Do you ever get a song in your head
And so you listen to it over and over again
For over an hour
And no matter how many times it plays
It just gets better and better
And even though you’re sitting outside the offices of your professors
You just want to get up and dance like a crazy person
Because you feel like if you don’t do something
You’re going to asplode?
That’s how I feel right now.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
early morning ramblings about childhood memories
I'm currently getting over a cold and my incessant cough is preventing me from sleeping. I'm not sure why, but I've gotten to thinking about memories of my childhood at the old Bluffdale house. Since I've got nothing else to do I've decided to jot a few of them down.
There was the rotten tomato fight that David and I got into when I was at most 6 or 7 and he was 18 or 19. Of course after the smoke cleared I was drenched in smelly red liquid and he just had a few spots of tomato juice on his clothes...probably ricochets from tomatoes he'd hit me with. I was just happy to have played with David.
There were the endless hours spent with Heather and others in the Chinese Elm tree over by the pig pen and the compost pile. There was the time in the tree when Heather got so mad because of something Tawni had done that she broke off Tawni's favorite branch and threw it away. Or the time we finally got up the guts to cross over the long branch that went from the branches where we'd sit to the trunk over by the pig pen. There was that one particular branch that I thought was so comfortable that I used to try to go to sleep while sitting on it. I even took a picture of Heather while she was in that tree that took me through three levels of the Reflections contest. That was the best climbing tree in the world.
There were the times that we would go sit on the rail fence outside of Daryl's pig pens and watch him feed the pigs. He would come over and talk to us and I would be fascinated by the brass bracelet he wore and the worm holes in the wood of the fence I was sitting on. Daryl would tell us about the pigs, offer to give us the brand new rabbits that had just been born, warn us to stay away from the fence that separated his pasture from ours so as to not get his cow angry, and maybe show us the dead cat in his freezer. Coolest old man in the world.
There were the hours spent chasing Keesh up and down the field wondering if I'd ever be fast enough to keep up with him. I used to ask Mom if it was okay if I tried to ride him. The answer was always no. Cats came and went frequently, but Keesh, Keesh was a pillar of constancy in my young life. I could always depend on Keesh to be there. Keesh was as much a part of the family as I was; he was the fastest, lovingest, best dog the world has ever known.
Then there was the day I spent sobbing after I found Keesh motionless under the cherry tree. The world was never so dark.
There was the day I was weeding the garden when the lady reading the meters came up to me and asked what that awful smell was. When I told her I couldn't smell anything she muttered something under her breath about messed up country kids and walked off while I stood there completely nonplussed.
There were the hours spent trying to catch water skeeters out of the ditches and putting them in jars where I kept them til they died. Why did I keep them in jars? I don't know. I'd always wanted to catch a caterpillar and put it in a jar and watch it turn into a cocoon and then a butterfly. But caterpillars were hard to come by and water skeeters were plentiful. While I never said it out loud because I knew it was silly, I always secretly thought that water skeeters probably did the same thing as caterpillars but no one paid enough attention to them to find out. I was going to be the first one to discover it. Turns out they don't cocoonize themselves after all. And they definitely don't become butterflies. They just die.
There was the time I was playing basketball in the driveway and some random person parked their car outside of the Jones' house and just sat there; no one got out of the car for a solid 30 minutes. I imagined that in the car was an NBA scout who was friends with David Jones. The scout had come to visit, but had seen me playing basketball and couldn't help but to watch this child prodigy with the enormous glasses. I knew he saw my glasses and understood that they gave me a competitive advantage because I could see the hoop so much more clearly. I never did so many layups in a row in my life...because it was the only shot I could make with consistency.
There was the summer when I was 10 or so and I read a book about Teddy Roosevelt and the Spanish-American War and how Roosevelt stormed San Juan Hill. For the rest of the summer as I mowed the back pasture with the old yellow lawn mower (the one with tall back wheels and no self-propel feature) I would go to the bottom of the field closest to Daryl's fence and then pretend to be Teddy Roosevelt and charge up the hill, running and pushing the mower with all my might. I did it over and over and over again...until I got to the part of the field that had ground bees. I just went around that part.
