while looking through the table of kids halloween books at the library, i came across this gem. since one day i plan on converting and marrying a nice jewish boy, i had to check it out. the book is based on a talmudic legend, and stands as an example of why i plan on converting.
the story is about a village that is haunted by twenty-nine witches every full moon. the only time the witches did not come out was when it rained. as a result no one in the village ever saw a full moon. one day an old grandmother went to the rabbi to share her despair at the fact she had never seen a full moon. her exact words were "i want to see the full moon before i die! is that too much to ask?" (for some odd reason i heard it in fran descher's mom on the nanny's voice.) and so the rabbi came up with a plan to get rid of the witches. i have to add that every time the rabbi was mentioned it was normally followed by the line, "after all, he is the rabbi."
so the rabbi made it rain and then had twenty-nine of the cleverest men go with him to where the witches lived. he told the witches that he was a witch too and that they should teach each other magic. so he had the witches create a wonderful feast and then his "magic" was that men appeared to dance with them, and the men went into action. and the men danced the women out of the cave and into the rain, where they melted. how very wizard of oz, i know, i'll have to google to see if it's inspired baum.
so with the witches gone and their magical feast still there, the village threw a party! for "a good feast should not go to waste." that is the real moral of the story, because the one thing that i have learned from my jewish friends is that they can throw an amazing party and have the best holidays.
in the beginning, this blog was devoted to a book or DVD that i checked out from the library. but being the bibliophile that i am, i extended it to any book i have read. and just this past month had an entry about a movie based on one of my favorite books. and today i will start a new type of entry. a thematic entry. and this first theme is women as time.
today as i was reading ray bradbury's "something wicked this way come", i came across this passage on time and women:
oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. they nest in Time. they make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. they live inside the gift, know power, accept, and need not mention it. why speak of Time when you are Time, and shape the universal moments, as they pass, into warmth and action? how men envy and often hate those warm clocks, these wives who know they will live forever. so what do we do? we men turn terribly mean, because we can't hold to the world or ourselves or anything. we are blind to continuity, all breaks down, falls, melts, stops, rots or run away.
this struck me as interesting because women as time was also a theme in smith's "nw". smith wrote the following about her character natalie hanging out with her gay brother and his friends:
(natalie is envious of their fluid and "free love" living arrangement)
it was not possible to feel happy for him it was because the arrangement was timeless--it did not come bound by the constructions of time--and this in turn was the consequence of a crucial detail: no women were included within the schema. women come bearing time. natalie had brought time into this house. she couldn't stop mentioning the time and worrying about it.
women as time is a serious truth for me right now. i am slowly ticking my way to thirty and i have no idea where the time has gone. and the scarier thing is that even though i am only thirty i do feel like time is running out. why the stress? the dreaded biological clock that ticks inside of every women. as a teen i remember watching the friends episode when rachel turned 30 and this happened:
back then i didn't realize that this would one day me my fate. occasionally i will have the same freak out as rachel because right now i should be dating someone that i can potentially marry so i can have kids at a "reasonable" age and right now i am dating no one. and it seems like everyone around me is getting married (gay friends exempted) and my "future" and biological clock are going nowhere. (please note this freak out started to appear in the back of my mind at age 25. it started getting more serious around 27. but now at 29, i might just be in denial about it cos i should be going insane over it but am surprisingly calm, hence denial.) the only thing that is in my favor is that my mother had my brother at 43, so biologically there still may be hope for me.
and i think back to my life and wonder what have i done for the past 30 years and why have 10 of them been in singleness? and the only thing i can think of is that i should not have drank as much and i should have never wasted my youth on men who didn't deserve it. seriously there is one guy who is married (still shocking) that i wasted my hot years on. i mean i was hot, boys would hit on me but i would ignore them because for some odd reason i wanted this one guy. to this day all of my friends, still don't understand why or how i was interested in this kid. seriously my hot years, i have pics. and i have no idea why he passed me up because his future potential wealth were not equivalent to my personality or than hotness. but i digress.
