Epitaphs

Markson, David. Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat. Emeryville, CA: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2007.

(The first of these novels was published in 1959. The second in 1961.)

I hope with this choice I have redeemed myself for my last choice for the Connecticut mystery book club. This go round, I went with these two "The Harry Fannin Detective Novels," as the wonderful, retro cover announces. I recently emailed a friend of mine, "If you want to read something fun(ny), buy this. Now." I loved both of these short novels.

Poor old David Markson (who looks like such a jolly fellow in his author photo), though. Yet again, I approached him skeptically. That's because the back cover copy tells us that "...the suspenseful Harry Fannin novels have been called 'the best since Chandler.'" First of all, having read one of Markson's experimental novels, I didn't think he could possibly be compared to Chandler. Secondly, there is that little problem of my old boyfriend Ross Macdonald, who was writing books at the same time ("since Chandler"). Nobody could be better than Macdonald.

I should have known he would surprise me, the way he did when I read Vanishing Point. No, he wasn't better than Macdonald; he was different. He knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote these two hard-boiled detective novels. He had definitely familiarized himself with the genre, and he did it with his own flair. We got all the elements one expects from the genre circa 1960: a sleazy underworld full of despicable people (this time in NYC); a tough, handsome, p.i.; such an abundance of simile and metaphor that certain sorts of critics and the creative writers they produce would be likely to commit murder themselves if they were to read it; sexism and sex; clever plot twists; racism; homophobia; a red herring or two; and men getting beat up so badly they ought to have wound up in the hospital for days, but instead, are capable of either committing or solving murder (broken ribs, faces smashed to smithereens, and all). He also peppered both works liberally with literary, artistic, and musical references (sound familiar?).

Harry Fannin is an odd bird but not too different from other well-known gumshoes. As smart as he is, he keeps falling for the wrong women. In the first novel, he marries the "tramp" of the title. They've been divorced for a year when she winds up at his apartment door bleeding from a stab wound. In the second novel, almost every attractive woman he meets winds up dead. Naturally, every woman he finds attractive (oh, and also every woman he doesn't) wants to sleep with him and lets him know it.

What is different about these stories is how erudite Harry Fannin is. He claims just to have gone to college out in Michigan to play football, not to have paid much attention to his coursework. However, he drops literary references all over the place. And, unlike Marlowe, he can sometimes find himself at a loss for words, although never dumbfounded, as you can see when he has thoughts such as this one:

A mighty fortress is our God, said Martin Luther. It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees, said Emiliano Zapata. Work out your salvation with diligence, said Gautama Buddha. Everyone had something right on the tip of his tongue except Fannin. (p. 8)

In fact, he is never at a loss for funny thoughts. I particularly liked this one,

I sat down on the kid's rumpled bed and took a cigarette. I would have been happier with a cyanide inhaler, but I'd left it in my other suit. (p. 94)

I could quote all day from both these books, so I'll stop here. You'll just have to trust me that Markson's sense of humor shines through the suspense, in fact, shines more brightly than the suspense. Not that the books weren't suspenseful. I definitely wanted to know what was going to happen next as I read them, but I wouldn't say this was the main draw.

The second book is funnier than the first, a real send up of Greenwich Village's beatniks. I couldn't decide if Markson had really despised them all as posers and losers or if he had been somewhat fond of them, the way he might have thought a much younger sibling was silly and absurd but still loved him or her. When you consider the fact that the era was all about experimentation and that Markson eventually embraced experiment in his own writing, it's tempting to think the latter. Yet he's so mocking. Maybe he's the older sibling who picks mercilessly on the younger one but who beats to a pulp anyone else who does (yes, yes. Puns intended. Sorry! Secretly, though, I bet Markson would have appreciated them).

In much the same way, I also wondered whether or not Markson was seriously embracing this genre or merely making fun of it the whole time. Yes, he knew what he was doing, but, at times, he seemed a bit self-conscious and over the top. What do you think? When a detective steps on gum that clings to the sole of his shoe and comments on it, is that a bit much, or is someone being cleverly over the top?

Those of us who have read any of Markson's other works all know that he was clever. In fact, that's where I caught glimpses of the "future" Markson in these two books. I also realized some other similarities between his "epitaphs" and Vanishing Point. The latter was, surprisingly, a real page-turner, just like a good mystery (in fact, it was a lot like a mystery, as I tried to piece the fragments together to figure out where the connections were and what was happening). Literary, artistic, and musical allusions make up Vanishing Point, but Markson's love of them is certainly evident in these two early works of his. I also realized something else I'd never really given much thought, which is that hard-boiled detective novels are written in a sort of fragmentary style (read that first quote again. Leave off the last sentence, and it could easily have come from Vanishing Point). All of which is to say that reading these two books by this author was like looking at paintings by a painter who started out embracing classicism and then turned to cubism, never looking back. You might be amazed that he used to paint that way, that he even could paint that way, but if you look closely, you will see that he has always drawn his lines just so, has always favored certain colors.

What could be more fun than all that? I have surprised myself in 2010 by becoming a huge David Markson fan.

Ghostly Collaborative Project Chapter Five

Dear Smithereens asked last month if anyone would be interested in writing a collaborative ghost story. How could I resist? You can find Chapter 1 here, Chapter 2 here, Chapter 3 here, and chapter 4 here. Now, on to Chapter 5.

...And I ran away as far as possible...

...which, for the second time that night, turned out not to be very far. What had appeared to be a very long corridor only moments before (or was it hours? I'd lost all track of time) now seemed to be closing in on me. I've never been one to suffer from claustrophobia, but then, I've never been one to hallucinate, either. This was to be a night of firsts, I supposed, as I had already begun to wonder if someone had drugged my soda with hallucinogens earlier in the day. Now I felt my throat tighten, my heart knocking at my chest's door, and a panicky, overwhelming need to get out of this cramped corridor, where I could still hear that symphonic music off in the distance. I don't know why (maybe I was subconsciously checking for stereo speakers), but I looked up and discovered a major source for my feelings of claustrophobia. Had I been maybe two inches taller, I could have reached up and touched the ceiling. I'm only 5'4" tall. Touching ceilings is not something I can typically do without a ladder.

When I looked back down again, I realized I was standing in front of an elevator. This was a different elevator. The sort from when? The 1930s? I've never been very good with the history of things. All I know is that it had those sorts of doors that have to be pulled open by someone, thick things that look and rattle like cages. Someone -- some elevator operator -- was opening them for me now. He opened the door and then returned to the business of operating the huge black lever that was used to get from floor to floor.

It was the same man. He was tall and thin. He was pale. His cheeks hollow, eyes sunken. But he was younger, much younger than he'd been before. His hair, which had been white before, was dark tufts sticking out from under the cap he wore as part of his red uniform. He had no lines on his face. He could have been a teenage bellboy at The Plaza back in the day.

"You didn't last long," he noted. "Make a visit to Returns?"

I stared at him, hesitant to step onto an elevator he was manning. But then I heard the barking and growling. I turned to see Angelo's dog, grown much bigger and even more beast-like. He'd be on top of me in a minute. I leaped into the elevator. The dog yelped as if kicked and immediately retreated. I just caught the image of him running back, tail between his legs, as the elevator operator pulled the door shut.

