R.T. Payne's Blog
April 23, 2016
To W.S.
Four centuries have passed, five decades flew
And every year a brave new fashion flies
And every day a writer tries anew
To kindle light in cold, word-jaded eyes.
But no mere centuries can kill your grace
Or chill your characters, vibrant and warm
You lived enamoured of your muse's face
And faithful to your sonnet's lovely form.
You danced with love on light iambic feet
You fought in verses bright as ringing swords
Tragic your crown, yet crowned with laughter, sweet
Sovereign of every realm that verse affords.
And when the earth that swallowed you has swallowed me
Will -- still beloved of your poor subjects be.
And every year a brave new fashion flies
And every day a writer tries anew
To kindle light in cold, word-jaded eyes.
But no mere centuries can kill your grace
Or chill your characters, vibrant and warm
You lived enamoured of your muse's face
And faithful to your sonnet's lovely form.
You danced with love on light iambic feet
You fought in verses bright as ringing swords
Tragic your crown, yet crowned with laughter, sweet
Sovereign of every realm that verse affords.
And when the earth that swallowed you has swallowed me
Will -- still beloved of your poor subjects be.
December 20, 2015
We Insist You Have A Merry Christmas
As Christmas bears down on me like a merciless juggernaut whose dominance I must celebrate or risk being labeled a Grinch, I can’t help thinking it’s not just a question of attitude.
I do try repeating the usual mantras: “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” “Take time to appreciate what you have,” “Remember the reason for the season,” etc. And they help, sort of. But there are reasons I have to cajole myself into the holiday spirit, and these reasons are woven so deeply into the fabric of Christmas that it’s hard for one not very powerful person to unravel them.
First and foremost: bemoaning the materialism of the modern Christmas does absolutely nothing to change the fact that it’s all about Stuff. That in itself is almost guaranteed to trigger resentment in most adults. Stuff dominates our lives to a barely tolerable degree most of the year already; the second sleigh bells start to ring, it slides into intolerable territory. Here’s the Stuff Progression you go through when you’re the woman of the household living with four people in a tiny, closet-less, garage-less beachhouse:
1. Realize, at least six weeks in advance, that you’ll need to organize and get rid of Everyday Stuff to make room for Holiday Decoration Stuff and Present Stuff.
2. Make attempts -- some sustained, some sporadic -- to deal with the Everyday Stuff.
3. Wake up one morning less than a week before Christmas and realize that, despite your best efforts, the house looks like the Stuff Monster visited in the night and vomited all over your living space.
4. Ruthlessly pack away and give away as much Everyday Stuff as possible, incurring the wrath of spouse and children in the process.
5. Break out several bins of Holiday Decoration Stuff. Haul in a tree and find a way to incorporate it into your crowded living room. Decorate, find somewhere to put the bins, now filled with the Everyday Stuff the Holiday Decoration Stuff displaced.
6. Achieve a Fragile Truce in which the Everyday Stuff is at a level that doesn’t interfere with the Holiday Decoration Stuff and you are allowed a brief moment of relaxation and gloating.
7. Quickly invite people over, to give them the impression that the Fragile Truce state is how you live all the time.
8. Watch your extended family arrive and overwhelm the Fragile Truce with bags and boxes of More Stuff: coats, presents, appetizers, diaper bags...
9. Enjoy a brief, happy frenzy as your kids open bags and boxes of More Stuff.
10. Clean up the Packaging Stuff. Wearily attempt to assimilate More Stuff into your already-at-capacity household.
11. Bring out the bins. Replace the Holiday Decoration Stuff with Everyday Stuff. Pack another box or two of Giveaway Stuff.
12. Finally reach a semi-tolerable equilibrium. Ask yourself: “Where the #@$! was the ‘holiday’ in all that?”
My husband’s family used to celebrate Christmas Eve in his aunt’s enormous Victorian house. But she sold it, and this year for the first time we celebrated a week early at the Lawn Tennis Club, which is a lot like an empty house that you bring all your stuff into, decorate, have your party, clean up, and leave. Though it was a considerable amount of work -- especially the cleanup -- there is much to be said for this system. Decorating a nearly-empty house is way more fun than attempting to balance a poinsettia on a stack of kids’ school projects and shoehorn ornaments into a cluttered living room. During the party you can flip through a small photo album featuring Lawn Tennis Champions, 1930-1970 -- and is that really so different from perusing an album full of dead people that happened to be ancestral to your husband’s family? Working in a giant kitchen, where every surface is spotless and empty and the cupboards are filled with stacks of plates and wine glasses lined up in military rows -- well, that’s just a delight. Possibly best of all, there’s a giant empty room where the kids can run around, whacking each other with their new Light Sabers and shrieking.
