52 Titles Falling Behind
52 Titles Challenge Weeks 34-41 “Falling Behind”
What have you done this summer? What haven’t I done? Between gardening, canning and laying my patio, I barely had time to concentrate on my new full-time job. And before some of you point to me as an example of the recovering economy, please note that I was unemployed or under employed for three years and if it wasn’t for scraping together some freelancing and having a supportive spouse, I would be on the streets and not writing this post.
But enough of that, the good news is that I am employed and that I’m still getting my reading done, mostly. There are weeks when it is a real challenge. But I feel good because while I may not finish on time, I have kept my promise to read more and I have learned a great deal in the process.
52 Titles Challenge:
Week 35, Sept. 12- 18: “The Dream Life of Sukhanov” by Olga Grushin.
I re-read portions of it because I just couldn’t get the story out of my head. I found myself constantly questioning not so much whether Tolya’s dreams are real or imagined but more about the sacrifices all artist’s, especially in these times, must make in order to simply live. What do we give up in order to maintain a semblance of security for ourselves and for those we love?
Weeks 36 – 37, Sept. 19-October 2 “Nightwatch” by Sergei Lukyanenko
Obviously, I love Russian writers cause I tend to read them a lot. I don’t read a lot of sci-fi, fantasy, urban horror or gothic novels and to be honest, I was turned on to this book by the movie. As such I feel like my opinion of the book is clouded by my sincere love of the movies. Maybe my inability to connect with the Anton of the book’s stems from my appreciation of Konstantin Khabenskiy‘s portrayal. Or maybe I just have a horrible translation, which wouldn’t be the first time. I remember reading a version of “Crime and Punishment” that would have made the author choke with tears.
Weeks 38, October 3-9: “Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives” by Brad Watson I absolutely love it when you pick up a novel in a bookstore based on the title, get sucked in by the first page, and finish it satisfied. There are several wonderful stories in the collection. My favorites include “The Misses Moses” and of course, “Vaccum” which is the opening story and starts,
“The mother told the boys that she was much unappreciated in this house. She was just like a slave. She pushed the vacuum cleaner back and forth on the floor at their feet where they sat on the sofa. They had been trying to watch a western show on the black-and-white television before she had turned on the vacuum and begun to shout her words over its howling motor….”
Week 39, October 10- 16: “An Object of Beauty” by Steve Martin. Yes, that Steve Martin. I love Steve Martin but I loath this book. No, I wasn’t expecting funny. I was expecting something other than a whine-fest and boredom that was this book. I adore art history but even that as a framework couldn’t salvage this book. The main character, Lacey, is completely and utterly unlikable and Franks barely registers as a character on the page. I really loved the inclusion of the paintings in the book but when you turn a page and are disappointed to not see a picture, you know there’s something seriously lacking in the book.
Week 40, October 17-23: I went to a wedding and read many fine travel brochures, magazines and in-flight catalogs. Apparently, if you get bored flying you can buy some seriously bizarre things.
Week 41, October 24-30: “Breakfast of Champions” by Kurt Vonnegut Sometimes when you read something really, really bad, you need a literary cleanse. Vonnegut is my go-to guy when I need a humorous, slightly offensive and dark and truthful look at life. Weirdly, this is the first time I have read this book. I adore “Cat’s Cradle” to the point where I am on my third or fourth copy. And while this is no “Cat’s Cradle,” it had some real gem of moments and now I really want to scream something random that my creator (or the universe) won’t expect, “Goodbye blue Monday!”
Until next time, Happy Reading!
~Editor
52 Titles – July Leads to August Which Brings us to September
52 Titles Challenge Weeks 28-36? Can it be possible?
Summer, a time to read when you aren’t busy working, gardening, canning, running errands, grappling with teenagers and school districts and maybe, just maybe trying to have a little fun besides.
So grab a tall glass of lemonade, sit back, relax and enjoy my summer reading notes.
