Firstly, I don’t know what I have to write will add a lot more to what has already been written about this cult classic. It’s simply one of those books one must read in their lifetime.

The story begins when Holden Caufield is expelled from yet another prep school, Pencey. Before he leaves, Holden narrates his school life and some of his fellow students, none of whom he particular likes. Phoniness and superficiality is something that really ticks Holden off and he believes that the majority of people he meets is insincere except himself.

After having some sort of minor mental break down after he writes a composition about his dead younger brother’s baseball glove, which was scribbled all over with poetry, for his roommate he leaves the school to wander around New York and to wait for news of his expulsion to reach his parents. The rest of the story follows his stumbling about New York looking for truth and companionship. Growing up and the changes in adolescence also subconsciously concerns Holden who decides that the one thing he would like to do in life is to be the catcher in the rye. It is an idea he got from hearing a child mis-quote singing a Robert Burns poem, ‘Comin’ through the rye’. Holden would like to place himself on a cliff and be ready to catch any children who falls out through the rye and prevent them from plummeting off the cliff which would save the children from having to go through adolescence and confront the difficulty of growing up and losing the innocence of childhood.

Holden Caulfield is a likeable character and very funny but he is consumed by depression that, while he’ll admit to now and then, he fails to acknowledge. It is startling clear that Holden is desperately lonely. Out of life, he wants nothing but to see genuineness and truth from his fellow human citizens. One of the most endearing characteristics of Holden is his constant noticing of the underdogs or the background characters. In plays, movies, books and in life, the secondary characters always catches Holden’s attention and it’s quite moving. Another particularly endearing trait is his love and kindness to his younger siblings – his younger brother, Allie, with the baseball glove who died of leukemia and a sister, Phoebe, to who he eventually goes home to see. As the story unfolds, it is clear that Allie’s death still affects Holden and is unresolved grief. Another incident towards the end of the story also suggests that he may have been molested at some stage during his time at school which would explain Holden’s insistence of continually getting expelled. Holden’s troubled and repressed feelings eventually catches up with him.

I first read this book when I was 16 and I really didn’t like it. Perhaps choosing a book with such a strong, male, anti-hero protagonist was not really the type of material 16 year old girls naturally gravitate towards not to mention that the historical context was quite unfamiliar to me. On re-reading, I have enjoyed it quite a lot and I think growing up has everything to do with it. I empathise with Holden and understand his contempt for the superficiality of fellow humans. I don’t think of him as a rebel, as most criticism has labelled him as, but one who has precociously seen and desire the truth.

New podcast available. You can get it through iTunes now as well.

http://carlsagansdanceparty.podbean.com/2009/10/27/carl-sagans-dance-party-2-102709/

In this episode, we give you a brief bio of Ol’ Carl. Harry Trunckles debunks the moon landing, Jasper Pennies reviews Capitalism: a love story, Wilhelm Blitzkrieg discusses military reform, Michelle Glasshappy tells you how to write genre fiction and our supercomputer brings you precision horoscopes.

I was thinking that I have not mad any good lists lately.  So, I thought I would ponder a while and make a good one.

Books that Changed My Life

This is a list of books that I feel really had a profound effect on me in one way or another.  Now this is a good list, not a cliche list so books like the Bible and the books that I learned to read with are not on here though the Bible is a big influence in my life and I would not have learned to read had it not been for the I See Sam books.  This is a good list.  It is in no order, so they are not numbered.

East of Eden
I had all but given up on American literature when I met John Steinbeck.  We had a run in a few times in high school: Of Mice and Men and then The Grapes of Wrath.  Both were for class so I felt like spending time with him was an obligation, so I never really got to know him.  I don’t remember what motivated me to pick up EoE three summers ago, but I did.  I could not put it down.  The picture above is one that I took at the lake while my friends were swimming and I was on the shore, glued to my book.  Sam Hamilton is a storehouse of wisdom that I gleaned a lot from.

The Wringer
I read this book when I was in about 7th grade.  I am a firm believer that there is a perfect time to read every book.  I think there are some books that you can’t understand until you are a certain age or at a certain place in your life.  The Wringer was that for me.  I think that 7th grade is where I started really thinking and working on some things of my own.  In the book, there is a pigeon festival in the boy’s town where everyone wrings the neck of a pigeon. The boy, in front of his whole town, refuses to do it.  He is also found later to be hiding a pigeon in his room as a pet.  This flies in the face of everything he is supposed to be doing, but he does what he feels right anyway.

Blue Like Jazz
Again, another book found at just the right time.  I was a sophomore in college, I had just finished a summer camp where a lot of my thinking was shaped and challenged.  I was just kind of afloat spiritually not liking what I was seeing, but not having any ideas for what I thought spirituality should look like. Then I was talking to my youth minister and he said he had just read Blue Like Jazz.  I laughed and said I wasn’t reading it because it was just trendy at the time, but he assured me that this was worth the read, so I picked it up.  Then the picture began coming in clearer for what I was looking for in my faith: something that cared about people, something that was built off Christ instead of what people had told me, a church that was active.  This is what faith was supposed to look like.  I have now progressed past the level of thought and moved into action, but BLJ was a huge push in that direction.

