. In my experience, IT IS NOT. Obviously the world is full of different experiences both negative and positive in the love and partnership department (understatement). But it turns out that in retrospect, the romantic standards of my younger self were mostly ridiculous and ill-advised. I'm not going to go into any gory details, but suffice it to say that it was not until I buried that stupid list and opened myself up to less-expected options that I discovered another set of (decidedly more adult) standards that were much higher and more commendable in a long-lasting partnership. And guess what? Turns out that the person who fulfilled those higher, more commendable standards also delightfully happened to fulfill many of those less important standards of the High Fidelity variety (at one point in the movie version Rob makes the fan-centric claim that [paraphrasing] it's what you like that matters, not what you are like. Turns out you shouldn't take romantic advice from Rob in High Fidelity. Why was this not always completely obvious to me? It's basically what the whole movie is about!). Also turns out that passion and excitement are still there and, more importantly, have a higher chance of being there for a long time to come. Look, I want flowers, surprise candle paths and steamy declarations as much as the next romantic, but come on. Who really wants that height of emotional engagement every day? Seriously, people--maybe it makes me boring but I'd oftentimes prefer to sit in sweatpants with a bowl of kimchi and watch Bones with my sweetie-pie than get all dressed up for a whirlwind night of romance and the pseudo-athletic stuff that's supposed to follow. Wow, I've really gotten side-tracked here. This was supposed to be a side example. Anyway, the point is that the love department is one area where sometimes supposed high standards can turn out to be wrong standards, and one must be open to going outside those previous standards to realize it.

Believe it or not, my main example is much more trivial than the side one. It starts with a dangerous confession:

I  hate Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. I really do. I struggled through it for hours, trying to decipher its post-modern code of coolness and smartness with a concordance/guide next to the book on my laptop. It was one of the single most liberating moments in my academic career (and maybe my life) when my advisors told me that it was okay if I didn't like it and took it off of my University Oral Exam reading list. HALLELUJAH!! No book has ever made me feel more dumb--and I resent that because I know that while I'm sure I'm dumb in several ways, I'm overall not dumb at reading books. I mean, I get what he was trying to do. I see the techniques and have read the analyses and know how it's an example of what post-modernism is about, but I just found reading it to be an excruciating experience. Soul-crushing really. I'm so pleased that there are many many people that seem to really love it and find it enjoyable, even though a little part of me doesn't quite believe them. It's one of those books that you're supposed to really admire and compliment because it makes you part of a smarty-pants club. Don't get me wrong--I love the smarty-pants club (I mean look how many years I've been in school); but in this case, for me, the entrance cost was just too high. Gravity's Rainbow, maybe unjustly (maybe not) became a symbol of what grad school can sometimes do to your love of your discipline.

When reading becomes your job, your requirement, the measure of your success at life, sometimes it makes you stop reading. For fun, anyway. It is baffling to me how hard it is for me to decide on and get into a book in my leisure time these days. Somehow TV is so much less threatening (see my television addiction). I realized recently that grad school in literature had raised my standards so 'high' that it limited the list of 'acceptable' books for me to read to an impossibly narrow list. Granted, the items on the list are theoretically there because they are extremely well-written examples of artistry and exciting in their various innovations, transgressions or masteries--and on one level I'm excited to read all of them one day, but they are almost all books that I can't fully read at my leisure. They are books that I may one day have to teach or at least talk about with someone who is smart at literature, so when I read them I inevitably feel the need to have my stickies or little notebook nearby, a pencil for the margins or at least keep my brain engagement on a more analytical level. This type of loaded reading, while clearly rewarding and fulfilling to me (again, see years of education), is absolutely different from the type of reading that made me a fan of books for life. This is not how I originally devoured the Anne of Green Gables series (multiple times), Ursula K. LeGuin's fantastical tales or even Garcia Marquez's novels and short stories. I gobbled them up with relish, enjoying the dickens (yep, I see the pun) out of every page that I tore past. I read fast because I consumed books as if they were films, stories in full color unraveling before me with no room to pause. Being a scholar has made me a slower, more careful and deliberate reader--which on one hand has greatly amplified my appreciation and understanding of these works to a level I would clearly not ever want to take back, but on the other hand has made it very difficult for me to shift back to a mode of reading in which I can just enjoy the story. That slow kind of reading sometimes feels for me like I imagine a race car driver might feel hitting the brakes on a 35mph road.

In addition, I am a big-time plot addict. This is something that is a little embarrassing to say as a literary scholar, since I still have the feeling I'm supposed to value form over story. And  yes, of course I find form fascinating (duh). But man, I love a good story--and if you give me one, it's nearly impossible for me to stop until it's over (which you know if you've experienced my epic consumptions of entire television series on DVD - such as my college-vacation marathon of all of Cowboy Bebop in 27 hours, recent K-Drama sleep-robbing obsessions, and many many early mornings buried in a book). I suspect that I'm still reading/watching The Walking Dead just because I need to know what happens, even though it may never actually end. That might help you see why I hate Gravity's Rainbow (if you've read it).

Because of all of the above, I have been desperate for a way to get back my love of reading--to return to that mode of total immersion and enjoyment that made me that little nerdy bookworm back in the day (or at least capable of choosing and reading a bedstand book). Thankfully (and thankfully for you this is where the argument comes full circle), I've recently discovered a couple of things that are helping me reopen myself to that experience. It was really about--you guessed it--high standards that were, at least partially, false standards. I couldn't pick up books that I would just enjoy because there were other more 'worthy' books in line ahead of them. And I couldn't pick up those books because I was deterred by my standard for how to read them. My solution, therefore, is two-fold.

