Readers': Going Postal

Sometimes I wonder if the post people think that I am crazy.

I wouldn't mind if they did. I mean, it is a little odd to be sending and receiving so much personal mail in these days of email and texting and tweeting and whatever else people are doing. After all, the venerable United States Postal Service is a failing business, trapped by the obligation to explain each and every business move to a Congress that clearly couldn't care less about the postal system. I recall particularly pathetic statements from the former Postmaster General, Patrick Donahoe, toeing a careful line between begging for more money and begging to be able to increase rates, so that he wouldn't have to beg for more money next year. The USPS should be jolly well grateful that I use letters as a means of communication.

But the oddest thing about the large volume of letters between me and my best friend is that we talk every day on more technologically advanced media. We text, we snap-chat, we email. Sometimes, we even phone each other. Surely there isn't anything left to write handwritten letters about.

There always is. There are things that are easier to tell a friend in writing; there are things that are easier to discover about yourself when you're writing it down, rather than speaking it, typing it, or, worse, typing it with one's thumbs. It is a means of journaling, but with an audience, one that cares about what you're feeling, one that will offer you support and advice somewhere down the road.

Also, letters are the most protected form of communication. Conversations can be overheard, the NSA reads our email, police have access to the GPS in our cell phones, but, by God, it is still a felony to open our mail. If one were to plan a criminal act--and obviously, that's not at all what we're doing--the USPS is still the best means of plotting. (It actually goes the same way--the Feds got Ponzi on mail fraud)

The pure physicality of letters helps center a life-long discussion firmly in reality. Letters, as one of my favorite books, Going Postal (Terry Pratchett), points out, provide a sense of reality that every other form of message cannot. You cannot doodle on the envelope of an email; you cannot add dinosaur stickers to a text. Maybe that picture of your cat will get there faster if you text it, but your friend can't frame it.

I'm not even going to talk about the joy of love letters, the kind professing eternal romance that one ties up with a ruby red ribbon. I don't really get love letters, in the most traditional sense. In a sense, in this time of digital communique, all letters are a protestation of love. It takes time and thought and, most importantly, a stamp to get a letter.

Incidentally, and, not to be egging anyone on here, Readers' has some great notecards, stationery sets, and postcards. Just in case you happen to feel like sending someone some love today.

Crossposted: Readers' Books Facebook

Readers': Why I am not in Law School

I love the law. This is not a new love, nor one I acted upon--I wasn’t pre-law, for example. When the O.J. Simpson trial happened, which was when I was around five, I watched the whole thing. Looking back now, I’m mildly surprised that my mother encouraged this, but she is against censorship and apparently I was interested. According to my parents, I would walk from one end of the room to the other, imitating the lawyers by pontificating “On the one hand…” and then, upon reaching the other end of the room “On the other hand…” I don’t really remember anything about the whole thing besides the fact that I really liked the idea of being the judge, and was crushed when I was informed that to be a judge, you had to be a lawyer first. I was clearly not impressed by that fact, even then, which proves that, even if I am nothing else, I am at least consist.

Law school sounds like an absolute blast. I don’t think many people realize what a radical and precious growing document our constitution really is. It doesn’t promise that to be American is to be perfect; it only promises to give us a chance. Even just the first amendment gives us this amazing array of rights: we can believe in what we like, we can print it and share it with other people, we can be in groups of as many people as we like, and we can send petitions to our government. Most Americans forget how much freedom that gives us. But even when writing it, those privileged white men decided to make room for changes, for a world that looks very little like it did then. Can you think of any politicians who would do the same now?

And therein lies the rub: American law, as a set of ideals to live up to, is a thing to admire and to be proud of. But that set of ideals have been prostituted to suit selfish needs: the law has been pimped out by the lawyers.

Okay, there are good lawyers out there. There’s the ACLU, there’s ABFFE (American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression). There’s overworked, but still idealistic, ADA’s and PD’s out there. But there are also the lawyers that make my skin crawl, people who use loopholes and trickery to win victories that should never be won and make loads of money while doing it.

