So, tap a keg, whip out the jello shots, and pour a bowl of Frito-Lays because starting now the book industry wants you to Paaaaaaaaaartay!

First, RSVP to the Twilight Midnight Party being held across the country on Friday night, August 1st. Barnes and Nobles, Borders, Books-a-Million? You can't go wrong. Dress like a vampire, a werewolf, or just plain Bella and head on over.

Next stop? The Midnight Release Party for Christopher Paolini's Brisingr. And guess what day of the week that will be? You guessed it! Friday night. (For the Sept. 20, 2008 rel. date) This will be Random House Children's Books first Saturday release date.

These two represent just a small sampling of the growing trend. With Harry Potter, the parties seemed justified. No question. But, keep in mind that "worldwide sales" for Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books "top 8 million." That is less than the first weekend sales for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And Paolini's Inheritance series? It's sold about a million.

We've all heard that the publishing industry is pushing towards major blockbuster hits. Well, big parties seem to be a factor in the equation on which they've decided. Only time will determine its effectiveness.

As for me? I'm not one to miss a party.

Want to read other Friday Forecasts? Check out Honey, I Shrunk Our Audience and Let's Talk Money.

Announcement: Serious goodies to be given away next week on Fumbling with Fiction! Starting Monday, every comment you leave will enter you to win a shiny, new hardback copy of Heather Terrell's The Map Thief. And guess what? The book's not even out yet! On Saturday, August 2, I'll be reviewing The Map Thief. Comments on that day will count as a double entry.  I've got 3 copies with y'alls' names on them.

Status: Yesterday I made some serious progress on SCOUT. I'm learning a ton about what makes her tick and am loving every minute. I love this character and getting her story down is almost effortless. If only I had more time!

Right now, I'm in the middle of packing, which is no fun. My room is a disaster. I'm about ready to call in the National Guard. And I'm supposed to have everything done tomorrow. Wow! Ok, back to work...

The way I see it there are two types of independence. One way is to rip yourself out of the fabric of society. People who I see as having achieved this type of independence are Mike Tyson, Godzilla, Rocky Balboa, Mohammad Ali, Lance Armstrong, and similar types. These people are independent in that they have risen above the average human status. They could either literally (Mike Tyson) or metaphorically (Armstrong) beat the living hell out of surrounding human beings.

The other type of independence is achieved by sneaking under the fabric. In this case a person is independent because he (I'm male so get over it) goes about life unnoticed and thereby increases his range of motion. Perhaps the best example of this Independence #2 is Thoreau. But most examples would be by definition unknown to me or to most people. Here's another, perhaps better, example: Billy Goat, a (the?) man who has hiked 32,000 miles. Link

I'll come back to this later.

Ο συγγραφέας έγραψε το μεγαλύτερο μέρος του 
του βιβλίου του ζώντας μόνος του για δύο χρόνια και δύο μήνες σε μια καλύβα που έχτισε ο ίδιος το 1854 δίπλα στη  λίμνη Oυόλντεν, μακριά από τον πολιτισμό και τις "ανέσεις"  του. Στο βιβλίο του στηλιτεύει την αστική ζωή και τον πλούτο που  διαρκώς συσσωρεύουν οι άνθρωποι, μοχθώντας σε όλη τους τη ζωή να αποκτήσουν σπίτια και κτήματα.     
                                                                                                                                                                                  Αυτός Αυτός μόχθος είναι άσκοπος, καθώς στο τέλος " αυτό που αναλογεί στον καθένα μας δεν είναι παρά ένα κομματάκι γης στο οποίο θα τον θάψουν". Γιατί ο άνθρωπος να νοιάζεται να πολλαπλασιάσει τα υπάρχοντά του και να "πλακώνεται από το αβάσταχτο φορτίο" της περιουσίας του, αφού τα πλούτη του θα τα φάει η σκουριά; 

Σε άλλο σημείο θίγει την έλλειψη ελεύθερου χρόνου στον εργαζόμενο, φαινόμενο επίκαιρο και στις ημέρες μας, γράφοντας πως ο εργαζόμενος δεν έχει χρόνο για κοινωνικές σχέσεις και μετατρέπεται  ουσιαστικά σε μια παραγωγική μηχανή. Από το άγχος της επιβίωσης και το φόβο μήπως ο χρόνος που θα χάσει αποβεί εις βάρος της δουλειάς του δουλεύει σκληρά, χωρίς να βρίσκει την ευκαιρία "να αναρωτηθεί για την άγνοιά του" σε διάφορα θέματα. Το πρώτο βήμα για την εξύψωσή μας είναι να συνειδητοποιήσουμε την άγνοιά μας, "το να γνωρίζουμε ότι γνωρίζουμε εκείνα που γνωρίζουμε, καθώς και ότι δε γνωρίζουμε εκείνα που δε γνωρίζουμε, αυτή είναι η αληθινή γνώση". 