First, I've been reading and enjoying books that fall outside of those standards. I don't want to insult them as being under lower standards, because I love them, so instead I want to clarify that point about the supposed lower standard sometimes being actually a different set of qualities that are excellent in their own way. For example, I recently read and thoroughly enjoyed Tina Fey's book Bossypants, which gave me permission to buy and enjoy the book I'm currently reading, Mindy Kaling's likewise comedic memoir/list/essay collection Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). First, can I mention how awesome those titles are? I am major title appreciator. Also, these books are hilarious and so clever! These ladies are genius at being funny and awesome at putting their own lives out there for other people to better appreciate the humor of their own. I read them just for fun and guess what? They get me to read instead of watching TV all the time, I laugh out loud frequently, and I'm learning great things like appreciating parts of my life in a different way and even becoming a better, more well-rounded writer (academic writers could probably all use a little influence from comedy writers). By the way, you may know Kaling as Kelly Kapoor from The Office. I picked up her book because we are currently really into her new show The Mindy Project. It's awesome. WATCH IT IT'S FREE. The other example is self-help books. They get a bad wrap because some of them aren't so great - big surprise. Other genres also have books that aren't so great (like sci-fi, realism, autobiography or postmodernism), but like those other areas there are some self-help books that have actually been really nice to read and had a positive impact on my daily life, like The Happiness Project, which is delightful, intellectually stimulating, hilarious, historically information and super helpful or more religiously-minded books by Max Lucado like Great Day Every Day. A few years ago I also got a big boost from What Should I Do With My Life?, which almost scared me away with its title but ended up helping out during a major career change that culminated in my wonderful life in literature and academia.

Secondly, and this part is still in progress, I want to find away to allow myself to read those books I 'should' read in the more appealing enjoyment mode while still finding a way to process them intellectually. Reading them twice isn't a great option, as it's hard enough to read them all once without doubling the commitment. Any suggestions from the audience? My first strategy is to read books that will probably have absolutely no resonance with my dissertation. Right now I'm trying it with Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence, which I'm resisting a bit for other, unrelated reasons I'll go into another time.

If there is a moral to this unexpectedly long-winded post (you should be grateful that my son is making awake sounds in the other room), it's that occasionally high standards are really limitations in stuffy outfits. And who wants to live life full of limitations, or in stuffy outfits for that matter?

Oh, and also that Mindy Kaling and Tina Fey's books are really funny and I love them. And so are The Mindy Project and 30 Rock. I should've just said that, huh?

Lemon out!

Gratitude is the New Attitude

Happy 2012! I have to say I may have started the year on a shaky note, resolution-wise, with an act of procrastination. I meant to write this post yesterday, but we'll go ahead and call today the start of the new year. Today I want to share something that has inspired me to improve my general attitude and approach toward life. As you might imagine (and some of you know first-hand), being a parent can be the weirdest simultaneity of absolute exhilarating joy and complete and utter exhaustion. It is the great experience of my life so far - but let me tell you, it is HARD WORK. Add to that working on my doctorate and keeping at bay the chaos lurking outside the door of my household, and you have the perfect recipe for one tired, demoralized mama. Fortunately I have an arsenal of anti-blue weapons at my disposal - the forementioned fountain of all joy, a baby boy that I only have to look at to return a smile to my face; a fantastically supportive husband who dives in to all baby-caring and household tasks as a true partner, consoles patiently through any meltdowns (of baby and mommy), and is ready with a joke to lighten the mood; a family network that has been there for us unconditionally since day one (of William's life and our own), traveling repeatedly to help out these brand-new parents, dote on their grandson, and make it possible for me to chug along on my dissertation; most of all, divine strength to draw from when my well runs dry and the unmatched blessing of faith in the Rock that never breaks.

With all that in mind, I was recently brought to self-reflection by a piece on CBS Sunday Morning called  "Making Gratitude an Attitude," regarding a scientific study showing that gratitude is measurably good for our health. The idea is that after the holidays, many of us have a bit of an emotional crash after the Christmas-cheer-induced high of holiday tidings and glee. I have to admit that January can look pretty bland after the tree goes down (yesterday), the holiday tunes recede and the neighborhood lights disappear. As Faith Salie talks about in this feature (video below), gratitude is a powerful antidote to those post-holiday doldrums, and a healthy practice throughout the rest of the year.





Although certainly gratitude is a practice valued and emphasized across secular and religious communities, as a Christian it's something that I've been taught to make second nature all my life. The older we get, though, it seems the harder it is to focus on the thanks when overwhelmed by the needs. Lately when I pray I've been trying to force myself to tell God what I'm thankful for before starting on my list of many requests. It's surprisingly hard to do! I definitely have an easier time thinking of what I need help with sometimes than with listing my blessings. But the truth is that I do have a whole lot to feel grateful for as this new year begins, so every day this month I'm going to write down something that I'm grateful for - I'll probably post it on Facebook, and then I'll post the week's list here on the weekend. I'd love for you to join me on my endeavor if you'd like, and write your own list of things you're thankful for in the comments. Today I'll start with the five things I'm grateful for from 2011:

1. The healthy birth and wonder-filled first year of my beautiful son
2. Getting to know my husband on a whole new level with a year of sharing the rollercoaster of parenthood - now I've even more sure I made the right choice!
3. Passing my prospectus colloquium
4. Having the encouragement of friends to get me writing more regularly again
5. Meeting people through my work who awe me with their artistic genius and honor me with the chance to call them friends

Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I couldn't put this book down! The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is an epistolary novel following the post-WWII encounter of a writer and the residents of one of the Channel Islands, held together by a literary society formed as a means of surviving the German occupation. I am very interested in stories describing the period after the Second World War, and this novel has a beautiful way of bringing out the nuances of the post-war experience with a touching and vibrant combination of humor, romance, loss, and tragedy. Despite the necessarily bleak experiences described in the novel, recounted in the heartbreakingly personal letters, the novel somehow stays lighthearted and often hilarious. The authors do a spectacular job at developing the characters through their writing style and developing a riveting plot across the gaps between the beautiful "snail-mail" correspondence in which most of us no longer engage. I heartily recommend this novel, and thank my friend B.T. for lending it to me!