Hatchet
I cannot talk about how much I love books without mentioning the first book I ever loved.  In 5th grade I had Ken Stamatis as a reading teacher.  I wasn’t really into reading, I liked football.  But he wasn’t going to let a single kid leave that class without a joy for reading, and he didn’t.  He asked me what I liked I told him I like being outside and I like watching nature shows on television, so he handed me Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.  So, I gave it a try.  Holy crap!  This book is awesome.  I read it super fast and told Mr Stamatis how much I loved it.  He told me there was another book and another.  There were even two more coming out.  I devoured them like a fat kid does candy.  Then I started reading other books by Paulsen.  Eventually Mr. Stamatis recommended I branch out giving me some Roald Dahl, Avi, Mark Twain and others a try.  Each time he was spot on. 

Nickel and Dimed
I read this book a few years ago and I believe it put me on a track for better poverty awareness and understanding.  Though my own up-bringing wasn’t particularly affluent this book better helped me to understand the cycle of poverty.  In it, the author goes from city to city putting herself in low-wage jobs to try to work out of that position, but realizes time after time that she cannot pay rent, gas and food with a minimum-wage job. 

Blink
If nothing else, this book was an introduction to many things including the psychology of marketing and design.  In this book, along with the others by Malcom Gladwell, deep psychological studies are put into easily understandable and applicable terms for the common person.  This book is much to credit for my young interest in psychology, sociology and other people-based sciences. 

Catcher in the Rye
This book is one that I come back to very often for wisdom on my own life.  I remember reading it when I was in high school and talking to my friend Sarah Walker about it.  I said, “I hate Holden.  What a waste of potential.  He’s smart and all, but just doesn’t care to work at anything to show people he’s worth anything.”  To which my friend Sarah replied, “You’re Holden.”   This book really is a lot about me.    A coming of age book about a guy who spends all of his time wishing he could be somewhere else and never really using where he is to its fullest potential.   He also finds out in his journey that you can never really go back home, that even the most basic of places are not the same anymore.

If you are revising The Catcher in the Rye you might enjoy Salinger.Org.

Today would have been John Lennon’s sixty-ninth birthday, had he not been gunned down in front of the Dakota Building in New York by Mark David Chapman. Thanks for that, Chapman, you Salinger-reading basket-case. You couldn’t go get yourself obsessed with someone like Reagan could you? Oh no, you had to remove one of the dreamers and artists instead of fixating on the sort of folk who cause problems for the world. (For more on this riff, go listen to Bill Hicks, Rant in E Minor)

Anyway, I sometimes like to imagine what the world would be like if Lennon had survived, or even if Chapman had been sane and had not shot him down on that fateful December day in 1980.

The first thing to consider is whether John and Paul would have ever put aside their differences enough to allow for a reunion of The Beatles. Part of me wants to think it would have happened, eventually yet there is another part of me that thinks they’d have been foolish to do so. Most bands reform for one reason – money. Rarely is it because they’ve worked through the shit that caused them to break up in the first place and have rediscovered the joy of playing together again. The worst thing in the world would have been a lame-arsed tour with McCartney clearly trying to boss the show and Lennon and Harrison walking out on him. And it’s not as though they needed the money, especially McCartney, with his voracious business interests. The royalties of Beatles songs alone could generate a fortune for another generation of their families.

Instead I picture Lennon following on from the success and renewed vigour of Double Fantasy, and finding himself ready to go out on tour with his own band for the first time in some years. Touring was never his favourite thing so it might not have been as globe-spanning as McCartney’s own jaunts in the late 80s and early 90s, but Lennon could have called on the likes of Harrison, Eric Clapton, Elton John and other big names to take some of the weight off him onstage and allow him to enjoy making music all over again. Perhaps he’d have even treated us to an acoustic tour one day, like Ray Davies of The Kinks has done.

John and Yoko were famously political, sometimes ludicrously activist. Would there have been a Nobel Prize somewhere along the line? If Obama can be nominated for simply being a smiley black president of America then Lennon would have been worth a look.

One thing the world was robbed of when Chapman pulled his trigger was the possibility of Lennon writing his memoirs. There have been so many versions of the Beatles story, from hatchet jobs to flowered-up simpering praise (step forward Hunter Davies). Wouldn’t it have been inspiring to read the words of the former rock and roll rebel whose meeting with McCartney at a village fete in Liverpool changed the world of popular music forever?

And Lennon at sixty-nine years old? He’d no doubt still be highly quotable if less highly strung. He’d be making noises about the futility of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’d be making musical noises too, probably. And he’d be making a lot of pop historians understand that rock and roll stars do not necessarily have to burn up (or be gunned down) for their musical legacy to remain of importance to the world.

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It’s getting hard to be someone
but it all works out
It doesn’t matter much to me

It’s almost as if I was already in France: my speech in French wrote itself today. I’ll go through it a few times before I leave but basically it’s in the can. I even timed myself reading it aloud, to make sure not to go beyond the allotted twenty minutes.

The downside was a headache afterwards, for a couple of hours. A Parcet® took care of it.