On the wishlist for next Christmas: talk my four siblings into chipping in on a Christmas House. It doesn’t have to be fancy or glamorously located. It just needs a good-sized kitchen, a couple of big rooms to gather in, and a closet to hold all the holiday decorations so we don’t have to keep them in our own closets. We’ll meet there on Christmas Day and book the surrounding weekends for get-togethers with our in-law families, friends, and co-workers. When the parties are over, we’ll clean up and go back to our own undisrupted households. And while you’re at it, Santa, (to misquote the great Bill Watterson) I’d like a pony.
I do try repeating the usual mantras: “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” “Take time to appreciate what you have,” “Remember the reason for the season,” etc. And they help, sort of. But there are reasons I have to cajole myself into the holiday spirit, and these reasons are woven so deeply into the fabric of Christmas that it’s hard for one not very powerful person to unravel them.
First and foremost: bemoaning the materialism of the modern Christmas does absolutely nothing to change the fact that it’s all about Stuff. That in itself is almost guaranteed to trigger resentment in most adults. Stuff dominates our lives to a barely tolerable degree most of the year already; the second sleigh bells start to ring, it slides into intolerable territory. Here’s the Stuff Progression you go through when you’re the woman of the household living with four people in a tiny, closet-less, garage-less beachhouse:
1. Realize, at least six weeks in advance, that you’ll need to organize and get rid of Everyday Stuff to make room for Holiday Decoration Stuff and Present Stuff.
2. Make attempts -- some sustained, some sporadic -- to deal with the Everyday Stuff.
3. Wake up one morning less than a week before Christmas and realize that, despite your best efforts, the house looks like the Stuff Monster visited in the night and vomited all over your living space.
4. Ruthlessly pack away and give away as much Everyday Stuff as possible, incurring the wrath of spouse and children in the process.
5. Break out several bins of Holiday Decoration Stuff. Haul in a tree and find a way to incorporate it into your crowded living room. Decorate, find somewhere to put the bins, now filled with the Everyday Stuff the Holiday Decoration Stuff displaced.
6. Achieve a Fragile Truce in which the Everyday Stuff is at a level that doesn’t interfere with the Holiday Decoration Stuff and you are allowed a brief moment of relaxation and gloating.
7. Quickly invite people over, to give them the impression that the Fragile Truce state is how you live all the time.
8. Watch your extended family arrive and overwhelm the Fragile Truce with bags and boxes of More Stuff: coats, presents, appetizers, diaper bags...
9. Enjoy a brief, happy frenzy as your kids open bags and boxes of More Stuff.
10. Clean up the Packaging Stuff. Wearily attempt to assimilate More Stuff into your already-at-capacity household.
11. Bring out the bins. Replace the Holiday Decoration Stuff with Everyday Stuff. Pack another box or two of Giveaway Stuff.
12. Finally reach a semi-tolerable equilibrium. Ask yourself: “Where the #@$! was the ‘holiday’ in all that?”
My husband’s family used to celebrate Christmas Eve in his aunt’s enormous Victorian house. But she sold it, and this year for the first time we celebrated a week early at the Lawn Tennis Club, which is a lot like an empty house that you bring all your stuff into, decorate, have your party, clean up, and leave. Though it was a considerable amount of work -- especially the cleanup -- there is much to be said for this system. Decorating a nearly-empty house is way more fun than attempting to balance a poinsettia on a stack of kids’ school projects and shoehorn ornaments into a cluttered living room. During the party you can flip through a small photo album featuring Lawn Tennis Champions, 1930-1970 -- and is that really so different from perusing an album full of dead people that happened to be ancestral to your husband’s family? Working in a giant kitchen, where every surface is spotless and empty and the cupboards are filled with stacks of plates and wine glasses lined up in military rows -- well, that’s just a delight. Possibly best of all, there’s a giant empty room where the kids can run around, whacking each other with their new Light Sabers and shrieking.