and let me clarify, i do not regret the life i have lived so far. i have had fun and can say i have lead an interesting life. there is rarely a dull moment with me. but i don't know why i can't plan for a future. maybe it's because of my nihilist tendencies. i don't believe in an afterlife and without the goal of eternal life, it's hard to plan for a future. might as well enjoy things now because i'll be worm food once i'm in the ground. but then again, i do want good things for me twenty years from now but i am really too busy living now to worry about tomorrow. and i am not sure how to switch perspectives. isn't it suppose to come with age?
at the risk of sounding like a sappy female but maybe it will be when i find the "one" and start thinking in terms of "we" and ultimately the future tense. right now i can only think in the present tense "krisha is . . ." versus "krisha will . . .". and maybe having an "other" will make me less selfish?
i don't know. all i know is that i do feel like there is a timeline of my life and i have to stop denying it. i have to stop trying to slow it down or stop it and start ticking with it.
[sidenote: just like both "something wicked this way come" and "nw" discuss women as time. they also share instances where males express the pointlessness in having children:
smith's character nathan shares: "kids if they get born, they're gonna die. so [a death sentence is] what you're giving them at the end of the day."
and bradbury's jim had the following exchange with his mom:
"never gonna have [childern]," said jim.
"you just say that."
"i know it. i know everything."
she waited a moment. "what do you know?"
"no use making more people. people die."
morbid but true. what is the point of procreating if in the end we all die. its sad to think this way but if i took on this philosophy on childbearing, it would make a less neurotic thirty-year-old.)
in honor of halloween, i decided that brother bear and i would read roald dahl's "the witches" together. but sadly with my work schedule, we didn't get to read together. also he checked out books from his school library and lost interest. but i still read it.
as a kid, i was scared of the book because the movie dramatized me. i never watched scary movies growing up, but saw "the witches" at the afterschool program i attended. i remember being freaked out when angelica houston peeled off her fake face and revealed her grotesque witch one. that scene alone may be the sole reason i never read it as a kid. come
to think of it, i'm not sure if i saw the ending of the movie, i was that scared.
i know this may sound odd but i may have owned a copy or maybe my sister did because grandma bea definitely read the book. so maybe i got older and tried to brave it but never read it. until now.
and what a delightful book. i regret not reading it as a kid and being such a chicken. but i know that elementary school version of me would have loved it especially since the grandma played such a important role in the book. grandma bea will always be my most favorite person in the world and in elementary school she definitely was. if i read this back then i would have been reminded of how fortunate i am to have such a great grandma (because i was reminded now). and though it may seem morbid, as i was reading i worried about the fact that his grandmamma would probably die when he was still young and then he would be all alone in the world. i also thought it was just me being a worrywart but dahl did address this issue. i was so relieved when dahl turned him into a mouse so his life expectancy shorten so he wouldn't end up alone. it sounds crazy as an adult to want to shorten your life so you won't be alone but to kids this would be comforting.
worrying about your grandparent's death might seem heavy for a kids book but it is something that kids do (i know i did). and that is what is great about dahl's books, he writes for kids but doesn't treat them as children. dahl discussed "adult realm" things with subtlety in terms that kids could/can understand. what i love best (and this is something that dahl does in all of his books) is when he gives philosophical insight on society via his characters. like when the boy turned into a mouse and realized that it's not all that bad because "when mice grow up, they don't ever have to go to war and fight against other mice. mice, [he] felt pretty certain, all like each other. people don't." most kids probably never viewed war in this light before. i think it's important to give kids this other perspective considering that war is never demonstrated as being something negative in grade school but is usually taken up as a display of patriotism. yet by showing how silly a war with mice would be, it ultimately shows how silly war is for humans.
i think another important lesson in this book is unconditional love and that hopefully all kids have it. it was gruesome to think of bruno being offed by his parents simply because he was a mouse. but in contrast it was wonderful how his grandmamma loved him regardless. for as the boy told his grandmamma in response when asked if he was sad about being a mouse, "it doesn't matter who or what you look like as long as somebody loved you." the boy would always be okay because he would always have his grandmother's love.
this all seems deep for a kids book. but the great thing about dahl is that his stories are so creative and enjoyable that these little life lessons are dropped in your lap versus forced in your face. it's like pixar movies in which the adult and kid experience are completely different. in my "old" age, i may have focused on parts that would have meant nothing to me as a kid. but that is the beauty of a good book you can go back and find new things.