A dozen pages of Four Reigns followed, and then I went searching through back notes for names and phone numbers to prepare for a heavy day again tomorrow, with something I hate even more than shopping: PR. Time to give a last chance to the ‘heirs’ of those Morm Luang sisters that have been a pain in my neck since early this year (I’ll explain some time later) and then see to this PayPal connection and find the time as well to go and get my new reading glasses, buy bread and other essentials and perhaps see my daughter, now relieved of her mid-year exam.

Last night, I was disappointed by ‘Hunter Maeng’s death’ by Sarkhorn Phoonsuk: it is much less coherent than his later story, ‘The woman kite’. That it takes place in a brothel to begin with doesn’t make it necessarily erotic, although making love while classical-dancing sort of taxes the imagination.

The trouble with the story is that it starts in one direction (the sexual aspirations and practices within a Manora theatre group) only to go on a tangent and leave aside several of the actors I would like to know more of to, first, introduce a writer who, on a chance encounter, will become the recipient of our dead hunter’s will of sorts, and thus slide into a metaphysical or mythical dimension quite at odds with what precedes and far from clear. Besides, the young beautiful dancer Hunter Maeng has been courting so unsuccessfully that he had to relieve his gonads in a brothel all too readily falls into the arms of the writer on his (the hunter’s) dying say-so. Add a ‘decommissioned whore’ whose prancing with the hunter reinvigorates and puts back into service, and by then it doesn’t matter one bit that you’ll never know how the hunter met his death. In summary, the various elements don’t add up and much of the action is improbable, to say the least.

On the other hand – I can say it now that she has been simmering in her corner for a full day assuming on her own that if I made no comment it meant I was being Thai withholding nasty criticisms – I liked very much Kanthorn Aksornnam’s latest short story, ‘Pha-lee’ (the name of a monkey), one of her best so far – not as good or funny as ‘Fresh Kills’, but much better than what I have read of hers lately.

It seems Khun Noo has a fixation with primates – doesn’t she, now, Khun Siriworn? The other month, in ‘Fresh kills’, it was a genial baboon; this month, it’s a whole troop of macaque monkeys, with no fewer than two outstanding, scary males of the species. Early next year, wait for it, she might even go into apes: chimpanzees or farangutans…

Reading this story, I was reminded of those jungle pieces by Ma-lai Choophinit, minus the macho posturing but with the plus of memories of childhood adroitly blended in. I also noticed how deftly she handles repetitions – à la Saneh Sangsuk and even à la Seksan Prasertkul* – but the danger here would be to overdo it: it’s just a writing technique; too much of it would be boring.

[* Which reminds me: his story comes out tomorrow in the Bangkok Post – don’t miss it!]

The only bad point is that is it too long for the Post, so Kanthorn Aksornnam’s international fame will have to wait a while.

After going through ‘Hunter Maeng’s death’, I ended the night with a few more pages of The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger’s masterpiece, which I first read nearly half a century ago. My excuse is I found an old copy in Bang Lamphoo the other day and couldn’t resist buying it. What a romp!

But something funny happened around Chapter 13, almost halfway into the book: I had a visitor. A previous reader suddenly started underlining fragments of sentences.

It occasionally happens in those second-hand books that other readers score passages in the margin. Some even write comments or – those learning English – pepper the margins with words in a foreign language.

This one underlined, very neatly, with a pencil and a ruler, or failing that with a bookmark. And in so doing took substance before me. What he underlined was this:

P80: I’m one of these very yellow guys. … p85: She didn’t seem too goddam friendly. She was very nervous, for a prostitute. … She never said thank you, either, when you offered her something. She just didn’t know any better. … p86: I felt much more depressed than sexy. … [Boy, was] I feeling peculiar. … It was really quite embarrassing. … p87: I don’t think I could ever do it with somebody that sits in a stupid movie all day long. … She made me so nervous.

And that was it. I’m still on page 128 and, to make sure, flipped through the remaining page: no more underlining.

So Holden Caulfield did score with at least one jerk, à propos a disappointing visit to the brothel. If Sherlock was back home, from just those bits and pieces, he’d tell you that the reader in question was an 18-year-old compulsive masturbator wearing Size 13 two-toned shoes with a pimple of the left cheek, dandruff and halitosis to boot – alimentary, my dear What’s on.

Rien qu’en lisant le prénom et le nom de ce personnage, on a presque tout dit… enfin pour ceux qui ont lu le livre.

Je parle de l’Attrape-coeurs (The Catcher in the Rye) de monsieur Salinger, écrivain génial, reclus et ermite mais génial tout de même !

Ce livre, je l’ai dévoré d’un trait, comment faire autrement ? Il y a tout dans ce bouquin, une langue particulière (parfois proche du langage familier), la découverte de l’adolescence, les premiers émois de la sexualité, un récit à la 1ère personne où chacun peut s’identifier, un récit très court s’échelonnant sur une période aussi courte (48heures de la vie d’un adolescent). Chronique d’une déchéance annoncée.

Il y a ce style parlé, presque mâché, avec des tics de langage comme nous en avons tous, le tout enrubanné dans un humour grinçant et très imaginatif.

