I've been reading One Hundred Years of Solitude since yesterday. I kept hoping for some turn for the better, but the slow erosion of greatness by the world just grinds on. Finally I realized what was happening. This is The Sound and the Fury transferred to Colombia, with a touch of The Snopes Trilogy and a smidgeon of Absalom, Absalom!
But this book doesn't seem to be as great as Faulkner. The characters are born the way they die, each generation massively static and the only change coming from a falling off between generations. It is profoundly fatalistic, depressingly so, but not very true to human experience.
Gabriel García Márquez is also not very funny. Perhaps he is in his native language—much of Faulkner's humor is untranslatable—but he seems too sincerely absorbed in beating his dead mule to stop and tell a funny story about little boys shooting at each other or a cuckolded husband accidentally carrying the intruder across country on his back when what he meant was to get at the man's innards with a butcher knife.
This lack of humor may not seem very important, but mankind is terribly ridiculous, so much so that a humorous author with no pretensions at realism (such as P.G. Wodehouse) hits bullseyes while an author ready to deny in the name of realism that man is capable of laughter (such as Thomas Hardy) is only readable when he lands far from where he aimed. In fact, Faulkner's increase in greatness is matched by the increasingly comic (in both senses) nature of his work.
I'm about 3/4s of the way through, and if I stop reading I have to work on a budget. And I don't really want yet another unfinished book on my hands. Yet I've got my computer on my lap and Microsoft Excel is open, so it looks like my fate is decided.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
On the root of all evil
Some friends have been talking about how useful Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey is. I like makeovers and I like money, so I figured I might like it. My only debts are school debts (which I prefer to think of as a non-traditional dowry, equivalent to the groom losing twelve camels to a strange pestilence on his wedding day) and a six dollar library fine, but I have been wanting help on making a good budget so I went to Barnes and Noble to look into it. And, lo and behold, the only extant copy is a hardback retailing for 24.99ish. The slap in the face is that all the sequels are in paperback for at least ten dollars less. After gathering the pieces of myself up from around the store (where they'd been strewn by an explosion of indignation to the tune of "How is THIS going to save me money??!!?"), I ended up with a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude, a latté, and a People magazine. A quick, furtive slink got me out of the store before the realization that I'd spent the same amount of money on something useless could catch up with me.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Charity Bootcamp
With regard to yourself, reality matters, perceptions don't.
With regard to others, their perceptions matter, reality doesn't.
Or said another way,
When attempting to communicate, it is what is received that matters, not what is transmitted.
With regard to others, their perceptions matter, reality doesn't.
Or said another way,
When attempting to communicate, it is what is received that matters, not what is transmitted.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Memory
[Inspired by "The Judgment of Memory" by Joseph Bottum in March's First Things.]
I'm no longer homesick for home, but in some way that is a loss. It used to be a very deep and real part of me, such that I would feel like I was really one with the land, mountains, and trees. I would wake, aching with longing for those fields edged with snowy pines, only to be greeted by the eternal southern summer which had been thrust upon me by my own choice.
Perhaps my continual revisiting of home in stories is a longing for a place and knowing that I do not have it. The home of my childhood was very different from the home of my early adulthood, the one light, the other dark. But in both I felt a deep resonance between myself and my physical surroundings. Each turn brought me to a granite cliff remembered from early childhood, to the hill where the car ran out of gas on the way to the hospital for my mother to give birth to my older brother, or the apartment where a truck's windshield was shot out the week before we moved in. I loved them because I knew them, and whether or not the situation was primarily good or bad fell by the wayside.
And yet, since leaving I've found that I really love places that used to be the essence of foreign. My feeling for New York City was once best expressed by O'Connor's Judgment Day (oh, for home's early morning slant of light!) But now that I've visited it, I find that I really love it—though I can't quite believe that it likes me. Like Jed Tewksbury in A Place to Come to, I want to be very clear about the situation: I am a redneck gawking at the big city, even if that's not really the case. And so I find myself choosing stories which prove that point, like the neighbor who wore a new pair of jeans for his daughter's wedding rather than going down to Riverfront Park for Handel's Fireworks Concert each summer with my dad.
