FGOT: Chapter 2

Our story continues. Chapter One.

Chapter 2: The (Sex) Rules Of The (Sex) Game

"Who's there?" Bella inquired inquisitively. The voice behind her had no clear source, though it was deep and sultry, not unlike those of the lanky, oddly-shaped Casanovas of the Pale Coast. Bella had never been, but she was well-acquainted with tales of their gawky limbs and too-large heads; on paper, the gangly Romeos were very unappealing, but -- in person -- they proved irresistable. No one knows why. They were good writers, maybe.

"My name is Thaddeus Percevus Maximus Aurelias," resonated the dark figure. "You may call me Thad."

As Thad stepped into the light before her, Bella was struck by his mass: Thaddeus was some sort of giant-man, standing over eight feet tall. His center of gravity lay low on his frame on account of his massive gut -- Thad was a mountain raised on meat and mead. He brandished with him an axe, wood splinters still hanging onto the blade like Phil the mail-boy's flesh hung from the dragon's sharp teeth. His face was like a kindergartener's farts: bashful, yet excited.

"Bella," Thad intoned, "Your uncle's passing has set into motion a Game the scale of which no man understands."

"How do you know who I am?" Bella asked, exposition be damned.

"Your uncle," Thad said, "was my brother." Thad looked at the ground momentarily before continuing on. "Well, half-brother. You see, my father was a Giant; one of the Mammoth herders up North. He loved your uncle A-Weema-Weh's mother very much and she bore him a child.

"Our noble-ist society demands that its rulers have 'pure' bloodlines. I, the illegitimate son, was cast aside and never mentioned. I was always a metaphorical elephant in the room; as I grew, the comparison became more apt."

Bella realized then how all children should be loved equally.

"Regardless of my origins, Bella," Thad boomed, "I must bring you back to Northern Westernshire. You are needed."

"Am I its new ruler?" Bella asked.

"Oh, gods no," Thad laughed. "Patriarchy, babe. We need to get you married to whoever takes over."

Though she was upset with Edward -- surely glistening with his stupid vampire brethren in some tepid lake somewhere, all shiny in just the right way to excite adolescent female readers -- Bella was not keen on marriage. She was young and wanted to do a bit more dating and traveling before settling down. Her uncle's untimely death by bear claws was a shock to her, but she had not maintained a close relationship with him; it was only a glancing blow. This, though -- this shattering of her (admittedly abstract) future plans -- was unforgivable. She began to feel a mild revolt against the men in power in her society; the rumblings of feminism bubbled in her belly.

"Why must I be married?"

"Listen. No. No. Your uncle's death has started a Game --"

"-- I don't want to be married!"

"CAN YOU JUST LET ME FUCKING EXPLAIN THIS TO YOU FOR ONE SECOND?"

". . ."

"Thank you. Your uncle's death has started a Game, a Game unlike any other. The throne stands vacant, and North Westernshire is one of the most powerful kingdoms in all of Skyrim Qu'arzkl. Many will try to reign over it, though only one will win. Though I admit it is an unfair, patriarchal, sexist practice, you must be awarded as a bride for the victor. I know it's wrong. I know. Please, let's just get walking."

Bella and Thad walked. They walked out of the forest -- they'd been in a forest this whole time -- and through various fields. The fields were green, lush, and sexual; two people were having sex with one another in the fields. Their bodies writhed with raw, exhibitionist pleasure, quivering after what was like a dozen orgasms. It was hot.

"What kind of place is this?" Bella asked Thad after they had put some distance between themselves and the cavorting nudes.

"These are trying, sexy times, Bella," Thad replied. "What with the dragons flying around, eating everyone, parents are hard-pressed to have large families."

Indeed, it was a given that several children in each town in Qu'arzkl would fall to the flying, fire-breathing beasts. Their hunger insatiable, the dragons swoop from their ever-unseen perches to feed on any incapable of escaping their jaws. The elderly, children, people banging each other in fields; all fall prey to the massive flame-lizards. You would think people would take to the relative safety of their homes for love-making, but the danger only served to make it sexier. Sex.

"Where did the dragons come from?" Bella asked.

"No one knows," Thad sighed, stepping over yet another couple gettin' all up in it on the soft grass. "No one knows."

Jesus, Take The Wheel

I read The Jefferson Bible on the train home from Boston to New Jersey this weekend. I know I mentioned what it was before, but here's a short overview (for those of you who don't want to click that link):

• Thomas Jefferson was a Deist with respect for the teachings of Jesus. He was also a pretty strict skeptic and rejected the supernatural.
• He took a razor^[1] and cut and pasted verses from the Four Gospels in chronological order, removing some of the repetition -- no reason to have the Sermon On The Mount twice, for example.
• After that, he went through and took out everything that bothered his rationalist sensibilities, as well as verses he felt were too commonly misinterpreted and/or clearly added by the Evangelists. As a result, there are no miracles, angels, devils, etc. in his Bible.
• It's also incredibly short, clocking in at just over 100 Kindle pages.^[2] I read it in under two hours.

