The Bible: Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus

Bet you weren't expecting the next post this fast!  Anyways, here we are, first three books of the Bible.  Still not clear on the italicizing thing, but I feel like everybody will know what I'm writing about and I won't have to worry about getting sued... So, I feel like I should give some background here--I have read the Bible before, though it was sort of the in-between version.  What I mean is, in between The Beginner's Bible and the legit (?) Holy Bible, which is the "new revised standard edition".  Like when you get kid's versions of classic books but there are still more words than pictures.  (Not that there's anything wrong with The Beginner's Bible.  I can honestly say that even in just these three books there's a lot I wouldn't have understood without having read that about a million times when I was a kid.  I mean, the story of Esau?  What the hell is going on, seriously?)  But that was a while ago, and now I'm braving what is considered to be one of the most important literary works in existence.  So let's go into dangerous waters, then!

So obviously the book we're starting out with is Genesis (how does one treat books of the Bible?).
First of all, here's this: "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth'" Genesis 1:26.  (I'm going to do my best with the citing, too.) I just think it's interesting that God pluralized Himself.  I mean, if this wasn't the old testament, I'd say it works into the whole 'Father, son and holy ghost' thing, we're all three that are different, but still the same...
An interesting note is that there is a second account of the seven days that mentions how there are four rivers that branch off of the main river that comes from Eden, two of which are the Tigris and the Euphrates.  Just thought it was interesting to mention because it makes sense that these two rivers would be given this credit--some of the earliest major civilizations rose up around the rivers because of how fertile the area was, and undoubtedly still is.  So... that's cool....
Fun fact: Adam and Eve aren't given names until after they are cast out--Adam names her.  Actually, Adam isn't named at all.  He is never once referred to by that name (apparently in Hebrew, Adam is just a generic word meaning 'mankind'....)
Well, let's see.  The purpose of all mythology is really to explain nature and things we can't control, right?  Not to be rude, but this would be a sort of mythology too.  It's explaining the world's creation, where why who what when where, et cetera... The origin of man, the origin of traditions, and so on... In this case, when God reprimands Eve, we learn why childbirth hurts, yet still Eve would desire her husband despite that pain.  Adam  learns that he must work to live from henceforth.  Again, just thought it was worth throwing that out there...
So, we'll skip a little to the end of the story of Noah.  Noah is pretty happy that the flood has ended, obviously, and he builds an altar and sacrifices to God.  God is pleased and reacts as follows: "And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, 'I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth'" Genesis 8:21.  This kind of bothers me.  Okay, believe that if you like, and I know there are people that do.  But for the creator of the being to think that!?  I do not like that, not one bit.  I mean, I guess you could say people started out good, but of course that lasted up to the temptation of Eve... And I guess to make people villainous from the start would be a good way to see who is worth saving (the people who would work to overcome their inherent villainous nature)... But still, I feel like that should have been done a little better.  Just saying.
And later on there's the story of Abraham.  Abraham, as you may or may know, was commanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac.  The way I've heard it is that Abraham so loved God and wanted to honour him and not displease him that he goes to do it.  This Bible cuts out all of that and just gives it to us straight: he goes to sacrifice his son out fear of God.  (Which pleases God.)
And these first few books are repetitive as hell.  In Genesis alone--only on page 21, mind you--we repeat this scenario where a man goes into Egypt with his beautiful wife and says she's his sister for fear that they'll kill him (so they can get to her).  And when we get to Exodus?  I don't know what leaven versus unleavened bread is exactly, but if I ever hear about it again, heads are going to roll.  I am so annoyed that I am purposely not looking up these things out of spite!  (I think it means that there's no yeast in it.)
Oh, and Joseph and his amazing technicolour dreamcoat?  How about a "long robe with sleeves" Genesis 37:3?  I feel like that's a misconstrued translation for the better.  I guess I'd be jealous enough to beat someone up for their amazing technicolour dreamcoat?)
...Well, that's all I've got for Genesis, looks like.

