macbeth. william shakespeare.

(this play is in complication so that is where there is no book cover.)

since next weekend i will be seeing the play "sleep no more" in nyc, i decided i should probably read the shakespeare play that it is based on, so i can know what is going on.  i should add "sleep no more" has no dialogue and the audience wears masks (yes if you saw that "law and order" episode, it's like that, well minus the rape) do that was part of the reason as well.

before i go on i have to admit what a horrible drama student i was.  the drama teacher at delano high school was obsessed with shakespeare and that was all he ever directed.  due to thid, i was in a production of "macbeth", as a chorus member.  it was for a festival at chapman, which i did just to go on a field trip.  and though i was in it, all i remember was the witches' "double double" and lady macbeth's (played by my friend kaley) "out damn spot" and "unsex me now" lines.  and even though i sat through a handful of practice and performances, i had no idea what the play was about until i read it.  and even than i needed sparknotes.com to help me understand it completely.

i consider myself an intelligent person but shakespeare is so beyond me!  i would read a couple of acts then consult sparknotes.com to make sure i understood what was going on.  most of the time i did but i did miss that whole forest moving prediction and then it's actual happening.

but back to the play, it was really dark.  so much death!  and lady macbeth!  talk about malicious!!! though in the end she did commit suicide due to the guilt so she wasn't a complete sociopath, demonstrating she was capable of remorse. but she was quite frightening at the beginning with her murder plots and talk of dashing the brains of a suckling infant.  that part was manically cruel, who has thoughts like that?!?!  even her talk of killing duncan herself was insane.  and she did have the best lines "unsex me now" a demand to lose her femininity so she can destroy life.  though since shakespearen time, women have proven that they are just as capable of murder as men.

i also enjoyed the plot twist at the end when macduff revealed that he was not born but take from the womb early.  interesting! what a surprise! and then macduff presented macbeth's head at the end.  there was a lot of gory scenes in this and then add in the witches and banquo's ghost roaming around, though i haven't read anything else, it's pretty dark for shakespeare right?  and seriously what a bad move on macbeth's end for killing the chamberlains, it was really odd when he announced that.

oh and way to go shakespeare for his grand tradition of perverted scenes, so random to have the porter talking about whiskey dick.  but i guess something to keep the mood light.

and of course so many great lines that influenced others:

"by the prickling of my thumb,

something wicked this way come":  ray bradbury

"life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

and then is heard no more.  it is a tale

told by an idiot, full of sound and fury , 

signifying nothing.":  faulkner

"weird sisters.":  j.k. rowlings

"methought i heard a voice cry 'sleep no more! macbeth does murther sleep.'":  the play i am going to see.

so excited for the play and glad i will have a better understanding of it.  oh and i will make sure not to say "macbeth" in the theater as warned by friend ferlay.  i will use "the scottish play" to avoid dying or having an accident.

something wicked this way come. ray bradbury. (71)

a couple months ago i picked up "something wicked this way come" but after reading its jacket cover and saw that it was about halloween coming early, i decided to save it for october. so when october came, so did my reading.

the first thing that amazed me was that the book was dedicated to gene kelly. my first thought was not the gene kelly, but i googled it and yes that gene kelly (i know there really isn't another). turns out that bradbury wrote a screenplay for kelly to direct but they couldn't find backing for it so it never happened so bradbury turned it into a novel. but it still made my heart happy to know they were friends. my friend cody used to do this thing where he imagined what dinner parties with kay-z, beyonce and chris martin and gwenyth paltrow would be like. so this made me wish i could have attended gene kelly and ray bradbury dinner parties.

the second thing i noticed was that this story takes place in green town, illinois, which is the setting of "dandelion wine" and since i loved that book, i had high hopes.

i hate to admit this but "something wicked this way come" will not be listed as a bradbury favorite for me. it's not that it was bad, it just wasn't for me. well for me now, as i was reading i couldn't help but think of the nickelodeon show "are you afraid of the dark?" and r. l. stine's "goosebumps" and "fear street" series, all of which i was obsessed with as a kid. twelve-year-old me would have been crazy about this book, but twenty-nine year old me enjoyed it but wasn't on the edge of her seat reading.

it was still well written. there were things i enjoyed. it did inspire me to write a whole blog devoted to women as time (see: "time (is never time at all . . .). and it was filled with the poetry that is bradbury's writing:

". . . the air so cold they ate ice cream with each breath"

"oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are."