There were the summer nights that I'd lay in bed and listen to the sound of the frogs coming from down on Uncle Jack's property, and I'd hear the train horn blowing in the distance, and often I'd catch the faint smell of skunk coming in through the open window.
There was the time I was walking from the chicken coops to the house with a length of PVC pipe in my hand and I got it in my head that the blue spruce tree had done me some unforgivable wrong. I rectified the wrong by beating the tree mercilessly with the pipe. The next day when I heard Dad telling Mom that something had really damaged the tree, I kept quiet, assured of my victory.
There were the times Ashley and I would play in the lilac bushes behind Grandma Turner's house. There was the one branch that we'd stand on and bounce up and down on for hours. How those bushes ever survived us I'll never know.
There was the time it snowed so much that school was canceled so Melanie and Maurianne and Heather and I all went outside and made the coolest snow tunnels and caves and other snow things in the front yard. I think David had already gone to school before the cancellation went into effect so he wasn't around, but I remember being ecstatic that Melanie and Maurianne, who were so much older and cooler than me and Heather, were outside playing with us. I brought one of my Hot Wheels cars out to play with once it all was made. Best winter day ever.
Childhood was awesome. I could probably go on like this for a while, but I think I'm gonna try to go back to bed.
There was the rotten tomato fight that David and I got into when I was at most 6 or 7 and he was 18 or 19. Of course after the smoke cleared I was drenched in smelly red liquid and he just had a few spots of tomato juice on his clothes...probably ricochets from tomatoes he'd hit me with. I was just happy to have played with David.
There were the endless hours spent with Heather and others in the Chinese Elm tree over by the pig pen and the compost pile. There was the time in the tree when Heather got so mad because of something Tawni had done that she broke off Tawni's favorite branch and threw it away. Or the time we finally got up the guts to cross over the long branch that went from the branches where we'd sit to the trunk over by the pig pen. There was that one particular branch that I thought was so comfortable that I used to try to go to sleep while sitting on it. I even took a picture of Heather while she was in that tree that took me through three levels of the Reflections contest. That was the best climbing tree in the world.
There were the times that we would go sit on the rail fence outside of Daryl's pig pens and watch him feed the pigs. He would come over and talk to us and I would be fascinated by the brass bracelet he wore and the worm holes in the wood of the fence I was sitting on. Daryl would tell us about the pigs, offer to give us the brand new rabbits that had just been born, warn us to stay away from the fence that separated his pasture from ours so as to not get his cow angry, and maybe show us the dead cat in his freezer. Coolest old man in the world.
There were the hours spent chasing Keesh up and down the field wondering if I'd ever be fast enough to keep up with him. I used to ask Mom if it was okay if I tried to ride him. The answer was always no. Cats came and went frequently, but Keesh, Keesh was a pillar of constancy in my young life. I could always depend on Keesh to be there. Keesh was as much a part of the family as I was; he was the fastest, lovingest, best dog the world has ever known.
Then there was the day I spent sobbing after I found Keesh motionless under the cherry tree. The world was never so dark.
There was the day I was weeding the garden when the lady reading the meters came up to me and asked what that awful smell was. When I told her I couldn't smell anything she muttered something under her breath about messed up country kids and walked off while I stood there completely nonplussed.
There were the hours spent trying to catch water skeeters out of the ditches and putting them in jars where I kept them til they died. Why did I keep them in jars? I don't know. I'd always wanted to catch a caterpillar and put it in a jar and watch it turn into a cocoon and then a butterfly. But caterpillars were hard to come by and water skeeters were plentiful. While I never said it out loud because I knew it was silly, I always secretly thought that water skeeters probably did the same thing as caterpillars but no one paid enough attention to them to find out. I was going to be the first one to discover it. Turns out they don't cocoonize themselves after all. And they definitely don't become butterflies. They just die.
There was the time I was playing basketball in the driveway and some random person parked their car outside of the Jones' house and just sat there; no one got out of the car for a solid 30 minutes. I imagined that in the car was an NBA scout who was friends with David Jones. The scout had come to visit, but had seen me playing basketball and couldn't help but to watch this child prodigy with the enormous glasses. I knew he saw my glasses and understood that they gave me a competitive advantage because I could see the hoop so much more clearly. I never did so many layups in a row in my life...because it was the only shot I could make with consistency.
