Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

I'm going to come straight out and admit that I am a fan of Are you smarter than a 5th grader? My mom is a huge fan of Deal or No Deal, though I'm not a big fan. I've even seen Moment of Truth a few times just to see what it would be like. Having watched it, I think that it should be renamed to something like, How to Ruin a Marriage or Divorce or No Divorce. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a divorce attorney on site for when they finish taping an episode. Now, nothing beats Jeopardy, but 5th grader is pretty good too, and I can generally answer all the questions. If you haven't figured it out, I like trivia.

Anyway, if I were ever to get on the show, this is definitely the strategy I would use. If you've never seen the show, the way it works is that they have 10 questions, 2 each from grades 1-5 plus a million dollar question. Obviously, grade 1 is the easiest, grade 5 is the hardest. After answering the 5th question, you are guaranteed $25,000. Now, most people start at grade 1 and work their way up which isn't really a bad strategy. You use the easiest questions to get you to the $25,000 mark, and just keep working your way harder and harder. Personally, I don't think this is the best strategy. The goal isn't to win $25,000, it's to win 1 million. 25K is just sort of a mid-goal. Instead, I would do this:

I'd save the grade 1 questions. They are easy, and I'm pretty sure I'd get them right without needed any of the cheats. Btw, there are 3 cheats: Peek at your 5th grade partner's answer, Copy (self-explanatory), or Save whereby if you get it wrong but they got it right, you take their answer. Instead I'd start at the grade 2 questions. They are probably not going to be much harder than the grade 1 questions so I'm still pretty sure I would get them right without wasting the easiest ones. So answer the grade 2 questions, answer the grade 3 questions, then to lock myself in at $25,000, I'd answer the first of the grade 1 questions. Making sure you answer this question right is one of the most important things as it guarantees you at least some money. Sure, I could get something wrong in grade 3, but the money amounts below 25K are negligible. It might be real money, but my goal is 1 million, not 5 or 10K.

To recap where I'm at, I still have 2 4th grade questions, 2 5th grade questions, and the other 1st grade question. Here's where things really get interesting. Even if you get the next question wrong, you are still guaranteed 25K, so what you really need to do is answer the hardest question left on the board, basically, the 5th grade question in the subject you are least comfortable with. Not that I see many people get to the last question, but too many people make the mistake of saving the hardest question for last. That's dumb; you want to put yourself in the best position to get to the million dollar question not the worst. Besides, you can see the question, and then drop out and stay at the money you've won, something I've always disliked. Anyway, I've now knocked out one of the 2 hardest questions. Now, I would answer the 4th grade questions. I know, I know, I still have a 1st grade question and each question is worth lot of money at this point, but my goal is to get to the million dollar question. Anyway, once you get past the 4th grade questions, you have a dilemma. You can answer the 1st grade question, get to 300K, and save the easier of the 2 5th grade questions for last, or the other way around, saving the 1st grade question for the very last one to get to the million. I can rationalize either strategy, though I think I would go with the former. It really depends on my comfort level with the 5th grade question category. Now, we've achieved the goal of getting to the million dollar question. In a little twist that I really like, you can see the million dollar question category for free, but if you see the question, you have to answer. Of course, I really want to see and answer the million dollar question, but I'm not an idiot, 500K is a lot of money, and if I don't know the answer, I lose 475K. That's a 975K swing. Ultimately, it depends on how you feel about the million dollar question category.

And there's the strategy for getting to the million dollar question. I've pondered whether it would be a good idea to start from the hardest questions to the easiest, but I think that it's not a very good idea because you still want to get to the 25K mark.

All this being said, I don't think they would ever want me on the show because I am far too likely to take them for a lot of money. Sure, they've had college professors and doctors and other really educated people on the show, but the only person I ever saw make it to the million dollar question was a Phd neuroscience grad student in her mid-20s which is very similar to my profile. That's probably who's going to be the first person to win the million on that show. They are intelligent enough to know a lot of general information, including a high possibility of being a regular at bar trivia nights. At the same time, they are young enough to remember a lot of the random bits of information from elementary school, specifically the grammar questions which always throw people. That's really why the 30-plus year old intelligent professionals have trouble and will be hard-pressed to win it all; they are just too far removed from some of the information that they probably haven't seen since they were in grade school.

Remember, if you use this strategy to win money on Are you Smarter than a 5th grader?, you are required to give me a cut for teaching you The Way.

Random thoughts

Today's been a very weird day, and I haven't been particularly motivated to write anything today. However, I told myself that I would write something everyday, so today will actually be a very short post. Most of today's frustration is caused by my general annoyance with this company I'm trying to get a job at. I'm at the last stage where they just need to make a decision. I rocked all the proofreading tests they gave me, and I think the interview went well, though it was the first real interview I've had so I can't really say for sure. Anyway, they had some problems with my initial references which delayed the process, so I gave them some extra references. And when I say I gave them extra references, I mean that for one of my old references, I gave them 2 additional ways to contact him, and for the two extra professors I gave them, I gave them email, office number, and office hours. There's no way that they couldn't have gotten in touch with them quickly. Yet, when I contacted them on Monday, they told me that they'd just contacted the last one and had made an information packet on me. Thus, they'd be able to make a decision early this week. Well, Wednesday has passed and still nothing. So frustrating!