What I am looking for in the past is my identity in the present: where did I come from and where am I now? And this because I hope that the future holds a place to come to.
I'm no longer homesick for home, but in some way that is a loss. It used to be a very deep and real part of me, such that I would feel like I was really one with the land, mountains, and trees. I would wake, aching with longing for those fields edged with snowy pines, only to be greeted by the eternal southern summer which had been thrust upon me by my own choice.
Perhaps my continual revisiting of home in stories is a longing for a place and knowing that I do not have it. The home of my childhood was very different from the home of my early adulthood, the one light, the other dark. But in both I felt a deep resonance between myself and my physical surroundings. Each turn brought me to a granite cliff remembered from early childhood, to the hill where the car ran out of gas on the way to the hospital for my mother to give birth to my older brother, or the apartment where a truck's windshield was shot out the week before we moved in. I loved them because I knew them, and whether or not the situation was primarily good or bad fell by the wayside.
And yet, since leaving I've found that I really love places that used to be the essence of foreign. My feeling for New York City was once best expressed by O'Connor's Judgment Day (oh, for home's early morning slant of light!) But now that I've visited it, I find that I really love it—though I can't quite believe that it likes me. Like Jed Tewksbury in A Place to Come to, I want to be very clear about the situation: I am a redneck gawking at the big city, even if that's not really the case. And so I find myself choosing stories which prove that point, like the neighbor who wore a new pair of jeans for his daughter's wedding rather than going down to Riverfront Park for Handel's Fireworks Concert each summer with my dad.
What I am looking for in the past is my identity in the present: where did I come from and where am I now? And this because I hope that the future holds a place to come to.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Real and False Unity
A few years ago I tried a gluten-free diet, but under the unpleasantness of the diet allowed myself to be convinced that the separation from others was too onerous a burden, both for myself and the others from whom I was separated.
I now realize that this is only so much bunkum. The fact of the matter is that the symbolism of eating together really has nothing to do with what is eaten. Each proverb about breaking bread is matched by one of sitting down at table together. What is important is that all are sitting together and eating—it is no more necessary that each person eat the same kinds of food than it is that each person eat the same amount of food. Strangeness and rejection only enter into the matter when one or the other group refuses either to sit at table or to eat at all when doing so.
Community, family, and togetherness are often taken to mean "sameness." The fact is that the mystery of unity, as achieved on the natural level through eating together or on the supernatural level by eating the Bread of Life together, addresses plurality as found in diversity. This is not a nod to multiculturalism. The Trinity is one and many, diverse but not distinct. There is no discord or loss in the Trinity, even though the three Persons are not exactly the same (just consider the diversity of Processions). Therefore, this desire to impose unity through sameness is not even excused as an understandable response to the discord caused by the fall. A certain amount of diversity of interests, talents, and so on, existed even before the fall ("man and woman He created them") and is a source of great joy. It is the otherness which calls one out of oneself to delight in another. Diversity of gifts causes interdependency, which then allows love to flourish in ways which cannot be discovered without the occasions which dependency brings about. And considered from the perspective of the fall, being imperfect and mortal, and thus dependent on others is in fact the thing which saves creatures from rejecting love through pride. Each time humans favor pride, they fall flat on their faces very quickly, are forced to turn to others, and then Love has another chance.
I now realize that this is only so much bunkum. The fact of the matter is that the symbolism of eating together really has nothing to do with what is eaten. Each proverb about breaking bread is matched by one of sitting down at table together. What is important is that all are sitting together and eating—it is no more necessary that each person eat the same kinds of food than it is that each person eat the same amount of food. Strangeness and rejection only enter into the matter when one or the other group refuses either to sit at table or to eat at all when doing so.