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Review: Kiss and Tell

Kiss & Tell by MariNaomi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kiss and Tell is bare-all graphic memoir (or autobiographical comic) about the romantic and sexual history of San Francisco cartoonist Mari Naomi. The memoir reads like a little black book of encounters, going chronologically through each person (some of whom we meet more than once). The step-by-step, grittily honest tales touch on way more than sexual experiences and paramours - candidly revealing the entanglements and growing pains of a girl coming of age and how it shapes her relationships with family and friends. Her minimalist drawing style is as direct as the delivery of her story, both managing to come through as both matter-of-fact and heartfelt. Creating such a level of intimacy with a reader takes great courage and risk on the part of an author, especially as a woman writing on subject matter that, despite many changes over the years, still remains more comfortable as the domain of men. Mari Naomi does it humorously and artfully, and I consider myself duly charmed.

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Review: Towers of Midnight

My most recent Goodreads review: Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson.

When I started reading The Gathering Storm, the first book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series "co-authored" by Brandon Sanderson, I found the style difference between the two authors to be pretty jarring - particularly because I had just finished reading Jordan's last book, Knife of Dreams. However, after settling in to Sanderson's somewhat more casual, more quickly-moving style, I am definitely a convert. I thoroughly enjoyed Towers of Midnight, the second book by Sanderson, and breezed through the 1000+ pages (relatively speaking). I find Sanderson's manner of storytelling to be refreshing after the last couple of Wheel of Time books, which I have to say had been getting pretty unruly and tedious, even frustratingly redundant at times. Sanderson's fresh take on Jordan's work breathed some new life into it, unraveling the knots and propelling the plot forward - making it very exciting and gratifying to read after spending so many hours and hours with the characters over the course of 12 books. One of Sanderson's strengths is definitely the battle scenes. My husband and I have previously lamented a couple of battles in Jordan's previous books that definitely didn't give us the payoff they promised after hundreds of pages (or even several books) of lead-in. They were not fully developed and were over much too quickly, almost as if they were paraphrased. It seemed as if they weren't really Jordan's favorite thing to write, so he didn't linger too long on them. Sanderson, however, really does the battles justice. They are detailed to just the right amount of depth, including some descriptions of strategy, fighting sequences and such, and really highlighting the individual gifts of the heroic characters. I'm not hardcore enough to be a big fan of battle scenes generally, so it says something that I enjoyed them so fully. I'm now anxiously awaiting the next volume!

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Alpacas and Tragicomics

Please try to suppress your shock at my appearance so soon after my last post. And while you do that, try to appreciate it as a trust token of sorts, a gesture expressing my deepest intentions to follow through on my stated plans--divulged to you, my few but much-valued blog readers.

First, some happenings from the last couple of weeks:

I have started to write poetry again. I'm keeping it top secret for now because I find the prospect a little unnerving. We shall see where it goes.

Also, we are thinking about adopting a rescued middle-aged beagle. News on future developments may be appearing soon. Before we take on responsibility for the welfare of a living thing, I welcome your advice, admonitions, encouragement, etc.

Meanwhile, some enjoyable moments have come from a couple of visits to Stanford during which I got to socialize and have some great conversations at leisure. When I arrive on campus I now have to navigate around quite a construction extravaganza. Stanford appears to be rushing to finish every possible beautification project before school starts in September. I honestly find it hard to believe, flattery aside, how the campus can be aesthetically improved. We shall see! A benefit of the chaos was the tightly-compartmentalized walkways, which made for more frequent encounters with the hundreds of visitors walking around. It was somehow heartwarming, in a really cheesy way, to see all the various groups of high school students doing their thing and overhearing bits of their animated conversations as they walked by. My little game is to "Guess the Major" from a variety of completely stereotypical first impressions. It's fun.

As for conversations, one particularly entertaining interaction happened while I was having lunch at the Treehouse restaurant with my friend H. We were pulled into conversation with a man in a Hawaiian shirt sharing our picnic table. We had gradually been edging closer to him as we tried to avoid a very persistent bee drawn to our Baja Fish Tostada salads. The stranger turned out to be VERY talkative. It was worth the hijacking of our conversation, though. He jumped in when H. and I were talking about Asturias, the Popol Vuh and ancient cultures such as the Mayans. Apparently this guy had spent a lot of time at archeological sites in Central and South America and knew quite a bit about these civilizations. He also went around the coast of those areas on a sailboat with his family, making pit stops at the sites of several sites of ruins. He mentioned he taught at Stanford, so we asked what department. I fully expected archaeology, history, sociology, anthropology or something of that nature, but he said he was affiliated with engineering, and did something with physics. He then proceeded to get us up to date on the happenings on his alpacas, which he keeps on a ranch or something he has in the area. Crazy! An alpaca-raising physicist who in his spare time sails to the sites of ancient civilizations. I love it.

On the subject of my quest to get healthier, I report that since I have so far lost about 4.5 pounds in about 3 1/2 weeks. It's something, so I'm happy about that, but I'm behind the schedule I set myself. It's kind of frustrating to be going so slow, but people keep telling me it's better this way and I'm doing great. I don't know, though. I do feel better physically, and seem to be toning up a tiny bit, but I wish I could see some more definite numerical results. That is probably silly, but it's true. I got some new running shoes in the mail--so I'll be taking on that frightening project sometime soon. Look for continuing status reports.