Also, something fairly shocking happened to me that I'm not going to write about, but let's just say that I have a better appreciation of who my real friends are.

Anyway, since you don't have a post that'll take you an hour to read today, I'll post a few entertaining videos that some friends/dad have sent to me.

Trying to parallel park

Okay...so Blogspot is being annoying about posting videos and taking forever, so I'll try again tomorrow. Instead, I'll leave you with a list of some of my favorite daytime television shows.

No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain (Travel Channel)
How It's Made (History Channel)
Mike and Mike in the Morning (ESPN)
First Take (ESPN)
America's Next Top Model Marathons (VH1)
Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern (Travel Channel)
The Food Network
Anything on the Discovery Channel
Most things on the Learning Channel
Show Marathons on Bravo

This one time...In 4th grade...

So initially, I didn't really know what I was going to write about today. I had just finished my latest batch of stories from McSweeney's (13 recommendationss) and didn't really feel like writing about them yet. Also, I couldn't really think of a particularly good story to tell. I found myself in danger of missing a day of posting. Then, in typical fashion, something just sort of inspired me.

I was playing some tennis earlier, and there were these three young kids, maybe 8 or 9, playing basketball. One of the kids was really annoying, yelling out AIRBALL!!! every time one of the kids took a shot. Btw, this had to be one of the laziest kids I've ever seen as he would ride his razor scooter across the blacktop, then get off it, walk down the hill to get a lost ball, throw the ball back, climb back on the scooter, and ride back over to his friends. It was distracting not only for the kid shooting the ball (the whole point), but also for me. But then, that's just kids being kids. During this episode, I was suddenly reminded of a story that in retrospect is somewhat amusing and decided it would be the focus of today's post.

It was during 4th grade recess, and I was walking around with a couple of my friends. We wanted to play basketball, but all the courts were taken. There was one court with a few girls (who, as every boy knows, at that age have cooties. Circle, Circle, Dot, Dot, now I have my cootie shot!) on it. We sort of decided that we wanted their court and probably said any number of stupid things in order to take the court from them. Of course, our actions were completely futile, and we didn't get the court at all. However, at one point, the ball rolls/bounces towards us. I pick it up and shoot it at the basket. Nothing but net. This is somewhat impressive since I was only 10, and it was a rather long shot. Of course, my friends hoot and holler my amazing skills (aka luck) while I stand their triumphantly, and we go off on our way. We didn't get the court, but obviously we made our point. Boys rule, girls drool. How young and silly we were.

In other news, I clicked on a video on CNN.com where CNN's resident doctor, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, discussed a new contraceptive coming out in about a year, the male birth control pill. (I'd like to point out that in their web address, CNN spelled birrth wrong. They should hire me as their copyeditor.) Now, I really have no issues with the pill for men. I'm equal opportunity when it comes to popping pills, and it has the same level of effectiveness as the pill for women. For comparisons sake, perfect use of a condom has about a 3% failure rate, though typical use is closer to 20%. (Wikipedia) However, Gupta discusses that in order for the pill to be effective, you need to be taking it for at least three months before it's fully operational. Also, once you start, if you want to stop and have kids, you need to wait another 3 months for the hormones to work their way out of your body, and you become fertile again. Again, nothing inherently wrong with this, but as a single male, I don't particularly see an advantage of getting it when it comes out. I have to wait 3 months for it to kick in, and there really aren't any exciting beneficial side effects outside of a weight gain of 4-10 lbs of lean muscle due to the testosterone which I don't really need right now. Besides, it's not really going to change my philosophy of when I should be using condoms. In other words, I think it's a really good idea that I can easily foresee myself using as I'm not one of those über-machismo guys who don't want to feel like they would have lost their potency (ironically, these may be the same guys supporting the steroid industry). However, I don't really see myself using it unless I'm in a serious LTR where it would make more sense. Until then, I think I can live under the age old moniker told to me once by one of my 2nd year roommates, “If you are going to hump, cover your stump.” And that's my two cents on the male birth control pill. On a side note, I just had a funny image in my head of the packaging for the pill being a little black case with a sperm inside one of those circles with a line through it.

Music listened to while writing this post: Antonio Orozco

Returning to Earth

Before I write my long promised review of Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison, I first wanted to mention two things:

1. I needed a 3rd writing sample for a job I applied to, so I took one of my old grad school papers. I used the first 2 and a half pages (about 900 words) and, while editing it, realized how poorly written it was. The ideas were fairly mature, but I had to make edits on literally every sentence. I mean, I handed that in for a grad! (not a particularly good one as I remember) In grad school! Had I actually proofread the thing, fixing many of the careless mistakes and awkward sentences, it could have been a really good paper. Just highlights some of the things I wrote yesterday. In case you're wondering, I made a somewhat bold argument that one method of interpreting a novel is to examine how the structure deviates from the way that a typical novel in that genre is normally structured. I had to discuss a detective fiction novel and a confession text in the paper. Part of the argument is that you can (gasp) completely ignore the specificities of the text (the plot) and concentrate solely on it's more general structure.

2. I really enjoy the movie Finding Forrester. I watched it today for the umpteenth time, and it never gets old. I think what I like most about it is the fact it is a representation of many of the things that I would love to have part of my life, namely having a natural talent for writing and being intimate friends with an author. If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it.

