If this video is any indication, I’ll be reading the Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death by the time I get caught up on my reading this fall. (Several mountains of Neil Gaiman books will ensure a busy summer.) In case I forget, please remind me.
On to the video!
As some of you may well know, Neil Gaiman came to Washington College yesterday. This was a huge deal as far as Chestertown was concerned but an even bigger deal for Kate, who has been a Neil Gaiman fan since her teen years. In fact, she apparently made her dad take her to a comic shop in London when she was 16 (they were already in England, don’t worry) so she could meet him at a signing.
You can imagine how chuffed she was to be introducing him here as a literary professional.
I haven’t heard yet all of the minutia of Neil’s visit and Kate’s time with him – and I’m sure there are some amazing stories – but I can say that her introduction to his reading and Q&A last night was stupendous and it seemed as though Neil had a truly fun time being here. So, despite the stress of moving the venue three times, the chaos of bringing in such a major author and the logistics of making the actual day/evening happen, it was well worth it.
At the very least, for Kate. 🙂
My sister recently cleaned up big time with her dance company at the Pennsylvania Dance Masters competition, so I waned to offer up some congratulations here! And share a photo:
Hannah, second from the right, looking fierce. And deranged.
I was not fortunate enough to be there, but evidently this performance was about a mother letting go of her daughter to a dangerous world. Which would explain the hair and makeup.
It also ties in nicely with a conversation I was having with Kate over dinner about a book I just read. In a chapter of 334 by Disch, the narrative follows a group of affluent dancing teenagers hellbent on defining their own reality in a 1970s depiction of the future. I thought it would fit nicely with a paper Kate is working on…
…and seems to be elegantly depicted in this new video by The Presets. I caught “If I Know You” right after having said conversation and looking at Hannah’s dance pictures.
Strange how things fall into line like that.
“So I looked with fascination at the people in their mobes, and tried to fathom what it would be like. Thousands of years ago, the work that people did had been broken down into jobs that were the same every day, in organizations where people were interchangeable parts. All of the story had been bled out of their lives. That was how it had to be; it was how you got a productive economy. But it would be easy to see a will at work behind this: not exactly an evil will, but a selfish will. The people who’d made the system thus were jealous, not of money and not of power but of story. If their employees came home at day’s end with interesting stories to tell, it meant that something had gone wrong: a blackout, a strike, a spree killing. The Powers That Be would not suffer others to be in stories of their own unless they were fake stories that had been made up to motivate them. People who couldn’t live without story had been driven into the concents or into into jobs like Yul’s. All others had to look somewhere outside of work for a feeling that they were part of a story, which I guessed is why Sœculars were so concerned with sports, and with religion. How else could you see yourself as part of an adventure? Something with a beginning, middle and end in which you played a significant part? We avout had it ready-made because we were a part of this project of learning new things. Even if it didn’t always move fast enough for people like Jesry, it did move. You could tell where you were and what you were doing in that story. Yul got all of this for free by living his stories from day to day, and the only drawback was that the world held his stories to be of all small account. Perhaps that was why he felt such a compulsion to tell them, not just about his own exploits in the wilderness, but those of his mentors.”
– Anathem by Neal Stephenson, pp. 414-415
I just saw Dusty off, on his way home from a totally excellent visit to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Well, that’s how I’d describe it, anyway…I hope he’d tend to agree. This weekend was the Lit House’s “Literature at the Margins Festival” featuring two webcomics, Jeph Jacques and Aaron Diaz, as well as the H.P. Lovecraft scholar, S.T. Joshi and a local science fiction author, Peter Heck. It was two days of readings, panel discussions and general geekery. Very fun, overall, though poor Kate had to work herself silly to help the students pull everything off. But, we all did get to hang out with the honored guests on Friday evening and she made it over to spend time with us last night after the events. Dusty picked a rather excellent three days to spend here, as far as there actually being things to do in town goes.
When not listening to smart people talk about their incredibly clever lives and works, we spent our time eating huge amounts of Mexican food, drinking lots of the Easter-appropriate Awesomer Than Jesus cocktails and listening to excellent music. Dusty discovered he loves “Xavier: Renegade Angel” and I rediscovered how fantastic Hard ‘n Phirm really is. We played a bit of Mass Effect (read, I played) this morning while Dusty alternated between napping and reading his first few pages of “Transmetropolitan.” Then it was time for Easter dinner with Tara (aka: Shannon) and Kate. I experimented with making a vegetarian moussaka…and was told it actually turned out quite well. This impresses me because it was a complete leap of culinary faith.