52 Titles Challenge:
Weeks 28, July 25 – July 31: “Sense and Sensibility“ by Jane Austen. I found it a little dry but overall it wasn’t a bad way to spend a week traveling cross the West. I liked Elinor’s sense and faith that things would work out but found Marianne a bit annoying and pathetic.
Weeks 29 & 30, August 1 –14: “Of Human Bondage” by W. Somerset Maugham No truer, title has ever been written. I tried to read this semi-autobiographical novel. I really tried to finish this book but after three or four tries, I still couldn’t get past page 180. I have no idea why I am supposed to care about the whinny, sniveling, bore that is Phillip and frankly, life is too damn precious to try. I know, I know it is supposedly one of the most amazing love stories in literature but if I die from boredom before I get to the good parts what is the point. Have you read it? Does it get better? When? I’d like to know.
Week 31, August 15-21: “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” by Jamie Ford. A fine first novel and a good read to boot. The ending is a little too sweet and convenient but it held my attention and won me over with its details of Chinese-American life, food and customs, and there were times when I was truly wanting more.
Week 32, August 22 – 28: Assorted Rod McKuen poem books. I will write more about McKuen later as he had a huge role in my childhood memories.
June 15
Hurry.
Sunday will not wait,
even for a woman.
The ships are in the harbor
and to catch up now
we’ll have to steal a little time from God.
(hard to do with our accounts so overdrawn).
Hurry up.
– from “In Someone’s Shadow”
Weeks 33 – 34, August 29 – Sept. 11: “The Dream Life of Sukhanov” by Olga Grushin. Another first novel and an extraordinary one at that. The writing is incredibly detailed and lush and heartrending. Are Tolya’s dreams real or imagined? Are they destroying him or are they liberating him? And how does one use art as a weapon against oppression when creativity and free thought are being quashed?
“As I stand without moving, it seems without breathing, my feeling of living in the present tense, my perception of reality, the very memory of my identity leave me like crumbling shells of things that have died, and the world itself falls away from my senses.”
Until next time, Happy Reading!
~Editor
Call me Amish
~ This article is a guest appearance by Tuffgonad
Not too long ago a computer beat humanity at Jeopardy http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/17/ibm-watson-reddit-ama/ . Now this troubles me not because I worry about Terminator or Matrix scenarios, and I don’t really mind the fact that we can be beat at Jeopardy. After all, from what I can see, most Jeopardy contestants are people who can memorize facts and useless knowledge because they have nothing better to do in their lives. But have we begun as a society and a world to give up creativity and thought. Is this the beginning of the end for us?
I am always five or six steps behind the technical world. I am not on Twitter, Facebook or many other things and this annoys several member of my family. I leave my cell phone at home a lot and that annoys my friends. I can’t text worth a dam. Have a hard time reading text because we have reduced the English letters to a few letters and to incomplete sentences. My computer is a relic perhaps dug up at some archeological dig. I have been at times been called Amish. At first it seems like an insult but after thinking about it I don’t think it such a bad thing.
In a world were things move at the speed of 1s and 0s I like my quiet contemplation. I like knowing I can solve simple problems without having to Google them. I see the generation that is growing up today and they are so dependant on technology that I wonder what would happen if the world had a massive black out for a month or so. In my head I see riots developing in a few days as the last battery life drains from the machines that have become surrogates to us for real human connection. I see others huddled in their corners having imaginary conversations on their Blackberrys with friends as imaginary as the friends they used to talk on the same devices with. I like to think that in the time after the big hysteria that the few survivors descendants would be sitting in a cave made out of an old Starbucks lit by a fire telling stories so unbelievable that they have to be myth. Stories such as the children of old could fly in the air beyond the horizon or how they had magic devices that let them talk to people they could not even see.
So will we even notice when carbon based life forms give way to silicon based life forms. It is not uncommon for me to call my car or computer stupid. But what happens when my computer or car can legitimately call me stupid? This must be how God felt when we turned away. Will computers be telling their children that we are imaginary that everything just came to be?