"Make a visit to Returns?" he repeated, his voice deep, almost a growl.

"No...umm...Repeats." I don't know why I answered him. I should have remained silent. Actually, I should have been praying to the god in whom I don't believe. But, somehow, I felt compelled.

"Hmmm..." he said, his voice now an octave higher. "Funny. Repeats don't usually wind up here. Oh well, it just means you'll be back."

He was mad. I wasn't coming back here. In fact, the minute I got out of the door of this godforsaken place, I was going home and typing up my letter of resignation. I wouldn't even be back to hand it in to Angelo and my boss. I'd mail it. Maybe I owed my boss more than that, but my job description had never mentioned anything about dealing with scary basement corridors and ominous elevator operators.

I was standing there, composing the letter in my head when the sinking feeling that had begun to take up residence in the pit of my stomach moved in some more furniture. Something was wrong. I looked at the operator who was staring at me with penetrating black eyes. I tried to look away. I couldn't. And then it dawned on me. The elevator, which should have been creaking and swaying was completely silent. We were standing still.

"What do you know about this building?" my companion asked.

"This...building?" I stammered. "It's...uh...where I work." (I would never win the Philip Marlowe Snappy Answers in Hair-Raising Situations Award.)

"So, you don't know what once happened here?"

"Umm...no."

His eyeballs rolled back in his head. When they returned, they were a fiery red. He grinned wickedly. I've never seen such sharp white teeth on a human. Had I been a different sort of woman, I would have fainted. Instead, my heart stopped knocking at my chest's door. I thought it might be about to stop for good, but then it began pounding. I could feel the sweat on my brow. Beyond caring about the close quarters of an elevator, I reached for that bag with the can of mace. But there was no bag. God knows when I had dropped it. I was stuck here, with him, and with no protection.

"Let me tell you," he nearly growled.

To be continued by Courtney.

The New Sedaris

Sedaris, David. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. Boston: Little, Brown, 2010.

Are you the least bit surprised that I've already read this one, so hot off the presses I've had to put ice packs on my hands? It's much, much darker than Sedaris's typical collections and also, to some degree, more crass than he's been since his earliest works, but is he ever spot on. Talk about someone who really has his finger on the pulse of human nature (even if disguised as animal nature). Absolutely no one, it seems, is immune from his critical eye. This is the sort of book that ought to make everyone who reads it extremely uncomfortable because we can so easily identify our acquaintances...our friends...our relatives...ourselves.

People have complained to me that they don't see how I can like Sedaris because they think he's too cruel. Of course, my first response to that is, "Why shouldn't he be?" He grew up gay in North Carolina (granted, at least he was in the Research Triangle Area -- where, as a teenager, I was first introduced to uncloseted gays and gay culture -- and not somewhere like Mocksville, but still. It was North Carolina). He probably spent so much of his young life on the receiving end of cruelty that he has every right to be giving it back as good as he got (and while I am busy hugging cliches here, I might as well kiss "the pen is mightier than the sword" and all that). To think that he managed to keep a sense of humor growing up where he did does nothing but earn my admiration. To think that growing up where he did might have developed his sense of humor is probably why my long-time readers are rolling their eyes and thinking, "Oh God. Here she goes again, falling on her knees in front of the Sedaris altar." While I am down here on my knees, I will tell you that I've never really noticed the cruelty. Usually I've been laughing too hard.

This time, though, I was giggling, yes, but I wasn't rolling around on the floor in convulsions. That's what I did, years ago, when my sister said to me, "You must read Me Talk Pretty One Day," and I finally got my hands on it. (Incidentally, in case you ever find yourself in a room full of Michie siblings, there isn't one of us who won't engage in an "Isn't David Sedaris hilarious?" or "Did you read the latest Sedaris in The New Yorker?" conversation.) This collection of stories helped me understand why people might think Sedaris is cruel. His are not cute animals all singing "Kum Bah Yah" together while holding hands around the campfire, eyes closed, big grins on their faces, now that cat and mouse have decided they shouldn't be enemies. No, his animals are animals, and in being so, they clearly illuminate the sadness of what it is to be human. Give animals a few human traits, and instead of the absurdity that usually makes me laugh, I find a different kind of absurdity. It can be cruel to make us uncomfortable in the ways Sedaris does, to make us see an absurdity that might have us weeping if we dwell on it too long -- the ways in which we allow others to ruin our lives, or worse: the ways in which we systematically just go around ruining our lives on our own.

This is not to say that the book is nothing but a downer. I promise you. It is funny. You will love some of his characters (I'm partial to the chipmunk of the title and the owl of another one of the stories), but expect something a little bit different. And that's kind of a stupid thing to say, isn't it? I mean, of course it's different. David Sedaris doesn't usually write short stories about animals. (Or does he?)

Music Monday

"You look like that girl in Sixpence None the Richer."

Someone once said that to me. Seriously. I should have bowed down at his feet, but I had no idea what she looked like at the time, so I just took it for granted that the poor woman must be a fairly plain person. Well, along came YouTube, and, one day, I was spending some time cruising through it, looking for videos of a lot of my favorite songs. That's when I discovered what "that girl in Sixpence None the Richer" looks like.

I can assure you, I don't look anything like her. Even when my hair was short, I didn't look anything like her. About the only thing she and I have in common is a complexion that could make a ghost turn green with envy. Oh yeah, and blond hair. Other than that, you will just have to take my word for it that she is striking, and I am not. Still, how wonderful that someone once thought I resembled her. Now I can watch this video of one of my favorite songs and pretend someone might once have actually mistaken me for a pop star.

When he said that, all those years ago, though, after bowing down at his feet, I should have said, "Kiss me."

TBR Challenge Book (Book Seven)

Maugham, W. Somerset. Cakes and Ale. New York: Vintage, 2000.
(The book was originally published in 1930.)

(Before I get started, thanks again to those of you who helped rescue me from Thornfield. I am now safely home, and Jane Eyre is back in her rightful place on the shelf.)

Boy, do I love Somerset Maugham. I loved him when I discovered him when I was nineteen or twenty, first reading Of Human Bondage, which a guy I had a crush on back then gave to me to read and which led me to read everything else I could find in our house that summer. My mother has always described to me the summer she was fifteen, when she was living in Bermuda with her parents and "spent the summer drinking Coca-Cola, reading Somerset Maugham, and pining away over boys who couldn't care less about me" (seems appropriate, then, that I discovered the author while pining away for a boy who couldn't care less about me), so we had a nice collection of his books in our house. Oddly enough, what I don't remember is what I did and didn't read of his back then, so everything I read now is as if I've never read him. When I pick up one of his books, I get a sort of sense of things being vaguely familiar, as though I am unpacking a trunk marked "Maugham," but everything that's in it, despite the trunk's well-worn appearance, is all shiny and new.

Anyway, all this is to say how lovely it was to pick up a book off my TBR challenge shelf and not to be able to put it down. Last time I wrote about Mauhgam, I talked about how he has this gentle way of pulling you in, making you think you're nibbling at a gingerbread house, and then, suddenly, you find yourself turning page-after-page to get to the end, trying to escape the horrible witch and her oven, hoping you can get out of this with your heart beating regularly, still in one piece. He did it again with this one.

