The Keyrock Kollection – Volume 2

Saved quotes from my 2013 black Kindle named Keyrock, Part 2 – read Part 1 here.

1/4/18 – The Storied Life of A.J. Fikroy by Gabrielle Zevin

People tell boring lies about politics, God, and love. You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?

2/9/18 – The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman

The wrong people die, some of them, and the reason is this: life is not fair. Forget all the garbage your parents put out.

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He didn’t really blame them; he looked like the kind of person you did that to, mocked. His clothes were torn and his throat was gone and his eyes were wild and he probably would have yelled too if he’d been their age.

12/6/18 – The Good Widow by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke

It was one of my biggest fears… that instead of just being a widow the rest of my life, I’d be a victim. People say that’s a choice, and they’re right. But the thing is, when it’s your shit hitting the fan, it’s ridiculously easy to lean into the sadness.

Keyrock is dead; long live Keyrock. On January 19, 2020, after almost seven (7!!) years of near-daily use, Keyrock (second of His Name) went into sleep mode for the very last time. Future Keyrock Kollections will be coming at you from Keyrock III, my 2020 graphite Kindle Oasis. 

PourOneOut

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Pure human fuckery

Struggling to make sense of the world today, I decided to indulge in a bit of light escapism by finally picking up my old copy of The Stand by Stephen King. Nothing like 1,137 pages of 7 point font detailing the horrors of a highly contagious flu to help relax before bed. Not so much, right? But at the risk of sounding dramatic, at this point in time it feels faintly inappropriate to be reading anything else. So, overall this read is going about as well as when I cracked open The Handmaid’s Tale a year and a half after Trump got elected.

The Stand was originally written in 1978; the complete & uncut version hit in 1989. My copy is from 1991. We exist today in 2020. Six pages in I have already spotted one of (what is sure to be) many, many examples of how some things never change:

‘That ain’t necessarily how it would be,’ Hap said weightily, from the depths of his ninth grade education. He went on to explain why.

Altogether it has been deeply jarring but cathartic in a weirdly emotional way, hitting some dark space inside me and giving me back some sense of peace. It works – better than obsessively reading news articles and watching my fellow citizens demean themselves on Facebook, at least. In These Troubled Times, I will take it.

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How I Spent The First Day of 2018, 11:57 a.m. – 2:03 p.m.

Spoiler alert: it was drinking and reading scary short stories on the couch.

Suffer The Little Children, Stephen King
The Boogeyman, Stephen King
There Will Come Soft Rains, Ray Brabury
The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Stetson
Army of One, Junji Ito
The Jaunt, Stephen King*
Wendigo – Pt. One & Two

 

emona

Sendak is Back

Writers never really die; their legacy sits on millions of shelves and they exist through generations of imagination. Sometimes we get lucky, and a dusty old manuscript or a ratty sketchbook comes to light and it’s as if we’re being read to from beyond the grave. Good stuff.

Maurice Sendak died in 2012, but luck struck again in July when the president of his post humous foundation discovered a long forgotten manuscript, complete with artwork! It was typewritten in the 90s by Sendak and collaborator Arthur Yorinks, and titled Presto and Zesto in Limboland. There’s scenes from the soon-to-be published (!!) book, along with a great recounting by Yorinks, who gave his blessing for publishing and did some minor tweaks to the story. It is slated to be released in autumn 2018, and I am beyond excited.

Side note: I had to stop halfway through writing this post to help my husband pack for a three week work trip – with many more weeks apart in our future. Doing very adult things makes me wishful for the days when the hardest thing I had to do was put my book down for bed.

Thank you, Maurice, for this wonderful thing.

 

emona

The Keyrock Kollection – Volume 1

Saved quotes from my 2013 black Kindle named Keyrock, Part 1

2/7/15 – Cry Father by Benjamin Whitmer

They put people in prison for taking drugs. They lock kids away for stealing money from gas stations, for joyriding in cars. But men who abandon their children, they float through life, as light as air.

2/7/15 – The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

They were glued down, every last one of them. A packet of souls. Was it fate? Misfortune? Is that what glued them down like that? Of course not. Let’s not be stupid. It probably had more to do with the hurled bombs, thrown down by humans hiding in the clouds.

10/18/13 – Canada by Richard Ford

The prelude to very bad things can be ridiculous […] but can also be casual and unremarkable. Which is worth recognizing, since it indicates where many bad events originate: from just an inch away from the everyday.

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There are people like that in the world – people with something wrong with them that can be disguised but won’t be denied, and which dominates them.

emona

Freedom to and freedom from

Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale

In a way, I found this book right on time. Atwood’s writing is simply beautiful, and the words themselves are terrifying and uncomfortably familiar.

There were places you didn’t want to walk, precautions you took that had to do with locks on windows and doors, drawing the curtains, leaving on lights. These things you did were like prayers; you did them and you hoped they would save you. And for the most part they did. Or something did; you could tell by the fact that you were still alive.

My favorite part about this novel was a dearth of quoting: nothing is put on record in this haunting book of feelings.

You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter.

How to describe the moment you finish a dystopian novel and feeling grateful to escape back into a saner time? Ah yes: wishful thinking.

Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

 

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Mo in CO: Month One

I’ve lived in Colorado for a month and a half now. I’ve read seven books, started two art projects, entered a writing contest, lost 8 pounds and started waking up before sunrise all on my own. I am so happy here it’s unbelievable.

Those books though… most of those seven books were not good. On my way out of Texas I went on Amazon and grabbed a bunch of free books just to have to pass the time. That right there is the murky dark side to the wonder that is e-reading. It’s hard to tell good from bad once the paid reviews and author’s friends get their two cents in. I won’t name the (mostly indy) titles here, but I sure won’t be so laissez faire with my selections in the future. Two of them were great, though, so it wasn’t a completely wasted effort. (Not that reading ever is!)

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Blue-Lagoon-H-De-Vere-Stacpoole

The first, The Blue Lagoon, was one i thought I’d read in high school. Apparently I got mixed up with either Island of the Blue Dolphin or The Cay, maybe both, but this book is not either by a long shot.  The Blue Lagoon was written back in the early 1900s and is titled as a romance. Were that not on the title, I’d never have guessed it. I could see how the author could have used ‘romance’ in an ironic sense, but then I think I’m reaching much too far. And for a book that tells the story of a shipwreck and island life, it moved awfully slow. The first half was the best, I think; the end is shit. I swear, I did like it! It was pleasant to pick up and read a few chapters at a time, but I wasn’t hungry for it. I’m happy to have read it, but won’t read it again.

The second was The Girl and the Bomb. I admit that I was surprised by this one. The story is set in Finland and follows the lives of a group of graffiti artists, and one girl in particular. This book, while not a ‘romance’, used the theme of love as fuel for creative revenge. I read this practically overnight, I liked it so much. I finished it a few days ago and still wan to give Metro a hug. Fun bonus: Both the author, and the translator, are total hunks. I got this book for nothing, but would have gladly paid. I will definitely keep an eye out for more of Jari Järvelä’s work.

Since moving, I have a ton of free time and am trying not to waste it – I truly hope that means more books, art and writing in my very immediate future. Seven books in a month and a half, shit. Thats a pretty good start. Let’s see if I can keep the momentum going.

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Starship Go Boom

Starship troopers cover

‘Debra Messing Space Bugs’ is the first of many failed Google searches I’ve made while trying to remember the name of this damn book. I’ve spent the past month trying to finish reading it, but the title escapes me unless I’m staring right at the cover. I know they made it into a movie, and I know Debra Messing was in it. Not according to IMDB she wasn’t! Or was it Isla Fisher? Nope, not her either. It was Dina Meyer, as it turns out, and the book itself is Starship Troopers.

One of the best things about falling in love and moving in together is all the new books! My boyfriend’s tastes are very different from mine, but when I spotted his newly unpacked copy of Starship Troopers, I could not wait to read it. The movie is one big cheese-fest explosion covered in goo, and I loved it when I first saw it in theatres. It probably should not have come as a surprise that the book was nothing like that at all.

I wasn’t expecting hologram popups and hawt alien sex, but I was hoping for something to help move things along. For a book based in space, with rocket suits and dangerous missions, I just do not care. The book isn’t awful, just incredibly dull.  It reads like a long college lecture, with no excitement in the descriptions or the story itself. The main character, Rico, is entirely blank, with no discernible personality beyond Guy Who Observes Things. I like Zim, but that’s about it. Maybe all the flashbacks are what’s pulling me out of the groove, or the stilted way it plods along. Whatever the reason, I’m bored.

I refuse to believe that Robert A. Heinlein, with all his influence and accolades, just isn’t for me. Possibly it’s the genre, but that doesn’t sit well with me, either. Sci Fi is never my first choice, but I’ve read enough to know that it interests me, generally. I’m more than halfway through, and out of respect for the author, I absolutely intend to finish it. Hell, I’d even like to give another one of his books a shot. But considering I’ve finished two other novels while also working through this one, probably not any time soon.

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Iambic pedantic

I hate poetry. This is not an amazing revelation: as far back as I remember, I have always hated poetry. I’ve read a lot of it, written some of my own (my 1999 classic Cereal deserves its own matting and frame) but never, ever took a liking to it. I have a very smart friend, Drew, my only writer friend. He introduced me to Abuelito rum, Ernest Hemingway’s short stories, and a cute little bar in Denton, TX with a bathroom made up as a library. I love him, but not his poetry. I will admit to liking parts of poems – I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life! – but only the parts, not the sum.

Poetry is heavy on suggestion, but light on content. You don’t get a whole story, only bits of feelings and things, with the rest up for interpretation. I hate it.

I like books.

There is one exception, however. The Hollow Men, written in 1925 by T.S. Eliot. It was meant to be primarily a comment on the War, Guy Fawkes and other political matters, but I don’t read it that way. My reading of it is the disillusion in mundane life and the constant seeking that is our nature, never satisfied, together yet alone. First impressions are hard to shake. (Fun fact: On The Beach by Nevil Shute, the single most powerful novel I’ve ever read, borrows from that poem for its title.) Every time I read it, I get chills.

I wish I knew why, and what it is about it that moves me so much, so that I can find more like it and fall in love with poetry. I’ve been looking and waiting, but so far there’s just the one. I hope I get lucky again, and find more of it that speaks to me. I like feelings and things, generally.

Alas.

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