There was the summer when I was 10 or so and I read a book about Teddy Roosevelt and the Spanish-American War and how Roosevelt stormed San Juan Hill. For the rest of the summer as I mowed the back pasture with the old yellow lawn mower (the one with tall back wheels and no self-propel feature) I would go to the bottom of the field closest to Daryl's fence and then pretend to be Teddy Roosevelt and charge up the hill, running and pushing the mower with all my might. I did it over and over and over again...until I got to the part of the field that had ground bees. I just went around that part.
There were the summer nights that I'd lay in bed and listen to the sound of the frogs coming from down on Uncle Jack's property, and I'd hear the train horn blowing in the distance, and often I'd catch the faint smell of skunk coming in through the open window.
There was the time I was walking from the chicken coops to the house with a length of PVC pipe in my hand and I got it in my head that the blue spruce tree had done me some unforgivable wrong. I rectified the wrong by beating the tree mercilessly with the pipe. The next day when I heard Dad telling Mom that something had really damaged the tree, I kept quiet, assured of my victory.
There were the times Ashley and I would play in the lilac bushes behind Grandma Turner's house. There was the one branch that we'd stand on and bounce up and down on for hours. How those bushes ever survived us I'll never know.
There was the time it snowed so much that school was canceled so Melanie and Maurianne and Heather and I all went outside and made the coolest snow tunnels and caves and other snow things in the front yard. I think David had already gone to school before the cancellation went into effect so he wasn't around, but I remember being ecstatic that Melanie and Maurianne, who were so much older and cooler than me and Heather, were outside playing with us. I brought one of my Hot Wheels cars out to play with once it all was made. Best winter day ever.
Childhood was awesome. I could probably go on like this for a while, but I think I'm gonna try to go back to bed.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
lines composed on the couch at Christmas
Friday, December 24, 2010
Christmas Eve Ruminations
Ever since I read Great Expectations as a teenager, Charles Dickens has been one of my favorite authors. He has a way of wording things that is just right. Sometimes he waxes a bit verbose and some of his lengthier descriptions wouldn't be harmed by a bit of editing, to be sure; but I feel like many times he speaks (writes) the language of my soul. This was further made clear to me when I had the opportunity to take a class devoted to his novels. That was a happy semester indeed. Today, Christmas Eve, as I was rereading his A Christmas Carol, as per my annual tradition, his authorial preeminence stood out to me yet again as he cut through the fluff and non-essential baggage that comes with Christmas and made clear why we celebrate the holiday and what our Christian duty is as a result of our celebration of the same; for truly there is work to do for all Christians as a result of that which we celebrate this blessed time of year.
The Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price teaches us that God's work and purpose is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." God exists to work in our behalf so that we might all have access to that most precious of all gifts: eternal life. He works for mankind and invites us to do the same. Dickens seems to sing the same tune as Marley's ghost, having just been told by Scrooge that he was "a good man of business," bemoans his wasted life by talking about his, and our, true business in life:
"Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!...Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!"
How often do we stop and realize what our life's "business" really ought to be focused on? In the fast-paced, money-oriented economic world in which we live, how often do we slow down to notice the plight of our fellow men? Do we truly see that we ought to work with God in helping our brothers and sisters realize their eternal potential? How often do we have opportunities to bless the lives of those around us, in even the smallest ways, and we pass on by, unaware of lost opportunities? I realize that I can speak for no one but myself, but I know that I personally can do a lot better in following the light of "that blessed Star" in doing the will of Him whom it represents.
My favorite section of the story comes as Scrooge, the ever-shrewd business man who is constantly focused on the bottom-line and on ascertaining whether any activity or event has the potential to increase his net worth, has just called his nephew a fool for going about on Merry Christmas because doing so has never done anyone any financial good. To this the nephew responds with, to me, the finest treatise on the true meaning of Christmas to be found in all of secular literature:
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
The optimism of the nephew gives hope for humanity. And, indeed, as we take time to look about us during the Christmas season we can see that there is an increase in acts of charity, in the familiar sense of the word, and people do seem to do a better job of taking notice of those "fellow-passengers to the grave." (I love that phrase) Just a week or two ago I was discussing this fact with one of my roommates and we decided that while this tendency to be more charitable and loving during the Christmas season is nice, wouldn't it be even better if that sentiment pervaded our lives year-round. As the Ghost of Christmas Present sings in the Muppets' portrayal of Dickens' classic, "It is the season of the heart, a special time of caring, the ways of love made clear. It is the season of the spirit. The message, if we hear it, is make it last all year." Scrooge himself, a redeemed man, says near the end of the story, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." We need to learn to "open our shut-up hearts freely" all year long and be always ready and willing to help those around us in any way possible.
