meh. and songs.

I keep starting entries and not finishing them, because I don’t really know what to say. The problem with having something to say is that I live my job, and then I go to school, and I don’t really do a lot of other things. I don’t remember the last time I went to a movie theatre, I haven’t seen my parents or my sister in a couple weeks,

Thank G-d for this day off tomorrow. Not that I really have the day off, since one of my jobs decided that every time I have a day off, I have a meeting at Hillel, and that made me schedule work at Safe Ride as well, since I’d already be on campus. But just the fact that I got to take a nap this afternoon and not worry about when I had to wake up was absolutely brilliant. Now for a little piano practice, and then off to an excellent party. Tonight will be a good night.

I read a compilation of interviews in a book called Song, by editors of American Songwriter. I skipped quite a few, because the book is nearly 400 pages long, and after awhile I’m not too interested in country music, but there were many of them that were just fabulous. I’ve scarcely been writing lately, but songs are something that are coming a bit easier to me now. When I look at them again, I think that they’re probably not that good, but I probably shouldn’t second guess myself. A lot of songs look like they suck if you just look at the lyrics, but somehow they work. And I may as well try them out. Next step, writing music. That’s the really hard part for me. And does anyone want to give me Garage Band lessons?

more judaism and the last of summer reading

Shabbat we had the option to do absolutely nothing, or we could participate in a variety of workshops, lectures, talks, activities, etc. In the morning I went to the “morning musical service,” which was just a regular reform service that included lots of Shabbat songs, many of which I did not remember/know at all, and even more that I learned with completely different tunes. That would be weird, except that I’m pretty sure that everybody else Jewish in the world knows the tune that I don’t. I’m thinking the guy who was our songleader when I was little just liked coming up with new stuff.

For the next block, I went to “Whole Torah in Just One Hour,” with one of NYU’s rabbis. He seems pretty chill, and he greeted everyone by going, “Shabbes,” the way the stoner turtle in “Finding Nemo” might say it. In 75 minutes, this guy managed to do all of the following: quote the Iliad in Greek; reference King’s “I have a dream” speech; talk about 100 Years of Solitude; give an anthropological history of the ancient Sumerians; describe the epic of Gilgamesh; and actually talk about the Torah. The whole trick was, of course, that you can’t do the whole Torah in an hour, but we did get to chapter 13 of Genesis, which he said was further than they got last year. So that was fun.

In the afternoon, I went to “Let’s Talk About Sex,” because, frankly, what else sounds interesting when that’s on the bill? And it really was, because we talked about myths about Jews and sex, like how no, nobody has sex through a sheet, and actually, it’s commanded that you be completely naked (no socks) when you have sex. We also looked at Genesis, cartoons, short stories, halacha, and quotes from Maimonides to discuss men and women’s roles in relationships and where sex fits in. I wish it had gone on longer, because that could be a really interesting class. It was a little bit too large of a group for a really good discussion.

I’d say more, but it’s already been so long and I’m on to new and different things. I finished three more books before school started on Monday, and I’m still plodding through that García Márquez (on a side note, why does everybody in the English-speaking world refuse to see how easy it is to pronounce his name correctly rather than emphasizing the “quez” part?). Those books were:

1. The Journals of Sylvia Plath by, of course, Sylvia Plath. This is another exhausting book that takes quite a long time to read, but being in the company of genius is always awesome, like in the real sense of that word, so it was wonderful to read. The most frustrating thing, aside from knowing I will never be that amazing, was knowing that Ted Hughes destroyed her final journals. I so wanted to read them. I wonder if he did.

2. Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink. I don’t want to say much, because I read this to review for teenreads.com, and the review of that is going to be up soonish. But it was in the vain of Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy, and while it wasn’t perfectly written, it was a pretty awesome plot, and it was definitely a fun read.

3. The Worst Years of Your Life, edited by Mark Jude Poirier. I was happy to see this collection, because I love teen angst, I try to love YA, at least when it’s good, and it was so neat that this was an accepted collection of “literary” stories that still dealt with that stuff that usually gets labeled “crap” or “Gossip Girl” (which, incidentally, was not crap when it began–only when it continued). Unfortunately, a lot of the stories just seemed so “literary” and weird that I couldn’t really get into them, but the ones that were good were really evocative and interesting. I also appreciated that they mixed contemporary and new authors with older ones.