"her nose breathes in the air of the world that i know, therefore i love that nose."

and since this is a library blog, i loved that bradbury had the library play an important role in the book. it is described as a mystical place that allows the boys to travel over distance lands and times. he describes how one could adventure to tanganyika in '98 and at the time he wrote it, that would be the future but me reading now, it is the past. the library was also a safe haven and where the halloways and jim gain the power and knowledge to fight the wicked that had came. i may even create a list of books (ala flavorpill) of my favorite stories that feature libraries and this would be one.

last but not least, there is a carousel that played a very important role. it symbolizes immortality which i am okay with not having. i am
very happy with going through the stages of life and one day growing old and dying. however the carousel reminded me of a piece i saw at the new museum, new york. charles ray's carrousel. it was an optical illusion, i remember standing by it to listen because you could hear the motors. but the top moved forwards while the bottom moved backwards so it looked like it was standing still. and in the context of this book and time, it's kind of amazing. life can be propelling forward (planning for the future) and backward (dwelling on the past) so quickly in time that sometimes it looks like we are just standing still but life is actually going on.

but still not wild about the book. i will recommend it to others and have my future kid(s) read it. it was creative and interesting and loved the father-son element, but would have rather seen it as a film directed by gene kelly.

time (is never time at all . . .)

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.)

the emperor's children. claire messud. (59)

have you seen girls?

if yes, omg! don't you love it?!?!

if no, it's a show on hbo. kinda like the urban outfitters generation version of sex and the city, but twentysomethings with a lot less money.

i'm new to girls and haven't seen the complete first season. my cousin apollo told me about it a while back but who has premium cable nowadays? well actually my cousin erin does, so i watched three girls episodes when i stayed with her. i will say that the first episode was kinda ehhh but by the third i was hooked, i even tweeted "all adventurous woman do. #girls". (though the best quote from that episode is one my friend markley always quotes: "what happens to the stuff around the condom?!?")

anyway since the series ended, flavorpill listed books to help fans fill the girls' void in their life. and yes i decided to add those to my reading list.

http://www.flavorwire.com/302791/10-books-to-fill-the-girls-shaped-hole-in-your-life

it was kinda kismet that i found claire messud's "the emperor's children". i was browsing the classic section trying to sort out what to read and was like why is this contemporary book in this section? fastfoward like a day or two and its on the list for girls so picked it up. (spoiler alert: if you have not read this, i do kinda spoil it for you. so stop here. well you can read this next paragraph but stop after that.)

"the emperor's children" follows the lives of three friends (danielle, marina, and julius) "on the cusp of their thirties" (the back of the book says this) who are trying to sort out life in nyc. it was comforting to see my fellow age group-ers with their shit not entirely together. marina was back at home with her parents (granted she did have a book deal) and julian wasn't settled career-wise and worked for a temp agency. though they still managed to live glamourous nyc lives on someone else's dime (marina on her parents and julian had a sugar daddy or a rice queen, julius was asian-who i pictured as my friend keith.)

the book has about six different story lines that intertwine and overlap. and they all involve marina's famous journalist/activist father, murray thwaite except julius, he was in this odd relationship in which he was domesticated like a chinese wife minus the bound feet. he also experienced this crazy gruesome fight in a gay club (which i visualizes as bablyon from "queer as folk.")

so marina's storyline involved her odd relationship with her father, the book she needed to write and her way too quick marriage to a horrible aussie that wanted to destroy her father via his new magazine. danielle has an affair with said father. which i found kinda hot but only cos i want an affair with an old man (though single and not my friend's dad.) then there is bootie ("like shake your?" as julius would say), marina's fat cousin who at first i cared for like one would a lost puppy. he had given up on traditional education and was going to educate himself by reading books from the library and writing essays. anyway in the end he ends up just going slightly crazy screwing over his uncle.

