Nietzche

I know this is not news, but some people have some amazingly screwed up ideas about what Nietzsche was trying to say.  When I began reading The Birth of Tragedy and talked about it excitedly one day at work, a friend actually told me that it was important to "remember my values" and seemed genuinely worried that I might be converted or something.  Converted to what, I don't know.  Knowing this friend as I did, I can only assume that she was afraid reading Nietzsche would single-handedly alter my belief in a higher power.  I don't think I'm wrong in also assuming that she never read any of Nietzsche's books.

I am now nearing the end of the books I have and will have to search out the others.  After making it through The Birth of Tragedy, the Aphorisms, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, and The Case of Wagner, I can say that the first was my least favorite.  Maybe because it seems the least accessible and definitely requires a second (third, fourth?) examination.  After slowly devouring over 700 pages of Nietzsche, I can honestly say I'm excited to start all over again.  It's really not about what he thinks; it's about the things he gets me to think about.  The ultimate test to become any favorite of mine.

Favorite Quotes from Books

These quotes were all lovingly compiled, in an actual notebook, during 2008.  I decided not to buy any more books until I had the space for more bookshelves and needed a way to record favorite passages from the library books I checked out each week. 

Can a man who's warm understand one who's freezing?

A convict's thoughts are no freer than he is:  they come back to the same place, worry over the same thing continually.  Will they poke around in my mattress and find my bread ration?  Can I get off work if I report sick tonight?  Will the captain be put in the hold or won't he?  How did Tsezar get his hands on a warm vest?  Must have greased somebody's palm in the storeroom, what else? 

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1963)

There is no such thing as natural law: the expression is merely a hoary piece of stupidity well worthy of the Advocate-General who hunted me down the other day, and whose ancestor was made rich by one of Louis XIV's confiscations.  There is no law, save when there is a statute to prevent one from doing something, on pain of punishment.  Before the statute, there is nothing natural save the strength of the lion, or the wants of the creature who suffers from hunger, or cold; in a word, necessity... No, the men whom we honour are merely rascals who have had the good fortune not to be caught red-handed.  The accuser whom society sets at my heels has been made rich by a scandalous injustice.
Stendhal, The Red and the Black (1926)

Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside books.  Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books:  it is as if they spoke among themselves.  In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me.  It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers now to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (1980)

Above all, my dear - these minor matters are well within my scope, and I think I may stress the things I can be said to know about - be neither trivial, nor over-zealous, nor trusting - three great pitfalls!  Too many confidences diminish respect, triviality earns us contempt, zealousness makes us excellent targets for exploitation.  Besides, dear child, you will not have more than two or three friends in the course of your life, your entire trust is your gift to them.  Are you not betraying them if you give it to all and sundry?
Balzac, Lily of the Valley (1835)

The sun had moved; it was colder, and I stood up, pulled my jacket on and went down the path, walked home.  Like the time when.  Like the time.  Like.  There was no stopping it.  All the way down the path my head was full of the dried leaves I'd kicked into a mess.  There was no stopping it and there was no getting near it.  You say something's like something else, and all you've really said is that actually, because it's only like it, it's different.
Ali Smith, Like (1996)

Truth was that she'd never have that look of the people who participate in the society of the Nevers:  Never go to Europe.  Never buy a piece of property.  Never own a firsthand car.  Never sit by a nineteenth-century French writing desk at the Armory show, scribbling out checks without a single doubt.  Never sigh with confusion over the abundance of travel brochures that the agency had sent over to you, when you'd simply inquired about an interesting place to go for a quick rest.  Never receive a handwritten note of thanks from the maitre d' of a major restaurant complimenting you for your generosity over the past year.  Never eat in a fancy restaurant.  Never get seen by a doctor immediately.  Never go to a Broadway show.  Never stay in a decent hotel.  Never stop adding up the price of things.  Never stop saving your pennies.  Never dream of a retirement that brings more than the social security check.  Never forget about betting the long shots at the race track; never stop buying the lottery tickets, or playing the numbers.  Never sit for single moment after work and breathe a sigh of relief that the bad day you just had, with the floor manager threatening to fire you because your coffee break was too long, or because you did not let him take you in his office, would never happen again.  Never find that the everyday struggles of your life would fold over into some happy existence (outside of death).  Never make the society pages.  Or the newspapers unless you are murdered or rob a bank or become a famous baseball player or boxer.  Never understand how all this happened to you.  And:  even if things were to change, never lose the bitterness of the poor.
Oscar Hijuelos, Empress of the Splendid Season (1999)