I fucking loved The Jefferson Bible. I'm not being a snarky atheist,^[3] either: several parts of this book made me smile. I learned three things:^[4]

1. Taken as a piece of literature, the Gospels are kind of poorly written. There's, like, zero character development. There are 12 Apostles, for example, and maybe four of them speak. People just show up with no backstory whatsoever and Jesus talks like Yoda. It's a dense book with a lot of verbose language that simply gets lost in translation.
2. When you see some "Christian" on television talking about the woes of gay marriage / birth control, just remember that jackass didn't read the source material. Jesus doesn't say a word about gays, abortion, condoms, science, dinosaurs, etc. Literally everything Pat Robertson says is ignorant and -- more to the point -- not what Jesus fuckin' said. It's all written down, bro; read it.
3. As an extension of that point, this is a philosophy I can get behind. It's all about helping people (especially the poor), forgiveness, and perseverance.

THIS PART IS GOING TO BE POLITICAL IF YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED PLEASE SKIP IT. YOU'VE BEEN TOLD. I'LL WRITE A "FIFTY GAMES OF TWILIGHT" POST SOON I PROMISE.

In American politics, Christianity is often associated with conservatism, or at the very least, the GOP.^[5] Something like 85% of elected officials are Christian -- I only know of one open atheist, and he's in the House -- and, of those, the only ones who talk about it at all are Republicans. Dems, as a rule, are quieter about their beliefs.

President Obama had to fight off rumors that he was Muslim. The correct answer to that charge, of course, was, "I'm not Muslim, but even if I were, why would it matter?" We don't yet live in a country where politicians can be sworn in on anything other than a Bible and not be shrouded in controversy. ANYWAY.

Like I said, the people who wear their love for Jesus on their sleeves typically vote Republican. Many of these (surely wonderful) people vote for officials who promise to ban gay marriage, strike down universal healthcare, and give tax breaks to the rich. These people do not love Jesus. They love Jeezus, who's a lot like Cheez-Wiz. He's an approximation of the real thing, but he's different enough that honestly he's not the same at all. Jeezus loves guns and thinks America is just top-notch.

Here are some of the quotes from the Gospels that made me smile on the train. Jesus said this stuff.^[6] Try to reconcile any of these with the typical stance Evangelicals take on political issues^[7] and you'll see why I get frustrated.

1. "And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?" - Matt 5:47
2. "Jesus answered, 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'" - Matt 19:21
3. "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.'" - Matt 19:23-24
4. "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." - Luke 14:11
5. "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." - Matthew 22:37-40

I don't see how you can turn "Love thy neighbour as thyself" and "Sell everything you own and give the money to the poor" into "NO QUEERS" and "You're abusing welfare. Get a job, leech. Matter of fact, let's see your papers while we're at it. Also, piss into this cup."

Look at these guys:

These three gentlemen are praying at the steps of the Supreme Court; praying that the Affordable Care Act will be ruled unconstitutional. These are folks who believe prayer works. In their world, they have the power to ask their God^[8] for things and He'll deliver 'em. Instead of asking for all illness to be eradicated so no one ever gets sick, they're asking for legislation they disagree with -- not necessarily for invalid reasons -- to be undone. They are assholes, but they're doing it for Jeezus.

OKAY ALL THE POLITICAL GARBAGE IS OVER YOU'RE GOOD TO KEEP READING

This was my second time going through the Gospels^[9] and honestly I didn't miss the miracles. The Sermon on the Mount is still an amazing lil' manifesto, even if it's not alongside turning a little bit of bread into a ton of bread. The rationalist take made the ending kind of hilarious, too. (SPOILERS) I'll paraphrase:

They took Jesus's body from the cross and went to a garden. There was a tomb there, a tomb where none had been buried before; they laid his body in the tomb, moved a very heavy rock over the opening, and left. The end.

Alright I added the "The end." That wasn't written in there.

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[1] No joke, he did everything manually. Rather than re-write everything he just glued verses onto pieces of paper.↩

[2] I only measure things in Kindle pages now.↩

[3] I don't believe in gods. You should try it out; our meetings are on Friday the 13ths and we only eat the freshest of babies.↩

[4] This is a list-heavy post. Sup.↩

[5] Ironically enough, the GOP gave up on conservatism / minimal government interference in daily affairs at around the same time the Evangelical Right became a Thing.↩

[6] Provided the Gospels are an accurate transcription. This is debatable, considering they were all written well after Jesus's death. It's like if everything we know about John F. Kennedy were written from 1980 onwards.↩

[7] Two things: (1) I am aware that the Evangelical Left is a thing and that they're doing solid work. They're a small movement, though. (2) These stances are: supporting the "Biblical Definition"^[*] of marriage; banning abortion and -- sometimes -- governmental support of birth control; "only cis-het people can be happy!".↩

[8] Yahweh / G_d; not Zeus, Thor, Chronos, Hades, Poseidon, Ra, or any of the other hundreds of gods. Curious. I mean, just as a numbers game, you'd think they'd ask Oden, too -- wider net.↩

[9] I read it in 10th grade 'cause I thought we were skipping parts in religion class. We were.↩

[*] If you support this, you either (A) have not read the Bible's definition of marriage or (B) are fine with concubines, forcing women to marry their rapists, and men owning their wives as property.↩

. . . I Feel So Unclean

I finished The World According To Garp today. I liked it a lot. I did. It was funny, the characters were interesting, the story was dynamite, it had Important things to say without being too heady -- I recommend it. But, like, I need to take several literary baths.^[1] It's like I ate a bunch of pizza for lunch: I enjoyed it at the time, but now that I've completed it, I don't feel good.