Jesus Christ's birth is the reason for our celebrations of the season. The fact of Jesus' birth, while miraculous in its own right, merely points to the purpose of his life. He lived to serve others. To help the downtrodden. To give hope to those who had none. Ultimately, with His atoning sacrifice He personally created the path that we must all take if we are to obtain to eternal life. Christmas is a celebration of Christ's triumph over death and hell. Christ's triumph gives us all hope for eternal happiness together with Him and His Father as well as with our families and loved ones. Knowledge of Christ's plan of salvation brings such incredible joy and hope. Would we not do well to be ever ready and willing to actively share that hope, "to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you"? Christ is the reason. Let's share His light with those poor homes in darkness. I feel like that is what it means to live Christmas well.
The Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price teaches us that God's work and purpose is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." God exists to work in our behalf so that we might all have access to that most precious of all gifts: eternal life. He works for mankind and invites us to do the same. Dickens seems to sing the same tune as Marley's ghost, having just been told by Scrooge that he was "a good man of business," bemoans his wasted life by talking about his, and our, true business in life:
"Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!...Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!"
How often do we stop and realize what our life's "business" really ought to be focused on? In the fast-paced, money-oriented economic world in which we live, how often do we slow down to notice the plight of our fellow men? Do we truly see that we ought to work with God in helping our brothers and sisters realize their eternal potential? How often do we have opportunities to bless the lives of those around us, in even the smallest ways, and we pass on by, unaware of lost opportunities? I realize that I can speak for no one but myself, but I know that I personally can do a lot better in following the light of "that blessed Star" in doing the will of Him whom it represents.
My favorite section of the story comes as Scrooge, the ever-shrewd business man who is constantly focused on the bottom-line and on ascertaining whether any activity or event has the potential to increase his net worth, has just called his nephew a fool for going about on Merry Christmas because doing so has never done anyone any financial good. To this the nephew responds with, to me, the finest treatise on the true meaning of Christmas to be found in all of secular literature:
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
The optimism of the nephew gives hope for humanity. And, indeed, as we take time to look about us during the Christmas season we can see that there is an increase in acts of charity, in the familiar sense of the word, and people do seem to do a better job of taking notice of those "fellow-passengers to the grave." (I love that phrase) Just a week or two ago I was discussing this fact with one of my roommates and we decided that while this tendency to be more charitable and loving during the Christmas season is nice, wouldn't it be even better if that sentiment pervaded our lives year-round. As the Ghost of Christmas Present sings in the Muppets' portrayal of Dickens' classic, "It is the season of the heart, a special time of caring, the ways of love made clear. It is the season of the spirit. The message, if we hear it, is make it last all year." Scrooge himself, a redeemed man, says near the end of the story, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." We need to learn to "open our shut-up hearts freely" all year long and be always ready and willing to help those around us in any way possible.
Jesus Christ's birth is the reason for our celebrations of the season. The fact of Jesus' birth, while miraculous in its own right, merely points to the purpose of his life. He lived to serve others. To help the downtrodden. To give hope to those who had none. Ultimately, with His atoning sacrifice He personally created the path that we must all take if we are to obtain to eternal life. Christmas is a celebration of Christ's triumph over death and hell. Christ's triumph gives us all hope for eternal happiness together with Him and His Father as well as with our families and loved ones. Knowledge of Christ's plan of salvation brings such incredible joy and hope. Would we not do well to be ever ready and willing to actively share that hope, "to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you"? Christ is the reason. Let's share His light with those poor homes in darkness. I feel like that is what it means to live Christmas well.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Rant
I think literary theorists hate students. The feeling is mututal. Take Althusser for example:
"All ideology is centred, that the Absolute Subject occupies the unique place of the Centre, and interpellates around it the infinity of individuals into subjects in a double mirror-connexion such that it subjects the subjects to the Subject, while giving them in the Subject in which each subject can contemplate its own image (future and present) and guaratee that this really concerns them and Him."
