Showing posts with label Jurassic Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jurassic Park. Show all posts

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Oscar Wilde's Wit and Wisdom: A Book of Quotations

Well, hello there! This is a special birthday edition, whoop whoooop. My friend Ben, being awesome, gave me a book of--well, perhaps you should read the title, there. He also gave me (whilst continually being awesome) the newest rendition of Dorian Gray, the one starring the most beautiful human being on the face of this plane--ehh, Benjamin Barnes. Go on, Google him right now. Do yourself a favor! When I opened them I was all "How did you know!?" Which in retrospect is a stupid question. Guys, if there's one thing I am all about, it's Oscar Wilde, almost bordering on obsession... Just kidding, I think I've passed that boundary already. If I ever met him, I'd be to him what that creepy fat guy in Space Jam was to Michael Jordan... Well, a little less so. I don't think anyone can really be that creepy. Please don't kill me with dilophosaurs.

Anyway, there's not going to be a lot of insight because these are just some awesome things Oscar Wilde said. But I figured you deserved to bask in his awesomeness too because, uh, it's Oscar Wilde. Also, I can't remember if you (Emma) have actually ever read anything by him. I feel like you must of, or at least absorbed things through osmosis, but whatever. Let's go, shall we?

"Life is much too important a thing to ever talk seriously about it (1)." This was a given, though I have to admit I like the misquoted version better, this is very awkwardly worded. OSCAR. Gosh.
"The Book of Life begins with a man and woman in a garden. It ends with Revelations" (1). I feel like there's a sex joke in here. I mean... He would. He really would...
"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead" (1).
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all" (1). Although this (upcoming) quote of Wilde's is nowhere in this book, I feel like these two go hand-in-hand: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
"To become a spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life" (1).

"Life is never fair... And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not" (2). Okay, so Emma. Why haven't you read Catch-22 yet? There's this great scene where the men are talking about their pasts, and their fathers and stuff... Like, one guy is talking about how he's rich and good things are just thrown at him for no apparent reason, which leads him to conclude that the riches must actually be someone else's, and another fellow pipes up and says, you know, perhaps it was my father's. He worked hard his whole life and only suffered from misfortune. And there are few other examples of oh, this is mine--but maybe it was meant to be for you, and vice versa. And then one guy says: "Just for once I'd like to see all these things sort of straightened out, with each person getting exactly what he deserves. It might give me some confidence in the universe." (Via Wikiquote.) So... Yeah. Also, fun fact about that quote: I wrote that on a dollar and Alyssa got it and refused to spend it, to the best of my knowledge, to this day. She kept it affixed to the front of her daily planner for the remainder of the school year. It was kind of touching. ....I miss Alyssa...

"One can live for years sometimes without living at all, and then all life comes crowding into one single hour" (2).
"I love acting. It is so much more real than life" (2).

"One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar" (3).
"The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast" (3).

"I wrote when I did not know life; now that I do know the meaning of life, I have no more to write. Life cannot be written; life can only be lived" (4). PS. Oscar, I love you.

"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell' (5).
"In Paris one can lose one's time most delightfully; but one can never lose one's way" (5). I can attest to this one. Actually, this probably applies best (in my experience) to strolling in Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise... Which is sort of funny (for lack of a better word) because *someone* is buried there... No, but actually, it's a very nice place in its own right; the surrounding area is pretty lovely too.
"But the past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are" (5).
"Women are meant to be loved, not understood" (5).

"She'll never love you unless you are always at her heels; women like to be bothered" (6).

"The one charm of the past is that it is past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen" (8).

"There is one thing infinitely more pathetic than to have lost the woman one is in love with, and that is to have won her and found out how shallow she is" (9). I want to know when Oscar said this one, for obvious reasons.

"As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied"(11). Noooot a big fan of Mrs Vane.
"There is only one real tragedy in a woman's life. The fact that the past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband" (11).

"I sometimes think that God in creating man, somewhat overestimated His ability" (12). I do not like the existence of that comma at all.
"What a man really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a matter of no importance" (12).

"Man, poor, awkward, reliable, necessary man belongs to a sex that has been rational for millions and millions of years. He can't help himself. It is in his race. The History of Woman is very different. We have always been picturesque protests against the mere existence of common sense. We saw its dangers from the first" (13).
"When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also" (13).

"Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable" (14).
"People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that is is impossible to count them accurately" (14). Goddammit Oscar, those commas.
"One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing" (14).
"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious" (14).
"I like men who have a future and women who have a past" (14).

"Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications" (15).
"Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing" (15).
"I like persons better than principles and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world" (15).

"It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true" (16).
"People who want to say merely what is sensible should say it to themselves before they come down to breakfast in the morning, never after" (16). I find this funny in comparison to Lewis Carrol and his practice of believing in "six impossible things before breakfast".
"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes" (16).
"The worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic" (16). Good news, Oscar--love you some more.

"What a silly thing love is! It is not half as useful as logic, for it does not prove anything and it is always telling one things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true" (17).
"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance" (17).
"...Love and gluttony justify everything" (17).
"Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the poor" (17).
"Men always want to be a women's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. Women have a more subtle instinct about things: What they like is to be a man's last romance" (17).

"Any place you love is the world to you" (18).
"...But love is not fashionable any more, the poets have killed it. They wrote so much about it that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised. True love suffers, and is silent" (18). This and the above quote are actually all smushed together, but I really think that's an odd combination. I can see why they'd do it, aesthetically at least, but I just don't feel it, you know? Also, I wish there was an underline option so you could see my favourite part of the second quote, but Emma, you who apparently actually does absorb Oscar Wilde by osmosis from me, should remember, because I'm certain you commit everything I say to your memory (or at least your twitter account) because I am that awesome.
"One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry" (18).
"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring" (18). I wish blogger allowed html hearts, by the way.

"Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer" (19). I just want to point out that this is from Dorian Gray, which means Wilde had been married for at least five years when he wrote it (with the estimation that it was written a year before Lippincott's actually published it). Juuuuust saying. (Bosie makes them good boys go bad!)
"Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious; both are disappointed" (19). Again, I feel like this was a Mrs Vane line.

"Once a week is quite enough to propose to anyone, and it should always be done in a manner that attracts some attention" (20).
"I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable" (20).
"...In married life three is company and two is none" (20).

"The proper basis for marriage is mutual misunderstanding" (21).

"When a woman finds out about her husband she either becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman's husband has to pay for" (22).
"There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about" (22).

"After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations" (23).
"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one" (23). Really, Dorian? Because I hear you're more into brutally murdering friends. I don't know, just heard that somewhere. Whatever.
"Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship" (23).
"Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success" (23).

"Relations are simply a tedious pack of people who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die" (24).
"To lose one parent... may be regarded as misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness" (24).
"I fare say that if I knew him I should not be his friend at all. It is a very dangerous thing to know one's friends" (24). Ayuuuup.

"I shall never make a new friend in my life, though perhaps a few after I die" (25).
"To get back to one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies" (25).

"Youth is the one thing worth having" (26).

"To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up" (27).
"...Duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself" (27). Guess what? Love this guy.
"He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone" (27). There's a quote I have in one of my many other quote books that is something akin to: "She would toss her friends in a river just for the pleasure of fishing them out". Also, guess what I'm going to say again.

"The first duty of life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has yet discovered" (28).
"One should always be a little improbable" (28).

"Everyone should keep someone else's diary" (29).
"Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest of motives" (29).
"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal" (29).
"There is a fatality about good resolutions--they are always made too late" (29).
"One should always play fairly--when one has the winning cards" (29).
"I rely on you to misrepresent me" (29).

"A good reputation is one of the many annoyances to which I have never been subjected" (30). I really, really, really like this one. You know how in my Junky post I complained about the praise of the bedside manner quote? This is a quote like this, except it didn't automatically click like that one did. At first I was kind of like wait, what? But then I started thinking about it, and I mean, if you're high class and you... I don't know, get caught having an affair or peddling drugs or hooking up with male prostitutes, people are going to be shocked. If you're seen as a vagabond or bum, people are just going to be like "Oh, there's that vagabum again, sleeping around and doing heroin", and... Now we've made it back to William S Burroughs...?

"It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting" (31).
"Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes" (31).

"Starvation, and not sin, is the parent of modern crime" (32).
"I can resist everything except temptation" (32).
"Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed" (32).
"...There are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to" (32).

"The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it" (33).
"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future" (33).
"There is no sin except stupidity" (33).
"If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out" (33).

"It is the confession, not the priest that gives us absolution" (34).
"It is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth" (34).
"Geniuses... are always talking about themselves, when I want them to be thinking about me" (34).
"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius" (34).
"I like looking at geniuses, and listening to beautiful people" (34).

"I know so many men in London whose only talent is washing. I suppose that is why men of genius so seldom wash; they are afraid of being mistaken for men of talent only!" (35).
"The worst thing you can do for a person of genius is to help him: that way lies his destruction. I have had many devoted helpers--and you see the result" (34). I'm curious about the date of when he said this.
"I think it is better to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly" (34).
"Good looks are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in" (34).

"If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of" (36).
"The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it" (36).
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative" (36).

"All art is quite useless" (37).

"To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim" (38).
"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did he would cease to be an artist" (38).
"It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors" (38).
"A truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected" (38).
"The Artist is the creator of beautiful things" (38). This is from the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which I think shines a new, interesting light on the book. An ironic light too, since Dorian is clearly so ugly internally... And that ugly persona was partially ushered in by the artist, though it was created by Wotton, technically... And then of course the painting degenerates and becomes an ugly piece of work--but it was beautiful at one point... So the painting progresses as normal life progresses, and Basil Halward just played God, a lot more successfully than most. Then that works into his maxim, "Life imitates art" which makes sense, considering the story... Bam. (And, if you're wondering about the "new, interesting light" when it is from the preface, it is because in the infinite wisdom of Barnes & Noble publishers, they chose not to include it in that actual book--instead, it is randomly inserted into The Collected Oscar Wilde. It also deletes a fake letter by Basil altogether--it is not necessary to the story, but it is a little agitating. I could go on by the disappointment the Barnes & Noble edition leaves in me in comparison to my 1910 copy, but it's really rather pedantic. The one advantage that version may have, which I'd need to check up on, is if it includes the deleted passages that more likely than not would have remained deleted in the 1910 version.)
"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train" (38).

"Only mediocrities progress" (39).
"M Zola is determined to show that, if he has not got genius, he can at least be dull" (39). Loooove.
"Only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obscure" (39).

"Whistler is indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting in my opinion. And I may add that in this opinion Mr Whistler himself entirely concurs (40).
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all" (40). He says the same thing about poetry elsewhere. I want to say it is in 'Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young', though you should not quote me on that.
"There are no real emotions left--only extraordinary adjectives" (40).
"The books that the world calls immoral books are books that show the world its own shame" (40). Good news, you're kind of the best.

"Mr James Payn is an adept in the art of concealing what is not worth finding" (41).
"I have no desire to be a popular novelist. It is far too easy" (41).
"--Can be read without any trouble and was probably written without any trouble also!" (41). This was from a review, though no clue is given to what book what just ripped to shreds.
"...A form of poetry which cannot possibly hurt anybody, even if translated into French" (41). Again, a review, but of what work exactly, who knows?

"If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all" (42).
"The aim of most of our modern novelists seems to be, not to write good novels, but to write novels that will do good" (42). I can't decide if he's being harshly critical or not.
"A poet can survive everything but a misprint" (42).
"Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose. The nineteenth century, as we know it, is largely an invention of Balzac" (42). Though I don't know who Balzac is, that doesn't make me dig this one any less.