A lire. Sans concession.

Did you know that September 28th-October 3rd, 2009, is the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week?

The week celebrates the freedom we have to express our opinions— even if the opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular. Banned Books Week brings attention to the challenges that have been presented to this freedom by celebrating books which have been attempted to be banned in libraries across the country.

This year, the Student Activities Office and Brown Library are partnering on our campus to recognize Banned Books Week and the freedom to read!

Check out the following events:

ALL WEEK

• Participate in the Word-of-the-Week Contest. Stop by the library this week to see the featured word and create a clever and funny definition for it. (We want your definition of the word, not the real definition.) Contest entrants get a chance to win a cool t-shirt from the American Library Association. Students, faculty, and staff are all welcome to participate! (Entries must be recieved by 3pm on Friday, October 2nd. There will be one student winner and one faculty/staff winner, and they will be notified this Friday.)
• Visit Our Display on the Main Floor. See some examples of books that have been banned and find out the reasons behind it.

MONDAY, 9/28

• Make Your Own Photo Bookmark. 10am-2pm, Brown Library steps. First 100 participants receive a free banned book. Choice of following titles: The Kite Runner, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, To Kill a Mockinbird, Fahrenheit 451, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

WEDNESDAY, 9/30

• Papermaking. 10am-2pm, Brown Library steps. Use the art of papermaking to create your own bookmark or sheet of paper, using a variety of materials.

THURSDAY, 10/1

• Film Showing: Good Night, and Good Luck. 1pm, library classroom. This award-winning film stars George Clooney and portrays the drama of journalists who provided critical commentary against popular opinion of the time. 93 minutes.

FRIDAY, 10/2

• Word-of-the-Week Contest winners chosen!

…and start reading now for the upcoming Banned Book Club! The first meeting will be Wednesday, October 21, at 6pm (location tbd). The book to be discussed will be The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Roy both won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and faced an obscenity trial in her native India for this, her first novel. Club open to students, faculty, and staff.

The Brown Library has many books which have been challenged and banned, including:

• Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Call number E185.97.A56 A3 1971
• Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. Call number PS3537.T3234 O4
• Voltaire. Candide, or, Optimism. Call number PQ2082.C3 E5 2005
• Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. Call number PS3563.O8749 B55 1993
• Lawrence, D.H. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Call number PR6023.A93 L2
• Walker, Alice. The Color Purple: A Novel. Call number PS3573.A425 C6 1982
• Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. Call number PS3537.A426 C32 1961
• King, Stephen. Christine. Call number PS3561.I483 C4 1983
• Eliot, George. Silas Marner; : The Weaver of Raveloe. Call number PR4670.A1 1967

For a short history of attempts at censoring books, please see The Online Books Page Presents Banned Books Online at the University of Pennsylvania. Included in this page are links to the actual texts of these works, available for free online.

Gedeeltelijk zwart – zwart zoals in zwartgallig, donker of film noir – en gedeeltelijk een psychedelische stoeipartij, maar vooral en volledig Thomas Pynchon. Waarschijnlijk geldt dit niet alleen voor Inherent Vice, de versgebaarde Pynchon, maar ook voor het hoofdpersonage, Doc Sportello, met een naam die klinkt alsof hij weggelopen is uit een van de favoriete B-films van Tarantino. In het verhaal ontwaakt privé-detective Doc Sportello af en toe uit een nevelwolk marijuana om toe te kijken hoe het tijdperk van de vrije liefde eindigt en hoe de paranoia zich langzaam mengt met de mist boven Los Angeles.

Mijn eerste contact met Thomas Pynchon was in 1996 of in 1997. Samen met een Canadese studente moest ik een vorm van ‘encyclopaedia entry’ voor Gravity’s Rainbow van Pynchon maken. Een postmoderne roman tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Een roman die barst van personages die het geheim van de ‘Schwarzgerät’ willen ontsluieren. Ik raakte gefascineerd, maar schreef elke keer Pyncheon in plaats van Pynchon. Eén jaar later en wijzer lazen we Entropy, een kortverhaal over een feestje dat ontaardt in chaos, entropie.

Ondertussen ben ik twee keer begonnen aan Gravity’s Rainbow, maar aan het einde ben ik niet geraakt. The Crying of Lot 49, vaak omschreven als de meest toegankelijke Pynchon, en Vineland heb ik wél gelezen. Mason & Dixon ligt klaar, Gravity’s Rainbow moet nog maar eens omhoog op mijn leeslijst. Tijd voor intellectuele leesvakantie.

In zijn hele werk balanceert Pynchon tussen een moeilijk doordringbare geslotenheid en een je m’en foutistische speelsheid. In Inherent Vice halen de lichtheid en de speelsheid de bovenhand. Pynchon zet de traditie voort van de in de VS populaire hard-boiled detective novel. Aan de basis van zo’n verhaal staat vaak een privé-detective, heel streetwise, in een wereld van geweld en corruptie. Legendarische private eyes zijn Sam Spade van auteur Dashiel Hammett en Philip Marlowe van schrijver Raymond Chandler. Misschien hoort binnen zestig jaar het postmoderne neefje Doc Sportello hier ook bij.