Now, the promised book update for the month:

Books Bought:

• A really cool paperback of O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. The edition was put out by Houghton Mifflin in a "Sentinel" series.
• An interesting hardcover of The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde. Think it's from a series called "Cameo Classics." circa 1940. The cover is an ominous charcoal black with a cream-colored cameo of Gutenberg in relief in the center. It is illustrated in black and white.
  
• The Book of Lost Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien, from the History of Middle Earth series published posthumously by his son Christopher.
• Small 1910 hardcover of Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy. Beautiful gray-blue with gold design, with illustrations.
  

Books Borrowed:

• Enchantment by Orson Scott Card
  
• Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings, translated by Dennis Tedlock
• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Books Read:

• Enchantment by Orson Scott Card

This book was a huge surprise. Not that I don't admire the writing talents of OSC, but this is so very different from stuff like Ender's Game. I think I was just taken aback by the depth of what I thought would be a more or less straightforward fairy-tale-goes-modern routine. Far from it. It was incredibly insightful about some topics that are notoriously difficult to get your head around, much less your pen (or typing fingers). One of those was Judaism in 20th c. Europe. The other was the experience of immigration. I have no personal experience with the former, but do with the latter. I honestly stopped in my reading tracks and went back at several passages to admire a bit that particularly struck me. One of them occurs when the protagonist, who emigrated from Russia to the U.S. with his parents as a child, returns there as a graduate student:

"Only when he was belted into his seat and the plane pulled back from the gate did it occur to him why he felt so free. Coming to America, all the burden of his parents' hopes and dreams had been put onto his shoulders. Now he was heading back to Russia, where he had not had such burdens, or at least had not been aware of them. Russia might have been a place of repression for most people, but for him, as a child, it was a place of freedom, as America had never been.
Before we are citizens, he thought, we are children, and it is as children that we come to understand freedom and authority, liberty and duty. I have done my duty. I have bowed to authority. Mostly. And now, like Russia, I can set aside those burdens for a little while and see what happens."

In another section the protagonist reflects on those burdens and their root in the responsibility that comes with knowing that your parents went through some amazing amount of personal hardship and sacrifice to give you a chance to reach higher goals with a comparatively much greater amount of ease. The burden of measuring up and making it valid, to picture them saying to each other, "well, it was all worth it because of this." And the fear of failing in this massive responsibility. OSC did a startlingly good job of expressing this--in my opinion. Like my friend B., who lent me the book, I also shamelessly enjoyed the references to literary academics, such as his dissertation dealing in part with the work on Russian folktales by Viktor Propp. I also loved the explanations of connections between Russian folktale tradition and tales that developed in other cultures. For example, he mentions Baba Yaga and her moving house that walks on chicken legs. I almost shouted with glee (seriously). It's Howl's Moving Castle! I don't think it's a stretch to say that Hayao Miyasaki is very aware of some of these folktale traditions, and seeing the cultural jump is exciting to me. Glee! Highly recommend this book.

• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

I love love LOVE Willa Cather. This novel went farther to solidify my affection for her descriptive prose. I could say a lot, but I'll stick to my favorite aspect of Cather's artistry, which is her passionate depiction of landscape. I know other people have most likely said this thousands of times, but it can't hurt once more. It's really like she has a love-affair with it--her words run over its curves, its exultations, its harmonies, its fierceness, its savagery, its surprises with so much intimacy. If there's anything wrong with that it's that everything else to me is dwarfed in comparison. The characters, the plot--I just get completely lost in the images of certain combinations of the natural environment and how she captures them with so much vitality. This is probably due in part to my own passion for the landscape of Texas. It is so hard to describe to people the things I miss, the things I love; to argue for the beauty of places so many find "ugly" or "boring." There are some Texan poets I love to talk about this, who understand the strings that get pulled in my brain when I think about driving across half the state on Scenic Highway 281, when I float slowly through the mossy, glimmering light of the Guadalupe River while the sun bakes into my skin and the water shocks my limbs with cold, when I drive into an endless horizon on I-35 with nothing in sight in any direction but fields, sky, clouds, and a highway that I know goes on for hours and hours, when the sun sets in a hundred shades of orange and the night falls with such darkness that all I see is headlights and the glow around randomly scattered dots of life. I found this quote somewhere online, and I haven't really verified its attribution to John Steinbeck, but I'm going to go out on a limb and include it anyway, because it states what I struggle to describe much more eloquently:

"I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate possession of all Texans."
-John Steinbeck

Clearly, I highly recommend O Pioneers!

• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Another pleasant surprise, lent to me with high recommendations by my friend L., who is also a fan of graphic novels, manga, anime, and such. I'll keep it brief and say that Bechdel gracefully masters what i consider to be an immense task: telling a difficult and painfully personal autobiographical tale without bitterness. In this graphic novel she is delightfully humorous without being tiresome with irony, frank without being abrasively cynical, and emotionally engaged without being resentful or petty. Most of all, I could feel her love toward her parents almost tangibly in the pages, in the care she took to tell this story in just the right way despite the tragedy or difficulty of the situations she describes. That aside, I was really impressed with the versatility of her drawing. She incorporates a lot of different things in her panels, such as diary entries, handwritten notes, photographs, newspaper clippings, etc., all done in realistic drawings. Superb! Highly recommended (you can see I have been on a roll).