"After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect. It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one's tears" (43). / "How curiously it had all been revealed to me! A book of Sonnets, published nearly three hundred years ago, written by a dead hand and in honour of a dead youth, had suddenly explained to me the whole story of my soul's romance... Strange, that we knew so little about ourselves, and that our most intimate personality was concealed from us!'" ('The Portrait of Mr WH'). One: Again, you can guess my response. And also, if I may quote (for my feelings on it haven't changed in the slightest; try not to hate me for quoting myself) the last time I quoted this passage: "It's just... so lovely. This a fantastic passage, including that what the ellipses have hidden. But it was very touching, something about it touches me, it breaks my heart and makes me love it all the more fervently at the same time."
"It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is the proper judge of it" (43). This is another 'bedside manner' quote. It sounds absurd at first, but it makes sense once you think about a little, no? Someone who has talent in the area is bound to have his own biases and ideas about the subject and how it should carry out. The only way to get a pure judgment is to get someone with a tabula rasa on the subject at hand.

"I never reply to my critics. I have far too much time. But I think some day I will give a general answer in the form of a lecture, which I shall call 'Straight Talks to Old Men'" (44).
"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about" (44).
"I may have said the same thing before... But my explanation, I am sure, will always be different" (44).
"Murder is always a mistake... One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner" (44). Oh, Oscar, you silly goose, you!
"A man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person" (44).
"I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing" (44).

"I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time and prevents arguments" (45).
"Lots of people act well but very few people talk well, which shows that talking is much more the difficult thing of the two, and much the finer thing also" (45).
"I like talking to a brick wall, it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me" (45). Where's that html heart at?
"I hate when people talk about themselves, as you do, when one wants to talk about oneself, as I do" (45).

"Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it" (46).
"Oh, I'm so glad you've come. There are a hundred things I want not to say to you" (46). This definitely sounds like it may have lived on as a Groucho Marx quip.
"The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves" (46).
"I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never any use to oneself" (46).

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught" (47). If I was valedictorian, this is all my speech would be, I can promise you that. And then I would just walk off, while putting on my Ray-Bans, and the sun would glint off them all cool-like... I also kind of regret not making this my year book quote, as I do "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" (strangely enough, not in here), but Jack Kerouac and Carl Sagan--can you really regret either of them? Answer: No, unless if you're super lame.
"When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong" (47).

"People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depths of generosity" (48). "What they need" in this case is advice.
"The mind of a thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value" (48). Fun fact, this quote made it here mainly because I find the "all monsters and dust" bit strangely adorable. Also: Good description of Leopold Bloom (because he's the sort of fellow who is well-rounded, but the people in the bar--damned if I can remember exactly who, but I'll pretend it was the Citizen--are like ugh what an egotistical jerk, he acts like he knows everything, never shuts up, always has to throw some random fact in blah blah blahhh). Anyone who would be "well-informed" too, but I thought of Leopold Bloom first. There is a flower that bloometh (in my mind).
"Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything, and when they get older they know it" (48). / "A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of"--Jane Austen

"I don't want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, and I never pay mine" (49).
"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating" (49).
"There is only one class in the community that thinks about money more than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else" (49).
"Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less" (49).
"As for begging it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg" (49).
"I am never in during the afternoon, except when I am confined to the house by a sharp attack of penury" (49). The important note for this is that it was in a letter from 1898--that is, after the scandal and the release.

"Society often forgives the crminal; it never forgives the dreamer" (50).
"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious" (50). And when used in an argument, it's a logical fallacy!

"Journalism is unreadable, and literature is not read" (51).
"As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar it will cease to be popular" (51).

"The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it" (52).
"We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language" (52).

"Somehow I don't think I shall live to see the new century--if another century began and I was still alive, it would really be more than the English could stand" (53). I can't help but be curious about the date of when he said this. Of course, it came back to bite him as he did not actually--well, he survived into the new century, but only eleven months--exactly eleven months; he died on the thirtieth.
"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances" (53).
"One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art" (53).

"He has nothing, but looks everything. What more can one desire?" (54).
"I have made an important discovery... that alcohol, taken in sufficient qualities, produces all the effects of intoxication" (54). Hehehehe.

Regarding his brother's fondness for the drink: "Oh, he occasionally takes an alcoholiday" (55).
"There are many things that we would throw away, if we were not afraid that others might pick them up" (55). Amen to that, brother.
"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live" (55).
"Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life" (55).
"An inordinate passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young" (55).
"I adore simple pleasures, they are the last refuge of the complex" (55).
"It is better to take pleasure in a rose than to put its root under a microscope" (55).
"Work is the curse of the drinking class" (55).
"It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done" (55).

"A mask tells us more than a face" (56).
"Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt" (56). Okay. This is definitely probably my most favourite thing that Wilde has said. The context given for it is less than desirable, it completely glosses over the context I gave it (see link) with an elipses. But, that doesn't change the fact that I love this. If I could just hang out with Oscar Wilde and CS Lewis I'd be a pretty happy person.
"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again" (56). I feel like Fabrizzles alluded to this quote or joked about something similar when we learned about poetry (and subsequently were making fun of poetry) in Creative Writing.
"Cultivated leisure is the aim of man" (56).
"One could never pay too high a price for any sensation" (56). Oh Dorian, you and your opium and sex orgies and jam!

"If there was less sympathy in the world there would be less trouble in the world" (57).
"I am afraid I play no outdoor games at all, except dominoes... I have sometimes played dominoes outside French cafes" (57). High five!
"Moods don't last. It is their chief charm" (57).

"It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure" (58). I'm pretty sure it's Dorian that says this (which would make sense, as it sounds like something he'd say after he tells Sybil it's over) and for all his being a terrible person--I kind of dig this one. (I can't deny that Dorian acted like a jerk, though, and should have handled the situation at least 90,000 times better than he did...)
"A woman's life revolves in curves of emotion" (58).
"...A sentimentalist is someone who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it" (58). In one of his other essays (this is from "Conversation")--possibly from 'The Portrait of Mr WH' even--he talks about how reading about love or hearing ballads or what have you make you desire love, or love love, and imagine it suddenly exists, while it picks an object of affection later. (The same with sadness, or any other intense emotion.) So... Yeah. Paying for it in this sense means without being rended emotionally, not actually using money. Also, is rended actually a word?
"Punctuality is the thief of time--I am not punctual myself, but I do like punctuality in others" (58).