And then, just like that, the weekend was over. Dusty departed, Kate went to get some groceries (maybe…if the store is open) and Tara went back to her own tiger cat. So here I sit, in the dark because I’m too lazy to reach two feet to turn on the office light, listening to MGMT and drinking my second cup of coffee. But, it was a great last couple of days and makes me look forward to the next time I have a visitor! Dusty, you may bring yourself back anytime you so desire. Hoover, you are next!
I’ve been going over and over in my head this morning several different topics for posts here on ARoB. I haven’t posted anything of substance in awhile and I really want something good. “Think, Nick, think…a list? A link? A video?” What can I say that I haven’t said before? That isn’t boring as all hell? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just ramble at you.
I’m reading House of Leaves because I “borrowed” Kate’s copy on my way out the door the other day. So far, I’m five chapters in and scared out of my mind. Like, to the point where I don’t even really want the book on my nightstand tonight. Is that odd of me? I certainly know that I’ve never felt so off because of a book. Perhaps it’s that the book is so very like my own head…especially the feeling of disconnected observation? More alarmingly, I am accustomed to feeling as though a great, dark thing is always in the periphery of my world. Could that be a Roman Catholic upbringing of pessimism brought into the form of arms and legs? Maybe I’m just the house on Ash Tree Lane…more things on the inside than could ever be expected from the outside?
Or maybe it’s just really close to Halloween and I’ve not been getting enough sleep?
In any case, I tossed and turned last night, not really petrified of anything of substance, just uncomfortable in my thoughts of the uncanny. Remarkably like our narrator in The House of Leaves.
I think I miss Philadelphia. I certainly miss feeling like I am somewhere even when I’m not doing anything. I don’t however, miss living out of a suitcase and I’m greatly looking forward to a weekend of sleeping in and not having to be anywhere at all. Just wake up next to my girlfriend, realize it’s Saturday and go back to sleep…that’s my goal. Maybe we can get a walk in since it’s FINALLY going to be true fall weather here? I shall not dream too big, of course.
Things I need to do to feel at ease:
They are all doable, right? Well, maybe not so much the last one, but I’m going to try at all the rest.
One last thing: Hoover Baiting
“In the future, so they write, the cars will be made of light and magnets and there will be no traffic, only hope and amazement and peacefulness. Eventually, our planet will explode, and things will have to change. And maybe for the better, the second time around.
When things begin again, we will live pleasantly with our mothers, in cabins on the moon, by empty seas under black, airless skies. To get from place to place, we will only have to run and jump, gliding gently over craters, swimming stylishly through the great emptiness.”
Understanding Traffic: An Expert Account, pp. 20-21
To learn more about this and other Iditots’ Books, visit the e-cyberhomesite.
I just finished the last pages of Shampoo Planet tonight. I feel like my stomach is going to be coughed out of me like a wad of crumpled up paper. In short, like I’m going to cry. Excellent book.
In other news:
Let’s organize this “Strip Jenga!” party. Who’s in? Show of hands…er…comments.
I got bored after my night of being frustrated with freelance yesterday and decided to paint. While Depeche Mode and Feist poured over me – and the rain came down in hurricane fashion outside – I crafted this. I guess my mind was on the way leaves look from below on a sunny day.
This is perhaps the most concise summation of how I feel that I’ve ever found outside of my head:
“Thanks.” She sighs, does a wrinkle-and-freckle check, the way Anna-Louise does, too, right out of the starting gate in the morning. I have this feeling watching Jasmine – that as you grow older, it becomes harder to feel 100 percent happy; you learn all the things that can go wrong; you become superstitious about tempting fate, about bringing disaster upon your life by accidentally feeling too good one day.”
Shampoo Planet, pp. 131
There is probably nothing more luxurious (and decadent?) about reading for an hour in a cast iron bath tub. Just lying there, completely lost in a world of your own imagining, listening to music and watching candles flicker on porcelain and chrome. A great morning.
And now, with my belly full of Hannah’s pineapple & pine nut dessert, I’m going to make my way to a more reclined position.
“In general I remember thinking how modern and snappy Europe appeared in photos: lively tinkling geometric buildings sprouting like crystals from the tedious stone drabness below. Europe seemed like a place where the future was advancing more rapidly than in Lancaster, and I love the future, so that was that. Funward ho.”
Shampoo Planet, pp. 96