Nerdgasm (w/ a sneaky Dylan reference... bonus points if you find it)

OK
Here's the thing...
Over the last few months, I've been rewatching Lost w/ Solstice & Aiden. We're on Season 3 @ the moment. I've since restarted Season 1 w/ Sara as she has never seen it before. Watching her watch it for the first time reminds me of that scene in Freaks & Geeks when Lindsey is carrying American Beauty through the cafeteria & the Dead Head says, "I wish I'd never heard it before so I could here it again for the first time." Lost is sooooo good!

To make matters worse, I'm waiting for the Dish Network dude/dudette to come and fix the connection in the bedroom. At the moment, the TV screen is snowy. It spent the last day and a half showing just the "Starting Up..." screen, & I spent an hour on Saturday talking through the problems w/ a rather unhelpful Dish Network Help Desk person. I honestly don't watch a lot of TV in bed so it would normally be no big deal, but I wanted to watch the new Kevin Smith show, Comic Book Men in there last night. Seeing as I couldn't do that, I recorded it & in its stead, I read a new Batman trade paperback... it's a collection of Grant Morrison comics about Bruce Wayne finding his way back to the 21st century after being hurled back in time by Darkside.

While waiting, I've spent the last hour catching up on recent episodes of The Office, How I Met Your Mother, & The Big Bang Theory instead of reading 1984 for my Science Fiction class tomorrow. I've also been battling w/ my Internet connection so as to be able to blog about the whole situation. None of this bodes well for my status as a Schwartzernegerian manly man.

Following this train of thought all the way down its nasty spiral, my real concern is that all of this is really just killing time before I see Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D this afternoon. In fact, like, the Dead Head on Freaks & Geeks (& like the trailer for the Episodes 4-6 Special Edition releases in 1998, I get to see The Phantom Menace again... for the first time! (I'd like to take a moment to appologize for the fact that I've always been been a George Lucas appologist. Some people have The Lord of the Rings, others, have Harry Potter, still others have Star Trek... I have Star Wars... deal w/ it.)

Deal w/ it? Right! Easier said than done. I'm not dealing w/ it very well @ the moment. I feel like I may need to come to terms w/ an aspect of my life that I have been keeping hidden for lo these many years. I feel that perhaps I'm not the muscle-bound jock I see myself as, but rather something else entirely. I've spent all this time, since middle school in fact, trying to convince myself that this isn't the case. I look at boobs (although I kind of giggle), I've never read a young adult book (but then again even geekdom has its limits), I watch sports (albeit, soccer), & I have what I think is a a decent sense of humor (but who can really judge ones own sense of humor?).

I fear that after all this time, it's time to admit the truth. This is my coming-out narrative so you best enjoy it. The truth is that I may be a nerd. I'd write more, but I need to check on the chickens & look into getting ducks. There's nothing nerdy there... not at all. The only saving grace is that most of you can completely relate. We're all nerds, babe, it's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

Local Bookstores

For those of you living under rocks, in caves, or on the moon, here's a little piece of info you've been missing (for the rest of you, I'm sure you're aware of this already): Borders Books & Music is closing this week. They took the first steps towards liquidation last week. It's been an iconic A2 store since 1971, but 40 years on, they had overstepped their bounds. I worked there for a few years about 10 years back, & the downtown #1 store was fantastic. It was always crowded, the selection was great, & the employees really knew the inventory. I made a few friends there that I still run into around town too. It's sad to see it go, but I must admit, I hadn't bought anything there in quite a while. My recent avoidance of the store wasn't for the reasons the media has been reporting though. It has more to do w/ a general avoidance of corporate stuff like that.

The news is all about the competition from Amazon. However, no brick & mortar store will ever compete w/ a web-site so when they started trying to do that, they were setting themselves up for failure. Discounted prices, focusing on best-sellers, constant expansion, & a shift towards non-book stuff compounded to bring about this less-than-sudden change. As a Monday morning quarterback, it's easy to say, "They should've done...." but it's not that simple. We're talking about the livelihoods of a lot of people. Of course, not as many per store as when I worked there, since the staff had been shrinking over the last 10 years. Had they maintained a staff that actually knew about books, rather than a skeleton crew of automatons, they may have been able to avoid the vacant sales floors & shrinking stock. There I go w/ the Monday morning quarterbacking though.

