Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

First post from college! Yeah, I know, I should be doing homework or something, but no RAs are around, so I don't know how to log on to the computers downstairs (so important because the printer hooked up to those is free). And it's way too hot to go outside and meet people, especially since my hall is on the very outskirts of campus--as much as I'd love to walk twenty minutes in melt-your-teeth heat...

Anyway, I reread Rant by Chuck Palahniuk, which I hope you were able to deduce. Rant is your basic story about sex, rabies, car-crashing and time travel. (Sounds like a sweet tattoo...) Rant is the name of main character who is... rumored to be dead. The book is supposed to be set up like an oral history to explain Rant's life and what he caused--a hyperactive rabies virus that caused an epidemic. So there's some interviews with people who personally knew Rant, like his girlfriend Echo Lawrence, Rant's father figure, his mother, friends, and then people who happened to meet, say, Rant's father figure (for example, a car salesman), people who happened to know Echo, people whose children were affected by the epidemic, children who wanted to be affected by the epidemic, and so on. So it's a little fractured (the second reading was definitely beneficial), but still really, really good.

The book is also set in the near future. A few differences are the nighttimers and daytimers split, and ports. The nighttimers are people who can only be out at night, the daytimers for day. There's never any official reason for this, but it's mainly--I don't remember who says it exactly, probably either Nelson or Green Taylor Simms--to sweep the slave class out of sight, the working class, that is. Ports are little plug-ins, I imagine not dissimilar from the cords you use to plug in say, your Xbox or N64 into the TV. They've taken over TV and books and done away with them--because it's pretty much like virtual reality. Why read a book about Jack Kerouac, say, when you can 'live' in exactly the same way as he did? One way to tell if you have rabies is that your port will stop working because the rabies messes with your brain functions.

First off, the dedication: "For my father, Fred Leander Palahniuk. Look up from the sidewalk. Please."

The first interviewed fellow is the car salesman who meets Chester Casey, Rant's... father. In a way. (It's very, very complicated.) Well, like with any book, when you reread it you notice more hints and clues, yes? The first clue I noticed was Wallace's revulsion upon seeing Chet's hands, all cut up and scarred and swollen. Rant would often get bitten by wild animals because it gave him a sort of high (in the case of spider venom, it gave him an erection), so his whole body was cut up and scarred. Other hints include--but are not limited to--Chester's indifferent reaction to learning of Rant's death and his yelling at his son as a young boy after he (Rant) was bitten by a black widow to go back to whatever he was doing, ignore it, and so on.

"'This how fast your life can turn around. How the future you have tomorrow won't be the same future you had yesterday" (4).

"Any Warhol was wrong. In the future, people won't be famous for fifteen minutes. No, in the future, everyone will sit next to someone famous for at least fifteen minutes" (5).

"'The big reason why folks leave a small town,' Rant used to say, 'is so they can moon over the idea of going back. And the reason why they stay put is so they can moon about getting out.' Rant meant that no one is happy, anywhere" (12). Rant himself came from a hole-in-the-wall midwest nowhere nothing town (I imagine it to be something like the decrepit town in Gummo, though it's not nearly as disturbing).

"Rant always went on about leaving home, getting out and hand-picking himself a new family, but... If you don't accept your folks for all their worst ways, no stranger can ever measure up. All Rant learned himself is how to leave people behind" (44). Rant's statement, if we are to believe it, is ironic--well, it must have been ironic to Rant when he realized who exactly made up one-half of his family...

"You get everybody telling the same lie if they got a stake in it. You get everybody telling the same lie and it ain't a lie, not no more" (51). We just went over this in sociology, actually: It matters not what is actually the truth, but what people think is the truth. I'm going to sound like a Johnny-Come-Lately for saying this now, but ever since I read this book the first time, I've been mulling over it. I doubt I said much about this the first time I wrote about the book, mostly because I wasn't sure how to express it. But my sociology professor expressed it with such an example: You're at a party with your boyfriend. You go to the bathroom or whatever, and come back, and your boyfriend is having an intimate conversation with an unknown other girl. Immediately, you're pissed. Maybe the girl is just some childhood friend or a cousin or something, but you don't know that and won't know it till later, so you're pissed off. You see? Or when you read about some great political action in a history book. It did amazing things for who it affected, got the area off the ground (figuratively, of course), pumped up the economy, and so on and so forth, but it was unpopular as hell when first introduced to the average citizen. The truth is, the idea was revolutionary, but what people thought the truth was was that it would be a waste of money, time, effort, resources, et cetera.