Community, family, and togetherness are often taken to mean "sameness." The fact is that the mystery of unity, as achieved on the natural level through eating together or on the supernatural level by eating the Bread of Life together, addresses plurality as found in diversity. This is not a nod to multiculturalism. The Trinity is one and many, diverse but not distinct. There is no discord or loss in the Trinity, even though the three Persons are not exactly the same (just consider the diversity of Processions). Therefore, this desire to impose unity through sameness is not even excused as an understandable response to the discord caused by the fall. A certain amount of diversity of interests, talents, and so on, existed even before the fall ("man and woman He created them") and is a source of great joy. It is the otherness which calls one out of oneself to delight in another. Diversity of gifts causes interdependency, which then allows love to flourish in ways which cannot be discovered without the occasions which dependency brings about. And considered from the perspective of the fall, being imperfect and mortal, and thus dependent on others is in fact the thing which saves creatures from rejecting love through pride. Each time humans favor pride, they fall flat on their faces very quickly, are forced to turn to others, and then Love has another chance.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
A Study in Psychology Featuring Dogs
The Dog Whisperer* is not about dogs, but rather about the dysfunctional emotional lives of the average American, as projected by the husbands onto the wives onto the dogs.
*Just in passing: never once has a dachshund starred. Coincidence?
Monday, April 28, 2008
A Weight of Time
I've had a bunch of migraines lately, so apart from very slowly working through Pope Benedict's speeches from his visit to the U.S., I've done very little reading. This is a source of enormous grief to me, and leaves me with huge chunks of time with only three options available to me, and all of them have certain problems when done for hours on end each and every day. These are sleep, eat, and spend money.
Today I decided on the spend money option. I rented The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. I watched the former this afternoon while crocheting (my femininity could hardly have been happier with the entire situation, especially since I'd just finished painting my toenails.) I just want to say that Jason Bourne (the film version, not the book version) is God's gift to me.
Someday I want to be able to run, climb, and elude bad guys like he does. I leave driving off the list, since I already drive like him. At least, I, like Bourne, leave a trail of screaming wreckage behind me, and though I remain cool and collected the whole time, my passengers do not.
Today I decided on the spend money option. I rented The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. I watched the former this afternoon while crocheting (my femininity could hardly have been happier with the entire situation, especially since I'd just finished painting my toenails.) I just want to say that Jason Bourne (the film version, not the book version) is God's gift to me.
Someday I want to be able to run, climb, and elude bad guys like he does. I leave driving off the list, since I already drive like him. At least, I, like Bourne, leave a trail of screaming wreckage behind me, and though I remain cool and collected the whole time, my passengers do not.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Cameras
I'm kind of ruthlessly single-minded, as well as being an inveterate introvert, so having a camera when people are around means that either pictures won't get taken, or people won't get talked to. And with scenery the situation is about the same (and not conversing with a good bit of landscape is a serious sin). But when I look at cool pictures like Gaffentine's, it makes me wish that the situation were otherwise. (Ahem, let's just assume that the only thing holding me back from producing great art is not happening to have a camera with me.)
Of course there's also something about the scenery out west. Hot cross buns do I ever miss mountains.
Of course there's also something about the scenery out west. Hot cross buns do I ever miss mountains.
Happy Feet
We watched Happy Feet tonight. Frankly, it was more revealing than a barrel full of Rorschach tests. When a person sits down to tell a story about penguins with the moral "We should rethink our fisheries policies"* and it comes out as an anti-religious anti-classical music pro-rock'n'roll-and-specifically-R&B eco-fable (while relocating the desire for the mysterious to technology-superstitions, i.e. aliens), you get a pretty clear idea of what happened in the black box of their imagination. What's sad about this is that it forms the imaginations of all those watching it.
Thank God mine has already been irreparably formed by the golden age of The Far Side.†
Thank God mine has already been irreparably formed by the golden age of The Far Side.†
*Not a shocking thesis. A twenty-minute monologue from John Flory on the subject still haunts me when I'm awake at 3 a.m. Apparently the regulations, such as they are, simply encourage rape and pillage tactics during the "open" periods for different fish. I can feel perfectly comfortable on my soapbox here, because I never eat seafood (this is said with great complacency.)