"Because I don't want to remember," he answered.  "If I did, I might keep the future from happening by letting the past encroach upon it.  I create each hour's newness by forgetting yesterday completely.  Having been happy is never enough for me.  I don't believe in dead things.  What's the difference between no longer being happy and never having been?"
Andre Gide, The Immoralist (1902)

Yes, and was it not perhaps more childlike and human to lead a Goldmund-life, more courageous, more noble perhaps in the end to abandon oneself to the cruel stream of reality, to chaos, to commit sins and accept their bitter consequences rather than live a clean life with washed hands outside the world, laying out a lonely harmonious thought-garden, strolling sinlessly among one's sheltered flower beds.  Perhaps it was harder, braver and nobler to wander through forests and along the highways with torn shoes, to suffer sun and rain, hunger and need, to play with the joys of the senses and pay for them with suffering.
Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund (1930)

"Why not?  A Democrat by day and a Republican in my spare time.  By the way, how are you registered?"  Boz shrugged. "What difference does it make if you don't vote?"  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself."
Thomas Disch, 334 (1974)

Now a man appears on his own, he must be singing although his lips scarcely move, the caption gave the name Leonard Cohen, and the image looks fixedly at Raimundo Silva, the movements of his mouth articulate a question, why won't you listen to me, lonely man, no doubt adding, Listen to me while you can, before it's too late... Raimundo Silva bent over, turned on the sound, Leonard Cohen made a gesture as if to thank him, now he could sing, and sing he did, he sang of things only someone who has lived can sing of, and asks himself how much and for what, someone who has loved and asks himself who and why, and, having asked all these questions, he can find no answer, not one, contrary to the belief that all the answers are there and that all we have to do is to learn how to phrase our questions.
Jose Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1989)

That's the way it is when you love.  It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since.  But it matters little that you suffer, so long as you feel alive with a sense of the close bond that connects all living things, so long as love does not die!  I would gladly exchange every happy day in my life, all my infatuations and great plans, provided I could exchange them for gazing deeply once more into this most sacred experience.  It bitterly hurts your eyes and heart, and your pride and self-esteem don't get off scot-free either, but afterwards you feel so calm and serene, so much wiser and alive.
Hermann Hesse, Peter Camenzind (1953)

Tiffanie DeBartolo

I am totally obsessed with Tiffanie DeBartolo's novel God-Shaped Hole.  It makes me laugh, it makes me cry, and it inspires me to believe in love.  DeBartolo has a way with words.  I'm not saying that she's the next Kazuo Ishiguro or Jane Austen or Marcel Proust or William Faulkner (or whoever you might believe to write beautifully), but there are times when a sentence she's written will move me to tears.  Not because of the subject matter, but because of the way she has written it.

I'll try not to spoil you too much, but consider yourself warned.

God-Shaped Hole is fantastic.  And by fantastic, I mean both excellent and conceived by unrestrained imagination.  I wouldn't call the novel realistic; DeBartolo seems more interested in the feelings she can evoke in her readers.  I like this about it.

If I could, I would write exactly like Tiffanie DeBartolo.

I didn't know anything about Jeff Buckley the first time I read God-Shaped Hole, but after discovering his music and learning a bit about his life, the allusions to Buckley obviously permeate the novel.  Jacob's last name is Grace, his novel is entitled "Hallelujah," he yearns to live in Memphis...

The novel begins with a fortune-teller predicting great tragedy for our heroine, Trixie.  Instead of this being cheesy, DeBartolo sets a haunting tone:

When I was twelve, a fortune-teller told me that my one true love would die young and leave me all alone. 

Everyone said she was a fraud, that she was just making it up.

I'd really like to know why the hell a person would make up something like that.
...

