Everyone wants a double feature...

Fun fact!: Apparently you can only time travel if you're afflicted with rabies.

I know, this post says the twelfth on it (most likely) but even more most likely is the fact that I won't finish it till January. Or maybe just Wednesday.

I read this book a week or two ago, but I figured I could procrastinate on this one since I don't have book club for it till the 27th. (Yay, I get to see Jackii again!!!) It is... Rant by Chuck Palahniuk! Yay! I quite liked it, but I think we should keep in mind that Chuch Palahniuk is god, so... It was better than Diary, and oodles better than Choke. I think it's time I admit that Invisible Monsters and I have a special bond, so, I'd say it's about even with Survivor and maybe even a smidgen higher on the list. The book spends most of its time being pretty straightforward and normal though, so the one thing that bothered me was my feeling that I was waiting. You know, for something more... Chuck-ish to happen. And I was kind of surprised when it did, but not entirely, because he's crazy like that. So I was kind of crouched, ready to spring. Like a tiger. Or a jaguar. Or... Dare I say it...? The Daguar!
One thing I didn't like was the fact that they talk about boogers. I HATE THAT WORD. And I hate thinking about snot. And Palahniuk being careful to describe it perfectly. Ugh, and I hate it when Stephen King uses 'boogery' as an adjective in his books. Blehhhhhh.

The book's tag line is that it is the "Oral Biography of Buster Casey". Buster 'Rant' Casey, the "most efficient serial killer of our time", but not in the way you'd expect. And it's not really our time, per say, I'd say maybe 20 years into the future? So that... that's basically all I knew before I read the book. Which maybe was why I was so confused. Party Crashers are sort of like street gangs for fun that ram each others' cars. That's really all I was confused about...

"This is how fast your life can turn around. How the future you have tomorrow won't be the same future you had yesterday." I thought at first this was just your normal Chuck Palahniuk is so smart, because it's true, you know? But when Chuck reveals the little twist at the end it takes on a whole other meaning that's even odder and I'm doing to do my best not to even have a spoiler included in this but I know no matter what there will be. (Wait for it...)

Neddy Nelson was quite an interesting fellow. He appears very early on for the first few chapters, asking odd things like how do you explain X scientific anomaly--actual ones, too. Finding a perfectly fossilized sandal print alongside trilobite fossils is the first one he mentions. (That one's true, too--Look at this. Hope that link works for you...) At first I was kind of like, oh, these are interesting (some of which I'm actually familiar with myself) but it's a little random... But when Neddy Nelson appears again near the book's end it makes more sense. Anyways, I marked most of his little spheals, so it's almost like interactive blogging or something. ...What?

Neddy Nelson: Re: The metal nail fully embedded in a block of sandstone that was over three hundred million years old, discovered in 1844. I wish my name was Kingoodie. Re: The lump of coal which, upon breaking open, a gold necklace was discovered to be embedded inside: Whoever chose this site's colors should be murdered. I think my eyes are bleeding. Re: In 1913 when H Reck found a modern human skull amidst Early Pleistocene soil in the Olduvai Gorge: Ouch, take that H Reck. First skeptics thus far!

"Rant always went on about leaving home, getting out and hand-picking himself a new family, but to my way of seeing that's never going to happen. If you don't accept your folks for all their worst ways, no stranger is ever going to measure up. All Rant ever learned himself is how to leave people behind." Oh man, this quote! I can't even say anything about it if I don't want to give anything away! Aaargh! Just, just keep this in mind if you're reading it. It will make you chuckle! Or smirk. Or snort. Or something... It's dramatic irony! Kind of. Not till later. Only thing I remember from freshmen English! High Five?

So, at one point Rant as a child finds all this old money, worth hundreds of thousands of millions, some dating as far back as to the 1700's or maybe just 1800's. Whatever, either way, they're worth a mint. Personal connection time! I have two mint (1979 and everything) Susan B Anthony coins I found digging in my garden and in the driveway. No lie! So, the one I found in the garden is a little beat up, but the one from the driveway still looks pretty nice. I'm relying on them to save me if I ever get into a bad rut. People still buy collectible coins, right? Yeah? Maybe? It was a guy's job in a book I read... Yay...

I marked a lot of pages because I was confused... but then it wrapped itself up... Well, it's still a little confusing but shush. There was no point to this interlude...

"The poet Oscar Wilde wrote, 'Each man kills the thing he loves...' Each man except the smart ones." I most definitely didn't mark this because I love Oscar Wilde. Nooo way. I still don't understand the things about Karl Waxman, for the record. HELP.

Rant goes, 'Really truly with her whole hart, does Echo hate somebody?' I go, doesn't Rant mean 'love'? 'And Rant shrugs and says, 'Ain't it the same thing?'" I wrote about this... And I agree... Eventually all these posts will just be the same thing over and over and over... Unless if I go back in time, and... What? Wait, that doesn't work... Dammit, Palahniuk!

