2008 was not a great reading year for me. My busy teaching schedule and penchant for wasting time on Facebook and Wikipedia did not leave much time for leisure reading. Still, I read enough to compile the following lists. Enjoy.
The Five Best Books I Read in 2008
1. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
2. Redemption Falls by Joseph O'Connor
3. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
4. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
5. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Five Worst Books I Read in 2008
1. The Shining by Stephen King
2. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
3. Sons and Other Flammable Objects by Porochista Khakpour
4. Ballistics by Billy Collins
5. Red Water by Judith Freeman
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
A Low-Tech Christmas Message
"The Journey of the Magi" by T. S. Eliot
“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Facebook: A Low-Tech Complaint
Wasting time is no longer what it used to be.
When I was a kid, wasting time meant locking myself in my bedroom and drawing comic books based on the superheroes I had created earlier in the day on the margins of my science notebook. Of course, these drawings weren't much to brag about--today, they would make no one but Napoleon Dynamite jealous. And the superheroes weren't much more than lame X-Men knock-offs with cool names like Infrared and Xyster. Still, at the end of the day, the time I wasted on these comics bore some tangible fruits--even if the fruits, so to speak, were stacks and stacks of half-drawn comic books.
Much has changed since then. I no longer draw as much as I used to, and I have largely become disillusioned with the comics industry (aside from comic book movies, of course). So, I have found another way to waste my time. Unfortunately, this way bears less tangible fruit than a pack of Bubble Yum.
I am referring to that "social networking" website known as Facebook.
Don't get me wrong: I like Facebook. It has reconnected me with a lot of friends and classmates that I had already consigned to the pages of my past. Still, along with this promise of reconnection comes a lot of extra "stuff" that does little more than tempt me to waste time.
An example: The other day I spent twenty minutes of my life becoming a "fan" of various writers and pop culture icons. Why? WHO THE CRAP KNOWS!!!
Another example: Yesterday, I spent five minutes taking a quiz in order to find out which female character in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight I am most like. Again, why would I do this? Why should I care? I mean, I'm neither a fan of Twilight nor a female, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!
Five more minutes of my life wasted. Thanks for nothing, Facebook.
Facebook is more than a "social networking" website: it is cyber-quicksand. If you are not careful you may wander in there and be swallowed whole...or, at least, lose the better part of an afternoon.
Ironically, the time I've taken to write this post about wasting time on Facebook is largely wasted time as well. I mean, whining about Facebook isn't going to change the world or make me a better person. Blogger, I guess, is just another patch of cyber-quicksand.
Thanks for nothing, Blogger. I should have stuck with comic books.
When I was a kid, wasting time meant locking myself in my bedroom and drawing comic books based on the superheroes I had created earlier in the day on the margins of my science notebook. Of course, these drawings weren't much to brag about--today, they would make no one but Napoleon Dynamite jealous. And the superheroes weren't much more than lame X-Men knock-offs with cool names like Infrared and Xyster. Still, at the end of the day, the time I wasted on these comics bore some tangible fruits--even if the fruits, so to speak, were stacks and stacks of half-drawn comic books.
Much has changed since then. I no longer draw as much as I used to, and I have largely become disillusioned with the comics industry (aside from comic book movies, of course). So, I have found another way to waste my time. Unfortunately, this way bears less tangible fruit than a pack of Bubble Yum.
I am referring to that "social networking" website known as Facebook.
Don't get me wrong: I like Facebook. It has reconnected me with a lot of friends and classmates that I had already consigned to the pages of my past. Still, along with this promise of reconnection comes a lot of extra "stuff" that does little more than tempt me to waste time.
An example: The other day I spent twenty minutes of my life becoming a "fan" of various writers and pop culture icons. Why? WHO THE CRAP KNOWS!!!
Another example: Yesterday, I spent five minutes taking a quiz in order to find out which female character in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight I am most like. Again, why would I do this? Why should I care? I mean, I'm neither a fan of Twilight nor a female, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!
Five more minutes of my life wasted. Thanks for nothing, Facebook.
Facebook is more than a "social networking" website: it is cyber-quicksand. If you are not careful you may wander in there and be swallowed whole...or, at least, lose the better part of an afternoon.
Ironically, the time I've taken to write this post about wasting time on Facebook is largely wasted time as well. I mean, whining about Facebook isn't going to change the world or make me a better person. Blogger, I guess, is just another patch of cyber-quicksand.
Thanks for nothing, Blogger. I should have stuck with comic books.
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