This book is only 103 pages, but it feels like very thick book.  After I read 5 pages, I felt like I had read fifty and I really struggled to get into the meat of the text.  It took me a week an half just to read the opening chapters! Continue reading The Sacrament of the Present Moment
When I was a kid, my brother and I made up comics about guys in space with laser-like swords and we called them the Ice Fighters.  (I am not sure where we got the idea to have our heroes use laser-like swords in 1986!)
This week I completed Flannery O’Connor’s Complete Stories, which I began blogging about here. ¬†last week, I wondered if I would find another story, that i could include in my list of favorites and in fact I did.
The story in question is,¬†Parker’s Back, which is about a man covered with tattoos who marries a very strict, ugly, Christian woman. ¬†The man is described as covered in tattoos except for on his back and the woman will not even cover her face with make up. ¬†I like the symmetry of how they are described- covered and uncovered. Continue reading Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories (conclusion)
I’m completely redoing the Raven and the Loon story – this time with more driftwood!
We’ve all had those teachers. ¬†The ones where everything they introduce is golden. ¬†I once had a Chemistry teacher who dropped a giant chunk of Sodium in a vat of water and ran to the back of the room while the whole thing exploded. ¬†She returned to the front of the room and said nonchalantly, “I ran to the back of the room, because my hair is still a little wet from my morning shower and I didn’t want that¬†happening in my hair!”
Continue reading Flannery O’ Connor: The Complete Short Stories
I’ve become a lazy reader.
I’ve always been a poor reader. ¬†I even received some help in grade school to improve this. Yet reading has remained a chore throughout my life even though most would consider me well read. ¬†I attribute the fact that I am well read to my middle class upbringing that held up those with who read to be the utmost in human achievement.
For a period of time I agreed with my upbringing. ¬†Amidst my sweat and struggle to wrestle with Howard’s End or the Awakening, ¬†I rose through the ashes with an enjoyment of the stories contained between the covers of these tomes.
Then came graduate school. ¬†I read, not for enjoyment, but to pass the classes. ¬†I missed stories, though, so I read comics and watched movies to get my story fix. ¬†But mainstream movies and even so-called independent comics can be a bit formulaic. ¬†I enjoyed most of what I came across, but film and comics just aren’t as old of a medium as the written word, so after a while, I felt like I’d read all the good comics and seen most of the good films made in English (and quite a few in foreign languages, too.)
