Neat Stuff

Wulp, I finished the new Jonathan Franzen novel, and it's a doozy. Another long one, another dysfunctional family, more multiple points of view, and more hilarity and heartbreak. Maybe less intense hilarity than in The Corrections, but the characters are every bit as rich, if not a little more realistic. Plus, it has the funniest description of human poop since Chaucer.

So now I'm on to Anne of Green Gables. As expected, it's charming. Less expected was how funny it is. And just plain well written. There's this recurring phenomenon in my reading life where I finally get around to reading a book that's such a classic I feel like I already know all about it and expect the experience to be dry and tedious, only to be slapped in the face by the strength of the writing that of course is what made the book a classic in the first place. It feels good to finally put aside all the pigtailed dolls and Japanese tourists and even sweet little Megan Follows, and just hear the story in its original, fresh voice.

There've been some other nice cultural discoveries recently, too. The other day some CDs I ordered from Aquarius Records came in the mail, the most interesting of which by far was not even a CD. Rather, it's a CD jewel case entitled 1-Bit Symphony, and holding some really primitive electronics which end in an eighth-inch stereo jack. When you plug headphones into it and turn it on, you get to hear a piece of music that's about 40 minutes long, in five movements. Actually, the last movement is technically infinite in length, as its final chord continues indefinitely, until you turn off the machine.

The whole thing is programmed by someone named Tristan Perich in 1-bit technology, which seems to mean there's pretty much no variation in timbre or volume possible. Imagine really complex music being played using the sounds of telephone buttons or like the alarm sound on a dot-matrix printer or something. In fact, you don't have to imagine, because I've taken the liberty of recording the first track for you. It's more exciting through headphones coming out of the jewel case, but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway.



And finally, everyone needs to check out a couple of films I caught during the Atlantic Film Festival last week. Another Day is Mike Leigh's newest, and it's just as great as all his movies have been since Naked in 1993. It's lighter than some of those, but there's still plenty of troubled characters and conflict. Lesley Manville is particularly adorable and tragic.

The other one is called The Myth of the American Sleepover. I don't really know anything about it, but it was a very sweet, naturalistic portrayal of teenage life and love, something like Dazed and Confused without the overwrought philosophical dialogue. Sounds simple enough, and it is, but it managed to sneak its way into the hearts of everyone in the theatre, with seemingly no trickery whatsoever. I was there with Alison and Johanna, and we all came out feeling positive and loving everyone and wanting to stay up all night.

Which is what I seem to be doing now. Better hit the hay. Next time, Alison has some photos of the rocks and waves at Prospect to show you. G'night.

Tweet! Tweet!

It feels like I've been shirking my duties here. I haven't really been keeping people very up to date about what's goes on in our daily lives over here, which is ostensibly the purpose of this blog. Although, face it, if I didn't enjoy the occasional opinionated rant so much, I'd probably just get on Twitter and chirp into the void every few minutes.

Well, luckily, I've been doing this writing exercise for 32 days now where every morning I spend a few minutes writing down ten images from the day before. Anything that forces its way into my recall is fine, as long as it's vivid. So now you can enjoy some random subjective details from a month in my life all in one sitting, with no annoying alert sounds or windows popping up every few minutes.

8/18 Someone's job is to dance in a chicken costume outside the Oasis bar.

8/19 Tough looking dog lying on the sidewalk — I whispered, "Hey, cutie," before I realized there was a woman sitting on the steps beside it.

8/20 The woman's face as she pulled into the empty parking space and suddenly saw that I was standing in it

8/21 Buster ran up and down the stairs, meowing constantly when we got home.

8/22 The legless guy in a wheelchair collecting cans

8/23 Alison so mad to find the Sears Christmas Wish Book in the mail

8/24 I saw a guy I don't know very well in HMV, and he saw me, and we both pretended not to notice each other.

8/25 Indian woman sitting alone behind the counter in the dark corner store, her head covered and face expressionless

8/26 Two crows flying low together across the street

8/27 Meg and Glen sitting behind their computer monitors, facing me but not noticing I was there

8/28 Buster walked out of the kitchen and threw up.