Where to begin with all I have to say? I suppose I ought to start with the fact that if ever a book could lead a reader to other books, this one would be it. Not only does the reader find herself thinking she'd like to get some good biographies of the fictionalized characters (more on that in a minute), not to mention of Maugham himself, but she also finds herself needing to exercise a little restraint. Maugham name drops left, right, and center, and without said restraint, the reader could easily come away with a whole new chapter of the TBR tome entitled "Writers of the Cakes and Ale Era."

For those of us who love to read and who work in publishing, this book, which is getting up there in age -- closer to 100 now than 50 -- is both enlightening and discouraging, both fun and sad. Why? Because it very effectively highlights how readers, writers, and publishers (oh, and human beings in general) have and haven't changed. You could take quotes verbatim from this book, substitute authors' names, plop them down in 2010, and people would nod their heads in agreement, quotes like this one that our narrator makes about his acquaintance Roy Kear,

I could think of no one among my contemporaries who had achieved so considerable a position on so little talent. (p. 4).

Can't you just hear one of today's mid list (such as it is in its vanishing state) authors saying something like that about one of those who shows up time and again on the bestseller lists? The book offers such observations from the beginning and hands them out all the way to the end. Maugham often gives us long passages of such opinions because he was a Master of Digression.

His digressions are one of the other reasons I love him so. They don't annoy the way less talented writers can with their complete non sequiturs. They are extremely wry and never take away from the story. Rather, they give the air of just being one of the characters in the book, sitting round the dinner table with the other characters and joining in the conversation with their thoughts and musings.

And what is the essence of this story? The great Victorian novelist Edward Driffield has a new biographer Alroy Kear. Our narrator William Ashenden happens to have known Driffield when Ashenden was a teenager and Driffield and his wife (at the time) Rosie moved to Ashenden's village in Kent. The young Ashenden was befriended by the writer and his wife. They later pick up their friendship again when they are all living in London together and Ashenden is becoming a writer in his own right. Now that Roy Kear is writing Driffield's biography, all these years later, he is pumping Ashenden for information, information Ashenden is reluctant to give. I won't say anymore, so as not to throw out spoilers, but suffice it to say that, in typical Maugham fashion, there are scandals, and shocking revelations, and biting commentary on British social norms, all served up with your cakes and ale, in a manner that makes them all even more page-turner-worthy because you are so often taken off your guard while eating and drinking such classically comforting fare.

Apparently, Maugham swore that his characters were mere composites of authors he'd known, but nobody believes that. Kear is generally believed to have been Hugh Walpole. Driffield is Thomas Hardy.

While reading the book, I began to think an awful lot about Hardy and Tess and Rosie Driffield. Rosie and Tess, although on the surface two very different women, are -- in some ways, at least -- very similar. They are two women damned by their stations in life, both by having been born into their particular social classes and by having been born female. Yes, things were bad for men, too, but women got the worst of it. Poor Tess, a woman who was full of heart and soul, is ruined by a man and has all choice removed from her life in a society that cannot understand her. Poor Rosie, a woman who is full of heart and soul, is also ruined by a society that cannot understand her, one that is so repressed, it can't bear anyone who chooses not to be. Both of them know that to behave in ways for which a man might be forgiven means never to be forgiven.

So, you can't convince me that Edward Driffield isn't Thomas Hardy. Maybe Maugham did it subconsciously. Perhaps he was unaware of the fact that Cakes and Ale was a beautifully clever, modern rewrite of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, but somehow, I doubt that.

More Ghostly Clues

Okay, everyone, I was just beginning to get a bit tired of being here (the food is very unpredictable. Sometimes it's terrific, and other times, it's burnt porridge), but mainly (despite the fact that I think I have become quite immune to the so-called "horrors" of ghosts over the years), I have become quite frightened, because I have encountered many more ghosts, some of them more terrifying than I would have expected. I hope the ghosts I've seen over the past few days will help one of you identify my whereabouts. Here are a few who might help you:

(All of these ghosts are dressed in Victorian garb.)

1. I saw another little girl. This one was a rather cheerful ghost, though. She spoke French and seemed to want to do nothing but dance. I would have been quite content to spend time with her, but,

2. There is a dark, sort of brooding shadow of a ghost that seems to take over the whole place with a sarcastic air when he is around. He isn't always around, but when he is, he is quite intimidating. I feel as though he is testing me in some way (or that he would if he could). He's not the worst of it, though:

3. Last night, I was truly scared. I heard the most fearful, wicked, crazy laughter and thought I caught a whiff of smoke, and someone was definitely turning the doorknob to the room where I am being held, although not getting in. I was afraid one of my captors had gone completely mad, possibly setting the place on fire before coming in to kill me.

They all vanish come morning, though. It is only my nights that are filled with ghostly goings-on. Please, save me! Tell me where I am and that you are on your way with a police cavalcade to rescue me.

Hostage Day Two

Okay, so now I understand that there will be a reward for the person who can correctly identify where the thieves are hiding me. (If you are confused by this, please see my previous post.) Anyway, the first person who pinpoints where I am and who names it in a comment before anyone else does will get a ghostly little gift to celebrate my favorite holiday Halloween. Here are your first clues:

1. I am being held in a fictional setting.

2. I was put on an airplane to get here, and we flew across the Atlantic.

3. They speak my language in this country.

4. There are ghosts here. Many ghosts, as a matter of fact. They kept me awake all night last night.

5. One of the ghosts who showed up at the foot of my bed was that of a child begging for help. She had a cut on her head, as if she had recently been in an accident.

More footsteps coming down the hall. It could be another ghost, but it has the distinct, heavy sound of one of my captors. Will have to wait till later to give you more clues.

Stolen (On a Sunday No Less)

Hmmm. It seems that I must have been stolen. The original thieves are under the impression that all they have done is steal my meme, but I assure you that I was taken along with it, and when I tried to get away was picked up by some other thieves who have taken me far, far away from Pennsylvania. Does that mean this blog (and thus, its valiant creator) is being held hostage? Does it mean no planned blogging break, but rather, some sudden interruption of a long and productive blogging career, or possibly, even the death of this blog? That depends on you, my dear readers. You must follow the clues that will be handed out to you (when I can manage to escape from this strange room where I am being held captive and get to a computer) to figure out where I am, so that I can be rescued and all order can be restored to Telecommuter Talk. I'm counting on you.

I hear footsteps on the stairs. Must go. More to come later...

The Time Traveler's Meme

No, I, the Queen o' Memes have not been deposed (at least, not that I know of). I've just learned to reign with a more gentle and quiet hand. Every once in a while, though, I decide that my subjects need to be put to work, especially in the fall (probably fond memories of things like that first Halloween meme I tagged myself to do years ago). It's officially fall, so the Queen is here with your orders.

Thanks to Zoe's Mom, I recently read a fun chick lit novel called The Two Lives of Miss Charlotte Merryweather. The book is all about time travel, specifically, time travel in which the heroine goes back 10 years to meet her 21-year-old self. It got me thinking. First of all, ten years isn't really long enough, not for someone my age. I'm still shocked when people point out that 9/11 was nearly ten years ago. Fifteen years or twenty would be better. What would happen if 46-year-old me were to encounter 26-year-old me? I started coming up with all kinds of questions, and the next thing I knew, this meme was born.

