What I’ve Been Reading – The Red Pony

August 31, 2010

What I’ve Read:
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck

I haven’t finished a work of fiction since March. I haven’t finished a work of fiction longer than a short story since last September.

That’s almost a year.

Now, before you take away my library card, hear me out. I HAVE been reading books. But I’ve also been starting a new job and learning to live with TWO kids and fixing a basement and discovering streaming Netflix and playing with new technology and doing all sort of other distracting things.

I’ve read books about basketball and about information architecture and about HTML5. I’ve read two collections of short stories from my McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern subscription. I’ve read about music and I’ve read about content strategy and I’ve read about writing itself.

But no real fiction. Nothing longer than a couple dozen pages.

The excuses, the excuses.

The truth is, I was exhausted with fiction. Though I missed it, I couldn’t get back into it. I forced the matter, I took it up with our library, and I wandered home wondering how I’d just checked out a John Steinbeck novella; primarily, wondering if I’d ever even open it, if I’d ever care again.

Of course I’d care. Because reading and literature are as much a part of my personality as try-too-hard sarcasm; my upbringing was framed by bookshelves, my preferences dictated by others’ words. And everything I loved about books peaked over two year’s worth of Steinbeck – I read The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and Tortilla Flat and Travels With Charley and fell in love with Salinas and Steinbeck and everything he stood for: great literature, themes and message that struck at the heart of human emotion.

The Red Pony, a novella from the early days of Steinbeck’s canon, fits under all three categories – great literature, great themes and a great message; a quick overview of the life cycle as viewed through the eyes of a young farm boy.

But, let’s be honest – I could gush about Steinbeck for hours, using as many fancy words as I could think of, filling my sentences with adjectives until they buckled under the strain. I won’t – you’re welcome – except to say The Red Pony, unlike Tortilla Flat and The Pearl (which are admittedly superior works) captures Steinbeck’s tendency toward realism and human suffering better than any of his other short works.

There is nothing complex about it. There’s a boy, a horse, and a family. There are two father figures who occupy the spectrum of understanding and tolerance. There’s the discovery of human fallacy, the reality of growing old, and the sacrifices of birth, all contributing to the slow coming of age of young Jody, a boy who really just wants a horse of his own.

Children do not come of age at once. Sure, Holden Caulfield immersed himself into the city and learned how to live as quickly as possible, but most children are exposed to life’s realities incrementally, coming to terms with death and life and the very existence of mortality not in one fell swoop, but through a series of occurrences. Sometimes they take a decade to unfold. Often, it’s even longer.

You could argue that, in this case, many of us are still struggling to come of age. We never really know if Jody reaches a solid point of understanding – like a short story, The Red Pony drops in and pulls out somewhere in the middle of the complete narrative – but we do know that he’s made progress, simply by the hints and symbols he leaves behind as we read.

That’s Steinbeck’s ultimate charm, I believe – this ability to tell a story through clues. Not through mystery, but through human nature; holding his cards to his chest, revealing only enough to win, throwing the rest away.

The Red Pony is fantastic. Coming from a Steinbeck fanatic, you probably shouldn’t expect anything less from me.

I guess that means I’m ready to start reading again.

What I’ve Been Reading – HTML5 for Web Designers

August 16, 2010

What I’ve Read:
HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith

There’s an underlying belief throughout the non-tech-savvy that computer and Web programmers are a secluded, arrogant group; fiercely loyal to their language, looking out for themselves, unable to share their findings lest they make themselves obsolete. It’s this belief that leads us to stop trusting our company’s IT department and automatically mistrust the kid Web developer signed on to work our church Web sites.

It’s not necessarily true.

In my experience, Web developers aren’t maniacally protective of their knowledge, but simply frustrated that no one else is bothering to commiserate. When you show up with the ultimate in ignorance – like asking a CSS expert to help you get rid of spyware, or expecting a .Net developer to automatically help you purchase a digital SLR camera – you’re not facing arrogance.