On the wishlist for next Christmas: talk my four siblings into chipping in on a Christmas House. It doesn’t have to be fancy or glamorously located. It just needs a good-sized kitchen, a couple of big rooms to gather in, and a closet to hold all the holiday decorations so we don’t have to keep them in our own closets. We’ll meet there on Christmas Day and book the surrounding weekends for get-togethers with our in-law families, friends, and co-workers. When the parties are over, we’ll clean up and go back to our own undisrupted households. And while you’re at it, Santa, (to misquote the great Bill Watterson) I’d like a pony.
December 19, 2015
Star Wars Review (Spoiler Alert)
As I watched the new Star Wars movie last night, I realized two things:
1. The inevitability of certain plot decisions.
2. This one was made for us -- for me and my generation, and for our parents -- and only secondarily for our kids.
It was strangely touching to see all the old actors out there reprising their breakthrough roles. And cheering, too, in a medium that ditches James Bonds (never mind Bond girls) when they start to get wrinkly because they assume youth and beauty are all anyone cares about. But this film’s job was to win back the audience, and bringing back Han Solo and Princess Leia cut through all the angst over the last three movies to make that instantaneous connection.
Most of the time I don’t care whether I see movies in theaters or on Netflix -- in fact I prefer Netflix because it’s cheaper -- but this time the audience was an integral part of the experience. You participated in the small collective sigh that went up when they rediscovered the Millennium Falcon, you laughed when Dark Helmet 2.0 threw a light saber temper tantrum and a group of Stormtroopers turned and trotted off, backs to the camera so you could picture them shielding their balls from Helmet’s unscrupulous use of the Schwartz, and the guy sitting behind you deadpanned a line from “Spaceballs.”
And as you watched an elderly Han Solo bluster his way out of impossible odds your younger self sat beside you, and you didn’t even have to turn away from the screen to watch the expressions flicker across her face, remembering the scenes that called them up: the joy as the ship lurches sideways to escape a firefight and the grip of gravity, the horror as young Solo’s face is frozen in a painful grimace, the rapt attention you gave to every scene before such scenes became commonplace or cliche. Maybe no film will ever again offer that soaring sense of horizons flung wide as the universe; maybe no future audience will get to experience that particular exhilaration. (Until Hollywood stops with the constant remakes and starts searching for untapped genres, anyway.) But the skillful interweaving of past and present, both the characters’ and the audiences’, to recapture those feelings in the people who were children or young adults when Star Wars came out and have aged in tandem with the original characters, is in itself an impressive achievement. You can’t help but wonder: have we finally reached that “soon,” when “then” is “now?”
<spoiler>Spoiler Alert</spoiler>
And now to the inevitabilities of plot.
Two things are obvious in retrospect. First, the long, unintended shadow that Harrison Ford’s larger-than-life Han Solo cast over the franchise had to be dealt with before a new generation could rise up and claim the lead roles. Because of that shadow you can’t relegate Han to Master Yoda advisor status, however desirable that option might appear. Second, and even more obvious, you can’t send him off to die in a nursing home.
So, viewers can absolutely quibble over the details. (Did it really have to be Han’s son? Did the pairing of Princess Leia and Han Solo’s magnificent chromosomes really have to produce such a goober?) But it’s pointless to protest Han’s death. It was the work this movie had to accomplish so the story could move forward.
What comes next? Who knows? Does it matter? Whatever it is, this movie has provided the catharsis we needed to receive it -- with minds as free from specific expectations, impossible demands, and good old fashioned judginess as the minds of Star Wars fans ever can be.
1. The inevitability of certain plot decisions.
2. This one was made for us -- for me and my generation, and for our parents -- and only secondarily for our kids.
It was strangely touching to see all the old actors out there reprising their breakthrough roles. And cheering, too, in a medium that ditches James Bonds (never mind Bond girls) when they start to get wrinkly because they assume youth and beauty are all anyone cares about. But this film’s job was to win back the audience, and bringing back Han Solo and Princess Leia cut through all the angst over the last three movies to make that instantaneous connection.
Most of the time I don’t care whether I see movies in theaters or on Netflix -- in fact I prefer Netflix because it’s cheaper -- but this time the audience was an integral part of the experience. You participated in the small collective sigh that went up when they rediscovered the Millennium Falcon, you laughed when Dark Helmet 2.0 threw a light saber temper tantrum and a group of Stormtroopers turned and trotted off, backs to the camera so you could picture them shielding their balls from Helmet’s unscrupulous use of the Schwartz, and the guy sitting behind you deadpanned a line from “Spaceballs.”