What I’d really like, is to be a lawyer without having to deal with other lawyers. But even then, one would have to attempt to help people when they are at their worst: when they are losing their homes, or making huge mistakes, or watching love die. I suppose what I’d really like is to be able to skip the whole step of practicing law and be allowed to study it, and then make rulings on it. Basically, I just want to skip being a lawyer altogether.

Readers': Fruitful Labors

Two of my favorite people--my father and my best friend--love to garden. My father watches the progress of his squash plants with great--and justifiable--pride. My friend sends me pictures of her seedlings on a weekly basis. They like to think of the relative pH levels of their respective garden beds; of the compost that needs to be created and the fertilizing that needs to be done. My dad likes to extol the meditative properties of weeding. They love their gardens; I, to my shame, do not. I like dealing with the products of gardens. I like drying and preserving, freezing and canning. But plants, excepting hardy herb beds, tend to wither under my indifferent care.

One of my favorite cookbooks, The Victory Garden Cookbook, seems to have been written for families just like mine. There’s advice for people who grow the vegetables, both common and obscure, and advice for what on earth to do with all these freaking zucchinis. (There’s a particularly good recipe for zucchini spice cake, which has the merit of not tasting at all like a zucchini) It gives information about carrot’s love of sandy soil, and how to tell when to pick kale. I find this book comfortingly inclusive of both sides of the gardening life: those who care for the plants, and those who love the produce.

This year, mindful of drought restrictions, my family is doing all we can to save as much water as possible, but none of us ever considered cutting back on the vegetable garden. Lawns? Sure. But just try to take away our fresh tomatoes.

The Victory Garden concept reaches back into WWII, when the act of creating a vegetable garden was an act of patriotism. (Before that, the home vegetable garden was merely a way of saving money during the Depression; prudence and practicality rarely equals victory, at least in the broader cultural milieu). But the vegetable garden reaches far back into the distant past. Small gardens came before larger farms: they could be the first signs of settled human habitation. In other words, growing one’s own food is a sign of permanency. It is a promise to stay in one place, for at least as long as it takes for plants to bear fruit. A garden means home.

Maybe I’m not a gardener, but maybe that doesn’t matter. The art of gardening is nothing without the art of knowing what to do with the results: what good would masses of eggplants do anyone without someone knowing what do with them? In these California days of water restriction, we all have to weigh our hydration choices. In a recent op-ed in the LA Times, lawns are praised and defended as the heart of the middle class home and neighborhood. In my mind, the lawn matters much less than the garden: that which marks our desire to care for ourselves by caring for the land. It is the humble vegetable garden marking the boundaries of home that I shall make sacrifices for. I’d never take a two minute shower for a lawn; I’ll always do it for the tomatoes.

In it for the Short Haul

In the course of taking a lovely vacation, I was forced to utilize the great American airplane system. Like many other systems dependent on oil and a captive clientele, the airlines have famously cut back on the amenities of the past. Gone are the days of free checked bags; of free meals (no matter how disgusting, free is free); the times when someone’s seat back isn’t hitting your face in the middle of the flight.

Now, I’ve been on a lot of planes in my life. I’m blessed with a slight figure, small stature, and disproportionately short legs. Problems that taller or larger people face aren’t actually that big of an issue for me. Yes, paying for a checked bag is painful, but it is better than the overhead compartments.

Short haul flights, however, are a bit much. Okay, maybe it makes better business sense: smaller planes, less fuel burn, less cost in housing pilots and flight attendants three thousand miles from home. It might even be forcing those pilots to stay awake for the flights, since there’s less down time.

But my flight home was changed from having one stop, which would have been reasonable, to having two, which turned out to mean fourteen hours of travel. Airports are draining places; there’s the neon lights, the rush to meet a plane that is on the other side of crowded airport, the inexplicable people who refuse to use the stairs: it’s exhausting. Hitting up four in one day might be torture. If the CIA started sending people on short haul flights, a Senate committee would have to be called up to determine the legality.