I just read that sentence (yeah, it was just one sentence) over and over again for the last 5-10 minutes trying to glean some kind of meaning from it. I failed.
I can imagine the scene. Here's Althusser, sitting at a table late at night in a dimly-lit, underground Parisian pub (do they have pubs in France?) surrounded by his beady-eyed Marxist buddies. While brainstorming ways that he might obfuscate any possible meaning in his writings because he knew that generations of students living under a capitalist regime would attempt to study his writings, he decides that a particularly effective strategy would be to use the word "subject" as many times as possible and with as many different usages as possible in one sentence, thereby frustrating the hell out of the previously-mentioned capitalist student scum and making them pay for adhering to such an awfully incorrect economic and political ideology.
Anyway, I'd better get back to estudying. I just needed to vent about how much I hate theory and how much I'm not going to miss these ivory tower scumbags and their overly narcissistic and often atheistic views of the world. I think that every time a theorist dies, Lucifer gleefully stokes the flames of purgatory in anticipation of said theorist's arrival. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
"All ideology is centred, that the Absolute Subject occupies the unique place of the Centre, and interpellates around it the infinity of individuals into subjects in a double mirror-connexion such that it subjects the subjects to the Subject, while giving them in the Subject in which each subject can contemplate its own image (future and present) and guaratee that this really concerns them and Him."
I just read that sentence (yeah, it was just one sentence) over and over again for the last 5-10 minutes trying to glean some kind of meaning from it. I failed.
I can imagine the scene. Here's Althusser, sitting at a table late at night in a dimly-lit, underground Parisian pub (do they have pubs in France?) surrounded by his beady-eyed Marxist buddies. While brainstorming ways that he might obfuscate any possible meaning in his writings because he knew that generations of students living under a capitalist regime would attempt to study his writings, he decides that a particularly effective strategy would be to use the word "subject" as many times as possible and with as many different usages as possible in one sentence, thereby frustrating the hell out of the previously-mentioned capitalist student scum and making them pay for adhering to such an awfully incorrect economic and political ideology.
Anyway, I'd better get back to estudying. I just needed to vent about how much I hate theory and how much I'm not going to miss these ivory tower scumbags and their overly narcissistic and often atheistic views of the world. I think that every time a theorist dies, Lucifer gleefully stokes the flames of purgatory in anticipation of said theorist's arrival. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Extremely Loud
I'm not talking about how I like to listen to Battle Without Honor Or Humanity as loud as
I can when walking across campus while pausing and stepping dramatically at all the right times to match the score...but I do that too. I'm talking about the first in a series of two phrases that makes up the title of one of my favorite books. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This is one of the three books that I recommend when requested for a recommendation. (The other two are My Name Is Asher Lev and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society). I wouldn't say they are my absolute favorite three books (they've gotta fight with Dickens and Twain to make that list), but they certainly are up there. I think that they are three books that everybody can relate to and from whose pages everyone can glean valuable insight about life. Coincidentally two of them were written by Jews. If I weren't Mormon I think I'd be Jewish. But I digress.
I recently lent my copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to a friend. She finished it and she brought it back last week. Having it in my hands once again I flipped through it, remembering some of my favorite parts.
Do you ever have that experience where there's some aspect of your life that you struggle to wrap your head around for a long time and never can quite get the hang of--something that every time you try to explain it to someone, or write about it yourself, you just get frustrated at your inability to bend the language to your will and accurately describe what you're feeling? And then you read some book that you've heard is a decent read, and you find that some author, someone you have never met and don't know from Adam, has taken a good long look into your soul and phrased that ambiguous something perfectly?