(ps after reading this i think next year i might dress up as a roald dahl witch. if i was a school teacher i would read this to my class and then on halloween, wear a wig and claws and show my no-toes feet to my class. lol.)
the first thing you need to know about this book is that it's glows in the dark! yes! glows in the dark! how cool, right?!?!
the second thing you need to know is that you need to read this book.
to be honest, when i first read the title and what flavorpill wrote about it, i thought it would be like "mr. magnorium's magic emporium" but with books. it wasn't as whimsy as that movie and quite different. but it was still great.
i don't want to spoil it for anyone so will not give too many details about this book. but i did thoroughly enjoy it. i think it is best described as "the da vinci code" for the google generation. it is about a secret society and how a newcomer attempts to crack their secret code using computers. reading about this made me wish that i was a more of a geek because computers are beyond me and it would be amazing to a hacker/programmer/super smart. i was in awe of the intelligence of all of the characters. though i will add that i thought clay cheated because he used computers. in this book, i believed that the journey is more important than the destination.
trying not to give too much of the plot away, i can share that the code they are trying to break will reveal the secret to immorality. and i am glad that clay shared my view about of immortality not being appealing. i personally think that living for all of eternity would be exhausting, imagine being alive forever and what kind of toll that would take on your body and mind. after a while would you just be over it? it would be tedious. i plan on resting when i die. so finding the secret to immorality would not be motivation for me if i was a character in this book. i would be game for any kinda secret society adventure.
i also loved clay as a character (and he must have been a gemini due to his resourcefulness and ability to connect people.) he was witty and smart and loved books. seriously, if i found someone like him on okcupid i would be all over it.
i can't really discuss more without giving things away but will add that i was disappointed that "the dragon song chronicles" and the gerritszoon typeface isn't real in real life. also sad that grumble wasn't a real site. i googled them to see if they exist and nada. but nonetheless, it was a great book, i mean it glows you can't go wrong!
ps "mr. penumbra's 24 hour bookstore" was also on that flavorpill fall forecast entry. but they also did a feature entry about it and listed 10 books for books nerds. so now i am inspired to read this list. (and yes they are right if you love books and your iphone, you will love this book.)
i first came across zadie smith's "NW" in a must reads of september article on flavorpill. then a recommendation was posted in their fall 2012 books forecast. and being the flavorpill devotee that i am, put in a request at the library for "NW" along with a handful of others. of all the books, i looked forward to smith's the most. i hadn't read any of her prior books, but according to flavorpill, "NW" was her first book in seven years and her last novel "on beauty" was award winning.
maybe i overhyped it. but the book fell flat for me. there is no denying that zadie smith is a great writer. however, "NW" was not a great book. perhaps it was because i am not a londoner, at times i was confused because i could not locate the surroundings of the book. the reason i love reading books set in LA is because i can visualize where the characters are. however, my dislike can not simply be an issue of setting, that caused confusion but i think the issue was the characters.
i was not invested in any of the characters. it was "wuthering heights" all over again, where i could not empathize/sympathize with any of the characters because there was always one element of their lives that i didn't agree with. with leah, i was disappointed with how she lied to her husband and how she treated her body. with keisha, i couldn't stomach her double life, denial of her upbringing and obsession with the listings. i was rooting for felix, but even he had to be a guy and have farewell sex with his booty call which demonstrated he wasn't going to change. his fate was sad but by the time it occurred, i lost any faith i had in him really turning over a new leaf in life.