Ο άνθρωπος στις πόλεις κατά τον Θορώ είναι "αιχμάλωτος και σκλάβος της εικόνας που έχει φτιάξει για τον εαυτό του", έχει επιλέξει μια αδιέξοδη ζωή και μαστιγώνει τον εαυτό του για να την υπομείνει. Η ζωή αυτή όμως είναι συνειδητή επιλογή μας, "ό,τι πιστεύει κανείς για τον εαυτό του, αυτό είναι που προμηνύει την μοίρα του". Σκοτώνουμε το χρόνο μας σε άχρηστες και ματαιόδοξες δραστηριότητες αλλά τραυματίζουμε την αιωνιότητα, γιατί ο άνθρωπος είναι πλασμένος για υψηλά και αθάνατα έργα. Η ζωή είναι κατά τον Θορώ ένα πείραμα που πρέπει να δοκιμάσουμε για να αποκτήσουμε εμπειρίες και άποψη για τα πράγματα. Οι απόψεις των άλλων και η υποτιθέμενη πείρα των μεγαλυτέρων δεν μπορεί να αποτελούν γνώμονα για τις δικές μας πράξεις, διότι διέπονται από προκαταλήψεις και άγνοια. Υπάρχει μια δική μας εσωτερική φωνή, μια διαίσθηση, κάτι σαν το "δαιμόνιο" του Σωκράτη που μας καλεί να πράξουμε αυτό που εμείς θεωρούμε σωστό, να προβούμε σε αλλαγές στον τρόπο ζωής μας.

Υπέρμαχος της λιτής ζωής πιστεύει πως τα απαραίτητα για τη ζωή του ανθρώπου είναι λίγα (τροφή, ρουχισμός, καταφύγιο, καύσιμα). Με αυτά εξασφαλίζει την απαραίτητη για τη ζωή θερμότητα. Οι πλούσιοι ζώντας μέσα στην χλιδή "υπερθερμαίνονται" τρόπον τινά αναζητώντας πολυτελέστερο καταφύγιο-σπίτι και ρουχισμό.  Ο πλούτος τους όμως είναι εμπόδιο στην εξύψωσή τους. Οι σοφότεροι άνθρωποι της γης έζησαν εθελουσίως λιτά και απλά. Ειδικότερα ως προς το ρουχισμό γράφει πως η στάση μας απέναντί του καθορίζεται κυρίως από την τάση μας να αγοράσουμε κάτι καινούριο και από τη γνώμη των άλλων παρά από την πραγματική του χρησιμότητα. Στηλιτεύει την τάση  να αλλάζουμε συνεχώς ρούχα προκειμένου να είμαστε πάντα στη μόδα. "Πιο πολύ σημασία δίνουμε στο κοστούμι παρά στον άνθρωπο που το φοράει", "αν όμως το δικό μου σακάκι και παντελόνι είναι κατάλληλα για να τα φοράω όταν προσεύχομαι στο Θεό , τότε είναι κατάλληλα και για όλα τα άλλα", "να δυσπιστείτε απέναντι σε κάθε εγχείρημα που απαιτεί καινούρια ρούχα αντί για καινούριους ανθρώπους", "δεν πιστεύουμε πια ούτε στις τρεις Χάριτες, ούτε στις τρεις Μοίρες, μόνον στη θεά Μόδα, αυτή είναι που κόβει, ράβει και υφαίνει και έχει όλη την εξουσία πάνω στις ζωές μας". Οι άνθρωποι  πολλές φορές απολαμβάνουν το σεβασμό των άλλων  με βάση το φαίνεσθαι και όχι το είναι τους και την ηθική τους διάσταση. Πρώτα πρέπει να ανανεώσουμε τους εαυτούς μας και μετά τη γκαρνταρόμπα μας,  "τα ρούχα μας είναι  το εξωτερικό απονεκρωμένο στρώμα της επιδερμίδας μας, το πιο ασήμαντο κομμάτι του θνητού μας κορμιού", " τα πιο χοντρά ρούχα που φοράμε συνέχεια είναι η κυτταρική μας μεμβράνη και ο φλοιός μας". Ο σκόπος της βιομηχανίας ρούχων είναι ,όπως λέει αλλού, όχι να ντυθεί καλά η ανθρωπότητα αλλά να πλουτίσουν οι εταιρείες. Τις μόδες καθορίζουν οι άσωτοι και οι πλούσιοι και προσπαθούν να τις επιβάλλουν στο κοπάδι.