Hopefully, this will give people the kick in the ass they need to start supporting local businesses again. Malcolm X was talking about this issue in 1964. Of course, people scoffed @ him as a fringe lunatic. Kucinich has been talking about this for years... again w/ the Fringe lunatic status though. Be they grocery stores, coffee shops, book stores or what have you, I'm gonna go out on that same lunatic limb & remind you to start patronizing the local stuff.

Here's a fun little quote from Malcolm X for you:

You and I have to make a start and the best place to start is right in the community where we live. So our people not only have to be re-educated to the importance of supporting black business, but the black man himself has to be made aware of the importance of going into business. And once you and I go into business, we own and operate at least the businesses in our community. What we will be doing is developing a situation wherein we will actually be able to create employment for the people in the community. And once you can create some employment in the community where you live it will eliminate the necessity of you and me having to act ignorantly and disgracefully, boycotting and picketing some practice some place else trying to beg him for a job. Anytime you have to rely upon your enemy for a job - you’re in bad shape.

He's clearly talking about economics from a racial standpoint, but however we look @ it, the idea of keeping money in the community is @ heart of his claims. Whether we're shipping money to Arkansas, Minnesota, or SE Asia, it's leaving Michigan. Only by keeping it @ 'round these parts will we be able to employ the people 'round these parts. It will probably mean spending a little extra on a daily basis, but in the long run (be they books, vegetables, or cars) the products we buy here keep the cash here. This is the same argument we've been making for organic vegetables, for local farming, & for local restaurants for years. Only when one of the big boys goes under, do poele start paying attention though.

Is this really just a plug for Nicola's? No, but already, I've seen Borders employees in there looking for work. And as you start shopping locally, remember that I'll be moderating a Sci/Fi panel tomorrow @ Nicola's w/ Sarah Zettel, Jacqueline Carey, & Jim Hines (Sarah live in Ypsi & Jim is an EMU English Dept. grad). I've never moderated anything before, so you can come out tomorrow night & watch me trip over my words. It should be pretty cool.

Mulligans: In which Isaiah learns about James Joyce & makes an intertextual connection

Yesterday morning I was sitting on the couch eating breakfast & watching Back to the Future III w/ Isaiah. A few weeks ago he lost his mind for the Back to the Future trilogy. He loves to play that he is Marty & I am Biff & in some damsel in distress scenario he has to rescue Lorraine... he's also developed a hilarious crush on Lea Thompson. I can't imagine that he really understands the concept of time travel, but he can't get enough of these movies. Come to think of it, neither can I. As a side note, they were executively produced by Spielberg... yet more Spielbergers to delve deeply into the daddy issues: Marty & George in Parts I & II and Marty & Doc Brown in all 3 of them.

Anyway, as I'm sitting here, Isaiah grabbed the copy of Ulysses from the book shelf & demanded that I read it to him. Now, for those of you who haven't read it, you need to understand that it's not the easiest book to be reading out loud (or silently, or in rounds w/ friends on Bloomsday, or or through a megaphone from the top of a parking structure, or in any other way for that matter), I suggested that we do the 1st page & see how it's going from there. We got about 1/2 way down the rather long page before he seemed to lose interest (in his defense, that's about twice as far as many people get).

We got through the 1st sentence, "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed." At that point, he stopped me. "Is Buck Mulligan a good guy or a bad guy?" What a fantastic question... & one I couldn't really answer. I explained that different characters view him differently, but that Stephen Dedalus's father doesn't really seem to dig him too much, yet Buck & Stephen are old friends & they live together in the Sandycove Mortello Tower. I haven't read Ulysses in years. I struggled through it in Grad School & then gave it another go in 2002ish. That time, I loved it. I suppose I should go again soon, but I need to get through a few other things first. Maybe next year i'll get back to it again.

Of course, after a few more sentences, the follow up question was "Is Simon Dedalus a good guy or a bad guy?" He then stopped & had a fantastic look on his face as he considered the possibility that Buck Mulligan might be related to Mike Mulligan. "Maybe Mike is his older brother." Awesome!

Juice!: The New Ishmael Reed Novel

"I thought about it. 'Well, somebody had to strike a blow for the return to common sense in the arts. You have the self-reflexive novels where the novelist interjects himself as a character. Novels like those written by that Ishmael Reed. He's probably out in some obscure hole in California right now, thinking of another way he by which he can badger himself into his work having been criticized for introducing himself as a character in his novel Japanese By Spring.'"

