Thoughts From the Dirty City

I’m giving up on Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog. Actually, I gave up on it about a week ago I’ve just been to lazy to find something else to read. It’s not that the book was terrible or anything, just not my thing. It’s a collection of pseudo short stories, a lot of rambling nonsense and one clever little play smushed in the mix. I think what bugged me most about this book was the authors need to use the biggest word he could think of in every farkwading sentence. You’re smart and have a great vocabulary, I get it. If only he was actually saying something with all those big words. Alas, halfway through I started to think that none of the rambling was really going anywhere and gave up.

Since putting Corn Dogs down I’ve been supplementing with Grimm’s Fairytails. A lot of the stories are familiar ones (Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, etc) but some I had never read or heard of. Most of them were only a few pages long and nowhere near as grim as the title would have you believe. All the tails are odd and seem to just stop mid thought and wrap everything up in a sentence or two. Probably something to do with them being written for kids. It’s been nice just leafing through and reading in bursts, but I’m ready to dive into a novel again.

So I went to the library and grabbed the first thing that looked interesting. I do this a lot at the library. There is a list of books I want to read and authors I enjoy, but somehow when I walk into a library my mind goes blank and all I can think is “books…burble…words…huh”. Sometimes the random grabs work out, sometimes not so much. Either way, I have something to read again!

The random grab: The Plague by Albert Camus. (I blame my recent stomach issues for drawing me to a book about disease.) Here is hoping it works out better than the Corn Dog book.

Also:
Working extra hours and spending vast amounts of time hunched over a production table with an exacto have rendered me nearly brain dead the last few days. My hands, shoulders and feet ache. I will be so freaking happy when this project is wrapped up and I can get back to some sort of normalcy.

I said I was going to make an attempt to keep up on tracking what I’ve read, and what I thought about it. Sorta fell off that wagon the moment I jumped on it.

Anyway, here is what I’ve been reading lately and a breif recap of what I thought. I’m not going to write any synopsis, or go over the plot…that is what book jackets (and google) is for.

Herman Hesse
Steppenwolf and Sidhartha

I’m going to be very vague and speak generally about both.  Ultimately, I think both are about the journey of self discovery. The author was very into Eastern theology. That was obvious through both books, though much more obviously in Sidhartha. Each book presented a very different journey, but both had the same goal; to find unity and balance within oneself (they just name that something different in each of the books). The Steppenwolf’s journey was through torment and self doubt while Sidhartha’s was through knowledge, experience and eventually self sacrifice.

Way genaric description of both. But honestly, I think these are the kinds of books you just have to read for yourself. I think each will mean something different to each person that reads them.  Regardless, both are very powerful books. I highly recommend. I do want to add that Steppenwolf is about as uncomfortable to read as a book can be, but totally worth it.

Alice Steinbach
Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Women

by Gillette Burgess

The Goops they lick their fingers
And the Goops they lick their knives:
They spill their broth on the tablecloth
Oh, they lead disgusting lives!
The Goops they talk while eating,
And loud and fast they chew;
And that is why I’m glad that I
Am not a Goop, are you?

In keeping with yesterday’s post, I have decided to revisit my youth a bit. When I was little I could recite this poem by heart, but still made my dad read it to me every night before bed. If I think back on my childhood, this poem and the book it came from is one of the first things that come to mind. Just thinking about the detailed wood cut prints that illustrated each of the pages makes me smile.

I would love to recommend the book, but it has long been out of print. It is called “The Children’s Book of Literature” and is a large collection classic children’s stories, poems and fable’s.

And, just in case you are wondering: I AM actually a GOOP. Always have been, always will be.