†See if you can re-create the links between this post and one of my all-time favorite examples of the "Good Idea Meter"‡ having gone wonky.
‡The "Good Idea Meter" reads either "Good Idea" or "Not Good Idea," but sometimes the needle's choice is unreliable. The chances of getting it right should be one in two, but sometimes they end up being much lower.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Free at last
Gluten-free, that is.
After saying that unlike Joni Mitchell, I did need the piece of paper to keep my love true, I went and shacked up with the diet as soon as the blood was out of my veins. Ten days later I got the results, which were negative. Mr. Gluten-free and I sat in the back of the bus and looked awkwardly at each other while the camera panned out.
So then this afternoon when I was faced with a number of delicious Trenton pizzas, one thing led to another, and I found myself with two slices of pizza inside me. At first it seemed like a truly brilliant idea, whose genius was only rivaled by the pure grace of execution. Then my brain got hep* to the situation, and hit me between the eyes with a super fantabulous migraine. It was the companionable, clingy kind. I spent the next few hours moving between my bed and the bathroom (where my gut, disagreeing with my will, was busily de-gluten-ing itself), but the migraine stood by me in both locales.
No, I don't have celiacs. Yes, I am gluten-intolerant. I'm actually incredibly happy, because this means I am not doomed to a life of being as sick as I've been recently. And I expect to be met in heaven by 1) Jesus 2) all the animals I've ever loved and 3) a truckload of freshly baked bread.
After saying that unlike Joni Mitchell, I did need the piece of paper to keep my love true, I went and shacked up with the diet as soon as the blood was out of my veins. Ten days later I got the results, which were negative. Mr. Gluten-free and I sat in the back of the bus and looked awkwardly at each other while the camera panned out.
So then this afternoon when I was faced with a number of delicious Trenton pizzas, one thing led to another, and I found myself with two slices of pizza inside me. At first it seemed like a truly brilliant idea, whose genius was only rivaled by the pure grace of execution. Then my brain got hep* to the situation, and hit me between the eyes with a super fantabulous migraine. It was the companionable, clingy kind. I spent the next few hours moving between my bed and the bathroom (where my gut, disagreeing with my will, was busily de-gluten-ing itself), but the migraine stood by me in both locales.
No, I don't have celiacs. Yes, I am gluten-intolerant. I'm actually incredibly happy, because this means I am not doomed to a life of being as sick as I've been recently. And I expect to be met in heaven by 1) Jesus 2) all the animals I've ever loved and 3) a truckload of freshly baked bread.
*This word always comes out kind of sly and sidelong when I say it, because I'm worried that people will assume that "layers of irony = 0", and this makes me act guilty. I have the same problem when I try to explain that God is three persons to people of simple worldviews. Really, I'm just trying not to talk about processions and mysteries, and then I feel like I'm trying to pull one over on them, so I usually end up saying something like "Okay, and God is—Whoa, look at the deer!—three persons."
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Meaning of Life
Who knew that the interwebz had the key to a happy and fulfilled life?
But apparently I have an unshakable belief in the internet being What I've Been Missing, since night after night I spend 45 minutes religiously* clicking through the same pages, motivated by a deep yearning after something undefinable.
Or perhaps not so mysterious.
I swear, I didn't intend to end up here. This post was supposed to be about foolishly wasting time in superficial interactions rather than meaningfully relating to people who live nearby or praying. But I suppose for me all roads lead to a Rome where a dachshund is pope.
But apparently I have an unshakable belief in the internet being What I've Been Missing, since night after night I spend 45 minutes religiously* clicking through the same pages, motivated by a deep yearning after something undefinable.
Or perhaps not so mysterious.
I swear, I didn't intend to end up here. This post was supposed to be about foolishly wasting time in superficial interactions rather than meaningfully relating to people who live nearby or praying. But I suppose for me all roads lead to a Rome where a dachshund is pope.