So begins a speech by the narrator of Ishmael Reed's newest novel, Juice!, in which the narrator rails against the post-modern. It's yet another crazy-ass book by Reed, a writer who has singlehandedly pissed off more of my students than every other writer combined. In fact, he pisses me off @ every turn, which is fantastic... just like this new book. The narrator is a political cartoonist who gets hooked on the O.J. trial as the novel follows it's progression over the last 15 years & reflects on how it impacted pop-culture in general & the media specifically. As a cartoonist, the book is filled w/ fun little images the narrator has published (these were actually created by Reed himself). As the last remaining American who believes in Simpson's innocence, he puts forth a pretty good argument, reminding us of many of the facts we've conveniently forgotten since the trial. His slam on Reed towards the end makes is pretty clear that the narrator & the writer don't necessarily share these views, but throughout the book, he seems to go back & forth. The point isn't about O.J.'s innocence or guilt but about how the media controlled our views even when the actual facts completely contradicted these opinions. While we see the fall out from O.J., we also watch the rise of cable news & (in typical Ishmael Reed style) the ways minorities are scape-goated to promote the interests of big-businesses.

He's been criticized over the years for being too "Black," which people see as a slight against women & other minorities. But while certain groups get marginalized by the narrator & other characters, it's clear that Reed doesn't actually sympathize with these portrayals. I wonder if these critics who accuse him of "playing the race card" have actually read the books or just read one another's reviews of previous books. I have a sneaking suspicion that there is one Er review from which all the negativity derives. Last week I read his 1976 novel Flight to Canada & I had the same feeling. If people really give him a chance, they'll see there's a lot going on. He's one weird dude... & I always dig weirdness. I'll be @ Nicola's this evening so you, gentle reader, should stop on in & pick up a copy for yourself. Oh, & if you follow that wikipedia link to the page about Reed, you can see all of the edits I made today... adding links, organizing the structure, fixing spelling errors, etc... good times indeed.

Paul Beatty Post #2: The Music

I know I just wrote about the book Slumberland the other day, but begging your indulgences, I'd like to revisit that topic a little. I promise to return to our regularly scheduled soccer/local intrest stuff directly. The book is about a DJ from LA who goes to Berlin in 1989 right before the wall comes down in search of a reclusive musician who he thinks will be able to help him complete his near-perfect beat. The book is filled with pop-culture references; it's like a Dennis Miller routine. References w/in references which can make it difficult at times, but always hilarious. At the end of our discussion today, we listened to a few of the songs mentioned throughout the book, & then a couple things that are similar to the ficticious music the narrator creates. Here's a quick list of links to the youtube entries for the stuff we heard:
* Sixto Rodrigez: "Sugar Man"
* Funkadelic: "Get Off Your Ass and Jam"
* Public Enemy: "Rebel Without a Pause"
* Carly Simon: "You're So Vain"
* Boogie Down Procutions: "South Bronx"
* Duke Ellington and John Coltrane: "In a Sentimental Mood"
* Oliver Nelson: "Stolen Moments"
* Stezo: "It's My Turn"
* Dizzy Gillespe: "Manteca"
* Peggy Lee: "Fever"
* George Clinton: "Atomic Dog"
* Sun Ra: "Space is the Place"
* The Grateful Dead: "Raven Space"
* Karlheinz Stockhausen: "Helicopter String Quartet"

Paul Beatty & Walt Whitman

I'm sure I've talked about him before, but I'm doing Slumberland this week in class so I've been thinking about him again. He's a pretty amazing writer. The first time I covered him was about 6 years ago. Someone loaned me "White Boy Shuffle" claiming I "had to read it... it's just sooo good." Everyone says that (I'm saying it right now), so I don't usually get around to all the books that come to me that way. When I finally did get to it, I realized, to my shock, that he was right. I was preparing it in my office one morning when Tracy, a former colleague poked her head in and asked what I was doing. I showed her the book and she responded w/ "Oh, you're teaching Paul's book!" Right, Paul... you're on a first name basis with him. Sure. Well, as it turns out, she was. She traveled Europe w/ him for 2 months in the early '90s on some sort of poetry reading tour.

