East of Eden

Once again I am swept in and tossed by the surging power of a classic. Timeless and powerful in an ever-changing landscape of politics, religion, media and cultural drift.

"There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know. Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good. It is true that two men can lift a bigger stone than one man, and bread from a huge factory is cheaper and more uniform. When our food and clothing and housing all are born in the complication of mass production, mass method is bound to get into our thinking and to eliminate all other thinking. In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, and even our religions...

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of man.

And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammer-blows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted and drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.

.... I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system....If the glory can be killed, we are lost."

John Steinbeck - East of Eden

The Living Dead

"Balance in life is the key to happiness." (my brother)

How true is that. Now if you could kindly forward to my attention the formula to this simple mantra I would greatly appreciate it.

Decent salary (nothing to brag about but large enough to live off of AND pay off my traveling and 'living' debts), phenomenal benefits, a good staff (great actually - the kind you hope for), work that makes your day go by at a reasonable pace and a generous amount of vacation time to top it all off.

So what's my problem again?

Right....inspiration and imagination have once again become frivolous and unexplored. Put back on the proverbial shelf. No dust has settled but its a beautiful sunny day and I can see the tiny particles glistening in my apartment almost mocking me. Slowly floating and dancing in the air eventually coming to rest lightly - as if only momentarily - on those things that took me years to clean off and once again admire.

So do something about it, right? Maybe I'm just a lazy shit but there is something so uninspiring and draining about the day-to-day. Even my level of reading has taken an embarrassing step in the wrong direction. Ok ok - so I have no problem exploring ALL avenues when it comes to literature but my choices recently and 'next on the list' choices have started worrying me a bit. I even find myself when renting movies continually reaching for the light romantic comedies, or even just light comedies.

I need to snap out of it. Time for a change. A new outlook? A new book? A new indy movie? A new newspaper? I need a kick start and I need it fast. Not that I believe that I would ever truly 'lose myself' and become one of millions of 'successful' walking dead in this western world. A post I wrote just this summer mentioned how not having a job strips you of a level of dignity that you require to feel like a substantial citizen. I now have a job and I have replaced that wondrously fresh feeling that was my writing, my reading and my inspiration to do what I truly loved with societal dignity. Hmph.

I guess I still need to keep searching for that key. I know where the door is, now I just have to open it.

The Book Thief

"It was a year for the ages, like '79, like 1346, to name just a few" Mark Zusak (The Book Thief)

It's 1939 and you are following little Liesel, a German girl who survives the holocaust and the horrific atrocities surrounding her by stealing books.

Zusak thrusts you into a dark and dangerous time while being led by the soft, warm hand of a beautiful little girl. Poor, starving, and often terrified, Liesel represents the overpowering strength and love of the human spirit. Zusak's play on words make this book not only interesting to read but inspiring to digest. Zusak's use of metaphors is unmatched by any other author I have read to date. His words seamlessly dance on the page. A children's book (young adult) with momentous power to leave a reader of any age touched, heart-broken, horrified and bewildered.

The worst thing about this book is the back cover - no justice was done and had a good friend not recommended it I may not have ever found out what a beautiful piece of literature this really is.

Ponder

"I sometime think that the size of our happiness is inversely proportional to the size of our house."

Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram)

Terminal 38

I'm sitting in the Vancouver airport. Its 8:48am.

I was supposed to be in the sky 3 minutes ago. At least that's how the agitated and shuffling people directly across and beside me are feeling. An attendant (poor guy) comes over the loud speaker, "Well folks, looks like according to the flight schedule flight 4286 to Edmonton will be leaving the tarmac at approximately 10:00am. Unfortunately we have been unable to locate our pilot. Should any of you feel up to flying the plane please report to the front desk so that we may leave earlier".

I chuckle. He's trying but it's a tough crowd.

The snorts begin. Shuffling and angry phone calls. Swearing.

The woman beside me picks up her phone and dials, "Hi, yeah I'm going to be late.... I know, I know - unbelievable. I will see you at around 1:30 then." She presses the end key on her phone and turns towards me with a look of disdain coupled with eager anticipation of a similar and therefore comforting reaction. I simply smile.

