Moby Dick, or The Whale

 "ALL ME ISHMAEL. Some years ago never mind how long precisely-having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off-then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me." 

 

Hardcore Literature Book Club Host Benjamin McEvoy exhorts us to think about what our own Journey is; what our own trip to sea was all about. Who is our Moby Dick? Who is our Ahab? Are we Ishmael? Or are we The Whale?  

 

My own trip to sea started in 2001 when I agreed to move with my then partner from Champaign, IL to San Diego. I've never had much money in my purse. But I owned my coop apartment and had a good full-time job that paid the bills and friends that had known me may years. Family wasn't too far away.  

 

We set "sail" in two separate vessels; my 1997 black Mazda 626 and his white extended cab Ford F150 towing his livestock trailer stuffed with all of our belongs. Even though we "landed" in San Diego in August 2001, a few weeks before 9-11, I've never felt settled. I've never felt at home. I feel very much that I'm still on the voyage.  

 

Moby Dick is my inner, higher self that I’m still trying to find, meet, get to know. He's the elusive one that takes the scenic way home and I wonder why I turned that way. He's the one that says things and I wonder why those words came out of my mouth in that tone of voice. He has feelings I'm disconnected from, passions I don't know. I don't know what he's good at, while I seem to be bad at so many things. 

 

The White Whale is also Captain Ahabs higher self that he's at war with, that took his leg in an attempt to get his attention. Instead, Ahab's ego, that thinks it's in control of this life, declared war on his inner self. In his effort to prove his ego right, he lost everything. Like Javert in Les Miserables, he couldn't consider being wrong. Being in control was more important to him than being happy.  

 

My Captain Ahabs are my father, who always smiled and was never happy. His smile was a wall of indifference we threw ourselves against until we were bloody, but never made a dent; my mother, who, as she got older, became more childish and self-absorbed; my brothers who have no idea who I am and refuse to learn; boyfriends who only wanted me to be their ideal; bosses who only saw me as a list of statistics in a folder.    

 

In 2010 Moby Dick rammed my ship, blowing up my life. Stress, anxiety, depression, and HIV teamed up to land me in the hospital for 28 days with a years long recovery. I lost my job, had to move many times, learned to navigate the world of disability and assistance programs.  

 

In the book, Ishmael survives the destruction of the ship and we know he makes his way back home. That journey would have taken almost as long as the one outward bound. I feel like I'm still on that journey, still trying to find my way home, not sure where home is or what it looks like. 

In many ways, I'm still hunting Moby Dick.

Book Review

This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars — compassion, love, the subsurface unity of all things."

This is Water is a graduation speech David Foster Wallace gave in 2005 at Kenyon College. The 22 minute speech is available on YouTube. I got the book because I digest the written word better than watching someone speak. It's a short, fast read, easily completed in one sitting, which is great, although I'm still wondering why it cost as much as a whole book.

But I'm very glad I went ahead and got it. His insights and ability to look at things in ways we didn't think of are very eye opening. I especially like how he points out that we all worship something, even atheists; we just have to be aware and choose wisely.

My challenge will be to remember the above quote the next time I'm at the DMV.





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Not All Selfies are Egoism

Not all selfies are egoism. 
In a society that tells you you’re not enough,
And people that wish you weren’t there at all; 
Acquaintances that only see themselves
and “friends” that say you shouldn’t be that; 
With family that says “you aren’t that, 
You are not who you say you are, 
You’re who we say you are”
It’s often necessary to take a good look at oneself
And remind yourself who you really are
Without all the noise of those other voices.

Book Review

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The second of Willa Cather's prairie novels, this one is set in the high desert of Colorado and tells the story of Thea, a girl in ordinary circumstances with extraordinary brains, talent, and voice. It's also the story of the people in her life; her mother Mrs. Kronberg, her Aunt Tilly, Dr. Archie, Ray Kennedy, Fred Ottenburg, Spanish Johnny, Professor Wunsch, the Kohlers. Sometimes the story is told through Thea's eyes and sometimes it's about the other characters bringing in news of Thea indirectly. I loved it most when it's centered on the humble town of Moonstone. There the prose is most alive with the sights, sounds, and smells of a quiet corner of the American West. Fortunately the book only goes to Chicago and Germany briefly, returning to Aunt Tilly's quiet cottage at the end.



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CHILDE HAROLD'S GOOD NIGHT.

by George Gordon Byron

1.

"Adieu, adieu! my native shore
⁠Fades o'er the waters blue;
The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
⁠And shrieks the wild sea-mew.
Yon Sun that sets upon the sea
⁠We follow in his flight;
Farewell awhile to him and thee,
⁠My native Land—Good Night!