Now, I'm at a Nicola's event the other night @ the library for Louis Rodriguez, a poet from L.A. During the down time, I was prepping for my class & he asked what I was reading. I showed him, & he too responded w/ "Oh, you're reading Paul's book!" I immediately thought of Tracy's response 6 years earlier and was shocked by the similarity. I told him about my other job & he went on to say that he traveled Europe w/ Paul in the early '90s on some sort of poetry tour. It turns out that he also knows Tracy. What a weird coincidence. There were 6 people on that tour, one of whom I teach all the time and 2 of whom I met basically because of the other one.

I didn't really log in here today to talk about that though. I really logged in to say that I've been having a pretty rough couple weeks. Then, as I was reading this week, I came across this fantastic passage I want to share because it just brightened everything up so nicely. The main character is asked by the woman w/ whom he's been sleeping if he loves her. Here's his response:

"I'd never been in love. I'd always though love was like reading Leaves of Grass in a crowded Westside park on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, having to suppress the urge, with each giddy turn of the page to share your joy with the surrounding world. By "sharing" I don't mean quoting Whitman's rhythm-machine poetics to a group of strangers waiting for auditions to be posted at the Screen Actors Guild, but wanting to stand up and scream, 'I'm reading Walt Whitman you joyless, shallow, walking-the-dog-by-carrying-the-dog, casting-couch-wrinkles-imprinted-in-your-ass, associate-producers'-pubic-hairs-on-your-tounge, designer-perambulator-pushing-the-baby-you-and-your-Bel-Air-trophy-wife-had-by-inserting-someone-else's-sperm-bank-jizz-in-a-surrogate-mother's-uterus-because-you-and-your-sugar-daddy-were-too-busy-with-your-nonexistent-careers-to-fuck, no-day-job-having California Aryan Assholes! I'm reading Whitman! Fuck your purebreed pedigreed Russian Wolfhound! Fuck your WASP infant with the Hebrew name and West Indian nanny! Fuck your Norwegian au pair who's not as hot looking as you thought she'd be! I'm reading Whitman, expanding my mind and melding with the universe! What have you done today? It's ten in the morning, do you know where your coke dealer is? Have you looked at the leaves of grass? No? I didn't think so!' That's what I thought love would be like. Reading Whitman and fighting the urge to express your aesthetic superiority.'"

That's pretty amazing, and transcribing it was a pain in my ass, so I hope you enjoyed it.

2 Films & 1 Book

I watched a couple movies the other night, movies that had been sitting by the TV for a few weeks before I finally got around to them. I kept thinking I should return them to Netflix but I knew I wanted to see them so I held on to them until I finally gave them a go. First up was Shutter Island. As far as Scorsese goes, it's no Goodfellas, but maybe that's an unfair bar. It was definitely a strange one, like Lost meets Dashiell Hammett. I sort of enjoyed it but was never really able to get into it enough to care about the outcome. That may be why I think I need to see it again before I say for sure that it doesn't completely work. There seem to be some pretty big holes in the plot, but I could definitely be wrong. I'll have to rewatch to be sure one way or the other.The other film I watched the other night is You Will Meet a tall, Dark Stranger. It's the newest Woody Allen movie, &, surprise surprise, it's pretty much like most of his other movies. It's no Annie Hall though. I do like it, but then again, I'm pretty willing to accept almost everything he does. It had the magic of Mighty Aphrodite mixed w/ the nihilism of Husbands & Wives... but it was no Husbands & Wives. i realized that Woody Allen is similar to George Lucas & Walt Whitman in that they all have this weird drive to remake the same thing over & over again. It's like they get these basic ideas but are never satisfied w/ the outcomes. I like that determination & drive.The book I'm reading right now is Kindred by Octavia Butler. One student said it seemed like a Twilight Zone episode (the other students had never seen that show). I thought basically the same thing. It's fun weird & political w/o too much effort. Another student suggested it's sort of like The Time Traveler's Wife. I think she's right too. Except in this case, rather than going back to previous events in the spouse's life, the narrator goes back to events in an ancestor's life on a plantation in 1819 Maryland. It's fun, it has a cool reworking of slavery from a late 20th Century perspective, & it deals nicely w/ the basic time-travel paradox. I think I'm gonna have to watch Back to the Future soon.