Of course, I made it home. I made all those tight connections and I rushed my way through the crowds and the moving walkways because I didn’t have a choice. They changed my flight after I bought it. That was going to be my only way back. I didn’t have a choice about it and that bothers me as much as the actual flights did. Capitalism is supposed to be all about choice between competing companies. The airlines are allowed to change as much as they want, because once someone decides to take a plane, there’s not much we can do about how those trips are going to go. It seems to me that this short haul plane system also is indicative of how the airlines think of their passengers: for the immediate future, we have to put up with them. The long-term customer service plan seems as non-existent as the non-stop flight.

I have a plan. I’d like to invite the major executives of major airlines to take a trip from Honolulu to New York, travelling only on their short haul flight plans, and thus hitting up all the major hubs. I’ll take care of their itinerary. For the majority of their flights, they can have an hour--on paper. With the traditional hold-ups at Atlanta and Chicago, this is more like ten minutes. Then they can have a random eight hour layover. They’ll all have to wear matching neon shirts reading “Family Reunion 2015!!” and all have heavy carry-ons. Maybe it wouldn’t end up changing their policies--airlines generally think with their wallets and not with empathy--but it’d make me feel better.

Crossposted: Readers' Books Facebook

Readers': This is why we can have nice things--Water is a Polar Molecule

In honor of Earth Day, I've been thinking about the drought. Having been away from California for the better part of seven years, coming back to a place where rain in the summertime is impossible was not much of a surprise. It was coming back to little or no rain in the winter that shocked me.

Whether you lean left or right politically, you can't deny that not having enough water in the most populous state is a problem. It doesn't help that California leads the nation in the agricultural profits, a position which requires a great deal of water. This year, we are left without a snow pack and without any solution that we can all agree on.

I don't want to make a big political statement here. I don't want to bewail the drying streams and rivers and not be able to offer a workable solution. What I want to do is remind myself and everyone else of the most basic reasons why we need water.

Now, here I am forced to recall vague memories of high school biology. Very vague memories, with some confusion and distaste, because science wasn't my subject and who cares about molecules anyway? Luckily, I'm related to someone who does care about very small things and their impact on everyday life. My sister has informed me that chemistry is vital to understanding life because, as she said, it is life. And one of the things that makes our world possible is the fact that water is a polar molecule. H2O, means water of course, but it also stands for two hydrogen molecules that sit on top of a big oxygen molecule in such a way so as to look very much like Mickey Mouse.

Maybe this doesn't seem important. And maybe you think that this has nothing to do with the impending California desert; that Mickey Mouse shaped molecules--molecules you can't even see--aren't rocking your boat.

But the reason that boats can rock at all is because water is a polar molecule. Boiled down to my general understanding, it is the angle of those hydrogens sitting atop the oxygen molecule and the corresponding transiency of those bonds that allows water to do such interesting things. Like create surface tension. Like changing form so often within normal ranges of temperature--ice to liquid to gas in a range of 180 degrees Fahrenheit. On a basic molecular level, water is pretty awesome.

Whenever I try to do my part to save water--changing how I hand wash dishes; taking shorter showers; helping my family rethink our front lawn--I like to remember the individual brilliance of the molecules. It's a little thing, but something we can all agree is  important.

Crossposted on Readers' Books Facebook

Readers': Cats and books should not be made into sandwiches, but they go awesome together

Why is it that there are such things as bookstore and library cats? We don’t have a cat at Readers’--for a myriad of reasons, possibly including perpetually open doors, price of cat food, and the increase in vacuuming duties--and instead have the occasional dog biscuit for pets that are so obliging to have brought their people into a bookstore. However, there is something so iconic--in my head, at least--about a cat curled up on a pile of books.