Hard to believe, but a ton more stuff happens after the castration. Garp starts writing again -- a new novel, called The World According to Bensenhaver, about a crochety old investigator who deals with rape cases. Garp is dealing with some shit and he works out his demons through his writing. Irving includes the first chapter of Bensenhaver in The World According to Garp. It is gross.^[2]

The first chapter sets the stage with a man, Oren Rath, entering a woman's house with a fishing knife. Hope Standish is just chillin' with her kid and Oren's like, "I'm going to rape you now and then kill you." Hope's friend gets into the house and flees with Hope's son, but Oren takes Hope in his truck and drives her around a bit.^[3] Eventually, he's driving, and she decides that she's got to get out of this alive by any means necessary.

Hope gets Oren to pull the car over -- she can't let him drive off too far, or she'll be too hard to find later -- by putting her head in his lap^[4] and blowing on his penis through his jeans. Oren starts driving all crazy -- see, there's not enough blood in his body for his brain and his pecker -- so he pulls over to the side of the road to "have" Hope.

Oren overpowers Hope and begins raping her in his truck;^[5] they don't go out into the nearby field because Oren can't wait any longer. People drive past, but they assume it's just another people-banging-each-other-on-the-side-of-the-road-real-casual-nothing-to-see-here encounter and don't do anything. Okay, so he's raping Hope and her survival instincts kick in. Oren is absolutely going to kill her after he's finished, so something has to be done.

Hope feels around the truck a bit and finds Oren's knife. While he is still inside her, she disembowels him. He dies, but not before leaking blood and shit all over her.^[6] The police, including Bensenhaver, rescue poor shit-covered Hope. That's it. The end.

The World According to Bensenhaver is an incredible sales success despite its middling reviews. Garp goes back to Vienna at the recommendation of the book's publisher so as to avoid its inevitable backlash. Wolf (the publisher) is employing some less-than-holistic marketing -- capitalizing on his relationship to Jenny Fields and the accident that killed Walt and maimed Duncan -- so Garp gets away from that before it becomes truly unbearable. The book is also seen as both pro- and anti-feminist. Garp becomes frustrated. "It's made up!"

While Garp is in Vienna, Jenny Fields (his mother, faithful reader) is assassinated at a gathering of feminists. She starts delivering a speech and is shot by a man with a hunting rifle. The shooter is killed immediately after, but Jenny's super-dead. Garp comes home, where Jenny has a "Feminist Funeral." No men are allowed, so Garp has to dress in drag to attend his mother's funeral.^[7]

Garp and Helen have a daughter, Jenny. A few years pass and not that much happens. Garp becomes the wrestling coach at the Steering School and Helen agrees to teach there -- they're allowing girls to attend now, see. Anyway, Garp is shot and killed by Bainbridge "Pooh" Percy^[8] and then Irving provides this overlong^[9] epilogue that wraps everything in a neat little bow.

The end.

If you need some eye-bleach after reading this -- or "Guts," which you definitely should just avoid forever -- then I recommend googling "Puppy gif" or taking a trip to r/aww.

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[1] A palate cleanser, but for books. Something inoffensive -- did Mr. Rogers^[*] write any books?↩

[2] I mean this. Children, stop reading; parents, you've been warned. Shit's about to get graphic. (You'll get that pun in a second.)↩

[3] I am skipping quite a bit here. The chapter is long and it immediately follows the castration-by-biting so really it's a lot to take in at once.↩

[4] ARE YOU SEEING THE PARALLELS TO THE AFOREMENTIONED CASTRATION SCENE?↩

[5] I'll spare you the big description of this, but rest assured it's very detailed. This whole scene actually made me very uncomfortable, not unlike Chuck Palahniuk's "Guts"^[+] short story.↩

[6] Would you believe I'm actually sparing you? I've trimmed this down from the nearly page-long description and I've not mentioned what happens with his dick at all, so, like, you're welcome.↩

[7] This is one of the more overtly-political parts of the book. Jenny explicitly told Garp that she did not want any sort of big funeral: give her body to science, be done with it. Instead, because she's a Feminist Icon, her wishes are tossed aside by people who at best want to mourn together and at worst want to use her. It's probably more about the Hivemind absorbing people who define their ethos more than feminism explicitly, but w/e.↩

[8] Did I establish who this was? Ugh. Okay. Back in his school years, Garp made fuck with a girl named Cushie, who was Pooh's older sister. Cushie died years later in childbirth, but Pooh was convinced -- somehow -- that Garp had fornicated her to death. She held on to this grudge for like 15 years and eventually kills him.↩