• Hombrez de Maiz by Miguel Angel Asturias

I am going to completely bow out of this one because I am doing a paper on it, so I feel exhausted regarding its descriptions. Suffice it to say that this is an absolutely landmark work in Latin American and Western literature in general, and very innovative for its time. He incorporates mythology, dream sequences and figurative languages almost seamlessly throughout the narrative and uses the structure of the novel itself to help tell a huge story through a microcosm of society. Unfortunately, the sheer mastery of these non-traditional elements makes it somewhat hard to read. It took me ages to finish it, even though I really enjoyed it. That said, it's not often I actually feel triumphant on finishing a book, like I've accomplished something monumental--and that is how I felt when I read the Epilogue. I may have even thrown up my hands in victory. I came, I read, and I conquered!
Highly recommend it, but mainly to tenacious readers who can accept being led without the usual drives and comforts of narratives. Also recommend reading it along with the Popol Vuh, in the translation mentioned above, which I am starting today.

• Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Absolutely fabulous! Morally stunning. Socially earthshaking. How much more hyperbole can I employ to sing the praises of Watchmen? Not enough. It's probably the most acclaimed graphic novel ever--and one of the only ones to win awards usually reserved for strictly narrative novels and other prose. Although I feel there is something somehow wrong about having to justify the merits of a graphic novel by arguing that it can stand up among novels, I will concede for the sake of the uninitiated graphic-narrative-deprived and note the two awards people usually cite: winning the Hugo Award and getting on the list of Time Magazine's 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to the Present, or something to that effect. Alan Moore stories are always good for a lively chat about politics or woes of humanity--something I am usually up for. Anyway, this book is pretty astounding. I prefer to leave it there for the sake of not giving it away, as there is a mystery involved. I won't lie, it's violent and fairly disturbing (mature readers--whatever that actually means) as well as morally disarming. But if you can handle it, I don't only recommend it, I command you to read it. MUAHAHA.

That's all I can think of for now. Let out your collective sigh of relief and feel free to continue with whatever you were doing before I so rudely and verbosely interrupted. Until next time!

P.S. I nearly forgot. If you are somewhat curious about/interested in/passionately love graphic narratives, i.e. graphic novels, comics, manga, etc., go to this website and join the fun: https://www.stanford.edu/dept/complit/cgi-bin/?q=node/262
Cheers!

Getting Fit, Being Lazy

I have been wracking my brains (not really, of course... it being summer break) for something interesting to write about under the pressure of inevitably falling short of the fantastic adventures some of my friends are currently blogging about (see side bar). For now I will be frank with you--my summer is not in any way exciting, and you will have to put up (or not, actually) with my somewhat more tedious adventures and somewhat less tedious plans for more exciting times in the future.

I will try to continue my sporadic bursts of information on what I am currently up to in life and complement it with a new experiment. Before I tell you about it here are my "happenings."

I've decided it's finally time to stop feeling bad about myself and seriously lose the weight I need to to feel more healthy and/or attractive. At least for my clothes to fit again. As well as to give in to my husband's insistence that I have a long and healthy life here on Planet Earth. So, after being spurred on by a Hawaiian friend of ours who has a killer bod after losing weight, I signed up for 3 months of WeightWatchers. Yeah, *sigh* and all that. I caved in. But so far in two weeks I have lost about 3 pounds and have less desire to stuff my face all day, so so far so good. Counting points on an online tracking tool they have fulfills my endless desire for lists and technology, as well as micromanaging, so it's useful for staying on track and not giving up. More concrete, you know? My husband contributed two more important health-aids. The first is the Wii Fit, which has been sold out since it went on the market, but is now sitting primly in our living room. It's an awesome game that revolves around something kind of like those platforms they use in Step Aerobics. It's got sensors in it that measure your weight distribution, movements, etc. The program itself measures your BMI through several criteria, weighs you, and tests your balance and agility, then gives you a chart of your progress and adjusts your "Wii Age," reminiscent of Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. The workouts are divided into categories: Yoga, Strength, Aerobic and Balance. There are multiple exercises in each, and you unlock more exercises and intensities as you score higher and do them more frequently. The exercises are clever and incorporate some fun games. Again, so far so good. My favorite is the boxing game--done somewhat realistically with the nunchuk. He also bought himself a Garmin GPS runner training device, which tracks how far you run, your pace, etc, and keeps track of it on your computer. Our tentative goal is to train for a 10k in October (we'll see about that) and to be fit enough to climb Half Dome at Yosemite (which we just visited with my parents over 4th of July weekend) sometime in September. Finally, we started taking multivitamins.

Now for my experiment (bear with me, I know this is a long post--but I've been building up). Some of you may know that I once started up a book review column on WOAI.com. The great part of it was that since I started it, and had a kick-ass web director overseeing it as well (shout-out to CyberBob), I got to write about pretty much anything I wanted. Eventually I even got to interview people on camera. What I miss most, though, as I become increasingly immersed in the world of literary academics, is just sharing my actual non-premeditated, non-scholarly thoughts on books that aren't just something I "should" read or "must" read. When I started writing reviews I was inspired by one of my favorite contemporary writers, Nick Hornby. I LOVE the way he writes book reviews. Hornby writes a column for The Believer, a great mag put out by McSweeny's. Some of these have been collected in a little book called The Polysyllabic Spree.

This column I simultaneously drool over and revere is simply called, to my utter now-doctorally-oriented delight, "Stuff I've Been Reading." Basically what Hornby does is start with a list (YES!!): "Books Bought" followed by "Books Read." As an avid participant in a family of obsessive book buyers, it's not hard to see why I would find this comforting and cathartic. I buy used books like other people buy Starbucks coffee. Our house threatens to become flooded with books from floor to ceiling, piled up in every corner and surface, like in the house of the famous writer in this movie I saw recently called "Winter Passing." The scary thing is, nothing would please me more. Anyway, after the list Hornby writes his article about a couple of the books he's read. Frank, no-holds barred, blissfully straight-forward and unpretentious (for the most part--although I have no evidence to the contrary at the moment).