Back at our table, my family was reeling from my predicted future.  They had petty lives and thus found my fated misforture hilarious.  I was greatly distressed.  It was 1984.  That year, my true love was John Taylor from Duran Duran.  He played bass and wore eyeliner.  I was sure he'd be dead by morning.

He survived.

In addition to using the fortune-teller's prediction to set the stage for her novel, DeBartolo also uses another (modern) romance classic: the personal ad.  However, Jacob's is unlike any other personal ad, and this novel is unlike any other romance.

Trixie, now 27 (incidentally, my age now), meets Jacob and is instantly attracted.  Not only because he is in fact attractive, but because his eyes tell her that he gets it.  That he is also an outsider looking in on life but has found a certain contentment in being on the outside.  He stares at her, tells her she's beautiful, then says, "You kind of have, I don't know, the face of a Henry James heroine."  He isn't trying to be flattering, he's just telling her what he genuinely sees.  Can you imagine someone actually saying something like that?  I can't, but I would die on the spot if it ever happened to me.  Then Trixie blushes, just as I would have.

The love story that follows is perfect in its complexity, its problems, its EPICness.  I'm not sure whether it's a good thing that I'm given hope of a person out there who might really get me, or whether it will just add to my unrealistic expectations and make it harder to let someone in.  I don't know.

"I suddenly thought my life was perfect.  Or, at least, more perfect than it had ever been.  It was as if all the melancholy I'd ever known, all the nights I sat alone thinking life sucked, had added up to our place in the world - finally a good place - and the spirit of that rightness was meant to echo on until the end of time.  In one fleeting moment I believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jacob was going to sell his book someday, and that we were going to break free from whatever it really was that held us back.  It had to happen.  It was part of the order of things.  It was the way the universe was supposed to work."

On the titular God-shaped hole:

I asked Jacob if he believed in God. ...

"Not in the traditional sense," he said. "I was raised with a belief in God.  My mother's Catholic.  But I saw through the billshit of organized religion by the time I was old enough to piss standing up.  I think we are God.  We all have that inside of us.  And I believe we go on after we've turned to dusts.  Our souls, I mean."

"I wish I believed that.  To me, it's highly improbable.  In my soul, there's just a big hold where God's supposed to be."

"That has nothing to do with God.  The hole, that is.  Everyone feels that void.  Everyone who has the balls to look inside themselves, anyway.  It's what life's all about."

"What?"

"A search.  We're all searching for something to fill up what I like to call that big, God-shaped hold in our souls.  Some people use alcohol, or sex, or their children, or food, or money, or heroin.  A lot of people even use the concept of God itself.  I could go on and on.  I used to know a girl who used shoes.  She had over two-hundred pairs.  But it's all the same thing, really.  People, for some stupid reason, think they can escape their sorrows."

When Jacob tells Trixie why he loves her, my heart melts.  Completely melts.

He shook his head.  "You underestimate yourself.  I know you think you hide so much, but I can see right through you."

He could.  He was the only one.

"That's why I love you," he said.  "You try and act so though, you think you're so damn hopeless and godless and faithless, but you don't fool me.  People without hope aren't tormented by the world the way you are.  People without hope don't give a shit.  But I see it in you, in the way you look at things, even in the way you look at me sometimes, like I'm the coolest fucking guy in the universe, and I know it's in there.  Reverence.  Belief.  Something. You have a lot more faith than you own up to.  You just don't want to be let down.  But I'm not going to let you down again.  Not if I can help it."

I don't think I can really say anything more about it.

If your intentions are pure

I'm seeking a friend

for the end

of the world.

Thoughts are king.

Music admired in God-Shaped Hole:

Duran Duran

Chris Cornell, "Preaching the End of the World"

Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks

The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street

U2

Prince

Fugazi

Nick Drake, Five Leaves Left

Miles Davis, Seven Steps to Heaven

Pete Townsend ("No one respects the flame quite like the fool who's badly burned.")

Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle"

Rambo

Rambo is probably my favorite 80's action movie character.  He has it all.  A haunted past, the ability to make funny quips while in life-threatening situations, a big knife.  What more could a girl want?  [I'm assuming that you've seen all three movies*; if you haven't there are definitely some spoilers to follow.]