...So now onto Exodus!  I daresay it's one of the best-known books of the Bible, it's the story of Moses!  Moses's beginnings through the first tabernacle erection, at least.  It looks like everything pertaining Moses goes through to Deuteronomy...
First of all, Zipporah's (Moses's wife) father is named Reuel.  This made me chuckle, as there is a certain author whose second middle name is this....
The first thing that really interested me were the plagues.  There are several involving bugs (gnats, flies, and locusts) that seem to get melded into one.  I thought that it was just locusts that also attacked people?  I'm no expert on locusts... But, one of these various bug plagues aren't translated correctly.  In the original Hebrew, one plague of bugs are actually scarab beetles.  So what, you may ask.  Scarab beetles (dung beetles) were actually sacred creatures to the Egyptians.  The plague of the beetles literally covered everything in them.  The people wouldn't have been able to walk without squashing a few and thus insulting their gods and humiliating them.  Way to kick them when they're down, I guess.  God is actually pretty cruel during all of this.  I mean, I never thought the plagues were nice, good acts, but from this perspective, I never really realized how flat-out cruel they were (except for that first-born son thing.  That's pretty darned bad no matter how/when you learn about it).
What I mean is, thanks to however you've learned the story of Moses, it's always the Pharaoh who acted stubborn, right?  He just wouldn't believe, while you're reading/watching and you're just like, Ramses, is your real name Tommy?  (Tommy 'Ramses II' Pharaoh?)  Are you seriously not aware of what is going on here and figuring out the cause-and-effects?  Well, for plagues 1-5, the Pharaoh "hardens" his heart.  However, come plague six, the sentence structure changes a bit: "But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he would not listen to them" Exodus 9:12.  Wait wait wait, WHAT?  "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them--so that you may know that I am the Lord'" Exodus 10:1-2.  Uh, okay.  I get the fact that He'd be trying to punish the Egyptians.  The way I've always pictured it is He was retaliating for the fact that Ramses was continually being a jerk and super indecisive.  But this seems excessive.  A point is trying to be proved, yes, and I guess we have to remember that God--Yahweh--is still an 'ancient' God at this point, but wow.  That's really kicking them while they're down.  Kicking them while they're down about ten or eleven times.  Almost to the point of making me uncomfortable...
Speaking of uncomfortable, a few chapters (chapters?) later: "'I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will pursue them, so that I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord'" Exodus 14:4.  Um... No?  I get that being God, He'd like other people to acknowledge that fact--but that stills seems like a lot.  "Gain glory"?  Sounds suspiciously similar to a certain character of Paradise Lost... Maybe God just has sharing issues and too huge an ego, and that's why Satan was punished... Or He didn't like the fact that He saw that aspect of himself in Satan still (though it would make sense)... I think I just made theology into a soap opera.  Uhhh, sorry about this.
Oh, funny story, never realized this, but you know passover?  It's to celebrate that the plagues passed over Moses's people.  I feel stupid for never making that connection... Though to be completely fair, I was never aware that that was where it came from.  Or... I didn't think I was aware?  (If I was, I feel like it was a Sunday school sort of thing, and it's been a looooong time since I've darkened the doorway of a Sunday school room...)
"'For I the Lord your God am a jealous God'" Exodus 20:5.  Well, at least He knows it.
Oh, and the ten commandments--turns out some of them are a lot longer than a sentence or two.  For example, "honour thy father and mother..." goes on to say why exactly you should do this: "so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you" Exodus 20:12.  This kind of intrigues me.  Is it implying that if you do that, so shall you be honoured by your children, thus you will live long because they will care for you as you have cared for your parents, and so on?  Also, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife"?  "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor" Exodus 20:17.
Exodus ends in a lot of laws, and the norms continue into Leviticus.  However, a lot of these laws are pretty damned harsh.  Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for a hand, et cetera--fine, I can accept those wholeheartedly, believe it or not.  But to be put to death for cursing your parents!? (Imagine how many teenagers we would have to kill!) And then there's laws concerning slaves: interesting, because like I said, the basic law appears to be an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and so on.  But with slaves, if you damage their eye(s) or knock out a tooth, they just get set free to compensate.  Why?  Well, they're still a lower order so even the law is modified for them.  They can't strike back because technically, they're still below their masters (they haven't been set free till their master sets them free)--well, they could strike back, but they'd be put to death, most likely.  Or hurt again.  And since they're slaves they can't be avenged...
One law that's randomly thrown in and gets randomly repeated a few times is "You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live" Exodus 22:18.  I apologize, it made me chuckle every time I read it.  (Though you should keep it in mind, it'll be important in a later book....)
Bestiality is also one of the sins that you can be put to death for.  Now trust me, I'm not going to defend that.  But if you'll recall, in Chuck Palahniuk's Rant, there is a rabies epidemic thanks to Rant.  There's a section where they discuss what a problem rabies must have been in the early days--and that's why bestiality was banned really, simply to prevent the disease from spreading, no more, no less.  Which is an interesting thing to keep in mind when you read some of the laws, especially regarding that which you can and cannot eat.  For example, if you come across something mangled in the field, leave it for the dogs.  This seems fairly logical nowadays, but I feel like there was a point in human history where someone would see it and say "FOOD!" and just eat it, and invariably got incredibly sick and most likely died thanks to what had already found the rotting meat.  So there we go, the law was a convenient prevention method.  Other things too--shellfish is not kosher because it does not have fins or scales and it resides in the water.  Well, why?  I'd imagine because even if you miscook shellfish even a little, you're bound to get violently ill.  Hell, there are certain parts of lobster that can kill you if you eat enough of it.  Plus, trying to figure out the edible parts?  It's a mess.  Of course, the most famous food to be avoided is pork, but that... trichinosis?  The fact that pigs are gross?  The Hebrews had really weak stomachs and couldn't handle pork?  I've got nothing, but I'm down with considering pork 'unclean'.
"You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt" Exodus 22:21.  This is my favourite of the laws of restitution.
The second to last law of restitution is that all first-born males are given to God.  As I said earlier, God was still an 'ancient' god at this point, so human sacrifice was completely natural and accepted--though I find it strange because the Canaanites who sacrifice their children to Molech (insatiable devourer of brains and imagination) are abused for it.  Maybe God just isn't pleased that their babies aren't being sacrificed in His name?
"You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in their lawsuits.  Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and those in the right, for I will not acquit the guilty.  You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the officials, and subverts the cause of those who are in the right" Exodus 23:6-8.
Ah, and one thing that bothers me are the Sabbath regulations.  Now, I know I've got to keep in mind that there's a LOT of time in between Moses and Jesus--a lot of things changed, indubitably, but man.  In the book of Exodus, you get put to death for doing any work on the Sabbath.  You're not even allowed to kindle a fire.  In one of the books of the new testament (won't know which one it is till I get there, but I remember the pictures of the story from The Beginner's Bible pretty well), a man (possibly one of the disciples) is doing work and a city official gets mad and says that he must be put to death/punished harshly.  Jesus steps up and says something like, "Well, you did work today too, didn't you?"  And the city official gets mad, denies it.  Jesus asks him if he walked his donkey to the water hole/trough today.  The official did of course, and Jesus said, "Well now, isn't that work?" And of course, it was.  So... yeah, the death thing seems like a little much.  Of course, this parable could have been written in an effort to change it purposely because people realized how impossible it was to follow that order of absolutely no work on the sabbath.
The rest of this book is pretty much how to construct a tabernacle, altar, how a priest should dress, et cetera.