So, I have decided to shamelessly copy Nick Hornby's method as a source of inspiration for some blogging, with some adjustments. I will list books when I buy them, some information about the book itself (edition, interesting aspects of the cover, year, place acquired, intriguing dedication notes to other people, etc.), my hopes for it, and so forth. Then I will list books I have started reading (you might see the influence of goodreads here). Finally I will list books I have actually read to completion, with a short comment on what I really think about it. Believe it or not, I anticipate this will be challenging/frightening for me, like standing on a precipice and hoping the next step will be hang gliding exhilaration rather than sure and certain death on some depressing non-academic rocky beach below. Okay, now that I've panicked to the point of hyperbole I feel much better about this. Onward!

And now, the "Next on..." moment of delayed gratification. This post has gone on long enough (much too long, actually), so I will post separately with the first attempt at my book experiment. Until next time!

Just in Case...

...you decide not to click on the very prominent RSS of FreakAngels, the currently-evolving webcomic so generously shared with me by a comic-savvy friend, here is the excerpt of an interlude by the writer of the comic, Warren Ellis, that got me interested. Always interesting to see how others describe the creative process:

How It Works

I still get asked with appalling regularity “where my ideas come from.”

Here’s the deal. I flood my poor ageing head with information. Any information. Lots of it. And I let it all slosh around in the back of my brain, in the part normal people use for remembering bills, thinking about sex and making appointments to wash the dishes.

Eventually, you get a critical mass of information. Datum 1 plugs into Datum 2 which connects to Datum 3 and Data 4 and 5 stick to it and you’ve got a chain reaction. A bunch of stuff knits together and lights up and you’ve got what’s called “an idea”.

And for that brief moment where it’s all flaring and welding together, you are Holy. You can’t be touched. Something impossible and brilliant has happened and suddenly you understand what it would be like if Einstein’s brain was placed into the body of a young tyrannosaur, stuffed full of amphetamines and suffused with Sex Radiation.

That is what has happened to me tonight. I am beaming Sex Rays across the world and my brain is all lit up with Holy Fire. If I felt like it, I could shag a million nuns and destroy their faith in Christ.

From my chair.

See, this is the good bit about writing. It’s what keeps you going. It’s the wild rush of “shit, did I think of that?” with all kinds of weird chemicals shunting around your brain and ideas and images and moments and storyforms all opening up snapsnapsnap in your mind, a mass of new and unrealised possibilities.

It’s ten past two in the morning, and I’m completely wired, caught up in the new thing, shivering and laughing and glowing in the dark. Just as well it’s the middle of the night. No-one would be safe from me right now. I could read their minds and take over their heartbeats with a glare.

Faster than the speed of anyone.

That’s how it works.

Now that's ecstatic writing. Cheers!

The Weight of Blogging and Lightness of Being

I am currently struggling with another dilemma of the writer, the solution of which continues to elude me. How should I choose my audience? It would be one thing if I were writing a fictional novel (which still has its personal hazards, as I will explain later, if I remember), but I am writing that beast of modern computer culture known as a blog, a voluntary submission to what used to be one of the most-feared atrocities in my ten-year old life, the breaking of the fragile little lock on my brightly-covered journal, revealing the emotionally-ridden musings of a mind caught up, inextricably, in a tangled forest of growing pains. Worry not, I have since learned my lesson, and have no plans whatsoever of revealing intimate secrets or painfully embarrassing confessions, as many bloggers tend to do. I am a great believer in the maintenance of at least the semblance of privacy.

Thus, I am not laboring over my audience in terms of whom I should reveal my innermost life to, but rather, and somewhat mundanely, whom I should subject to my ramblings on the outer occurrences of my life, in this case, my month-long stay in Argentina. Another reason I am a disappointment to writers everywhere. I can’t even take the most miniscule step of expanding my readership beyond the count of one—my boyfriend, Alex, who in all likelihood is the only one reading this, and already knows most of what it will contain because I’ve already told it to him. Be patient, though, potential audience. As I have said before, I’m still in the warm-up stage of my endeavor to prove myself worthy of the title “writer,” which I now carry with a certain amount of guilt.

The blog is tricky as far as audience, because if I open the floodgates and make it public, everyone and their dog (which is a lot, here in Buenos Aires… see last blog) will be able to read it, and I’ll be proportionately more self-conscious about what I write, which will, inevitably, quickly and tightly shut off the tap until my stream of written consciousness slows to a trickle, and then back to the comforting, albeit guilt-ridden, silent space of nothingness.

On the other hand, choosing my audience implies an actual process of selection, which is what has me in my current dilemma. It means physically sharing the link with those I have chosen, thus handing them the tiny bronze key to the diary, which also implies having to analyze closely the status of my friendship with them, are they blog-worthy and all that, when I myself am not sure I am worthy to be wasting their time with this blog (By the way, isn’t blog a horribly ugly word? If you think of a substitute, please feel absolutely free to suggest it. Until then, forgive me for subjecting you to its use). Or, for example, should I give the link to my parents, who would find it interesting, amusing, maybe even clever (because sons and daughters are often thought very clever by their parents), or should I declare potential self-censorship and deny them access, at quarter-life, with that old teenage terror of parental surveillance. Which all leads later to the anxiety, once I know I have given a few people the link, with which bloggers frantically check for comments, a two-word to four-line affirmation of their efforts, proof absolute that someone out there is reading, when the original dilemma was whether or not I actually wanted anyone to read in the first place.

