The Purple Tux
With just enough education to perform.Sunday, October 27, 2002
I'm supposed to read Beloved, by Toni Morrison, for English class. The first few lines of the book were pretty boring, but I kept on reading, hoping it would get better. I'm now on page 93 and it's still pretty boring. Beloved is about freed blacks around the time of the Civil War. It's about this one black woman who had a baby, but she killed the baby because she didn't want to risk allowing the baby to become a slave. So on this baby's gravestone, the woman inscribes the word "beloved." And then years later, the dead baby assumes human form and comes back to um, "haunt" her mother. At least that's as near as I can figure out what this book is about. It's really slow. There's no tension to be felt, and the narrative is so distant that it puts me to sleep. For example, there's one point where two of the characters are having sex (I think they're having sex, at least, it's hard to be certain about anything in this freakin' book) and the author's metaphor for this act is, are you ready? Wait for it... CORN STALKS. Yes, corn stalks=sexual imagery. I personally find it difficult to believe that this book won a Pulitzer Prize. It's supposedly magical realism at its finest, but I guess I don't find the magical realism subgenre very elucidating. I can understand that an author is trying to get a point across, and even though most magical realism stories I've read in the past kind of sucked, I had high hopes for this Pulitzer winner. Such a let down. It's not the fact that bizzare things occur in magical realism stories that bug me. I mean, I'm a science fiction and fantasy and comic book fan. I can almost quote the entire Transformers movie word for word, for crying out loud. But Beloved is just...
Ugh!! The horrible narrative! Trying to distance the reader in order to make the magical aspects seem more "real" is always the easiest way to get me disinterested. Only a woman would write a book like this. At least I hope "Toni" is a woman. It's tough when people have sexually ambiguous names like Pat or Jamie (but that's a whole other topic right there). I would watch the movie version of this book, but I heard Oprah Winfrey starred in it, and I heard the movie sucked at theaters. You know how when you read some good books, you feel some kind of emotional attachment to the characters, or at the very least you're semi-interested in what will happen in the story? This book isn't one of them. So far it's just horrible. Maybe if I were a pregnant woman, I would enjoy it, but even then, that's still pretty bad.
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
I don't know what to say, you don't care anyway...
I would like a place I could call my own, have a conversation on the telephone. Wake up everyday and that will be a start, I would not complain of my wounded heart.
Oh yeah, and New Order is pretty sweet, too.
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
The Cure. I really love them. Everyone says they have such gloomy music, but for some reason, I feel happy, or at least consoled whenever I listen to their songs.
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
When it comes, it's so, so disappointing. And let down and hanging around, crushed like a bug in the ground... Let down and hanging around... Do you ever feel trapped?
Friday, October 11, 2002
Action packed Friday nights.
Brooding in my room. The dimness surrounds me. I'm glad I have a desk. And a chair. Listening to my rock 'n' roll. Passivity is my crutch. Wild mood swings. I don't understand myself as well as I sometimes think I do. Alone. Spending some quality romantic time with myself.
Tomorrow is a new day.
And every day, in every way, I am getting better and better. Or that is what I tell myself. Everyday. Tomorrow as well.
Tuesday, October 08, 2002
Finally got the DSL installed this past weekend. Without a high speed internet connection, there's basically no point in going to college. Good times living in the new townhouse.
It's harsh having an 8AM class everyday of the school week. I wake up at around 6:55AM and get ready for the day (I've even been eating breakfast again!!) and leave the house around 7:20, 7:25AM or so to catch the bus. The bus can get pretty freakin' crowded in the mornings, actually. Especially on Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays. Sometimes there are so many people at the bus stops that not everyone can get on. I, however, have discovered the secret to getting on the bus. There's a bus stop right on my block, and it's one of the last ones right before the bus makes a loop and heads back towards the campus. For some reason, most people go to the bus stop ACROSS the street, which is on the way back to campus. So I just get on the bus when it's heading AWAY from campus, because in 5 minutes, it just completes its run and heads back to school. Thus, I am usually the first person on the bus and am guaranteed a seat every time.
I am so clever.