What will happen to irrational thought? Personally, it is my favorite type of thought. Love is irrational you do not need it to survive. We could procreate and many of us do quite well with out it and in terms of passing on your gene Oh! Yea! You’re a winner. Hell, many of us do not even have lust when it comes to sex because to have lust you have to have a lack that produces a want. And what about humor? We could live with out humor. Hell I had a former boss that certainly lived without it. She had no need for it. You would have been able to find a happier lunch lady serving a never ending line of demon children in hell than this lady.
Maybe I should not have such a sense of sadness. Maybe in the end I will be reduced to a pet or a zoo attraction. In the zoo I guess I will be like our cousin, the monkey, drawing with poo crayons to relieve the boredom. The computers will look at me. Some in disgust and others will wonder if we even are self aware because we certainly look bored to death.
52 Titles – June & July Fly By
52 Titles Challenge Weeks 24, 25 & 26th – June 20-July 11 Magazines by Assorted
In my attempt to read 52 books this year, I failed to take into account one thing: my other reading. I.e. The dozens of magazines, journals, newspapers and assorted ephemera that I receive on a daily basis.
I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t open my ancient file cabinet drawers without serious lifting due to the two foot tall stack of other reading I had set aside.
I come from a family prone to hoarding…not “Hoarders” necessarily but in a few cases they are scarily close. As I have discussed with one of my similarly minded brothers, “hoarding is a slippery slope. It starts out innocent with conjectures about ‘needing this some day’ or ‘some day I will get around to it’ and the fact is you rarely do. Yes, there are some great steampunk guys and gals out there who are creating some amazing art out of little things they have set aside but for those people collecting is like gathering your instruments or art supplies, it is part of a process not an overwhelming need to own.
So I decided to read it or recycle it….man, some of it was born recycle-worthy.
Some of what I plowed through:
- 4 issues of Country, my uncle sends me a subscription every Christmas. – I glance at the pretty pictures but only really read the stories related to the old pictures, recipes (mmm, corn casserole), and the section where people ask others for seeds, recipes and guesses as to what some piece of rusty metal or broken wood is. I have never, ever, found the damn needle; to be honest, I never try that hard.
- Catalogs – I like to read the descriptions, particularly for one seed and herbal catalog that somehow manages to sneak in an occasional double entendre. I often wonder if the writer is gleefully happy that the editors and owners don’t catch them or don’t mind.
- 3 Neighborhood Newspapers. – I missed some good events and am sad for all the people who worked so hard to try to keep the EPA from covering our local water holding stations. I will miss seeing the sunset play out on the water and hope that the reservoir pee-er gets his karmic reward. The citizens might have won if you hadn’t felt the need to pee in the city’s water supply instead of one of the hundreds of bleeping trees in the park.
- 8 issues of Poets and Writers. – Obviously, these went pretty fast since most of the contests etc. were over. I liked the new poets issue a lot though because they highlighted some older new poets and that gives all of us hope doesn’t it? Also, there was Michael Klein’s essay on being a working writer which was very timely.
- 3 issues of Better Homes and Gardens – a gift from my mother-in-law who obviously doesn’t pay attention to what I read. I like the glossy pictures of home decor items I couldn’t afford in a million years and some of the recipes are really easy and tasty. I rarely read the tragedy stories and I skim most of the interviews, except Michael J. Fox. I liked what he had to say about Parkinson’s disease and how people treat him and his wife.
- 3 issues of Mother Earth News – Some days I love this magazine and don’t know how I would garden without it and other times it feels like I am reading the same issue over and over again in some weird parallel universe. I love the no knead bread recipes…that alone might justify my continued subscription.
- Assorted environmental magazines – degradation, panic, blarg…it’s summer, these editors should save the doom and gloom for fall. I know, I know but I meant it in the nicest, earth friendliest way.
- 7 issues of Smithsonian – I love, love this magazine. It is one of the few magazines I read cover to cover with rare exceptions, namely the Civil War. I don’t know why the Civil War bores me but it does, to no end. Luckily, or unluckily for me, there were very few Civil War articles (last year it seemed like there was one in every issue). Instead I read about new temples being uncovered, UAV’s, earthquakes, amazing pictures and an essay on Richard Dawkins and the birth and evolution of memes which is a must read. “All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.” ~ If you’ve never read Smithsonian do. It is well written, gorgeous and it supports one of the most amazing institutions in America, the Smithsonian.