Next up is the book of Leviticus!  It's quite possibly the best-named book of the Bible.  Seriously, I'd name a kid that.  Or a chameleon!  Or one of those lizards that get up on their hind legs and run across the water with those big flaps?  Those look like Leviticuses.  ....Um.  Leviticus is more of an outline of acceptable offerings and sacrifices, rites, purification laws, penalties and festivals.  That said, I've not much to say about this chapter.
Eating blood is prohibited!  I did not know that that was actually in the Bible.  I figured eating blood was just a more because, well, it's gross.  But okay.  (It also adversely affects health.  Too much and your stomach ruptures.  Good times?)  It actually kind of makes Dracula and other earlier vampire tales much more interesting.  I mean, you figure he/they are damned because they traded their soul away, or because again, that sort of thing is just plain gross.  Nope, drinking blood actually renders you "unclean" and you're actually sinning against God to do so.  So it's just the icing on the cake to the expulsion of your soul, I guess.  You're already damned, so why not?  (By the way, Dracula's famous saying--"the blood is the life"--actually comes from this chapter of the Bible.  It's Leviticus 17:14.)
There's also all the taboos about incest and any other sexual relation that gets you in trouble still nowadays that are discussed.  Might I mention that both of the famous anti-gay quotes from the Bible occur in this chapter: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" Leviticus 18:22.  "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them" Leviticus 20:13.  These quotes are preceded with God warning the people not to do as they do in Egypt or Canaan... Naturally I'm skeptical in this case, and I'm willing to say that this was a bit of human intervention in the text.  Somebody got grossed out by homosexuality and decided it was not okay (all the fleshpots of Egypt, you know)... I feel like  I should mention that everybody (else) slept with men for pretty much all of what we'd call the ancient days.  Greeks--Spartans, especially--and Romans are the ones that at least everyone knows.  I also feel that I should say that I have no problem with homosexuality (wait, there's nothing about women, is there?), I just thought it was worth mentioning.  Those two simple quotes are why homosexuality is looked down upon.
It is also said that anyone who provides the Canaanites with sacrifices to Molech shall be punished by death and deserted by God--anyone who turns to follow Molech will effectively cut their whole family off from God.  Hm... That name sounds and looks suspiciously familiar... (I hear his love is endless oil and stone and his mind is pure machinery.)

MLA citation information: Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Edition.  American Bible Society: New York, 1989.


Ooookay!  There we go, first three books of the Bible.  So far... Well, Genesis is kind of boring.  Exodus gets better, and Leviticus is thus far the most interesting.  So hopefully it will continue to improve!  The books actually read more like a summary of epics rather than actual in-depth epics, it's almost a little disappointing.  It's kind of like reading Sparknotes as opposed to the real text, except this is the real text... (I wonder what the actual Sparknotes for it looks like.)  So, we'll see where it goes from here.  I am rather intrigued.  Hope I didn't offend anybody.

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: So Hi So Lo by Matisyahu  (That's how it's spelled on the album, so I'm going to stick with that)
This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Who shot that arrow in your throat, who missed that crimson apple? It hung heavy in the tree above your head.  This chaos, this calamity, this garden once was perfect--Give your immortality to me; I'll set you up against the stars

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

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.