Good Lord! What a beautiful morning!
Hey.
The next time you want to inject a little bit of transcendent joy and well-being into your life, do this: Go outside when the weather is just about perfect...sunny. Calm. No wind. Fairly warm. Now, listen to the piece "Elizabeth the Queen" from Erich Korngold's score to the film_The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex._
You will feel the same ageless peace that I do right now.
You're welcome.
Writing Like a Bastard
The Catcher in the Rye by
J.D. Salinger My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
So, there is an important decision we, as readers, have to make when reading this stream-of-consciousness screed against humanity. Namely, we have to decide how seriously we will take the seemingly endless complaining on the part of the narrator Holden Caulfield, as we do with any teenager in real life.
It is important how much or how little we let his observations on the "phoniness" of people into our heads. I would posit that the more thoughtfully you take his complaints, the more opportunity this book has to affect you as literary art. I would say the dangerous decision is just to say that the narrator is crazy and dispense with him from that point. Indeed that would make reading this book a waste of time.
But, what if Holden's right? What if the world really is full of phoniness? What if loss of innocence is something to bemoan? Well then, the idea of a foul-mouthed, alienated, know-it-all who yet defends the innocence of children and who values protecting their youthfulness...well that character becomes SO MUCH more poignant, so much more human in his duality, so much more interesting. Brokenness is always more interesting.
The other thing I liked about this book is Salinger's creation of a kid who "speaks" so interestingly. You want him to keep going just to hear what he'll say next.
View all my reviews.
Someone Make the Case for Me...
I caught most of the President's press conference tonight and one thing struck me as odd.
In the midst of such godawful economic news: of layoffs, of Wall Street's near collapse, the credit crisis, an 800-something BILLION dollar plan to MAYBE fix things in the mid-term and about a thousand other financial things I don't understand..it seemed perversely out of place that one reporter asked the president's views about steroids in baseball.
Someone make the case why I should give a rat's ass about who used steroids in an entertainment industry when the world seems to be crashing down around us..
And...go!
