"Where Did I See That?" b.k.a. Read, Dismiss, Remember (RDR)

I was driving home today from Barnes & Noble, and I looked over at the bag my new book lay in. If you haven't seen the Barnes & Noble bags they are covered in quotes from different literary books. Anyway, I looked over at the bag then up at various signs along the road, including a gas station. And suddenly I remembered.

Wife.

I read the word "wife" somewhere, but I couldn't remember where. Nor could I remember actually reading any of the signs or even the bag. I looked several times over at the bag, but had to concentrate on the road so I didn't actually find where the word was.

But it got me thinking: how amazing the brain that it reads so many words in a brief glance and then immediately dismisses each and every one of them.

I don't know if this happens for many other people. But it happens to me all the time. Typically I'm so determined that I look at every sign and written word around me to find where that specific word I read was.

There are even times where I'll remember a word that wasn't actually written, but parts of that word were written close to each other and my brain put them together. The one example I can think of is those signs in the caf on each table, I always see the word "Roswell," but it doesn't say "Roswell" anywhere on it. I think it says "well" and then "ros" is the end of another word two lines above it.

Weird right?

I just tried to Google search the idea to see if any professional research has been done about this, but nothing came up.

It's possible that I could be crazy and this could be nothing. Or this could be an incredible feat of the brain's power. Or maybe I was abducted by aliens and hypnotized to only remember the words "wife" and "Roswell."

Well the second makes sense, not so much the first.

Thoughts?

It's Time to Define Myself

It seems that everyone around me is attempting to define themselves. They are looking for specific boxes to put themselves in. And while I hate boxes (not purely in the metaphorical sense of thinking, but especially in the moving sense [I always use bags, or flat pieces of wood. Unnecessary? Perhaps. But it's a statement and to be maintained, extreme measures must be taken and held. Stop rambling in parentheses? Sure.])...

...

Oh, there I was.

—And while I hate boxes, it's the new fad and the only reason you are even reading what strange ideas I decide to spout about (rhyme!) is because of a fad (one I enjoy whole-heartedly mind you). Thus I have decided to find my own definition for myself. My own box.

I'll begin with the boxes I've seen others sitting in.

About a week ago Niall decided to classify himself as a "minarchist." Don't know what it is? Wikipedia it (yeah, it's a verb now, like Google. Also spaghetti has been updated to an adjective, just a heads up next time you can't find the words to explain...well anything really). Anyway, Wikipedia minarchist, that's how Niall found out about it. So Niall is a minarchist.

Then tonight I just read Alaina's blog about her own self discovery of her sexist nature (not really sure if that sentence was grammatically correct, if it wasn't Andie will comment on this post and the score will then be 6-0, if it was...well then it was). The strange bit about Alaina being sexist is that she's sexist against women (so she says, I don't believe it, I think it's against mannequins. Don't worry Ellen, we love you, wherever you are).

I need to stop using parentheses. If I use one more, you should stop reading.

No one's going to read my blog anymore. Sad.

Anyway, Alaina is a sexist.

Niall is a minarchist.

Now me.

Well I don't really care for miniature dolls, so I can't join Niall in his box.

And I love mannequins and women, so Alaina will sit in her box alone.

So let's see...what am I?

I am an anglophile.

Well, I do enjoy angel hair pasta. Right angles look pretty cool, too. But I don't enjoy geometry or crumpets. No, I'm not an anglophile.

I am an anthropoid.

No, I don't read many anthologies. Unless I have to. I enjoy full texts. And I know for a fact that I'm made of flesh and blood not wires and metal gears. So, no. Not an anthropoid.

I am suave.

No, I actually use a name brand from CVS. It seems to work best with my hair and body.

This is proving difficult.

I am a rock.

I do have very tough skin (I don't bleed. Period). I do often sit about and appear to do nothing at all. I would guess that if we could master the technique of mind reading, we would discover that rocks think and are most likely over-thinkers. This is true of me. Am I a rock? Wait, I'm not bumpy. No, I am sadly not a rock. Close though. Yeah, I know. I got excited, too.

I am a pirate.

No that's Chris. Why would you think I was a pirate?

I am a merry-go-round.

I do view myself as very colorful. I wear every color (blue, red, gray, black, and white). I enjoy spinning in circles. In fact I keep returning to the same places I've been before (room, work, class, room, caf, room, repeat). Hm. I am a— No. Too gay.

That's it!

I am a lesbian.

Ben Folds just convinced me.

Solved.

Hey look. I stopped using parentheses!

And the Adjective of the Year Award goes to...

Andie Marie Diaz

For her use of the word "pubey" in reference to a beard.

Bones of a Nightingale Update

For months now I have been talking about the poetry book I plan to self-publish on Lulu.com called Bones of a Nightingale. I said about three months ago that it would be done by the end of January.