So that makes 19 books this summer. That’s not what I hoped. And it seemed like so many. It takes longer to read books now than when I was younger. Part of that is that I read harder, better books. I hope. But is it also my short attention span since the Internet came to be? Still, I’ll plod along and keep reading. All I’ll be doing for school this semester is reading anyway.

Stuff about school and life later. Off to do endless homework and work.

blume, judy; cohn, rachel; or, summer reading #5

I’m nearly done with Plath’s journals, but I needed a break and decided to read some YA I had missed out on. Somehow, when I read nearly all other Judy Blume books, I never read Forever…, the sex book. Then I read Rachel Cohn’s latest, which came out a while ago but I never read, You Know Where to Find Me.

Rachel Cohn’s books have always consistently made me want to write. Like, while I’m reading, I feel desperate to work on whatever it is I’m working on. Gingerbread is a favorite, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is awesome as well. When I was reading this book, I didn’t actually like it as much as her others, but I still felt this need to write, and I was trying to figure out why. I was also trying to figure out why Judy Blume is so awesome, even if now her books read very seventies and seem a little silly (I was very confused when reading Just As Long As We’re Together, because I didn’t understand the whole pad with a belt thing).

My conclusion is this: Rachel Cohn’s voice in her novels is always fabulously teenager-y. Smart teenager-y. I’m thinking that if you’re not very smart, you will probably find her books boring or hard to follow. And this latest book was a bit more boring, just because I don’t particularly love books about people dealing with death. I also love that she writes about big issues (Cyd Charisse in Gingerbread has an abortion, Miles’ cousin in You Know Where to Find Me has just committed suicide, and Miles loves taking Percoset and other pills) but also keeps in mind that a lot of the time, those big issues aren’t even the biggest, and other things, like body image, friendships, crushes, etc, are still profoundly important when you’re 17. I also appreciate that her books aren’t PSAs about any of these things. Yes, people make mistakes and learn from them, because that’s been a pretty foolproof formula for novels for years. BUT not everything ends up perfectly. She’s not Sarah Dessen, which I really appreciate. At the end of this latest book, Miles is still overweight, still not sure if she’s going to quit smoking, and still has an unrequited crush on her best friend. She has learned and resolved other issues, but not everything is coming up roses. AND as if that weren’t awesome enough, Rachel Cohn’s characters are “multicultural” without really trying (take notes, all authors everywhere) and she manages to stick in politics without being annoying. Though that could just be because I agree with her politics.

And now onto Judy Blume. She’s kind of like the original Rachel Cohn, except her books are really more like children’s books, except for younger teens and about younger and older ones. Definitely her formula is more like a children’s book. But she does some awesome things, like have incredible audacity (or something) to talk about periods, masturbating, and sex. In Forever…, she describes the character’s boyfriend’s penis (nicknamed Ralph) and giving him a hand job. Even I was almost embarrassed to be reading this book. I also like that Blume can insert a certain amount of “multiculturalism” in her books. Maybe because they were written in the seventies, characters aren’t really that diverse ethnically, but she does describe characters and give interesting family histories that can teach you about American history, like how in this book she describes how a character’s last name came to be when it was mispronounced at Ellis Island. Little things like that in books I appreciate.

too many books

I’m moving on Saturday. Then I decided to go to Lake Tahoe on Sunday. So I need to be almost finished moving on Saturday, and then I’ll have about four days of work and moving to finish when I get back, before I leave for Georgia and my old lease runs out.

This wouldn’t be a problem, but I have a lot of crap. I’m a very material person, not because I particularly love shopping and labels or anything, but because I can’t bear to part with books or essays I wrote in English in seventh grade or 3D glasses or a keychain or anything. It’s very bad. I also have a limited amount of boxes. I just packed up all the books I own, textbooks aside. Eight boxes of books. I now have three cardboard boxes left for the rest of my stuff.