[9] And out of place, frankly.↩

[*] "You've made today special for everyone who knows you just by being you. No one in the entire world is exactly like you. I like you just the way you are."↩

[+] Don't even read that, honestly. Just don't. I had to do it in two sittings -- not because it's too long to read all at once, but because I physically had to step away from it for a while. It is the single most graphic, squirm-inducing thing I have ever read. It's to Mr. Palahniuk's credit that it's so effective, but -- I'm serious -- don't go into that expecting to not pace around your room for a while afterwards.↩

Fifty Games of Twilight

It's pretty tough to write fiction, probably. I haven't tried. It's also got to be super-difficult to write a book that sells like crazy and makes you famous. I haven't done that, either, obviously. But I had a (zany) idea today: what if I write fan fiction about books that (A) are best-sellers and (B) I haven't read? It's going to be a bit like 500 Shades Of Great, a Twilight spin-off by someone who has not read Twilight. I'm mixing three books, sort of.

I haven't read any of these books. I mean, I have a general understanding of some of the things that happen in Twilight, for example, but I haven't read the novels or seen the movies. I saw about half an hour of one episode of A Game Of Thrones and it was somewhere in the second season. I may read Fifty Shades Of Grey if only to blog about it later, but its pages have not yet graced / scarred my eyeballs.

When I need character names, I'll make them up; this will be less of the case with Twilight, since I at least know the names of the two main characters there (Bella and Edward).

Elements from each I'll be trying to use:

1. Fifty Shades Of Grey: Sex scenes everywhere. These will add nothing to the plot but they will allow me to use comical words for anatomy. They'll also be fairly tame so as to keep with the theme of . . .
2. Twilight: The main characters will be fumbling young adults. The writing will also be (mostly intentionally) sub-par. Also maybe werewolves?
3. A Game Of Thrones: Tons of characters, a dead king, magic, dragons, etc. Where I want to add something specific but I'm not sure it actually happened in A Game Of Thrones (this will happen all of the time), I'll just write it anyway as long as it's fantasy-based. I may borrow ideas from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim because that's roughly the same thing in my mind.

This might should make me famous. After all, I'm taking three super-popular things and mashing them together. Hell, I'm even mixing sex, violence, high fantasy, and teen drama! It'll be like peanut butter and chocolate, except it might be god-awful and a complete waste of time.

Chapter 1: Incredulous Responses To Tragic And Sexy Events

The King of Northern Westernshire, East Of The Blood River, was dead for 48 hours before Bella received word of her uncle's untimely demise. The letter would have reached her sooner had the band of horses not been caught in the muck and mire of the Swamps of Ice, but none has been able to surmount that hazard since the Great Flood. Indeed, before being mauled by the roaming-yet-oddly-cunning she-bears of the Eastern Province, West Of The Rape Wall, King A-Wheema-Weh had his best men study the composition of the Swamps. Years of research into that mockery of fluid dynamics -- sticky and slippery! -- yielded no results; millions of taxpayer dollars were squandered. This was but one of the many transgressions that lead to the Revolution and, by the recently-discovered transitive property, the King's fall at those unforgiving claws.

Bella held the letter, unopened, in her trembling hands. She had not seen her Uncle in years, having fled Northern Westernshire at the start of the Wars.

"You send me a letter?" she asked interrogatively.

"Aye, milady," the mailbearer replied. He had been selected for his fleet feet, though Bella noticed some of his other, sexier, body parts -- his balls bounced jauntily as he walked. She was shaky yet enthusiastic with the rules of attraction, having been involved in a sort-of-thing-but-he-doesn't-text-me-regularly pseudo-relationship with a glistening vampire, Edward. Edward is kind of a dick.

"Tell me, mail-delivering boy, rustler of loins," Bella teased, "Why not use magic? We live in a world with dragons, vampires, werewolves, and fantastical spells! Surely we have progressed beyond letter-sending."

"You'd think so," the mysteriously handsome, rough-and-tumble courier sighed. "I get pretty tired of running around to all these different provinces and realms. It's awfully hard on my feet. But it's a bit of a more personal touch, I suppose."

"Touch?" Bella purred, taking the courier's hand in hers.

The mail-boy was no stranger to lust, having traveled much of the continent in his . . . travels. From the tip of the Pegasus Mountains to the depths of the Cave of Despair, he delivered all sorts of letters. He read them, too, sometimes, opening the envelopes and peering at the text inside. Usually, the missives bored him: "Aunt May has the flu," or, "The gas is back, doctor -- my wife can't sleep for the stench." Phil the Courier read only the first few sentences of these shallow letters, but he always read all of the sexy ones.

Phil had been reading sex mail for a few years now, having started only a few weeks after landing the gig at the age of 17. His knowledge of what he called "smush-smush" was extremely limited in the beginning: "Ladies have different parts," he would marvel. Now, after poring over dozens of pages of naughty prose, Phil had a better grasp on where to put his dangle -- in the woman's hoo-hah.