And as you watched an elderly Han Solo bluster his way out of impossible odds your younger self sat beside you, and you didn’t even have to turn away from the screen to watch the expressions flicker across her face, remembering the scenes that called them up: the joy as the ship lurches sideways to escape a firefight and the grip of gravity, the horror as young Solo’s face is frozen in a painful grimace, the rapt attention you gave to every scene before such scenes became commonplace or cliche. Maybe no film will ever again offer that soaring sense of horizons flung wide as the universe; maybe no future audience will get to experience that particular exhilaration. (Until Hollywood stops with the constant remakes and starts searching for untapped genres, anyway.) But the skillful interweaving of past and present, both the characters’ and the audiences’, to recapture those feelings in the people who were children or young adults when Star Wars came out and have aged in tandem with the original characters, is in itself an impressive achievement. You can’t help but wonder: have we finally reached that “soon,” when “then” is “now?”
<spoiler>Spoiler Alert</spoiler>
And now to the inevitabilities of plot.
Two things are obvious in retrospect. First, the long, unintended shadow that Harrison Ford’s larger-than-life Han Solo cast over the franchise had to be dealt with before a new generation could rise up and claim the lead roles. Because of that shadow you can’t relegate Han to Master Yoda advisor status, however desirable that option might appear. Second, and even more obvious, you can’t send him off to die in a nursing home.
So, viewers can absolutely quibble over the details. (Did it really have to be Han’s son? Did the pairing of Princess Leia and Han Solo’s magnificent chromosomes really have to produce such a goober?) But it’s pointless to protest Han’s death. It was the work this movie had to accomplish so the story could move forward.
What comes next? Who knows? Does it matter? Whatever it is, this movie has provided the catharsis we needed to receive it -- with minds as free from specific expectations, impossible demands, and good old fashioned judginess as the minds of Star Wars fans ever can be.
May 3, 2015
Lights in the Sky
Lights coming straight over the top of Mount Rainier at night do look like something more dangerous and exotic than an airplane; you can see why Washington is the UFO sighting capital of the country. (Or is it the world?) I thought it was the moon at first, rising with alarming speed and brightness. It came straight on for quite a while, then veered off south. Even the way it dropped out of sight behind Point Defiance seemed suspect -- probably because I was watching it more closely than I’d normally watch an airplane flying broadside: Are those red lights that high up on the plane normally? Fox Mulder, peering over my shoulder at the darkness that closed in behind the plane, begs to differ. “Are you sure it was a plane?” he demands. “What are you, an aeronautical engineer?”
Carl Sagan’s answering laugh is extra derisive; I suspect he does not appreciate being made to debate a fictional character. He reminds us both that a plane is miracle enough, among the most amazing sights we’ll ever behold, and we’d appreciate that if only we hadn't allowed ourselves to become inured to wonder. Mulder snorts rudely. He throws a glance of skeptical contempt, which bounces harmlessly off Sagan, and stares longingly into the distance. You can always awaken Mulder’s shadow-thin skepticism by suggesting a prosaic explanation for the marvelous.
Standing between them, I feel an unexpected warmth of camaraderie. They may not get along but they’re both outside with me tonight, wide awake and looking at the sky. Both lived before the time of Netflix, but you can’t imagine either allowing himself to be lured inside to binge-watch “The Office” even on a night of drenching rain. Their positioning, one over each shoulder, suggests the old angel/devil dichotomy, but I’m not buying it. Tonight’s drama isn't a rehash of the age-old battle between good and evil; it sparks between two rival storytellers competing over the same story. Like the unexpectedly brilliant airplane, the tension lends glamour to an otherwise ordinary night.
Carl Sagan’s answering laugh is extra derisive; I suspect he does not appreciate being made to debate a fictional character. He reminds us both that a plane is miracle enough, among the most amazing sights we’ll ever behold, and we’d appreciate that if only we hadn't allowed ourselves to become inured to wonder. Mulder snorts rudely. He throws a glance of skeptical contempt, which bounces harmlessly off Sagan, and stares longingly into the distance. You can always awaken Mulder’s shadow-thin skepticism by suggesting a prosaic explanation for the marvelous.
