Last year's wishes are this year's apologies

So.. I got all embarrassed that CJ and Jackii would be reading that mis-mosh of a last post... so I felt the need to do a mini follow-up and kind of draw more on the Satan/Tyler Durden thing.
Well, any leader of a rebellion could be put as similar to Satan, really. It's just, Tyler's the first one to come to mind. But really:
First: Tyler started the Fight Club. This attracted those people who were fed up with... dare i say it? 'the man', for lack of a better way, and who needed release, who needed to 'wreck' themselves--sort of lone wolves. Kind of.
I doubt Satan started his own Angel Fight Club (that would do hell on wings, no? Eek.) but somehow, he managed to sniff out angels who were equally as fed up as their version of 'the man'--God. Tired of living under government and law and order and such. Err, god. Law and order and such. Those whom he could attract with his sweet tongue (he's known for being 'the great seducer') became interested and intrigued--enough to follow him back home. Kind of like with Angel face? This sounded better in my head.
They were both commanders of great charisma--which is an important point... Griffith. (Berserk, for those of you who don't get it. Griffith is basically Satan with an angel's face and charisma, slowly leading the medieval world to ruin... picking up the lost and beaten who are desperate for a leader... of course.)
So Tyler Durden is just a convenient, easy comparison--really, any charismatic whomever who led a (successful) rebellion (there is no doubt in my mind that after the book, the Flight Club was able to exist on its own, eventually Tyler came out, and all hell broke lose). But, in that case, Tyler being banished into the recesses of Jack's brain for X amount of time, to start something new X amount of years later... sounds familiar, huh? I'm sure Palahniuk didn't plan that, though. Maybe. Anyways. Take this as you will, as I suck at explaining.

Yesterday I was feverish, so I started Post Office by Bukowski, so in case if I threw up I wouldn't be throwing up on one of Meg's books. I finished it at work today (I was feeling well enough to go in, rest assured!)... I don't think it was as... idk, meaty as Factotum. (Is that even the right word?) but it was by far funnier. One of my favorite scenes was the scene where Chinaski cooks lots of sea food in celebration--and he cooks some snails up in "golden butter" as part of the meal. He's loving it, as he should be, but his then-girl, Joyce, won't eat them. Why? Because "'They all have tiny little assholes!'" HAHAHA! I just about died when I read that. I'm not entirely sure why it struck me as so funny, or why it still does, but whatever the reason, all in all, it cracks me up. Funny book.
After I finished it, I spent maybe twenty minutes staring at its publishing company's logo trying to figure out what other book I owned by 'ecco'. Factotum. Duh.

Let's see, I finished Jane Eyre too. Ehh.... I thought it was quite mediocre. The whole of it rather bored me, the interlude when she discovers her cousin was hardly necessary, and it appears she marries at the end out of pity. Perhaps I missed the point, which is possible, because the whole damned thing was like slogging through mud, but really. If the Bronte sisters found this acceptable for print, I'm scared to read Wuthering Heights.

...Which, in any case, won't be for a while. I decided to bite the bullet and read War and Peace. I'd much rather enjoy the beautiful quality of the copy of it I own... It's bound in real leather... has gold-tinted protection to prevent page-ripping and fraying... and it's bound so it looks like it was printed in the '30's or '40's, even though at anything more than a cursory glance you can tell it hasn't been... but still...

I'll take my clothes off, and it will be shameless, cause everyone knows that's how you get famous

Just got back from an eve of debauchery with Jackii! For once, however, we were not almost kicked out of any stores today--shocking, eh? So. She got (notice the use of the word 'got') Demian and... and... Could that have been it? Maybe? Well. I was going to choose a random Michael Chabon book, but they're all the size of a house--so I got Post Office by Bukowski--it was the only book by him there. Already I'm a little disheartened by it though, now that I've actually had a chance to read the back. It seems Chinaski is the 'hero' of this too... and I'm assuming it's set after Factotum because it mentions that he's given "ten years to the postal service"... so... I always assumed at the end of Factotum Chinaski just went off and died in some gutter somewhere--I always thought that end "I couldn't get it up" was supposed to be... well, symbolic. Yes, I found it symbolic that he couldn't get a boner, okay? I figured it meant (oh god, this always sounds so ridiculous when I try to explain it) that it was like his life--he wouldn't be able to 'get it up' that is, recover from his gutter-crawling, boozing state--and that shortly after that he'd starve, or die of alcohol poisoning, or... something... uhm... So. I guess I'm angry he's not dead? Okay, look, sometimes it's better that way! I would have personally murdered Palahniuk if Survivor had had a happy ending. I mean, you think you'd love one, but when you think about it, sometimes they just don't work. As much as you'd like them to. (And no, I haven't figured out how he could have saved himself--was it obvious?)