RETURNING TO EARTH BY JIM HARRISON

Unlike the last two novels I reviewed, I want to start off by saying that I really enjoyed this novel and highly recommend it. The novel concerns the death of Donald, a terminally ill half Native American suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. Perhaps my favorite aspect of the novel was its highly effective structure. The novel is separated into 4 distinct first person narratives, starting first with Donald himself, and proceeding to K (his brother-in-law's ex-wife's son), David (his brother-in-law), and finally Cynthia (his wife). Donald's narrative is probably the most engaging, mainly because, like many approaching death, he feels the need to pass on intimate and often personal information before he dies so that it doesn't get lost. Intermixed between various anecdotes from his own life, Donald tells the story of the three Clarences: his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. To Donald, the progression of how he got to be where he is today is what defines him and what needs to live on after his inevitable death. Existing on the outskirts of this family narrative, Donald at times will discuss his relationship with his Native-American heritage. I find these sections very engaging because they play with the whole center vs periphery concept within American history. (For an basic idea of what I mean by center vs periphery, refer to Edward Said's book Orientalism and sort of extrapolate from there. I wrote a paper in my Spanish American Colonialism class about this idea in reference to South American indigena discourse during the Conquest. It's really a very interesting topic.)

The other three sections deal mainly with how Donald's family and loved ones deal with his sickness and death. I love K's section because it is he who tells us of the actual circumstances of Donald's death, not Donald himself. In a way, it heightens Donald's helplessness because, despite the fact that he is painted as a strong male figure, Donald isn't even strong enough to relate his own death. David's section mainly deals with the how the family copes with Donald's death. Some deal with it well (K and Donald's son Herald) while others not as well. Donald's wife Cynthia falls somewhere in between though Clare, Donald's daughter, is affected the worst. In a way, she represents that instinct within us all when a close family member dies when all we can say is “I wish...”, “If only I had gotten the chance...”. The reality is that the death of a loved is a difficult experience to go through. It leaves a large void in someone's life that is often difficult to fill. Unsurprisingly, Cynthia's section deals with how the family moves on after his death. Cynthia seriously considers looking for love again (Donald died relatively young as both him and Cynthia are in their mid 40s). Likewise, Clare finds peace while Herald continues the cycle by getting married. Speaking from personal experience, dealing with death is one of those processes that is very individual to each person experiencing, and, regardless of how “strong” someone might think they are, there is absolutely no way you can predict how you will respond, not to mention that it's wake affects your perspective on life permanently.

One of the more interesting things about the novel, to me at least, is not what it contains, but rather what it lacks, namely chapters from the perspectives of Herald and Clare. Now, I can imagine various reasons why they aren't necessary, but I still find it interesting that K is given a voice while Donald's children are not. If I were to write a paper on this book, it would probably have something to do with that.

Lastly, I really enjoyed the style of Harrison's writing. Much of the novel is told in a stream-of-conscious fashion, though not very intensely. I think that the style really allows us as readers to get into the heads of the characters. We are no longer objective observers of other people's lives, but rather engaged participants in these people's lives. A fairly modern invention, the combination of stream-of-conscious writing and first person narrative is much more effective for our involvement with this novel as opposed to if it had been written in the third person.

In other words, what I'm trying to say is ask me to borrow this book because I think you'll really enjoy it.

Music listened to while writing this blog: Coldplay and Brett Dennen (If you don't know who he is, I highly suggest you look him up.)

One week recap

So, I've decided to get back into tennis shape. The one good thing about where I live is that there is a really nice tennis court that I have access to. So, instead of sitting at home all day, I'll get out there and hit some balls and get into some sort of shape again. Last summer, when i was living at home, there were some local courts and a wall that I went to almost everyday, so I played a lot of tennis for a couple hours a day. To get a sense of what I look like when I am in tennis shape, here is a picture of me from last summer:

That's the goal!

So I've been writing this thing for a week, and today was the first time that I actually went back and read what I wrote. To put this in perspective, I never read anything I write. Like I've already said, I'm extremely self-conscious about anything I write so I rarely go back and read it. It's one of those things where I want to write like all of the awesome authors I read, but know that I don't. Rather than do what I know I should, which is write tons and examine it all closely to find my mistakes, I just write first drafts and hand them in, if i write at all. This was somewhat problematic in grad school as I constantly got comments from my professors concerning proofreading mistakes, if I even read their comments. I was a bad grad student. This is of course ironic because I want to get into the publishing industry/write book reviews for a living/looking for editorial jobs. What I really need to do is treat my writing like I treat my tennis and practice and work at it everyday. Hence one of the main reasons why I started this blog. The funny thing is that I can actually proofread quite well, just as long as it's not my work. The truth is that I didn't even read my posts before I published them, leading to the many mistakes that I saw along with plenty of stilted/awkward writing.

