2003.08.12
I love you,...it was in my Palm journal a long time ago (as well as on the front page of the loveblender.)
And would brave anything for you.
Except bees.
I'm allergic to bees.
It turns out I've been reposting a paraphrasing by Rogers Cadenhead, the guy who runs Cruel Site of the Day (He and I have been writing about it.) The paraphrasing, along with some other wonderfully bad poems, is from Oh, the Inanity. I prefer this version to the original phrasing. Cadenhead also suggested checking out Seven Haiku at Night in a Convenience Store from the same literary journal "Green Fuse" (not "Wave").
Link of the Moment
Speaking of cruel sites, making the rounds are these bonded nickel replica of various disasters, from the collapsed Texas A&M bonfire tower to the Oklahoma City Federal Building to the OJ car chase.
Ramble of the Moment
I was finally getting to read documentedlife.com, and I found the author's page of Literature and Film that has stuck with him. It included a list of books that "resisted or defeated" him, including Tolkien's well-known stuff. I was like that with Tolkien for a long time...I figured I'd start with the Hobbit, and always get to about the same place in the book, right when they're floating out of the city in wine casks or whatever, when I'd just lose all interest. Finally a few years ago (when I had a nice walk to the T and then a trainride in, both providing generous amounts of reading time) I went back the Hobbit, and just got through it. Then I finished off the trilogy in reasonably short order.
Though now, I'm not sure if I would have bothered, or just have been content with the movies.
It's funny how some books introduced to us as children loom large, massive unreadable tomes, and then you come back to 'em years later, and they're just...well, regular novels for the most part. My parents had the first books of Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy in one volume...it was pretty hefty, and when one day I opened it and it started with a citation from the "Encyclopedia Galactica"... oh man! I thought it was some kind of unbelievably huge epic... it had its own encyclopedia for crying out loud. Then during a summer off for college, I started reading a friend's collection, he had them in much more manageable normal-recent-paperback editions, and got through those 3 plus a number of sequels no problem.
I had a similar experience with "The Great Gatsby", which was the one book I cliff-noted out of in high school. I returned to it last year, and while it started a bit rough, I ended up liking it a lot. I still think maybe I didn't get it the first time because I hadn't had any real heartbreak.
So, what books kicked your butt? And what books did you make a triumphant return to?