She-Refs & She-Hulks

I've been offered a Sci/Fi class for next year. It may happen in the fall, but it will certainly happen in the winter. I've spent the last week or so obsessing about what to cover, & yesterday @ Nicola's I was talking about this w/ a co-worker. When I mentioned The Handmaid's Tale, this person suggested that it may be a bit out-dated & that sort of patriarchal distopian is no longer a possibility. That claim didn't sit right w/ me for 2 reasons. 1) Even if it's an impossibility, the book was important & influential when it came out & 2) I don't know that I really believe a patriarchal future is really out of the question. I mean, we're in a patriarchal present after all. That said, I didn't connect this conversation w/ the previous day's soccer viewing though until just now though.

While watching the Liverpool v Wolves match on Saturday, I noticed that the Assistant Referee was a woman. I'd always wondered why men reffed women's games, but women never reffed men's games. I suppose I should preface that by saying that I always kind of knew why, but didn't want to believe that it really just came down to the sexist bastards in charge of the leagues. Apparently, that's the case though. Or at least, it's clear that the sexism of the higher-ups is still rampant. According to someone on the BBC this morning, this was the 3rd time a woman has worked a like in a Premier League match. Kudos to those 3 for doing that, but also for doing that in the face of people like douchebags extraordinaire Andy Grey & Richard Keys. They were the 2 commentators on Sky Sports calling the game. As the BBC story reported this morning, they left their mics on while suggesting that they should explain the off-sides rule to her because "Women don't know the offsides rule." In their defense, most don't, but most men don't either. It's a tricky rule. However, we're talking about a person who has passed all of the highest levels of testing to earn her place as a Premier League referee. Ironically, she made 2 correct off-sides decisions when the commentators needed to view the replay to acknowledge that she was right. One call lead to a goal that they originally thought should have been called back. The other to calling back an attack they originally claimed should have continued. Perhaps they need it explained to them... by this particular ref maybe... or maybe by Brandi Chastain, Mia Hamm, Jayne Ludlow or any other the other 10s of 1,000s of women who have made a living playing or reffing professional soccer.

At least they didn't, as Karen Bradey, the Vice-Chair of West Ham United explained, demand she make them a pot of tea. Bradey said that would have been beyond the pale... & she's right, but no one seems to be discussing what was said during the match... it's all about what they said when they thought no one was listening.

During the match, they referred to her as a "Lady ref." The term "Assistant Referee" came into usage in 1996 (yes, 15 years ago) to curtail the sexist language of the term "linesmen," yet as soon as female referees come into the game, the announcers feel the need to marginalize them. They never referred to the other referees as "Gentlemen refs;" "Lady refs" is clearly ridiculous. It's only 1 step above "She-Refs," & they're not wolves... or Hulks.

Speaking of sci/fi characters, here's the list of Sci/Fi books I'm thinking of doing in my class. It needs some work yet, but so far, it looks like it'll be fun.

Frankenstein: Mary Shelly (1818)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Jules Verne (1868)
or
The Steam House: Jules Verne (1879)
War of the Worlds: H. G. Wells (1898)
We: Yevgeny Zamyatin (1921)
Brave New World: Adolus Huxley (1932)
Nineteen Eighty-Four: George Orwell (1949)
Childhood's End: Aurthur C. Clarke (1953)
A Clockwork Orange: Anthony Burgess (1962)
Slaughterhouse-Five: Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: Philip K. Dick (1969)
The Left Hand of Darkness: Ursula K. Le Guin (1969)
or
The Lathe of Heaven: Ursula K. Le Guin (1971)
The Princess Bride: William Goldman (1973)
Kindred: Octavia Butler (1979)
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams (1979)
Neuromancer: William Gibson (1984)
The Handmaid's Tale: Margaret Atwood (1985)
The Sparrow: Mary Doria Russel (1996)
Dream of Perpetual Motion: Dexter Palmer (2010)

I'm also considering a graphic novel (probably an Alan Moore) and an anthology of shorter stuff. Feel free to post your suggestions. I want to try to avoid the more common stuff that they've probably read already, and the books need to be coverable in a week.

25 Books & a Fun Little Game

Here's the deal. I scored an advance copy of a book called Twenty-Five Books that Shaped America by U/M Flint professor Thomas C. Foster today. It's a fun, if somewhat pretentious, book. I was kind of surprised that a Lit Prof wrote it, as it's clearly a quick money grab w/o much cultural capital (more so than my stupid blog though, so who am I to talk?). W/ that in mind, we have a little game to play. After you read the list of books (& the honorable mention), explain the one book you would delete from the list & the one w/ which you would replace it. The books are listed chronologically & they are picked based on how they helped shape the "American Identity." It seems like a book Harold Bloom would have written. Silly, but kind of fun. You'll get bonus points if you construct a cheesy chapter title for your pick, just like Professor Foster did. Here it goes:

1) Maybe Just a Little Made Up: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin:
I hated this book when I was in high school. I tolerated it when I was in college. I got freshman to enjoy it's humor & hypocrisy when I taught it a few years ago.