Until next time, Happy Reading!
~Editor
What I Was Going to Write (and something I did)
Since my last post (four months ago!), there were a number of things I meant to say. Mostly, those ideas are gone. Here are two sketches and a main idea.
Field Trip. I went with my son’s class on a field trip to a planetarium. A bus full of 5-6 yr. olds, their teachers, and other chaperones. How many minutes of I Spy can one person stand, I wonder? Having my son fall asleep on me during the bus trip back to school? Priceless.
Another Movie Doubling. Wedding comedies: Bridesmaids (May 13th) and Something Borrowed (May 6) were released around the same time. I haven’t seen either movie, but I gather that Bridesmaids is the better movie (it also did four times as much box office for a movie with a similar budget) and something I will get from Netflix.
“Lost” Classics. A while back, I picked up an old paperback (probably at a library book sale), A Century of Great Short Science Fiction Novels. It was edited by Damon Knight and published in 1964. One very cool thing about this anthology is that I had read NONE of the pieces earlier and for two of the authors I had read none of their work. The first story is Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, from 1886. Because of its influence on later writing, it is hard to imagine what the first readers of the story would have thought. I enjoyed it anyway and am glad that I can now say I’ve read it. The same holds for the next tale, H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, from 1897. Interestingly, the invisible man and Dr. Jekyll both appear in one of my favorite graphic novels series (1999-), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (please don’t judge the comic book based on the 2003 movie). The third story is Karel Capek’s 1922 novel, The Absolute at Large. Capek is bet know for his 1921 play, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), which introduced the word “robot,” a term coined by Capek’s brother Josef. The Absolute at Large is a work that was not easily found for many years, but there was an interesting reference to it recently: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/21/135241076/a-rollicking-critique-of-absolute-religious-fervor. Knight edited the novel, however, so I cannot comment on the unedited version (it has been sitting in my amazon.com cart since the NPR article, though). His reasoning: “there are long chapters…nearly half the book–that go nowhere and contribute nothing to the story.” The idea that a machine designed to produce energy could be so perfect that it releases “the absolute” into the world is an amusing one, and has to be read to be believed. After this is a story by Robert Heinlein whose later works I am quite familiar with. The one here, Gulf, is a futuristic spy-fi story from 1949. An idea here is this: should gifted people be required to use their gifts for the common good? The 1982 novel Friday is loosely connected to Gulf, as the main protagonists are referred back to. The last two stories are by authors I had never read. I doubt anybody editing an anthology with same title as Knight’s would inclued these stories. It is interesting what one thinks of one’s contemporaries–something like this, I bet: “these stories are where it’s at–they will rank among the greats!” Alas, this rarely happens. T.L. Sherred’s E for Effort was first published in 1947 and eventually made its way into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. The premise here is this: what would happen if you had a way to see (and record) history–actually see what really happened? The effects are almost as unpredictable as the effects of releasing the absolute into the world. Lastly, there is Richard McKenna’s Hunter, Come Home, from 1963. McKenna is best known for his novel The Sand Pebbles, published in 1962 (also made into a movie in 1966), and set in 1920s China. Hunter, Come Home is hard to describe but it is set on a world unknown to us, and mostly unknown to the various species studying it, or trying to remake it in their own image. It is ahead of its time in its underlying themes of pacifism and environmentalism. All, in all, I think I got my 25¢ worth out of this one.
52 Titles – A Month’s Weeks
* Pardon the disruption in reading, I got terribly sick in May and spent nearly two weeks hoping I would die and then when I didn’t I had to catch up on work and life’s other necessities. But let’s see if we can’t get ourselves caught up.
52 Titles Challenge Week 19 – May 16 – 22: “Fragile Things” by Neil Gaiman
Finished up Gaiman’s collection of short stories and poems. Some were incredible like the aforementioned, “October in the Chair” and some of them were less engaging like, “The Monarch of the Glen” which I probably would have enjoyed a lot more had I already read Gaiman’s novel, “American Gods” where the character, “Shadow” first appears.