Anyway, this line between reality and lies is what drives Rant bonkers--at least drove him bonkers as a kid. He hated that their was so much fakeness, right down to Santa and the Tooth Fairy. What he does is... well, thanks to information given to him by a stranger, Rant comes into money, specifically 19th-century and early twentieth-century gold and silver coins. So he's pretty loaded. What he does is wait for the next local Halloween party. You remember that game, "This is the dead man's heart/liver/brain/eyeballs/teeth/etc" where you're blindfolded and you feel in the bowl for the peeled grapes and macaroni and stuff? Rant buys real organs and puts them into the bowl, unbeknownst to the kids and adults in the dim lighting. He just wanted to be real, for once. Here, a better quote: "It wasn't only the boosted experiences that bothered Rant. It was dips--t kids done up as soldiers and princesses and witches. Eating cake flavored with artificial vanilla. Celebrating a harvest that didn't occur anymore. Fruit punch that came from a factory. A ritual to placate ghosts, or whatever bulls--t Halloween does, practiced by people who had no awareness of that. What bothered Rant was the fake, bulls--t nature of everything" (61). "That night, even as a little boy, Rant Casey just wanted one thing to be real. Even if that real thing was stinking blood and guts" (62). Incidentally, Rant earns his nickname that night--'rant' was the noise the kids vomiting sounded like.

Rant, as I've said, often would purposely get bit by various bugs for the high of it, and because it's the only way he could properly, you know, 'work' in bed. Well, having grown up in the midwest, there were plenty of burrows and holes and ponds and dark places to stick his hand or foot into, places that could be home from anything to skunks to coyotes. Rant would get high off these bites as well--he called them vaccinations from fear. "No matter the future, any terrible job or marriage or military service, it had to be an improvement over a coyote chomping on your foot" (72). Of course, he often caught rabies from these bites... Which he had no qualms about passing on to any and every girl. Forty-five fellow classmates, two teachers is the recorded amount. "Mistakes like kissing Buster, most times it's a worst mistake if you don't make them. After a good-looking boy gives you rabies two, three times, you'll settle down and marry somebody less exciting for the rest of your life" (75). That's probably my favorite quote from this book. I love Chuck Palahniuk!

Another thing they mention about Rant... Well, like I said he gets high off the bites he receives. He gets elated, shock probably has a pleasant numbing effect... Anyway, Bodie--a friend from his childhood--talks about a time after Rant got bit and is kind of reflecting on it, bleeding a little from the various holes in his body and says "'This hear... far as I'm concerned, this is how church should feel'" (76). Echo later on says he said the same thing after sex sometimes. And that I can understand, I guess. I mean, from what I understand either feeling would be somewhat the same, cushioned on endorphins and fading ecstasy... okay, maybe I don't really get it, but I can lie and say I do. He wants to feel that same utter elation.

"Rant used to say, 'Every family is a regular little cult'" (90).

This book, written in 2007, mentions Smart Boards. Just pointing this out so the entire world (specifically Emma and Jenna) can get an idea of how far behind our town school system is...

Have I explained Party Crashing? It's basically Fight Club for cars. You just ram each other on the front bumpers and there are certain 'flags' to wave to show you're in, say, a coffee cup bolted or taped to the top of your car, to a full Thanksgiving meal bolted up there. This was done by nighttimers, a little counterculture whose roots probably came from agitation and anger at being damned to the dark. (Nighttimers caught out during the day were shot on sight.) Anyway, the way it's described when some Party Crashers were interviewed--it's for the feeling after you're tagged. When you realize you're still alive, and you feel great and new like a baby just born. Not too dissimilar from why Rant did as he did with the skunks and the coyotes and jackrabbits, no?

"The poet Oscar Wilde wrote, 'Each man kills the thing he loves...' Each man except the smart ones. The ones who don't want to serve time in prison, the smart men used to hire Karl Waxman" (134). I just thought it was a funny little passage. It's better until they explain that the things Karl 'kills' are cars, brand-new cars of exes or soon to be exes, or Party Crashers who were embarrassed about new, untouched vehicles.

"'Really truly with her whole entire heart, does Echo hate somebody?' I go, doesn't Rant mean 'love'? And Rant shrugs and says, 'Ain't it same thing?'" (153). I think the two emotions--if you can even really call them two different emotions--are two heads of the same coin, if not one face and then the other being the edge there. Either way, I've got Rant's back here.

