On My Shelf

This week has been a blast. From Band performances to the start of Tech week for Diary of Anne Frank, I've been running around setting things up and tearing things down. So I didn't do much reading. That is not to say I didn't do any reading at all. I read the script for Diary of Anne Frank. Not a compelling piece of literature in the normal sense, but it does have a fine trail of drama and cynicism laced through the actions and screenplay. While I can honestly say it is one of the most depressing things I've read, It has a small blink of hope that makes the tragic downfall all that more tragic. I don't think it's bad, but it isn't necessarily the best production I've seen either.

OTHER NEWS: Politics

I won't spend long on this, partly because I can't vote anyway and partly because I couldn't care less even if I could vote. I just can't wait until the ads are gone and I can have my TV back. Also, most of the negative energy will be gone. I hate election years, they bring out the worst about our best. It's okay to be patriotic, but to go to a level where opinions suddenly don't matter and it's about following everyone else or be the traitor who 'disagrees' with your country is just too much. Either way I don't care all that much, but life will be a bit more positive when they are all gone. 1st World Problems.

Let's get ready to NaNoWriMo

If any of you have participated in NaNoWriMo... I'm so sorry. (Trust me, they know what I'm talking about)

For those of you who are blissfully unaware, I find it is my job -No, my duty- to inform you of this wondrous occasion. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. As the title implies, this holiday is about taking all of November to write a novel. Sounds easy for some of us, but when you actually start to visualize your piece and write down the image in your head it becomes a lot of work. Not to say it isn't fun, but the work is troubling to most. There is a ground rule of 50,000 words for your piece (wow). Most people give up; it certainly is a test of persistence. You only have until the end of November after all.
Some famous books started out this way, like Sara Gruen's Water For Elephants.
Weither you participate or not, I have to offer kudos to those few who do. I might try, I will most likely fail, but it will be a little more enjoyable than what I already have planned for the month. So in the words of an old PlayStation videogame...
Let's get ready to RUMBLE!!!!

On the Shelf: Review

This week I've finished a wonderful book, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. It was a sort of memoir, not quite an autobiography.So I'll split this into what I liked and didn't like about Me Talk Pretty One Day. 

What I liked:

There was a sense of humor in this book. It wasn't about finding yourself after tragedy or having extraneous circumstances affect your view on life; it was about a normal guy who did some stupid things because he wasn't a genius and he wasn't going to achieve much in his lifetime. I liked that he was a strange and exciting character, dealing with his problems because he was gay, he had a speech impediment, he did drugs, he disappointed his father, and he lived in France without a basic knowledge of the language. He did a lot of stupid things, his life a stream flowing over an endless amount of rough rocks of bad decisions that pointed skyward. He failed at everything, he excelled at nothing, and he was mediocre at even the basic acts needed to live a mediocre life. But he lived a thousand lives. In every chapter something new and exciting was happening. On one page he was a professor of writing and the next had him picking up people's processions as a mover. He was an office assistant and an abstract artist, an old American in France and a small boy in Raleigh. He had stories to tell, interesting people he's met, a life full of the places he'd been. It was interesting to live all those lives with him, even if he didn't appreciate the variety as much as I did. 

I also like the writing, simple and descriptive. It was never too much but I understood what Sedaris was trying to get across. The characters were painted with brilliant colors of words on the canvas of paper, and, no matter how sappy and metaphorical that sounds, it is true. They each were bursting with personality. 

What I didn't like: 

The chronological order of the book. It was skippy, a made up word that means there were parts missing. None of his stories really had a conclusion. They just ended and a new one took their place. The ending of the book wasn't even an ending. It was just about his dad eating rotten food. I'm sure there is probably some point, some sense, as to why Sedaris used this as his last story, but it was too abstract for me to understand. His stories were great but they jumped on the timeline and his life had changed so much between chapters that I could hardly understand how this was just one guy. Age was an issue too. I never really understood how old he was through this story. In the beginning he is 7 and in the end it sounds like he is 57. I don't know, I didn't understand, but I wish I at least knew who the man was before I read the chapter. I figured it out - whether he was young or not - while reading, but it was just another difficulty I had to get over. 

Overall:

Some books are fiction and some books are not, but this book almost seemed fiction when it wasn't. It was enjoyable even if it was about real life, which is quite the feat. I would recommend this for anyone looking for a little variety in what they read, because I have honestly never seen anything like this before.

Honorable Mention of the Week: Halloween Costume Makers

I want to give a shout out to all the creative people who make their own costumes. I have for the past 4 years and I know it's difficult to be creative and thrifty at the same time. The constant nagging of the part of your brain that's repeating 'how can you make it better? Is it the right color? Is a better product at Micheal's?' It's a difficult process that requires discipline and a full pocketbook. It takes time and sacrifice, but the results - the creative liberty - is worth every bucket of blood, sweat, and tears. So thank you, creative minds. And bravo for your work.