Bam!

Backwards Walk

It was not that Sara wanted to be different, even though she really did. And it wasn’t like she wanted people to notice how different she was, even though she really did. It was just that she wanted to do things in a way that nobody else did, and she never liked to do the same thing the same way twice. She always took a different route home, even if it meant just walking on the opposite side of the street, it was still different. She was still seeing it from a different angle. She was still walking on new ground.

It all had to do with a poem, that Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken.

It is a poignant poem.  It is a dangerous poem.  It changed her life.

History has shown us the power literature can have on the human mind. There are countless examples of this, Plato’s Republic, the Communist Manifesto, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Mein Kampf, just to name a few. Society not only subjects their most fragile and temperamental young minds to explore the vast wonders of literature, but also forces them to understand it, analyze it, and then grades them on how well they best understood the overall message behind Tolstoy’s reasoning of death and what it means to truly live via the fictional manifestation of Ivan Ilyich.

It was one of those assigned readings that you have to do in school, and Sara was only 13 when she first read the poem. She had no idea what she was getting herself into. Nobody seems to truly believe that literature can indeed change a life. All books and poems and plays and essays should come with a warning label. WARNING: READING THIS MAY FILL YOUR MIND WITH NEW IDEAS AND NOTIONS YOU NEVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE.

Well, for Sara, the ramifications of reading literature were immediate and life altering. She was never the same after reading The Road Not Taken one Monday afternoon.

First she read the poem at home in her room, speaking the words only in her head.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both

She liked that it rhymed and didn’t go on forever like those poems by Anne Askew.  She had learned in class that poetry was a living thing that needed to be given a voice and an audience. And then she read it out loud because she remembered that is how poetry is supposed to be read.  

She spoke it quietly at first, whispering the words out.

And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could

But as she continued the words churned something inside of her, a sort of self-revelation, and her voice grew louder until by the last stanza she was shouting out

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Her parents rushed into her room with worry on their faces. Why was she shouting, they wanted to know. Sara, with tears in her eyes, read aloud the poem once again but this time for an audience. She held onto the small book with one hand while her other waved itself around in tune with the words.

She learned the words by heart and then took them to her heart and kept them there forever. She strived to do things differently than they were used to being done. She read her books frontwards and then backwards. She would have an orgasm and then make love. She wore glasses with varying prescriptions so she could see the world in different ways. She hated when it didn’t feel right. She loved when it didn’t feel right. She stayed. She left. She ran. She walked. 

She lived her interpretation of those words in every aspect of her life: You only have one life but there are different roads. Why not take as many as you can?

Some Reads

Last week someone asked me this:

What are the last few things you've read that were amazing? If you don't mind me asking, she added. 


I really have a thing for short stories, and I especially love reading works by independent authors, or authors who are more or less just starting out. I feel like I learn a lot from reading other people's work. Their creativity helps to remind how crazy and limitless writing can be.


Anyway, I thought I would share with the group some short works that I have read recently and can be found online.

Most recently I read Joey Comeau's short story A Bicycle Tour of Ex-Girlfriends. The title gives it all away, and it's pretty hilarious. If you have never read anything by Comeau, this story would be a good precursor for what else he has put out into the world. My opinion may be biased, but still, it is a good read and I recommend it. Check it out here. 

Reading something that is particularly excellent by an up and coming writer is extra awesome and motivational. I really like Faith Gardner, I have read a handful of her stories and they are always unique and well written. There isn't much fiction out there like hers. The Convincing Corpse is one that I really like, you can find it here.  Another good one by Gardner is The Truly Astounding Success Story of Mr. Julius Nipper, you can find it here. There is one of her stories in particular that I wanted to post, The Machine, unfortunately I couldn't find it again. But look out for it!

Listerature is fiction in list form can be found here. It is a very cool and unique idea brought together by Little Fiction, it features 16 lists by various authors, including yours truly. And it is free! There are definitely some gems in there, but mostly it is interesting to read fiction, or anything really, that doesn't follow the traditional mode of writing. 


Alana Noel Voth, aside from having a cool name is another author that I have to recommend. I discovered her after reading a post she wrote for PANK, you can read that here. I haven't read any of her fiction, just her blog posts and articles, but she has a book of short stories coming out later in the year, published by Tiny Hardcore Press. I will definitely be picking that up.

And finally, the last story I have to recommend is by Kurt Vonnegut, 2BR02B. I loved this story the most of all the ones I have recommended on here. After reading it I was on a mission to find more of his work, but I didn't really enjoy what I found as much as I did this story.  You can view it here.

Horror Movie vs Horror Novel

I love to be scared. For some sick, twisted, masochistic reason, I do. And I am not alone in this. I look for ways to be scared all the time. I watch horror movies. I read horror novels. I take long walks alone late at night in shitty neighbourhoods with my headphones and sunglasses on. I obsess over alien invasions, conspiracy theories, the actuality of a zombie apocalypse, exorcisms. I dream about werewolves, dinosaurs, aliens, zombies, and vampires on a regular and consistent basis. Even subconsciously, my mind enjoys to be kept on edge.  I also have the tendency to be extremely gullible and believe crazy stories that could maybe not be true at all but still could be true! I choose to look at it like I have an open mind. 