*Coincidental word choice? I think not.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
A friend wants to know
Has anyone seen a children's missal for the Vatican II Mass which is well-made and not cartoony?
This is totally not unreasonable
Does anyone else feel mildly rejected when they leave a comment, and the blog remains blank except for one line: "Your comment has been saved and will be visible after blog owner approval."
I feel like I laid my little food offering before the gods just to see them kick it over to the dog saying, "I'm sure that'll be great if the dog doesn't die from it."
I feel like I laid my little food offering before the gods just to see them kick it over to the dog saying, "I'm sure that'll be great if the dog doesn't die from it."
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Wodehouse and Dickens
My favorite Dickens character is Mr. Samuel Weller (pronounced Samivel Veller) from The Pickwick Papers. My roommate and I were so taken with him that when we were gifted with the best little brown dachshund in the world, we named him Samivel.
Yesterday and today have been considerably brightened by the P.G. Wodehouse novel, Sam the Sudden. This Sam is also an energetic capable sort of man, and I've spent the novel hoping that he would sit down and write a "walentine." While waiting, I've laughed even harder than the time my little brother told me about the Craig's List Santa and the cooler of beer back home in Hillyard.
But the touching love scene (in which the heroine reveals that she wouldn't mind if the hero alienated a rich uncle by staying in England in order to court her) gives the meeting of my two favorites:
Yesterday and today have been considerably brightened by the P.G. Wodehouse novel, Sam the Sudden. This Sam is also an energetic capable sort of man, and I've spent the novel hoping that he would sit down and write a "walentine." While waiting, I've laughed even harder than the time my little brother told me about the Craig's List Santa and the cooler of beer back home in Hillyard.
But the touching love scene (in which the heroine reveals that she wouldn't mind if the hero alienated a rich uncle by staying in England in order to court her) gives the meeting of my two favorites:
'What?' he croaked huskily.
'I said why—do—you—not, Samivel?' whispered Kay.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
On Discretion
[In the voice of God.]
The soul can therefore place neither laws nor limits to its love for me. But its love for its neighbor, on the contrary, is limited by certain conditions. The light of discretion (which proceeds from love) gives to the neighbor a conditioned love. Such a love, being ordered aright, does not cause the injury of sin to self in order to be useful to others. For, if one single sin were committed to save the whole world from hell, or to obtain one great virtue, the motive would not be a rightly ordered or discreet love, but rather indiscreet. For it is not lawful to perform even one act of great virtue and profit to others by means of the guilt of sin.
Holy discretion ordains that the soul should direct all its powers to my service with a manly zeal. It should love its neighbor with such devotion that it would lay down a thousand times, if it were possible, the life of its body for the salvation of souls. It should endure pains and torments so that its neighbor may have the life of grace, and give its temporal substance for the profit and relief of his body.
This is the supreme office of discretion, which proceeds from charity. So you see how discreetly every soul who wishes for grace should pay its debts. That is, it should love me with an infinite love and without measure. But it should love its neighbor with measure, with a restricted love, not doing itself the injury of sin in order to be useful to others.
This is St. Paul's counsel to you, when he says that charity ought to be concerned first with self, otherwise it will never be of perfect usefulness to others. And this is because, when perfection is not in the soul, everything the soul does for itself and for others is imperfect.
—St. Catherine of Sienna, Doctor of the Church
Today
I had hoped to go watch the Pope drive down 5th Avenue this afternoon, but Mr. Migraine said No.
Instead I am trying to heal my iPod, which accidentally lost the files for everything except Barron's Mastering German and The Complete Works of Bach.
At least there is still a German-theme to my day.
Instead I am trying to heal my iPod, which accidentally lost the files for everything except Barron's Mastering German and The Complete Works of Bach.
At least there is still a German-theme to my day.
This cries out to be made into a joke...
From my decaf Espresso can (El Pico brand): "With all our fine Latin flavor!"
...but I don't have any Hispanic or classicist friends who are close enough not to be offended.
...but I don't have any Hispanic or classicist friends who are close enough not to be offended.
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