Rules:
1. Depending on your age, go back 10, 15, 20, or even more years.
2. Tell us how many years back you have traveled.
3. Pretend you have met yourself during that era, and tell us where you are.
4. You only have one "date" with this former self.
5. Answer the questions.


I have gone back 20 years (actually, a little further than 20 years. I'm pretending it's February, and my young self is about to celebrate her 27th birthday). We are in Stamford, CT, and we have met at her favorite bar Rory's ( a place that no longer exists). It's Monday night; she worked at the public library until 9:00; and she is here with her colleague Bill. They will walk home together once they've had a couple of drinks, because her crappy basement apartment is on the way to his place, and he usually sees her safely home. Her apartment may be crappy, but still! She is living all. by. herself, for the first time in her life.

1. Would your younger self recognize you when you first meet?
Well, according to Facebook friends who haven't seen me since high school, I haven't changed, so chances are, she'd think she'd met a long lost older sister or something.

2. Would she be surprised to discover what you are doing job wise?
Very. She is in her first year of library school and is hoping to become either a school librarian or a young adult librarian in a public library.

3. What piece of fashion advice would you give her?
Do not wear oversized sweaters with leggings and chunky shoes. You have lovely legs! Show them off with high heels and short skirts while you are young enough that no one will question such choices. And you do have cleavage. Stop being so afraid to show it off a little.

4. What do you think she is most going to want to know?
She'd probably want to know about men -- what else? My guess is that she will most want to know what is going to come of this on-again-off-again relationship she's in the midst of that will go on for the next couple of years.

5. How would you answer her question?
Not to worry. To enjoy that relationship, that it is good in many ways, will help her to become the person she is meant to be and that (despite her conviction she is not going to get married), she will be married one day. I don't think I'd tell her that she has not yet met the man she will marry or how she will meet him or anything like that. I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise and excitement of Bob's and my meeting.

6. What would probably be the best thing to tell her?
That she will live the next 20 years without coming down with any horrible disease. Therefore, she should stop worrying about every headache, stomach cramp, sore throat, etc.

7. What is something that you probably wouldn't tell her?
That, at age 29, she is going to break her wrist while ice skating and have to endure a very painful surgery and months and months of physical therapy. She's a worry wart and a cautious sort. If she knows that, she'll never let herself have all those fun days of ice skating, and she most definitely needs to have those.

8. What do you think will most surprise her about you?
That I am married to a minister (she's an agnostic/borderline atheist) and living in Pennsylvania. She's convinced she'll either be living in Boston, New York, or Maine by the time she's my age.

9. What do you think will least surprise her?
That I am a certified scuba diver. She's always wanted to do that, and she will be happy to hear that she will one day be able to afford such expensive hobbies.

10. At this point in your life, would you like to run into "you" from the future?
Absolutely not. What if I've been in some horrible accident and lost an arm or a leg or something? Or what if I'm crazy and homeless? I certainly wouldn't want to know that ahead of time.

Are you reading this? Then the Queen has tagged you. Get on with it.

Death Rites

(Gimenez Bartlett, Alicia. Dunne, Jonathan, tr. Death Rites. New York: Europa Editions, 2008.)

Well, this is definitely a first for me. The Connecticut mystery book club was formed three years ago, and I have never not finished a book for the club. I may not always have gotten a book read on time, but I have always finished it. However, I am in a very strange period (for me) in my life in which I am extraordinarily busy, barely have a moment to myself, and I just don't seem to be able to bring myself to devote a lot of time to reading anything that does not have me spellbound. This one didn't. (In another first, this is the second book in one week that I have decided to abandon. I'm pretty sure I have never given up on two books in one week, being someone who, for the most part, perseveres).

Up until yesterday, I didn't think I was going to abandon it. I was pretty sure I was going to finish it and post my reactions sometime next week, even though the group is meeting to discuss it tomorrow. However, I had to go to the library today to pick up a book that was being held for me, and before I knew it, I had picked this up and brought it with me to return. I guess some part of me knew that now just wasn't the right time for this particular book.

I feel kind of sorry for it, because it isn't as though I really disliked it. I was a little annoyed by the writing style, which seemed overly fragmented and disjointed to me, but that could very easily have been the translator's fault as much as anything, and I soon found I got used to it (although I did wonder, at times, if Gimenez Bartlett was trying a little too hard to imitate the American "hard-boiled" feel and failing). The plot was definitely one that should have grabbed me (a serial rapist is on the loose in Barcelona, Spain, and two unlikely members of the police force -- one, a twice-divorced feminist lawyer-turned-police woman, and the other, a laconic, somewhat sexist -- at least, she's convinced he is -- "seasoned" cop are thrown together to solve it).

If I had stuck with it, I might have discovered that I liked it very much. Petra (the woman) was annoying at first, but she was growing on me. Garzon (the man) seemed to have a lot of surprise characteristics, and he was growing on me even more than she was. I was interested to see how these two would end up working together. On the other hand, though, I already knew, without reading it, that she was going to come to quit judging him so harshly, to begin to see him in a new light, and to come to respect him, so why bother to continue reading to see what happened between the two of them? Well, maybe because I was interested to see exactly how she would come to see the light.

Apparently, though, not interested enough. Otherwise, I would have stuck with it. What else was and is interesting to me was the almost "in-your-face" feminism of the book. Petra is very determined to "fight the good fight" for women, no matter the consequences. This is the second European book I've read this year that has made me question some of my beliefs about European countries and their attitudes toward women (the other was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). For some reason, I have assumed that, when it comes to Western culture and countries, America lags behind in its treatment and attitudes toward women, that we have farther to go than most, especially when you compare us to all our friends across the Atlantic. Don't ask me where I got this assumption, and I will say that the world of blogging had already got me to start rethinking it before I read these two books, but these two books certainly have helped open my eyes quite wide. The world Gimenez Bartlett has given us -- at least in the first half of this book -- is truly a man's world, so much so that young women being raped might not even be as bothered by it as one might expect them to be). This was enlightening, but still.

I quit about halfway through the book. No one had yet found a dead body, but, if this mystery were true to form and followed proper procedure for the genre, one was bound to turn up sooner or later. It might have been interesting to find out who that was. Might have been, but, obviously, not quite interesting enough...

And that, in a nutshell, as I am sure you have gathered by now, was my problem. Everything was just "not quite enough." The characters were interesting but "not quite enough." The plot was interesting but "not quite enough." Bartlett Gimenez had some interesting and clever similies and metaphors and turns of phrases but "not quite enough." And I guess that, at the moment, I have just "not quite enough stamina" to keep going, with no guarantee that I will eventually find "enough." I am very intererested, though, to hear what other members of the club thought, because if they indicate that "enough" does happen, I will have to get it back out of the library and finish it.