Όσον αφορά στην κατοικία μας ο Θορώ λέει πως αγωνιζόμαστε να αποκτήσουμε με θυσίες το δικό μας σπίτι, χρεώνοντας τους εαυτούς μας με οικονομικά βάρη ασήκωτα και στο τέλος όταν το αποκτάμε, αντί να το κατέχουμε εμείς, εκείνο είναι που μας εξουσιάζει, καθώς πολλές φορές είναι δύσχρηστο. Το σπίτι μας πρέπει να είναι λιτό, όπως και η ζωή μας, χωρίς άχρηστα είδη που μας επιφορτίζουν με επιπλέον άσκοπες δουλειές, με άχρηστο ξεσκόνισμα, ενώ αυτό που θα πρέπει να μας αφορά είναι το "ξεσκόνισμα της επίπλωσης του μυαλού μας". Ας γεμίσουμε τα σπίτια μας με ομορφιά στα σημεία που έρχονται σε επαφή με τις ζωές μας και με τις καθημερινές μας ανάγκες, μην τα κάνουμε υπερπολυτελή και φανταχτερά, γεμάτα με άχρηστα πράγματα, μόνο και μόνο για να εντυπωσιάζουμε τους άλλους. Οι ζωές των ενοίκων του σπιτιού έχουν μεγαλύτερη σημασία από το ίδιο το σπίτι, η περίτεχνη εντυπωσιακή αρχιτεκτονική δεν προκύπτει από κάποια ουσιώδη ανάγκη του ανθρώπου και γι' αυτό είναι περιττή.  

Ο Θορώ δεν αρνείται  τη ζωή σε πολιτισμένες κοινωνίες, αλλά αναρωτιέται " είναι αδύνατον να συνδυάσει κανείς την ευρωστία των αγρίων με την πνευματικότητα του πολιτισμένου ανθρώπου;". Μπορούμε να ζήσουμε εξασφαλίζοντας τα θετικά του πολιτισμού χωρίς να υποφέρουμε από τα αρνητικά του, αρκεί να έχουμε σαφή γνώση κάθε φορά των πραγματικών μας αναγκών. Οι άνθρωποι παλιά είχαν ως μόνο εργαλείο τα χέρια τους, τώρα όμως έχουν γίνει οι ίδιοι "εργαλεία των εργαλείων τους" χάνοντας ένα μεγάλο κομμάτι της ελευθερίας τους και της επαφής τους με τη φύση. "Ο πολιτισμένος άνθρωπος δεν είναι παρά ένας πιο έμπειρος και σοφός άγριος"  και μπορεί να δημιουργήσει έναν πολιτισμό ανώτερο, αρκεί να συνδυάζει τη ζωή του με την αρμονική συμβίωση με τη φύση. 

Καλεί τους ανθρώπους να έρθουν σε επαφή με τη φύση που είναι η ίδια η φύση τους, κομμάτι από τους εαυτούς τους, πλασμένη από το ίδιο υλικό με αυτούς. Και μόνον η παρατήρηση της φύσης χωρίς καμία παρέμβαση γεμίζει τον άνθρωπο χαρά, "είναι αλήθεια πως δε βοήθησα ποτέ τον ήλιο να ανατείλει, μου φτάνει όμως που ήμουν παρών όταν το έκανε", "για πολλά χρόνια διετέλεσα αυτόκλητος επιθεωρητής της χιονοθύελλας και της καταιγίδας και εκτελούσα το καθήκον μου με ζήλο και προσήλωση". Ο άνθρωπος έχει ενστικωδώς ανάγκη να γνωρίσει τη φύση, αναζητά σε αυτήν τον πρωτόγονο εαυτό του.

Ο Θορώ μάς καλεί να ζήσουμε τη ζωή σε βάθος εως το μεδούλι της, να μην αφήνουμε εργασίες που μπορούμε να κάνουμε εμείς οι ίδιοι σε άλλους, διότι έτσι χάνουμε τη μαγεία της δημιουργίας και της συμμετοχής στο πείραμα της ζωής. Μόνον μέσω της εμπειρίας και της πράξης ζούμε αληθινά και ανακαλύπτουμε τον κόσμο γύρω μας. Καυτηριάζει τα συνεχή τεχνολογικά άλματα της εποχής του γράφοντας πως "οι εφευρέσεις συχνά είναι όμορφα παιχνίδια που αποσπούν την προσοχή μας από τα σοβαρά ζητήματα". Για την χρήση του τηλεγράφου π.χ. αναφέρει -θα μπορούσαμε να πούμε κάτι αντίστοιχο για το κινητό τηλέφωνο στις ημέρες μας-  πως το θέμα δεν είναι να μιλάμε γρήγορα αλλά λογικά. 

There are things in this world that I absolutely hate, but the words naming them aren’t necessarily words I can’t tolerate.  Panda is a fine example of this.  As some of you may know, I hate pandas with all the passion normally reserved by the American male for the NFL, Coors Light, and Las Vegas.  I abhor pandas.  I can’t stand them. Their entire existence and society’s insistence that it continues despite any bit of interest in it displayed by the fluffy ignoramuses boggles my mind.  But the word panda itself isn’t verboten with me.  Hell, I liked Kung Fu Panda quite a bit.

No, this is a special category, perhaps more reserved for writers than for conversationalists in my company.  Were someone to roll one of these bad turns of word in my presence, I don’t think I’d stop the proceedings cold to cross the room and kick the letters back down their throat.  I’m just not that kind of guy.  But when I read these words, well, it pounds the timpani of my last nerve.

