So here I am, writing for the very first time on my brand-new laptop. The first thing I did, after configuring the browser and connecting to my school Internet, was to come here to tell you about the beautiful and delightful and sad thing that happened to me this evening.
Tonight I went to Neil Gaiman's Night of Stardust at a concert hall just off campus. Neil Gaiman himself came and spoke to us about the fifteenth anniversary of Stardust, the history of the book and how he wrote it, and all kinds of other things--he read us an excerpt from his new book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which I now very much want. And it was lovely--he talks like he writes, and I fell in love with his accent, and was swept up in the story and his voice and the experience of being near one of the masters of storytelling.
Now comes the sad part. At the end of the talk, the audience were all invited to stand in line in front of six microphones, two on each level, and ask him questions. I was second on my side, behind a guy who waited fifteen minutes to ask a one-word question. By that point, I had to pee so badly it hurt, and I wasn't going to give up my spot in line--in fact, I asked that guy if I could go before him. No luck. So I stood there and waited, while Neil Gaiman answered questions at great length. He answered eight questions, as I stood with my mouth to the microphone, silently rehearsing my own question so I wouldn't forget it--and then the man who'd introduced him said we were out of time, and could Neil please read something, and could we all please sit down.
I felt like crying. I felt like my heart had sunk into my stomach. I felt like I had stood not fifty feet from God, incense in hand, and had not yet knelt to pray when I was told the temple had closed.
I can't imagine how anyone else was feeling.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Sunday, November 11, 2012
What a slut time is: another open letter to John Green
Dear John Green,
Here we are at the present, and your most recent book. And I can't help but see it through the lens of yoru first one. The characters are of a similar type: Hazel the Drizzle, (sixteen, thyroid cancer with mets in the lungs, and I'm okay) Isaac the best friend, and Augustus the Hurricane, who brings Hazel out of her shell and proves that dying is not all about dying.
And again our heroes live in the shadow of imminent death; and again, you show how three teenagers can encompass the entire world.
But TFiOS is something else beyond all this: it's a journey, on the epic scale of The Wizard of Oz. (This is, I think, what you tried to do but did not quite achieve in Paper Towns, Which ends after Q discovers his wizard is a Fraud, but Before she can give any Life-Affirming gifts.) Hazel makes the journey from her mundane yet doomed life to the magical city of Amsterdam, where she meets her own personal god and discovers that he's simply a crazy old man who no longer cares for the story he created, the myth that has sustained her. And she returns home by way of discovering love...and in the end, Peter van Houten is a good man, but a very bad god. Or, as Augustus said in his last letter, he's a bad man, and a good writer.
I suppose it's ironic that I'm reading this on Veterans Day. Or maybe it's just appropriate, because of Augustus's obsession with heroic sacrifices. I dare say that the people who fight cancer are veterans even more so than the people who fight wars, and I wonder what Augustus would say to that. And I suppose it's apt that I find Hazel drawing strength from the experiences of Anne Frank, reading as I am just after the anniversary of Kristallnacht, at which I wondered once again why it is important to be saturated with sad stories, and whether merely surviving is heroic. Augustus thinks not; I wonder what Hazel would say.
I was reluctant to read this for a long time because in the last few generations of my family there have been two cancer survivors, one of them my mother, and three victims. So I didn't think I needed another cancer story. But this was neither too much nor too soon. To be honest, I thought you were going to end the book mid-sentence; I'm glad that you chose the other sort of ending that this book needed, the ending that doesn't end.
John, your stories show us the universe within each of us that needs to be noticed. They give us forever within the numbered days, and for that I'm grateful.
Sincerely,
Mara
Here we are at the present, and your most recent book. And I can't help but see it through the lens of yoru first one. The characters are of a similar type: Hazel the Drizzle, (sixteen, thyroid cancer with mets in the lungs, and I'm okay) Isaac the best friend, and Augustus the Hurricane, who brings Hazel out of her shell and proves that dying is not all about dying.
And again our heroes live in the shadow of imminent death; and again, you show how three teenagers can encompass the entire world.