So, things I've learned from reading my previous posts:

1. Read over everything before posting. I make a lot of silly mistakes.
2. I need to organize my ideas better. I mean, I like that I write in a semi stream of consciousness style. It is very much representative of any kind of conversation you would have with me. Like many people, I have many ideas running through my head simultaneously and occasionally (okay actually quite often) go off on another tangent. I was actually discussing the pros and cons of stream-of-consciousness writing with a friend at this wine and cheese party last night (Yes, I am a huge literature dork. It's one of the few things that I can definitely say that I am very passionate about.), and I like stream-of-conscious if it's used effectively. I got half way through Ulysses before I needed to stop. However, Returning to Earth (review tomorrow for real this time) used it very well. Anyway, the point being that, especially with the book reviews, I need to not be so haphazard in my organization so that everything that I want to say is expressed effectively and clearly.
3. I'm quite verbose. I mean, I know I'm just writing what I think, especially for these reviews, but I need to find a way to be a little more concise and to the point. I know it has been part of my style for a while, reinforced by my academic training, but I really need to work on trimming it down. Also, it makes my blog posts really long, and I don't know if my writing is quite good enough yet to keep someone's attention for that long.
4. I'm getting more comfortable with this whole blog thing. I have tons of ideas running through my head, and I finally have an avenue to express them! Moreover, most of the anecdotes that I've told so far have been stories that I've told plenty of times so I'm comfortable with them, but I'm already foreseeing telling some stories that I've rarely told. One of the conscious decisions I made when I started this blog is that I was going to be honest, and if a personal story comes up, so be it. Those of you that know me well, know that I can be honest almost to a fault. The reality is that I don't consider this a bad thing. So, in this blog, I'm going to write what I think and what I feel, regardless of how personal it may be. Considering my previous insecurities about writing, that's a step for me, but I'm okay with that.

Anyway, to sum up, I need to read over and proofread my work so that I can write better and clearer. Also, I really look forward to my blog post everyday. I like getting in this habit of writing. Now to just work on my short story. Hope you continue reading and feedback is much appreciated.

Music listened to while writing this blog: Foo Fighters-The Colour and the Shape

Why I am a Spew

I was sort of debating what to write about today, having several ideas but unsure which to actually write about. I know I promised a review of Returning to Earth and my thoughts on reading for McSweeney's, but I didn't feel like writing about them today. I've been also kept busy by doing a little bit of recording since I came up with this awesome groove to play for Everlong by Foo Fighters, as opposed to the typical way it's played, so I've been learning to used GarageBand. When it's finished, I'll post it for you guys to hear. Instead, I'll write the first of what will eventually be several entries on my connections to Spain and the experiences I had while there.

Before continuing, I first have to say that I was watching Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel (an extremely cool show but not for those with faint hearts or who gross out easily), and he was in Spain sharing some of its regional delicacies. I've eaten a fair number of the things he tried, including snails (not a big fan though my dad sucks them down by the dozen), jamón serrano, jamón ibérico (I think), and angulas (baby eels in oil with garlic and super tasty). I've also had lamb's brain (Baked lamb heads are somewhat of a delicacy and my abuela will sometime make them along with costillas y chuletas de cordero along with potatoes and onions al horno. Anyway, one time when we were very young, I was perhaps 12 or 13, my sister and I decided to try the brain. It's got an interesting flavor that we didn't like at the time though mayhaps I should give it another go. My mom said that the eyes were the best part. We were not that adventurous.) On the other hand, I have never had rabo de toro (bull's tail which my dad says is quite good though interesting) and criadillas (bull's testicles which I would probably try given the opportunity). Also, I've never had some of the specialty fish and seafood (I know fish is technically seafood, but in my mind they are separate entities, probably because in Spanish you have pescado/pescao and mariscos) that isn't easily gotten a hold of in a tiny Spanish pueblo. Anyway, I really brought this up to say that Andrew Zimmern's accent is atrocious. Look, I'm not expecting him to have a great or even good accent, but my Spanish 201 students had better accents than he did. It just made my skin crawl. Having watched plenty cooking type shows, I've found that with Spanish at least, this is a very common problem. Just a pet peeve of mine.

Anyway, back to the original point of the post, Why I am a Spew (pronounced as a combination of Spanish and Jew, Spew, not like projectile vomit. My best friend from high school gave me this nickname.). This is one of those “In the beginning” type stories. Anyway, the whole way my parents met was because my dad went to medical school in Spain.

My parents
My sister and my abuela

(I don't know where these pictures were taken or where I was, but obviously not there)

Now, you may ask, How did your dad end up in Spain for medical school? Now that's a good question, and the answer is that after not getting into medical school here in the States, he spent a year in Ireland as a medical lab researcher, then going to Spain for medical school/college revisited. I don't know if you know this but Spain has a very different sollge system than we do whereby you apply more or less to a professional program with a major already decided as opposed to drinking in dorms for a year while you figure out your major. Medical school is 6 years there, and it's a good thing it was set up this way because the first year, while they were learning stuff my dad already knew, he learned authentic de pueblo Spanish from his friend Antonio, who would go on to be my godfather (El padrino if you will). Anyway, my parents didn't meet until like 2 or three years into school; they never had classes together being that they were on opposite ends of the alphabet and thus in different sections. They met and somewhat set up through my mom's roommate at the time. To put my parent's time in school in historical perspective, their first year of school (1975), Franco (Conservative dictator) died, and, during their last year of school (1981), there was a coup d´tat.