You’re facing exhaustion. That expert? He or she is simply tired of being misunderstood.

If there’s one thing I’ve discovered over the past two months in Web development, it’s that Web developers want to talk about Web development. They want to share their secrets, often to the point that your eyes glaze over.

Ask a pointed question, though, and you’ll discover something even greater: the Web developer’s desire to spread knowledge. Which brings us to A List Apart’s first publication, HTML5 for Web Designers – a short and easy to digest primer on the changes being made through HTML’s newest iteration.

As a Web guy whose exposure to HTML and CSS has come exclusively from the routine hacking of free WordPress templates, HTML5 for Web Designers dives into the subject at my level – highlighting the changes and features of code that could change how the Web is organized and developed. Even better, it does so in a way that’s akin to the “spreading the gospel” model of Web talk – 100% devoted to letting the reader understand the code.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not going to make my mom understand Web development.

That being understood, it’s a wonderful look inside the mind of a development evangelist; Keith’s knowledge takes a 900-page slog of a standards guide and boils it down to the 80-some pages you’ll actually need to read.

Because, you see, developers don’t aim to make people feel dumb. At least, not as long as we’re willing to listen and make a concerted effort to understand.

It’s our inability to grasp the nuances of technology that’ll take care of that for us.

Persistence

July 21, 2010

SIERRA (pointing at picture in Ladybug Girl): Mommy, what is her?
KERRIE: She.
SIERRA: Mommy, what is she?
KERRIE: She’s wearing a dress.
SIERRA (pointing at same picture): What is SHE?
KERRIE: She’s wearing a dress.
SIERRA (unsatisfied): What is SHE?!
KERRIE: She’s wearing a dress. Like a princess.
SIERRA: WHAT IS SHE?
KERRIE: SHE’S LIKE A 70s MODEL.
..
SIERRA: Oh.
…
SIERRA (pointing at the next picture): Mommy, what is she?

A walk to the library

July 16, 2010

From where I work, it’s only a quick two block walk to the library.

So today, with my head swimming in tests, my mind frozen from the air conditioning, I got up and walked there.

No premeditation. No purpose. With just a hunch, I stepped into the heat, turned right, and kept walking.

For the past year or so, I’ve completely fallen away from reading books; the stack beside my bed grew, stagnated, and is in danger of being killed off. I barely read at all, actually – outside of the Sunday New York Times, a handful of work-related books, a blog article or two, there’s nothing. My mind has been consumed with learning new skills and adapting to a second child and spending time with my family.

Reading has taken a back seat.

So, this walk? It quickly became a big deal.

Our library is cool and new and stocked with great books and at once I was reminded of why I was always attracted to it. You see, this is where I was supposed to be. On these shelves. Writing books and stories, looking to make it big; my words sheltering others from boredom, my thoughts absorbed by strangers. I started this blog to practice becoming a better writer. I volunteered for magazines – writing about reading, no less! – and weaseled my way into a writing job at an ad agency. I read fiction and non-fiction and short stories and massive tomes like it was a religion – both because I enjoyed it and because, as they say, better readers make better writers.

And then, I kind of stopped.

I still write. But I no longer read.

Instead, I found two things I enjoyed a lot more, and I’ve jumped into them with full abandon: being a dad, and working in Web.

But they don’t have to be exclusive.

The potential made me dizzy. Or maybe it was the heat. Whatever. All I know is that I walked into the library, wandered around for a few minutes, grabbed Syncopated: An Anthology of Nonfiction Picto-Essays and Steinbeck’s The Red Pony and made a promise to myself.

To stop making excuses. And to head back to my roots. Because while my path veered from becoming a writer, there’s no reason it ever should have stopped me from becoming a reader.

What I’ve Been Reading – McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 32

March 23, 2010

What I’ve Read:
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 32 by Dave Eggers (editor)

Oh, man. 2025 is going to be AWFUL.