"I have the simplest tastes... I am always satisfied with the best" (Back cover).


Yaaay! There you have it, many, many examples of Oscar Wilde being a fantastic human being. I realize I haven't cited where all these quotes came from but guess what? It's going to be a game for you, like Where's Waldo?, except... Well, Where's Waldo? is pretty awesome, actually. But yeah, maybe this will inspire you, EMMA, who is receiving an inordinate amount of textual abuse from me in this post for some reason. But come on. I finally dared face Charles Dickens--a thousand pages worth of Charles Dickens--so I figure you can do this, which will be infinitely more enjoyable. (And that's how I ended up in the Thunderdome, fighting Charles Dickens.) All I'm saying: the most came from The Picture of Dorian Gray, the best tend to come from The Soul of Man Under Socialism, and in general, the most well-known and most oft-quoted lines come ironically enough from what is arguably Oscar Wilde's most poorly-received and unknown play--Vera, or the Nihilists. (No, I haven't read it.) So yeah, hit this up. Not like I can't lend you 85% of his works... Or multiple copies of any of those works... Or you can continue to enjoy osmosis. I think I just like having excuses to write osmosis.

MLA Citation information: Wilde, Oscar. Oscar Wilde's Wit and Wisdom: A Book of Quotations. Dover Publications: United States, 1998.


Also, Hermione Danger's cat is named Crookshanked. And speaking of cats? "Oh, so it's my job to train the cats to rollerskate? What have you got to do that's so important?"--Emma. I can't wait till I forget the context of that text message and look back on that and don't even question it.

And what else? I've yet to watch Dorian Gray, but that will happen before the weekend is done. I'll be sure to post something about it, even if that post is just "ZOMG BEN BARNES COME AND RAVISH ME!" because really, if you're expecting anything more than that you are a fool, my good... audience. (Oh my God, more than one person is going to be reading this post. This is really, really weird.) Go ahead, judge me, if you dare. Actually, the question is probably what will I find sexier, Ben Barnes dressed up (oh that Victorian era fetish of mine) or him nude. Taking bets now! Also, while I'm talking about Ben Barnes and Colin Firth: Colin Firth's beard is funnier than the eighties. Seriously.

Answer to the post before last's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Junkies Runnin' Dry by Operation Ivy
This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Well you know November has come when it's gone away
(PS. Regarding the lyrics--it took me a good five minutes to think of a good set, so you should appreciate it. I mean, I've used the obvious already, and then I was like "Oh, Magnolia by the Hush Sound would be perfect too!" Good news, brain. It happened.)

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

Whoo! Last post before I'm off to college! Yayyyy.

Let's get down to this. First off, I admit at first glance this book looked like it was going to be a cross between Tommyknockers and It, which are pretty much my two least favorite Stephen King books. It doesn't end up that way, thank goodness--it's actually more like... well, aliens are involved, but it has more of a feel like The Thing (the eighties remake) or Alien than anything else. Kind of like a Derry version of The Thing I guess, with some of the Yeerks thrown in. He lucked out actually, because that's probably my favorite sort of horror movie--they're there, but where and anyone could be them--a little less of that, but still it had that nice flavor to it.
Quick summary: Four friends, best buds through middle and high school. One day they meet and befriend a boy with Down's syndrome, Duddits (Douglas), and have a really great rest of school experience. Fast forward twenty or so years. All of the boys have gone their separate ways, all of them face separate problems. However, once a weekend in November they go on a hunting trip together. So this time is no different except a stranger with severe gas and strange mannerisms comes into the cabin they stay in. All is kind of fine till an alien creature claws its way out of his body via his butt and kills Beaver (one of the four friends). A different alien takes over another friend's body--Jonesy's--much like a Yeerk would, that is, drives him like you would a car, only a car that is still alive and functioning but trapped. (However, Jonesy has more freedom than a human-controller would.) And Duddits is the key to making everything right again too--that is, stop the alien in Jonesy's body from spreading his parasitic aliens across the tri-state area! I mean, the world. He is the dreamcatcher of the title, because he drew all four even closer and kind of made those years with him their greatest. I... guess. I'd be lying if I said I ever completely understand whatever Stephen King is trying to make me understand.

"To say that Beaver's marriage didn't work would be like saying that the launch of the Challenger space shuttle went a little bit wrong" (15).

A semi-interesting note: Stephen King apparently wrote this book while being laid up as a result of a car crash. Jonesy, very early on, before the start of the story really, is hit by a car and breaks his hip. Yeeeep.

The animals in the forest instinctively try to get away from the aliens and they go walking through the woods a la Fantasia during the Rite of Spring segment to do so. Beaver tries to scare off one of the deer by telling it to get "'Make like an amoeba and split!'" (111), which is a phrase I'm totally going to use more often. By the way, I totally pictured Beaver as Jeff Goldblum. They described him as a nerdy looking guy who you think would be a math whiz, has shoulder-length hair, kind of dorky, even the way he talks... I refuse to believe that Stephen King was doing anything other than taking a poke at Jeff Goldblum when he was writing about Beaver.

"Henry put his head down and jogged a little faster" (136). Oh shit, Henry--the mummy's after us.

A lot of the things in the book that would remind me of something else are discussed later on--Peter and Henry run into a lady while Beaver and Jonesy are dealing with their gassy guest who looks at the sky and yells "They're back, they're back!" Of course I thought of Poltergeist. This connection is made later on. The aliens that are parasites aren't dissimilar to the aliens from the Alien series either--at least when they've just broken from their human hosts--and the fungus that the aliens spread (think of Creepshow!) is referred to as the 'Ripley' after Sigourney Weaver's character from that series.