The really funny story isn't so much how my parents met, since it's not particularly interesting, but rather how they got engaged. Traditionally, in Spain, on New Year's Eve, unlike here, you spend the coming of midnight with your family before going out. There's also an über fun grape tradition that I really like. Ask me about it sometime. So, my dad goes with Antonio (no picture, sorry) to do New Year's with my mom since my dad was in Spain and, well I don't know why Antonio was there, only that he was. So the clock strikes, and my dad, Antonio, and my mom are about to go out. Well, my abuelo for whatever reason, refuses to let me mom out. This of course caused quite a row but eventually, my dad and Antonio left and my mom stayed at home. As I'm told, my abuelos didn't quite comprehend that my dad was my mom's boyfriend of like 9 months but rather her bald, American friend. So...my mom at some point sneaks out of the house, finds my dad, and, simply wanting to get out of her parents' house, asks my dad if he wants to get married. My dad's response, and I quote: “I don't know. I'm a little drunk right now. Ask me again tomorrow.” Needless to say, they did get engaged, and, as the picture shows, have been happily married for 29 years now. 4 years into the marriage...out comes me. :) Everyone's favorite Spew.

Interesting anecdote: My birthday is February 25th. My due date was apparently February 23rd. However, my mom didn't want my birth date associated with a rather horrific event in Spanish history (the coup), so she prayed and even told me she would hold me in in order not to give birth on the 23rd. That didn't stop me for thinking for a couple years that my birthday was actually the 23rd due to my birthday being celebrated on that day when I was like 5.

The End.

Music listened to while writing this: Elliott Smith

A Break from Literature

One confirmed reader! Woo!

I've decided to take a break from writing exclusively about write things, just so that this blog doesn't get stagnant. This is all I will say about literary type things this blog: I recently read two of the coolest story ideas/concepts ever due to McSweeney's. I won't give them out, but here's a recap:

Story 1: Called simply “Three,” the story presupposes a somewhat realistic situation in the near future where overpopulation has caused such a drain on the natural resources that without a serious drop in population, everyone will die of starvation. To circumvent this, Proposition 6 is enacted on the populace. What's Proposition 6? Any family over 3 in number must decide amongst themselves to sacrifice one member of the family for the greater good. Run away, everyone dies. The story follows one family as they follow the instruction manual and try to decide who should die. It is perhaps one of the most perverse story ideas I've ever read, and I couldn't stop reading it. Amazing.

Story 2: Attempting to create A.I., a guy builds a computer program that can create poems and stories on its own. As technology progresses, the computer gets fed more and more types of literature and is exposed to the Internet, the A.I. (Anna) becomes more and more sophisticated. The format of the story is kinda weird, in this scientific, outline style and by the end of the story you realize that the narrator is actually Anna (the A.I.). Sort of changes the way you read the story. Actually found it to be really creative and unique as a story idea. Like nothing I've read before.

Non-Literary things:

Not surprisingly, my bracket is the process of being blown up. I'm not too distraught about it. I must say though, had Duke lost last night to Belmont, I would have had no problem with a destroyed bracket. I did have Duke losing in the Sweet 16 though. They're just not that good this year.

I tend to talk a decent amount about me playing guitar/having a guitar/having just recently bought a guitar, bu tno one has ever really seen me play/seen my guitars. So, since I'm bored and have nothing better to do, here's a picture of my guitars:


On the left is my newest guitar, only about a month old. It's a Paul Reed Smith SE Singlecut electric guitar with a tobacco burst. It's pretty awesome, and I'm really happy with it. I was going to just order an Epiphone Les Paul, but I'm glad I went to Guitar Center and actually played a bunch of guitars before buying one.
The one in the center is the 2nd guitar I've owned (the first being my abuelo's 3/4 old guitar that has since been donated to my high school's drama department's prop closet.). I got it when I was going into 8th or 9th grade, I don't remember exactly when but it was after my first year learning guitar. It's a Spanish classical meaning that it's got nylon strings, an extra wide and fat neck, and larger spacing between the frets. Basically, that means that it's somewhat harder to play, but has its advantages as a first guitar since it increases the stretchability of my fingers and is easier on the tips of your fingers. I haven't picked up this guitar in quite a while. This would be quite evident in a high resolution picture as you would notice the lack of a D string and all the dust.
The guitar on the right is a Yamaha Compass Series Acoustic Electric that I got for Hanukkah my senior year of high school. It's got a Midnight Blue burst finish. Now that I have the electric, I probably play them each about half of the time, depending on what I'm learning and my mood at the time.
Please ignore my laundry basket in the background.

Thus ends the first week of my blog. Hope you are enjoying what you are reading so far because I am enjoying writing it and tune back for more.

NCAA tournament and Kafka on the Shore

Today is the first day of the NCAA tournament and one of the benefits of my job status is that I get to actually watch the games all day. Unfortunately, the TV in my room does not get CBS clearly at all, so I'm sitting on the floor of my living room watching the game in HD. However, the day is a little too nice for me to sit in my house again so I'll probably go outside and hit some tennis balls. Btw, I'm always looking for a playing partner, so if you're reading this and you know how to play reasonably well, BRING IT ON!

I filled out a bracket in a mini league with some people I do fantasy football with, and despite the fact that there is only 5 of us, I don't really expect to win. The closest I ever came was 4th year Spanish House pool where I was leading going into the final game but had Illinois winning instead of UNC, thus ending my closest chance to win in the various years I've filled out brackets. And now, without further ado, my brackets:




That's the end of that.