it was a good read, not great. the issue i had, was the use of 9/11 to resolve all of the issues in the book. i was left with too many questions. we never find out if the aussie was evil or was going to publish bootie's article. it also got murray off the hook with his affair. and i get that life paused for new yorkers but for me it felt like a cop out. maybe if i read it in 2006, i would be of a different opinion. also at the risk of sounding unamerican, it could also be because i was not deeply affected by 9/11. in my defense i was on the west coast. the distance can account for something. while reading bradbury's "the martian chronicles" i came across a passage that paralleled my indiffference to 9/11. father peregrine explains:

we heard about the wars in asia. but we never believed them. it was too far away. and there were too many people dying. it was impossible. even when we saw the motion pictures we didn't believe it.

i was unable to relate due to the distance. here all this was going on in nyc but life in delano, ca went on pretty much the same. furthermore, i was also young and at a very exciting period in my life. two weeks after 9/11, i was to start my first year of college so my life was full of hope not bleakness.

so did this fill my girls void? not really, it's kinda like hannah and the gang in 5 years. i could see hannah as danielle for some odd reason. it was a good read but i didn't fall in love with any of the characters except for julius (apparently i am a literary fag hag too). also julius
inspired me to read "war and peace" because he was always trying to sort out if he was a natasha or a pierre.

quotations:

"but he was already thirty, and the question was how?"

the martian chronicles. ray bradbury (58)

The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury

as soon as i finished “dandelion wine” i put in a request for “the martian chronicles”.  i absolutely loved “dandelion wine”  but was worried about this work because i do not consider myself a fan of sci-fi.  i have never seen (or had a desire to see) an episode of star trek or battlestar galactica or any of the star wars movies.  (i will give star wars a chance in the near future.)  but like h.g. wells, bradbury’s sci-fi doesn’t fit my preconceive notions of sci-fi (which would be pretty much things found on the syfy network.  lol)  bradbury himself didn’t really consider it sci-fi, as he explained in the introduction,

All that being true, how come The Martian Chronicles is often described as Science Fiction?  It misfits that description.  There is only one story in the entire book that obeys the laws of technological physics:  “There Will come Soft Rains.”

i think the best description of what “the martian chronicles” truly is was given by aldous huxley, as bradbury explained in the intro upon meeting huxley:

huxley ‘leaned forward and said, “Do you know what you are?”

            Don’t tell me what I’m doing, I thought. I don’t want to know.

            “You,”said Huxley, “are a poet.”

            “I’ll be damned,” I said.

            “No, blessed”, said Huxley.

(before i go on, such a cute story, right?  reading the introduction made me regret the fact that i never attended a talk given by bradbury and sadly being in los angeles there were plenty of opportunity for me to do so.)

i have only read three of bradbury’s works (i really want to read, “something wicked this way comes” but am saving it for halloween) but i have to agree with huxley for bradbury’s works really are poetry.  

"the martian chronicles" is a collection of short stories that chronicles earthlings missions to mars which leads to the  colonization of mars by earthlings and lastly the destruction of both mars and earth.  but mars isn’t just the red planet we learn about in science books, its more like mythical greece, and like mythical greece, readers get caught up in stories while ultimately gaining a better understanding of themselves and society.     

here are some examples of his stories being more than just aliens and astronauts:

-“Ylla”, the first story, and the name of a martian housewife who is no different from any other american suburban housewife (think "desperate housewives", yates' "revolutionary road") bored by her standstill life and full of dreams of a more exciting one.  then sadly having those dreams crushed by her husband.

-“The Earth Man” is a story that reminded me of “girl, interrupted” (the memoir not the movie) or “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest” (which i never read but kinda get the gist of it).  it’s the story of “real" astronauts that are institutionalized because they are thought to be the figment of an “insane” martian’s imagination.

“-And the Moon Be Still As Bright”  is the story of expedition to mars in which one member Spender worries about the consequences of the colonization of mars on martians and their culture.  Spender fights his fellow humans in attempt to preserve mars. it's an interesting foil to the european colonization of the americas and southeast asian counties. esp considering how one negative effect of humans on mars is that the human virus “chicken pox” results in the death of thousands of martian. 