2.

"A few short hours and He will rise
⁠To give the Morrow birth;
And I shall hail the main and skies,
⁠But not my mother Earth.
Deserted is my own good Hall,
⁠Its hearth is desolate;
Wild weeds are gathering on the wall;
⁠My Dog howls at the gate.

3.

"Come hither, hither, my little page![1]
⁠Why dost thou weep and wail?
Or dost thou dread the billows' rage,
⁠Or tremble at the gale?
But dash the tear-drop from thine eye;
⁠Our ship is swift and strong:
Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly[2]
⁠More merrily along."[3]



4.

"Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high,[4]
⁠I fear not wave nor wind:
Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I
⁠Am sorrowful in mind;[5]
For I have from my father gone,
⁠A mother whom I love,
And have no friend, save these alone,
⁠But thee—and One above.


5.

'My father blessed me fervently,
⁠Yet did not much complain;
But sorely will my mother sigh
⁠Till I come back again.'—
"Enough, enough, my little lad!
⁠Such tears become thine eye;
If I thy guileless bosom had,
⁠Mine own would not be dry.



6.

"Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman,[6]
⁠Why dost thou look so pale?
Or dost thou dread a French foeman?
⁠Or shiver at the gale?"—
'Deem'st thou I tremble for my life?
⁠Sir Childe, I'm not so weak;
But thinking on an absent wife
⁠Will blanch a faithful cheek.



7.

'My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall,
⁠Along the bordering Lake,
And when they on their father call,
⁠What answer shall she make?'—
"Enough, enough, my yeoman good,[7]
⁠Thy grief let none gainsay;
But I, who am of lighter mood,
⁠Will laugh to flee away.



8.

"For who would trust the seeming sighs[8]
⁠Of wife or paramour?
Fresh feeres will dry the bright blue eyes
⁠We late saw streaming o'er.
For pleasures past I do not grieve,
⁠Nor perils gathering near;
My greatest grief is that I leave
⁠No thing that claims a tear.[9]


9.

"And now I'm in the world alone,
⁠Upon the wide, wide sea:
But why should I for others groan,
⁠When none will sigh for me?
Perchance my Dog will whine in vain,
⁠Till fed by stranger hands;
But long ere I come back again,
⁠He'd tear me where he stands.[10][11]



10.

"With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go
⁠Athwart the foaming brine;
Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,
⁠So not again to mine.
Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves!
⁠And when you fail my sight,
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves!
⁠My native Land—Good Night!"

Book Review

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Opening the cover of Infinite Jest and starting to read is like opening your eyes at the bottom of a rabbit hole several levels below Alice's rabbit hole without having Alice's advantage of knowing she fell down a rabbit hole. Where are you? You're in the O.N.A.N. When are you? It's the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment. Everything looks mostly familiar, but everything is, somehow, ... off.

Most authors follow the rules of Rhetoric 101; tell the reader what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell the reader what you just told them. David Foster Wallace does not follow the rules. Like waking up at the bottom of a rabbit hole, like life, you are left to learn the rules from contextual clues; obscure contextual clues. This is not an easy read. This requires you to actively participate, to willingly follow the rabbit down into the dark. And be left there.

SparkNotes had just started to build their Infinite Jest page when I started the book. There are a myriad of websites and blogs about the book. I found the Infinite Jest Wiki, infinitejest.wallacewiki.com, most helpful for guideposts along the way. Or you can just dive in head first and find your own way without the burden of anybody else's impressions. Either way offers rich intellectual, mind expanding rewards. And if that's your plan, if that's the approach you want to take, then go now and good luck. The rest of what I have to say will mar your virgin experience.

An early reviewer of Neil Gaiman's had dismissed a story of his as "facetious nonsense." Oh, but what delicious nonsense it is. Infinite Jest is kind of like that; satire that may leave you scratching your head wondering what's the point. But the trip is so much fun. The point is to enjoy the ride.

The Seattle Times described it as: "... most thorough dissection of America’s addiction to just about everything, including treatment itself .… a high-energy satire of ’90s America." Kirkus Reviews said it's: "a raucous Falstaffian, deadly serious vision of a cartwheeling culture in the selfpleasuring throes of self-destruction.…"

Taking place, in part, in a junior tennis academy it's part Zen guide to the sport:
"Nets and fences can be mirrors. And between the nets and fences, opponents are also mirrors. This is why the whole thing is scary. This is why all opponents are scary and weaker opponents are especially scary."