Truly Book Obsessed

In the past year or so, I've come to the realization that, although I thought my life was full of friends who are as obsessed with books (and, well, you know reading them) as I am, it really isn't. With the exception of all those of you who read my blog and write about books yourselves (and who seemed to understand that book slut post of mine so well), it seems I have very few friends who share this obsession of mine to the same degree that I have it. They may be somewhat obsessed or have an obsession that somewhat resembles a book obsession but that really isn't. Probably less than a handful or so of my non-blogging friends have even half the book obsession I have. Let's take a look at some of the categories of people who have fooled me into thinking they are as book obsessed as I am but who really can't hold a candle to me:

1. The reading obsessed. Really, there is a difference, so please hear me out. I'm becoming suspicious of my beloved husband as far as this category goes. Yes, it does seem that he would rather spend money on books than just about anything else (only CDs and pens can compete, which is why he and I are so compatible), but he is perfectly content if he finds himself with several days in a row in which he doesn't pick up a single book. As long as he can read through the local papers and can entertain himself with the likes of The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated, my guess is he could go a week or more without ever cracking the spine of a book. Those who fall into the reading obsessed category do have to read and would go nuts without any reading material, but they are not book obsessed. Me? I'd be fine if all newspapers, magazines, and (maybe, even, God forbid) blogs and Facebook suddenly disappeared. Don't take my books away, though. I might last a day or two before winding up in the hospital, gasping for breath, my heart at the rate of all of two beats per minute.

2. Those who don't read specific genres. "I don't read mysteries," someone will say to me when I am rhapsodizing about how much I like John Connolly. Nothing like putting a damper on conversation, huh? You know, I am game for any good book, and I don't care at all about the genre. In fact, damn the genre. If you ask me what sorts of books I enjoy, I wouldn't be likely to say, "romances," and yet I've certainly read quite a few in my lifetime and have come, over the past few years, to really enjoy someone like Georgette Heyer. I will say that I don't think I've ever read any westerns, but if someone were to come along, waxing poetic about some western she'd read, I'd take note and seek it out next time I was at the library.

3. Those who don't read contemporary fiction. Like those who don't read specific genres, they can fool you. It isn't as though they can't talk books with someone who is book obsessed. However, again, if they put such limits on which books they will and won't read, well, then, they are mere pikers when it comes to obsession. Beware someone who disparages anything written post-1940 who will challenge you to name those authors you think will be on college reading lists in 2110 (a fun game I like to play, but a ridiculous challenge when taken seriously, no? I bet nobody predicted Charlotte Bronte would last. And, what, in 100 years, no one's going to study late 20th and 21st-century works?). Sometimes, these people prove themselves to be a little more book-obsessed than they let on, and you just might catch them reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ("Yes, but that doesn't count. It isn't literature") or Freedom ("Well, I had to see what all the fuss was about, didn't I?). Be polite, even though they have, for years, been mocking the fact that you read and love John Irving. Some just aren't quite willing to admit to and embrace their obsessions the way those of us with high self-esteem can.

4. Those who don't read nonfiction. I may argue vociferously with most of the nonfiction I read, but how can someone who is book-obsessed not read it, at least on occasion? Let's say all you read is fiction. That's fine. Maybe you're fiction obsessed, but you certainly aren't book obsessed. You see, the truly book obsessed can't read something like The Postmistress, which I just finished reading, and not find herself adding titles to her TBR list that the author lists as sources she used for research before writing the book. I became extremely interested in American radio reporting during WWII while reading this book. I don't know how anyone reads fiction about some, until then, unexplored, but fascinating, subject, without finding a desire to read a nonfiction title or two. If nothing else, doesn't fiction lead to wanting to read biographies and autobiographies of the authors who write it?

5. Those who don't buy books or have any in their homes. I'm sorry. You may be someone who reads 5 books a week, but if you never buy or own any, you are not book obsessed. Reading obsessed, yes, but not book obsessed. I don't even care if you tell me you can't afford to buy books. Those who are truly book obsessed can remember days when, even though barely squeaking by on a library assistant's salary, living in one of the most expensive places in the country to live, they decided to buy fewer groceries the week of the used book sale in order to be able to get lots of cheap books instead.

6. Those who don't have a favorite publisher. Really. Even before I worked in the publishing industry, I knew that Penguin and Algonquin were two of my favorite publishers. I also knew that I loved Knopf. Yes, I am mostly author-driven and will happily follow an author from publisher to publisher, however, if I'm looking to discover new authors I've never read? Well, I certainly know which catalogs/web sites I'm going to browse first.

7. Those who can walk into Borders with money to spend, planning to buy, and walk out empty handed. What? How the hell can you do that? I can't imagine finding nothing to read out of thousands and thousands of books. I can go into a house with one small bookcase of books, and, as long as it holds a variety of titles (I mean, I might not be able to find something on a bookcase full of engineering manuals), I can find at least ten books to read. Someone who can find nothing to buy at Borders is not book obsessed.

So, there we have it. My 7 categories of "You can't fool me. I know you aren't really book obsessed." Are there any others? Help me out, all you other book obsessives out there.

Music Monday/Lyric Lundi

This has got to be one of the most ridiculous pop songs ever written, lyrically. When it first came out, and my siblings and I saw the video on Top of the Pops, we were very disdainful of it. However, it seems the more we made fun of it, the more it grew on us, and we eventually all came to love it. I loved imitating the women singing "Pop. Pop. Pop music" and bobbing their heads.

Now, I think of it as quite a superb example of the stripped down look and sound of New Age music. 1979 was a pretty exciting time, musically, as we came out of disco and took some of the anger out of punk.

Talk about it!

TBR Challenge Book (Book Six)

Patchett, Ann. Bel Canto. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

(I feel the need to add a disclaimer here. I have actually read more than six books in my TBR challenge. This just happens to be the sixth one on which I am writing a post. I decided to number them by post rather than order read.)

I've decided there is something wrong with me. I just don't seem to be able to get overly excited about the books that everyone else loves (which leaves me almost in terror of reading the new Jonathan Franzen). When I don't out-and-out dislike them, I often find my reaction is "meh."

If you've read much of this blog (especially my posts for this TBR challenge), you will know that I am convinced, in part, that this has more to do with high expectations than anything else. Of course, on some levels, that refutes another claim I've made on this blog, which is that I am highly impressionable. Given that, you'd think that I would love all the books that everyone else loves. Maybe my "impression-ability" stops with "I must read this. Everyone else loves it so," never making it to the next level of, "everyone loves it, and so do I." Or maybe, as I just said, there is something not quite right with me.

I have seen this book mentioned all over the place online, mostly with nothing but effusive praise and words like "hypnotic," "beautiful," "you must read," etc. Our library book discussion group read it before I joined, and they still get glassy-eyed when you mention it, saying things like, "I just wish we could find more books like Bel Canto to read." So I put this one into the TBR challenge absolutely convinced that I was going to love it. It was maybe going to be my dessert after struggling through one of those I'd expected would be more difficult and challenging (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, for example). I couldn't wait to read it, while at the same time, also feeling the need to "save" it, which I'd been doing ever since finding a cheap hard copy of it at the 2008 library sale.

Dislike isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe this book. Ann Patchett isn't a bad writer. It's just that I am on page 220, and the only reason I am considering continuing with it is that I have already put so much time and effort into it, picking it up time and again and trying to find its magic, when all I've really wanted to do is to get back to reading one of the other books I'm reading and enjoying. If I abandon it now, I'd have to admit to myself that I wasted a lot of time (something I am loathe to do). My biggest problem with continuing to read it is that my "Oh, come on!" (nasty, judgmental creature that she is) nature has been raising her ugly head over and over again.