-“The Green Morning”- tells the tale of Benjamin Driscoll, the martian johnny appleseed who solves the problem of low oxygen levels by planting trees on mars. which can be seen as an endorsement for being green.; 

-“the fire balloons” demonstrates that one should be tolerant of all religions. a group of priests travel to mars to save the souls of those that migrated before but come across martians and their religion.  the priests learned that god can be found in all shapes and sizes (there is a great discussion of what the chinese christian god must look like) and that there is not only just one right way of worship.   

my favorite of all the stories was “usher II.”

in this story, a gentleman mr. william stendahl builds a replica of edgar allen poe's "house of usher" which he uses to get his revenge on the bureaucrats that stifle creativity and free thought by burning books and stopping literature from being written. stendahl is a little creepy and does kill people but you have to admire his dedication to books.

if you get the chance take the time to read "the martian chronicles." and if you don't like sci-fi, you'll be fine. it reads like episodes of the twilight zone so they go by quickly. i suggest picking up a copy and putting it on your bed table and reading a story a night.

quotations:

"and they made Alice drink something form a bottle which reduced her to a size where she could no longer cry 'Curiouser and curiouser'" -description of what the government did to books in "Usher II"

"but already the words hung between planets and if, by some cosmic radiation, they could have been illuminated, caught fire in vaporous wonder there, her love would have lit a dozen worlds and startled the night side of Earth into a premature dawn, she thought." -description of janice's phone call from earth to her lover on mars in "the wilderness".

food for thought:

missions to mars in "the martian chronicles" started in 2030, which is 18 years from now. and on the plus side, legislature to censor books began in 1999 with "the great fire" being in 2006, so we are safe from that being our fate.

last but not least, i recently went to the hammer museum for their "made in LA" exhibit and found myself on what felt like bradbury's mars. (Pearl Hsiung. From Above It Is Not Bright; From Below It Is Not Dark, 2012)

dandelion wine. ray bradbury. (52)

believe it or not, my source for the latest news on celebrity death is twitter. it's almost like a game, who can tweet that someone has died first but it also resourceful because i end up being one of the first to know. when ray bradbury passed away, i found out on twitter. i also noticed that majority of the tweets included some type reference to dandelion wine. i racked my brain, did guy montag drink this? but i found my answer when i checked out his books at the library. "dandelion wine" is one of his works.

before i go on, i have to gush. i love love love love love this book. if you haven't read it, please pick up a copy. i have no idea why "dandelion wine" isn't forced upon high schoolers instead of "fahrenheit 451". "dandelion wine" has so many great life lessons. and due to these lessons, it is on my list of 30 to read before you are 30.

to be honest i didn't expect to love this book . i think of bradbury as a sci-fi writer so i wasn't too sure what this novel would be about. would everyone turn out to be aliens? but i was wrong and silly because it turned out to be a whimsical and wonderful story of a boy, douglas, and his adventures one summer in the small town of green town, illinois.

i hate to be judge-y but i always assume that sci-fi novels will be a little dorky and dry. but bradbury is not a sci-fi writer but a poet as i discovered in the foreword to "the martian chronicles". and it's especially true for "dandelion wine" which was based on bradbury's childhood but also makes any reader nostalgic for their own childhood.

there was so much beauty in this book. it is filled with valuable lessons on life, death, growing old, growing up, and of course, how to be happy. there are also many memorable characters, one of my favorites was the time machine, colonel freeleigh. i was delighted when i discovered that the time machine the boys had discovered was the colonel and how he was able to transport him with his memories. i also adored miss helen loomis not only for her unconventional romance with william forrester. but her bravery when it came to death for as she explained:

"i'm not afraid. when you love as long as i've lived you lose that, too. i never liked lobster in my life, and mainly because i'd never tried it. on my eightieth birthday i tried it. i can't say i'm greatly excited over lobster still, but i have no doubt as to it's taste now, and i don't fear it. i dare say death will be a lobster, too, and i can come to terms with it."

it is true nobody likes death but we all have to try it once.

bradbury filled this book with clever little lessons like this, some sad yet true and others happy and promising. and it feels one with joy, nostalgia and whimsy as they read. just writing this i am filled with that warmth, the kind that one would assume that can only be found in a bottle of "dandelion wine." so go pick up a copy and fill your glass!*

ps i feel like i didn't go into too deep analyze on this one especially cos i love it but there is something about it that is indescrible and you just have to read it for yourself.





