Mixtape Challenge: Living Like Weasels (Side Two) - Plug Into the Pulse

 Side 2: Plug Into that Pulse

Remember Annie Dilliard? We mentioned her essay, “Living Like Weasels” on Side One. Her essay continues…

“The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting.”

We are creatures of purpose. We just need to find that purpose. As the Avett Brothers sing in the opening song of this Side 2, “Decide what to be and go be it.”

 Need encouraged, well Jimmy Cliff has it right. “You Can Get It If You Really Want.”

 What is “It?”

 Maybe you’ll paint a masterpiece. Maybe you’ll take a trip, or speak when you have something to say. Maybe you’ll find happiness and stay there.

 We can be Better People. We can help people for no reason. Just to help.

 So, you’re not where you want to be? Then know when to move on. When to get going.

 Just don’t stop, and don’t let anyone else stop you.

 Be a weasel. “A weasel doesn’t “attack” anything; a weasel lives as he’s meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity.”

 Find that single necessity, plug into that pulse, and yield to something better.

 Peace.

Link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2LoZBIqMOAaPtmOusesw3r?si=7ab64e57f219489e

Mixtape Challenge: Living Like Weasels

Note: As part of our Facebook Group: Playlist Pandemonium, we are doing monthly Mixtape Challenges where different participants get a topic and 60 minutes to fill with the songs of their choice. I am taking the January prompt – Resolutions. The mixtape can be found on Spotify under my account. I will also share it on the Facebook platform.

 Side 1: We Could, You Know…

 Dear Listener,

 “We could, you know. We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience – even silence – by choice.” Annie Dilliard wrote this line in a personal essay entitled “Living Like Weasels” that appeared in The Fourth Genre edition that we studied in my Creative Nonfiction course at Northern Illinois University circa 2003. It’s the sort of line that rings in my head this time of year, once the giant lighted ball has descended from the sky (I didn’t even see it this year), and we can add another number that will either fit between or as the second bookend of years on our tombstone. But it’s not about the first and the last dates, is it? It’s the charge we put into the string of dates between the start and finish. We reside in the blistering highs and the heartbreaking lows, either swallowed by monotony or embraced by purpose.

 “We could, you know. We can live any we want.”

 So do it! You have this year. 2023. If you’re at the bottom of the hill, begin to climb. Are you carrying the weight of depression? Addiction? Seek help and accept it when offered.

 Need to indulge? Eat It, just like Weird Al encourages. Want to lose weight? Go the Distance!

 It won’t be easy. You’ll reach for that drink when you shouldn’t. Son of a Bitch! Don’t get too lost in chasing the dollar, the grass likely isn’t greener on the other side. Check Your Head and make Changes. Real changes, where they are needed.

 And remember, It’ll Be Better!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3dSMtN86t7HVFEgCzZCUIs?si=920dc7b428354651

2022 Books in Review (Part 5 - Final)

 

M is for Magic by Neil Gaiman

Synopsis: This is a collection of short stories ranging from the fantastical, magical, horrific, and some more.

My Thoughts: Gaiman is one of the modern popular fiction masters. American Gods and Stardust left their mark in my mind despite being very different in content and tone. This collection runs that same gambit, jumping from serious to whimsical within a few pages from one story to another.

I’ve also read by Neil Gaiman: American Gods, Stardust

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

Synopsis: An analysis of the dominos that have lined up and fallen since the advent of the fast-food culture in America in the 1960. From the frugal start to how the industry has changed American agricultural, meatpacking, and marketing industries along with how American politics and economics have folded around this industry.

My Thoughts: I think modern liberals would accept this book without question and the modern conservatives would reject it without consideration. If you are either, probably the best thing to do is read this and consider many of the hot-button topics that continue to this day from employee compensation, immigration, and health care. These issues didn’t sprout with this administration or the last or even the one before that. They’ve grown since the 1950s thanks in part to fast food and its power in our society.

Wild Thing by Josh Bazell

Synopsis: A fast-paced story of a group out investigating a Loch-Ness style water monster in Minnesota. This is the second in a series based on the main character, Dr. Peter Brown (AKA Pietro Brnwa).