The port system is weird too, and I still don't get it completely. (Is this what old people feel like it?) Basically, this port system has replaced books and movies. It's a jack in the back of your neck. Using the jack, you can record events like the movie--but you also record what you're feeling, emotionally and physically, smelling, seeing, if you're drugged, if you're half-asleep, if you have OCD, if you see things differently because it's from an infant's eyes... and so on. So you can channel the feeling of being high, say, without any adverse health effects. XXX clubs scramble port signals so no one else can download the feeling and run the clubs out of business, since to download ports or whatever is free. It confuses me greatly.

"Me and Death, separated at birth." One, I liked this just because, two, it reminded me of a quote: "Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave"--Joseph Hall. I read it in the beginning of a story about a vampire who attempts to have a child by using a surrogate mother... It's called 'Cradle', and it's by Alan Brennert. Anyone? I actually find it quite interesting. It's in some generic Barnes & Noble vampire story collection. (I think it's 100 Vicious Vampire Stories? I had to duct-tape the binding, so I don't really know...

Okay, so, time travel comes up later. It's kind of like: "Time travel!? What the he--Oh. Chuck!" And you know, the theory is that if you go back in time everyone we'll know because something will be messed up--JFK will have lived (Twilight Zone fans, anyone?) or everyone will have three eyes or Hitler will still be in power or something. But what Chuck says is basically, how would we know the difference? I mean, wouldn't the future change for our whole lives? I'm explaining this badly, but say someone screwed with time and Hitler was still alive. We would have never known the difference, because in that perverted time line, we would have grown up with Hitler in power. (Even though he'd be like.... 90? Probably older...) Maybe an easier example would be that episode of Fairly Oddparents where they accidentally stop the American Revolution from happening and everything turns British. No one but Timmy knew that it had ever been different, and that was only because of Cosmo and Wanda. Stop snickering! I'm trying to make a point!
But, quite frankly, I don't think that's possible with means that aren't magical. (Had to throw that in.) I mean, no matter what changes it all leads to the same thing--like in this story I read where there's an archaeologist team digging up raptor skeletons. In the stomachs are very human looking bones... and a tarnished gold wedding ring. While this is going on, you find out about a professor being sent back to the time of the dinosaurs in a prototype time-machine. ('Sarcophagus', I don't know who it's by, but it's in 365 Scary Stories, generic Barnes & Noble scary story book) So he was obviously going to die no matter what; they find it before he goes back. Does that help? I guess just calling it destiny makes more sense...

They also say later that there are people who have found ways to slip out of the normal stream of time. And yes, you have to have rabies for it. They refer to people like this as 'Historians'. But so far as I can see from the book is that even the Historians are trapped by destiny. It was their destiny to go back in time and rape three generations of girls (not kidding) and this character's destiny to arrive too late and not be able to complete the Grandfather clause (by killing your parents you gain immortality) and so on. So even though they think they're free, they're just as trapped as ever. This... this is another Watchmen sort of deal, huh? I'm not spoiling anything by much, but it doesn't make much sense if I don't. I think only Palahniuk or Alan Moore would be able to describe it properly, in any case.

"You wonder why we always have war and famine? Can you accept the fact that the people, the Historians who run everything, they get off on watching our mortality?" This makes me think of Hellsing--the book series more so than the original anime, though the ultimate edition remains pretty true to the story... But. The main character is Alucard (cough cough Dracula) who at this point, is a good 600 some-odd years old. And he wants to die (but is still very human is his fear of death) and is jealous of the humans who can still die. But during one of the final big fights in the book he shows a very startling human side: the fact that he mourns his fear of death and is now paying for it, humans' resilience and dedication even though they're hardly "walking shimmers" (Vol. 8) and gets angry at a priest who throws away his mortality: he screams at him and finally begs him not to throw away his soul and become "A monster like me" (Vol. 8). But! That wasn't the point I intended on making. What I was going to say is he loves getting put through pain, getting his head whopped off, getting struck through with crazy priest-daggers, shot, and so on, because he likes feeling pain because it makes him feel like a human again. He gets off on mortality. And killing neo-Nazis and Brazilian police forces. I think I typed myself in a pointless circle, but Hellsing is pretty cool so I'm good with it.

In other news, there you have it. I don't think I gave too much away: what little I did give away won't make any sense if you haven't read the book, and even then. Oh, and I finished this on Tuesday. So take that, past me! I finished On the Road, too, but I'll do that later. Also reading a short Stephen King story called 'Apt Pupil' that I think I only like because of how similar it is to Death Note. (The first half of Death Note, at least.) Seriously, AU Death Note, and not just because from the start I pictured Todd looking like Light. Actually, that would make 'Apt Pupil' the original and the AU would be... ohh.

Aw, I bothered Robby D so much about the book he offered to buy me breakfast.. now I feel bad... Emma, I'm a jerk!

We read a Kurt Vonnegut story in Marky Mark's class... one of my favorites... Marky Mark just keeps on getting cooler and cooler.

I also gave the best, most succinct summary of Big Sur ever today: "He's like... Everything I believe in doesn't mean anything. I'm an alcoholic. Oh, and my cat died." Seriously. It's not fun to read... Just depressing...

Oh, and sorry if the links don't work.