I have not been doing anything in particular that would make me stop posting to this blog for so long. Chiefly, I have been:
- Writing a lot of abortive short-story openers
- Writing two short stories
- Writing two (only two! God!) poems
- Winning a poetry contest at my college
- Reading an obscene number of books (seventeen) since I have come to Boston for my off-term
- Playing the entire Half-Life 2 franchise over from beginning to end (Half-Life 2, Episode 1, and Episode 2, and some futzing around in Garry’s Mod) in nine days
- Watching the new Star Trek movie twice, then watching an inexcusable number of old Star Trek episodes (practically all of season two, a good amount of season three)
- Being listless
- Taking the bus to visit friends and family in other states
- Purchasing books from used-books stores
Clearly, none of this is enough to excuse what I have done. However I do not apologise because I am perfectly aware that I do not have an audience.
What should I do witht his blog? Should I publish my poems on it? No, I do not think I should. I need to find someone to read my poems but I cannot find anyone I trust enough to give me well-reasoned criticism and to simultaneously not be an asshole about it. Times are difficult. I am all alone in the world and whatever, possibly.
Here is a list of the books I have recently read. Some of them are respectable and some of them are not. I feel that if people do not read respectable and unrespectable books in equal measure, they will turn into elderly female college professors before they realize what has happened, and they will be consumed by feelings of waste and abandonment. This is the end result of overintellectualization, friends. It is no good.
This is a partial list; some of the seventeen books I have recently read I wrote about here before disappearing (Snow Crash, David Foster Wallace, etc) and so I do not bother to cover them.
The worst book on the list is The Gun Seller by Laurie; it is a waste of time. The best book was possibly The Crossing or Brideshead Revisited or Kavalier and Clay. I cannot decide. At any rate, they were fantastic. I have been absorbing all of this literature! I feel smarter by the day.
Currently I am reading TWO different books: Under the Volcano b y Malcom Lowry, a modernist tale about what it feels like, exactly, to be a drunkard; and (OH NO WATCH OUT) one of the Star Trek novels on which the new movie was based, Spock’s World. Why am I doing this? Because I have never before read a franchise novel based on a television show (except for a single Doctor Who novella about two years ago) and because the book was written by one of my childhood idols, Diane Duane, author of the So You Want to Be a Wizard series. Apparently, though she had what I would consider ‘chops,’ she spent her entire life writing obscure science fiction books as well as about twelve Star Trek novels and at least three Spiderman novels, which I had not previously known existed. Her Wikipedia has an extensive Works section which you might find interesting to peruse.
Anyway, in order to guard myself against excessive literaryness, I am reading this book at the same time as Under the Volcano and I hope they will balance each other our. Spock’s World has relatively good prose in it but it is still a Star Trek novelization and I don’t know if any amount of repressed writing chops on the part of Duane could ever overcome that fact. At any rate, if it’s good enough for Orci and Kutzman (screenwriters for the recent Star Trek movies and, now officially, the people I want to grow up to be) then it’s good enough for me.
When I was at an awards dinner for the English department last night I was asked by the head of the department what books I was reading. I mentioned Under the Volcano but I did not mention Spock’s World, obviously. I wonder what would have happened if I had. They might have taken my prize from me or something. Cast me out on my ear. I don’t know. It’s an interesting thought. The alternate universe where I actually DID say that is probably all gone to hell by now.