Duddits is a huge fan of Scooby-Doo. He has the little lunchbox, and when Henry first sees it his only comment is: "'I hate that f---in show... They never change their clothes, did you ever notice that? Wear the same f---in thing, show in and show out'" (140). I don't know... I just thought it was sort of funny....

So the little parasites--well, Beaver traps the thing in a toilet, but it breaks loose. It kills him, and before it can attack Jonesy he slams the bathroom door on it. Immediately he gets worried about if it can figure out the mechanics of the doorknob and it says "as if it had read his mind" (179) it starts trying to turn the doorknob. Of course, it's revealed later that the creatures are telepathic, but still... They can open doors. That is bad news.

Stephen King makes a Pokemon joke, too. I really think there's no better way but an 'lol' to express my amusement at this fact.

"Did they think that maybe he wouldn't be interested, that maybe he'd just go Ho-hum, been there, done that, got the tee-shirt?" (275). This is probably a very common saying, but I'd like to think that Stephen King is making a reference to Space Jam.

Stephen King name drops War of the Worlds--no huge surprise, it's another book about an alien invasion. But, I should just say that these aliens spread via a fungus that if ingested are what cause the parasites to form and be incubated. In War of the Worlds, HG Wells kind of has this foreshadowing about a 'red weed' that withers and dies, meant to be a hint that the martians eventually fall. (Actually, to be honest, it works so well that I always get a little confused when I read that part and think the martians have been killed already.) The fungus the aliens in Dreamcatcher spread is red--ohhhh! You see what Stephen King might have possibly done there?

Jonesy compares the alien controlling his body to what Gollum said of Bilbo--oh, forget it. This is worth a quote. "'...Reminding himself to be wary... because, as Gollum had said of Bilbo Baggins, it was tricksy, precious, aye, very tricksy" (382). Hahaha what. Talk about unexpected.

Because this book is set in the same fictional town as It, it would be a surprise if there are no references to It... Of course there are. Jonesy--the alien in Jonesy--goes to the standpipe in the hopes of releasing a parasite into the water, however, the book is set after the events in It--so the standpipe is destroyed. There is a memorial dedicated by the 'Losers' Club' in its place (they were the kids who eventually defeated It) and across it "PENNYWISE LIVES" (386) is spray-painted on it. Interesting, mostly because it implies at the end of It that even though It has been destroyed, It laid eggs shortly before its destruction, that the 'Losers' club' don't know about. (Fight to the death between Pennywise and the Ripley!?)
Oh, and while I'm thinking of it--remember the HP Lovecraft story, 'The Colour Out of Space'? Well, there was a well in the farm it was set on, and the area was to be opened for a reservoir. If that was done, the disease or whatever the alien matter was would be integrated into the water--it already was--and whomever drank it would be infected as well. Like if the parasite in this book.... Hey, it's not impossible. We know King is a huge Lovecraft fan...

Stephen King name drops another book of his, The Dead Zone. I don't remember much about it, other than that I didn't really understand it and that it appeared to be a post apocalyptic sort of deal.

One last note on the book itself--I have the hardcover version, and the author's photo looks suspiciously similar to the set from Creepshow. (The one involving the meteorite; see the HP Lovecraft post for more information regarding this.) In that story, the alien matter made a horrendous fungus grow over and eat away at everything, kind of like the Ripley. (The fungus didn't cause any alien impregnation, however.)
As for my feelings regarding the book: I really enjoyed this. It feels very different from a lot of his other books, less... less shaped, I guess, kind of like he just spit it out, but not in a bad way. Parts of it are confusing--like I said, I understand about 1/10th of why Duddits was so important, exactly and how he fit into it at the end especially--but Stephen King has his own logic that I've learned to just accept instead of try to figure it out rationally. It's better wrought than Pet Sematary, and I'm okay with the fact that I read this instead of that even though I was really in the mood to reread that*. But okay.

While we're talking about Stephen King books, apparently he's thinking of making a sequel to The Shining. That's pretty cool, I guess. And, let's see.... They might remake the Pet Sematary movie, and the It movie. Cool. And a movie adaptation of this book exists as well, though I've yet to see it.

MLA citation information: King, Stephen. Dreamcatcher. New York: Scribner, 2001. Print.

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Live to Tell the Tale by Passion Pit
This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids... In fact, it's cold as hell

*The local library doesn't have much, but they do have quite a bountiful collection of Stephen King books--yup, just about everything but Pet Sematary. That's cool, I guess. So I took out A Man Without A Country instead and went back home to this.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Dinosaurs are awesome!

News item 1: I didn't get accepted into Fordham. Oh well. Steven Page, I blame you for thi... don't give me that look! You said, "When all else fails, you can blame it on me." I am doing what you told me to do!

News Item 2: I stole Ovid's Metamorphoses from Robby D yesterday. I also stole Oreos from Heidi. (I also like that "I stole it from Mr Ford" is now an acceptable answer to "Why are you reading this?")

News Item 3: I wasn't kidding when I said I'd reread The Lost World by Michael Crichton. (The sequel to Jurassic Park, which I enjoy in book-form ten times more than the first. The movie of The Lost World deserves a special place next to the Breakfast of Champions movie in my backyard.


The book is about an island with dinosaurs on it. Come on. Come on, even you youngens should know this! No excuse! More specifically, this island isn't Isla Nublar--it's Isla Sorna. Dinosaurs were raised on Sorna and shipped to Nublar (the park). So, when Jurassic Park was abolished, the 'unknown' animals on Sorna were left to grow and whatever for about eight or ten years. (At one point it is mentioned that the two children from the first book are now in college.) And Ian Malcolm did not die at the end of the first book as it was almost 100% explicitly said. It was just a 'close call', or something ridiculous. Ughhh. Crichton...
So carnotaurs start washing up on beaches (I believe it was a carnotaur) and everyone who was involved with the island or heard rumors is immediately all "HECK YEAH". (Carnotaurs are basically T Rex's stubby and less cool cousin.) Then they all go to the island. Yayyy.