I also really enjoyed the fact that Gaiman gives notes on each of the stories and poems in the collection, not just who published it where but whether he is still terribly fond of it, who he wrote it for and little things that he was thinking or obsessed with at the time. One of my favorite author interview questions is about obsessions and the little things that take our brain into new directions.
52 Titles Challenge Week 20 – May 23 – 29 Sick.
Do fevered dreams and seeing spots count as reading. Great, something else to catch up on.
Week 21 – May 30- June 5: “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot
I’ve always loved biology, bioethics and the politics of class and race so this book engaged me on several fronts. The writing, for the most part, is crisp and lively with just the right amount of information for people without a background in science. For others like myself, there were times when I wish Skloot had gone into further detail about how the HeLa cells were used to create polio vaccines etc.
While I enjoyed most of the book, I felt at times as if the author was being too true to the Lacks family. In her attempt to write about their mother in a way that was respectful and considerate of them, I often felt like Skloot was keeping part of the story hidden in order to protect their feelings or their mother’s memory. I don’t know exactly why this feeling of uneasiness kept rising up in me but it did.
Maybe the feelings were part of my struggle as a reader. I wanted to know more about the cells and Henrietta Lacks but I also felt terrible for the Lacks family and all the suffering, poverty and confusion they had lived with all those years. How horrible and pressing it must have been for them being constantly torn between science and progress and faith and spirit.
Week 22 – June 6-12 “In the Kitchen” by Monica Ali
I loved. Absolutely loved, Ali’s “Brick Lane.” I only keep four types of books. 1) Those given by friends 2) Those signed by the author 3) Beloved books that I have found unique copies of and 4) Said beloved books. Books that I have fallen in love with one or more of the characters or stories that keep me thinking long after I left the last page.
“Brick Lane” was one of these books. I loved the story of Nazneen and her journey of self discovery. I thought the story was fresh, timely and incredibly true.
I can say the exact opposite of “In the Kitchen.” I tried. I really tried to connect with the story of Gabe, and there’s the problem. I shouldn’t have to try to connect with him. Good characters pull you in without you quite being aware of exactly when or how it happened.
Was it his cheating on his girlfriend? Was it his loathesome lack of interest in his family, the dead member of his restaurant crew? Was it his half-assed plans to get his own restaurant or start a family? I don’t know but I didn’t like him and by page 184 I knew I didn’t care about what happened to him so I closed the book.
Week 23 – June 13-19 “The Slynx” by Tatyana Tolstaya
I was introduced to Tolstaya in college by a professor who thought I could fine tune my writing style by reading her short stories. I love Tolstaya! Her collections of short stories, “Sleep Walker in a Fog” and “On the Golden Porch” are two of my absolute favorites and since her books are so hard to find in the U.S. I refuse to loan them to anyone.
She is one of the names I check for every time I visit a bookstore and a while back I picked up a copy of “The Slynx.” I’ve been holding off on reading it for months because I heard it described as apocalyptic, dystopian fantasy fiction and I had just finished reading my third end of the world, disease novels last winter and didn’t know whether I could handle more death and suffering humanity, especially at the hands of Tolstaya who can capture brilliant moments of life like no one else can.
I’m not sure what to say about “The Slynx.” I am awestruck. I’m confused. I’m totally immersed in Benedikt’s world which is both familiar and completely foreign. It is fairy tale and folklore, myth and social commentary. It is art and politics. It is about the individual and the stratification of “humanity.” And the first 87 pages are some of the finest, most engaging and unique writing I have read so far this year.
Until next time, Happy Reading!
~Editor
Advice5 Cents – He Loves Her, He Loves Her Not
Miss Know-it-All’s and Miss Told-You-So’s Very Correct and Exemplary (and also Fake) Advice Column” where “Two rights means you can’t gowrong!”