and i hate to be a cynic but did not buy the ending. really? leah suffering so much because she couldn't come to terms with the life she has? it lacked sincerity in my eyes. i wanted to tag her conversation with #firstworldproblems. you made it semi out of the projects, congrats, no need going around throwing yourself a pity party, especially because there are more serious problems in the world. instead of questioning why you didn't become a statistic, be grateful that you aren't one. also i hate to be heartless but if you are drug addict than you deserve the shitty stack that you dealt yourself. when it comes to drug addiction you do it to yourself. i would never see a drug addict and then have a meltdown like why me, how did i not become that? i didn't get leah's meltdown. when i do drugs i am aware of what i am doing to my body and it is choice. everyone has a right to say no, so sorry crackhead on the street you can't have my dollar. you chose to be a crackhead. (btw, please save your CIA giving crack to the project theories.)
i didn't grow up in the slums but delano is definitely low/working class yet i couldn't connect to "NW". this might also have to do with smith's modernist writing. leah's section was difficult to follow because it was all stream of thought. i guess it's like stein and woolf all over again, i need to get smarter to appreciate it.
i guess in the end it just all seem contrived. i am not sure of zadie smith's back story, but she wrote like an anthropologist would write about the slums versus someone that grew up in them. the bio on the book's back flap explained she grew up in "NW" and i am not saying that in order to write about the slums, someone needs to be from them, but it surprised me because i felt she didn't know what she was talking about. its like when oprah tries to talk like she understands the everyday woman experience, sorry oprah you don't, you're oprah, there is absolutely nothing "everyday woman" about you. its the same with zadie smith, she may have grown up in NW but she is too far removed from it now to be able to write about it, without sounding insincere and elitist. ( also now that i think about it, with the name change and the anthropological lens through which she viewed life, so she could be keisha.)
i expected this book to be provocative but it brought nothing new to the table in terms of class. regardless of your class, life kinda sucks and no one is really happy. because regardless of where you grew up, you are still human. rich people's don't have it all and are just as immoral as the next class. the individuals in a perfect marriage actually cannot stand each other. the thug you think is a drug addict might be turning his life around. that crackhead who is begging for money who you want save, probably enjoys her life. i think a more interesting viewpoint would have been a character who grows up disadvantaged in the slums who doesn't recognize it as a disadvantage. growing up in the slums was the crutch for all of the characters, their get out of jail free cards for poor life decisions. and perhaps i am too american at heart but you may be born into a lower class but you definitely do not have to stay there. and yes you may have some fall backs in life that lead you back to the slums but that isn't because you don't deserve more or better in life, it's because regardless the slums are your home and will always be a source of comfort.
though the class issues smith presented didn't interest me, the women issues did. i can admit that as a woman approaching her thirties and being single and childless, it was comforting to read leah and keisha's dealing with the same thing. smith pretty much nailed me with leah's inner monologue of:
"simply: i am eighteen in my mind i am eighteen and if i do nothing if i stand still nothing will change and i will be eighteen always."
is that not what i am currently doing with my life? trying to freeze time. put it on pause?
also this "return of saturn" era of life is even more difficult when you add in the biological clock too. as smith wrote:
"natalie blake and leah hanwell were 28 when the first emails began to arrive. over the next few years their number increased exponentially. photo attachments of stunned-looking women with hospital tags round their wrist, babies lying on their breast, hair inexplicably soaked through. they seems to have stepped across a chasm into another world."
this one doesn't get me too much because my peers have been having babies since i was in high school. actually come to think of it, if they grew up in the slums, getting these photos would not be as pressing. at the risk of sounding classist, it is in my opinion that lower classes have kids at a younger age. actually this is more of an issue of education than class. people with more education seem to wait in life to have kids because that education consumes majority of their time so having kids is kinda impossible. so i guess this an example of smith not being too realistic.
but i understand that smith was discussing the inevitable pressure as women get older that they need to become mothers to progress in life. for me personally, i have more pressure in terms of marriage than having a child. especially since everyone around me is now either married or engaged. but that can be saved for another time.
though i did not love this book, i plan on reading smith's "on beauty". as i said before smith is an excellent writer. there is no denying that. she was very clever when it came to descriptions. i loved how she would reference something pop culture-y, and versus naming it, she would describe it, kinda like a riddle. there were references to kurt corbain's suicide, friends, the wire and even chatroulette! though i totally missed the amy winehouse reference. and the heading about her was "beehive." i also enjoyed her literary references like "rabbit, run" about a vibrator. i appreciate smith's cleverness but even that could not save "NW" for me. i plan on reading her other books and hopefully will find the writer that flavorpill was so excited to read.