2) A Man, a Plan, a Flintlock: The Last of the Mohicans:
It's a fun story & it definitely helped that generation define itself in the midst of the American Renaissance.

3) The Allegory Man Cometh: The Scarlet Letter:
One of the few books I read as a high school sophomore that I actually enjoyed. It's cool & it features one of the hottest fiction characters of all time...Hester Prynne.

4) Gotta Get Back to the Pond & Set My Soul Free: Walden:
I'm honestly not a huge fan of this book, but it's historical significance can't be denied.

5) The Good Grey Poet, My Eye: Leaves of Grass:
Awesome. If you haven't read it, read it... now!

6) Girls Gone Mild: Little Women:
I have a feeling he came up w/ the chapter title & decided to base the book around it. It's not in the same category as the other books, but it was good stuff & was an early example of 19th century feminism. Plus, the movie is pretty good too.

7) About a Boy and a Raft: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
See the post from a few days ago.

8) I've Been Workin' on a Whale-Road: Moby Dick:
I read it for the 1st time in 1997 & loved it. It's a crazy book. I have no idea how many times I've read it over the last 14 years, but I'm sure I'll get to it again some time soon.

9) Twofer: A Boy's Will & North of Boston:
These are the 1st 2 books of Robert Frost's poetry. He is often forgotten, but then as soon as you read him, you say, "Oh, right... he's good."

10) In Praise of Prairie: My Antonia:
Willa Cather is cool, but I don't know that I've ever read this book.

11) A Whole Heap of Ashes: The Great Gatsby:
It's cool, but I've always thought it's a bit overrated. It's historical significance can't be overstated though.

12) Life is a Carnival: The Sun Also Rises:
Hemingway is cool, but it seems hard to decide which of his books is the most significant. I would guess his shorter stuff has been more widely read since high schoolers read stuff like The Old Man & the Sea all the time.

13) It Takes a Weary Man to Sing a Weary Song: The Weary Blues:
Langston Hughes was huge then & is still probably the best known writer of his generation. He's often the only person students have read when they come to African American Lit.

14) The Bird is the Word: The Maltese Falcon:
It's a fun book, but maybe its main influence on American culture is based on the film. I taught it once & it went over pretty well.

15) So Big: U. S. A.:
I've never read it. I've heard it's good, but I've never read it. Maybe I'll give it a go next summer.

16) The Winepress of Injustice: The Grapes of Wrath:
Clearly influential, but I would say both the play & the film are actually better... unless you have a thing for long passages about turtles crossing roads.

17) Like a hurricane: Their Eyes Were Watching God:
Kind of like The Great Gatsby, it's a bit melodramatic, but it's a fun one. Like The Scarlet Letter, it features one of the hottest protagonists in American Lit.

18) He Ain't Heavy, he's My Cousin: Go Down, Moses:
Is it possible that I've never read any of Faulkner's novels? I think that might be the case. That said, this is basically a collection of short stories. I would think, that his novels would be more influential.

19) American Candide: The Adventures of Augie March:
Saul Bellow? I'm a little overwhelmed by the total number of books he wrote. Maybe this is a good place to start.

20) Me & My Shadow: On the Road:
Not his best book, but it's fun & it was soooo important to me when I was 18. Plus, it was obviously influential.

21) When Reading Got Good: The Cat in the Hat:
Is it more influential than Green Eggs & Ham? who knows... it's pretty cool though.

22) Walk a Mile in My Shoes: To Kill a Mockingbird:
I don't know if it shaped the culture or just reflected the times, but it's probably been read by more of us than any other book on this list.

23) Not in Kansas Anymore: The Crying of Lot 49:
I've never hidden my love for the weird post-modern stuff, but I've never read this one.

24) Race. Relations.: Song of Solomon:
Toni Morrison definitely knows how to put words together on the page. Her sentences are always great.

25) Home, Home on the Res: Love Medicine:
From the chapter title, I was expecting Sherman Alexie, but Love Medicine is probably more influential over all.