Wat de mythe rond Pynchon nog groter maakt, is zijn teruggetrokken leven. Er bestaan zo goed als geen foto’s van de auteur. De oudste bestaande foto dateert van de jaren 50. En da’s vreemd in een wereld waarin auteurs verkopen door op tv te komen, boeken te signeren op boekenfestijnen en hun ziel verkopen aan de marketeers van deze wereld.

In The Simpsons is twee keer een ‘gastrol’ weggelegd voor Pynchon, telkens met een zak over zijn hoofd.

Door zijn kluizenaarsbestaan te combineren met het publiceren van zware romans voedt hij de mythe rond zijn enigmatisch aura, dit in tegenstelling tot die andere geniale Amerikaanse romancier J.D. Salinger. De schrijver van de klassieker The Catcher in the Rye leeft al veertig jaar in het duister zonder iets nieuws te publiceren.

Voor Inherent Vice is er zelfs een promocampagne mét youtube-filmpje (zie boven) en er wordt beweerd dat de stem die je hoort van Pynchon zelve is.

Dear______,

I am in a house now with my little familia, and have the internet oncet again.

I played a lot of fiddle in Florida with a banjo player from ‘tucky and he had all his own teef!

Now I’m back in L.A. and learning the button accordion because I like the cajun waltz.

We had a big ol’ Airstream trailer we took across and went to Zuni and Grand Canyon and Carlsbad and Rozwell and the Natchez trace and a bunch of other really beautiful places.

And we got to see California from really far away and decided it was home for now.

I got to show my boy how to bury my grandma and my wife how to make bisquits and I only cried when I had to have grandma’s phone shut off.

It was EVergreen9-4754 since the olden days, before I was born and the only thing in my life that had never changed.

I think of you often and I’m reading “9 Stories” by JD salinger for about the 5th time.

I think you might like it if you haven’t already.

Love,

Title says it all. Before I go much deeper into the post, I’m gonna hate WordPress if it fails on me again. I just wrote a whole long post which took me nearly and hour. Then I pressed the ‘Publish’ button, my post is missing, damn it!

Anyways.

Why self-declare holiday? Because I am skipping school tomorrow.

Compared to last year, I was more of a good girl. I never wake up late for school. If I did, it only happends once or twice. It hardly ever happens though.

As for this year, I’ve had (and still having) the worst record for coming to school late, and declaring my own holiday. As everyone knows, this year happens to be one of my utmost Major year, as I am sitting for my PMR examination. Busy year, in addition of sleeping late makes you late for school. There was once, I even showed up to school at 9.30a.m. My friends wondered why on earth did I even bother coming at 9.30am? It was for Debate, until it was canceled. Imagine how angry I was.

Moving on..

Tomorrow’s self declare holiday because all the non-muslims in school decides to boycott the school.

Nawh, that was a horrible joke, aye?

T’said that tomorrow, the school’s having some activity for the Muslims, and not wanting to isolate us at one corner, it’d be unfair for us if the school didn’t organize any activity for us too. You you see, as much as we love not attending class and studying, we also dspise having to attend and participating in something tedious and lame, which brings us nothing but boredom and vexation. In order to avoid myself from such circumstance, I shall declare tomorrow a holiday!!

***

If you may or may not read my prvious post, for the past few days, I’ve been sitting for my Gerak Gempur examination, and truth be told, I am weared out to the max. It tires me everyday, without fail.

I had Maths 1&2 today, and truth be told, Paper 1 was so hard, and Paper 2 was like “frying peanuts” (direct translation of a Malay word : kacang goreng, which means uber easy).

I has Science yesterday, and it was a total opposite of Maths. Science Paper 2 was so tough, my brain literally went dry while halfway doing it. I was frying peanuts all the way for Paper 1.

Today, I didn’t manage to finish almost 10 questions on time. I only left 5 minutes to complete 10 questions, and I bet.. My result will not turn out pretty.

When I got home, all I thought of was slumping myself on the bed and have a good nap. I didn’t bother about eating or showering, I just wanted to sleep everything away. Sleeping, the best remedy.

***

One thing why I am glad Gerak Gempur is over, and holidays are here, I am liberated, free from Gerak Gempur. No more sitting in the hall (errr.. not for a week as for now). I’ve been sitting in the hall for about 2 weeks. And trust me, it is not comfortable or even pleasant at all.

Especially with immature, moronic nincompoop monkeys being very, I repeat.. VERY inconsiderate. I am emphasizing and stressing on the Form 1’s (class shall not be disclosed), and bunch of hooligans making helluva noises in the temporary surau behind the hall. They were laughing at a really loud, boisterous extend, shouting and yelling and making irritating and vexing noises. I feel like screaming, or going up to them and slap each and every one of them.

Imagine, you’re really immensed.. or earthed to your paper, and those monoric nincompoops were making extreme noises. It’s really distracting. Imagine if they were to be sitting in the hall, having to face distress, and then facing tremendous noises made by inconsiderate people?

Let me see you in the hall next year, and tell me how does it feels being distracted by noises. Alright?