I managed to decide to get rid of six books that are not worth having on my shelf. This is really huge for me.

These boxes are going to be impossibly heavy. Then, I’m going to throw them on the floor of my new bedroom, hope that at least three of my four bookshelves fit in my bedroom along with my bed, desk, dresser, nightstand, record player, record table, and possibly my piano. Then I will return to my soon-to-be-former house and pack up clothing, toiletries, kitchen things, tchotchkes, and other stuff. AKA I am going to have to get rid of a lot of stuff and learn to live small. Bleccch.

But G-d, moving sucks so much. Always avoid it.

the living’s uneasy/summer reading #4

All day long, I either read or watch movies. I’ve started working out because I’ve gained an inconceivable amount of weight, but even then, I read. It’s becoming very exhausting, though it could just be that I need to change my contacts. When I take a break from those two things, I flit about, pretending to write or pretending to clean or pretending to pack.

And the voices, they’re getting louder. I want to talk to somebody. Really bad. A good conversation, especially one at night, makes me less uneasy. Uneasy seems a constant state for me. I wonder if I can even add the “un” if I’m so comfortable being it.

I also miss encyclopedias. I adore Wikipedia, but I also miss being able to look at something for research and be able to see it and what I’m writing at the same time, instead of switching from Firefox to Word all the time.

Here’s the latest batch of books I’ve finished.

1. Conversation Pieces: Poems That Talk To Other Poems, edited by Kurt Brown and Harold Schechter. I loved this book the second I saw the title, because it’s what I love about poetry. And this collection pairs each poem with the poem it mimics, responds to, makes fun of, or expands upon, so it’s at once an anthology of those famous poems that you should know (“La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “This Is Just To Say”) and current poets (Kimiko Hahn and Meg Kearney are my favorites, since they were NBFers). And the book is just well put together, doing a good job at including writers of different genders, historical periods, ethnic backgrounds, and nationalities. It was a great vacation companion, and I read a few poems almost every night while I was away.

2. Sleeping With Schubert by Bonnie Marson. I really wanted to read this book for a few reasons: a) I wanted to read something by a local writer; b) my former boss suggested I read it; c) after seeing the play “Beethoven, As I Knew Him” I have a bit of composer fever; and d) the concept was similar to the novel I started working on recently, so when I read the blurb about this book, it sounded like it could either be a very good thing (inspiration and all) or a very bad thing (finding out my idea was already done exactly how I was going to do it). Reading it had neither of those results. Somehow, Marson never learned that whole “show, don’t tell” thing, and I just didn’t buy a lot of the story. The most interesting parts weren’t really fleshed out, and it read too much like chick lit trying to be literature. Not the best it could have been, but certainly interesting, and fun enough if you’re into classical music history.

3. Betsy-Tacy and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace. I had the most beautiful old editions of these books when I was younger, and I stupidly got rid of them. Now I’m trying to replace them. So I realized that for the past few summers, I have devoted some of my reading to rediscovering children’s series. Last year, it was Little House. The year before that, it was Harry Potter (because I wanted to be prepared for the final book). Since I only ever read the first few books, when Betsy, Tacy, and Tib are all young, I have decided I’m going to start from the beginning and read all the way through. They’re some of the most fabulous children’s books of all time, and Betsy Ray definitely helped me want to become a writer, as well as made me feel at home with another child who loved to make up her own games. Plus, I need a break from all the heavier reading I’m doing.

4. Not a Matter of Love by Beth Alvarado. This spring, Beth earned a place as probably my second-favorite fiction teacher that I’ve had, just after Norma Fox Mazer. They have these honors for different reasons, but still. Beth was an excellent teacher, so obviously I wanted to read what she’d written. This short story collection felt first very familiar to me, and I loved that it was Tucson, because the only other Tucson book I can remember is The Bean Trees, and that was just terrible. Strangely, this was my Tucson and then it really, really wasn’t. Drugs and drug culture elude me; maybe it’s spoiled to say so. But what I really appreciated this collection for, aside from just well-written, good stories, was how Beth handled interracial marriages and relationships, biracial children, and bicultural communities. That really doesn’t happen enough in stories, and it almost never happens without it being the only (or major) plot device. Isn’t it funny how I’m always bringing that up?