First Blood (1982) ... oh how I love thee, let me count the ways...

1. First Blood has some of the best ridiculously awesome movie lines ever, only surpassed by Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III, and most are between Colonel Trautman and Will Teasle.

Teasle: Are you telling me that 200 of our men against your boy is a no-win situation for us?
Trautman: You send that many, don't forget one thing.
Teasle: What?
Trautman: A good supply of body bags.

Trautman: I don't think you understand. I didn't come to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him.
Teasle: Well, we all appreciate your concern Colonel, I will try to be extra careful!
Trautman: I'm just amazed he allowed any of your posse to live.
Teasle: Is that right?
Trautman: Strictly speaking, he slipped up. You're lucky to be breathing.
Teasle: That's just great. Colonel, you came out here to find out why one of your machines blew a gasket!
Trautman: You don't seem to want to accept the fact you're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare, with a man who's the best, with guns, with knives, with his bare hands. A man who's been trained to ignore pain, ignore weather, to live off the land, to eat things that would make a billy goat puke. In Vietnam his job was to dispose of enemy personnel. To kill! Period! Win by attrition. Well Rambo was the best.

Teasle: They found Rambo's body. As a matter of fact, it stole an army truck. Blew up a gas station the other side of town.
Trautman: The kid is resiliant.

2. Booby traps.  I LOVED the idea of booby traps as a kid.  I would always try to set up traps for my little sister.  It's a very good thing my "traps" weren't as effective as Rambo's.

3. I am always way too happy when Art Galt falls to his death.  And then I always cry when Rambo is blamed.  I hate injustice.

4. I am obessed with the whole, "Oh my gosh!  I thought he was dead!  Oh, wait... I completely underestimated him and now he's kicking my ass!!" thing.  Awesome.

5.  Rambo spares the villain's life.  Because he really is a kind, good-hearted person... just with a HUGE f'ing knife. 

Rambo:  First Blood Part II (1985) - Lame title, EPIC movie!

I am such a sucker for a sequel.  I love so much about this movie.  Maybe it doesn't have the strongest plot, or the best acting, but I don't mind.  It has too many awesome moments to make it a "bad" movie.

Can I also mention that this was movie happened to be on when I had my very first kiss.  Awww... the movie was better.

1. Rambo shows off his superior memory by knowing EXACTLY where the 2nd battalion 3rd Marines were in '66, and perfectly predicts Murdock's "I don't give a shit about the war or the POWs" attitude.

2. Rambo gives the BEST ANSWER EVER to the typical "Say this over the radio or I will continue painfully torturing you" request.  It wasn't so much what he says but how he says it. 

3. One of the best scenes ever.  The acting (or lack there of), the sound effects, the action.  It seems terribly old-fashioned next to a similar type of scene in one of the Bourne movies, but it also seems much more emotional.  "I'm comin' to get you!"

4. Awww.  Rambo falls in love. ("What means expendable?"  It means you are a terrible actress.)  And then she dies.  Awww.  Anyone who's ever watched Bonanza (and really, if you haven't, I feel sorry for you... BONAAANZAAA!) knows that the moment the girl wins our hero's heart, she's doomed.  I prefer it this way.  I'm not sure what that says about me as a person. 

5. The helicopter/anti-tank weapon scene.  Hello!!!  EPIC.  If you thought the "guess what I'm not dead and I'm here to kick your ass" thing was awesome in First Blood, it has been perfected in Rambo: First Blood Part II.  "Ha! Ha! Ha!  I am a Soviet Commander, and I have beaten you.  Now I will kill you because you are down and defenseless.  Ha! Ha! Ha! ... WTF?!?"  BOOM! 

Rambo III (1988) - I really feel like this movie gets a bum rap (what does that even mean?), but it has some truly fabulous movie moments as well.  Just remember, Rambo's NO tourist and it's his war now.  And he has blue glow sticks.  [This means, "You are all in deep shit."]

