comp lit and mediaphilia
So I read this book. It’s called Destiny, Rewritten , and it’s by Kathryn Fitzmaurice. Because of the title, I keep forgetting that the protagonist’s name is actually Emily and not Destiny. I think that’s partly because I am silly and partly because I was a tad bit bored by this book.
Okay, so actually the setup is interesting. Emily Elizabeth Davis is named after Emily Dickinson, because her mother is an English professor. She has a first edition of the collected works that her mother has turned into a sort of scrapbook of her life, picking a poem that is meaningful at the time that Emily learns how to walk, eats her first bite of solid food, etc. (So right there, I want this book to be like a middle grade Pale Fire , and sadly it’s not.) Anyway. Continue reading →
Posted in books
Tagged books , middle grade , poetry , review
Feb · 08
I didn’t think I was going to be writing these anymore, but then Henry asked if I had written mine for this year, and I realized I kind of felt like I needed to write a goodbye to them. It’s fitting that I’m posting my *last* one on the day I have a lunch date with the original author. Here you are, Henry. And everyone. And me.
Creed ’11-’12 I believe my fictions contain too many truths, yet I believe my truths are made of nothing but a combination of infinite fictions. I believe the present is fleeting yet ancient, like a worn, cracking library date stamp. I believe time stamps are for me and for posterity. I believe I’ve never cared so much, and I believe I’ve never had so little concern as I do now. I believe I am already prevailing. I believe I am not here to make friends; I believe friends can make me. I still believe in singing. I believe in quiet letter writing, flickering candles, and living in everyone’s past. I believe acceptance is liberating; I still believe in wishes, but I don’t need them anymore. I now believe in study, in myth, in solitude. I know I belong where I am.
Posted in writing
Tagged creed , identity , poetry , procrastinating , writing
Sep · 29
Another holiday I don’t really do is New Year’s Eve, aside from giddily counting how many books I read in the last calendar year. This time last year, I charged myself to read 40 books, and I wasn’t sure whether I would count books for school or not. I definitely didn’t need to count school stuff, or stuff I read for REDI, which was kind of like school, or for my study abroad, which was just a different institution, but still school. So the final number of pleasure books was 89, six of which were re-reads. I’d say that’s pretty kickass, because I read a ton of books for school, too. So, since I won’t even be in school until the fall at the earliest, I’m going to go for 150 books in 2011. I read all the time at work and on the bus and all, so I should be able to manage it.
When I think of how much I wasted time watching crappy TV shows and being on Facebook, I think I probably could have read 110 books last year. At least. I watched a lot of television on the Internet. It’s rather sad. But at least now I don’t have to feel bad about it, because with all that “Say Yes to the Dress” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” there were also eight books of poetry (not counting all the poetry for class), 11 books of non-fiction, and a lot of fiction for kids, teens, and adults. I guess my idea of being lazy is at least not as lazy as I thought.
Now back to reading The Sun and organizing my iPod.
Tagged books , happy , news , poetry , television
Jan · 03
I’m reading Paradise Lost in my British literature class, and although it’s one of those things you kind of know already before you read it, it’s also making all of western civilization and western literature make a lot more sense. And it’s one of those things you read and realize that, if only it were one of the first things you had ever read, your life as it relates to books might have had more meaning up to now. Yesterday I had to read excerpts from books 2, 3, and 4, and 2 and 3 were making me think of the most random things. I’m sure Paradise Lost could make people think about a lot of things, like other epic poems, the Bible, His Dark Materials , etc etc. But since I am me and I think of the most random things, book 2 made me think of the trilogy Prophecy of the Sisters , which I still can’t decide if I really like or not, and book 3 made me think about tzedakah, because the pre-Jesus figure presented in Milton’s epic is so not Jewish.
Being Jewish myself, I only know so much about the New Testament. What I know comes from popular culture and the vague memories I have of my high school comparative religion class–I really wish that I had paid more attention in it, because I know we learned a lot of great stuff about major world religions. So anyway, I did check out the Spark Notes summary (though Milton’s arguments are basically his own Spark Notes) of book 3, just because I tend to miss Christian religious references in literature because they don’t naturally stand out to me. So once I started reading, I knew that G-d and the Son were going to be talking about Satan’s plans to corrupt Adam and Eve, yadda yadda. I do think that Milton does really cool stuff with his source material, rearranging the events of the Bible and all, and I think it’s funny that G-d and the Son plan everything out, from his crucifixion to communion rites, but all while the Son is saying that he is going to sacrifice himself, he keeps reminding G-d that he’s going to come back to Heaven and regain his throne and be rewarded for being selfless.
