Reading? Yes please!

My life has been divided between work and this coffee shop (here now). I don't know if it's the Saved by the Bell ambiance, but I've been bringing my reading here lots lately.

In my effort to rekindle my love for Chicago, my roommate Marty (check out his website, yes he writes comics, I know! He is a domestic-partner-dream-come-true-for-Juliet) recommended Nelson Algren's Chicago: City on the Make. As Marty summed up, it's his love poem for Chicago. For me, Algren is just another Beatnik I am falling in love with, at least with this work.

"It isn't hard to love a town for its greater and its lesser towers, its pleasant parks or its flashing ballet. Or for its broad and bending boulevards, where the continuous headlights follow, one dark driver after the next, one swift car after another, all night, all night and all night. But you never truly love it till you can love its alleys too. Where the bright and morning faces of old familiar friends now wear the anxious midnight eyes of strangers a long way from home."

I've also started reading a book of Harvey Pekar comics Marty has around the house. Most of the comics are about his own life. I can't say I'm a huge fan but I can't seem to put the book down. The stories don't really have a point (most comics don't right?) and are a little boring.

Cerebus II is collecting dust. Maybe it's under my bed, not sure.

So much for the summer of reading classics...more so a summer of comics.

Why I heart Al Burian

After not having internet for a few days (ok, that's a lie, but not at home where I can leisurely read all my food blogs, comics and such), I remembered this blog and how much I love Al Burian. Just wanted to share this entry with you. What do you think Caitlin? Is this guy full of shit or just an existentialist?

"Writing is easy, as Robert Pollard said. It really is. If you can formulate a coherent spoken sentence, the leap from that to transcription, assuming some basic literacy and a spell check program in your native language, is not such a great one. If that minimal exertion of energy is too much for you, you’re not going to make it in the arts generally—they all, by and large, demand some form of expenditure from you.

Generating the sentences is one thing, the bigger question (and the one that gets you stuck) is: what to do with the words? Writing for no audience seems tantamount to constructing a house of cards in your room, and then knocking it over without showing it to anyone. You might do that every once in a while, sure. But what if you begin to make a compulsive habit out of it? Two choices remain: either go quietly crazy, alone in your room, or confess to an interest in architecture and channel that energy in a more productive direction.

Processing of words, while less tangible a talent than balancing objects precariously on top of one another, does have some real-world application. You can sell your words for money. Unfortunately verbiage, unlike grain or dairy products, is a poorly subsidized industry, and so the market rates are low, a word being worth, on average, probably 5 – 10 cents. You can break this down further, trying to calculate whether long words or short ones will get you the best cent-to-letter ratio, but, as noted, these sorts of considerations tend to slow down, if not derail, your actual writing process.

Why write? The basic reason is communication: written language is an ancient solution to the human problem of needing to express ourselves in our full complexity. The bigger reason is influence: you get to express your philosophy through what you present and the way you frame it, through the dialogue you enter into with the reader, from the point of view you open to them. The propagandistic powers of writing were discovered early on: it’s no accident that all the major world religions are based on best-selling books, or that political speech writers can charge more than five cents for their words. Even in our globalized, free-for-all internet age, writers routinely go to jail for their dangerous vocabulary combinations. The power to influence- emotions, feelings, thoughts, opinions; to crack a joke from the grave, to make someone weep with a postcard-is what gives words their meaning and force, and this power is equally available to anyone. It’s just a question of stringing the words together in the most convincing order."

Al Burian 7.02.10 [ http://www.alburian.com/ ]

Vermont Book list.

Hi Everyone,

Sugar Plums (all 3 of you). So big news if you don't know already. I will be moving to Vermont in a month for a coffee internship for 3 months. The way I see it, I will be in a beautiful state, learning a SHIT TON about coffee in a way I've never learned before, working under one of my coffee heroes. This all has me thinking, I can't remember the last time I lived in a small town (oh yeah, my home town...that doesn't count!). I want to take advantage of this, and along with possibly taking up yoga (yeah, there's a studio close enough to walk to and that will be another adventure in itself), I want to put myself on a Vermont reading diet (not the right word I know)! Yes, I can finally admit that to people. Not including coffee books, I'm thinking I can finish 10 in that time (they are alluding to me that there will be lots of time to read in this town). SO! What I hope to do is take a couple from my own collection, a couple recommendations from friends and then at least one while in Vermont.

Of course there will be hikes to walk, Montreal to see (never been to Canada), good coffee to drink and drink and drink, good foods to eat! And depending on my funding, possible weekend trips to go to DC and Philly (for reals this time Laura). Wish me luck. And bring on the recommendations.