The first and most subtle case of this is the word lichen.  Lichen, as per dictionary.com, is “any complex organism of the group Lichenes, composed of a fungus in symbiotic union with an alga and having a greenish, gray, yellow, brown, or blackish thallus that grows in leaflike, crustlike, or branching forms on rocks, trees, etc.”  It also has the ability to destroy whatever I’m reading, rendering it in my mind simply “Lichen material.”

It tends to primarily appear in nature poetry, haiku, and Walden, or things like that.  I can’t even accurately explain why my reaction to lichen is so strong.  I think I must have been a boulder in a previous life.  (If you’re at all familiar with my personal ambition and drive, this should seem appropriate)  Still, if you’re spouting lichen and I’m in earshot, I’m tuning you out.  I can’t help it.

Worse still is the use of the word liquid.  Now, I know what you’re thinking.  “Liquid? What’s wrong with liquid?  That’s perfectly reasonable!  This guy is just looking for words to have a beef with!  What a dick!” Well, you’re wrong.  There is a writer-ly use of the word that drives me up the goddamn wall.  Here’s an example, culled from many years of reading First Novel contest entries:

“Jack poured himself a stiff glass of bourbon, the dark liquid cascading over the ice cubes in a rush.”

Besides being a lousy sentence, it also uses liquid in my least favorite way.  If you are trying to describe any liquid, the worst way to do it is with the word liquid.  I’m sorry, that’s true.  Is it liquor?  Call it liquor.  Is it water?  Call it water.  Is it orange juice?  Don’t call it “acidic liquid!”  For God’s sake, it just sounds like you are trying to be overly creative without any decent ideas how to do that.  Just cut to the damn chase.  We all know these things are liquids.  I don’t need it beaten over my head.  When I describe my foot, I don’t call it my “meat peddle.”  You know what I’m talking about!  And I know what you’re talking about!  Christ!

In fact, the only time you should use liquid is if you don’t know what is being presented.  “A mysterious red liquid oozed from the walls, scaring the pets.”  “He awoke with his gums awash in a brackish liquid, the origin of which he could only guess.”  “The Virgin Mary statue seeped a corrosive liquid that threatened to destroy the planet.”  See?  That’s the time for liquid, and virtually no other, as far as I’m concerned.

And in the same vein, holding the distinction of being the worst writer-ly word one can use, as far as I’m feeling about it right this instant, the grande dame of shitty word choices – macadam.  Oh my sweet fancy Lord, macadam!  When is there ever a good time to describe a road, a street, or any paved surface as macadam?  Never!  That’s when!  You use the word macadam, you might as well follow it up with “brought to you by the mind of the overworked author, who wanted to spice up the proceedings by utilizing this impressive sounding, utterly pointless word.”

If you are describing something as macadam, think to yourself, “Wouldn’t I just be better off saying road? Or pavement?” I can guarantee you that you are.  Macadam immediately removes me from whatever I’m reading, entirely.  I can no longer focus on story, setting, character, or the gravelly paved surface when I read the word macadam.  Nothing can keep me with the narrative at that point.  I don’t care if nuns are fellating giraffes on the macadam, I can’t read another word.  I toss aside whatever piece of detritus it happens to be and I move on to something more worthwhile.

This applies even if you happened to be writing a biography of John L. McAdam, after whom this phrase of schlock was christened many years back.  Even then, just say he created a method of paving roads.  Don’t say he macadamized anything.  That’s horrible. 

For the record, going forward, if you absolutely hate a word, for reasons baseless or not, you can say you Cettafied that word, if you wish.  I’m perfectly fine with that. 

It is entirely possible I’ll add to this list of lousy nouns in the days and weeks to come, so check back periodically.  These things come to me in a rage, and I can get mighty upset awfully quick.  I may just write the word and let you figure why I hate it.  That’s a fun parlor game for the weekend.  What do you say?  Let’s begin:

Ignominy!

There were several vital factors that I ran into throughout this life cycle.

Content is King – still exists and it reflects in everything you do – from your traffic to your quality – if your content is good it will filter down to conversions, happy affiliate managers etc. If its bad – well the opposite.

Program level– As an affiliate I recognized that there were a wide array of prices for the same offers.  I’d go to one network and get one price – to another and get something way off from the first. Why?  It’s all about the level at which you were working.  If you found the source of the lead gen program – if you found the top – you got paid the most and had the best relationship.  If you ended up under a program of a sub-sub affiliate – you got paid less because you were earning money for 2 – 3 – or 6 people above you.  Also what was the program called?  Where you are lead generator?  Or where you just another affiliate in a large network?  Depending on where you were and what you were doing you were anywhere from a direct affiliate – to a sub affiliate lead generator 10 levels down. (really – you wouldn’t believe the levels involved in this game!)

Otherwise known as aggregators these folks come in all shapes and sizes….the bottom line is it pays to be at the top of the pyramid.  If you can find a direct relationship you are in good hands.

If you’re working to generate education leads you’ve come to the right place.

I manage the SchoolClick.com affiliate program.  Our program bypasses the multitude of lead aggregators offering to pay you less than the full payout available.

As the agency of record for the schools with whom we work we can pay you the highest possible payout.