8/29 The jade colour of the breaking waves at Clam Harbour

8/30 Two young kids were running the corner store, one telling the other what to punch in on the register.

8/31 The ribs of an old lady in a bikini trying to climb out of the water through the rocks and undertow

9/01 Alison's, Krista's, and Jesse's heads bobbing on the surface of the lake

9/02 The crossing guard looked happy to be back.

9/03 The waves at Lawrencetown were so high, but you could always just see the tops of bigger ones behind them.

9/04 About 25 small birds flying past the car as we went over the bridge

9/05 Tiny wedding party on a tiny yard in Prospect, watching our car

9/06 View from the outhouse with no roof

9/07 CBC News billboards ripped up by the storm

9/08 Crossword puzzle and Destroyer with our dinner

9/09 The mailbox spider and her web are gone.

9/10 Smashed up car in the intersection had its airbag inflated.

9/11 Chucky the squirrel was yelling at our next door neighbour because she hadn't given him any peanuts.

9/12 Guy across the street peering out his bathroom window at me

9/13 My closet looked bare after I gave a couple of shirts away to charity.

9/14 The school playground full of talking kids in the morning

9/15 The rain splatted on the leaves before it turned into a torrent.

9/16 The mailbox spider, back with a new web under the streetlight.

9/17 Girl at the rock show had a tattoo across her entire back that looked like the random doodling you do when you're talking on the phone.

9/18 A parade of nothing but Shriners stopped all traffic in the downtown core.

9/19 A high-hit ball came straight to me in right field.

And now you're all caught up!

Booker's Dozen

A few years ago I wrote about an idea I had called the Motivated Book Exchange (MBE). The gist of if was that people would agree to read books recommended to them by friends, in exchange for the friends' agreement to read any book they might recommend. Well, I could never really get it to catch on, for some reason. But I always thought there was a kernel of something really good in there, having to do with people broadening their horizons and expanding their minds by willingly reading something they might otherwise not have. Not to mention gaining insight into some aspect of a friend's point of view.

Lately, my interest in this project has been reawakened. I guess I've been reading more than I usually do, thanks to my new Kobo and plenty of beach time. And my dad has recently posted a list of the books he's currently reading or read on his blog, which gave me what I think is a pretty good idea for a variation on the admittedly unsuccessful MBE. It's called the Booker's Dozen.

Here's how it works: you make a list of the twelve books you think everyone in the world should read. These are the books that have changed your life, opened new neural pathways, made you who you are. You always wished there was some way to force others to read these books, but of course that was an unrealistic wish. Until now.

Having made your list, you now have others you know make up their own Booker's Dozens. Then you and they choose just ONE BOOK off each other's lists that you and they haven't already read and wouldn't mind reading in its entirety, and you and they do just that. Easy and fun!

I figure this cultural campaign might have more legs than the MBE did, because 1) you get to create your own highly opinionated list of twelve IMPORTANT books, which is pretty fun; and 2) you get to choose which book you'd like to read from a list of twelve, which is a lot less pressure than having to read whatever your potentially sadistic friend decides to hand you.

So, here's my Dozen. Anyone who feels like trying this out by leaving his or her own personal list as a comment, I promise I will read one of the books on that list in its entirety.

1. Alan Carr - The Only Way to Stop Smoking
Sounds like it would be kind of useless to read if you don't smoke, and I'll admit that it's not incredibly great writing, but the way he comes at the problem of addiction is unlike anyone else I've ever read in its insight and level-headedness, and I find it translates into almost any realm where you find yourself behaving in ways you wish you wouldn't. Makes you more sympathetic toward others' addictive behaviours too.

2. Daniel Dennett - Consciousness Explained
My favourite contemporary philosopher. This is the one where he lays out exactly how intentionality can arise out of a completely physical system. No one else, for my money, has ever successfully done this, and especially not in such a readable way. Mind-blowing whether you read philosophy or not.

3. Lewis Hyde - The Gift
How do gifts differ from commercial transactions? What would a culture be like that was based on gift exchange rather than trade? Why would both artists and art appreciators do better to think of the products of creativity as gifts, rather than as commercial goods or services?

4. William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience
Manages to study the phenomenon of religion objectively without underestimating its value or ruining what's good about it. Atheists and theists alike could benefit from James's deep analysis.