Authors are fascinated by cats. From The Cat in the Hat to Old Possum Book of Cats; from Pete the Cat to Behemoth, cats are intertwined with books. Hemingway had so many that they interbreed and created cats with (very useful and adorable) multiple digits. Some popular names of cats are bookish names--Dewey is a famous library cat; I’ve met a Yossarian; and if I were to be given the honor of naming a female cat, what else could she possibly be but Diana Wynne Jones? (Her nickname could be Winnie)

I already have a very literary cat. My cat is polydactyl, or, as some people call them, a Hemingway cat. Many cats with extra toes merely have a few extra claws, but mine is unusual in that he has opposable thumbs. This allows him to get into all kinds of extra trouble (like dragging his water bowl around the floor, and hooking open closet doors) but has also led to his venerable name: Tennyson.

This is a self-indulgent cat caregiver’s way of saying that cats and books seem to go together. I like dogs a lot, and I think they are also very excellent companions for a reader. Not only are dogs good at cuddling and staying still, but they occasionally take their reader for walks, to, say, the bookstore. If you are lucky enough to have a cuddling cat (I don’t; Tennyson likes to sleep in boxes and grocery bags instead), they provide excellent reading partners. But we have another cat who only likes to cuddle if one doesn’t have a book with one and will attempt to engulf any reading matter with his sizable fluffy mane. So they do not beat out the dogs “sitting still” contest and cats certainly don’t like to join their people on walks around the neighborhood. That is, after all, why we don’t have a box of cat treats.

I am not sure why cats and books are such great partners. Perhaps it is that cats and books have the same kind of transformative abilities. When looking at a new book, or meeting a new cat, there are all kinds of possibilities inside. Will this be a good book? Will this cat be a friendly cat? Will it be easy to read? Will this be a shy cat who runs away as soon as you say hello? And when it is a book you have read and loved before, it is just as it is with your own cat: you may think you understand it and love it, but it will some day surprise you again with some beautiful passage or by developing the propensity to sleep in your laundry baskets. A book, like a cat, will always surprise you. With this in mind, Readers’ doesn’t need a bookstore cat, seeing as we already have books aplenty. You can add your own cat, if you wish (but only at home--we don’t have cat biscuits).


Crossposted: Readers' Books Facebook

Readers' Books: The Book is Always Better Than the Movie

The Book is Always Better Than the Movie

I'm playing a game with my friends--who are reading this and hopefully not annoyed with me for spilling this--where we are dream-casting Terry Pratchett's Discworld. There are no rules. Basically, we just have to put what particular era each actor is actually coming from. Thus, we have accidentally set up a love match between Matt Damon and Katherine Hepburn. Then there's the comedy duo made up by the actor--Mark Sheppard--at his current age, and Mark Sheppard from a dozen years ago. Time, in this case, is most definitely relative.

This makes a fun game. But it also drives home how impossible it is to concoct a movie out of a book. There's all the obvious problems: time, length, setting. The infinite range of a reader's imagination is much more complex issue. Maybe an author starts off with a pretty clear image of their character and that character is set down on the page. But when that page is read, that same person can be read as such disparate people as Simon Pegg, Spencer Tracy, or Clive Owen. There isn't a single character on our list that has only one choice; there isn't one casting choice that all of us agree on.

From what we know of Ancient Greek tragedy, most of the violence occurred offstage. (Spoiler: that's why Oedipus stabs out his eyes backstage.) It's not simply because the Greeks knew the limitations of drama without CG; scholars have considered a religious motivation--not wanting to stain the stage with blood. It could also be that they knew that whatever the audience imagined occurring was always going to be better, even if a dedicated Athenian method actor grabbed a spear and blinded himself on stage.

Consider, then, that one's eyes are the stage. We view a movie or tv and we see what it tells us to see. If I talk about BBC's "Sherlock," you know I'm talking about the wonderful duo of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. But when we read, we build the cast ourselves, taking bits and pieces of people we know and people we've seen, until we have a character that is uniquely ours. If I bring up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, your memory is of a very different person than the one that I'm talking about. A character has as many doppelgangers as it has readers.