And, as you've gathered, I guess, I'm in the midst of Demian. I like it more than Journey to the East, that's for sure. It's kind of reminding me of Angela's Ashes, and even a little of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The theme of the search for good versus and evil and such, Emil's growing up and various epiphanies, sometimes given to him by Demian and sometimes him realizing it himself--for example, when he realizes the world isn't just black and white... well, they didn't have Animorphs back then, so he had to learn somehow. But yeah, at the moment he's drinking himself into constant stupors (oh hey, Chinaski!) and it's like Angela's Ashes, only that McCourt was sleeping around (for a Catholic schoolboy, he got loads of action) as opposed to the drinking. It's a kind of cursory connection but hey. You write a book reaction out of the school year. Yeah. That's what I thought.

And there was one book in the store about Rasputin--unfortunately, it was written by the hackneyed untalented man who wrote a book on Czar Nicholas II which I also read in France... I can't remember the book's specific title, nor can I remember his exact name... something like Edvard Radulovich? The point is, I wouldn't get it, because he is just a crappy writer. Even James Patterson beat him out. James Patterson beat you. Let that sink in, bro. You suck! The book... it was L&C's Antichrist. My inner mind commentary through the whole book was basically "That was another fragment, asshole! HEY! Pick a goddamn tense and stick with it! God!" I'm not even kidding you. That book is the bible of what not ever to do when writing. Marky Marky would not approve! It's a wonder I didn't go irrevocably insane during the process of reading it. The only reason I could press on is because the revolution interests me so... Unfortunately, the book made it pretty clear that no Romanovs survived. *sigh* You see (oh god here she goes....)
It is mentioned briefly that Anastasia had a King Charles spaniel that was small enough so that she could carry it around in her muff, or puffy princess sleeves. After the family was shot and killed, one of the generals on the scene reported that he was quite shocked when the corpse of a small dog fell from the sleeve of one of the girl's bodies. So most likely, that's an x for Anastasia as well, unless the dog managed to be some sort of shield, which even so... And okay, two of the bodies were missing--and they gave the names Alexei and Anastasia. But it's likely the names were just being pulled out of a hat, there. It could have been Tatiana... (I'll get back to that thought!) and Alexei surviving is the stupidest--sorry, but the kid was a hemophiliac. He was shot a ridiculous number of times, because he just wouldn't die--Not only that, he was stabbed with a bayonet. Even if he somehow managed to escape the troops (crawling? How?) he would have very easily bled out within, say, four or five hours at the most. And it must have been excruciating--just bruising his knee made him unable to stand and walk around, so I can't help but discredit any idea that he could have survived. Well, maybe if Rasputin was around... But he had been dead for quite sometime at that point... and yes, I know it sounds somewhat unintelligent, but I do believe Grigori had some sort of inexplicable power. That's why I wanted to get a book on him, and look more into the existence or nonexistence of it, but Edvard "I suck" got in the way of it.
What I said about Tatiana--well, apparently, a dazed and all but in shock girl claimed that she was the Romanov princess--but then claimed she was Anastasia later on. The dog thing makes me feel doubtful it was Anastasia, but the girl was practically in shell shock, and if it was the truth, you can't really blame her for being so befuddled. Being the only survivor of your family's regicide is an event that really tends to leave a mark on you. At the time of the writing, there was no conclusive evidence regarding her lineage... that is, genetic tests or some such, but 'Little K', Niocholas's former girlfriend when shown a picture of the girl (whose name was not even included! Mrs A would not approve of that--) said something along the lines of that their (the girl's and Czar Nicholas II) eyes and their faces were too similar... you'd never forget the intensity of those eyes, etc. I mean, that's not perfect, by no means... but. Well, I guess I'll have a chance to do more research on the subject when I find books regarding it that are written by someone who knows how to write. I'll get back to you guys on this one.

Anyways. Here're some pictures from France... That is, Oscar Wilde's grave.
And, for added fun--guess which set of lipstick is from me!:
.... It's actually really hard to see in that photo....