5. J. Krishnamurti - Anything, really.
I know it seems like a copout not to list an actual title, but really all his books are pretty much the same. His simple but radically individual spiritual outlook is depicted through transcribed lectures and conversations, and occasionally personal journal entries. Let go of all your baggage, is really his only point, including your personal history, opinions, the culture you live in, and any instruction you may have been given on how to let go of all your baggage, because it's all preventing you from relating in an honest, loving way to others and yourself in the present.

6. Desmond Morris The Naked Ape
The problems and strengths of human beings explained by studying them as an evolutionary biologist would study any other animal population. Should be required reading for all politicians.

7. Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man Is Hard to Find
The best short stories ever written. This is what people mean when they talk about the Southern Gothic style. Characters cling to big ideas, usually to their detriment. Death is always in the air, along with a heavy sense of mystery. It's all funny and creepy and haunting and perfect.

8. J. D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey
Two connected stories in one book. These are the best of the stories about the Glass family. The title characters are young adult siblings, the former in the midst of a sort of breakdown. They've both been somewhat messed up by the benevolent teachings of their learned older brothers, one of whom committed suicide. But these teachings may also be what what they need to get them through their own crises. If you like The Royal Tenenbaums, check out the original inspiration.

9. W. G. Sebald - The Rings of Saturn
It's technically fiction because the narrator is not exactly the writer, but it reads like the undirected rambling of a very knowledgeable and wise, if socially isolated man as he walks around the English coast. Full of fascinating history and inspired trains of thought, and you eventually come to know the heartbreaking character deeply through the ways his brilliant mind works.

10. Eckhart Tolle - A New Earth
I know, it's an Oprah book. I find it weird — but I guess also uplifting — that this guy's so popular, as his teachings are pretty radical. He's essentially in line with J. Krishnamurti (see 5, above), only maybe he manages not to sound quite so grumpy about it. The world is insane and you are an insane product of it, but it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, the way to sanity is to just notice the insanity, RIGHT NOW. Simple. Consistent with the teachings of all sorts of wise people throughout history, but you can tell that it's coming from a condition of true understanding, and not just some scholarly quoting and summing-up.

11. David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
I wish I had more fiction on this list, but I guess it's radical ideas that blow my mind more than imaginative plots or complex characters. Luckily, this novel has all of the above, and then some. It's long and complex. You need two bookmarks for it because there are lengthy and numerous footnotes. The major theme is addiction and how it has completely shaped modern American life. The main characters are a super-intelligent young man from a dysfunctional family who attends a tennis academy and an ex-addict who works in a rehab centre. There is a Québecois terrorist plot to render Americans harmless by introducing them to a videotaped movie (directed by the young tennis student's now dead father) that is so addictive people can't stop watching it and eventually starve to death in a paralyzed stupor. There are plenty of other completely messed up characters. Years are sponsored by companies and now get a product name instead of a number. Everything relates to everything else. Impeccable grammar and long-windedness are used as literary devices. The whole thing is just so FUNNY, that it would be worth slogging through for that reason alone, even if it weren't so brilliant and insightful.

12. Alan Watts - The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are
Watts, Tolle, and Krishnamurti are my holy triumvirate. This book is consistent with 5 and 10 above, but maybe a little more loose and playful in its presentation. Some of the colloquial language is a bit dated, but he gives a very down-to-earth explanation of some fairly esoteric ideas, mostly from the Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. The language is mythological, almost as if it were a story being presented for children, but he continuously reminds us not to mistake the story for the truth it is pointing towards. The Book was one of my introductions to eastern, non-dualistic thought as a teenager, and I find it still always has something of value for me whenever I come back to it.

That's it. Gauntlet thrown. Anyone else got a list of her own? It needn't be annotated...

We Are Alive

Just wanted whoever to know that we made it through Tropical Storm Earl, and we have power and phone service back now. A lot of branches fell down all over the street and the power went out just as Alison was about to finish frying some eggs, but otherwise there've been no disasters. Waves at the beaches have been quite spectacular for a few days leading up to the storm, so this afternoon we're going to drive down the South Shore and see how they're stacking up. More later...