Bella took Phil's hand and slid it over her bosom with the grace of a more-experienced woman. It was very sexual and arousing, sure to please critics and audiences alike.

"It's like a bag of sand," Phil basically shouted.

"What?"

"Your boobie feels like sand!"

Bella threw her hands in the air. Phil was clueless, or at the very least he had not learned to not voice his every thought. No amount of anger at Edward's commitment issues could justify her guiding this poor mail-boy through what was sure to be an awful sexual experience.

"Leave me, Philip."

"But, what about the --"

"LEAVE NOW."

Phil turned away from Bella, shamefully hiding his now fully-torqued little general. "Not again," he thought. Mentally, he flagellated himself in a sort of BDSM way that was electrifyingly base, though it was also sad and emotionally complex. "All that reading about the girl-parts and I ruin it!" Phil's erection, very penis-like and phallic, was an anachronistic Washington Memorial for his ineptitude. He cried all the way home, where he was promptly eaten by a dragon. He was not mourned.

Bella opened the letter, prepared for more bad news. Her ta-ta had been compared to a (admittedly fine) granular material -- what else could there be? She let out a deep sigh like a teenager who had just been asked about "that boy from school."

"Uncle is dead?" she gasped.

"Aye," a mysterious voice bellowed out of the woods behind her. "The Game is afoot."

Chapter 2

The Car Is A-Rockin' (With Castration)

Picking up right where we left off.

Remember when I said I predicted a scandal with this Michael Milton^[1] character? HOLY TITBALLS. Guys. Fuck, guys. Fuck. Okay.

I'll take a step back -- I've only read about 100 more pages of The World According To Garp since I last wrote about it. I thought I would be able to cover this book in two posts,^[2] one for each half. Nope. I still have ~150 pages (a little less than a third) to go but this needs to be discussed / shouted from the mountaintops.

Obviously more spoilers coming

Helen indeed starts having an affair with Michael Milton. Their relationship begins, ostensibly, on a somewhat professional note: Helen critiques Michael's writings. Eventually, he runs out of assigned material and begins proffering personal prose and poems.^[3] After that, well, they run out of things to talk about entirely: down to biznezz.^[4]

Helen is careful to conceal her extra-curricular activies, but one girl -- scorned by Milton dumping her in favor of Helen -- does find out. She writes a note and goes to Garp and Helen's home to deliver it with the mail. Garp receives the note, reads it, and promptly enters a state of obsessive sad-rage.^[5] He takes Duncan and Walt (their kids, which you knew 'cause you read the last post) to see a movie; Helen is instructed to end it with Milton immediately over the phone.

This does not go as planned.

Milton says, "Fuck it, I'm coming over," and drives to Helen's house.^[6] Helen meets him outside her house in his car; she's reluctant to get in, but does so when Michael hands her the keys. Unable to drive off anywhere, she sits in the car with him in the driveway as he whines and cries. Also it is raining / sleeting. It's hard to see out the windows.^[7]

Oh shit I forgot: when Helen went to Michael's apartment (so they could bang each other) he always drove her and she laid in the front seat with her head in his lap. This was so she wouldn't be seen in the car.^[8] Okay so she does that again in an attempt to calm him down so he'll leave before Garp gets back from the movie with the kids.

Surprise surprise Michael gets all rape-y and pressures Helen into^[9] -- erm -- putting her mouth on his penis such that he may achieve orgasm.^[10] She decides to do it so that he'll leave. It's "for the kids."

Meanwhile, Garp calls home and Helen doesn't answer. He rages and immediately takes the children in the car and drives home. Garp knows the roads really well, particularly his driveway; he does a trick for the kids often where he cuts the lights and engine of the car and coasts up the driveway and into the garage. He does that again. It's not like there will be another car in the driveway or anyth --

NOPE THERE TOTALLY FUCKING IS^[11]

The cars collide. More descriptively, Garp's car slams into Michael's, and Michael's is a shitty old Buick and it's really heavy so it doesn't budge. There's a lot of violence, which I'll summarize here:

1. Duncan, Garp's older son, is thrown from the back seat; his flight is broken by the car's stick shift, jagged and uncovered, taking out his eye.
2. Garp, in his failed attempt to stop Duncan from being tossed forward, hits his jaw against the steering wheel. It shatters.
3. Walt, Garp's youngest, is killed.
4. Helen's neck is slammed against Michael's steering wheel, but it does not break; her arm, however, does.
5. Helen, in the impact, bites down^[12] and -- oh sweet lord -- amputates three-quarters of Michael Milton's penis. She castrates him.