I wouldn't dream of getting into a discussion about politics or war, but this movie does make one think.  What happens when you arm one group in order to defeat another, then abandon first group when it's no longer advantageous for you to defeat second group?  I so don't see this movie as in any way "pro-Taliban" and think those that do are just too stupid to understand Rambo III (and that's saying something).

1. Rambo is now living like a monk.  A monk that stick fights to pay the bills.  This alone is pretty awesome.  I guess "day by day" means "as a stick-fighting monk."

2. Who doesn't love that "Your buddy was on a secret mission for the US and now we've abandoned him.  Either you go after him alone (of course we'll give you some awesome weapons) or we leave him to rot." dilemma?  I do!  And so does Chuck Norris!  What choice does Rambo really have?  Trautman is the only one Rambo trusts.  And he'd clearly do anything for him.  Now that's love.  [Take that, Co-Bao!]

3. Rambo applied first aid, to himself, with gun powder.  I'm skeptical that this could ever really work, but it takes serious balls to try it!

4. Best "we're totally f'ed" quip ever:

[Rambo and Colonel Trautman stand alone facing an enemy army]
Colonel Trautman: What do we do?
Rambo: Well, surrounding them's out of the question...

5. At its time, Rambo III was deemed by Guiness World Records to be the most violent film ever made.  I knew I loved it for a reason.  With 221 acts of violence, at least 70 explosions, and over 108 characters killed on-screen, just thinking about it makes me want to watch it again.  Call me a hypocrite if you like, but even though I can't stand "real" violence (I can't even watch more "realistic" violence like in boxing movies), I love some good on-screen action.  I am, however, totally creeped out by this site.

*Rambo (AKA Rambo IV) does not exist in my universe.  I watched it; it had entertaining moments.  But it was not RAMBO.

Michael Waltrip

The story of my obsession with NASCAR, and with Michael Waltrip in particular, is a bit of a sad one.  I didn't become a fan of racing until 2001.  Many might call me a bandwagon fan.  I don't mind.  I had recently moved to Tuscaloosa, and my roommate's family were big NASCAR fans.  They happened to be watching the race one Sunday, and I started rooting for the "Budweiser" car.  I didn't know or care at first who drove it; I just happened to love Budweiser at the time.  I really enjoyed the race, and, true to form, I began watching the 2001 races from the beginning.  From Daytona. 

The tragedy of Dale Earnhardt's death during the 2001 Daytona 500 was lost on me on that President's Day weekend in February.  At the time, I didn't even know who he was.  I was at the beach.  When my more NASCAR-knowledgeable friends told me "he's the one in the commercials," I pictured Jeff Gordon and thought he had died (I didn't know who Jeff Gordon was either, but he was the only racer I could remember seeing on TV).  Later, when I watched the race with a little bit of background, I was devestated.  Not so much because of Dale Earnhardt's death (it wasn't so much of a shock six months after the fact), but because of Mikey's heartbreaking win.  Even thinking about it now takes me to a really sad place.

I stayed a Dale Jr. fan throughout the 2001 season (like I said, I liked Budweiser).  I'd always rooted for Micheal too, but Jr. was "my" driver for that first year and is really responsible for getting me interested in NASCAR.  Not surprisingly, it wasn't long before his attitude and racing style rubbed (technical racing term*) me the wrong way.  I happen to have handy my super-dorky diary entry from the day Mikey became my new driver:

"Thursday, March 21st, 2002 - I am becoming more and more of a huge Michael Waltrip fan.  He is so great.  Inside Winston Cup is like the funniest show ever.  Mikey is hilarious.  Plus:  His wife's name is Buffy - how much cooler can you get!  He just seems like a really nice guy.  Plus he drives his Aaron's Chevy in the Busch series.  That gives me someone to cheer for both days!"

[Reading through my thoughts on all of the races is too funny.  I may have to do a "2002 season recap through the eyes of a nerdy agoraphobic coed" post sometime soon.]