Everyone in the area re-opens their newspaper, flicks on their laptop, opens their phone. Back to life. Back to work. Back to the grind. God forbid one hour is wasted.

I look around. Seriously? It's one hour. A snipit of unimportant time in a day/week/month/year. One hour to ensure we have a sober/healthy/present pilot for our 'privileged' method of travel.

It's my first day of work. Frankly, an extra hour or two is fine by me. I'm reading a great book and getting paid to do so - reading instead of what I anticipate to be two days of awkward and exhausting introductions. I wish I could get paid to read all the time. I smile again. I am content enough for everyone in the room. Who knows - maybe, with exception to the overtly chipper flight attendant, I am content enough for everyone in the airport.

I'm tired too. Reading is nice. I didn't sleep last night. I was thinking about garbage. Thousands and thousands (millions?) of acres globally of garbage. Slowly rotting and poisoning our planet. Increasing populations and incomprehensible amounts of garbage. This beautiful planet covered in filthy diapers, plastic bags, no longer pristine Starbucks cups. Forever sinking, seeping, soiling.

Sitting on the plane. Still a delay. Locked and loaded and still no pilot. I am roused by a loud snicker to my right after the overhead speaker says "Thank you for choosing Air Canada". Billions in debt. How are they still going? Poor working conditions lead to unionization which inevitably leads to bankruptcy. What a twisted circle. Everyone wants their piece.

I feel guilty flying - carbon fumes from aircrafts are the worst pollutants. Each time we take that trip to the Caribbean we are taking a little piece of the blue with us. They say ignorance is bliss - I'm sure it is. I am fighting the yearning for ignorance every single day.

Today was just another day - another hour.

I wish that when I had looked over at that women I had seen a smile and cheeky little shoulder shrug after that first announcement. That smile displayed only momentarily before opening a book of her own - savouring the moment as if it was a gift - just for her, just for me.

The Schoolhouse

I'm standing in what appears to be an old schoolhouse. One room with a little bell on top to let the kids (now with great grandkids of their own) know that school is in. I'm standing in the middle of the main room. The whole room seems to be swaying and moaning with the wind. There are large planked wooden floors and a single side table off to one corner. There is a large fat lady sitting at the table.

A tight bun in her hair.

An expectant look on her face.

She holds a pencil in her right hand and a piece of paper in her left.

She is staring at me.

There is an even larger man off to my right. His chin and clothes droop yet he is as tall as he is wide. He is standing facing me. He shifts constantly. Agitated.

Straight ahead one of the schoolhouse walls is missing. A vast lake sweeps under the floorboards and I can now hear the water faintly lapping below my feet. The water is dark and ominous reflecting the sky above. Both are near black with only shivers of light appearing and disappearing. Playing tag. The sky is a heavy dark blanket. A mist begins to seep between the faint line separating water and night.

The mist moves sideways reaching for me. My face and arms become damp. The fat man looks at me and snips "I'm waiting and this is unacceptable".

I furrow my brow and look at my feet before responding "I'm not really ready". What I mean is, I'm not sure what to sing.

It dawns on me. This is a darkly twisted singing audition. A signing audition? The fat man looks even more agitated. He looks towards the door as if summoning strength, or a new performer, whichever comes first.

He looks at me again and takes a deep breath, "Find that one song. That one song that is yours. The one that you have been thinking of every day for as long as you can remember. The one that your mind plays with and moulds over, constantly changing in an attempt to perfect".

I say, more to myself than to the fat man, "That which my mind plays over and over is a plot not a song".

I watch the fat man shuffling his weight. Impatient and annoyed. I turn to see the fat woman put down her pencil. I then attempt a horrific rendition of Sheryl Crow's Home as the mist grows into drops.

Frankenstein

"Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow" Mary Shelly (Frankenstein)

There are so many preconceived, media invoked and fed beliefs and now culture driven ideals about "Frankenstein". Mary Shelly's original creation has been so twisted over the years that one could argue the original message has been long lost. If the original text, that which she wrote at only 18 years of age in 1818 had been lost one would never know the inner beauty that the monster originally held. Beauty that was stripped, re-molded, and ruined beyond repair by human contact.