When you log on to CJ, LinkShare etc. you are seeing education lead gen offers from other sites who are acting as aggregators.  They basically get paid x amount per lead and only send you the smallest possible portion of that payout.  Many of these aggregators are not generating a single lead on their own – they exist as middle men depending on your work.

I have seen offers in major affiliate networks from large aggregators offing a few bucks per lead when in fact they were receiving payments of much much more than those affiliate offers.

So what’s the problem with that?    Nothing really - other than the payouts are not the best.

If you’d like to work at the top – give us a try – sign up at www.schoolclick.com

We are currently offering Ashford, Kaplan, Walden and more  Each of these payouts are over $20 per lead – contact me for exact rates and other info.

We are working to add dozen of new schools within the next few months

So I would say that I've grown, in the last month here, but if I didn't explain what I mean I  would be doing a great disservice to the few of you who read this and actually care.

I've come to believe that sometimes, the best way to understand people is to remove yourself from them. Which is, incidentally, what I've done here. I see MCAT girl occasionally, and I see some of the other people I know here once every three days or so, but it's a couple of hours at most. The rest of the time I'm left with myself, and that, my friends, is a frightening thing. I don't know a lot of people who spend considerable chunks of time alone, who carve out pieces of the day because they love themselves enough to say "no, actually I can't go to dinner tonight, I'm going to be [insert reading, bubble bath, painting nails, writing in journal, meditating, etc.] - by myself." And I wasn't sure I wanted to be anything like the few people I know who do say that.

But I plan to. Because at the end of the day, I like myself more than I like most of the people who surround me -- and I doubt I'm alone when I say that [har. pun]. The scary part, right now -- the part that's making me uncomfortable when I sit at work for seven hours a day, and take the bus and the metro, and walk to the gym, and make dinner and eat it alone -- is fighting all of the thoughts that I've kept simmering just below the surface of my conscious mind for the last six months. Allowing myself to think without reigning in my thoughts, without suffocating them all with constant activity, is simultaneously liberating and horrifying, depressing and uplifting. But imagine! Imagine going through life and being okay wherever you are, whatever you're doing, because you're so comfortable with yourself. Never feeling lonely, never allowing external influences to leave you bereft, never allowing anything to destroy your sense of worth.

I'm being friendly to my thoughts. I'm letting them come and go as they please, and I'm greeting them when they enter and sending them off with little gifts when they leave. I'm dealing with all of the injustices and the hurts and the ugly, ugly feelings, and smiling and saying "Hello, friends! I'll give you all a chance to voice your opinions, just as long as you promise not to rip my soul in half. Great. Thanks."

Learning to live with myself, by myself, has been growth. The whole thing reminds me suspiciously of Thoreau's experience at Walden Woods, save for the small issue of my inability to produce philosophy of that caliber. But I suppose I am trying to "live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

When I came to Montreal I had huge expectations -- of partying, and meeting people, and lying in bed exhausted each night from the fun and adventure of it all. But I've found that things are no less adventurous when they're calm, and that living isn't necessarily measured in the accumulation of major experiences. It sounds terribly trite, here on paper: kind of a pathetic summary of my findings so far. That's okay. There's more that I haven't quite placed yet.

I've managed to come up with several resolutions for the fall, and I'm looking forward to testing them out once things get under way.

On a less introspective note, yesterday I went to Schwartz's for an early dinner. Schwartz's is incredibly famous and actually has a money exchange counter inside it because so many Americans cross the border just to eat here. Which isn't surprising, given the American affinity for meat. Because that's what Schwartz's is -- a tiny smoked meat place, a "Montreal Hebrew delicatessen" with the best meat I've tasted in a long time. And I'm not even very fond of meat.

So I highly recommend it, if you're ever up here. A hole-in-the-wall, but everyone knows where it is, and the line of people waiting falls out the door and against the neighboring stores.

p.10 "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

Thoreau's aim was to live deliberately

It looks like my mom's handwriting. My mom is diagnosed bipolar. Maybe she wrote this. Anyway, I thought about the quote for a long time and realized it was practically a synonym for something I realized after living alone for a few short months in Seattle, Washington. Seeking for simple answers to convince myself of what this quote had just captured, I had chosen to use much more figurative speech. I believed that this type of language was perhaps more affective in the long term, and furthermore I may still believe this to be true. The ambiguity and confusion of the previous statement should drill the point. Using "We are all time machines," "muddle," etc. I had hoped to change my life and communicate to others what realizations lead to what appears to me to be an overall bettered human condition. This quote used someone else's words, was entirely out of my control, and may have come from one of the greatest sources of anxiety in my life.

