Hysterical

This book ROCKS!  I laughed so hard while reading How to be a Woman as well as wanted to pump my fist many times over.  Ms. Moran is hysterical and honest and really could be my new best friend.  The chapter on underwear is hilarious.  I bought a copy for my sister before I was even 1/3 of the way into the book.  8/10.

“We need to reclaim the word 'feminism'. We need the word 'feminism' back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist - and only 42% of British women - I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of 'liberation for women' is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? 'Vogue' by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY?”

also


“But, of course, you might be asking yourself, 'Am I a feminist? I might not be. I don't know! I still don't know what it is! I'm too knackered and confused to work it out. That curtain pole really still isn't up! I don't have time to work out if I am a women's libber! There seems to be a lot to it. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?'
I understand.
So here is the quick way of working out if you're a feminist. Put your hand in your pants.

a) Do you have a vagina? and
b) Do you want to be in charge of it?

If you said 'yes' to both, then congratulations! You're a feminist.”  

Be curious

Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.- Aaron Swartz

You are not stupid

"Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell" - Marty McConnell

leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.

Compassion

"Once, headed uptown on the 9 train, I noticed a sign posted by the Metropolitan Transit Authority advising subway riders who might become ill in the train. The sign asked that the suddenly infirm inform another passenger or get out at the next stop and approach the stationmaster. Do not, repeat, do not pull the emergency brake, the sign said, as this will only delay aid. Which was all very logical, but for the following proclamation at the bottom of the sign, something along the lines of, “If you are sick, you will not be left alone.” This strikes me as not only kind, not only comforting, but the very epitome of civilization, good government, i.e., the the crux of the societal impulse. Banding together, pooling our taxes, not just making trains, not just making trains that move underground, not just making trains that move underground with surprising efficiency at a fair price—but posting on said trains a notification of such surprising compassion and thoughtfulness. I found myself scanning the faces of my fellow passengers, hoping for fainting, obvious fevers, at the very least a sneeze so that I might offer a tissue." - Sarah Vowell

Irrevocable

Once,
for each thing, only once. Once, and no more. And we too,
once. Never again. But this
once, to have been, though only once,
to have been an earthly thing – seems irrevocable.
- Rilke, Duino Elegies

Rampant

Found this in my drafts:



 

I could do with a bit more excess. From now on I'm going to be immoderate--and volatile--I shall enjoy loud music and lurid poetry. I shall be rampant."

I think it's impossible not to love a book that contains the above sentiment.  Chocolat is a fantastic novel - different from the movie but in a good way.  Joanne Harris is master of the lovely turn of phrase and perfect sentiment.  Not that this is a treacley sweet book - far from it.  It's balanced just right between reserve and rampantness.  I really really enjoyed it.  I give it an 8.5. (I love my .5's).

Preparation and reminiscence

Out Stealing Horses is one of those stories that linger over you for a good while after they end.  It's about an old man preparing for winter and  remembering a particular summer as a boy.  I loved that both time periods had equal weight and flow.  It's full of many gorgeous words and descriptions.  When the tale was in winter, I felt the chill and sluggishness.  The summer memory was equally up to the task.  It just felt so perfectly balanced and right.  I feel like I'm having a hard time shaking this one.  It's a 9 by my scale.

I can't resist leaving you with a quote. 

If I just concentrate I can walk into memory's store and find the right shelf with the right film and disappear into it.

Lucille

I as sad to hear of Lucille Clifton's death. She wrote some fine poems.

"My Mama Moved Among the Days"


My Mama moved among the days
like a dreamwalker in a field;
seemed like what she touched was here

seemed like what touched her couldn't hold,

she got us almost through the high grass

then seemed like she turned around and ran

right back in

right back on in

Did you all read this poem in school too?

Sea Fever by John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Scraps and eyes

A while back I read a most unsatisfactory book about Warsaw, Poland during the Holocaust. That book was riddled with issues that made reading it not so great. However, the book did share a snippet of a tale about Janusz Korczak. Further looking into this heroic man turned up the fact that he's mentioned in Milkweed so I had to check it out.


This book is a YA novel. It's told from the point of view of a very young orphan boy who sees a lot of atrocities - many of which he doesn't understand at all at first. It's a quick read and there's some humor but of course an avalanche of heartbreak. I will admit to kind of wishing that the story had cut off a bit sooner, but I'm okay with that.


I highly recommend this one. I give it an 8.


And you know I can't help sharing well written lines when I read them:


The children who lived were all scraps and eyes. This was the ghetto where children grew down instead of up.

Such edifices are notoriously fragile

I'm a big fan of Margaret Atwood as well as a girl determined to stop passing over books she owns in favor of library books which have that attraction of only being lent for a fleeting time. So I picked up Alias Grace.

It's a novel based on a true life account of a serving girl suspected of murdering her boss and another maid. There's a lot of ambiguity in this book and the story reveals itself in a deliciously slow manner.

There's a wonderfully chilling paragraph early on:

But underneath that is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. It's like being wakened suddenly in the middle of the night, by a hand over your face, and you sit up with your heart going fast, and no one is there. And underneath that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach, and not even torn open, but too ripe and splitting open of its own accord

And inside the peach there's a stone.

How awesome is that? I liked the book but didn't love it. Maybe its because that wonderful, wonderful made a promise to me that the book failed to fulfill.

Another line I really liked - "His father was self-made, but his mother was constructed by others, and such edifices are notoriously fragile."

I give this one a 5 out of 10.

Also, as I'm terrified of clutter, I'm offering this up to the internet world. Anyone who wants it should leave a comment on this post. Sunday I shall send it off (and if more than one person wants it, I'll pick a name from a hat.)

Whoever you are

"Wild Geese" - Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
--over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

The same moment

The Moment - Margaret Atwood

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Ever since

(Image by Hisatomi Tadahiko)

Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you. – Hafiz

Anais

(Amazing picture by victorvonsalza).

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” - Anais Nin