From that point on, I was a Michael Waltrip fan all the way.  I put a big white "15" sticker in the middle of my rear window and small round "15" sticker on the windshield.  I didn't like the saying on the Alabama license plates ("Stars Fell on Alabama" - long story), so my dad covered it up with a piece of tape reading "GO MIKEY #15".  This was probably some kind of motor vehicle violation, but I didn't care.  I loved Mikey so much I was willing to risk jail!  Now that's dedication.  My mom got me an (almost) lifesize cardboard standup of Michael.  [It currently lives under my old bed in Selma.]  I watched all of his TV shows, all of the Busch and Winston cup races, constantly checked for updates online, and traveled to North Carolina to visit his race shop.  Like I said, obsessed. 

I won't bore you with his entire life story, and I won't get into the personal side of things here, but I do think some background on my guy is necessary...

Michael began his Cup career in 1985 and made it through the next 15 years with only an All-Star Race Cup win (which isn't part of the regular season and doesn't count towards a driver's points).  He got his big break in 2000, when friend Earnhardt started his own team and chose Mikey to drive for him in the 2001 season.  It had always been said that if only Micheal could get on a good team, he'd win.  This proved immediately true.  But what should have been one of the happiest days of his life turned into the worst.  I still have a hard time seeing that image of Kenny Schrader telling Michael that his friend is gone.  I can't imagine how he handled it as well as he did.  He was so strong for the entire NASCAR community.

Mikey won me over throughout the 2001 and 2002 seasons with his goofy personality, his driving style, his support of his friends, and his competitive spirit.  Even though he wasn't always leading the pack, I would watch every race just to see his name scroll across the top (whether in 1st place or 35th place).  The next few seasons, I was still a fan, but I didn't follow each race like it was the most important event in the world.  Why? Maybe because in August of 2003 I was somehow coerced into making friends, going out to parties, and becoming involved in the world around me.  I don't know, but I was less the rabid fan and more the casual observer.  Over the next few years, I would catch the ocassional race and still cheer for Mikey, but it wasn't the same.  The sport wasn't the same, either.

Dale Earnhardt's death changed the sport in many, many positive ways.  I also believe it brought in new viewers intrigued by the tragedy and danger.  NASCAR began changing dramatically.  More fans, more money, more commercials.  More rules.  For whatever reason, things became strained at DEI.  Michael was let go.  Kurt Busch started winning way too much.  [You know that question: "Who would you want to be sitting next to on a plane you knew was about to crash?"  If I limit myself to NASCAR racers, Kurt Busch would be the answer.  If I'm going, I'm taking him with me.  Wow.  That is so mean, even for me.  I at least want to punch him in the face.]  I just lost interest in my fantasy world.

Now that Michael is talking retirement from racing and has taken on the role of team owner with renewed vigor, I'm starting to watch again.  NASCAR's new tagline "Lettin' them race!" might be a bit of a gimmick, but I like it.  Some of my old favorites are still racing, and some are actually doing well.  I don't think I can ever go back to my full-time obsession with NASCAR and Michael Waltrip, but I'm ready to become a loyal and regular fan again.  This time around, I may even be able to attend a race...



* Let Harry educate you...

Harry Hogge: Cole, you're wandering all over the track!
Cole Trickle: Yeah, well this son of a bitch just slammed into me.
Harry Hogge: No, no, he didn't slam you, he didn't bump you, he didn't nudge you... he rubbed you. And rubbin, son, is racin'.

Veronica Mars

To be honest, I fought this one at first.  My parents actually liked VM long before I understood it.  I watched Kristen Bell perform "Fame" at the 2005 Emmy awards and all I thought at the time was who is this chick?  I was totally, like, over stupid teen shows. The OC was dead to me.  One Tree Hill, please.  So over.

Then I saw the light.  Veronica Mars IS different.  It's not a "teen" show.  It just happens to feature teenagers.

I can't remember the exact day or time or how it happened, but I finally watched the pilot episode around the same time Season 2 was getting underway.  I think I may have seen part of an episode at my parents' house, thought it was cute, and decided to check out the first season.  LIFE CHANGING.

If you haven't seen the series, it is definitely worth Netflixing the DVDs.  The show was only on for three seasons, and it didn't really get better with age.  But even though S2 and S3 weren't as good as S1, they're still a helluva lot better that most TV.  And S1 is EPIC.  I mean, seriously EPIC. 