That guy who I called Repton in my last post? I was wrong; his name is Roxton. And he doesn't get eaten. Roxton is kind of the 'idiot scientist' in the book and cited twice for being so darned stupid! (Because they're stupid!) First, he's called out by Levine (Roxton never personally appears in the book, by the way) for "never really"knowing anatomy. (This is foreshadowing!) He says so because Roxton apparently dug up a new skeleton which he believes is a new type of velociraptor; however, Levine believes it is more likely a stenonychosaurus, which is fancy talk for a troodon. (Couldn't have just said troodon? Really?) Later on he is mentioned because a "misinformed" character read Roxton's report that frogs and t rexes have similar brain cases (remember that anatomy comment?) so t rexes are like frogs and can only see movement. So, the character having read this of course doesn't bolt when a t rex starts after him--and gets chomped. Come on, Roxton! Look what you've caused! Do you think you're playing Turok right now!? THIS IS NOT A GAME THAT MAKES ANGELA CRY. It's not even a game in general! God, Roxton.

Oh, but the guys who get eaten by the t rex? All of them deserve it. They're jerks and bastards and grrrr. Good. Though I can't imagine anyone honestly fearlessly approaching a t rex, no matter what they thought they knew. (Thus proving how stupid they are?) I for one would most likely... uh... alter the nature of my underoos. And run like hell. Baselton, you go on ahead. I'll just hide. No, you'll be fine without me, they won't be able to see you, remember?



Okay, fun thing I never noticed before in the past 900 times I've read this book (other than the Roxton foreshadowing on about the third page of the book) is that there's a document, a German document, Levine requested to have mailed to him... from the Peabody Museum!!! Which is so cool mainly because that was my place. I was a dinosaur kid. I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was little. (I am unsure whether I would reject the chance to go to Nublar or Sorna if they were real islands and it were possible or go.) I loved the Peabody Museum. Still do. It's how I roll. The only museum I could ever imagine being better is that one in Russia that has the closest to being complete brachiosaur in the world. (So maybe it wasn't Anastasia that sparked my interest in Russia after all...) But. Uh. What's going on? What was I talking about? Oh, right, the Peabody. Though most people probably don't know this, (George) Peabody founded the museum at his nephew Othniel's asking. Othniel Charles Marsh (OH MY GOD, THAT NAME!!!) discovered some pterosaurs, allosaurs, apatosaurs, eohippus (the "dawn horse", obviously not a dinosaur but an ancestor to modern-day horses) or some other very early horse ancestor, and named basically every genera of dinosaur. Oh, he also discovered a few normal people might know... some dinosaurs called stegosaurus and triceratops. And diplodocus! Oh man. I'm overdue for a trip to the Peabody.



At one point, a teenager named Arby gets into the island's camera system. Of course, seeing all the dinosaurs, his first thought is

(this had to be a trick)

that... it had to be a trick... Really? Like anyone is ever going to get that reference. Even Bruce Coville wouldn't recognize it! Anyway. He says to himself: "They must be movies, he thought. The dinosaur channel." I WISH.



There's this one scene where this scientist lady is on a motorcycle and she has Arby's also teenager friend Kelly ride on the back with a dart gun to shoot raptors. It's easily the most bad ass scene in this book, and in just about any book ever.



Oh, and the ending is very nice. Enjoy the half-page I'm including because I love you that much. Oh, yeah, and spoiler alert too.

"'I wouldn't take any of it too seriously. It's just theories. Human beings can't help making them, but the fact is that theories are just fantasies. And they change. When America was a new country, people believed in something called phlogiston. You know what that is? No? Well, it doesn't matter, because it wasn't real anyway. They also believed... that the earth was only a few thousand years old. Now we believe the earth is four billion years old, and we believe in photons and electrons, and we think human behavior is controlled by things like ego and self-esteem. We think those beliefs are more scientific and better.' 'Aren't they?' Thorne shrugged. 'They're still just fantasies. They're not real. Have you ever seen a self-esteem? Can you bring me one on a plate? How about a photon?'...'No, but...' 'And you never will, because those things don't exist. No matter how seriously people talk about them,' Thorne said. 'A hundred years from now, people will look back at us and laugh. They'll say, "You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?" They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies.' Thorne shook his head. 'And meanwhile, do you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You see all of us together? That's real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't real anything else. Now look at that compass, and tell me where south is. I want to go to Puerto Cortes. It's time for us all to go home.'" Dear Michael Crichton: I love you. Just so you know.




This book is about ten thousand times better than the movie with the same title. It focused more on the raptors (the movie) and that relationship between the dad guy and his daughter. Ughhh. Cry me a river. I don't watch movies with dinosaurs and people to see sappy crap. I watch movies with dinosaurs to see people get eaten, or random 1940's women getting at least attacked by pterodactyls. Let's see... this book is actually compared with Frankenstein a lot, because it is also the negatory (is that a word? And if it is, am I even using it correctly?) side of scientific tinkering. Bringing dead flesh back to life and suffering the consequences and all of that. A little begrudgingly I admit the closeness. However, my theory is that Frankenstein is remembered as the classic version of this idea because it was the first. (That tends to be the case. An example of a book I don't like that is most likely a classic because of such is The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. One that I do like would probably be Bram Stoker's Dracula. Look at me, not being biased!) Sometimes this first version is good--and sometimes it's bad, Mary Shelley. Jurassic Park deserves to be the classic! First isn't always the best, guys. Now I'm going to be a grumpy old person! Rabba rabba rabba!



So, I realized this month was like obsession month for me. The Russian revolution, Narnia, and Metamorphoses. If I can squeeze in Pride and Prejudice and the entire Animorphs series before January 1st, it will be perfect! Think I can do it? Well, keep on humoring yourself. It's not happening. Haha. But speaking of Animorphs, they'll be reprinting the series next year... (I AM SO EXCITED!!!!)