The night previous to this discovery I found myself drunk and in the middle of an existential crisis in the middle of the forest. "Inebriated", I decided to be more like an animal and playfully question the solidity of our surroundings. I ran into the forest--only to scream some hours later my own name and the word "help." Surely this was enough to fill my yearning for postmodern stupidity, unfortunately something was still wrong and a sickness brewed in my stomach--and it wasn't alcohol poisoning. My timing was terrible, but I questioned the character of the two friends that were with me. This was perhaps one of two things I did in the last two weeks that emotionally, personally, and physically hurt several of my friends. These actions were not deliberated. In the first, my emotional attachment to a situation where my art (in this case a poorly written script) lead me to an unnecessary and illogical attack on the character of two close friends and my partner with much more experience in writing than I. Furthermore, the night previous to my discovery of the quote, what I can only presume is tension, lead to me desiring an inebriation which would put me beyond my control.I realized before I did it, and after, this is actually quite impossible--you are almost always under your control--especially when you feel you are not). I wrote the following passage as a restrained from throwing up on a long gravel ride home.

It started with stir-fry and ended with the violent femmes. A "half-inch gash"ed forty year old hick from Columbus stopped us from camping where I planned-so we went to Jack's Cabin. We drank, talked semantics at the camp fire, and skinny dipped before I really fucked up. I felt like an animal, later I was told it is sophomoric. Sagan cried and Jack woke up as if little would be changing. My glasses vanished, earlier I faked crying because I wanted to and there wasn't enough liquid in my body. Somehow I was quickly forgiven. In great pain we rode home, we stopped a cemetery.

----

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches taste like dust and it was a terrible ride home. I felt like I was about to hurl and couldn't wait for the gravel to end. We should have just played Frisbee.

I am not sure if any of these things really happened. At the point I wrote those few sentences about my experiences, I still hadn't made the discovery (it would occur the following morning). In the weeks preceding the discovery I had participated somehow in a wealth of successes (aside from the two terrible actions) which would normally seem far beyond my reach. Now I am thinking, are the events and successes beyond my reach sober (I am not referring to my alcohol inebriation here), what is the relationship to time and the weeks preceding the discovery. Did it happen faster than it would have happened during deliberation. Surely deliberation is inescapable, and certain parts of the weeks preceding the discovery were filled with deliberation. What breaks deliberation, and is it necessary? The questions define us, not the answers. This much I have found most obvious in science. And I always wish my career choice (film) to be as deliberate as possible in light of my ideas of science, and it's deliberateness. In other words I want my experience film to be scientific, logical, and well designed. Are the places where I've found these questions "unexpected places"? The questions must stop and the responsibility must begin, eventually. Responsibility should be deliberate. There may be no way to see it. There may be no way to say it. There may be no way to feel it. Deliberate is just a word, and the search for the truth in it creates anxiety, an individual can find it for themselves--and it may not be called this.

I received a hemmoroid the next day and spent an hour driving back to the animal-me scene and another three hours searching for my glasses before I returned home. Today I ate too much cheese at a mexican restauraunt (by deliberate choice) and realized I lost my cell phone. I e-mailed my mom and dad, and added onto a list I made ealier in the week of tasks I need to complete. In less than three months I'll be in Britain. Today my hair will be cut, and I will watch the movie Blood Beach. These things may not happen.

"Fui a los bosques porque deseaba vivir en la meditación, afrontar únicamente los hechos esenciales, y no sucediera que estando próximo a morir, descubriese que no había vivido. No quería vivir lo que no fuera vida; ¡la vida es tan cara!, ni tampoco deseaba practicar la resignación, a menos que fuese enteramente necesaria. Quería vivir profundamente y extraer todo lo maduro como para infligir una derrota a todo lo que no fuese vida; guadañar un ancho espacio a ras del suelo; empujar la vida a un rincón y reducirla a sus términos más bajos, y si mostrase ser mezquina, obtener su genuina y total mezquindad y publicar su miseria ante el mundo; o si, resultara ser sublime, conocerla por experiencia, y ser capaz de dar una verdadera noticia de ella en mi próxima excursión."

Walden o la Mística del bosque

Henry David Thoreau

Conexión con las aves de Alfredo

Well, something came into my life, so something has to go.

Gone this week:

1. Hanging bill sorter
2. Book, Illinois 2008 Travel Guide
3. Two Chicago maps (one which I failed to inventory initially)
4. Book, a guide on dogs
5. Book, Reflections at Walden
6. Book, Encyclopedia of Guilty Pleasures
7. Book, When Words Collide

That leaves me with 371 "things." It is really going to be difficult when I get down under 200.

An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed. We live in a society that is itself so wealthy that it can afford to provide a decent living to whole classes of people who in other countries exist (or in earlier times existed) on the brink of poverty or, at least, of indignity. You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort.

Now, I don't have an elite education by any stretch, but a lot of this article resonated me all up. I sometimes look at my time here at the library as underachieving. This is no surprise to you. I feel like I could have gone on to do more; I could have been a doctor of something or other. I feel like I chickened out of the hard work it would take to do all that stuff. And then I read about how important it is not to get sucked into that world, how being outside it signifies an independent spirit instead of lack of ability. And those are really gratifying things to read. It lets me go, "People want (this romanticized version of) my life" rightly or wrongly.