Echo made money by hiring herself out to couples on the brink of settling down and having kids. She would be their last chance to try a threesome or any kinky stuff before the hectic baby issues came in and ruled out any chances for that sort of thing. The thing is, when the folks would see her withered arm and her half-paralyzed face, they'd feel badly for her and be shocked that this is what she had to do to make money. So they'd end up taking her in for themselves all the while paying her as though they had been having sex with her every session. I bring this up because she also made up stories about a liberal and strange sex life. (She was actually a virgin before Rant came along.) This made me think of... I don't remember which grandfather it was exactly in Everything is Illuminated, but one too had a withered arm, and he was popular as hell with the ladies. Just a connection there. Attraction to the exotic? I mean, if she really had had all those boyfriends and stuff. (Though the couples saw the arm and pitied her, so who knows?)

"It's comforting to know, after all the Party Crash accidents I've survived, that, the day I finally meet Death, the two of us will be old, long-lost friends. Me and Death, separated at birth" (198).

"'What if reality is nothing but some disease?'" (215). A Rant-ism, recorded right before his--eh--death. He called into a traffic radio station and said it.

Another clue to Rant and Chester's relationship, the paternity test of Irene's baby: "We ran your standard paternity test, and every genetic marker pointed to the baby being his. In hindsight, every genetic marker pointed at the baby being him. His genes and the child's were so close, the two were indistinguishable" (237). They also say that Rant and Chester look like the same person, only ten years apart. What we have here is a twisted up Oedipus complex, if you count Green Taylor Simms into the equation.

Another Rant-ism: "'No matter what happens, it's always now'" (246). Shot Dunyan, a friend of Rant's, takes it to mean that "we live in the present" (246). Which is possible, very much so. At the same time, what he could be driving at is... well, a Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five-ish concept of time, you know, everything happening at the same exact second. So it always is now, even if it looks and feels different. You dig?

Possibly the coolest character in the book is Nelson. He brings up great points, great facts, that yeah, seem conspiracy theory-ish. He brings up the point that, if someone monkeyed with time, how would we know? Like... You know how in Fairly Odd Parents when Timmy screws up time by 'borrowing' the founding fathers, or when the monkey gets the wish and everything becomes ape-controlled? Nobody in those episodes (save Timmy and Cosmo and Wanda) is ever like "Gee, life sure was better when monkeys didn't rule" or "I hate being a British colony!" Because they don't have any recollection of any other sort of life, for them that is what life has been and will always be, until time is changed back to what it should be--and hence why when it is changed, they don't remember being British or ruled by apes. This is an interesting concept in its own right. But Nelson doesn't stop there! He continues and says okay yeah, these people in positions of power tell us not to screw around with the past or try to, you'll screw everything up, your grandparents won't meet, you won't get born, et cetera. But he rejoins his own statement with: "I mean, could the people who control all the money and politics ever invent a scarier warning? Didn't these same science experts say the earth was flat? Wasn't it really important we should stay at home and be peasants and slaves or we'd fall off the edge?" (250). Oh s--t.

Nelson again: "All I'm saying is: What if time is not the fragile butterfly wing that science experts keep saying? What if time is more like a chain-link fence you can't hardly f--k up? I mean, even if you f--ked it up, even ten hundred times--how would you ever know? Any present moment, and 'right now,' we get what we get. You know?" (252). And again: "Didn't Rant used to say, 'The future you have tomorrow won't be the same future you had yesterday'? You got all that?" (253). Oh, s--t, Chuck Palahniuk. I mean, seriously, damn girl!

"In a world where billions believe their deity conceived a mortal child with a virgin human, it's stunning how little imagination most people display" (263).

Nelson: "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?" (268). The Historians are people who have stepped out of the stream of time. Immortals. Practically gods. Here: "How can you expect Historians to feel anything for the suffering of the rest of us? Do you cry when a flower wilts? When a carton of milk goes sour? Don't you think they've seen so many people die that their sympathy or empathy or whatever is pretty much wore out?" (269).

Oh, fun random fact in the book: Once upon the time, the Brits called Napoleon Bonaparte 'Boney. This turned into 'boneyman' and became, later, 'bogeyman', and was always from the very start of the line used a threat to keep British children obedient. I find that kind of funny--"CLEAN YOUR ROOM OR NAPOLEON BONAPARTE IS GOING TO GET YOU!" Nooooooo!

Regarding the ideas about Historians and stepping out of time and time-travel and so on: "Nothing says you have to believe this. Nothing says you have to even listen, but consider that plenty of smart, rich, powerful folks in history went to their graves swearing that the sun went around us. Also consider that someday, when you're dead and rotted, kids with their baby teeth will sit in their time-geography class and laugh about how stupid you were" (307).

