Don't Read This Book

One of the other books I checked out of the library was so bad I didn't want to finish it. I kept with it, regrettably.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead wasn't the worst book I've ever read but it's on my top-10 list. Many of the loser books I didn't even finish, unless they were short. Whitehead's book is nasty, brutish and short, mercifully short.

If you enjoy humorless repetitious drivel about the end of the world, this book's for you. I thought the plot was going somewhere, or that some explanation for the plague that kills most of the Earth's population would be revealed. I just read last week that humans are mainly immune to the plague or black death. This must be a different plague.

To be fair, I chose the book because I've read other books by the author. John Henry Days is a keeper, as is The Intuitionist. Last year's beach book, Sag Harbor, wasn't great, but it wasn't duller than dish water.

Before I go back to Infinite Jest, I'm reading a book I had to buy today, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. He wrote Kafka on the Shore, which I loved. It's another 900+ page tome, but seems more readable than Jest. We'll see.

A Reading Break

I decided to give Infinite Jest a rest. I went to the library to look for something lighter. I'd heard an interview with Walter Mosley on NPR and although I new the writer and his basic genre, I'd never read one of his books. The Jeffersonville Public Library is a marvel, at least to me. Their new books are ones I actually want to read. But I was looking for a classic Mosley book and found several in the stacks. I checked out A Fortunate Son, a tale about two brothers who are separated at age 6 and reunited in their early 20's.

Eric is the blessed athletic blond boy whom Thomas comes to live with as a sickly infant. His mother brings him to the posh house, having attracted the attention of Eric's father, a doctor at the hospital where Thomas spends his first six months in a bubble. Love and good doctoring save Thomas's life. He becomes friends with Eric, his polar opposite, and they live together until Thomas's mother dies and his biological father shows up to claim his son.

Thomas goes from wanting for nothing to nothing to want. His home life is a diasaster. Yet his spirit allows him to cope with anything thrown his way. And it's all thrown at him: dropping out of school, abandonment by his dad and other relatives, living wherever he can, and eventually becoming a runner for a drug dealer. He gets arrested, thrown in jail and wanders the streets of L.A., walking away from a youth facility he is transferred to. Along the way he is raped, beaten, starved. Whatever bad, ugly thing you can think of happens to Thomas. But Thomas keeps on keeping on.

Mosley writes about poverty and racial injustice so matter-of-factly that it seems like a normal condition. The difference here is that the character who endures the nightmare is such a gentle soul who holds no grudges and never becomes like his tormentors.

Eric's life is perfect except that Eric is void of feeling. He goes through the motions of the lush life but doesn't participate. It's as though when Thomas walked out the door, he took Eric with him, leaving only his perfect body behind.

Through numerous twists of fate, which keep the reader slack-jawed, the boys reunite. Clearly, Thomas is the fortunate son, a true survivor. He took all the good things the world had to offer him and was able to endure misery after misery. He gets his brother back, and presumably a life devoid of horror. Eric on the other hand, who was handed life on a platter, is unchanged. He's happy to be reunited with Thomas, but will never have his lust for life.

Sports Bra Gone Bad

Even the jaws of life couldn't extract me from this bra. After running a few miles, I returned to my apartment to shower and change for an appointment with my doctor. Removing sweaty, tight clothing is a challenge for me--it just won't budge. If Marty's around, I have him extract me from the sticking item, usually a bra. But this was mid-day, I was running late and so did the only thing I could think of to save the day.

I got the kitchen scissors and cut my way out.

If you look closely, I cut along a seam, thinking I might sew it one day. That'll be the day. I threw the damn thing in the trash, but it kept taunting me with its vivid color and mutilated strap. I decided to immortalize the offending bra here, reminding me that I am impatient, a slave to schedules, and quick to judge.

Bad girl. Bad bra. Bad to the bone.

Ah, Jeffersonville

Harry and I were talking about how to write a literature paper. He's always gone with the reliable five-paragraph format: thesis, three supporting points, summation. He's taking his first college literature course, The Harlem Renaissance. His professor told him he needs to ditch the his usual format and be more free-flow. This makes for more interesting writing, but will it make sense?

If you're a writer, you know how to craft a story or essay. It's like building a house, which flows naturally from a blueprint that's embedded in your head. This is the Jack Kerouac approach. Had he had a word processor, he might have built different houses.

I always like fictional writing that has a few warts and blemishes. The structure isn't perfect; some words might be made up (but always understood); there's a seamlessness to the narrative that allows the reader to relax among the words. Creative non-fiction, a favorite genre of mine, just needs to make sense. You don't need a five-paragraph structure to do that. Just make sure that the house you're intending to build isn't a pot of soup.

In Jeffersonville, you can have conversations like this. Harry wrote his essay the way the professor suggested, even though it made him feel uncomfortable. We enjoyed the Fall weather, the house, the food, the company. We stayed for dinner Sunday, which we almost never do. I had a little time to read Infinite Jest (past page 300!), which is most-assuredly a house I enjoy visiting but wouldn't want to live in.

A Tree Grew on 80th Street

Two months ago, this was a tree. A dead tree, but growing out of the cement, arching over the sidewalk, and causing much neck strain. The most astonishing thing about this tree was the pipe growing from its side. That's it on the right. I don't know if the tree grew into the pipe, or the tree was dead and the pipe was installed later on. Either way, it looks like it caused the tree's demise. At least now it's not in danger of falling down and doing damage. It's still a curiosity though.