No, really. The water problems will be the biggest: flooding and hurricanes and levies and overpopulation on the remaining land. Technology will make everyone crazy and control the world and people won’t be able to think for themselves. Animals will die. Well, they’ll die faster. And Russian spies will pretend not to be spies while housing in buildings that are pretending to be older buildings.

What?

That’s the spectrum of Issue #32 of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. The concept – because every McSweeney’s has a concept, even if that concept happens only to be “McSweeney’s-style short stories with indie sensibilities” – asks each writer to take stock of their location and look ahead 15 years to 2025, when apparently all hell is going to break loose.

According to the Issue #32 collective, here’s a sneak peek at the awful future:
• Do-it-yourself lakes become too salted
• A rising ocean turns a domed arena into the only livable space left in a city
• The two remaining seals of a nearly extinct species will be delivered far away and will probably not even make it through the week
• Cell phones turn everyone into experts, and the real experts will fight to be heard
• The Netherlands flood and everyone will die and everything will suck

Aside of a fantastic story by Anthony Doerr (“Memory Wall,” about a device that reaches in and saves memories for those slowly suffering from dementia), and Chris Adrian’s “The Black Square” (which delves into a cool hyper-local science fiction about a cultish black hole with a story no one understands), the general tone of the collection is simply a little too pessimistic.

No one had a happy outlook for the future – no one was convinced that things could be stable in 2025, let alone better. I don’t say this as a blind optimist – listen, I’ve read The Grapes of Wrath and The Road, and I understand that great works of fiction can be absolute downers – but as a person who expects more variety in a collection of stories from an imprint that’s known for off-beat stories.

It’s easy to look into the future and predict doom. It’s as simple as opening up the front page and figuring out what some fringe crazies are “sky-is-falling” about today.

But predicting happiness? Now that’s the kind of offbeat futurecast I’ve been looking for since, well, since forever, I guess.

That quote’s not really literal, you know

March 17, 2010

I’m very much enjoying my time at Goodreads, especially now that I’ve updated it with a decent level of history and ratings, and despite the fact that it’s buggy as Hell some of the time. Well, most of the time.

Okay – all of the time. Whatever.

On top of being a great reading-centered site, it’s also yet another place where we can see the power of user generated posts and tags – particularly their special level of inaccuracy and delusion. Or, in this case, unintentional humor.

Because, sorry dude, but I don’t think this quote is REALLY ABOUT RETARDATION as a condition.

Sedaris would appreciate that tag, though. So +1 for you, I suppose.

What I’ve Been Reading – Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs/Master of Reality

March 2, 2010

What I’ve Read:
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
Master of Reality by John Darnielle

Though I’d like to claim differently, pop culture is not my forte. I say this with caution – the last thing I need is a billion more useless references clouding up my head – but with certainty: I don’t want to use pop culture (as in, drop canny comparisons on unsuspecting friends) as much as I simply want to understand the joke.

I just don’t know that much about pop culture. I mean, I get the grand schemes. I understand the obvious jokes, and when it comes to music and Web memes and certain genres of television and film, I can hold my own. (And don’t get me started on professional wrestling, 90s video game culture or The Beatles/Pink Floyd. Seriously. You don’t have enough time.) Overall, I’d say I only get about 50% of pop culture references*.

So, when Bill Simmons talks at length about Hoosiers and Jersey Shore and The Bachelor and early 80s butt-rock videos, I’m at a loss. My frames of reference don’t fit. They’re barely even sturdy enough to hold glass, let alone a free exchange of chuckles.

This is the mindset I brought into Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, a self-proclaimed “low culture manifesto,” though – let’s be honest, here – the book’s filled with enough high-minded theories to make a stoned group of film majors giddy with argument. These essays aren’t low culture in thought as much as they use pop culture as a vehicle for explaining human nature.

I, for one, enjoyed it. But I fear not as much as most of my friends would.