The pilot episode is a work of art.  It should be studied in film school or something.  The only way it could have been better is if the show had actually been picked up by HBO.  I read the original script geared toward a more adult audience, and I can guarantee the show would have been un-f'ing-believable.  Imagine how much edgier the show could have been...  Even with the CW network, I was amazed at what they got away with doing.  They were allowed to say and do things that would NOT have flown on BtVS.  But VM was always clever and almost never crass.

Love you VM!

I'll leave you with a few of a my favorite uncomfortable Veronica and Dad moments [dads and 16-year-old daughters should not be allowed to banter like this, but it's fun!]...

Keith: You don't go to the Oceanside bars that the college kids hang out at, do you?
Veronica: I prefer the biker bar by the train station. I get more attention there.

Keith: So how was your date?
Veronica: Oh, you know. Lousy conversation, but the sex was fantastic!
Keith: That's not funny.
Veronica: I don't know. I'm pretty sure it was.

Keith: So, senior year. How was your first day at school honey?
Veronica: Great! I beat up a freshman, stole his lunch money and then skipped out after lunch.
Keith: What, no pre-marital sex?
Veronica: Oh, yea... yes. But don't worry dad, I swear you're gonna like these guys.
Keith: That's my girl.

Prostitute: Is Keith here?
Veronica: Dad... your hooker's here.
Keith: Escort, honey... So why don´t you go to your room and do your... blog or whatever you kids do.

Scandinavian Authors

I love reading books written in other languages* and set in far off places. They're more challenging to read because many of the expressions, words, places, and cultures are so unfamiliar. I can't really pinpoint why, but books written by Scandinavian authors are especially captivating. For my purposes, "Scandinavia" would include Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland.

ICELAND: My Scandinavian journey began by reading everything I could find by Halldor Laxness, winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature, after discovering Independent People (at the Aurora library of all places - this is still shocking to me). Bjarter, Reverend Gudmunder, "little" Asta Sollilja... amazing characters making sheep farming in Iceland fascinating. How heartbreaking are the consequences of Asta's choices? Tear.

"When a man looks at a flowering plant growing slender and helpless up in the wilderness among a hundred thousand stones, and he has found this plant only by chance, then he asks: Why is it that life is always trying to burst forth? Should one pull up this plant and use it to clean one's pipe? No, for this plant also broods over the limitation and the unlimitation of all life, and lives in love of the good beyond these hundred thousand stones, like you and me; water it with care, but do not uproot it, maybe it is little Asta Sollilja."

Who would have thought I would love a book about SHEEP. Okay, so it's not really about sheep, but it does talk about them A LOT. I can't say that Halldor's books make me want to visit Iceland. For one thing, it sounds very cold. Although Denver is way too hot for me in the summer, I don't think I'm ready for ICELAND.

NORWAY: A few years ago, I read Shyness & Dignity by Dag Solstad and LOVED it. Although I think S&D could have been written about anyone at their wit's end in any country, it did make me want to read other Norwegian authors. My favorite passage:

"He had pressed the button that would cause the umbrella to open automatically, but nothing happened. Not that, too, he thought, indignant. He gave it a third try, but with no success. Then he tried to force the umbrella open with his hands, but that didn't help either; the umbrella resisted, so that he just barely managed to make it spread out, and even that cost him a great effort. Then he couldn't contain himself."

I feel like that all the time. Like if ONE MORE THING goes wrong, I will just lose it. I also love that this book is written in such an unusual style; it's not your typical one-day-in-the-life-of book.

It wasn't until I recently started reading Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole books that I really became interested in Norway as a country. The way he describes the streets, the pubs, the people... it just sounds like a place I'd really like. Although this passage from The Redbreast does not exactly make me want to pack my bags:

"The first spring offensive came late. It wasn't until the end of March that the gutters began to gurgle and flow. By April all the snow had disappeared as far as Sognsvann. But then the spring had to retreat again. The snow came swirling down and lay in huge drifts, even in the centre of town, and weeks passed before the sun melted it again."

