What else would I write a blog about?

Books read in September
55. The Plato Papers - Peter Ackroyd, novel 20C British
56. The Rose and the Beast - Francesca Lia Block, short stories 21 C American
57. Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay, novel 21C American
58. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, novel 20C British
59. Beowulf - Anonymous, epic poem 6-8C British
60. Dreaming in Cuban - Cristina Garcia, novel 20C Cuban
61. The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros, novel 20C American
62. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - anonymous, early Anglo-Saxon

Books read in October

63. Whip It - Shauna Cross, novel 21C American
64. Embroideries - Marjane Satrapi, graphic novel 21C Iranian
65. Pop Salvation - Lance Reynald, novel 21C American
66. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys, novel 20C Dominican
67. Undiscovered Gyrl - Allison Burnett, novel 21C American
68. Everyman - anonymous, play 15C British
69. Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer, non-fiction 21C American

Books read (so far) in November

70. Prozac Nation - Elizabeth Wurtzel, non-fiction 20C American
71. Poems Retrieved - Frank O'Hara, poetry 20C American
72. Endgame - Samuel Beckett, drama 20C British

The numbers indicate my year-t0-date total of books read. I'm still working on Dexter, Eating Animals, and Prozac Nation. I'm very impressed with what I've read of Eating Animals so far. It's well researched, yet doesn't read like a research paper. Foer is one of my favorite authors and he hasn't let me down yet. If I wasn't already a vegetarian, I might become one after reading just the first 50 pages of this book. Dexter isn't too exciting because it basically follows the first season of the TV show to a T, so no surprises await me. I just started Prozac Nation, so not much to say about it yet.

In September, I read mostly for school. Beowulf was easier to read than I expected. Heart of Darkness was incredibly dense. Dreaming in Cuban was a fantastic look at three generations of a Cuban family and the different routes their lives took.

October was mostly frivolous reading. I enjoyed Embroideries immensely; it's definitely a book that can be read in one sitting and is extremely reminiscent of Satrapi's style in Persepolis. I also found myself incredibly surprised by Undiscovered Gyrl. The title itself threw me off, but I started it anyways and was actually shocked by it. It's an incredibly poignant look at a turbulent year in the life of a young woman who has decided to postpone college. The ending honestly blew me away. It's an easy read, but much deeper than it may appear to be. I read 90% of Pop Salvation while pooping because it just didn't deserve much attention.

why i never fall

The way you’d touch my hair
when you thought I wouldn’t notice.
And how I’d never say, “I love you, too,”
just, “I know.”

November 10, 2005

The Waste Land

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

T. S. Eliot

Girly Nerdy Goodness: Episode 1

Attention: Girls are invading the internet! On our very first episode of Girly Nerdy Goodness, we take a trip into the wizarding world, learn how to moonwalk (or not), and discuss the possibility of a GNG intern. We also gave one clueless male a peek into the mysterious female psyche. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook. And if you have any comments, concerns, or female-related questions, leave us a comment or send us an email at GNGshow@girlynerdygoodness.com.

Click here to listen to Episode 1: A New Show

Meditations in an Emergency

Am I to become profligate as if I were a blonde? Or religious as if I were French?

Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!), but one of these days there’ll be nothing left with which to venture forth.

Why should I share you? Why don’t you get rid of someone else for a change?

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.

Even trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie under them, too, don’t I? I’m just like a pile of leaves.

However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes–I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless i know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regretlife. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they’re missing? Uh huh.

My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time; they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and disloyal, so that no one trusts me. I am always looking away. Or again at something after it has given me up. It makes me restless and that makes me unhappy, but I cannot keep them still. If only i had grey, green, black, brown, yellow eyes; I would stay at home and do something. It’s not that I’m curious. On the contrary, I am bored but it’s my duty to be attentive, I am needed by things as the sky must be above the earth. And lately, so great has their anxiety become, I can spare myself little sleep.

Now there is only one man I like to kiss when he is unshaven. Heterosexuality! you are inexorably approaching. (How best discourage her?)

St. Serapion, I wrap myself in the robes of your whiteness which is like midnight in Dostoevsky. How I am to become a legend, my dear? I’ve tried love, but that holds you in the bosom of another and I’m always springing forth from it like the lotus–the ecstasy of always bursting forth! (but one must not be distracted by it!) or like a hyacinth, “to keep the filth of life away,” yes, even in the heart, where the filth is pumped in and slanders and pollutes and determines. I will my will, though I may become famous for a mysterious vacancy in that department, that greenhouse.

Destroy yourself, if you don’t know!

It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so. I admire you, beloved, for the trap you’ve set. It’s like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over.