So I stopped there and thought that, if this is Milton’s idea of what Jesus was like when he was pre-Jesus, he is most definitely not Jewish. Or at least not a good Jew.
In Hebrew, there is no word for “charity.” I like that, because I’m not a big fan of the Christian idea of charity, especially when viewed against Jewish tzedakah or Muslim sadaqah , which is more based on tikkun olam than on making yourself feel good by helping someone who, in your eyes, so obviously needs your assistance. Again, I’ve only been to church about 10 times in my life (mostly Catholic ones), and a lot of my ideas of Christian charity come from that insipid family on “Seventh Heaven,” but as far as I can understand, traditional Christian charity seems to come from an idea of helping those less fortunate, rather than doing what’s right. (When I’m not being religious, I think that everything we do is driven most by a sense of feeling good about what we’re doing, and I also think that above all, doing good things is good, no matter your reason. But still. We can always strive to an ideal, and I think the Jewish and Muslim ideals beat the Christian one here.) One thing I remember my mother teaching me when I was young was that the best kind of giving is anonymous, because then it’s really tzedakah, which means “justice.” You should give because it’s what you’re supposed to do, not because there is going to be a plaque somewhere with your name on it or because people are going to send you letters of thanks. I may be falsifying a connection here, but I think tzedakah goes nicely with the Jewish custom of not naming babies (or colleges, like how Brandeis was going to be named after Einstein until he said, “What, you want me dead already?”) after living people. It’s bad luck, and it’s bad form. Your name doesn’t matter. The world is what matters.
It’s very easy to talk about tzedakah and a lot harder to practice it. Given that we are human, we like recognition. I certainly do. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better at it. I don’t know if it’s because I’m actually better at tzedakah, or if I’m just more uncomfortable being the center of attention. But it’s something you constantly have to work at.
So, going back to Milton, his pre-Jesus is, yes, doing what is arguably a very noble thing by sacrificing himself, and it’s something that the rest of Heaven doesn’t volunteer to do. But he does so with the understanding that he will end up back in Heaven, and back at the right hand of G-d, so he’s getting a reward. And, given that in this poem, at least, G-d and the Son know basically everything that is about to happen, he must know that the whole world is going to know his name for millennia. So it’s not an act of tzedakah but an act of charity. I know it doesn’t matter to anyone except me that Milton’s pre-Jesus isn’t Jewish, since Milton wasn’t Jewish, and he probably didn’t think very highly of Judaism, but I do think it’s rather interesting.
Oh, the places your mind can wander.
Tagged "philosophy" , books , criticism , judaism , poetry , social justice
Nov · 30
Creed ’10-‘11
I believe in karma, but sometimes I go out of my way to stomp on ants. I believe it’s generally unhealthy to miss those who don’t miss you. I believe that there comes a point every year when this poem writes itself, and that is when I have to sit down and do it. I believe there is constancy and profluence in my evolution. I believe that I am self-aware only as much as I am self-absorbed, and that keeps me from knowing when I am embarrassing myself. I believe I’ll always be that way. I believe I am happiest among people who don’t belong. I believe that the most complex relationships are between friends, but maybe that’s because I am never in a Facebook relationship. Unfortunately, I believe in Facebook. I believe I take things too far sometimes, but there’s no point in regretting anything, so I just move on from there. I believe travel is hedonism, and if you can acknowledge that, you can be guilt-free abroad. I believe that I am tense inside my body but that there is a bashert for me out there, somewhere, to shake me free of it. I believe words are kinetic, that I feel keyboards and phone pads in my fingers. I believe one language alone is never enough to express yourself. I believe I am a writer first and a musician second, and it took a lot of books and theory classes to figure that out. I believe I am that cliché caged bird whose body is not free. I believe mostly in myself.
Last year’s. This year makes the seventh one I’ve written.
Tagged creed , identity , life , poetry , school , writing
Aug · 29
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