But TFiOS is something else beyond all this: it's a journey, on the epic scale of The Wizard of Oz. (This is, I think, what you tried to do but did not quite achieve in Paper Towns, Which ends after Q discovers his wizard is a Fraud, but Before she can give any Life-Affirming gifts.) Hazel makes the journey from her mundane yet doomed life to the magical city of Amsterdam, where she meets her own personal god and discovers that he's simply a crazy old man who no longer cares for the story he created, the myth that has sustained her. And she returns home by way of discovering love...and in the end, Peter van Houten is a good man, but a very bad god. Or, as Augustus said in his last letter, he's a bad man, and a good writer.
I suppose it's ironic that I'm reading this on Veterans Day. Or maybe it's just appropriate, because of Augustus's obsession with heroic sacrifices. I dare say that the people who fight cancer are veterans even more so than the people who fight wars, and I wonder what Augustus would say to that. And I suppose it's apt that I find Hazel drawing strength from the experiences of Anne Frank, reading as I am just after the anniversary of Kristallnacht, at which I wondered once again why it is important to be saturated with sad stories, and whether merely surviving is heroic. Augustus thinks not; I wonder what Hazel would say.
I was reluctant to read this for a long time because in the last few generations of my family there have been two cancer survivors, one of them my mother, and three victims. So I didn't think I needed another cancer story. But this was neither too much nor too soon. To be honest, I thought you were going to end the book mid-sentence; I'm glad that you chose the other sort of ending that this book needed, the ending that doesn't end.
John, your stories show us the universe within each of us that needs to be noticed. They give us forever within the numbered days, and for that I'm grateful.
Sincerely,
Mara
Friday, November 9, 2012
A few sad things
Today is the 47th anniversary of Kristallnacht, a series of acts of terror that effectively kicked off the Holocaust. I got to Hillel an hour late by accident, and discovered that the board had invited a group of local Holocaust survivors. I ate with some friends and left early to avoid getting punched in the feels.
Yesterday I had the fight to end all fights with my ex, who is one of about three people who reads this blog. It was the fight we should have had when he dumped me, except neither of us had the balls to let each other go then. That much at least I've learned about yourself. He may stop reading after yesterday; but I started writing this before anyone read it, and I will probably keep writing when no one reads it.
So I've been reluctant to start reading The Fault in Our Stars; I don't need more sadness right now. On top of that, I have projects I've been neglecting in order to read these--reading for pleasure seems to take up more time than it used to, even when the book goes as fast as John's do. But it will happen this weekend.
And now a happy thing: Yesterday I had a bit of an epiphany. In my music class we're studying gamelan, a kind of Indonesian classical court music. And ever since I learned what Gamelan was, I've hated it; I've thought it sounded jangly and cacaphonous and alien. But yesterday in my recitation we actually learned to play gamelan. And I realized it's like meditating, but in a group. Each instrument has a melody that repeats over and over, and they all fit together and it's beautiful. At least from the inside. I don't know whether I can stand to listen to it from the outside yet.
Yesterday I had the fight to end all fights with my ex, who is one of about three people who reads this blog. It was the fight we should have had when he dumped me, except neither of us had the balls to let each other go then. That much at least I've learned about yourself. He may stop reading after yesterday; but I started writing this before anyone read it, and I will probably keep writing when no one reads it.
So I've been reluctant to start reading The Fault in Our Stars; I don't need more sadness right now. On top of that, I have projects I've been neglecting in order to read these--reading for pleasure seems to take up more time than it used to, even when the book goes as fast as John's do. But it will happen this weekend.
And now a happy thing: Yesterday I had a bit of an epiphany. In my music class we're studying gamelan, a kind of Indonesian classical court music. And ever since I learned what Gamelan was, I've hated it; I've thought it sounded jangly and cacaphonous and alien. But yesterday in my recitation we actually learned to play gamelan. And I realized it's like meditating, but in a group. Each instrument has a melody that repeats over and over, and they all fit together and it's beautiful. At least from the inside. I don't know whether I can stand to listen to it from the outside yet.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Count the headlights
Will Grayson, Will Grayson is essentially a 180 from Paper Towns. Where on Monday I felt empty, today I'm feeling ALL the feels.