For some reason when this happens to me I experience equal parts euphoria and rage. I always imagine it to be a faceless bohemian author sitting at a street cafe in Europe. He's just jotting down these little nuggets of literary gold on a napkin as if it were some little ditty that he can't get out of his head. He does it so quickly and so simply that it would seem as if the turn of phrase that he's just composed, and that I've been searching for endlessly, was a commonly held piece of knowledge and that he was merely transcribing it from the great ethereal nothingness as easy as tying his shoe. How does he do it? It's infuriating. But at the same time it's comforting to know that there are people out there that do this. But, again, I've digressed.
Back to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. There's a section of this book that made me experience what I've just described. I'd forgotten it until this weekend, but thankfully Foer, through the voice of a remarkable little boy named Oskar, brought it back.
Here 'tis:
"What if the water that came out of the shower was treated with a chemical that responded to a combination of things, like your heart beat, and your body temperature, and your brain waves, so that your skin changed color according to your mood?...Everyone could know what everyone else felt, and we could be more careful with each other, because you'd never want to tell a person whose skin was purple that you're angry at her for being late, just like you would want to pat a pink person on the back and tell him, 'Congratulations!' ...there are so many times when you know you're feeling a lot of something, but you don't know what the something is. Am I frustrated? Am I actually just panicky? And that confusion changes your mood, it becomes your mood, and you become a confused, gray person. But with the special water, you could look at your orange hands and think, I'm happy! That whole time I was actually happy! What a relief!"
I'd try to elaborate on this one but I can't. I'd fall short and in doing so would just muddy the waters. Suffice it to say, I've been there. I know what he's saying.
Sometimes I want that water.
I can when walking across campus while pausing and stepping dramatically at all the right times to match the score...but I do that too. I'm talking about the first in a series of two phrases that makes up the title of one of my favorite books. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This is one of the three books that I recommend when requested for a recommendation. (The other two are My Name Is Asher Lev and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society). I wouldn't say they are my absolute favorite three books (they've gotta fight with Dickens and Twain to make that list), but they certainly are up there. I think that they are three books that everybody can relate to and from whose pages everyone can glean valuable insight about life. Coincidentally two of them were written by Jews. If I weren't Mormon I think I'd be Jewish. But I digress.I recently lent my copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to a friend. She finished it and she brought it back last week. Having it in my hands once again I flipped through it, remembering some of my favorite parts.
Do you ever have that experience where there's some aspect of your life that you struggle to wrap your head around for a long time and never can quite get the hang of--something that every time you try to explain it to someone, or write about it yourself, you just get frustrated at your inability to bend the language to your will and accurately describe what you're feeling? And then you read some book that you've heard is a decent read, and you find that some author, someone you have never met and don't know from Adam, has taken a good long look into your soul and phrased that ambiguous something perfectly?
For some reason when this happens to me I experience equal parts euphoria and rage. I always imagine it to be a faceless bohemian author sitting at a street cafe in Europe. He's just jotting down these little nuggets of literary gold on a napkin as if it were some little ditty that he can't get out of his head. He does it so quickly and so simply that it would seem as if the turn of phrase that he's just composed, and that I've been searching for endlessly, was a commonly held piece of knowledge and that he was merely transcribing it from the great ethereal nothingness as easy as tying his shoe. How does he do it? It's infuriating. But at the same time it's comforting to know that there are people out there that do this. But, again, I've digressed.
Back to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. There's a section of this book that made me experience what I've just described. I'd forgotten it until this weekend, but thankfully Foer, through the voice of a remarkable little boy named Oskar, brought it back.
Here 'tis:
"What if the water that came out of the shower was treated with a chemical that responded to a combination of things, like your heart beat, and your body temperature, and your brain waves, so that your skin changed color according to your mood?...Everyone could know what everyone else felt, and we could be more careful with each other, because you'd never want to tell a person whose skin was purple that you're angry at her for being late, just like you would want to pat a pink person on the back and tell him, 'Congratulations!' ...there are so many times when you know you're feeling a lot of something, but you don't know what the something is. Am I frustrated? Am I actually just panicky? And that confusion changes your mood, it becomes your mood, and you become a confused, gray person. But with the special water, you could look at your orange hands and think, I'm happy! That whole time I was actually happy! What a relief!"
I'd try to elaborate on this one but I can't. I'd fall short and in doing so would just muddy the waters. Suffice it to say, I've been there. I know what he's saying.
Sometimes I want that water.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
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