*sorry that cheesy but i really love this book so please forgive me.

fahrenheit 451. ray bradbury. (51)

i actually read ray bradbury's "fahrenheit 451" when it was assigned to me in high school. shocking i know. i even read it without the aid of cliffnotes and i loved. i remember thinking the premise was very clever, a firefighter that burned books and admiring clarisse for her wisdom. and since back than i was a bookworm, i appreciated its endorsement of reading books.

so when ray bradbury passed away in june, i decided to reread this classic in addition to his other books. sadly, this was the only one i read prior to his death.

and re-reading it as an adult, i still found clarisse wise beyond her years. i admired her family for still reading books. and i hoped that if bradbury's dystopia ever came to life, my future family would know the wonder that is books.

since it has been 10 years since i read it, there were two things that were different for me the second time around. one is due to the way the world has changed and the other because i have changed.

the first thing that stood out to me was how our current society is sadly on its way to being the pill-popping wall parlor-watching population of guy montag's world. i was a teenager when i first read this and therefore, mass media was everything. growing up in middle of nowhere, california, it was the only access to the outside world. as a result, i wasn't too critical of guy's wife and her friends. in fact, this aspect of the book did not make an impact on me, i just assumed that big televisions were simply the way of the future. the future in movies, shows and cartoons id always depicted with large tv screens. also back in 2000 when i read this, reality tv was just coming into play, and i was obsessed with mtv's real world, so i was okay with where the future was headed. fast forward twelve years to today and i am now worried about the extremes of tv, really folks a 3D tvs?!?! today with reality tv shows being the main source of entertainment and twitter giving us access to celebrities 24 hours a day, we are about two seasons away from the dialogued tv days of mildred montag. and don't get me wrong, i do my fair share of bravo watching and tweeting but i also average about 4 books a month so i think i am excused. but tv watching is extreme now we watch it everywhere, like seriously everywhere thanks to tablet and smartphones. and with the decline of bookstores (hopefully due to the rise of ereaders versus lack of reading), i worry that reading is out of fashion. (with the exception of nyc, people actually read there so kudos to them.). and i think that is scarier than censorship. society censoring books is a lot less dangerous than them simply not reading, the burning of books is at least a recognition of their power.

the other thing that changed was my perspective of guy montag. which i took as an indication of my maturity, thank goodness i am not still the same snot-nosed teen.) he wasn't the hero of my youth, in fact, i found myself frustrated and appalled by his reaction in situations. there were so many errors he made because he let his emotions get the best of him. what i saw as passion as a teen, i now saw as hotheadedness as an adult. guy reacted emotionally in situations when he needed to be rational. guy had a lot of heart but sadly he lacked the brains to make a difference in the world. he had the right ideals for the world but he did not have the means to put them into action. as a result, he ended up causing more harm to the cause than helping it flourish. and so what i once saw as a tale of doing what you believe in regardless of the consequences, is actually a warning that in order to start a revolution you need heart and brains. it's sad because i guess i lost my fiery spirit but with it also my naïveté about how the world works. passion can only take you so far in changing the world you also have to rely on intelligence and selflessness, you need to work for the greater good versus your own satisfaction.

the copy i read also had a great afterword or maybe a foreword (?) written by bradbury. in which he shared how he wrote "fahrenheit 451" in the basement of powell. he also wrote a wonderful mini manifesto about censorship that made me regret never seeing him in person. the afterword also gave me a new found respect for "fahrenheit 451." and if "dandelion wine" wasn't on my 30 before 30, this would be on it like flavorpill's list.

and if you are reading this, for the love of ray bradbury, please continue to read!!! feast upon them like the fire chief (cue gasp!), "i ate them like salad, books were my sandwich for lunch, my tiffin and dinner and midnight munch."