First: frustration. Will 1 reminds me of myself--but of John's protagonists that remind me of me, he's the least. He's dark in a way I'm not, resigned to his situation and determined not to care anymore. And Will 2 is lonely and depressed, living out a Facebook fantasy that dare not speak its name. And yet at the same time I can laugh aloud, because their observations about life are occasionally so pithy or maybe just so offbeat that I have to stop and wonder whether they have a point.
But both Wills will be redeemed; their saviors seems to be time, random chance and the rainbow-striped mass of emotion who goes by the name of Tiny Cooper. This story is really about him, and his attempts to find love, and his dream that someday he'll be appreciated for who he is.
Will 1 was right: he is more or less a moon, caught in the orbit of Planet Tiny. But that really isn't a bad thing--he's swept along and into and through adventures like Pudge in Alaska's orbit; and in the process, he learns to choose his own path without wandering away entirely. Likewise, Will 2, who's always been desperate to keep control of his misery, is caught in Tiny's gravity, and in falling, he learns how to land on his feet.
My name is not Will Grayson, and I appreciate you, Tiny Cooper. You've made my life a little bit more fabulous.
First: frustration. Will 1 reminds me of myself--but of John's protagonists that remind me of me, he's the least. He's dark in a way I'm not, resigned to his situation and determined not to care anymore. And Will 2 is lonely and depressed, living out a Facebook fantasy that dare not speak its name. And yet at the same time I can laugh aloud, because their observations about life are occasionally so pithy or maybe just so offbeat that I have to stop and wonder whether they have a point.
But both Wills will be redeemed; their saviors seems to be time, random chance and the rainbow-striped mass of emotion who goes by the name of Tiny Cooper. This story is really about him, and his attempts to find love, and his dream that someday he'll be appreciated for who he is.
Will 1 was right: he is more or less a moon, caught in the orbit of Planet Tiny. But that really isn't a bad thing--he's swept along and into and through adventures like Pudge in Alaska's orbit; and in the process, he learns to choose his own path without wandering away entirely. Likewise, Will 2, who's always been desperate to keep control of his misery, is caught in Tiny's gravity, and in falling, he learns how to land on his feet.
My name is not Will Grayson, and I appreciate you, Tiny Cooper. You've made my life a little bit more fabulous.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
The most exciting part of the election is the most boring
I had no reading time to speak of today, since Tuesdays are one of my busiest days (the other being Thursdays). And after all my classes I went to an election watch party in my dorm...at which I was so bored I couldn't even come up with things to say to the few people who talk to me at such things. Though I did invite a male neighbor over...but if he was going to show up, it would have been fifteen minutes ago.
Why is the most important part of the election--the voting and counting of votes--the boring part? And it's arguably the most exciting part too--this is the part where people actually get to do something. I don't get it. Though I am wondering whether, if Romney should put my healthcare in jeopardy by winning, I should convince my mom that we all need to move to Canada or England.
I'll probably go to bed before anything is decided, but in the meantime I'm watching November videos from Brotherhood 2.0, and wishing I was in Nerdfighterlike with someone.
-.- So it goes.
Why is the most important part of the election--the voting and counting of votes--the boring part? And it's arguably the most exciting part too--this is the part where people actually get to do something. I don't get it. Though I am wondering whether, if Romney should put my healthcare in jeopardy by winning, I should convince my mom that we all need to move to Canada or England.
I'll probably go to bed before anything is decided, but in the meantime I'm watching November videos from Brotherhood 2.0, and wishing I was in Nerdfighterlike with someone.
-.- So it goes.
Monday, November 5, 2012
I ripped these out of your symbol: an open letter to John Green
John, I have a confession to make: While reading Paper Towns, I felt bored. Let me explain why: on the one hand, it's the book--it seems to move more slowly and say less than your previous two. Looking for Alaska had all the pretensions of a first novel. But I like those pretensions, the fact that when a writer is starting out, he or she tries to explain the whole world and everything in it, and how we the readers should live our lives. Which Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines both do quite well. Paper Towns seems shriveled by comparison, its moral being not that the world is an extraordinary place full of extraordinary people, but that we must, for reasons of living, see people as only ordinary.