"You could argue that we constantly change the past, whether or not we actually go back. I close my eyes, and the Rant Casey I picture isn't the real person. The Rant I tell you about is filtered and colored and distorted through me... And all these ways I change the past--I don't even know I'm doing most of them. You could say I constantly f--k up the past, the present, and the future" (313). Corruption of memory changes the past. What's not important isn't always what actually happened; it can be what people only think happened, or what what happened became inflated to.

"Ask yourself: What did I eat for breakfast today? What did I eat for dinner last night? You see how fast reality fades away?" (314).

I love this book. It's so cool! It's not my favorite Palahniuk book, but it's much meatier and requires, ironically enough, time to read, whereas Invisible Monsters can be brushed through just like that. The concepts in this are so cool and crazy too... (Emma is probably recognizing something from a certain Travesty....) Unghhh Chuck Palahniuk is so awesome! No surprise that I was excited to learn that he's planning on making a trilogy out of this here. I assume the other two will be more in-depth about Chester and Green Taylor Simms. Yesss!

MLA citation information: Palahniuk, Chuck. Rant. Anchor Books: New York, 2008. Print.

Let's see, I finally read the first volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. For an Alan Moore work (Watchmen, V for Vendetta), it was kind of underwhelming. The art puts me off, the story doesn't particularly intrigue me... (Though the concept of a league of storybook characters is pretty cool.) But I enjoyed the fact that they talk, well, like they're in the Victorian era (which they are). Which is how Emma and I talk/text. Which makes me want to recommend it to her, till I remember it's not actually too great, other than that. Oh, and there's one funny scene where Quartermain gets a full view of Mina Harker's bloomers and is all enthralled. Bloomers are so SEXY!

I also hate how large breasts are drawn in this. Like, seriously. Ladies in the Victorian era certainly wouldn't be throwing that around, and if there's that much available, then why wouldn't Quartermain be more attracted to Mina Harker's cleava... Oh, yeah, it's because bloomers are so... Oh goodness, can we change the subject? This is getting quite uncomfortable. (Mm, bloomers...)

Another thing I liked is--well, it is rather amusing, great one-liners and such. And there's a fake 'paint by numbers' by an artist going by the name of Basil Halward. The painting is of a young, handsome fellow. On the first page, before it gives you the color list it says something to the effect of, the painting on the next page is Basil's work; you can see how yours compares. You turn the page, and the picture is of a rotted corpse in the same pose. Because, of course, the man is no other than Dorian Gray.

I suppose I'll read the next one in the series if the library has that too, in any case. They imply that HG Wells' War of the Worlds is soon to happen...

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Rocket Man (I think it's Going to Be a Long Time by Elton John

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: I'll stick with you baby for a thousand years, nothing's gonna touch you in these golden years

Big Brother is Watching You

First off, I am writing this at my school's annual write the night. Replace 'Heidi' with 'Angela' and this will probably happen at least once tonight: Even more appropriate because Marky Mark is hosting this event, with brief visitations by Robby D and Big Mikey. And hopefully Kool-Aid. Oh yes, Kool-Aid.

In case if you haven't guessed, I am on 1984 by George Orwell, which is an incredibly awesome book. For those of you thinking it's kind of like the Fairly Oddparents movie where gorillas take over, yeah... that's the joke. Those silly Gorillaz...

It's a totalitarian society set in, duh, nineteen eighty-four. It's the more pessimistic brother to Brave New World. (I don't feel I need to get into greater detail--after a while it's like, uh duh. Think of the comic book version of V for Vendetta. Cameras everywhere, watching everyone, everything is controlled and rationed. Fascism and bahh. I'm sorry; I can't concentrate. I've been stocking up on sugar all day and DISNEY SONGS.

There is the fear of Big Brother and the thought police, who are ready to spot you and kill you even if you so much as act a little bit different because that means you're having rebellious thoughts and must be killed. A bit like the SAT proctors. I mean... how would they find out if you've spread it around? Are they monitoring you? Yes, and then they take you out behind the chemical sheds and shoot you. IT IS LOGIC.

Early on, Winston says that when he drinks gin he imagines that it perspires through his skin. (This will be important later on! I didn't make a note of it the first time around, but this time I was all OH HEY NOW I GET IT MORE. THANK YOU MARKY MARK.) When I drink cream soda, I pretend it's gin and I'm Winston and all my problems are disappearing too! Does that make me depressed, or a pseudo-alcoholic? I've never drunken gin, for the record. I AM A GOOD PERSON.

