"A man does not exist until he is drunk." -Ernest Hemingway

Taoism rules school

Super cute and insightful all at the same time. I like how simple this was and how much it made me reflect on how I live my life. Taoism (DAOism) prospers in living in the nature of things, wisdom not knowledge, etc etc etc.

The Bisy Backson has to be the personality that is the most saddening because it seems like its in everyone and its killing.... wtf is a Bisy Backson? He is "a creature who is perpetually doing things and always running around frantically trying to finish things"... he has a goal in mind, but doesn't know exactly what... to attain a new ______ (insert material thing here). but then what? he has to accomplish another goal. when can he exactly live?

Perfect for a warm, sunny afternoon.

Jesus' Son: Stories

I tried my best not to get through these too fast, and I feel like I need to go back and do a reread. Each one is different, but have a layer of a good for nothingness, runaways, on the run, mildy perverted, meth head personalities. But each story is like picking the most sordid looking guy that no one wants to take a second glance at in a run down town and peering into a scenario of their everyday existence. In some stories the things that happen are insane to the 'tame folk', but johnson makes a conversation with a guy who has a scar on both cheeks from having a bullet blasted through his face a fish in water - solemn occurrence.

Edit: I should add that I took a second over to listen to this book, and it was still a scuzzy and wicked time. It still feels like walking in a desolate town in a winter's day in South Dakota, jumping into the only bar then sleeping with the town's only whore. haha like I know what any of that feels like.

silly

silly, originally uploaded by ter -ri -fic!.

So how many people have read this book? Not me until today. For awhile I had all these preconceptions about it that kept me away from it.
1) it's high school curriculum
2)catcher in the rye is for boys, as the bell jar is for girls
3)the movie Chapter 27, which is about the guy who murdered John Lennon was heavily centered around this book... if you heard Jared Leto's voice reading some of it.. uhh I did not want to hear his voice when I read this.

"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants live humbly for one." quoted from the "flitting" English teacher that rubbed Holden's head while he was sleeping. A good quote said by a creepy guy!

But it's fantastic. Franny and Zooey was also wonderful, as well as Raise high the roof beam & Seymour an introduction. I'm so mad at myself for holding off until his death notice to read this. Plenty of what Holden Caulfield thinks about is it... its relevant angst. Even as a 26 year old. Ouch....

R.I.P. J.D. Salinger

edit A fast, but awesome read.... has the "and so on(s)." and the "hi-hos", but its an autobiography of a post apocolyptic president of the united states, who is a complete genius with his sister, when they have wild orgies and tear up everything around them. They are ugly monsters and when they were kids, raised as retards and pulled apart by psychoanalysts, but together they came up with theories and ideas that even the miniature Chinese sought.

I'm not kidding. What did you expect?

Let me clear a few things up... so this novel was supposed to be a couple of things, which is "funny" and a great "summer" fiction (light?) read.. that is why I picked it up. Well I don't regret it, but I can't recall a time it was a laugh out loud kind of book and I felt it was laborious more than a few times. I even felt like abandoning the damn thing. It also is supposed to be about a family...more specifically 5 siblings, but I really only recall four, and the story mostly revolved around one Tanner, which is Simon.

Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for this, but it is appealing and a stimulating read. Simon pretty much wanders from job to job , city to country, house to backally room, and really it seems like he is never satisfied. The guy has something to say about everything.. like he literally goes off at every guy who hired him to the point that he doesn't have job reference or experience for anything - and doesn't want it for a matter of fact, but he somehow manages to talk his was into a new job and into a free place to live, etc. (He tends to say everything about anything that a lot of us have wanted to say those in the higher ups or about those around us..oddly). He is really onto something here... nothing too eventful happens, but it is as he is moving through life nonchalantly and through his interactions with others and insight into the way people move and work..he concludes that a profession doesn't merely make a man, cause either way we'd be the same as we age no matter what we end up doing. He appreciates the small things that he senses day to day, concludes that real freedom is from being what they say is poor, and having the disadvantage is not an ultimate tragedy...

I also read that this was the last novel he wrote before he landed in a madhouse... hrm.