Please don't accuse me of not understanding the obvious (although I would love it if you would help me understand the un-obvious -- help blind, idiot me see what I must be missing). I know that this book is really a fable, that it isn't supposed to be all about reality. I know it isn't really at all about people from all over the world held captive by terrorists in some unnamed South American country. I know it is about humanity and love and beauty and all that we humans have in common and how the arts can bring us together and triumph in ways that are miraculous, most especially how music can transcend all the worst in human nature, can soften us.

Not only do I know all that, but I also hate the old "it just doesn't ring true" cliche. Nonetheless, I keep following my "Oh, come on's!" with "That just doesn't ring true." My literal self -- the same one that loves good fantasy while struggling with it, especially if it doesn't take place in a different world -- has struggled throughout this book and really wants me to quit at this point, because I can't keep that self from asking, "What makes this American writer think she can know what drives a Japanese businessman? Or a Swedish Red Cross worker? Or a Frenchman?" Yes, the underlying human-ness, what brings us together, is there, but that's the bottom layer. What about the top layer? (And isn't it a cliche that the Frenchman is the chef? That the beautiful opera singer, despite being a woman, knows nothing about the kitchen and preparing food?) It's just too much (and, honestly, the writer in me thinks a bit arrogant) to think that anyone can realistically portray all these characters and others: the Vice President of this country; the Japanese businessman's translator, who is fluent in many languages; the female terrorist, born of extreme poverty. I don't mind if you give me unrealistic situations, but I want my characters to be real.

It isn't that I don't think an American writer could, say, take one of these characters (or even two of them), like the young girl who is a South American terrorist and make her real. Talented writers have been known to make very interesting connections and to give us amazing, believable characters whose top layers don't resemble their own top layers at all (Kazuo Ishiguro springs to mind), but to try to tackle so many in one book is just too much. It gets my questioning, doubtful mind spinning out of control.

I appreciate the fact I've given it a try. I'm glad I did, despite my disappointment. But is it worth continuing to anger all those multiple personalities of mine (Ms. "Oh Come On", Ms. Literalist, and Ms. Writer)? Anyone? Should I?

Music Monday/Lyric Lundi

It's fall. Boots are everywhere. I love fall and boots, so I thought it would be a good idea to combine my love of boots with a favorite song. This one I've loved basically all my life (I was only two when it was released). Even as a child, I was impressed with this tough woman in her boots who wasn't going to take any mistreatment and, one of these days, would "walk all over you."

There is a more demure video of this song, but this particular one is fantastic -- so sixties/early seventies. Needless to say, the boots are great, and I love Nancy Sinatra's sparkly romper. However, what on earth are those dancers wearing? It looks like they've pulled sweaters on over bathing suits. With boots? Come on, choreographer and costumer, you could have put them in some really cool mini skirts (or rompers similar to Nancy's) and still shown plenty of that leg you wanted to show. (I've never understood why no one ever consults me about such matters.) They do all have very nice, boot-worthy legs, though, don't they?

Vanishing Judgment: A Blog Post

Blogger wonders if she should refer to herself as Author or Reader.

More sense. This blog post might make if you have read Markson, David. Vanishing Point. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004.

(Or if you have read any of Markson's experimental works, Reader imagines.)

Lectio Divina is Latin for divine reading, spiritual reading, or "holy reading" and represents a traditional practice of prayer and scriptural reading intended to promote communion with God and to increase in the knowledge of God's word. Says Wikipedia.

We have a collection of fragments here, although fragments of what is unclear. How Litlove described Markson's Reader's Block.

Reader counted something like 1500 fragments in Vanishing Point.

Author desires to tell a story but has become hung up on telling the truth.

Trivial Pursuit, playing. Probably not something to do with David Markson, unless he is on your team.

It's impossible to read these fragments and not to try and do something about them, search for patterns and significance. Litlove said, again, about Reader's Block.

As I think you may know, this sort of stuff is not normally my cup of tea. So Reader commented on Stefanie's blog.

Wikipedia goes on to say that Lectio Divina is a way of praying with Scripture that calls one to study, ponder, listen, and, finally, pray and rejoice from God's word within the soul.

"...from God's word within the soul?" Did Author get that right?

Most of the book consists of book, art, and music trivia. What Stefanie said about Reader's Block.

Author could write story after story from these collected fragments. No wonder Markson's "Author" is so exhausted.
Merely counting all the fragments was exhausting.

Vanishing Point is the only one of Markson's experimental works that the Lancaster County, PA library system owns.
Categorized as FIC.
Subtitle: A Novel.

Novel: an invented prose narrative that is usu. long and complex and deals esp. with human experience through a usu. connected sequence of events. So says the Tenth Edition of Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

But is it really a novel? You think not? Well who died and made you queen of novel demarcation? Goodreads.com reviewer Vegantrav demands to know after reading Vanishing Point.

Lectio Divina has been likened to "feasting on the word." Many write down the words that speak out to them when they are reading scripture.

Author has written down Markson's words "to tell the truth."

The pretense of thinking one knows anything about a book one has not read.

Reader wonders about the truth of what Markson writes.
She stops caring when she realizes how much fun she is having.

"Playful" and "fun" were bullied and kicked about and nearly lost consciousness. "Fun" is for Raymond Chandler...not something like this.
So Reader said in response to Litlove's quote from Reader's Block.

Writers are liars -- unquote. From Erasmus Fry in conversation, 6 May, 1986 (or, at least, so notes the first page of Neil Gaiman's Dream Country).

Reader wouldn't want to be given the task of fact checking Markson.

I thought the book was smart, beautiful, unique, and, at times, moving. At times, I found it dull -- unquote. Dorr on Wittgenstein's Mistress.

Author wishes to avoid dull.
Are lies more dull than truth? Is truth more dull than lies?

Reviewer Richard Flynn at Goodreads.com concluded that Vanishing Point is a great novel, unless you are in the mood to read a novel.

Original or striking, esp. in conception or style. So Webster's also defines novel.

Reader is reconsidering her aversions to/fear of Ulysses and The Magic Mountain.

A hat might taste okay cooked up Tex Mex style. Or maybe it should be stir fried.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Someone once said.

Markson's words: "to tell the truth."

Distinguishing between imitation and mockery.

And they lived happily ever after (Author is not mocking -- or lying -- she promises).
Reader, write your own story (truth or lie).

4-Day Weekend By the Numbers

At this point, the four-day weekend seems like a distant memory, but I thought I'd try to keep it alive a little while longer. To that end:


hours spent at the library: 3 (pretty good, considering it was closed on Sunday and Monday)

books checked out: 8

Nick Bantock books read: 3 (2 at the library and one at home. Yes, I've gone a little crazy over Nick Bantock, but how can you not read all six of the Griffin and Sabine books at once?)