My Thoughts: The strength of this book is the whimsical, comical tone that includes footnotes where Bazell expands usually humorously on facts or points within the narrative. The other interesting part is the inclusion of a real person (Sarah Palin) in the fictitious environment. Not sure it worked, and the entire plot sort of hit flat by the end.

The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell

Synopsis: An American professor and writer retreats to his familial home and his aunt in Ireland after being spurned by a student. While he wants to wallow in his pity, a pig digs up a corpse in his aunt’s garden and chaos ensues.

My Thoughts: While this story has plenty of humor, I don't think I quite connected with the intended homage to Irish storytelling to completely get this one. It just came off a bit wordy and anticlimactic.

The Passage by Justin Cronin

Synopsis: This was a fast-paced story about a vampire apocalypse even though it clocks in at 700-plus pages. A different take on the Dracula story with the army creating the creatures as a possible weapon only to be overrun by their creations. It certainly has a few nods to books like Stephen King’s The Stand.

My Thoughts:  I grew up reading Stephen King and Dean Koontz, and this harkens back to that era. While the story has themes and meaning, it’s mostly about being entertaining. I somehow got an Advance Reader’s Copy, so I wonder if anything changed other than fixing the plethora of typos. There were a few changes in perspective that seemed rushed or awkward.

2022 Books in Review (Part 4)

 

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

Synopsis: This is a series of anecdotes about a veterinarian starting his career in the 1930s in Yorkshire. The connecting theme being that treating animals is often related to understanding how to treat the people that own and care for them.

My Thoughts: This is probably Jodi’s favorite books series, and we have been watching the new series produced by the BBC on PBS. The story is based off the experience of Herriot (which is the pen name for James Alfred Wight), thus makes it an interesting study in nonfiction.

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

Synopsis: This is the tale of humanity's survival on one of the Galapagos islands after a series of random events shipwrecks an unlikely group of people. As usual, in his unique and satiric style, Vonnegut delivers a commentary on humans, their behavior, and how it relates to the world around them.

My Thoughts: Vonnegut mixture of sci-fi, black comedy, and satire is really unlike anyone else that I’ve ever read. In this book, he pins the cause of the world’s problems on the too-large human brain, and then shows how evolution decreases the size of the brain and creates a more sustainable future for the planet.

I’ve also read by Kurt Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse Five

The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

Synopsis: This book follows three generations of a fictional powerful American family, the Miltons. It begins with Ogden Milton buying an island in Maine to console his grieving wife after the loss of their oldest child. The island and its house become a symbol of White American isolationism, privilege and racism through the World Wars, Civil Rights and all the way to modern day.

My Thoughts:  A story about the secrets hidden in history and how social etiquette was just another way that barriers were built between races in America. I liked the book, still trying to decide if it was a little heavy-handed in its message, but it may be that it’s a message that needed to be delivered with a heavy hand.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Synopsis: Sal Paradise joins Dean Moriarty, a tearaway and former reform schoolboy, on a series of journeys that takes them from New York to San Francisco, then south to Mexico. Hitching rides and boarding buses, they enter a world of hobos and drifters, fruit-pickers and migrant families, small towns, and wide horizons

My Thoughts: Might be this one went over my head, but I just struggled to connect with this. I respect that the writing style was revolutionary for the time, and it encapsulates the beatnik movement, but much of the point was lost on me.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Synopsis:  The story of Kya, who is abandoned by her family as child and survives outside of society in marshland. This is both a discussion on how environment's influence on humans and a murder mystery.

My Thoughts: This book received quite a bit of positive hype, and while there’s an interesting mystery at its core, I found it to be a bit saccharine at parts with characters who were a little flat, either too good or too bad. More blurring of those lines might have elevated this tale for me.

2022 Books in Review (Part 3)

 

Field Recordings from the Inside by Joe Bonomo

Synopsis: This is a series of essays that explore the impact of music on our lives both personally and culturally. The music discussed ranges from Frank Sinatra to rock and roll, punk, R&B, and the Delta Blues.

My Thoughts: I took Joe Bonomo's creative nonfiction class at NIU (longer ago than I want to admit), and the things I learned really helped as I worked in journalism and continue to write. I enjoyed this collection of essays relating to music and how music shapes people and/or shaped the author. I've always wanted to write about music but have never been able to find the right tone. Hopefully this will help. Music lovers would enjoy this one.  