***

Speaking about school.. I bought a book recently, titled ‘The Catcher In the Rye’ by JD Salinger. I heard, it happens to be a praiseworthy book, and worth reading. I’ve got many good feedbacks from it.

Mr Tiew went in to the hall, and was simply checking on all of us. He saw my book, walk towards my table, picked up my book, and said, “The Catcher in the Rye. This is a great book. I learnt this book for Literature while I was studying in University. Great book.. Great book.” he repeated himself a few times, and I quickly nudged Wai Min, and told him about it.

He too, was the first to tell me what a great book it is.

When  first saw the book, it’s published by two different Publisher. The one I bought was Published by Penguins. I decided to pick up Penguin’s because I trust Penguin more, and I simply love the front cover, even though I have to pay a few extra bucks on it.

Anywho, I can’t wait to read this book

***

The more nearer it is to PMR, the more I am enjoying myself with outings. Recently, on Monday was Denise’s Birthday. I did wrote a special, non-lengthy Birthday post for her, but I didn’t post it yet. Since it’s a little bit too late, Happy belated Birthday, dear sis. Hope you liked the present Afiq and I got you.

As for her last minute Birthday outing, Afiq and I planned something at the [very] eleventh hour, and then we, and Julian decided to put himself in to the plan. I have to give them a big thanks, together with a fat kiss and hug, because without them, none of these would happen. Movies & hotel food.

So, thank you Afiq, my abang Ipar tersayang (cewah) and Julian “Uncle Juu’ Khoo.

What happened and how it happened is now history

***

Has anyone watched the VMA’s? How Kanye “Dickhead” West literally dissed the hell out of Taylor Swift.

Personally, I ain’t a big, or a die-hard fan of Taytay, but I extremely love her flawless skin and her songs.

During the VMA’s, Taylor Swift won an award for Female’s Best Music Video, and after Taylor Swift was [almost] done with her speech, Kanye ‘Dickhead’ West grab the mic away, and said, “Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I let you finish [her speech], but Beyonce have the best video of all time!”. He then returns the mic back to Taylor Swift, leaving Taylor Swift hanging there, embarrassed and stunned.

You should’ve seen the look on Taylor’s face. You can almost feel her ‘inner-suffering’ and how hurtful it was.

Yes, Beyonce may have the best video ever, but what rights does Kanye ‘Dickhead’ West have, to just grab the mic away and diss her on stage, just like that? That was just pure evil man. I was never a fan of Kanye ‘Dickhead’ West, neither did I hated him. But after seeing his horrible act on stage (which I assume he did that just for extra publisity or attention because he did not win any awards…. I think. I don’t know. I didn’t watch the VMA’s. That’s what I read in the comments), I now hate him more than ever.

Kanye West is now the official biggest most major Dickhead alive. But.. I’d prefer him much dead.

***

To end my post, here’s a song from One Republic, Come Home. I was blog hopping until I stumbled upon this great song. Almost like Rascal Flatts. Either way, both are great. Here’s the song

Tenho lido bem menos do que gostaria, acho que como quase todo mundo que trabalha, tem família, internet, etc. para ocupar o tempo.

De qualquer forma, consegui ler alguma coisa nesses meses que não fosse ligado exclusivamente a trabalho. Abaixo, uma pequena lista, não exclusiva, mas representativa. Não está ordenada por nenhum critério específico.

Philip Roth – Fantasma Sai de Cena – O que falar de quem ganhou um Pulitzer, a National Medal of Arts, a Gold Medal for Fiction da American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2 vezes o National Book Award e o National Book Critics Circle Award, 3 vezes o PEN/Faulkner Award, entre outros prêmios? Nada, apenas que escreveu mais um grande livro. Roth é mesmo um monstro da literatura atual.

Philip Roth (de novo) – O Animal Agonizante – Perturbador. Trata, como Fantasma Sai de Cena, da delicada relação que temos com o envelhecimento, porém aqui sob a ótica sexual mais explícita (e como). O filme Fatal, com a Penélope Cruz estonteante, foi feito com base nele, e é bom, exceto pelo final, que foi alterado de uma maneira grotesca. O livro tem o final mais marcante que já li – e confesso que me foi útil em um momento crítico e difícil. Sempre lembrava da frase final…thanks Roth!!!

Chico Buarque – Leite Derramado – Esperava muito desse livro, dado o frisson e as várias críticas favoráveis. De forma até meio envergonhada, digo que não achei nada demais. Até – confesso – quase não gostei. Ok, ele tem um jeito próprio de escrever (que eu particularmente não aprecio tanto assim), mas so what?  Não dá pra comparar com Paul Auster ou Philip Roth, como alguns mais ufanistas querem. Achei pretensioso. Prefiro o compositor.

O Clube do Filme – David Gilmour – Taí, um livro despretensioso e muito bom, talvez por isso mesmo. Um pai separado e fracassado profissionalmente se depara com o fato de seu filho adolescente querer largar a escola. Ele aceita, desde que assistissem juntos um filme por semana – essa seria a sua educação. A história é real e o livro é comovente. Parece que hoje ambos – pai e filho – estão bem na foto. Vale a pena ler.