I've been told not to change, to be happy I'm in the position I'm in. To be able to go enjoy a baseball game on a Thursday afternoon. I've been reading Walden and it's all about living in the woods by yourself and how that is the only measure of success we should be looking for. That's what Thomas Merton did too (with the addition of being an actual monk). Those things don't feel like huge stretches for me. I could do that. But I can't help feeling that I'm missing something by skipping all the intermediate steps. I feel like I haven't given up anything to arrive where I am.

You can read all this stuff out there about simplifying your life to find happiness and blah blah blah. I shelve at least a dozen of those books every week. When you're already pared down pretty far though you hit some sort of diminishing return. Sometimes I feel like I should be ambitious in a professional sense, so that I could come back to this life and really appreciate it. Part of my qualms about going to Japan and teaching (which I'm not planning on doing in the immediate future) had to do with how I'd look back on this time at the library as such a wonderful relaxing peaceful time for me. What is that, some sort of latent conservatism? I don't want to give up the good life I've got going for one which I'd like much less?

Last night on the Daily Show there was the top foreign correspondent for CBS talking about her work in Iraq and Afghanistan and how important it was. Sometimes I want to be her, to actually have a fight on my hands every day to do something important. And I feel bad for sitting here writing my little stories while the world goes to hell.

And sometimes I just really want an iPhone.

"Decidí entrar en los negocios de una vez y no esperar a adquirir el capital de costumbre, sino usar los escasos medios que entonces tenía. Mi propósito al ir a la laguna de Walden no era vivir allí de manera barata o cara, sino llevar a cabo ciertos negocios con los menores obstáculos; verme impedido para realizarlos, por falta de un poco de sentido común, de un poco de iniciativa y talento comercial, parecía más alocado que triste".

Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

Ruby Chard — cicadas (cc)

je suis tombé un peu par hasard sur deux expériences de vie «à faible impacte». Le premier blog est australien, découvert via Sofie Loizou, Planting Milkwook,  est l'expérience de Kirsten Bradley and Nick Ritar, qui ont quittés Melbourne pour vivre sur la ferme des parents de Nick Ritar. L'idée est de construire et faire pousser ce dont ils ont besoin pour vivre simplement. Le principe de culture est nommé «permaculture», dont l'ambition déclaré est de trravailler la terre et l'environnement pour les nourrires eux et leurs amis et retourner la terre vers un écosystèm «viable» ce qui apporterais aux wallabies et les nappes phréatiques. Le moins que je puisse dire est que cela est sujet de belles images.

Le second blog est celui de Doug Fine, appelé simplement Doug Fine. Il est état-unien, et partir dans le nouveau mexique pour y élever des chèvre et faire pousser des légumes est sa réponse à la hausse du prix du baril de brute. Moins d'images, moins de guides pratiques à la construction d'un barrage, plus d'humour.

Deux expériences finalement similaires à deux extrémitées de la carte (européo-centrées), et j'en conviens de culture pas si éloignée que cela. On en demande pas à un fermier rwandais de faire un blog sur la culture de son champ. Peut-être devrait-on. Tout cela à un coté «retour à la terre», rééducation du citadin bourgeois-bohème à la campagne. Mais aussi replonge dans l'étang Walden avec Henri David Thoreau.

Though I guess I've been reading and could talk a bit about that. V remains good and I'm not done yet. I got a bit bogged down again in Mondaugen's story. There's only so much decadent sjambokking I can read about in a sitting. But today I read Fausto's Confession while the Jays finally beat the Orioles and it was fine.

When I got bogged down I turned to a couple of other books. I read The Picture of Dorian Grey and got sick real quick of the "wit" of saying that things are their opposite. In much the way that future generations will look on our sarcasm, I imagine. And I've been reading Walden which I think I should leave to its own post.

But yeah. I'm just rolling along, manufacturing things to be looking forward to.

I am not sure if the film was true to CS Lewis's intention (a romance between Caspian and Susan? hmm), but the spiritual allusions (almost trademark to Lewis) brought me to tears. His points on faith, etc., are incredibly relevant to spirituality today--a critical aspect of humanity that seems increasingly neglected (by various causes that would require an essay to diagnose and expound them :( ).

Lewis's spiritual background and philosophy provide subtle foundations to his fictional works and are worthy of consideration alongside these popular masterpieces. Perhaps while your child reads the Chronicles, pick up a copy of The Abolition of Man to explore the views that influenced Lewis's fantasy world and series.

I think I'll go to Boston,
I think that I'm just tired,
I think I need a new town, to leave this all behind,
I think I need a sunrise. I'm tired of the sunset.

I hear it's nice in the summer."

-"Boston" by Augustana

I know I just kinda started this site, but from now on I'll be posting about my internship in Boston at:

http://mattsinboston.wordpress.com.

I may still post stuff on here that doesn't have to do with Walden stuff, but the other one will be my first priority. Free free to read along with me on this crazy, new adventure...

I first unearthed this treasure in the mission field. First, there was waking up cold to the bark of the guard dog. Daily, manual labor squeezes away suburban stress. The ancient, steady way to weave a beautiful blanket revealed more than the same blanket mass produced inside a sweat house. Sweet fruit that dripped from my chin and milk from the cow outside tasted immeasurably more satisfying than waxed and pasteurized grocery products taken home in crackling plastic bags. Pounding dust into my feet as I chased a laughing child was more thrilling than entertaining another kid in front of a television.