On the other hand, there's me. Because I was a friendless misfit at a high school just like Q's, I feel I know the meat of the story already and don't need to be told it. I remember being awkward and rejected at dances, not going to parties and then feeling alone in the crowd when someone was nice enough to invite me, feeling the "high-school-is-ending-so-we-have-to-reveal-that-deep-down-we-all-love-everybody-bullshit." I've had Q's experiences, all but the frantic road trip that forms part three of the book, but including the painful realizations that accompany its end...and I don't need to be told that these things happen.
The thing I do wish is that I'd had a Ben and a Radar, people I was actually friends with, or thought I was--by sophomore year of high school I was thoroughly disillusioned with my classmates. I wish I'd had friends, I wish I'd had that kind of adventure...and yet I can't envy Q, because I have perspective he doesn't. Being in college, I know life will get better for him without Margo and without high school. He'll go to Duke, find love (or at least lust) there, learn to imagine people--and himself--more complexly, without the sad paper girl who has haunted his dreams all his life. I'm glad I didn't have a Margo Roth Spiegelman, because I can make my own adventures; I don't have to follow someone else to make my life interesting.
To be fair, John, I copied down a lot of quotes. Your books (thus far) are extremely quotable, which is good because I like reading things I can savor on my tongue like bites of a GoFast bar. But I'm not reading this one aloud, because in the middle it bored me, and at the end it made me feel empty, the kind of emptiness I expected from Looking for Alaska, which made me scared to read it for my whole first year of being a Nerdfighter. (Listening to you read a draft of Paper Towns in a Youtube video from 2007 is what inspired me to read all your books together. Now that's ironic.)
But the end of Looking for Alaska was beautiful and uplifting, and I'm certainly not complaining about the male stripper. In Paper Towns, however, the quest leads only to a dimensionless girl, in a town that exists only on maps, and so instead of a book of ideas, this was a paper book. It baffles me how, during the wondrous time that the first years of Brotherhood 2.0 must have been, you created a story that was this empty.
Tomorrow I shall start Will Grayson, Will Grayson. It isn't all yours (cowritten); but perhaps it was time for that. I hope it's one I can read aloud.
Most sincerely,
Mara
On the other hand, there's me. Because I was a friendless misfit at a high school just like Q's, I feel I know the meat of the story already and don't need to be told it. I remember being awkward and rejected at dances, not going to parties and then feeling alone in the crowd when someone was nice enough to invite me, feeling the "high-school-is-ending-so-we-have-to-reveal-that-deep-down-we-all-love-everybody-bullshit." I've had Q's experiences, all but the frantic road trip that forms part three of the book, but including the painful realizations that accompany its end...and I don't need to be told that these things happen.
The thing I do wish is that I'd had a Ben and a Radar, people I was actually friends with, or thought I was--by sophomore year of high school I was thoroughly disillusioned with my classmates. I wish I'd had friends, I wish I'd had that kind of adventure...and yet I can't envy Q, because I have perspective he doesn't. Being in college, I know life will get better for him without Margo and without high school. He'll go to Duke, find love (or at least lust) there, learn to imagine people--and himself--more complexly, without the sad paper girl who has haunted his dreams all his life. I'm glad I didn't have a Margo Roth Spiegelman, because I can make my own adventures; I don't have to follow someone else to make my life interesting.
To be fair, John, I copied down a lot of quotes. Your books (thus far) are extremely quotable, which is good because I like reading things I can savor on my tongue like bites of a GoFast bar. But I'm not reading this one aloud, because in the middle it bored me, and at the end it made me feel empty, the kind of emptiness I expected from Looking for Alaska, which made me scared to read it for my whole first year of being a Nerdfighter. (Listening to you read a draft of Paper Towns in a Youtube video from 2007 is what inspired me to read all your books together. Now that's ironic.)
But the end of Looking for Alaska was beautiful and uplifting, and I'm certainly not complaining about the male stripper. In Paper Towns, however, the quest leads only to a dimensionless girl, in a town that exists only on maps, and so instead of a book of ideas, this was a paper book. It baffles me how, during the wondrous time that the first years of Brotherhood 2.0 must have been, you created a story that was this empty.
Tomorrow I shall start Will Grayson, Will Grayson. It isn't all yours (cowritten); but perhaps it was time for that. I hope it's one I can read aloud.
Most sincerely,
Mara
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