“Fanny Brown is run away – scampered off with a Cornet of Horse; I do love that little Minx, & hope She may be happy, tho’ She has vexed me by this exploit a little too. – Poor silly Cecchina! or F: B: as we used to call her. –I wish She had a good Whipping and 10,000 pounds.” –Mrs. Thrale

I’ve got to get out of here. I choose a piece of shawl and my dirtiest suntans. I’ll be back, I’ll re-emerge, defeated, from the valley; you don’t want me to go where you go, so I go where you don’t want me to. It’s only afternoon, there’s a lot ahead. There won’t be any mail downstairs. Turning, I spit in the lock and the knob turns.

Frank O’Hara (1957)

My Kind of Survey

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Well, besides J.K. Rowling...I own all of Jane Austen's novels (including two copies of Pride and Prejudice), so that's 7.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I have three copies of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (hardcover, paperback, French paperback).

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
A little, but sometimes it's just awkward to rework a sentence around prepositions.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Mr. Darcy, Mr. Tilney, Henry DeTamble, Westley from The Princess Bride, Harry Potter, Leo Borlock, Robbie from Atonement. Wow, I'm in love with a lot of fictional characters.

4a) What fictional character would you most like to be?
Elizabeth Bennet.

4b) What fictional character do you think most resembles you?
I'm afraid that it's Esther Greenwood. Or Brod.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
I have no idea. Probably Maniac Magee because I read it so much as a kid and again a few times as an adult.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Maniac Magee, hands down.

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
I've read a lot of good books this year...The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, The Brutal Language of Love by Alicia Erian, White Noise by Don DeLillo, etc.

9) If you could force everyone you know to read one book, what would it be?
The Bell Jar.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
I honestly couldn't answer that.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
I think The Book of Lost Things would be fantastic. The Brief History of the Dead might be interesting. I'm also interested in seeing the new Bell Jar adaptation.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
I don't really care...I'm not too picky about books being made into movies.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I remember dreaming about falling through the pages of a book when I was a kid. It was scary/awesome.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Twilight...it's like a car crash.

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
I'm struggling with The Canterbury Tales right now. Beowulf wasn't a walk in the park, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. I still hate The Turn of the Screw and Heart of Darkness is so dense that it hurts.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
I haven't seen any really obscure Shakespeare plays. I've seen A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, and As You Like It.

17) Do prefer French or Russian?
French, bien sur!

18) Roth or Updike?
Haven't read either.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Probably Eggers, but I like both.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare, for sure. I'm a sucker for the bard. I like Chaucher's stories, but they're such a chore to read.

21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I haven't done much 18th century reading. I feel like I have too many gaps to discuss...

23) What is your favorite novel?
The Bell Jar, Everything is Illuminated, The Trial, Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, The Handmaid's Tale

24a) Play?
The Importance of Being Earnest

24b) Musical?
Godspell, Wicked, Aida

25) Poem?
Invictus by William Ernest Henley

26) Essay?
"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" by Mark Twain

27) Short story?
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates, "The Anatomy of Desire" by John L'Heureux, "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut

28) Work of non-fiction?
Discourse on the Method by Descartes, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, Night by Elie Wiesel, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints by Dito Montiel

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Sylvia Plath or Jonathan Safran Foer

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Stephenie Meyer really needs to go back to Creative Writing 101.

31) What is your desert island book?
Everything is Illuminated.

32) And ... what are you reading right now?
Let's see...selections from The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and Pop Salvation by Lance Reynald. I also need to finish Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, but that's currently on hold.

It's Hard Out Here for a Semi-Conservative Pimp

As a female in the month of October, I'm faced with an age-old question: slutty bumblebee or slutty nurse? Halloween is looming and I feel as though I've exhausted all of my creative costume ideas:
Vending Machine - X
Teen Girl Squad - X
Lamp - X
Quailman - X
Chewed Gum - X
A Picnic - X
My own myspace - X

Unfortunately, Halloween USA doesn't afford many options for a girl who DOESN'T want to scream, "fuck me" with her costume. A simple Google search for "women's Halloween costume," gave me the following:

I guess I have to give props to the costume industry; they've somehow made it possible for a girl to dress as a slutty anything: every character from the Wizard of Oz, a referee, a police officer, a mail carrier, any Disney princess, an insect. One can even show off the girls at Hogwarts in a low-cut Hermione Granger costume! But what about the girls like me, who'd rather show off their books than boobs? who prefer Star Wars to short skirts? I'm not saying that I'll be dressing up as a nun for Halloween, but I wish that I could strike a happy medium. Is funny and flirty possible? Or is my choice really between Officer Sexy and wearing a black garbage bag to parties? I don't foresee the costume company execs becoming feminists any time soon, but hopefully I'll have a few more options in the future. After all, dressing as a bee doesn't seem too practical...where would I put my stinger?