You see, this is why I do not write. Or maybe why I have volumes of private journals on my shelves, with lines and lines of creativity I refused to share with anyone but myself. And now refuse to share even with myself, evidenced by the last journal entry, which I’m sure must have been dated at least three years ago, referring with guilt to the previous one, probably written two years before that. I should probably also reiterate the nature of my failures as a writer have nothing to do with the actual act of writing words, seeing as how I just turned in to the Dean of the Graduate School a master’s thesis of about 140 pages. Oh, I write. But it doesn’t count, because although it has to do with me in some metaphysical, psychological or cultural way, my thesis has nothing at all to do with me, the daily me (no, let's not get into that whole debate). The creative writer me. That is the precise stage on which I find myself mute, like in that recurring dream I used to have, in which I had finally won a coveted role in a play, only to realize a moment before going out into the spotlights that I could not remember one of my lines, and in fact had never actually learned them at all. I’m a procrastinator, you see, even in my dreams.

Now that I have most likely lost my one potential reader (sorry, Alex) with my complexes, I will launch into it at last. I have exhausted myself with explanations, and now have no energy to plunge into the cold pool (which I HATE doing, ask anyone) and resort to my usual way of first putting in a tentative toe or two. In that spirit, here are some of the things I am up to today in cosmopolitan Buenos Aires:

1. 1. Listening to/watching the rain. Yes, I am here in Buenos Aires, sitting on my bed, as the rain pours steadily down in serene cascades, slicking the sidewalks, which I promise you, at least in this part of town, were made from something like tile, or marble. Walking in the rain around here implies a constant battle with equilibrium and absolute surveillance of the relationship between the soles of your shoes and the surface of the ground.
2. 2. Listening to Beethoven. I am listening to some of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, currently to the Pathétique, on my iPod, while happily I can still hear the pattering and splashing of the rain outside my open window. This work of Beethoven’s never fails to make me emotional, I warn you, and it’s even worse when I’m playing it myself. There is just something about the way the notes and dynamics work together that reaches in and talks to something inside of me I can’t quite place. I just had to choose between the music and this writing exercise, since the current existence in my bedroom of only one outlet, and likewise one converter in my possession, allows me to only plug in either my iPod or my laptop. The iPod, belong to that first generation of models to come out, has a pretty spent battery, and typical only endures about 15-40 minutes of my musical adventures. The laptop doesn’t last long either, mainly because thanks to the electrical discrepancies across international boundaries, it never charges to its full potential in Argentina, and dies at about the same point as the iPod. As you can see, I have chosen the laptop, at least until the iPod battery runs out.
3. 3. As to my choice of Beethoven over say, the collection called Bella Tuscany (since I am in a classical mood) or some Vivaldi, it is simply because my eye was led to it on the thought impulse suggested by repeated references to Beethoven (a different work of Beethoven's, granted, that I do not possess to my knowledge) in the pages of the book I am currently reading, Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the pages of which I closed reluctantly in order to write, but also in a vain attempt to impede my usual habit of devouring books in their entirety, leaving me with no material for some pleasant plane-reading on my return to Texas in approximately two weeks. It will be a failure, I know it. I am supposed to be reading Borges, as part of my studies here, and I will probably return to him before much time passes today, but I made the mistake of allowing myself to get ensnared in Kundera’s masterpiece, which on top of it all is in English translation (as I have not yet decided to learn Czech) and I can read with great speed and facility, unlike Spanish, which although I can read quite well, I still labor over and must read more slowly. I may return to Kundera at a later point.
4. 4. Postponing my entrance into the outside world. I am still in my lounging clothes, at 2:19 p.m. It is a luxury I am relishing as part of my “working” vacation, a supposedly no-guilt time to relax, as well as sightsee, after the continuous stress of months of thesis-writing and degree-acquiring. However, as you have no doubt deduced by now, guilt is something I find difficult, at best, to purge from any of my activities, and I still have that nagging feeling that I should go get properly attired and venture out, rain or not, into the city I have been walking faithfully for three weeks.
5. 5. Finally, deciding whether or not to write more verbal photographs. My plan was to offer you at least one or two more like the one yesterday about the pooches, but I fear I have overstayed my welcome for one writing excursion, and fear that I will never be read again if I don’t somehow curb the length of my ramblings, held back so long by the fear of writing.

And so, I leave you for now, and I will go outside, at least into the hallway, then probably into the world outside, with a tentative promise to return to you with some delightful written photographs (and maybe even some visual ones, as a tantalizing treat) in a later entry.
Hasta luego!

P.S. As you see, I actually did forget to expand on the hazards of writing the fictional novel, as I said in the first paragraph, as well as about Kundera, not five paragraphs ago. That, also, will have to wait.

My big introduction, errrr... confession

I really must be the worst writer in the history of all writers. Why, you ask? One very simple reason: I DON’T WRITE. For some reason, at times best suited for wild outpourings of creativity, I can’t bring myself to write about it. It’s like I feel it will be spoiled if I start writing about it. At those times, priceless moments I should take down on paper, I only want to take it in, let it seep into my system, enjoy everything about it without having to verbalize or record it. Maybe I shouldn’t even call myself a writer. I get great ideas all the time for things I should write, or maybe I should say that “someone” should write, but I rarely, if ever, sit down and do it. This is my big confession. What could be worse than a writer who confesses that she doesn’t write? Yes, I realize I’m writing right now, but it’s out of sheer cathartic impulse, driven by the guilt of my creative failures. I have seen so many amazing things, been told countless stories that will never be repeated, filed away idea after idea, all lost to the black hole in my mind labeled “Well of Creativity.” Oh, trust me, things go in. But they never come out.