oh, and

Somehow in my last post I forgot to connect the two issues, but I think they’re related, which is why I wrote about both of them. There is a problem with people thinking that audience is the same thing as genre, and then booksellers and librarians shelve books in the wrong way, and then publishers don’t realize that they don’t have to be marketing books the way they are. The reason we don’t have more books with nonwhite people on the cover is partly because the covers that do have them are in the “urban fiction” section or somewhere similar. And this is also the problem with developing a national literature. We want to have one, but we try so hard to divide things by race and ethnicity because black people are the only people who want to read “black fiction,” so we can’t just have one place for everything.

I’m terrible at explaining this stuff. Someday I’ll do better.

dearth. of lots of things.

Yesterday, while I was waiting for my final flight home from LAX, I decided I wanted to buy a magazine. That was silly, because I knew I would have lots of magazines waiting for me when I got home (I subscribe to Interview, Glamour, Latina, Essence, American Songwriter, and Nylon), plus all the online reading I have been starting to do (Narrative, the New Yorker, Necessary Fiction, YA Fresh), plus all the hundreds of books I want to read in general. But as I’ve been a bit disappointed with my reading, and as García Márquez is very tedious in a second language, I said, “What the hell,” and spent $6 (why are magazines on newsstands so damn expensive!?) on the Ficion 2009 issue of Atlantic.

I’m not quite finished reading it (I read all magazines cover to cover, except sometimes Interview, because I’m getting a bit tired of it and “society pages” really don’t interest me at all–I would like to do a post about magazines later), but I did get to the set of four essays on the topic of “national literature” and whether it exists. The four writers addressing the question of the place of “national literature” in an increasingly diverse and cosmopolitan world were Margaret Atwood, Joseph O’Neill, Monica Ali, and Anne Michaels. Unfortunately, the only of these authors that I have read is Atwood, but then again, most of the most helpful books I’ve read on writing are by authors whose novels I have not actually read. Funny how that works.

The essays were short, so they couldn’t really go in depth, but I was pretty disappointed with the lack of opinion or resolution in any of them. None of the authors really seemed to end with their opinion; most of the essays just talked about their feelings about how they fit into a lot of “communites” (Do I write as a woman? As a Canadian? As a writer? asks Atwood; Not all Brits look, feel, and act the same, Ali points out) and how that makes it harder to define a national literature. But I didn’t really think that was the point, really, and I think all four writers really missed the mark and missed out on an opportunity to talk about the way “genre” is defined today and how that helps and hinders the formation of a national literature. But, you may as well still go on and readBorder Crossings, because the essays are well-written, if boring.

So now I’m home and catching up on my blog reading, and I went over to one of my favorite blogs, especially when it comes to blogs about the world of publishing, Jacket Whys. One of the latest posts is about the amount of human models on YA books this year, and how few of them feature black models. I was so happy to see this addressed, as this was always something I noticed as a child. There was rarely a book that had a character that looked me, and almost never are there books about non-white characters that don’t have major plot devices revolving around the fact that that character is non-white. For example, you could never do the show “Malcolm in the Middle” (blue collar family with unexpected genius middle child) unless you also added that the family had just moved into a predominantly white neighborhood and had trouble assimilating, or if you had an episode where one character starts dating a white girl and has issues with it, or something. Those things drive me crazy. I have no problem if a white writer wants to write a white character, or if a non-white writer wants to write one. Write what you want; it’s your prerogative. But it always bothered me that a writer couldn’t just change someone to be black or Hispanic or Native American without changing most of the arc of the story. So many stories you read don’t have to be about white people; they just are because that’s the default. So many books I read as a child where I said, oh, that character could so be me! But no, the model has blonde hair and celebrates Christmas, so no. Damn.