Standing between them, I feel an unexpected warmth of camaraderie. They may not get along but they’re both outside with me tonight, wide awake and looking at the sky. Both lived before the time of Netflix, but you can’t imagine either allowing himself to be lured inside to binge-watch “The Office” even on a night of drenching rain. Their positioning, one over each shoulder, suggests the old angel/devil dichotomy, but I’m not buying it. Tonight’s drama isn't a rehash of the age-old battle between good and evil; it sparks between two rival storytellers competing over the same story. Like the unexpectedly brilliant airplane, the tension lends glamour to an otherwise ordinary night.
January 18, 2015
Plot and Plausibility
We watched “Sharknado” last night, and found it every bit the over-the-top improbability fest we’d hoped for. I can clearly remember the jolt of outrage I felt when it first caught fire with the public: “To think I've ever worried that any of my plots are implausible!”
Sometimes you watch a movie with growing suspicion or distaste toward the storyline, which can only stretch to so many coincidences, late-blossoming superpowers and out-and-out miracles before the audience starts to feel the restless sense that they've been had. But there’s something liberating about a story which throws plot so unabashedly to the – well, sharks.
A movie like “Sharknado” dispenses with the expectation that the plot has to hang together even before the audience decides to watch it; the title shatters the viewer’s default storytelling standards with a sledgehammer. Instead of feeling played, the viewer enters the experience in conspiratorial mode: “This movie's gonna suck SO MUCH! Bring on the flying sharks and let me watch them kill everybody to a bloody pulp!” And after setting up that expectation, the movie does bring it. Drenched in equal parts silliness and gore, it gives the audience the opportunity to enjoy the unabashed “action hero” story they've become too sophisticated to feel comfortable liking, while simultaneously basking in intellectual superiority as they laugh at the sucky storyline. Win, win, and ca-ching!
So what does “Sharknado” teach other storytellers? Should we just throw plot out the window and funnel all our cash into special effects? Of course not. For most stories, the plot had better be airtight, or your readers/viewers will be forever hung up on “But the Mad-Eye Moody impostor could have turned ANYTHING IN HIS OFFICE* into a stupid Portkey, skipped all the Triwizards foolishness and sent Harry to that graveyard the day he arrived at Hogwarts!”
“Sharknado” is a reminder that, as a storyteller, you have to know when to break the rules. And when you decide it’s time, it can be a great idea to jump the shark and break them so badly that any literary judge would hand you a life sentence instead of a $50 fine.
Oh—and never forget that made-up words can be full-on totally frickin’ awesome.
*”Harry, as your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher I need to check your wand for curses… give it here a sec… thanks…. right, looks good, you can have it back… MWAHAHA! Tell the Dark Lord “hi” from me, sucka!”
Sometimes you watch a movie with growing suspicion or distaste toward the storyline, which can only stretch to so many coincidences, late-blossoming superpowers and out-and-out miracles before the audience starts to feel the restless sense that they've been had. But there’s something liberating about a story which throws plot so unabashedly to the – well, sharks.
A movie like “Sharknado” dispenses with the expectation that the plot has to hang together even before the audience decides to watch it; the title shatters the viewer’s default storytelling standards with a sledgehammer. Instead of feeling played, the viewer enters the experience in conspiratorial mode: “This movie's gonna suck SO MUCH! Bring on the flying sharks and let me watch them kill everybody to a bloody pulp!” And after setting up that expectation, the movie does bring it. Drenched in equal parts silliness and gore, it gives the audience the opportunity to enjoy the unabashed “action hero” story they've become too sophisticated to feel comfortable liking, while simultaneously basking in intellectual superiority as they laugh at the sucky storyline. Win, win, and ca-ching!
So what does “Sharknado” teach other storytellers? Should we just throw plot out the window and funnel all our cash into special effects? Of course not. For most stories, the plot had better be airtight, or your readers/viewers will be forever hung up on “But the Mad-Eye Moody impostor could have turned ANYTHING IN HIS OFFICE* into a stupid Portkey, skipped all the Triwizards foolishness and sent Harry to that graveyard the day he arrived at Hogwarts!”
“Sharknado” is a reminder that, as a storyteller, you have to know when to break the rules. And when you decide it’s time, it can be a great idea to jump the shark and break them so badly that any literary judge would hand you a life sentence instead of a $50 fine.
Oh—and never forget that made-up words can be full-on totally frickin’ awesome.