Down the hill from the tennis academy is an addiction recovery and treatment center. Here we get long meditations on the nature of addiction, recovery, spiritualism, psychotic depression, and suicide. Having been a junior tennis prodigy, an addict, an addict in recovery, and a sufferer of depression that ultimately proved fatal, these glimpses of a world most of us will never see are told by an insider, by someone embedded with the troops on the front lines of trying to survive our society's failures.

On a hill, a cliff, outside Tucson two men spend the night discussing current events, acting like something of a Greek Chorus making comments on the sociopolitical environment, mocking intelligence agencies and covert operatives in the process.

In the middle of it all is a woman so beautiful she's Hideously Deformed making us realize that we treat extreme beauty not that much differently than we treat extreme ugliness; looking only at the surface without seeing past to what's within.

The narration is stream-of-consciousness and casts a wide net, but read it all, including the endnotes, because buried in all of it are the contextual clues you're going to need later. Have patience. Keep reading. It may take several hundred pages, but eventually it all gets explained. Along the way you'll get treated to some really delicious dialogue and prose, the author using the same syntax for the narration as his characters bringing the whole thing to breathing, heaving, throbbing life. Like his junior intellectuals, he free associates meanings, uses words in new contexts, uses obscure words, misspells words, and sometimes just makes stuff up.

Published in 1996 it takes place at some unspecified point in the near future. Best guesses are around 2008, but considering Canada has a handsome Prime Minister and the US has a celebrity president making a mess of things it feels very current. As speculative science-fiction, it's a bit like reading Orwell's 1984 in the '90s; if 1984 was satire. Good luck.



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Selfie: Favorite Colors

I took this a couple of months ago in February. Purple and green have become my favorite colors, specifically that shade of purple and that shade of green. And I love those shirts and that pair of shorts. It's just that Instagram wouldn't let me post the photo the way I cropped it; too vertical. And I didn't want to put it on Facebook: it'd just get a ridiculous number of likes. So here it is. I am kind of proud of the work I've been doing at the gym and watching what I eat and I like how this photo shows the results.

A Celebration of Life

I went to the Celebration of Life for my friend Anna Lucia today. I'm just posting this here and not on Intagram and Facebook because it would just get all kinds of likes for me and messages of sorrow for me, which would all be sweet and well-intentioned, but I'm not the one that deserves the likes. Those should go to Anna Lucia. And I'm not the one who needs the sympathy. That should go to Anna Lucia's family, boyfriend, and closest friend Nichole. 

It was a nice service and I'm really glad I went. Even though I didn't know anyone there except Nichole I'm glad I pushed through my awkwardness in unfamiliar surroundings. Everyone was really nice, of course. The singer's voice was weak but her heart was in the right place.

I met Anna at GEICO where our cubicles were right next to each other. After I left we kept in touch and not too much time passed before she also switched to Wawanesa. She was only there 9 months when she got the position at the Art Institute. We kept in touch at first and she did come to see me up at Scripps Green when I was in the hospital there. She came on the day after my surgery so I wasn't in the best shape. After that we mostly kept track of each other through Facebook. 

I loved seeing that she got a position with the San Marcos School District, a job that she loved. I loved reading about all of her activities and events with friends and family. I loved seeing her baked creations. I really loved learning about her new boyfriend. So I was shocked and upset when I read Nichole's words that she had suddenly left us.

Anna was sweet and sensitive and super smart. Not conventionally pretty she stressed about all of the mixed signals and expectations that fall heaviest on women in our culture. But her guiding star was to stay true to herself and to know that she was fabulous and she didn't have to be anything else. And that's what she passed on to all of us who knew her. She saw us as fabulous and we didn't have to be anything else but ourselves for her. 

I miss you, Anna Lucia.

Book Review

The Thief of Always by Clive Barker

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I started reading this book when a friend, acquaintance really, recommended it and I, being in the middle of the marathon that is Infinite Jest, thought it'd be a nice change of pace. Young Adults novels are often great tales and a fun read. Since the hero in this book is 10 years old and the reading level is about that I'd say this book is for children younger than YA. It's definitely easier to read than Harry Potter.

Harvey is bored, looking for a distraction, and open to temptation. He follows someone to a place where his every wish is granted. Everything is great at first, but he soon discovers it's all a sham and a trap. The story is creative and imaginative. The premise may not be original but the details are. There were times I thought it'd be better as a fully realized illustrated novel instead of a classic prose book and the gender roles are stereotypical with the 2 female supporting characters relegated to passive roles, but the pace picks up in the last section and the ending is very satisfying and well done. A good read.



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