And thus another thing was added to Ian's Long List Of Phobias.^[13]

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[1] If you didn't read the last post (which I linked to) then you're going to be seriously confused so why don't you just go back up there and click that blue text c'mon it was pretty funny just do it.↩

[2] "Ugh. I don't care about your thought process," you say. "I'm only in this for the gifs."↩

[3] Somewhere, an English teacher has fainted.↩

[4] And just like that, awake again -- more effective than smelling salts.↩

[5] When you're really mad but you're also too sad to properly vent. It's sort of child-like but usually prompted by adult situations like discovering your wife has been cheating on you.↩

[6] Helen and Michael never did tha na$ty at Helen's place -- she was always careful to go to Mike's apartment -- so I don't know how he knew where she lived. Probably stalking / sleuthing / hiring a PI.↩

[7] Heads up guys this is important.↩

[8] Michael didn't object. (Erections, everybody.)↩

[9] Hi, Mom. Nice blog your kid's writing, huh?↩

[10] Was this too much? I'm sorry. I mean -- it is in the book, but I didn't have to write it like that.↩

[11] Parents, take your children out of the room. Faint of heart, just leave now. Get out while you can.↩

[12] I am in physical pain.↩

[13] Also on the List: bicycles, most social interaction, bees.↩

The World According to ME! ME! ONLY ME!

First, some things about how this blog is going:^[1] I'm working on the god damn footnotes. C., over at his blog, has started doing footnotes "right." He links between them, so the footnote in the text^[2] links to the bottom of the page and the neat little icon (↩, which I stole) links back up to the text. I will now do this.

I had started moving this blog over to github so I could write code for the footnotes and make them fancy -- I am a Professional Rails Developer, after all^[3] -- but maintaining both sites is just ridiculous. The github looks like trash, too, since there's no styling; it's just raw text. This right here is what I was doing with the footnotes, for those who want an example. Mouse over them. Fancy, right?^[4]

"Enough of this uninteresting garbage," you say.

I've recently acquired three new books:^[5] The Jefferson Bible by Thomas Jefferson, The Sirens Of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, and The Gospel Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster as revealed to Bobby Henderson.^[6]

His Noodly Appendage has risen.

I haven't started reading any of those -- gimme a sec -- but I do recommend The Jefferson Bible. It's a Bible that Jefferson put together himself. Effectively, he went through a few translations of the New Testament, removed all of the miracles / angels / demons / supernatural elements, and pasted verses together chronologically. What's left is "the good parts," or -- what I suppose, as I haven't read it yet -- a 100% human Jesus telling people to stop being assholes to one another. I like my magic tricks, don't get me wrong, but I'm interested to read a more grounded-in-reality Bible.

"Woah, this is still pretty boring," you moan. "And they're not magic tricks, jackass."

I'm reading The World According To Garp^[7] by John Irving. Ahem. If you'll just allow me --

I am about halfway done. This book is fucked up.^[8] It's thoroughly good, though. I don't like it quite as much as AHWOSG but it's definitely up near Cat's Cradle-level quality.

Warning: spoilers for the first half of the book below

"Garp" is a book about a woman, Jenny Fields, the Mother of Feminism. She hates men and their "lust," and one day she decides she wants to have a child. She won't get married or even go through with a "traditional" courtship process^[9] but she's lucky enough to be a nurse during wartime. A man known only as Garp is shot down in an airplane, and he's mentally incapacitated by the event. He regresses to childhood, going backwards through mental development, eventually only being able to say his name. He does get fairly constant erections, though.^[10]

Jenny decides to have a sexual relationship with Garp. He's unable to speak or comprehend much of anything, but she -- erm -- "relieves" him^[11] when he gets his boners. Jenny decides she wants a child around the same time Garp can only say "Aaa," having lost the other sounds of his name. Before Garp dies from his wounds, he gets an erection again, and Jenny rapes him.^[12]

Jenny conceives a child from this liason; she gives birth to the boy and names him "T.S. Garp" -- you see, papa Garp was a Technical Sergeant. Garp gets a slot in a prep school in which his mother works as a nurse. He graduates with a focus in writing^[13] and he soon moves to Vienna with Jenny in an effort to see an "artsy" part of Europe.

While in Europe, Jenny writes her memoir, A Sexual Suspect. It is hailed as the first feminist text: Jenny is not afraid of being an asexual-except-that-time-she-raped-a-handicapped-dying-guy-so-she-could-steal-a-baby-from-him, independent woman. A cadre of women adopt Jenny as their role model / leader and she becomes incredibly wealthy. This wealth allows Garp to work on his own writing; he completes his first work, "The Pension Grillparzer,"^[14] in Vienna.

Upon completion of "The Pension Grillparzer," Garp proposes -- via letter -- to a girl he knew from his days at Steering, Helen. She accepts^[15] and moves in with Garp upon his return to New England. They "learn to love each other" and make a baby.

I cannot write any more here's a list of shit that happens after all that or even before that, depending:

1. Garp repeatedly sees an older prostitute in Vienna, Rachel. She gets syphillis and dies.
2. Garp catches the clap from a whore in Vienna. He's treated for it and considers hitting on the doctor's daughter, but then he's all, "Dude, her dad treated by diseased dick, there's just no way."
3. Garp cheats on Helen with a few babysitters.
4. Garp and Helen get into an open marriage / swinging scenario with another couple because the man -- a co-professor at a university with Helen -- is sleeping with a student. The idea is to get him to want Helen instead (or something) which is somehow more acceptable to all parties. Helen calls it off after a while.
5. Garp runs down a child molester in some sort of park while he's running. He becomes a bit of a local hero as a result.
6. Garp and Helen have another kid.
7. Helen appears to be developing feelings for a graduate student of her own, Michael Milton. I predict a scandal.