Maybe I'm into survival like Joey Comeau and I subject myself to these sort of things for the purpose of being prepared for any possible situation that could potentially be terrifying. Trust me, I am mentally prepared for a zombie apocalypse. I will kill you if I have to.

Anyway, this all brought me to the thought of what is the better scare medium, movies or books? Do I prefer a horror film or a horror novel? Which scares me more? 

One of the first novels I read was Cujo by Stephen King. I was 13. It scared me enough I think. One of the first horror/slasher type movies I can remember seeing was the 1993 film Leprachaun. I was 4. I remember being wide eyed and terrified during and a long while after. I recommend not doing that to a 4 year old. I was very afraid of little people for a while after that. Seriously. 

But which scared me more? 

Obviously reading a book takes more time and as such I was probably scared longer than when I watched Leprachaun. But I am pretty sure the ramifications of seeing someone be disemboweled by a small, magical creature was much greater than having my innocent 13 year old mind imagine what it would be like to be killed by a rabies crazed St. Bernard. 

Yet the novel, Amittyville Horror, terrified me much more than seeing the movie(s). I remember not wanting to get out of my bed to turn the light off after reading it at night. 

The same goes for the short story The Mist. I thought about the ending of that story for a long time after reading it. I hated the movie adaptation. Not scary at all.

The movie Jaws was awesome and scary as all hell. I still do not like swimming in large bodies of water, and I  still check to make sure no one left a shark in the pool before I jump in. I didn't like the book any where near as much, nor was I as scared as when I watched the movies.

So maybe it depends. I think overall for me, seeing it, being subjected to someone else's disturbed imagination is much more terrifying than whatever I can come up with in my own head. 

Images taken from http://www.google.ca/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1138&bih=499&tbm=isch&tbnid=__hrs0ZyNhblLM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cujo&docid=Ak_v3HgU6e59aM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c6/Cujo.jpg/200px-Cujo.jpg&w=200&h=300&ei=IkKUT52wEYHC6AH_rsmLBA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=350&sig=103754570392684963774&page=1&tbnh=132&tbnw=88&start=0&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:66&tx=45&ty=6

http://www.google.ca/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1138&bih=499&tbm=isch&tbnid=xGS4MF_EMsAQUM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun_(film)&docid=Hbu6wV4eSNmwvM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b2/Leprechaunposter.jpg/220px-Leprechaunposter.jpg&w=220&h=329&ei=P0KUT-jUL4O36QHJ5oG_BA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=387&sig=103754570392684963774&page=1&tbnh=123&tbnw=75&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:69&tx=16&ty=66

Payton's Way and Other Short Stories

Finally, after what felt like a million and a half years of waiting, the kindle version of my collection of short stories is available through amazon.

If anyone is interested in writing a review for it, let me know and I will send them a free copy.

I hope you like it.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal - Book Review

Before reading "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal", I had only read one other book by Jeanette Winterson, her first book, "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit." I read it years ago on the suggestion of a friend who always recommends the best books.  It is seemingly semi-autobiographical, although I did not know that at the time. I enjoyed it and remember it quite well, which made reading Winterson's newest book, WBHWYCBN, interesting as it discusses the ways in which the book, OANOF, was semi-autobiographical. Even better is how in this new book Winterson addresses her life directly rather than through fiction, focusing primarily on her childhood.

I am one of those people who are interested in hearing about how a person's life has been shaped through their upbringing. This is probably because I can see the ways in which mine shaped me.  Winterson does this in great detail, and she does it so well. I couldn't help but relate to her constantly. I dogged eared every other page so I could go back and re-read it or read it to someone else. While attempting to push this book onto another friend I explained how I felt reading the book, how Winterson made me feel as if I was a close confidant. I really felt connected to this book as I was reading it. Her words have more than just emotion in them. Every one has had a childhood and has since spent time looking back on it in reflection to their lives in the present. This book made me feel like I was figuring out Jeanette with Jeanette. 

Here are a couple excerpts from the book that I found to be particularly poignant:

"There might be a second chance. In fact, there are many more than two chances - many more. I know now after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning never stops. The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance."

"I've spent a lot of time understanding my own violence, which is not of the pussy cat kind. There are people who could never commit murder. I am not one of those people. It is better to know it. Better to know who you are, and what lies in you."

I recommend this book to EVERYONE. Winterson is at the very least an interestingly complex woman.

Read it.

Listerature

Fiction in list format. Listerature!

I just downloaded a (free!) copy from the wonderful Little Fiction website, and read some of the lists, so many gems! And I am in it also!

Check it out here

Or by clicking on the picture.