Obviously, a lot of this problem is general hegemony and the fact that white is still the driving cultural force of our nation. Peggy McIntosh wrote this great essay years ago that I’ve read for classes, recommended to friends as reading, and just link to very often because it’s fabulous and often helps illuminate for white friends why it is “harder” for me to get by sometimes, even though I’ve been raised mostly white. Unpacking the Knapsack of White Privilege is an excellent, quick read that everybody should check out, regardless of their racial or ethnic background. I commented on Jacket Whys and linked to it and am still reading the other excellent comments.

However, I want to know what it is that could help facilitate a change in publishing. Of course more writers need to abandon the magical Negro and other stereotypes and write diverse characters, but since writing is only one part of the package that is a book, I wonder what else it is that keeps us from seeing more interesting protagonists and models on covers. Do we not have enough non-white editors and graphic designers? Do we lack models? Not working in the publishing industry, I can only go so far to make suggestions as to what we need. I’m confused as to the easiest way to solve the problem.

School Library Journal also published a fantastic article on race in literature. Read it, do.

summer reading #3

Haven’t updated for awhile, and I am moving very slowly in some books, but I also read very quickly some others. What else is there to do but read when you are stuck in bed with the flu? Now, of course, I am better and off on adventures, but here are the latest books I’ve finished.

I have not read books that I expected to read, due again to the fact that I did not expect to be sick with so much free time. So I’ve been a bit disappointed in things. But such is life.

1. Cocktails for Three by Madeleine Wickham. So disappointing! This woman, who also writes as Sophie Kinsella, has always impressed me, because while she writes chick lit, which basically means dumb, she writes it in a way that makes you want to read it, because both she and her characters have clearly read other books before. This one, however, was utter crap and made me really, really angry. Pregnant women being alcoholics, women being stupid, and just stupid, stupid, stupid. Don’t read it. That is all.

2. Social Justice: A Jewish Perspective by Bernardo Kliksberg. This was lent to me by a friend at Hillel after I was told to stay in bed for three days, and it’s a very good and pretty easy read. Since this is a vaguely religious trip that I’m on (or was on, since now I’m just vacationing and traveling), it was nice to kind of get in touch with my Judaism a bit and remember that there are ways I identify with my religion, even if for me it’s not about being completely stuck in the past or really Orthodox or keeping kosher. Even if you’re not Jewish, this book has a good outline of what social justice is and why it’s important that it exist. It didn’t exactly tell me things I didn’t believe in before, but it was nice to have them outlined well.

3. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I didn’t want to read this book, but my friend lent it to me and I figured I’d at least look at it, and then I finished it in a day. Whoops. I guess part of my reasoning for not wanting to read it was my resentment for Americans who do “spiritual” things to be trendy, and also because I generally feel kind of icky when talking about it. For me, religion is very personal, and while I’m glad I have my beliefs, I don’t particularly care if anyone knows them or not and I don’t really enjoy evangelicals who are constantly trying to tell me what they believe and why I should believe it, too. Maybe that’s mean of me, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. But this book, even when it got borderline sappy, was a great read simply because Gilbert was a really great storyteller. I haven’t felt like writing lately, and in the middle of the book I just had to run upstairs and journal. And it reminded me how much I enjoy traveling, even when I don’t, and how much I like to write personal essays. So I would recommend the book above all. Plus, who wouldn’t want to read about living in Italy?

So that makes 10 books thus far through the summer, and I’m well into the middle of two/three others (a García Márquez book that I’m reading simultaneously in Spanish and in translation and a book of poems). We’ll see if I make it to my goal of thirty, though. And hopefully the rest of the books I read will be better.

Stuff about my latest adventures later.

summer reading #2

Since I’m stuck in my hotel room with the flu, I figured it was time to update. Unfortunately I do not have enough of the books on my reading list with me, so I’ve had to resort to reading books that I borrow from others (the horror!). But as I haven’t updated in awhile, here are the books I’ve read since my last summer reading entry:

1. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. I read the title story in high school, and I read The Namesake soon after it came out, but I hadn’t gotten around to reading this entire collection. It was good to read, because I should definitely be reading more short fiction, and New Yorker “short” fiction starts to piss me off after awhile. This was a pretty good collection, though occasionally it got a bit boring. I suppose it’s something all authors have to do–spend a couple hundred pages in one of their first major works writing thinly veiled autobiographical things (ahem, The Kite Runner) or otherwise similar-to-life stories, and there’s nothing really wrong with knowing something very well and writing about it. But after awhile, I was a bit bored with already knowing the setting (East Coast), characters (Indian immigrants to the US), etc. Still, really great stories, easy to read but not in an over-simplified sort of way, and largely enjoyable.

2. Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne. This was totally not what I was expecting. Well, it sort of was, because it was definitely really funny teen angst, but I was not quite ready for the really, really ridiculous talk about sex and erections, nor was I prepared for the absurdist tone of it all. It’s definitely a good 500-page read, though. I love it when teenagers in novels have preposterously good vocabularies but still find themselves obsessing over crushes. Good stuff.

3. Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger. I will be the first to admit that I own a copy of her first novel, The Devil Wears Prada, and I have read it multiple times. I have also seen the movie twice. It’s perfectly fun, and this book and books by Sophie Kinsella/Madeleine Wickham are probably the only chick lit books that I feel happy reading, because they’re not completely WASPy (read: annoying, predictable, full of harping ladies a la “The View” and “Sex and the City” who hate their parents for no real reason, obsess about what they’re eating and whether they’ve farted in front of their partners, and don’t ever go to work) and they at least read like they’re written by someone who has read good books and has a good vocabulary. But this book, though kind of fun, ultimately fails because the only way it is fun is the exact same way that her first novel is fun, because it is exactly the same as The Devil Wears Prada, just with different names and a different job. Even The Babysitters’ Club was not this formulaic.

4. The Annotated Alice by Lewis Carroll. This beautiful, large edition of the book comprises both novels, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, which together are usually adapted to make the movies that we know as “Alice in Wonderland.” Reading the annotated version was fabulous, because they just allow you to understand so much more. The “absurd” parts aren’t really that absurd, there are tons of math games, and the poems are often based on popular songs and poems of Carroll’s day. The annotations also explain his “pedophilia” in detail. AND the second Alice book, which is a lot more fun than the first, is actually very cleverly modeled after a chess game. Do children’s books do all that anymore? I think not. Awesome. Read it.

movies are less good but more fun to watch

**This post may have vague, unimportant spoilers about the movie “Revolutionary Road.”

As I get older, I like movies on a whole less, but I enjoy watching them more. Weird? Not really. Most movies are just not all that phenomenal, though there are plenty that I adore. Like, the writing is great, but the rest is so-so; or visually it’s cool but there’s no real story; or it’s awesomely realistic but also boring; or the acting is amazing but the story is just lame or too easy or not well-adapted from the book or just done too, too many times.

Yesterday I watched “Revolutionary Road,” which was a tad disappointing after all that Oscar buzz and all. Not having read the book even, I can guess that it’s probably a bit too dense and that the movie is too simplified, but still. Throughout watching, I could guess everything that was going to happen, and not in a good way. Just in a I’ve-seen-this-in-Closer-and-We-Don’t-Live-Here-Anymore-and-tons-of-other-relationship-movies sort of way. And I “got” the point too easily, I think. Nothing about the story really challenged my thinking in a new way.

The acting, though, was great, and so were the sets and costumes and all. I’m generally more of an actor person than an actress person (though that might just be because I fantasize too often about all the movie stars I’m going to meet someday and marry), but Kate Winslet has always been one of my favorite people in the entire world. I just love her and pretty much everything she does. Just as no one does teen angst like Winona Ryder, no one does sympathetic adulteress like Kate Winslet.

I really like to be able to watch movies now with a bit more of a critical and educated eye as I get older and learn how to read better. Close reading skills and a good English teacher can make you a good movie-watcher without being annoyingly too cerebral about everything. Not that I know all that much technical stuff about film, but I know enough for the average person, I suppose. I love to analyze the stories like you do a book and to be able to gauge good and bad acting better than I could when I was little.

But really, most movies are nothing new. And since movies are stories or statements or essays or lives, as a writer, that scares me. It’s supposed to be the way you tell a story, not the story itself, right? Is that why literature continues to exist and evolve? But what if you tell an old story in a fairly old way? What’s left?