"'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" See, the first part it kind of depends. Obviously, if the old controllers are overthrown, the future can't be controlled by them... oh wait. I'm being stupid again! That can apply either way, and basically just reinforces the second half... Ooh, how deliciously evil. I can dig it. Oh, wait, that would make me a terrible person. But you have to admit, if you're on top, nothing like that would be bad. Well, until V makes a deal with your second-hand man who you mercilessly verbally abuse.... Crud.

Ooh, my favorite scene is next. Winston's job is to falsify records and make up records, and the one we see him creating is a record of a Comrade Ogilvy, a model citizen in every respect. Winston's closing comment to his work is: "Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once that act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar." I tried arguing the possibilities of this point in my journalism class last year, but Heidi was most opposed to it. But really, what an interesting idea! I mean, do we have for sure evidence that, say, the Caesars were real? That Charlemagne was real? A few texts mean nothing, arguably. I mean... Myths. They were over exemplified truths (we think) so who's (whose?) to say Vlad Dracul's murder sprees aren't the same? (Be nice, I can't think of anybody.) Or that anything is real! Reality is a lie! Find me a hippie commune! Now.

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." Yes, it contradicts itself and makes you want to eat someone's face. But... it kind of makes sense. I mean, it never says anything about attaining full consciousness, right? I mean, just realizing something is wrong and should be differently could arguably be enough to make you say I want to change this. I want to uproot this. Which would be the thought of rebellion... and then after they rebel they have the whole world ahead of them... I think I lied. I have no clue what I'm talking about.

Oh, and a funny thing is that the party obviously wants to make the past seem awful and terrible and all ("Everybody's happy nowadays!") but when they talk about how awful the capitalists were--they always mention the top hats. Those damned top hats! Out, damned top hat, out! I disapprove. You know how I feel about Victorian-era dress. But... see, my theory is... you know how HG Wells apparently considered not wearing a hat a sign of insanity? They creators knew it was insane and by banishing top hats they banished sanity! Man, I'm like Bill Nye over here. Solving problems and stuff.

Winston ends up having a secret (for a while) affair with a girl named Julia... and he calls her a rebel "from the waist down". Exactly. She's just in it because she really likes sex. Her rebellion is a normal teenage to parent rebellion--I don't like your ways because they're your ways. And since they disprove of sex, she's just like sexy times all the time. So... that's fun. I guess. GAH. THEIR REBELLION ISN'T REAL AND THAT PART I HATE.

Also, there's this long scene where Winston is telling someone who he thinks is part of the Brotherhood (the rebellion) all he'd do for them--yeah, it sounds like in V for Vendetta (the movie) when Natalie Portman was like I'll help you, even if it means people will die and then chickens out. Winston doesn't have the guts for it, and Julia would maybe do it just because she's being a normal angry teenager who likes sex and throwing acid at children's eyes.

Also, a book Winston receives says that war is necessary for man to keep in touch with reality. Even less than that, conflict. Yeah--paradise can't exist. Being happy eternally is the same as being mediocre for eternity is being nothing for eternity. It sounds unpleasant. I'm not so much for war, but I am for interpersonal conflicts.

"'Sanity is not statistical.'" / "The point is, if there was only one person alive, it would be impossible for him to be insane." A paraphrasal which I can't possibly cite properly, because of course, the book with the quote in it is at home and I'm in school. At 8:57 PM, regardless of what Blogger claims.

"'We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them.'" Basically a character in my NanoWrimo story's mantra. He totally brainwashes his enemy into becoming his most loyal vizier in an act of revenge that's a little too complicated to get into now.

Winston's greatest fear happens to be rats, which made us kind of bros, because my greatest fear happens to be mice. But the thing is, see, he's being threatened with the rats in these cages... and although I'm scared of mice, I'd only be scared if they were out of the cages. If I see mice in cages, I don't even care. Oh, it's a mouse. When it's out of a cage, however, that becomes OH SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS ALLAH BUDDHA THERE IS A GODDAMN MOUSE. And often much more foul language comes out too. I--I don't like mice. But my point is, good luck threatening me, O'Brien. Unless if you happen to have access to the first Jurassic Park movie, but too bad you destroyed it already! Yes! I win! I deserve candy! FEED.

All right, so that's cool. I guess I'll get to Nanowrimoing now. And making up various other verbs. So... bye?

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.