before i start, i haven't blogged in a while because i haven't read anything new. "war and peace" is taking forever to read and i have been working a lot so lo siento but will be better in the future.
second, this isn't a movie i checked out but saw in theaters and it isn't based on a book i checked out, but it is a book that i absolutely loved in high school. and so i decided to blog because it is one of my all-time favorite books (and sadly not one of my all-time favorite movie.)
i remember finding in at the bookstore and since it was an MTV book, decided to give it a go. plus the title sounded interested. i read it my sophomore or junior year, my friend stephen warren ruined my copy by highlighting a line about masturbation in it, and i think that happen in our sophomore english class. but regardless i love it, i love it so much that at the mention of it, my heart gushes with love for it.
it was my favorite book in high school. i read it a handful of times throughout high school. i made a mixed cd of the mixed tape that charlie gave patrick for secret santa and listened to it constantly. i also recited the poem that he wrote for a 4H speech competition. (it was pretty heavy but i won a medal). and i started picking up pennies and sharing the luck just like stoner bob said, i would also tell people "stoner bob says . . .". i was kinda obsessed with it.
so when i first saw a trailer for the film i was not excited but scared. i was scared that they would a) ruin something near and dear to me and b) take something that i felt like was my own little secret book and turn into this huge public fad. (the book deserves success but not the trendy let's read it cos emma watson is in it but more of the word of mouth (which trust me in high school i tried to get everyone to read it). so i was not planning on seeing it. but then i talked to people about it and discovered that chbosky wrote (well, adapted his own novel, that sounds very charlie kaufmanesque) and directed it, so decided it would be true to the book and decide to watch it.
i was expecting to be in tears over it. but i wasn't. i was kinda disappointed and the only reason i can think of is that my love for the book is so great that any movie would have failed. i mean the author made the freakin movie, it was his vision i initially loved and eventually saw. but i wasn't filled with warm fuzzies like i expected. and i'm not sure why. i mean the casting was great, everyone seemed like their character, i mean patrick was amazing and charlie was charlie. and who
doesn't love emma watson and "anne"?!? also i love the actress that plays his aunt though i don't know her name. and i wanted to hug paul rudd as his english teacher. i loved that the tunnel song was bowie's "heroes". the rocky horror scenes were great. but i still didn't connect like i thought i would. i got tear-eyed during some moments but no crying. and oddly one of the most emotional scenes for me was the dance with the "living room" routine because it was straight up my best friend miguel and i at our 8th grade graduation dance.
i will add that i was disappointed that chbosky edited out the poem that charlie gives to all of them at christmas. its sad but one of my favorite things about the book. i also did not like how he tried to tie in "something" to the aunt verses it being sam's favorite song.** i would have also like to have seen stoner bob share his penny wisdom.
and i'm not saying its a bad film. it's a great film and if you are reading this, go see it! i might go again. everyone did a great job. it just wasn't for me. but it did inspire me to dig up my old copy and re-read. i last read it probably my senior year though it did travel with me to college. but didn't re-read it recently because i figured that the story not so fresh in my head would be better for movie watching. but not the case.
i would also like to add that the douchebag sitting behind me, annoyed the hell out of me which could have caused my un-enjoyment of the film. he was not the brightest bulb in the pack and kept on asking his girlfriend questions. he also ruined a scene between patrick and charlie because of his homophobia to which i gave him a dirty look in the dark and debated lecturing him out of the film. also his girlfriend laughed inappropriately during a scene with charlie and sam. i hate how immature/ignorant people can be. it was at the landmark, i expect more from their audience.
but go see it and fall in love with the movie and then read the book and fall into deeper love with it.
**blogger note: i just finished rereading "the perks" and realized that i was wrong about this. in my head, sam had played "something" for him as her friend song. but not the case. sorry. (12.12.12)