Books checked out that are graphic novels: 4 (or maybe 5. Would you categorize Nick Bantock as "graphic"? He's filed in regular fiction at my library)

(non Nick Bantock) books finished: 2 (David Markson's Vanishing Point and Alexandra Potter's The Two Lives of Miss Charlotte Merryweather. A very nice balance)

books started (because, yes, I am a read-multiple-books-at-a-time kinda gal): 3 (The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, Death Rites by Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett, and Dream Country by Neil Gaiman)

All right, there was (much) more to the weekend than my book obsession:

chamber music concerts attended: 1 (at the lovely Mt. Gretna Playhouse. We missed out on the ice cream at The Jigger Shop, though. Lines were too long before the show, and it was closed afterwards. That means we'll have to go back next summer)

alcoholic beverages consumed: 8 (which is a lot for me in four days. I know: I'm a wimp)

nights out with "the girls": 1 (that helps account for the number of drinks)

picnics attended: 2 (that helps account for more of those drinks)

hotdogs eaten: 1 (shouldn't there have been more, since I went to two picnics? Obviously, I was being very good)

dishes of ice cream: 2 (well, not that good...)

calories consumed: oh, maybe about 9000? (okay, not the least bit good)

long walks: 1

meals cooked: 2

laughs: countless

Tell me again why we don't have 4-day weekends every weekend.

Music Monday/Lyric Lundi

Although the kids in my school district started back last Monday in 90+ degree heat that made it seem not the least bit like fall, today is the day I think of as the true end of summer. By the end of this week, all kids all over the country will be back in school. And today, it feels like the end of summer. This weekend, we've had absolutely beautiful fall-like weather -- breezy, sunny, highs in the seventies, lows in the fifties. I was at a Labor Day party last night dressed in jeans for the first time since I was up in Maine in early July, and I had to borrow a sweatshirt from my hostess to enjoy sitting out on the patio.

What song to choose for the "new year"? Despite the fact I haven't had to go back to school since 1993, I still think of this time of year as a time for new beginnings. For instance, it's time to stop being so neglectful of this blog. It's time to stop being so neglectful of my pen pals (some of whom have not heard from me in months). It's time for me to organize my closets and to clean out the basement, which looks like a bomb has struck it.

But not today. Today, let's have a little fun reminiscing about high school and those "summer nights." Grease came out in theaters the summer I was fourteen. That was the perfect time for this movie to come out. I was just about to start high school myself. I would soon be moving to England, where my girlfriends would love the fact that I could sing all the songs with a "real" American accent and where we danced to the sound tract at slumber parties just as I had with my American girlfriends.

I still remember my reaction the first time I saw this number, which I would go on to see five more times that summer. Yes, my friends and I went to see this movie six times (we did things like that back in the days when we thought we had all the time in the world). I watched it and thought, "I don't want this movie to end. Ever." Most of the time, I have absolutely no desire to be fourteen years old again, but occasionally, I wish I had that young passion back and could experience such scenes the way I know I once did.

These days, I watch it and just think, "What fun!" Hope you think it' s fun, too.

A "Culinary" Review

Ye Olde English Shoppe and Tea Room
3606 Old Phila Pike _Intercourse, PA


I grew up visiting Great Britain in the summertime and doing such things as eating high tea (a meal that seemed more like “supper” to me than the hot drink after which it is named) at my great aunt’s big, old house in the English countryside or cream tea at one of London’s finer department stores (which brings to mind delicious, cream-stuffed, buttery pastries and éclairs). When Americans talk to me about having “tea,” what we end up having is usually more reminiscent of eating currant buns (although Americans don’t eat real currant buns. I’ve discovered that currant scones make a fairly good substitute) and drinking tea at some little pastry shop in Tunbridge Wells on a Saturday morning than what I think of when I think of “tea.” There is absolutely nothing wrong with currant buns and tea at 11:00, but it isn’t “tea.” However, now that I’ve been to Ye Olde English Shoppe and Tea Room in Intercourse, PA on many occasions, if any American wants to invite me to tea at this place, I will jump at the opportunity to relive my childhood memories.

The shop seems somewhat out of place in this village, which is Amish Central. Its storefront is located in a little strip of stores with a long wooden, front porch that is much more likely to bring to mind “Little House on the Prairie” than “Little House in an English Village.” However, once you step inside the door, you enter a whole new world, all Victorian flowers and décor. The front room is a shop that sells imported china, jewelry, and other items. More importantly, it sells food, the sort of food that is hard to find in Lancaster County, if you are someone who longs for certain British “delicacies” like Mars Bars, Marmite, Digestive Biscuits, and Salad Cream. I stop at the store regularly to stock up on such items.

If you have come for lunch or tea (and you’d better make reservations, if you plan to do so, especially during the summer months), you will most likely be greeted by the proprietress. You will know her by her English accent and her friendly warmth (that warmth especially on display if you happen to buy a jar of Marmite, something most Americans don’t buy). You will be led into any number of cozy rooms, all pinks and yellows and lavenders and presented with a menu that is a little bit odd, to say the least, since it features, yes, high tea, but also a good old Ploughman’s lunch (in England, that’s pub fare, not tea room fare). I have yet to try the Ploughman’s lunch, because I do not plough, and thus, it (sausage roll, wedge of sharp cheese, French bread stick, and pickles served with a salad garnish) always seems a bit heavy for my middle-of-the-day meal, but one of these days, I will have to skip breakfast (or maybe hop a plough with an Amish farmer or two for a few hours on a Saturday morning) and stray from the delicious “quiche of the day and salad” to try it. It’s going to be hard to give up that quiche, though, with its delicate crust, non-greasy, egg-y filling, and fresh ingredients, like to-mah-toes and mushrooms. I enjoy the salad served with tangy, light mayonnaise-y salad cream. That stuff comes in a bottle, and I am sure it is full of all kinds of ingredients that are not good for you, but I was served it at so many relatives’ houses traveling around England when I was young, that a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers topped with it (even more than strawberries and cream at Wimbledon) has come to mean “England” to me.

When I take visiting friends to Ye Old English Shoppe for tea, we have typically been eating our way around Lancaster County and don’t need high tea. We do very well with a scone filled with cream and jam or with crumpets served with butter and jam, and a choice from a wide variety of teas, served in individual, flowered pots. I like Earl Grey and fruity herbal teas (I know, not what any true Englishman would drink, but there you have it), so I usually have one of those. I have always loved the British tradition of serving baked goods with cream and jam rather than butter and jam. It provides a lift and lightness to something as heavy as a scone that butter could never provide. I have yet to find any other shop where I can get real crumpets. How to describe a crumpet to someone who’s never had one, which I find myself constantly having to do? The best I can come up with is a cross between a pancake and an English muffin, but that doesn’t really do it justice. You’ll just have to eat one yourself and see what you think.

I linger over my food at this shop. Sometimes I go alone with a book, pretending to read while I eavesdrop on tourists’ reactions. I have yet to hear anyone voice displeasure. My only displeasure is stepping out of the shop and back into my American reality (although, if I close my eyes and listen to the clip-clop of an Amish buggy passing by, sometimes I can prolong the moment by pretending I am in 19th-century London, umbrella in hand, ready to walk back through the drizzle, having just had tea at a good neighbor’s house).