Today’s letter comes from Confused Ex-GF:
Dear Ms. Know-it-All and Ms. Told-You-So,
My ex-boyfriend broke up with me, and now a few months later, he’s dating a woman who possesses all the qualities he said he didn’t want. Was he lying to me before? I don’t get it. How do I get past the anger?
Confused Ex-GF
Dear Confused,
People are fickle. Sometimes they don’t know they want something until they want it. I do sympathize, but whatever his reasons, it doesn’t pertain to you. There’s nothing wrong with you or him, it just wasn’t the right fit. I know it seems like a mystery to figure out, but it’s not. He’s just not the right person for you. For your own sake, don’t devote any more brain power to “why, why, why?”
As far as getting over the anger, the best thing I ever did was to forgive the guy who broke up with me citing he wasn’t ready to settle down, then was married and expecting a baby six months later. It broke my heart. It took me a long time to get over him for some reason, and even longer to forgive him, but as soon as I did, it unlocked the part of me that I’d shut away for fear of rejection and opened me up to meet the right person. Not the “you’ll do,” or the “make it work,” person, but the one who loves me to pieces. The old BF pales in comparison, to say the least.
Bottom line: The right one will be crazy about you, not make you crazy.
Love, Miss KIA
Dear Confused,
Sometimes, it isn’t the quality; it is the package. This has nothing to do with being attractive. It just means that sometimes we believe one thing and react in another. For example, I would be the first to claim that I am against air conditioned hotel rooms but I will seek one out when I am in the desert. The qualities that led him to break up with you were just a very small part of your complete package. A list of qualities or annoying habits is easier than admitting that your relationship is missing that elusive spark that makes those same qualities and habits not matter.
You get over it by asking yourself how do I feel about myself? Would I be willing to change those things for someone else with no guarantee of finding love even if I change?
Self doubt is an easy and never-ending road. Challenge yourself to love what makes you unique and have faith that someday you will meet a guy who will see those same seemingly undesireable “qualities” and find them endearing, charming and irresistible.
Love, Ms. Told-You-So
Until next time…
~Editor’s Note: Ms. Know-it-All and Ms. Told-You-So will be answering questions several times a week. Advice seekers are asked to leave their questions in the comments box and Ms. Know-it-All and Ms. Told-You-So will respond as quickly as possible.
52 Titles – Week 17 & 18th
52 Titles Challenge Week 17 – May 2 – 8: “Jaded Honor” by Tony Hayden
This book was written by my sister’s friend and former teacher, Tony Haden. I read Hayden’s “The River’s Edge” last winter and it was a good, fast read, even though the writing was a bit uneven at times. In this he isn’t alone, Steig Larsson’s third “The Girl…” could have used some fine tuning and editing as well. Editors are so important and yet more and more novels and articles are being published without them. It frustrates me to no end to read an adequate sentence and know in my heart that it could be extraordinary in the right hands, sigh.
My sister swears this book is his best. We will see.
Update
I have to disagree with my sister, I think “The River’s Edge” was better. While the writing in “Jaded Honor” was more consistent, I felt the ending was too predictable and that the writing was skewed in order to get us there. I didn’t get the emotional punch that comes when an ending comes out of nowhere and takes you for surprise. Maybe my problem is that as a writer I have a really hard time not seeing the allusion.
Week 17 – May 9-15 “Fragile Things” by Neil Gaiman
Fifty pages in and all I can say is WOW! Incredible. This is my first Gaiman book (a collection of short stories and poems thus far). I’ve read his blog and watched movies based on his books. I have followed his support of public libraries, free speech and open internet and I’ve even bought his books for others. But today is the first time I actually sat down and read one.
A mentor of mine once wrote in the margin of one of my stories, “wish I had wrote that.” It was in reference to a single line – where an old man relates how his wife broke his heart. Every once in awhile, we have a reading moment where a line hits us like a stack of bricks and we are left in awe, wishing that those particular words, in that delicate combination had come from the ether that is our brain.
Rarely does the sentiment extend beyond a sentence, but I am absolutely floored by Gaiman’s story, “October in the Chair”. I wish I had wrote that.