*”Harry, as your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher I need to check your wand for curses… give it here a sec… thanks…. right, looks good, you can have it back… MWAHAHA! Tell the Dark Lord “hi” from me, sucka!”
January 10, 2015
My $50 Gift Card List
When I unwrapped my Christmas gift card, my first thought was: sports bra, baby! But what are the chances, really, that I’d end up with the perfect running companion I've been pining for all these years? I’d probably just end up tossing away $50 on yet another ill-fitting boob-pancake maker. Fortunately I came to my senses in time and remembered Amazon’s original claim to fame.
I decided to do the thing right and get fifty bucks’ worth of books capable of unsucking even the most uninspired day. So here’s my Start the New Year off Right Reading List:
1. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Me today: “So there’s a book about my late-blossoming passion, running, by another of my late-blossoming passions, future Nobel-prize winning writer Haruki Murakami*… and I don’t have it?”
Me 5-7 business days from now: “The perfect running companion I've been pining for all these years just arrived in the mail! I’m having a deep, magical Murakami-character-esque epiphany! Maybe my life is actually a novel, and I’m really a character who inexplicably speaks English written by a Japanese author destined to win the Nobel Prize*, and…”
Price: $9.60 (Paperback, new)
*Sorry, Murakami haters, it’s GOING TO HAPPEN. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle clinched it.
Items 2-5 were chosen for me by Maria Popovich, incomparable curator of the creative life. I want to read virtually every book she’s even mentioned on her blog, but these are the ones that I seem to need most desperately in my life this year.
2. The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
Looks self in the eye, tells self sternly to be open-minded (but who is doing the talking – and to whom?!) I absorb plenty of feebly-reasoned New Age pap secondhand just by dint of living on the West Coast. It doesn't follow that Eastern philosophy is a bunch of hooey, as I well know from reading actual Eastern philosophers. From the excerpts I've read Watts talks copious amounts of clearly reasoned sense, probing questions of creativity and commercialism, meaningful living and happiness. The Wisdom of Insecurity is my “Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re so smart that you have nothing left to learn, you arrogant bastard” pick.
Price: $9.45 (Paperback, new)
3. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde
I have the good fortune of a job that allows me to let my creativity off the leash every single day – and the grace of time create “my own” work as well. (Not nearly enough time…) But, like most creatives, I want more – want to learn the trick for switching on the fire hose and letting magic, beauty, madness, plot, character and structure come shooting forth in a jet I can ride to the end of a perpetually sustained life of high-level creativity. The fact that established authors agree that there is no such trick and it doesn't work that way is, of course, not a sufficient disincentive to make us hopefuls stop looking. And though I haven’t found the switch to the fire hose yet, I have found that a steady diet of writing-on-writing from people who really know their stuff has allowed me to amp my own creative output from a trickle to … well, to a slightly more voluminous trickle. This book looks like it should be part this author’s balanced breakfast.
Price: $11.81 (New)
4. How to Do Nothing All Alone By Yourself by Robert Paul Smith
This one’s actually for my daughter, who always wants “something to do,” but can’t always figure out what that something might be. (But I read all my kids’ books, so it’s for me, too.)
Price: $11.07 (Paperback, new)
5. Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Matter by E.F. Schumacher
The title sold me on this one. In days of dystopia, it can feel hopelessly naïve to imagine a Utopian future. But why discount best-case scenarios just because post-apocalyptic survival stories are all the rage? Right now it may seem impossible to pry the world from the grip of larger-than-life systems that actively hate and regularly spit on people, but around the globe people continue to work, every day, toward a more humane future. This one will join the eclectic crowd on my “books that remind me not to write off the human potential for reinvention” shelf.
Price: $0.01 (Paperback, used, acceptable condition)
6. The Ecology of Wisdom: Writings by Arne Naess
This is my “stumble-upon” book, the sort of thing I used to pluck from the sales table in bookstores. I've found some of the most bowl-you-over books I've ever read that way (Including Gödel, Escher, Bach and Song for the Blue Ocean.) Which makes me hanker to spend the next $50 in an old-fashioned physical bookstore… it’s been too long!
Price: $3.05 (Hardcover, used, good condition)
7. How to Tell if your Cat is Plotting to Kill You by Matthew Inman (AKA “The Oatmeal”)
Not to brag or anything, but I've been an Inman fan since the dawn of Twitter. I just finished The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances; why not immerse myself in a collection of ‘toons about the adorable clawed creatures who maintain such a regal indifference to the “why” of long naps?