There are some movies based on books that are great in and of themselves. I personally like the Lord of the Rings better on screen. I've never bothered to read The Godfather, since Marlon Brando has "branded" himself so well into the story it'd be a waste of time. But there's also those movies that made a complete hash of it. "Ella Enchanted" came out in 2004 and I'm still peeved at the gross misinterpretation of one of my beloved childhood novels. "The Borrowers" was completely unacceptable.

It isn't necessarily the book that is better than the movie. There are movies that are just as creative and wonderful and thought-provoking as books. There are books that translate nicely into movies--"Shawshank Redemption", "Pelican Brief". It's the brain, it's the imagination, it's the individual experience of the story that occurs most often when reading. The story we read, the one that we create behind the scenes, is always better than something plopped down in front of us like overcooked spaghetti. As readers, we feast upon the food of our own gleaning: as readers, we are never alone.

Crossposted: Readers' Books Facebook

Readers' Books: Art vs. art

There are a lot of classes I regret not taking in college. Something sciencey might have been useful, for example, and maybe something more about costume design instead of that second class on James Joyce. Right now, I’ve been thinking a lot about why I never took an art course.

Unlike the whole lack-of-science thing, which really only was justified by my distaste for remarkably boring and expensive textbooks, there were legitimate reasons against taking anything on creating art. First of all, there was the fact that you had to take a whole year of drawing before you were allowed to do any other art course. In a school where you can only feasibly take four, maybe five, courses a semester, throwing in this extra bit when you’re trying to gain a double major would be self-sabotage. There was also the uncomfortable feeling of Judgement--of whether whatever one creates is good enough. Most importantly, there’s the fact that while I create beautiful things, most people don’t call it Art. My school wouldn’t even teach pottery--it was much too philistine of an activity.

Some part of me has to admire the double standard of making art history students study ancient pottery as Art while simultaneously denying art students the opportunity to create it, but mostly this brings me back to an internal debate: art vs. Art.

Here’s the actual reason I never took that basic drawing course: I was chicken. I’ve never been naturally good at drawing--knitting, sure; sewing, yes; color theory explored in post-modern collage of empty tea wrappers and magazine ads, certainly--but my drawings tend to look like fun house mirrors done by a hesitant grade-schooler.

Here’s something else: I love to write and I’ve only ever taken one fiction writing class. It was made clear to me, in that course, that the writing I liked to do--fantasy, mostly--was not worthy of my talent or my skill, that I needed to bare my soul and write Literature, that, in short, I was wasting my time. I learned that beginning short stories with either an alarm clock or a commute was completely verboten, and that peer editing is largely useless. Mostly what I gained was three years of writer’s block and the accompanying heartbreak, a feeling like someone had chopped off one of my limbs.

I found this book in the store called Art Before Breakfast*. It is a basic drawing course for the busy, “a zillon ways to be more creative no matter how busy you are”. This is not normally the sort of book I read, but I flipped through it and was immediately both charmed and inspired. David Gregory, the author, marries an encouraging tone with matter-of-fact information, but most importantly, he talks about the difference between art and Art. You’ll have to read it for yourself to find out exactly what he says--I don’t have the space to give it justice--but he lays out that interior debate I’ve had and shines a light into the shadows.

The epiphany Gregory states is one I have been slowly embracing, but have never thought to apply to drawing. It is simply this: who cares if it is Art or art? You’re being creative, you’re doing something different and making yourself happy. Unless you’re planning to sell it at a fancy post-modern gallery, or if you want to bill yourself as the Great American Novelist, do what makes you happy. Do it for yourself, not for the sake of Art.

So here I am, sketching every morning before breakfast. I scribble away for a few minutes, then eat my toast, and feel accomplished for the day. Sometimes the results even resemble my coffee mug, the waywards folds of newspaper, or my plate. I even think I’m getting a bit better, every day, and every day, simple art wins out a little over Art. But before you ask, no, you can’t see my drawings. I still a little too chicken for that.

*Art Before Breakfast, David Gregory, 2015

[Cross-posted: Readers' Books Facebook]