Sad to say, it's not done yet. Not my fault.

Ok maybe it is.

The stumbling block is finding time. Not to write, all the poems are done, in fact all (I hope) of the formatting is done as well.

It's the cover. Niall and I went out to Ikea a month and a half ago (?) and took awesome pictures, if you haven't seen them check out the photo album "Niall Takes Pictures of Nathan" on my Facebook. If we're not friends, why the hell are you reading this?

Sorry. If we're not friends, I'm happy you're here.

Anyway.

The photos came out amazing, but Niall and I just haven't gotten around to taking the cover shot yet, which I'm actually happy for because he has been working really hard on other photos and learning how to age pictures and put really cool textures on them (if you haven't seen them go to hamskies.blogspot.com or click on "Petitioning the Open Sky" at the bottom of this blog). The aged look is what I really want for my cover, so I'm happy he's been working on that.

Niall actually told me yesterday that he plans to devote this week to me and while that hasn't happened yet, it most likely will either tomorrow or on Friday.

More to come on that.

So the title I actually really like (am I allowed to say "actually really"? Two words ending in "ly" right next to each other sound weird. Oh well, I'm the English Lit Major. As Alex says, "I do what I want!").

The title comes from two of my favorite quotes about writing. The first is from the song "The Engine Driver" by the Decemberists. It says:

"And I am a writer, writer of fictions

And I am the heart that you call home

And I've written pages, upon pages

Trying to rid you from my bones."

Originally I liked the title To Rid My Bones, but then Natalie Hewitt showed us this really cool quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

"A Poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds."

Thus, Bones of a Nightingale came to be. And now I'm waiting to take a picture of an empty gold-leafed frame with a gray polaroid inside.

Completely unrelated. Yet not. You'll have to read the book to understand.

And no, you cannot have a free copy. Lulu has to make money somehow.

Updates will follow. Hopefully the cover picture will be posted by Monday.

Sigh.

Reflections on Lewis and the Slow Death of the Myth

I just finished The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis for my Myth, Fantasy, and Imagination class. I'm not sure how I feel about it just yet. The overall idea is good and I like many of the characters, but then Lewis will write in these strange allusions. I'm all for allusions mind you, but when he decides to make his lead character a huge George MacDonald fan (an idea I endorse and have utilized) and then brings MacDonald into the story, I just don't like it. Especially when the narrator asks a question regarding MacDonald's works that contradict what Lewis is writing about, and Lewis (through MacDonald the character) explains that MacDonald didn't know everything and begins to state that MacDonald's views are incorrect.

It's just doesn't sit well with me.

Granted, Lewis is writing a fictional account of a ground-breaking idea. But to, in essence, tear down your self-proclaimed hero seems...tacky to say the least.

Along with this and one other strange allusion I can't remember, I've never been a fan of Lewis's voice. The way he writes is strange and different. It's definitely a style thing, but it's not an old thing, because there are plenty of writings that are much older that I love (Shakespeare, Dumas, Doestyevsky for example).

It's sad because my roommate, Josh, asked if I would maybe like Great Divorce and even Lewis a bit more if it wasn't "being shoved down [my] throat." Hmh. I wonder the same.

See, every text for the course is by Lewis, or Lewis's friend (J.R.R. Tolkien), or his mentor/hero (George MacDonald). And it is this lack of variation that is so frustrating.

It's really getting out of hand. The title is so amazing and the genre is incredible, but we are all being blind sided by a bigot (not Lewis). Mythology has recently become an obsession of mine (one I wish I could begin to pursue more), and of course fantasy and especially imagination have always been my loves. There is so much information and ideas that we are not experiencing.

It saddens me.

Irony is that heartless bitch, since I remember back last semester when Cora (the professor) told me that I could "take that class over at Cal State if [I] want to." At the time I thought it was weird her trying to push me out since she is so determined to teach and mentor everyone to follow her ways. Now I wish I would have taken her up on the offer.

If the class were merely re-named as "C.S. Lewis 101" or "C.S. Lewis and Friends" that'd be fine, but to ruin the idea of mythology and imagination (that "bitch" again: the lack of imagination in choosing the course texts), and especially to have us read Mere Christianity (Lewis's renowned book on theology) under the same pretext of fantasy.

Yeah, I know right?

I take comfort only in our final project. We have to write out a 125 page story (in groups, mine is of 5) that displays all the attributes of a fantasy/myth story (of course, there must must MUST be a "christian truth" present). Then we have to present the story in whatever form we want, using the entire school as our "stage." We of course have to have a song and a dance, with food and costumes, and take up the entire class period—75 minutes.

It'll be fun, and our story is coming together well.

I only wish I was learning about Icarus and Loki instead of the Pevensie children and Bilbo (there is no correlation between the two contrasting groups I used as an example).