Thursday, December 10, 2009

I like soup, and I like ice cream sandwiches too--I like fish sticks, but I love you

First, today (tomorrow by the time stamp that will be on the post) I was called out in class... We're doing this packet on symbolism in Marky Mark's class and we got to biblical allusions. One space had characters from the Bible who are often alluded to: the first was Adam, Eve, and (blank). Marky Mark asked if we could guess who it was, and all became silent and still until Emily said Lilith a few moments later. He briefly explained Lilith and then pointed to me like he had Yorrick's skull in his hand and said "I'm surprised you didn't get that!" I was caught completely off-guard, and apparently it was incredibly humorous to see my face go blank and squeak "Me?" You know what, it's been a while since I've read the Bible. (I don't even recall seeing anything about a Lilith? Was sex even allowed in the garden of Eden?) And then he was like "Reread the part in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when the Beavers talk with the kids." I know they talk about Lilith, but obviously I missed the meaning because I don't have the book of Genesis memorized (nor the Narnia series, as hard as that may be to imagine). Then, we deduced that Jesus had to have been born in March. (Yes, specifically.) Later, at VG club he stopped in, saw me, laughed, and said, "Yeah, I figured you'd be here." Are you trying to say I'm a dork, O Emperor Dork himself? Nyah! Haha. Also, I schooled Robby D three consecutive times in SSBM. Sorry... I was raised with a controller in my hand. Also, Roy is a monster. Though we were equally cheap, Mr Captain Falc--I HATE CAPTAIN FALCON.


Any--Anyway... As I mentioned maybe, my cousin bought me Jonathan Safran Foer's newest book for my birthday. It is Eating Animals and it is about the treatment of livestock animals, in raising and slaughtering. It will, God willing, do what Upton Sinclair's The Jungle did in his time. When I tell you this book is stomach-turning I certainly do mean it. The worst accounts were of turkey and pig raising, so I was disturbed--but felt less sick because I don't eat either meat. Pigs are filthy creatures. Besides that, I invariably get sick when I eat any form of pork, except for bacon, which makes an interesting thing to keep in mind for later. Turkey just grosses me out, but not nearly as badly as pork. Ick. Ugh, let's continue, okay?



This also felt much more like a book by Foer than Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close did. I mean, it was written by him, obviously, it's just... it didn't seem to have really him in it. At least, not the him from Everything is Illuminated. This new book, weirdly enough, felt more like Foer in his first book and less forced. Granted, he was writing as a nine-year-old in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but still. This sounds much more... real. More him.

Basically, Foer started researching for this book because his son was about to be born. His wife and himself were 'vegetarians' meaning they never ate meat except when they did. Before his son started growing up, they decided they needed a clear-cute decision: either eat meat or don't. How to raise their son? He decides vegetarianism is the way to go, and that's very clear from very early on, but how is what the book is about. Of course.



"People get married for many different reasons, but one that animated our decision to take that step was the prospect of explicitly marking a new beginning. Jewish ritual and symbolism strongly encourage this notion of demarcating a sharp division with what came before--the most well-known example being the smashing of the glass at the end of the marriage ceremony. Things were as they were before, but they will be different now. Things will be better. We will be better." You see what I mean about it sounding more like him, even already?

"'If nothing matters, there's nothing to save.'"

Early on, Foer talks about his dog, George. She was bought at a time when he feared and hated dogs, but very quickly he fell in love with the pup. By no means is she a model dog, however--she is "a major pain in the ass an awful lot of the time." She chews shoes and baby toys, attacks skateboarders, squirrels and Hassidic Jews, freaks out around menstruating women, often is attracted to the most uninterested people ("backs her flatulent ass into" as Foer puts it) and is generally obnoxious, it appears. I think I have a feeling of who Sammy Davis Junior, junior, was based off of.

What he segways into after bringing up George is why aren't animals--specifically dogs--used as a food source? They're a common enough food source around the world. Many dogs are just euthanized in shelters (his argument is just for sheltered dogs; not dogs that have homes) to begin with, and those dogs end up in the feed of livestock and pet food. So, in the case of pet food, we kind of are doing it already... Basically, he probes around as to why it's such a taboo to eat dogs. They aren't any smarter than pigs or chimps (yes, some cultures do eat chimps) and other people of this day and age do do it, not just the ancient Romans. I'm--the idea makes me uncomfortable. Again, I can't exactly explain why it is a taboo, it just is. It's a norm in us from the beginning. It's a norm in other cultures in the beginning to eat dog. It... I can see how it would benefit, certainly. But I'm not sure how I'd feel about eating a dog. Logically it may make sense, but those darned emotions get in the way. You say, eat a dog, and I of course think of Dante stuck on the table with an apple in his mouth like a suckling pig.

I'd say everyone knows about the terrible conditions in which chickens are raised, but maybe you don't. Chickens are kept in cages so small they are often held aloft. (Supposedly, broilers have slightly larger cages.) They are starved and are very famished--what I did not know was what happens to male chicks born to layers. Obviously, male chicks can't lay eggs. They're useless. What I didn't know is what happened to those chicks--they are tossed into what is basically a wood chipper. Or they're tossed into plastic containers, left to trample each other and eventually suffocate. Good God. Besides this, chickens and turkeys genes have been tampered with so they produce the most meat--their legs can't support them, they're too fat to fly... Often they suffer from muscle and bone injuries because of said defects. In Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood there is a food factory that created ChickieNobs. Basically, masses of chicken flesh hanging off feeding tubes that resemble light bulbs. They're meant to harvest chicken breast without wasting a whole animal, and cannot feel pain fear or anything and can't move or do anything unrelated to digesting food. Since they cannot feel pain, though, is this acting really cruel? When I read that book, I was quite disturbed by the ChickieNobs--but after reading Eating Animals, I kind of wonder if that way wouldn't somehow be the more humane way? That's a scary question. The fact that that question even has to be asked is scary.