Survival of the Fittest

The other day, I had to kill a cicada in order to put it out of its misery. It was lying on its back, its legs twitching and kicking, and ants seemed to be attacking it. I hate to kill anything, even when I know I am putting it out of its misery, but I especially hated killing a cicada, an insect that has always fascinated me with its impressive size, and the way it leaves its shell clinging to trees (or garage doors, as they seem to be doing a lot this summer). I'm not a fan of summer, but one thing that helps make the horrible heat bearable is the lovely sound of the cicadas singing. So, really, it bothered me terribly that I had to stomp on that cicada.

I am not someone who happens to believe that human beings are more important or superior to any other creatures on this planet. There are some creatures I happen to like better than others (I wouldn't exactly want to cuddle with a grub worm, say, the way I do with my cat), but I realize that the only thing driving me to make such distinctions is aesthetics, and aesthetics are very subjective. I happen to find most insects fascinating, as long as they aren't crawling on me or annoying me in other ways (buzzing flies and dive-bombing mosquitoes are anything but fascinating), whereas most people I know happen to think they're quite creepy. In fact, most people I know would think nothing of stomping on a cicada, would find it very odd that I was so upset about doing so. "It's just a bug," I can hear them saying. These same people say other things that make me cringe, like, "If those animal rights fanatics would give half the time and attention to humans as they do to animals, this world would be a far better place."

If I question these statements, many of my Christian and Jewish friends and family members will argue that we are superior because we are made in God's image or that we are the only ones into whom God breathed the breath of life. My atheist friends and family members will tell me that we are superior because we can reason (I am sure there are atheists who don't do this, but I know a lot of atheists who seem to worship human reason instead of a god). Those who are smart, though, would ask me, "What upsets you more: having to kill that cicada or being told a child you know has leukemia?"

And that's when I have to admit, that, okay, maybe I lied. Maybe I do think humans are superior in some way, because I would be far more upset to find out that a child I know has leukemia. It's also when I have to admit that all I'm doing is proving Darwin was right. That's all anyone is doing, as far as I'm concerned. Use religion. Use human reason. Use whatever you want to argue the point that we are, somehow, superior to a dog or a rabbit or a snake. All you're doing is responding to your biological imperative.

Darwin was all about two main ideas: survival of our own species and survival of the fittest. We will fight our own kind, if they are weak, because that will help insure that the strongest of our kind survive. Our species is more likely to survive if its strongest members survive.

It makes sense, then, that we would decide that we are superior to all other animals (all other living things, really). It's okay to sacrifice a dog or a pig or a tree to help a human survive because humans are superior to that dog or that pig or that tree. But I will not pretend when I favor a child with leukemia over a dying cicada that it is anything other than what it is, which is a desire for my own species to survive above all others. I don't pretend that God favors me over other creatures and that's why it's okay. I don't pretend that I have this great brain that other animals don't that grants me special rights. No. I acknowledge the fact that I am just a member of one of oh so many species populating this planet who is doing what all other species do in a very harsh world: looking out for me and my kind.

Truth be told, though, when I can ignore biology and let this brain I've been given as one of my species's survival tools (and we don't have much else, do we? Opposable thumbs and "big" brains. No fur. No camouflage. No speed. No natural poison. No super eyesight or super hearing or fantastic sense of smell. When you think about it, we're really quite pathetic. We have to make things -- shelter, weapons, etc. -- in order to survive. Others survive perfectly fine with what they have. Sometimes I wonder if God doesn't look at us, laughing, and say, "What was I thinking?") think about it, I am quite sure my species is going to be short-lived. On the time line of the universe, we will barely be a notch, unless, of course, we happen to be that marker known for destroying an entire planet. That could happen, but let's say it doesn't.

Let's say we all die off, the way so many other extinct creatures have without destroying this planet. I'd love to know what will come after we're gone. After all, we could never have survived while dinosaurs roamed the earth. Maybe there will be some other gigantic animal that will take over. We now seem to accept the fact that birds, having evolved from them, are teeny, tiny dinosaurs. Perhaps there is something that will do the opposite, something that is teeny tiny now that will grow to be huge. I'm betting on insects. Maybe one day, cicadas will be stomping on other creatures to put them out of their misery.

Music Monday/Lyric Lundi

One of the great things about living where I do is that in the summer time we get a free concert every Sunday night. Lancaster's Longs Park Summer Music Series brings in bands from all over to play all types of music. It's an outdoor concert, rain or shine, and everyone picnics around the stage.

Last night, we got to see the Saw Doctors. It's been raining on and off here for the past few days -- something we've hardly seen all summer, but that seemed extremely appropriate for welcoming this Irish band, especially since it wasn't a violent, summer thunderstorm, like we usually get around here. No, it was a misty, not-really-raining-but-sort-of rain, exactly what one might expect to encounter in August in Ireland.

I'd never heard of the Saw Doctors until I read the description of them in the summer lineup for the concert series and decided they sounded just like the sort of band I like. Bob did some exploring online and told me he was sure I'd like them, so we made plans to go. That was, of course, before we knew it was going to be raining. But why should we let a little rain get in the way, especially since we have Gortex raincoats and nice big umbrellas?

We were not disappointed. What a fantastic band, the sort that you can tell are just having so much fun on stage. I loved all their songs and the way they encouraged audience participation (that's just so Irish, isn't it? I've never been to Ireland, but it seems to me that in every "Irish" pub I've ever been in, from Alexandria, VA to NYC to Boston, audience participation, when a band comes out to play, has always been a big part of the show). I also loved discovering that we have more than just Germans in this area. You should have seen all the Irish flags flying (of course, I later found out that people had come from places like Delaware and Philly to see them here, but still. In fact, one family had come all the way from NYC. He was Irish. His American wife has a sister living down here).

If one of the great things about living here is the Longs Park Summer Music Series, one of the great things about being married to Bob is that he is not the shrinking violet that I am. He likes to do things like, oh, meet the members of a band instead of worshiping them from afar (my standard means of dealing with talent that impresses me). He decided he wanted to wait backstage after the show to get them to sign the CD he had just bought. We patiently waited with maybe a dozen or so others, and our patience paid off.

Eventually Leo Moran (composer, guitarist, and singer) came out. He didn't just come out and sign CDs; he came out and hung around and chatted with those of us who stuck around (that would be two young men and Bob and me) for quite a while -- long enough for me to hear stories of huge moths flying onto one of his band mates during an outdoor concert, long enough to know that he'd like to live in Scandinavia for a winter, that he likes the four seasons (enjoyed our hot weather during the two weeks he was in the States on this tour), long enough to get his opinion on the Amish -- see? It was more than just a quick "hello." By this point, Davey Carton (composer, singer, and guitarist) had come out, and Bob had gone off to get his autograph, but I just stayed and chatted some more with Leo. It was just too much fun. I actually think that if he could have gotten the others in the band interested, he might have joined us for a beer at one of our local brew pubs.

All this is to say that my Music Monday song today is not a long-time favorite. It is a brand new favorite, one that was played last night and one that I found put to these beautiful photos of Ireland. Unfortunately, I can't get the YouTube video to embed and actually play (it will embed, but all you get is a lovely photo of a rainbow), so you will have to click on this link to hear "The Green and Red of Mayo." Looking at those photos, I am reminded yet again that if all the trees were suddenly to disappear from coastal Maine (God forbid), Maine would look an awful lot like those isles to our east. No wonder I love Maine so much.