Equador – Miguel Sousa Tavares – Outro livro que é obrigatório não adorar e eu, confesso, achei que se perdeu a partir de certo momento. O autor português tem uma bela história nas mãos e é ótimo em contextualizar historicamente o livro, mas achei o final previsível. Fiquei com a impressão que ele ficou refém do enredo que criou e não conseguiu finalizar o livro da maneira que deveria. As últimas 100 páginas parecem escritas pela Glória Perez. Depois que fiquei sabendo que o cara é arrogante, então…

Todos os Fogos o Fogo – Júlio Cortázar – Uma coletânea de 8 contos que são verdadeiras obras-primas desse argentino que foi um dos maiores contistas de sua época. Simplesmente essencial.

Nove Estórias – J.D. Salinger – Esse é dos antigos.  Não é uma leitura fácil. Nada é direto, o leitor que imagine ou interprete. É seco e bruto. Melancólico. Mas sem dúvida um grande momento do autor de Um Apanhador no Campo de Centeio.

Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira – José Saramago – Uma verdadeira alucinação em alta velocidade, economizando pontuação e usando parágrafos longos, no melhor estilo do Saramago. Ok, você viu o filme. Leia o livro.

Homem no Escuro  – Paul Auster – Eu diria que Auster está entre meus escritores favoritos. Mas essa é, em minha opinião, uma obra menor do autor. Gostei mais dos outros e, não sei explicar porque, mas Desvarios no Brooklin é a que mais me marcou. Li recentemente Timbuktu, que vai muito bem até certo ponto, uma estória incrível, mas no terço final perde o fio da meada. Mas calma lá, Auster é Auster, vale de qualquer forma.

Travessuras da Menina Má – Mário Vargas Llosa -  Um livro realmente maravilhoso, e atemorizante se você se vê na figura do protagonista. Foi-me também muito útil…

O Canto da Missão – John Le Carré – Não dá para negar que ele sabe escrever uma estória envolvente. Foi o primeiro livro dele que li. Bem, gostei…mas não achei aquilo tudo não! Parece que o filme O Intérprete foi feito com base nele. Ou não. Sei lá.

Tem outros na lista, mas esses são os que me lembro mais assim, de pronto. Comentários?

Näe, nu skriver jag inget mer idag. Ögonen går i kors och jag ser suddigt trots glasögonen. Går till sängs med J.D. Salinger istället och vilar ut inför morgondagens plugg-marathon.

I’m back from having spent the better part of a week in Toronto, where I heard Clay Shirky, Charlene Li, and lots of other smart people speak at my employer’s annual meeting. (It’s also where Candy Spelling was pitted against a Build-a-Bear Workshop, but that’s another matter.) I’ll get back into the usual swim of things shortly. (This has been the longest I’ve been separated from this blog since I started it, I think; it’s a strange feeling.) In the meantime, consider taking a look at the Southeast Review’s Q&A with Donald Ray Pollock; D. G. Myers‘ appreciation of Philip Roth’s Goodbye Columbus on its 50th anniversary; and, perhaps because I’ve been exposed to too much celebrity journalism while biding my time in airport terminals yesterday, Miley Cyrus‘ thoughts on The Catcher in the Rye.

J. D. Salinger - The New Yorker, January 31, 1948, pages 21-25

THERE WERE ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon till almost two-thirty to get her call through. She used the time, though. She read an article in a women’s pocket-size magazine, called “Sex Is Fun-or Hell.” She washed her comb and brush. She took the spot out of the skirt of her beige suit. She moved the button on her Saks blouse. She tweezed out two freshly surfaced hairs in her mole. When the operator finally rang her room, she was sitting on the window seat and had almost finished putting lacquer on the nails of her left hand.

She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty.

With her little lacquer brush, while the phone was ringing, she went over the nail of her little finger, accentuating the line of the moon. She then replaced the cap on the bottle of lacquer and, standing up, passed her left–the wet–hand back and forth through the air. With her dry hand, she picked up a congested ashtray from the window seat and carried it with her over to the night table, on which the phone stood. She sat down on one of the made-up twin beds and–it was the fifth or sixth ring–picked up the phone.

..for the rest of the short story by JD Salinger, click here.

top – Shai …………. Southern Comfort Suit (mens) – charcoal
bottom – I Love 13 …………. Ladybug Bloomers
nylons – Insolence …………. Dolores Bloggers Special
shoes – Last Call …………. Vamp – onyx
eyes – LeLutka …………. sky
lashes – Milk Motion …………. standard
skin – Milk Motion …………. Ninon Pale T – white around the eyes
hair – Clawtooth …………. CBC: You Say Tomato – black beauty
poses – Luth

Inför lagen är vi alla lika, eller?  Beroende på vilket land vi bor i då… Fredrik Colting har skrivit en bok med titeln 60 years later. Coming through the rye. JD Salinger hävdar att det rör sig om ett plagiat på hans Catcher in the rye, och således har utgivningen stoppats i väntan på ett domstolsbeslut.

Hur kan man bråka om en bok är ett plagiat eller inte samtidigt som Tekniska Museet kommer undan med det här?