Tending Roses by Lisa Wingate

Synopsis:  This is the story of a young mother and her husband returning to the familial farm to take care of an aging grandmother. The young mother is put into the place of trying to decide upon continuing her career or returning permanently to her roots.

My Thoughts: While I appreciate many of the sentiments of this book, it was, at times, a bit too sentimental for my tastes. It also just played too much into tropes of the rural areas somehow being the answer for people failing personally in the big city even if they are succeeding professionally. I think stories like this tend to oversimplify the complexities of rural living.

In One Person by John Irving

Synopsis: Narrator, Billy, tells the story of growing up bisexual in the 1950s and 60s at a boarding school in New England. The story is about the mystery of his unknown father, and how all the people around him confront the realities of their own identities, sexual and otherwise.

My Thoughts: As has been the case for much of his career, Irving was ahead of his time with this book (written in 2012), as it's ultimately a discussion on sexual identity. His goal is to humanize those that traditionalists want to dehumanize.

While he denies his books are self-reflections, there are several of his common tropes - the male narrator who grows up without a father and with a strained relationship with his mother, amateur wrestling, the theater, a beloved stepfather who is a teacher, and plenty of behavior considered sexually deviant for the time period (this book ranges from the 1950s to 2000s).

I’ve also read by John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany, A Widow for a Year, The World According to Garp, Until I Find You, The Cider House Rules, A Son of the Circus.

Ghost Country by Sara Paretsky

Synopsis: The worlds of Luisa, a drunken diva fallen on hard times, Madeleine, a homeless woman who sees the Virgin Mary’s blood seeping through a concrete wall, and Mara, a rebellious adolescent cast out from her wealthy grandfather, collide on the streets of Chicago.

My Thoughts: The backbone of this book is the debilitating effects of a domineering patriarchal society on women, other men, and institutions. I generally liked the book, although wasn't wild about a few of the writing style choices.

The Stephen King Companion by George Beahm

Synopsis: The recap and analysis of Stephen King’s work from his start in the 1970s to the mid-1990s.

My Thoughts:  While repetitive at times, it was also interesting. It gave good perspective on the changing landscape of publishing from the 70s to the 90s. An updated version would probably be even more enlightening. I also liked the academic look at each book in regard to structure and themes.

2022 Books in Review (Part 2)

 

Go Set the Watchmen by Harper Lee

Synopsis: Harper Lee's kind of follow up to "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a discussion on Civil Rights set in the 1950s Alabama. Having not read "To Kill a Mockingbird," it's hard to say how effectively it builds off the tropes and themes of that book. It's certainly a book with a message, and one that is relevant to today's world where people with opposing views struggle to communicate with each other in a meaningful and effective way.

My thoughts: Perhaps the most controversial part of this book is that it was released after Lee’s death by her publisher and lawyers from a draft novel she wrote before “To Kill a Mockingbird,” that was rejected by publishers at the time. Essentially, she rewrote this manuscript, and it became “To Kill a Mockingbird.” From a writer’s standpoint, it’s an interesting to think about how you might want unpublished manuscripts after your death. I guess my advice is that if you’ve had success, and don’t something published after your death, burn it.

 

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

Synopsis: This is a thorough recounting of the farming practices that led to the Dust Bowl, the governmental policies that funded these farming practices, the Great Depression that devastated the economic environment, and the continuing ignorance of humans who fail to realize that their actions have an impact on the world around them.

My thoughts: The Dust Bowl was always sort of one of those “terms” you learned in school with little real context for what it was and why it matters to people living fifty, sixty or a hundred years later. It’s a case study in environmental impacts of human behavior. The book is tough to read because of Egan’s research providing real-life accounts of how the dust destroyed families and left animals to die with their lungs filled with dirt.

 

Wicked River by Jenny Milchman

Synopsis: Natalie and Doug escape civilization for their honeymoon on a canoe trip in the six million acres of the Adirondack Forest. As it turns out, Doug has an ulterior motive for the trip, and then the two encounter a dangerous recluse.