The essays take the standard “Rob Gordon in High Fidelity” approach to things, using music and film and television situations as similes for how life plays out in real life. What Klosterman does differently – and it’s what drives me to seek out more of his writing – is that he doesn’t use pop culture as a crutch. Indeed, he does the opposite, deftly explaining how pop culture helps shape our life – through experience and, ultimately, disappointment – all while shaping life’s more complex issues in a way that dullards like myself can understand.

Klosterman explains: Romantic comedies set us up for an unrealistic look at real love; everyone in the real world can be boiled down to a Real World doppelganger; Star Wars is responsible for Generation X’s attitude (and Luke Skywalker is probably the first grunge slacker).

However, the best essays move away from high-minded manifesto and into true journalism. “Appetite for Replication” follows a professional Guns N’ Roses cover band on the road, exposing every musician’s need for acceptance and sheer love for the material. “I, Rock Chump” takes the cover band mentality and applies it to Klosterman himself, throwing him deep into a circle of True Music Reviewers (and utter bores) at a national conference.

It’s inspired, and while I felt the essays tried a little too hard upon first reading, I find myself going back to them, reassessing them post-read, appreciating them for what they were: thoughts on real life using the common language of pop culture. I said “whatever” as I read them, but that “whatever” hasn’t stopped me from wanting more Klosterman.

John Darnielle, like Klosterman, isn’t a True Music Reviewer. Instead, he’s simply an indie darling, the voice and guitar and piano of The Mountain Goats and author of a 33 1/3 book on Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality. A self-proclaimed metal maniac, Darnielle’s take on MoR moves away from the standard 33 1/3 review – thankfully, as I’m not sure how long I could handle a 100-page look at Ozzy Osbourne’s songwriting habits.

Instead, Darnielle goes back to metal’s roots. By which I mean, “the cassette players of young, angst-filled boys with a penchant for trouble.” This isn’t a review, it’s a love letter – written in the voice of Roger, a teenager thrown into a mental institute, forced to keep a journal and obstinately refusing to write about anything aside from his love for MoR and Black Sabbath in general.

It’s a pretty brilliant approach. Unfortunately, it’s also a short one. It’s by far the skinniest of the 33 1/3 books I’ve seen, and what should be a deep look into the heart of a confused teenage kid is truncated by the fact that the confused teenage kid is the one doing the talking. Sure, Darnielle captures the boy’s lack of emotional maturity, but it’s that same lack of emotional maturity that keeps us from seeing a little further inside.

Why Master of Reality? Why Black Sabbath? It’s explained as you’d expect: BECAUSE I THINK IT’S COOL BECAUSE YOU SUCK BECAUSE I HATE THE WORLD. And that’s about as far as the feelings get. Cool idea. But awkward execution.

That being said, both books took steps I couldn’t possibly attempt, co-opting the emotions of popular culture and parlaying them into an exploratory narrative of human nature. How does music play an important part in a locked-up kid’s psyche? How does Zach Morris represent America’s ability to suspend reality only when it’s convenient?

Don’t ask me. Let me finish this episode of Jersey Shore and I’ll let you know.

*This statistic = made up.

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Black Marks on Wood Pulp has been commenting on life and everything associated with it since February 2005. He's also photoblogging at Much More Sure. Everything you've ever wanted to know about Black Marks on Wood Pulp and Corey Vilhauer is located here, on the About Page.

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So, I slept for 15 hours straight yesterday and I'm still a little groggy and sure, I'd love to have a little more OMG THIS ISN'T COFFEE.

Posts

• What I’ve Been Reading – The Red Pony
• On the first day of preschool
• Mastering the cycle of inspiration
• Puddle jumping
• D*** it
• The doctor’s office
• Everything is dead
• What I’ve Been Reading – HTML5 for Web Designers
• A quick note on children’s brands
• There is no greater sports star than the sports star I become … in my head.

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