Chapter one in part "Hiding/Seeking" is called "I'm Not the Kind of Person Who Finds Himself on a Stranger's Farm in the Middle of the Night". Hilarious title. But beside that, Foer, in that section, goes with an animal activist called 'C' to a turkey farm. 'C' gives him a run-down of what to expect when getting into these farms in the middle of the night--hiking fences, sometimes avoiding dogs... and sometimes avoiding bulls which are allowed to roam freely in fields to "impale snooping vegetarians". Foer, more than a little scared about this, and asks what should be done in case one should be found. 'C's' response: "'Stand very still,' C advised. 'I don't think they see stationary objects.'" Notice that think in there. You know what other animals scientists thought couldn't see stationary objects? Tyrannosaurus Rex. You know what happened to Repton, the guy who thought that? He ended up as dinner. Oh man, forget reading Mansfield Park. I'm rereading The Lost World. And rewatching the movie. Oooh. Dinosaurs are awesome! Wait--what was I talking about?

"A farmer doesn't lock his doors because he's afraid his animals will escape. (Turkeys can't turn doorknobs.)" Yeah, well I can think of some ancestors to the turkeys that can open doors... CLEVER GIRLS!!! Man. Glad they devolved, or we'd be in quite a spot of trouble; right, Ian Malcolm?
What Foer is referring to is the fact that the doors to the barn holding the turkeys are locked. He's listing all the reasons why they don't need to be locked--basically, there's no reason for them to be locked. To him, "...nothing will unsettle me more than the locked doors. Nothing will better capture the whole sad business of factory farming. And nothing will more strongly convince me to write this book." The chicks are disturbing. Even just described--well, my imagination did the work of providing an image of these poor creatures. It was an image I'd rather not see personally. Bad enough in my head. At first glimpse, the chicks look fine. Cute enough to handle. Baby chicks! Come on. But as he looks closer he begins to notice some are "blood-matted", "covered in sores", "have red spots on the tops of their heads", "deformed", and "there are few places to look without seeing at least one [dead chick]." He approaches C who is "kneeling over something". The something is a baby chick with eyes that are crusted over, that's covered in scabs and bald spots, and on its side. C slits its throat quickly and painlessly--it was too far gone to be salvaged. I was quite upset by this--not her putting it out of its misery, of course--but it being in that misery in the first place. For those who would be disgusted by her killing of the animal, regardless of it being a mercy killing, she defends herself as such: "...that chick was too sick to be moved. And its suffering was too much to leave be. Look, I'm pro-life. I believe in God, and I believe in heaven and hell. But I don't have any reverence for suffering."

The information about most animals--bird wise--can't even walk or support themselves comes from a letter included from Frank Reese, who considers himself the "last poultry farmer". He doesn't consider the factory farm turkeys to be real turkeys because they're genes have been so messed around with. Those birds are all artificially inseminated, they can't fly (turkeys can fly!? I'll be damned! Maybe chickens could fly once, too) and hardly jump or walk, nor can they even handle the elements. He's the only one still raising these 'traditional' turkeys. All of his flock is healthy. People are allowed on premises. No locked doors.

Oh, and the poor pigs. Mother pigs are put in cages so small they can't even turn around. Then bottom of the cages are slotted so their waste kind of... ripens below them. (I didn't get how that part worked, exactly). Then when they have their piglets they are crushed in so tightly they end up stepping on and killing a few piglets. Trying to figure out how to stop this is apparently one of the industry's current biggest goals--as Foer himself points out, this wouldn't happen if the pens were bigger. Among this, piglets are de-teethed so they can't hurt each other when they fight for milk, and are often bathed in their own waste (turkeys and chickens also suffer from this). This brings up the thing I mentioned earlier, about getting sick 99% of the time when I eat pork. Often these creatures are so bathed in filth and so poorly checked over, the meat gets imbibed with the filth on the skin. Ever have a 24-hour flu or stomach bug? More likely than not, according to Foer, it's this filth getting mixed in with the meat that's making you sick, not some form of the flu. It makes you sick until you pass it out of your system.

Just to drive the point home more, Foer compares the factory-farming of pigs with a dog locked in a closet (though he says that's "somewhat generous" an analogy). Of course, even though I don't eat pork, it hit a soft spot... My dog was a rescue dog in exactly that situation. (If I open the boot closet even now, almost five years after we rescued him, he'll walk over and go in). Ehh. And he speaks of pigs' intelligence. They really are damned smart animals. They can be trained to play very very simple videogames, they can recognize their names and come when called or follow on foot, and can open gates with their snouts (earlier, Foer recounts a recounting of a pig farmer's pig who would open her gate, travel a mile or so away to another pig farm, have sex with a male, and walk back and reenter her gate when finished). Going back to Oryx and Crake, this is why I said the guys who decided to grow human neo-cortexes in the pigoons were idiots. Of course, they were even smarter still and more dangerous and more violent. Though if that were to happen--it may be more of a Karmic thing. Yikes.

"'The consumer's couldn't tell the difference between ground pig flesh and human flesh. Of course they couldn't. The difference between human and pig... anatomies are insignificant compared to the similarities--a corpse is a corpse, flesh is flesh.'"


It was disturbing and informative book. Being non-fiction, I don't feel comfortable calling it 'good' or 'bad', but it was interesting. And upsetting.



Marky Mark was doing (continuing) a slide show on symbolism and we got into Christ figures. He had a check list that was "You may be a Christ figure if..." And one of them was they've spent a lot of time alone in the wildreness. He paused and added, "Like Jack Kerouac." Of course my head snapped up because I'm all HEY JACK KEROUAC! and he nodedd at me and I gave him the thumbs up. Haha. I'd say it was fairly awesome... Oh, and I had a dream last night that he became dictator of the school and Big Mikey was his bodyguard and Robby D was his gopher. He (and Emma) figured it wasn't so much a dream it was more of me seeing the future. He was pretty excited to know that yes, undead were involved. I'm staying on his good side.
And Robby D asked me how I was enjoying Ellison's Invisible Man. I gave the you know, ehh cusi-cusi sort of gesture/noise, and he was like "Uh oh, if Angela doesn't like it there's a problem." Which I thought was really cute! We have a problem.