My thoughts: This was a standard thriller with the expected plot issues, including Natalie’s sudden ability to hike/run vast lengths of distance near the conclusion of the book without really stopping or getting adequate water. Still, it built suspense and had a satisfying payoff. It’s OK for books to simply be entertaining.

Slade House by David Mitchell

Synopsis: This is the classic haunted house story, where a pair of twins ensnare unsuspecting visitors with illusions to feast upon the guest’s soul to maintain the twins’ youth. It even ends with a twist and a bit of a cliffhanger.

My thoughts: This might be my favorite book that I read this year. One, the story was easy to follow and well done. Second, it was told in an interesting way through the point of view of the guests, with new clues being provided with each subsequent guest.  

I’ve also read by David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

Synopsis: There was such a foreboding tone to this that I admit at times I didn't want to find out what happened to the town of Beartown (a nondescript Scandinavian town built around a factory and its hockey club), even though having grown up in a small town, I could guess the outcome. 

My thoughts: Backman has a knack of tackling complex and deep ideas and expressing them in simple, often heartbreaking sentences. This book handles the "team sports" mentality of civilization and how while this mentality can unite a community, it divides people just as much.
Here are a few quotes I really liked:

• “It's so easy to get people to hate one another. That's what makes love so impossible to understand. Hate is so simple that it always ought to win. It's an uneven fight.”
• “Death does that to us, it’s like a phone call, you always remember exactly what you should have said the moment you hang up. Now there’s just an answering machine full of memories at the other end, fragments of a voice that are getting weaker and weaker.”
• “He learns that people will always choose a simple lie over a complicated truth, because the lie has one unbeatable advantage: the truth always has to stick to what actually happened, whereas the lie just has to be easy to believe.”
• “The best friends of our childhoods are the loves of our lives, and they break our hearts in worse ways.”

I’ve also read by Fredrik Backman: Brit-Marie Was Here, My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry, A Man Called Ove

2022 Books in Review (Part 1)

 

It’s back everyone’s feature that they forgot I did last year.

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

Synopsis: This is a collection of Gladwell’s essays from the New Yorker. The topics range from the inventor of the birth control bill, the king of selling rotisserie ovens, to a dog whisperer.

My Thoughts: I admit that I don’t remember a lot from this book and that probably means I should just do these reviews after I finish the books next year. Long-form journalism is something not enough people read. The issues we face with disinformation would be less if more readers were tuned into what well-researched, well-sourced stories look like.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Synopsis: In 1941, a black, eleven-year-old in Lorain, Ohio, Pecola Breedlove, prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as loved as the other blue-eyed girls in the country. Instead, her life changes in painful ways.

My Thoughts: Morrison’s work is about the black experience in the 20^th century, and how that experience was built upon the centuries before that. I have also read Beloved by Morrison, but that was way back in high school and from what I remember from that and what you see here (her first published novel) is that she also is a master of the language and pushes the boundaries of style.  

I’ve also read by Toni Morrison: Beloved.

The Unseen by Heather Graham

Synopsis: This is a murder mystery tangled with a ghost story set around the Alamo. The hero is U.S. Marshal, Kelsey O’Brien, whose detective skills are conveniently enhanced by her ability to communicate with ghosts.

My Thoughts: I have a bad habit of picking up books at garage sales and not noticing that its like the fourth book in a series. This was the case here, although it didn’t really matter as it’s just a series where there’s a different case each book.

The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across American by Elizabeth Letts

Synopsis: This is the interesting story of a woman in the 1950s traveling from Minot, Maine to Los Angeles, California on horseback. Set against the backdrop of a changing country and world, her ride illustrates the power of an individual will and the bond one can form with animal companions.

My Thoughts: I generally avoid anything titled the “True” story just because it almost always means what you’re going to read is probably not the truth. In this case, I think the story is fairly told, and it demonstrated the changing world of the 1950s, how methods of travel changed American society for better and worse, and the value of animals in our world.

The Best American Short Stories (2001)

Synopsis: I like reading at least one short story collection a year. I picked this one because it was edited by one of my favorite authors, Barbara Kingsolver.

My Thoughts: As I continue to write short stories, I always like seeing how writers approach the genre in different ways.