KAFKA ON THE SHORE BY HARUKI MURAKAMI

I'm going to preface this review by saying that this is the first book that I ever read for a girl. Normally I only read for myself, but this girl that I hooked up with in Boston (who then proceeded to stand me up in New York City) recommended it, saying it was one of her favorites, so I gave it a shot. Needless to say, if this is what her taste in books is like, I'm kinda glad it didn't work out. (If for whatever reason you happen to check out my blog and read this, I'm just being honest. ed. If I was actually telling that to someone, you'd see me do a little fist pound to the chest. As no one is here, I'm going to just ask you to picture me doing it.) Okay, so I'm going to start off positively in my review. I don't know Japanese, but this seems to be a pretty good translation by Philip Gabriel. Murakami is actually a very talented writer. His prose for the most part feels very natural and reads smoothly. In that sense, the book was actually quite pleasant to read. Here's my problem with it. When you read Science Fiction/Fantasy, you expect that literary world to operate outside of the realm of normal, “real” world scenarios/physics. So when something “crazy” happens, it's believable within the world created. It's why those types of novels work. If you don't believe that those events could happen within the world created, the novel doesn't work. It's the same thing with a horror movie. As long as you believe the foundation the plot is built on, seemingly ridiculous events work. (A perfect example of the failure of this was when I went to see Darkness with my dad starring Anna Paquin whom I just learned was Canadian. Anyway, about 2/3 through the movie, I stopped believing the outer shell, making the last third of the movie just shitty.) Coleridge's “willing suspension of disbelief.” Anyway, I feel like the text takes fairly great pains in the first 70 pages to make the outer shell realistic, as if the world of the book was the same world as ours. These were actually my favorite pages, especially when they were talking about Japan during WWII. Then, some weird things happen, and though initially I was intrigued and wanted to see where it was going, after a while, I was just like “Huh? I'm definitely not buying that.”

For example, the text is constructed upon the Oedipus myth. ed. For those of you who don't remember their Greek mythology, that's the one where Oedipus kills his father, marries his mother, and, upon finding out the truth, carves out his eyes and wanders around the Earth as a hermit as futile penance. That last part is actually important. There's nothing inherently wrong with this; however it feels far too forced. I mean, first off it's referred to explicitly! There is no subtlety about it which I find to just be piss poor writing stylistically. Furthermore, a new twist of including a sleeping with his sister as well as his mother. Again, nothing inherently wrong, except for the fact that we are told explicitly that the girl filling this role cannot possibly be his sister! Oh, and he sleeps with her in a dream which doesn't fucking count though she does actually give him a hand job. I never actually understood why she did that. In fact, Kafka Tamura (the main character), kills his father in some crazy out of body experience when he is 400 miles away. Lastly, he sleeps with this lady who's supposed to be his mother (My first reaction when I read that this woman was his mother was “No she's not,” and I never lost that impression.) knows that Kafka is supposedly her son, and she does it anyway. Part of what makes the myth effective is the ignorance of the characters and the awareness of the reader. If the characters know they are committing incest, and do it anyway, it just becomes revolting. Oh, and before I forget, Kafka is 15 though if you didn't know that, you'd sweat he was at least 25 based on the way he is presented. That just makes things seem less believable.

To complicate matters, there's a second story line starring Nakata who is retarded after some (annoyingly) half-explained incident and can talk to cats. A bunch of weird things happen to him that just get more and more ridiculous and incongruent with what I felt could reasonably happen in this world. I'm not going to get into specifics, but I read some review talking about how the book was surrealistic. As we got beaten into during my Modern Spanish Lit class in grad school (and my oral exams, thanks Prof. Anderson though you'll never read this.), it's not surrealistic at all. Surrealism is a philosophy shared by very few people specific to early 20th century France (Unfortunately, Prof. Anderson was of the idea that Dali was not a true Surrealist, though he may have been pretty close), these events were just fantastical and not even in a good way.

All that being said, the novel could have been redeemed somewhat had the ending sort of tied up a lot of loose ends and brought the story together. Unfortunately, the ending does not do this and leaves far too many things unclear. Now, despite my rather strong feelings about this book, I'm only one person and a lot of people liked it, so I gave it to my friend Tina to borrow to see what she thought. She pretty much agreed with me, so I'm glad to know that my ideas about the book were pretty justified. All in all, a decent book with good writing but far too many issues for me to consider good or worth reading. However, if you want to read it on your own, I'd be more than happy to let you borrow the book.

Anyway, that ends another long post. Come back tomorrow when I review Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison which I just finished and thought was awesome. Read it in 3 days. I may share some interesting stories that popped in my head while reading it.

Miggity

Forgot to add that music listened to during the creation of this blog: The Shins and The Postal Service

Book Reviews

Blogpost 3.3.19.08

About to be three posts in and I still have no idea if anyone actually reads this thing or if I'm just writing to hear myself talk, if you'll forgive the mixed metaphor. Regardless, as I told Andrew last night, though it's out there for anyone to read, even it no reads it, giving only myself satisfaction and maybe even some catharsis, that's good enough for me.