Honorable Mention:
Letters from an American Farmer, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Daisy Miller, The Rise of Silas Lapham, The Red Badge of Courage, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Winesburg Ohio, The Age of Innocence, Babbitt, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Bridge, Native Son, The Catcher in the Rye, Paterson, The House on Mango Street

I think I would replace the Robert Frost books w/ The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Frost is obviously important, but it's only a few poems from those books that really had an impact & only later. Douglass has a huge impact immediately, & was able to put a new twist on the use of the Byronic Hero during the American Renaissance. That's my pick... what's yours?

Censors & Censures

Forgive me if the title of this post sounds like a title of a Freaks & Geeks episode, but we've been rewatching the series over the last couple weeks so it's been on my mind. The 1st half of the title refers to the hotly debated publication of a new edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The two books are being published together in an attempt to reconcile the narrative structure & bring together Tom Sawyer & its prequel. When Coppola did this w/ the Godfather films, it went over like a lead balloon. The problem w/ the Twain texts isn't so much w/ the chronology (since they're pretty linear anyway), but w/ New South's decision to expunge the "offensive" language. The rationale behind this is that schools are banning the books because of the use of the word "Nigger" (& to a lesser extent, "Injun"), & so w/o these words, kids will have more access to the texts. The flaws in this argument are obvious, but it also leads to the possibility of this occurring in other texts. We can remove all images of violence against animals from Moby Dick, Hamlet can serve cake to his uncle rather than plot to kill him. The names in 19th century Russian epics can be simplified to Bob & Sally.

Of course, the irony here is that, while everyone in the media is upset about this, no one is using the word. They're saying things like "The 'N-Word' is being replaced w/ the word 'slave'." If the media can't use the word in what is supposed to be a frank discussion of the word, maybe New South is actually on to something. However, the fact of the matter is that the word is part of the language, certainly part of the culture in which the books take place, & the violence inherent in this history shouldn't be erased. Furthermore, we should be as offended by the attempt to dislocate the history from the texts as we are by that history of violence or by the attempt to censor the language.

I read Huck Finn in high school, & I really didn't like it. It was only when I was in grad school that I was able to understand why it's such a big deal. The idea that removing a couple racist words (while no violent or sexist imagery is being removed) will make it a more fulfilling book for kids is ridiculous. If they are to read the book, let them read the actual text. They're going to struggle w/ most of it anyway. It's a tough book to read. Tom Sawyer is easier to read, but then again, it's not being taught as often, probably because it's simply seen as an inferior text. Be that as it may, they're both being censored by New South, but you should do yourself a favor & reread a full, uncensored version this winter... you won't be sorry.

Along with the news of this censorship, there's been a lot of talk over the last couple of days about censuring Sarah Palin in response to the shootings in Arizona. I've even seen on web-sites & on Facebook people suggesting that she should be brought to trial. First of all, who would be doing the censuring? Fox News? TLC (home of Sarah Palin's Alaska)? Harper Collins (the publisher of her less than stellar new book, America By Heart)? Not bloody likely. More to the point, it isn't fair to be blaming her. Sure, she's not that bright & she's been one of the leaders of this ridiculous right-wing agenda, but even if the shooter did it because he was influenced by her, that's obviously not what she had in mind when she suggested people should not retreat, they should reload. She was speaking metaphorically, & she can't be held accountable when one crazy guy takes her literally. sure, she had a picture w/ targets on specific Congressional districts, but she didn't really want those people shot. If we can blame her for this type of thing, we can probably blame Huck Finn for the racism common among today's youth. We can blame Iron Maiden when a kid kills himself. We can blame a video game when a couple kids flip out like this guy in Tucson. On the other hand, we don't even know that he was really influenced by her. He claims that The Communist Manifesto was one of his favorite books. Does The Communist Manifesto make people do these things? I've read it a few times but never went on a killing spree. In fact, many of you have read it too. He also claims to love The Wizard of Oz & that we should return to the gold standard. Can we then blame L. Frank Baum.

Certainly, the tenor of the political dialogue has gotten heated & Palin has been a major contributing factor, but if we start these kinds of witch-hunts, we'll be just as bad as the people who censor Huck Finn or just as bad as Palin, herself. Besides, if it really comes down to a 22 year old's inability to distinguish a literal reading from a metaphorical reading, maybe we need to blame English teachers... uh-oh.