Paperback: $7.49
Well, that brings my total up to $52.48 – guess I'll be paying 2.48 plus shipping myself. I'm sure it'll be well worth it, though.
I decided to do the thing right and get fifty bucks’ worth of books capable of unsucking even the most uninspired day. So here’s my Start the New Year off Right Reading List:
1. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Me today: “So there’s a book about my late-blossoming passion, running, by another of my late-blossoming passions, future Nobel-prize winning writer Haruki Murakami*… and I don’t have it?”
Me 5-7 business days from now: “The perfect running companion I've been pining for all these years just arrived in the mail! I’m having a deep, magical Murakami-character-esque epiphany! Maybe my life is actually a novel, and I’m really a character who inexplicably speaks English written by a Japanese author destined to win the Nobel Prize*, and…”
Price: $9.60 (Paperback, new)
*Sorry, Murakami haters, it’s GOING TO HAPPEN. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle clinched it.
Items 2-5 were chosen for me by Maria Popovich, incomparable curator of the creative life. I want to read virtually every book she’s even mentioned on her blog, but these are the ones that I seem to need most desperately in my life this year.
2. The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
Looks self in the eye, tells self sternly to be open-minded (but who is doing the talking – and to whom?!) I absorb plenty of feebly-reasoned New Age pap secondhand just by dint of living on the West Coast. It doesn't follow that Eastern philosophy is a bunch of hooey, as I well know from reading actual Eastern philosophers. From the excerpts I've read Watts talks copious amounts of clearly reasoned sense, probing questions of creativity and commercialism, meaningful living and happiness. The Wisdom of Insecurity is my “Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re so smart that you have nothing left to learn, you arrogant bastard” pick.
Price: $9.45 (Paperback, new)
3. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde
I have the good fortune of a job that allows me to let my creativity off the leash every single day – and the grace of time create “my own” work as well. (Not nearly enough time…) But, like most creatives, I want more – want to learn the trick for switching on the fire hose and letting magic, beauty, madness, plot, character and structure come shooting forth in a jet I can ride to the end of a perpetually sustained life of high-level creativity. The fact that established authors agree that there is no such trick and it doesn't work that way is, of course, not a sufficient disincentive to make us hopefuls stop looking. And though I haven’t found the switch to the fire hose yet, I have found that a steady diet of writing-on-writing from people who really know their stuff has allowed me to amp my own creative output from a trickle to … well, to a slightly more voluminous trickle. This book looks like it should be part this author’s balanced breakfast.
Price: $11.81 (New)
4. How to Do Nothing All Alone By Yourself by Robert Paul Smith
This one’s actually for my daughter, who always wants “something to do,” but can’t always figure out what that something might be. (But I read all my kids’ books, so it’s for me, too.)
Price: $11.07 (Paperback, new)
5. Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Matter by E.F. Schumacher
The title sold me on this one. In days of dystopia, it can feel hopelessly naïve to imagine a Utopian future. But why discount best-case scenarios just because post-apocalyptic survival stories are all the rage? Right now it may seem impossible to pry the world from the grip of larger-than-life systems that actively hate and regularly spit on people, but around the globe people continue to work, every day, toward a more humane future. This one will join the eclectic crowd on my “books that remind me not to write off the human potential for reinvention” shelf.
Price: $0.01 (Paperback, used, acceptable condition)
6. The Ecology of Wisdom: Writings by Arne Naess
This is my “stumble-upon” book, the sort of thing I used to pluck from the sales table in bookstores. I've found some of the most bowl-you-over books I've ever read that way (Including Gödel, Escher, Bach and Song for the Blue Ocean.) Which makes me hanker to spend the next $50 in an old-fashioned physical bookstore… it’s been too long!
Price: $3.05 (Hardcover, used, good condition)
7. How to Tell if your Cat is Plotting to Kill You by Matthew Inman (AKA “The Oatmeal”)
Not to brag or anything, but I've been an Inman fan since the dawn of Twitter. I just finished The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances; why not immerse myself in a collection of ‘toons about the adorable clawed creatures who maintain such a regal indifference to the “why” of long naps?
Paperback: $7.49
Well, that brings my total up to $52.48 – guess I'll be paying 2.48 plus shipping myself. I'm sure it'll be well worth it, though.