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[1] This is going to be pretty boring and I'm just complaining about shit I do voluntarily, so you can skip this part.↩

[2] Are you bored yet? Move along. I won't be offended.↩

[3] This is funny because I'm really not very good at computer science.↩

[4] I don't think I'm going to continue on the github unless one of you wants to style my site with your super-duper (dooper?) CSS skills. Holla @ cha boi.↩

[5] YAY! Ian ♥ reading!↩

[6] My Mom, who sent me to CCD every Monday night^[*] from K-8 and then a Catholic high school, bought this for me for my birthday. Shout out to Moms.↩

[7] Recommended / given to me by J. Yes, I do prioritize her recommendations. Fight me. NOT YO BLOG NOT YO RULEZ.↩

[8] Compared to what I usually read, which is to say it's more controversial than books about child wizards and talking animals.↩

[9] This means "date for a while before committing to raising children," or at the very least, "not rape."↩

[10] Parents, take your children out of the room.↩

[11] HANDJOBS. I CAN'T NOT SAY IT, OKAY. HANDJOBS.↩

[12] It's rape. Yes, she's only capable of doing it because she's a Strong Female Character, but it's still totally 100% rape.↩

[13] I've here skipped a good chunk of the book that deals with Garp's time at the Steering School. It involves Garp fighting a dog, wrestling, and getting a blowie-jay by cannons filled with used condoms.↩

[14] This is a short story involving a family who visits hotels and restaurants to classify them, giving them rankings. The eponymous pension features a bear that rides a unicycle. Irving includes a large portion of it in a book-within-a-book framing device.↩

[15] The portion of the book I skipped makes this seem not totally out of left field, though it's still strange.↩

[*] Admittedly, we would listen to blink-182 sometimes. It wasn't all bad.↩

Mo' Money Fewer Problems 'Cause Money Is Great

I got hired permanently yesterday. My internship was upgraded to a Job I Will Do Indefinitely which is super because there are puppies at the office every day, I get meals^[1], and the work is fun and dynamic and challenging. They're gonna pay me, too, which got me thinking: As someone earning more money than before, I will be even more better than everyone else. They call it net worth for a reason, and that reason is simple: Money is great, and if you don't have a ton of it you're missing out on the core of what's good about life:^[2] feeling superior to the poor.

You are what you eat. This man is literally made of money.

As you are faithful readers, you remember my first post about purchasing a Kindle and the reasons for doing so. Kindles, I'm afraid, have been rendered blasé by this influx of ca$h-money. I will not be part of the 1%, with their dressage and their saving Gotham from Bane's OWS allegory,^[3] but I will need to differentiate myself from even the Kindle Class. Frankly, it's time for me to step my game up.

More Inane Shit I Can Buy Because I Am Better Than You Plebeians

1. Anything from Sharper Image. It's all trash in that most of it doesn't work (probably) and the things that do work are totally unnecessary, but -- fuck -- you don't want a $1,500 iPod Jukebox? 'Cause I do. I do.
2. A Private Ja Rule^[4] Concert. Ja's fell on some tough times and his last album was a flop, so I reckon I can swing the costs. I will (probably) be unable to afford an Ashanti appearance, but I assume there's some sort of sexual prayer-dance Ja can do to summon her. (I will call him "Ja," for we are both players in the Rap Game.)
   
   YO STARE THOSE EYES I
3. A lock of Beyoncé's^[5] hair or something. Like have you heard "Countdown" I mean good lord I just want to hold her baby and absorb like a fifth of its (promised) talent.^[6]
4. A second Kindle. This is doubly good because it inconveniences me. I'll have to carry around two Kindles for anyone to know I have a second one -- I just won't care. Woe, behold my burden: One Kindle, see, will be for Important Books. These are novels with purpose: cumbersome prose, unlikeable characters, anti-sexy sex scenes.^[7] These books will establish my superiority and lend me an aura of mystery and vague intellectualism. The second Kindle, so as to preserve the sanctity of the first, will be for Rick Santorum and Pat Robertson books alongside various forms of erotic literature. Bonus points for works that integrate kitchenware and/or buttered rolls.^[8]

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[1] Breakfast, lunch, and 3:30 snack time. Usually cookies, sometimes pie. Big fan of pie.↩

[2] Also good: friendship, a child's laugh, crushing your enemies under the weight of your violence.↩

[3] I saw The Dark Knight Rises on Sunday. You know how I know Bane wasn't a symbol for Occupy Wall Street? Bane had clear goals. Zing!↩

[4] HIS NAME IS AN ACRONYM FOR "JEFFREY ATKINS REPRESENTS UNCONDITIONAL LOVE EXISTENCE" NO JOKE↩

[5] She doesn't even need a microphone!↩

[6] I would absorb the talent by learning from the baby -- "Baby, how should I break into the music industry?" -- and not by eating it. Calm down. That's silly.↩

[7] I started reading The World According To Garp. Obviously it'll get its own post -- probably a series of posts -- but I'll give you a teaser: HOLY SHIT.↩

[8] "Ugh, another stupid song -- wait, is this about fucking in a kitchen?"↩

A Heartbreak(ing Work Of Staggering Genius)

There's that.