Victor Frankenstein was a scientist yearning to play god and create new life from inanimate matter (not necessarily dead body parts) - yes Frankenstein was the human. How interesting it is that we have taken the name of the god-like creator - that which created the hell to ensue both for the monster and for the victims of his insatiable pain and changed it to be that which we fear.

After completion of his work, Frankenstein is horrified and disgusted and flees. The monster is left to its own accord, and knowing that his creator has fled he attempts alternate human contact with disastrous results.

After a number of painful scenarios play through the monster goes into hiding.

"Here then I retreated, and lay down, happy to have found shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man".

From his hiding the monster watches a loving family from afar for a long period of time. From behind his cover, he learns love, happiness, compassion and empathy through the unknowing family that become his subjects of knowledge. When the monster becomes akin to the family and decides to present himself - knowing how loving and caring they are to each other - he steps out into the open with hopeful confidence.

"I imagined that they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle demeanor and conciliating words, I should first win their favour, and afterwards their love."

Horrified by his appearance not unlike his creator, the loving family, that which had become in his imagination his loving family, flee.

"Everywhere I see bliss, from which I am irrevocably excluded... I was a poor helpless miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but, feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept".

The monster, void of love and acceptance, sets out on a rampage to assert the label he has so unwillingly accepted.

"I will revenge my injuries; If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear; and chiefly towards you my arch enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. Have a care: I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you curse the hour of your birth".

While death and destruction have become the modern focus behind this work, Frankenstein remains another profound and exemplary work of man's ability to create his own hell through the continual thirst for power. While the monster carries with him a horrific exterior, it is society that creates the rampage and terror that develops within.

Frankenstein truly is a masterpiece. A powerful work written by a ground-breaking writer who arguably changed the course of literature - far more important than the mere hallowe'en or adam's family depiction it has become.

Setting the Mood

"Every page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and small deliberations. All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another" Francine Prose

Everything has to be perfect. Just so.

Music at the right volume - not too loud - not overpowering a thought but loud enough to create an unobtrusive constant. There is something so un-progressive about the sound of a distant airplane, lawn mower, car alarm. The remote needs to be close. MP3's lack volume consistency. You get what you don't pay for.

A coffee.. no... a water... no - both.

A book - maybe two. The mood may change.

A note book, pens (different colours).

A piece of fruit.

Book tabs - book tabs are essential.

Comfy clothes, pillows, a blanket.

A large window.

Then. Only then.

Only then can you truly enjoy the sun seeping through the warmed glass.

Ishmael

"There is nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as your does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are lords of the world, they will act like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now." Daniel Quinn (Ishmael)

Ishmael is a captivating novel about overall social change. It seamlessly challenges popular beliefs and ignites alluring debate. It could be argued that never before has an author brought to life a discussion between man and beast so utterly moving and thought provoking. Regardless of whether or not you personally enjoy this work, you will none-the-less be unable to stop yourself from debating and discussing it with anyone willing to lend an ear.

My Year of Meats

"Coming at us - in waves, massed and unbreachable - knowledge becomes symbolic of our disempowerment - becomes bad knowledge - so we deny it, riding its crest until it subsides from consciousness.

If we can't act on knowledge, then we can't survive without ignorance.

So we cultivate the ignorance, go to great lengths to celebrate it, even. The faux-dumb aesthetic that dominates TV and Hollywood must be about this. Fed on a media diet of really bad news, we live in a perpetual state of repressed panic. Ignorance becomes empowering because it enables people to live. Stupidity becomes proactive, a political statement. Our collective norm."

Ruth Ozeki - My Year of Meats

Want to (even momentarily) step out of the box?