Det är skillnad på plagiat, parafras och paragraf. Nog skulle man kunna rida lite mindre på paragraferna over there, om man tar i beaktande Coltings sammanlagda verk och vid en närmare granskning inser att han inte är så farlig, kanske inte ens någon författare på riktigt (förlåt), eller?

When I was a senior in high school, the project for the spring semester in my English class was a research paper on a novel of our choice.  I chose “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger.  I chose the book because I knew that when it was published it was quite controversial.  I wanted to see what all the hubub was about.  Of course, what I didn’t think about was the fact that the book was published in 1951 and it didn’t take much to cause controversy back then.  Mrs. Landers, my teacher, warned me that I might be disappointed, but nothing would do but for me to read it.  Half way through the book I discovered that the book was, at best, mediocre and mostly boring!  The words and ideas that caused controversy in 1951 were nothing uncommon in 1990.  I was sorely disappointed in the book — but, the life of the author was quite fascinating to me.

Salinger is a relative hermit.  Living in New York City, he hasn’t been publicly interviewed since 1980 and hasn’t published an original work since 1965.  The work for which he is best know is now nearly 60 years old.  The author scarcely leaves his home and there are very few people who have regular communication with him.  Despite the fact that Salinger has been nearly completely secluded for over 20 years he is still one of the most well known, though not well read, modern American authors.  The hermit has a following!

What’s my point?  Basically this — sometimes I think I might be better off just becoming a hermit like Salinger.  This week has been pretty tough for me.  I’ve had several panic attacks and feel like I’ve taken a step backward.  Friday night we had a wonderful time at my sister’s house celebrating my niece’s birthday.  There were many friends there and I stayed until nearly midnight.  It was a great time — but, Saturday morning I was in a terrible state of panic.  I had an attack at breakfast and I felt bad most of the remainder of the day.  Last night as I lay in bed, I started thinking about J.D. Salinger … what would be the harm in being a hermit?  It has certainly worked for them.

If I’m being perfectly honest here — which I’m trying hard to be — I must admit there is a part of me that would be more than happy to lock myself away and stay locked away.  I could keep to myself, live quietly and be a bother to no one.  I could work from home and maybe, if I’m lucky, even write some.  In truth, I have just a much a chance of becoming a well known writer from home as I do sitting in some office building somewhere.  Couple that with the fact that if I never went anywhere again I’d never have to feel the awful panic I feel when I leave my house and it sounds like a winning proposition to me!!

The problem is there is another part of me that doesn’t want that.  There is a part of me that is just as powerful that wants to go outside, travel and live life to the fullest.  There are so many places I’ve never been that I want to see badly — Italy, England, Germany — places a hermit can never see.  This part of me realizes that if I lock myself away from the world and give in to my fears I will never see the places and things I want to see. 

It’s not easy having a war raging inside you all the time.  This is the worst kind of war because my enemy is me!  This is not a war that can be one with weapons or rhetoric.  I can’t debate myself into submission and I certainly can’t beat myself into it.  There are days — oh, forget days — there are hours when I feel so helpless I can barely breathe.  What do I do to win this war?  Those days and hours make me wonder if it’s even possible and it is in those moments that I sink into thinking about Salinger again — thinking about life as a hermit; safe and sound and away from harm.  Salinger’s a hermit — why not me?

Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in “Catcher” sums up the war that goes on inside me everyday in a rather crude, but humorous manner in Chapter 6:

“When I really worry about something, I don’t just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don’t go. I’m too worried to go.”

You see, that’s what it’s like for me some days.  I get myself so worked up and worried over something that the one thing I need to do to relieve the worry and anxiety is the one thing I can’t do because I’m too worried or anxious to do it.  It’s the biggest Catch 22 in the history of the world.  Sometimes I need to allow myself to give in to the fear, but I’m just too afraid!  What a life!

Who really knows what will come of all of this?  No one, I guess — I know I certainly don’t.  But, even if this exercise proves futile for me, maybe reading about it will cause someone to rethink their life.  My hope, however, is that through all of this I will find some sort of freedom from this fear that has plagued me as long as I can remember.  It’s funny — since I started this program I’ve begun to remember even more times when I was very young that my anxiety overwhelmed me and took over my life.  Maybe if I’d known it back then I could have stopped it.  But, that’s all academic at this point.  Now I have to decide what to do with myself.  There’s really only one J.D. Salinger……..

………right?

I know it’s embarrassingly twee to love Zooey Deschanel.  Kinda like adoring Dave Eggers after he started calling his fans “niggardly” in interviews.  Or Zach Braff after he started dating Mandy Moore.  But I can’t help it, I find these commercials adorable.

Unfortunately, high waisted frocks do not flatter my curveless, short torso-ed figure.  But I wear them anyway.  And I’ll justify my Zooey love for the following three reasons:

1. She made a totally irrelevant, irresponsible, insignificant character on Weeds entertaining.

2. She plays a better Manic Pixie Dream Girl than Kirsten Dunst could ever hope to.  I cringed my way through Crazy/Beautiful and Elizabethtown.

3. She was named after Zooey Glass! Is liking J.D. Salinger’s lesser-known works still okay?