Take my current situation, for instance. I am in my third week of five living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I have had a great time of it here, with more experiences worthy of recounting than I can count, especially since I didn’t write them down. Any normal person of my creative credentials would at the very least write in a journal, or make a blog, SOMETHING. But I just sit there (or stand, or walk by) speechless, sometimes thinking “there’s no way I’ll forget about this” or “wow, I should really write a story about this.” Ah, something else to throw in the well. The purpose of this writing exercise is to somehow warm up into recording at least some of my experiences in Bs.As. before they all disappear, sucked mercilessly into the inner reaches of my mind (where nothing reaches, least of all my creative impulse). I’m very good at critiquing other people’s writing, books and such (if I do say so myself) and have gotten compliments on my reviews, literary essays, etc. And boy, do I appreciate good writing. I even think I’m a fairly good “writer” myself—when I write, that is.

Yet I keep procrastinating, even now, in a effort to delay the icy plunge into the cold pool of words, images and memories I must somehow keep myself afloat in, force myself to stay in, until the point of comfort (which is also the point of numbness, no? Ah, an accidental Pink Floyd reference. Which reminds me of something really funny. The son of the family in whose apartment I am renting a room, 18 years old and lover of American rock-and-roll, circa 1970/80ish, has been walking around all day singing my favorite Pink Floyd song, “Wish You Were Here,” but in that way you do it when you have headphones on or the music is really loud, and you don’t know the words, so you just say every fifth one you know and mumble or make the sounds of the rest—but he does it all by himself, in complete silence, as if he were actually singing it! I love it, he’s a very plucky fellow. Right in front of us, too. You should really have been there. But not at the other times, when every time he gets home he turns on Aerosmith full blast for at least an hour. Every time. Seriously. I tried to talk to him about music today, with Pink Floyd as a starting point. But apparently the music that is wildly popular here is the old school music in the U.S. For 18-year old boys anyway. He asked if I went to concerts, to which I proudly replied in complete coolness confidence, “Oh, I’ve been to lots of concerts, I used to go all the time.” He asked me to name some, so I did… got nothing. He asks if I’ve been to see Guns ‘n’ Roses. No, I say. Bon Jovi? Um, I have a record… The Rolling Stones. Give me a break, kid, those tickets are pricey. How come? Because they are rock ‘n’ roll legends, silly. Legends as in they have been around FOR A REALLY LONG TIME. Rage Against the Machine? Ah, that I can relate to. But sadly, I have the unused ticket in a drawer, because some jerk who was supposed to drive us, didn’t. Kid walks away. I walk to my bedroom, no longer confident in my coolness, defeated by a list of random bands from 20+ years ago.

Where was I? Oh, right…). So I figured I just need a warm-up, a running start, and the torrents of words will come pouring, spitting out of my fingertips in torrents, slipping and sliding all over the keyboard (but not actually getting wet, since it’s a borrowed laptop) and splashing joyfully over the blindingly white surface of my Microsoft Word document. By the way, don’t you find the Word interface creatively deadening? I hadn’t noticed it much before (since I don’t write), but it doesn’t quite cut it like the handwritten journaling in a leather-bound book, pen scratching out lines in a maddening scrawl to keep up with my thoughts. Which is why I am using the computer. My pen usually can’t keep up with my thoughts, and since the point of doing this is that I’m losing them, why would… oh, nevermind. I do so love to procrastinate. Ask anyone.

One thing I do like is taking photographs of fun things I see, so I’ll start with that. Written photographs, meeting the minimal requirement of at least recording certain events or occurrences that stand out.

Photograph 1: DOGS IN THE PARK
I am starting to think there are more dogs here than people. Or at least a nearly equal amount. They are everywhere. One of the more popular professions for 20-somethings appears to be dog-walking, which to me, looks terrifying. One solitary person holding tightly to the leashes of at least eight dogs, most of them medium size to extremely large. They are pretty docile, following their walker in a pack, waiting patiently at the stoplights. I don’t understanding this strange phenomenon of canine behavior. I do find amusing that in every group I’ve seen, the smaller dogs stay in the middle of the pack. My guess is that they feel protected when the big dogs are on the outer edge. Sometimes you can’t even see the little dogs, which is probably how they like it. I really started noticing the dog phenomenon on my walk to class one day (I walk almost everywhere here, distances I’d scoff at sitting in my San Antonio apartment). My usual route takes me past a little wooded park, of which there are many in Buenos Aires. The second time I walked by, I stopped in my tracks and stared. There, in a circular area marked off by a railing around its circumference, kind of like the ring in a circus, were dozens of dogs. At least thirty, probably more. It was like a big dog party, like a giant play date for every dog within a five-mile radius (although now I know there are more than likely 200 dogs in a five-mile radius here). The majority were tethered in some way to the railing, walking around, socializing, resting, licking themselves, chatting about the weather, doing their business, you know, dog stuff. I’ve never seen anything like it. I was in a rush, so I quickly kept walking, craning my neck to keep looking at the dogs. A few days later I went that route again with my camera, and there were dogs there again, but not as many. I took a picture anyway. I’ve walked by at other times, and there is no one there. Maybe there is a dog-walkers association and they have a set meeting-time in the morning, at that particular park. Quite a sight, I have to say. I am not quite sure whether I should add the actual photograph. Probably not. That will be an excuse not to verbalize. Must not enable myself.

Alas, weariness overtakes me, due to the overwhelming strain of actually writing words. My words. Tangibly. Enjoy, at least with the knowledge of the rarity of the occasion. Adieu!