I finished A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius on Monday; you're reading this now, a few days later, because I have a Social Life that I like to maintain -- a life of fun, a life of carefree adventures, adventures into the wilderness where I hunt (wild) boars.^[1] I grab life by the proverbial balls, but not in a sexual way -- this is but a saying, you see, where I explain my zest for life (my joie de vivre, if you will -- s'il vous plait)^[2] though if pressured I'd be completely unable to explain the connection between testicle grasping^[3] and a carpe-diem attitude.^[4]

What was I talking about? Right. A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius.

Fucking awesome book. My favorite one of the summer -- stayed great right through the end, and it even got darker! I can't really write a synopsis, though, since the book didn't have much of a plot, or at least it didn't have one in the traditional sense. Things happen to characters, but it's not necessarily chronological^[5] and any narrative flow is broken up by Eggers's constant (in the second half) shattering of the fourth wall.

The best quality of the book, I think, is that Dave is self-aware and his characters -- initially Toph, then later this John guy^[6] -- can completely change temperament and act as methods of his self-critique. Dialogue between Dave and Toph, for example, will become Dave talking to himself about his motives for including a particular part of his life in the book. John's parts in particular are especially depressing and aggressive.

Everyone loves lists.^[7]

Ian's Arbitrary Decisions For The Best Parts Of AHWOSG

1. That first frisbee scene. I can't adequately explain how wonderful it is. You know how a little kid will sometimes explain something that happened to him, but he's excited about it, and he keeps on talking in a way that's really exasperated and he keeps jumping between subjects -- mentioning things that are only tangentially connected to the story at hand, like maybe some inane anecdote about a Thing some minor character in his tale did a While Ago, because, see, to understand this part of the story, you have to remember that Steve has that standing issue with tangerines -- but he doesn't care about the narrative thread (hence all the recursion and backstory) because he's just got to get it all out into space for you -- anyone -- to hear, and, well, Jimmy said he didn't like my pet lizard even though he knows he's my favorite and one day he'll turn into a dragon and Jimmy's cat is a shithead anyway? It's a lot like that, but with beach frisbee; it's perfect.
2. Heidi Eggers's nosebleed. Mrs. Eggers gets a nosebleed during her battle with cancer. She's got a low white blood cell count, so this is a Huge Deal. It will not stop bleeding; she might die, but if she does, it will be because they (Dave and his sister, Beth) did not bring her to the hospital -- but they're not bringing her to the hospital because they promised her she wouldn't have to go back there ever again. Dave panics (duh!) and manically writes every thought he has, every detail  -- is this it? is she dying now? who should I call? ugh, gotta buy a new cordless phone; is K-Mart open? I'm going to have to tell them what kind of phone I have; may as well just bring it to the store, but then I won't be able to call -- and it's the most accurate representation of panic I've read. In general, it makes for some dynamite literature whenever Dave delves into a seemingly-endless string of clauses.
3. The interview for The Real World. Dave^[8] is working on starting a magazine, Might, at same the time The Real World comes to San Francisco. In true hipster style, he despises The Real World and never misses an episode.^[9] He provides a "transcription" of the interview that starts off normal (and hilarious) and changes over into one of those Dave's-Talking-To-Himself things, but what makes it unique is that he isn't yelling at himself as much as he is explaining exactly why he's writing the memoir. All that talk about being the Tragic One, about "being owed," is crucially important as to why the book exists in the first place. It's sort of like the ending monologue of Childish Gambino's "That Power"^[10] in that it's about the dissemination of pain; maybe spreading it out and telling everybody makes it more bearable.^[11]

Also I just read that Beth killed herself in November 2001, about a year after A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius was released. That is sad. Here is an adorable puppy gif:

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[1] This is untrue.
[2] CAN YOU SMELL THE CULTURE? I AM A MAN OF MULTIPLE FACETS.
[3] Options rejected for your comfort: "ball squeezing," "nut wringing."
[4] More like a carpe-ballem, am I right? Guys?
[5] To a point; the "My parents are dead!" thing is a crucial catalyst.
[6] I don't even think this is a real person. He only shows up in two(ish) parts of the memoir and both times his dialogue devolves into Eggers haranguing himself. This is not at all a bad thing -- I really, really liked its darkness -- and it's the best way we can know how fucked up Dave is about this whole scenario.
[7] Especially KG.
[8] Mr. Eggers?
[9] Chuck Klosterman wrote about The Real World's place in the American zeitgeist, too: something about cultural archetypes.
[10] Starts at 3:15, but listen to the song, too, 'cause it's fly.
[11] The Acknowledgement Of Themes in the book's Preface makes this part especially clear. Good guy Dave tells you exactly what all the themes and metaphors are up front!