Encompassing a vast and steaming buffet of cultural perversion and America's attempt to impregnate a universal code of greed, gluttony, and ignorant inhumanity on unsuspecting nations My Year of Meats delivers everything from a life-altering message to characters of unending depth. The reader is seamlessly pulled along for a painfully evocative ride leaving a heavy stomach and an ironic yearning for seconds as soon as the last page has turned. Jane Takagi-Little, a half-Japanese half-American documentarian, delves blindly at first into the meat industry within the United States while filming a television show to be aired in Japan on the 'wholesomeness' of American Beef. With the show sponsored in its entirety by BEEF-EX, Jane is brought to a stranglehold decision - follow capitalist doctrine and support one's sponsor or follow her gut and veer off the assigned path with devastating consequences. This is a story of manifest destiny, the blind leading the blind, and one woman's attempt to take the small audience she has and create something engrossing.

Read it - sometimes you find a jewel that is not on the best-seller shelf. This is that jewel.

Some Summer Reads!

With beach/cafe/vacation time right around the corner (yay!) a number of people have asked me for my opinion on what to read (which is nice).... I thought I would put a few down here in case anyone else is interested...... feel free to comment if you agree/violently disagree with any of the following.....

Book #1 - "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts

This book is an EPIC - like a 900 pager. I haven't personally read it but have had people (many in fact) get oddly mad at me that I haven't read it yet. It has been sitting on my shelf for a while now calling my name. Its a non-fiction (or loosly based non-fiction) about an Australian (Roberts) who is sentenced to 19 years in prison for a serious of armed robberies. He escapes and spends his fugitive years in Bombay India. There he establishes a free medical clinic for slum-dwellers and spends the rest of his time as a gunrunner and general go-to guy for the Bombay mafia. This book is supposedly life changing and has a little bit of everything in it - but like I said its a 'biggie' - roll up your sleeves and dive in head first.

Book #2 - "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn

This book is a MUCH slower pace and could even be alluded to as a 'lecture' of sorts between Ishmael (an orphaned gorilla educated by a lonely wealthy Jewish merchant tortured by the effects of the holocaust) and a typical over dramatic and assumingly socially aware university student. They discuss/debate/argue man's place/effect on earth. Ok may initially sound preachy and kinda weird right? Well not so - this book (I didn't actually agree with a lot of the points in it) has kinda lingered in the back of my mind ever since I read it - like 2 years ago.

Ishmael is a captivating novel about overall social change. It seamlessly challenges popular beliefs and ignites alluring debate. It could be argued that never before has an author brought to life a discussion between man and beast so utterly moving and thought provoking. Regardless of whether or not you personally enjoy this work, you will none-the-less be unable to stop yourself from debating and discussing it with anyone willing to lend an ear.

Book #3 - "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick

A kind of sci-fi, new age, classic (yes - new age AND classic - hmmm). Its about a new age world where androids are so advanced that they function as typical citizens in modern day society - albeit though with problems of being classified as second class citizens. The only way to tell an android vs a human is an 'emotional test' where - you guessed it - emotions are monitored. There are 'rogue' agents out to destroy certain androids and it is one of these androids that the story is told through. Not everyone is a sci-fi lover but if you want to 'dip your toes in' just to see what it's like then this is a great launching pad for a new genre.

Book #4 - "Slaughter House Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

Another classic - should be easy to find. If you haven't already read anything by Kurt Vonnegut then you really need to know he is a writer in a league all on his own. Slaughter house five is about an anti-war American fighting in Dresden during the second world war (written surrounding Vonnegut's own personal experiences in the war). An anti-war contemptuous satire about man's inability to learn from his mistakes arguably even more relevant today than when initially published over 40 years ago. Another 'interesting' read regardless of whether you end up liking it or not (although I am fairly certain that with this one you will).

Book #5 - "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

And for the somewhat 'fluff' read. I for some reason continue to gravitate towards zombie books - weird? This book is yet another 'classic' - well kind of.

Seth Grahame-Smith has taken the original Pride and Prejudice and thrown in a zombie twist. Some argue that there is too much Pride and Prejudice and too little zombie action but for someone who has so desperately tried to read Jane Austen in the past with very little success I find the odd "eating of brains" when you have had just about enough old english and female clucking for your liking to be the perfect satisfying combo. I am not finished it just yet but I am secretly hoping that everyone in the book dies by zombie. Plus - its a pretty cool looking cover - if you don't read much the cover alone is a great conversation piece.

Now go enjoy that never-overused cliche of coffee and cafe patio reading!