One of the stated purposes of this blog is that it gives me an opportunity to write about books and writing and my personal opinions of them. I've read voraciously for about as far as I can remember, and my parents tell me that I started reading the comic sections of the newspaper before they sent me to school. I take their word for this. Their's been a pretty wide range of genres that I've focused on. For the longest time, it was Sci-Fi/Fantasy, well mostly Fantasy, though recently I've gravitated towards early 20th century literature up to 1950. I still occasionally read newly published literature, but find most of it annoying and bad. Also, my McSweeney's reading (an experience to be described in detail shortly) fulfills most of that need. Anyway, here I am blathering and not getting to the point, which is to give my feelings on two books I've read recently, Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. On a side note, I just amazoned both those books for the author names because I didn't want to get up from my chair and actually pick up the book.


DOCTOR ZHIVAGO BY BORIS PASTERNAK

So, the back of the book says “One of the great novels of the century - A love story for all time” ed: I had to get up and get the book to do that. I'm not completely lazy. I have to take a good deal of issue with this and distinguish between a good novel and an important one because they are distinct categories when applied to this novel. As novels go, it's not the best. On IRead on my Facebook profile, I could only give it 3 stars, mostly because they wouldn't let me do 3.5. In my edition, the novel is 523 pages long, and of those 523 pages, mayhaps (a neologism I'd like to think I created and enjoy using) 150 of them actually deal with the love story. That's 29%...so much for it being a focus of the novel. The love story is actually a love triangle for Dr. Zhivago, as Lara (the blond on the cover) is the woman he's having an affair with though he's actually married to Tonia. Oh, and everyone is more or less okay with this. I often found the dialogue between Zhivago and Lara to be unrealistic, occasionally cloying, and not particularly creative. So even if this main plot took up most of the novel, I don't know that my opinion would have changed all that much. Events between Zhivago and his legitimate family take up another 100-150 pages. Alright, 2/3s of the book covered. Great! But what's the deal with the rest of the book? Well, this is why I say this books is far more important than it is good. As my edition tells me, it was finished in 1954 though suppressed by the Soviet government, but not not before an Italian edition “escaped.” At the time of my edition (1991) there had been editions in more than a dozen languages, not a single one of them Russian. Why? Well, it's pretty critical of the instances leading up to the Soviet Revolution and what happened while the Reds and the Whites were duking it out for control. This was not an argument about what's the best wine to eat with different meats (we all know that Russians only drink vodka, Mandrake) but rather the Russian Civil War. It's all this stuff in the background, the sudden devaluation of the rupel, the intense poverty, the corruption, the complete inefficiency of everything in the country that kept me interested. The text uses aspects of Social Realism to criticize Socialism, rather than justify and extol it. Furthermore, I found the tone of the novel to be very nostalgic. Not necessarily in a “The past is awesome!” sort of way, because the episodes early in the novel during Tsarist Russia are in now way painted as idyllic. However, the past is infinitely better than a pretty shitty present. I guess the nostalgia is more emotional than pertaining to life in general. The only thing that brings Zhivago happiness is his love for Lara, a relationship that is ultimately doomed due to the tumultuous circumstances of the country in which they live. The text is written from a point of view whereby we know that these events have already happened, making us conscious of the fact that we are always looking back on events that have already reached their conclusion, hence heightening our sense of nostalgia. ed. I'm pretty sure that I didn't make that whole nostalgia argument very clear at all. Just sort of trust me that it's there. Or you can read the book for yourself and we can talk about it. All and all, I liked the book and am glad I read it, but I think there are issues with it that prevent it from being both a great and important novel, as opposed to just an important one.


It occurs to me that I've already written quite a bit, and you're probably tired of reading such a long entry, so I'm going to save my critique of Kafka on the Shore for tomorrow where I will pretty much rip it to shreds.


Music listened to while writing this blog: Flashbulb Diary (a friend from college's band that was quite awesome)

Blogging Unemployment

Post 2! On consecutive days! Woohoo!

I've actually been thinking what to write in this blog post most of today, not really coming up with anything definitive, but here goes nothing.

I've been unemployed for about a month and a half now, and I've come to a few realizations. The most important one is Thank Gd I am not an alcoholic. Unemployment sucks. It's fairly monotonous and depressing. Thankfully, I saved a good deal of money from my last job, but the fact that, much like the stock market, it's in a bear market is not particularly comforting. The second thing that I've realized about unemployment is that it spawns lethargy. It's not like I'm a lazy person in general (okay, maybe sometimes), but unlike having a real job, when you are only home and awake for a finite amount of hours, forcing you to block out your time efficiently (side note: while going on Dictionary.com to look up a word that meant something somewhat different than I thought, I noticed that today's word of the day is nefarious. Thought you'd like to know that. Aren't I considerate?), there is always later or tomorrow or the day after. Now, you might say: “Mike, why don't you force yourself to go out and do something? Get fresh air, play tennis, go for a walk, anything besides sit in your room all day.” I'll tell you why...Because I can always do it later. I don't have any plans. Also, I live in Gaithersburg, MD. Now I'm sure Gaithersburg is a perfectly nice place to live, and probably a good place to raise your children. But, pardon my Spanish, Es una puta mierda de lugar. (If you know me at all, you know I'm half Spanish and speak it fluently. It will frequently infiltrate this blog, lie in waiting, secretly hoping to take over and force all the English to convert to Spánish. See, it already planted an accent mark.) I mean, there's nothing to do here. I live in a townhouse with no furniture minus a card table, two folding chairs, a George Foreman grill, and a 42 inch HDTV. I mean, I know college apartments that are hooked up better than that. I know no one in the area, and have no clue how to meet people which is fine because I want to leave here as soon as I can and move into DC. So again, there is always later to do something because I am bored out of my fucking mind.