Maybe not one of my favorite books ever, but I completely enjoyed it, ran out and bought Nemesis, and can't wait to get the next one. Also, could someone who understands Norwegian please translate the first two books and send them to me. Please? WTF (Don Bartlett) is up with translating the 3rd and 4th books in the series and not the first two. What is wrong with you people? I had to make an exception to my absolute rule of starting from the beginning of a series (of books, of a television show, of a blog, of ANYTHING). I cannot stand to jump into something in the middle. It is cheating. Plus you miss all of the inside jokes, and inside jokes are the BEST THING EVER (miss you BtVS).

SWEDEN: I am completely obsessed with Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You can call me unsophisticated if you want to, and I do love a good "classic", but this book is CRAZY GOOD. It's dark, and it's funny, and it's disturbing, but it's CRAZY GOOD. Got it? Good. Now go out and buy it immediately. It's the first of a trilogy finished just before Larsson's untimely death.

[A messy legal battle is currently going on over his estate, and it sounds to me (and I think everyone else) like his long time partner Eva is getting royally screwed - both by Sweden's intestate laws and the fact that they never married because of Sweden's requirement that they make public their address (I think Larsson probably wanted to avoid angry Neo-Nazis showing up on his doorstep).]

Anywaaaaay, this book is amazing. So is The Girl Who Played with Fire. I can't wait for the The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - why, why, why do books come out first in the UK and take forever to be released in the US. What is up with that?  Although I know that these books would be great even if they weren't set in Sweden, they certainly wouldn't be as interesting to me. And, can I just say that Lisbeth Sander is EPIC. She is so badass, and then people keep breaking her little already-broken heart again and again and again. She is who I am most excited to see again in the new book. I really hope it does her justice.

DENMARK: Peter Hoeg's book Smilla's Sense of Snow was made into a pretty good film starring Julia Ormond (I Know Who Killed Me? With LiLo? Seriously?), but the book was hugely different in my opinion. I didn't read it until after I became obsessed with Scandinavian authors. I would NEVER have picked up this book on it's own due to its terrible cover. I realize that very good books can have poorly designed covers (and many do), but I won't buy a book unless I find its cover aesthetically pleasing (I might still buy it on Kindle or something but it wouldn't be sitting on my bookshelf).

Again with the cold (I suppose I will have to get used to that if I want to continue to read books set in Scandinavia or, even colder, Greenland) and snow, but the snow is such a major part of this story (obvz) that it really becomes a major character. Kind of like the sheep in Independent People. The parts of the book set in Greenland might have been set on the moon they were so foreign to me (love that!).

I have The Quiet Girl and plan to start reading it as soon as I finish Lisa See's Flower Net**, but I've heard it's very different from SSoS. I'll report back and let you know what I think.

FINLAND: Unfortunately, I haven't read any books by Finnish authors. At least I don't think that I have. Finland is home to at least one recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, so you know I'll check that out eventually. My OBSESSION with reading at least one work of every Nobel Prize winner will have to wait for another post...

*Ummm... once they're translated into English obvz. I can't actually read anything written in another language. I have very limited Spanish skills (thanks a helluva lot, 10th grade Spanish teacher!), but that's about it. I may need to take a few Norwegian classes before I, like, totally move there.
**Although very good so far and set partially in China, the author is American and writes in English.

In My Secret Life

First post of my new and improved blog. Yay! I'm jumping headlong (what does that even mean?) into this new project in order to give my friends, roomies, and parentals some relief. I think they're a wee bit tired of hearing hours of commentary on my obsession de jour.

I think I'm a pretty typical kid* - I like tv shows (though I only watch them on DVD or streaming video), books, music, movies, volunteering, blogs, DIET COKE (in caps because of the importance it has in my life, obvz), "wine and beer!", fashion, and office supplies. Some would say my tastes are a little off kilter, but I would say there is no such thing as normal.

I plan to use this blog to rant and rave to my heart's content about whatever catches my fancy. If anyone else finds it interesting to read all the better, but I'm writing for my own benefit.

Next post: Scandinavian Authors

*and by "kid" I mean a 27-year-old woman with a high-stress job, loads of student loan debt, a penchant for drinking delicious (cheap) bottles of savignon blanc, and a somewhat distorted sense of financial responsibility.