Until next time, Happy Reading!
~Editor
Eccentric or Creative
Working in your pajamas
One of my tests to determine whether someone is “friend” material or merely an acquaintance is to ask them this, preferably over drinks,”Do you ever talk to yourself, in the mirror or otherwise, as one of your characters?”
This question leads to one of two possible looks. The first is, “cuckoo, psycho standing before me…where is the nearest exit?”
The other is the bashful, lip biting, glance over the shoulder to see if anyone else is listening before I blush slightly and admit, “I thought it was just me.”
Now admittedly, there is a third response. The Cocker Spaniel, roll over and show my belly cause “I want you to like me, really, REALLY like me.” [Vomits slightly] I hate these writers. They are like Britney Spears; they will do anything, absolutely anything to appear legitimate. Until you are dead, writing shouldn’t be a popularity contest. It should be about the craft of developing your work.
The unbeliever has already left and the cheerleader isn’t worth the time it takes to write this sentence, so let’s focus instead on the revelation that some of us writers, and possibly artists, dancers, etc., talk to ourselves. Does this make us mad men and women? Certainly not, eccentric most definitely.
Whether you talk to yourself in the mirror, can only work to certain types of music in a certain bathrobe, during a certain solstice or just need four cups of the magic bean juice to keep the gears working. We all have certain eccentric working tendencies which enable us to engage and work effectively at our craft.
Eccentric creatives not only have little idiosyncrasies, we also have strict belief systems attached to those habits. For example, how many of us are willing to divulge the full details of our current project for fear that even the utterance of the topic will case it to disappear into the collective ether. Okay, maybe it is just me.
Or is it? Today I was reading a newsletter from Behance, an online portfolio site (to be discussed in a later post), and came across an article on “Why Creative People Need to Be Eccentric” by Mark McGuinness. The article is a slight hodge podge but what I like about it is that he provides some great examples of eccentric work habits, like Maurice Sendak drawing to music, Truman Capote needing to recline because otherwise he couldn’t think.
It reminded me of the movie “Adaptation” where Charlie Kaufman is wondering whether he should eat the muffin. He plots out all the possible scenarios, like if I eat the muffin now, I will have energy to write but if I eat the muffin later it will be a nice reward for getting some writing done. Kaufman is determining the ritual and the rules for that ritual. Did the order in which he consumed his muffin affect the writing he was doing, watch the movie and find out.
Of course some of you are now thinking that there is a “psycho standing before me..” but wait, think of all the little things you accomplished today. Was there an order, a specific way in which you had to do some of them…not because you had to do them that way but because you wanted to?
So what are your eccentric habits and how do they help you create?
52 Titles Challenge – Week 16
52 Titles Challenge Week 16 – April 25-May 1 : “The Sunday Philosophy Club” by Alexander McCall Smith
I was given this book by a friend of a friend who loves mysteries. I love a good mystery, especially one that is fraught with adventure, some spine tingling and occasionally nausea-inducing moments. “The Sunday Philosophy Club” has none of these elements, or at least it didn’t when I finally gave up on it. I was walking home from work when it happened. I was a hundred pages or so in and the most exciting thing that had happened since the opening crime was that the main character, whose name I keep forgetting (the book is that riveting), was following her niece’s boyfriend around like a middle-aged nosy-body who didn’t have anything better to do.
I have better things to do than finish this book.
Week 17 – May 2 – 8: “Jaded Honor” by Tony Hayden
This book was written by my sister’s friend and former teacher, Tony Haden. I read Hayden’s “The River’s Edge” last winter and it was a good, fast read, even though the writing was a bit uneven at times. In this he isn’t alone, Steig Larsson’s third “The Girl…” could have used some fine tuning and editing as well. Editors are so important and yet more and more novels and articles are being published without them. It frustrates me to no end to read an adequate sentence and know in my heart that it could be extraordinary in the right hands, sigh.
My sister swears this book is his best. We will see.
Until next time, Happy Reading!
~Editor
Revolutionary Verb 