I know I wrote before that originally I thought it would be a neat concept to blog unemployment, talking about everything that happened on a daily basis. There's one issue with that which is that I can write the contents of that everyday of that blog right now:

8:30-9amish: Wake up (Why do I wake up at 9 am you ask when I could sleep in till whenever? That's a good question. Ask my brain which feels that it should wake up more or less the same time everyday, regardless of what time I go to sleep.)

9 amish plus 1-10:30: Eat breakfast, watch Mike and Mike in the Morning and and First Take until First Down downstairs at the card table in HD.

10:30-1: Go to my room, watch some more TV, either ESPN or the History Channel/TLC/Discovery Channel, read my book, read McSweeney's stories, play some guitar. I also generally take a shower sometime in this time range, but not always. Lest we not forget, I putz around the same few web sites, namely ESPN.com, CNN.com, Facebook, and Gmail.

1-1:30: Lunch at the card table again.

1:30-7: See time slot 10:30-1. I'll also check Craigslist and the Washington Post for job openings (I haven't found anything particularly interesting in a while.), play my Wii. Occasionally I will run errands. For example, yesterday I went to Barnes and Noble and bought two books, Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison which I'm currently reading and quite enjoying and Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk who also wrote Fight Club if the name sounds at all familiar, and I went grocery shopping. Today, I watched No Country for Old Men which I also enjoyed. Most of the time I either watch TV or read.

7ish-8ish: Figure out dinner. Now, I like to cook, and I'm actually not that bad in the kitchen, a talent passed down from my mom who is probably the best cook that our friends know. This should seem like a perfect marriage right? No job so time to cook and get better. See Shitty Thing about being Unemployed Point 2. So, instead I make something quick and easy, and tell myself that I really should take the time to cook new things.

8ish-≥10: Watch any of the basic cable shows. For whatever reason, my TV doesn't get the signal for the standard channels well, so I have to watch that downstairs on the floor. It's not particularly comfortable but more so than the metal folding chair.

10ish-12:30: Mostly TV, occasionally some reading or guitar playing though I try not play late since I don't know if my roommate can hear it while he tries to sleep.

12:30-9ish: Sleep

Rinse and repeat. It is very important to rinse and repeat, otherwise the cumulative effect of Unemployment does not set in.

So there's the Unemployment blog entry. It's not particularly exciting, but it is reality. Hopefully it'll change soon. I'm supposed to hear soon from this one very promising job. However, they had problems getting in touch with 2 of my references so I get the awesome task of waiting even longer. I am so psyched about that one. Sorry it's so long, but I can be long winded, plus I like this idea of writing all the time. Come back tomorrow when I write reviews for two books I read recently.

Hamburguesa Man (One of several American stereotype apodos my friends in Spain gave me)

Introduction

Welcome! ¡Bienvenidos! So...this is my first adventure with the world known as blogging. It's actually kinda funny since I don't read all that many blogs myself, and never really felt that the things that pass through my mind would interest many. However, here I am writing one, mostly because I'm unemployed and bored. In this state of unemployment, it occurred to me that it might be an interesting concept to blog the life of an unemployed soul, namely, mine. Very post-modern, though quite contemporary, or actual in the Spanish sense and pronunciation, two terms that aren't mutually exclusive. (How's that for a mindfuck?) Now that I may actually be nearing the end of my unemployment (fingers crossed), I decided to start up this blog. Sort of ironic, right? I guess now this blog will serve as an outlet for one of my biggest insecurities, my writing (something I never felt particularly talented about), and people reading said writing. Not really sure what will end up in this blog, or how well I will keep it up, but I'm going to try to be good about it. It'll start out with some reviews of books I've read recently (What I'd really love to do as a job), pieces of short fiction that I am writing, should I ever finish it (Hopefully, this will stimulate that project), musings that jump in my head as I a go through the day (hence the title of the blog) and random stories from my life, should I just feel the need to write.

I've always been in awe of creative writers, and I mean really good ones. Anybody can write a story and attempt to get it published (I should know, as I've been reading for McSweeney's, I've read some stories that made me want to ask the author if they really expected to get that story published, but that's another blog post), but few writers are actually really good, really inspirational for their creativity, their prose, their poetry, and the feelings that their writing evokes. I don't know if I'll ever be that creative, I can barely create something outside of the mundane on my guitar, but I'm at least going to give it a try. One of my professors in grad school, Fernando Operé, once told us about his friend Mempo Giardinelli, an extremely well-known Argentine writer whom I've met on several occasions. Fernando told us (I know Fernando from several other arenas and am completely within my rights to call him by his first name. He calls me Curro.) that Mempo told him that he has to write every single day, that he can't sleep if hasn't written something. So with this first post, I aim for the same lofty goal: to write, to write everyday, to write such that not writing is worse than writing poorly. Hopefully, a rare gem will come out every once and a while, and I'll surprise even myself.