It is a concept Thoreau discovered:

"Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion" (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, "Where I lived, And What I Lived For").

I am discovering what is necessity, establishing boundaries, choosing my burdens and friends. It is newfound freedom and peace that seems to have been lost for a century... may be two. It is no longer contending for the top to sit pacified in wealth and power, but satisfaction with what are our sincere passions. It's a basic human right--the pursuit of happiness--for all. If only we would find it.

Frankly, I’m unsure whether all this underlining is proof of adolescent precocity or pretension. At seventeen I probably imagined that marking up books was evidence of my own cleverness, or that it would help me retain and absorb into my own perspective any bits of wisdom a book had to offer. But it turns out that one’s skill with a highlighter and one’s intellectual penetration are entirely unrelated, and we hardly ever get to choose for ourselves what guides and influences our philosophic vision of life. (If I could write that down on a slip of paper and send it back in time for my seventeen-year-old self to discover tucked between the pages of Walden, I might have saved myself an awful lot of trouble.)

Still, it’s a curious exercise to skim through old books like this and see what one considered potent or arresting so many years ago. Clearly, what is memorable for a seventeen-year-old boy isn’t always memorable for a man in his thirties. As I glanced through the pages, I was mildly surprised to realize I had no memory whatsoever of any of the passages I’d once marked in that thick blue ink. I felt like I was reading the book again for the first time: all the sharp judgments Thoreau metes out on his fellow citizens, all that heady introspection, all those dreamy flourishes. One especially dreamy passage still stands out:

A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but breathed from all human lips; -not to be represented on canvas or marble only, but to be carved out of the breath of life itself.

“Choicest of relics” – The religious resonance of the term calls to mind lines of worshipers huddled outside stone cathedrals waiting to kiss the bones of saints and beg their aid. For the believer, relics communicate power, an irreducible personhood, and a special relationship to the divine. But whereas a saint’s famous book might be considered a relic in autograph, that status does not extend to the printed and disseminated word. Reprints and translations don’t count.

They count for Thoreau. No doubt it’s a function of his crypto-Protestantism, his iconoclasm, his essential American-ness. Thoreau finds in the written word a relic democratic and universal, capable, like a splinter of the True Cross, of infinite multiplication – and yet conformable to every heart, the simultaneous and legitimate possession of a million persons uniquely.

Thoreau’s own book, then, becomes a little reliquary; the words inside are his bones, persisting long after the rest of him has rotted away. Is it worth the little acts of veneration my ink marks represent? As a good Transcendentalist, Thoreau probably wouldn’t claim any special status for his own relics; by his own rules every word must have an equal relationship to the divine.

• Gas: $324
• States visited: 10
• Miles traveled: 2,800
• Money spent on toll booths/parking alone: $50-75
• Favorite part of the trip: Walden Pond
• Hardest part of the trip: My knee hurting when I needed it not to
• Nights I drank beer for dinner: Every single one
• Best meal: "The twins" - lobsters at Taste of Maine
• Funnest fact: Everyone in Rhode Island speaks like Peter Griffin in "Family Guy"
• Best roads for driving: Connecticut
• Most interesting thing learned: Benedict Arnold was a heroic guy, despite his flaws

I haven't had time to process the whole trip just yet. I'm still thinking thoughts along the lines of, "A week ago, I was in New Jersey." It kind of feels like I never left, which is a feeling that plagues me whenever I return home.

I'm glad I did this trip the way I did (with the Revolutionary War stuff as the focus), and I'm not sorry I missed seeing some of the sites. There are some points to return to, and some to avoid, and these kind of "greatest hits" trips make it easy to figure out what's to like and what's not to like.

But it does back up my thought the whole time: that we live in an amazing country, with an amazing history, and a lot of people rose up and fought back right when they needed to. These days, one can't escape the feeling that a lot of what the Continentals and minutemen fought against has returned. America is in a weird spot right now. I feel like if every American took a trip to Old Philadelphia, or walked the Freedom Trail in Boston, or remembered the words of Thoreau, they might not be willing to put up with so much abuse or neglect or bullshit.

Hope springs eternal, my journalism professor and mentor Dr. Renner always told me, and so one can only hope that those men who stood atop Bunker Hill and went looking for a fight in Lexington aren't being taken for granted.

Today we drove on Hwy 14 from Fort Collins to Walden through the Cache la Poudre.  It was only about 100 miles but it takes a very long time (3.5 hours) cause you are driving through the mountains with lots of twists and turns.  The scenery was beautiful and the river was hopping!  There were tons of guys and gals out there with their kayaks and river rafts.  It looked like fun but I am not so sure I would be brave enough to get in the river in a kayak on my own.  Craig said that the river wasn't very rough where we were seeing all the people in it but then we passed on part that looked really tough.  There were some people that looked like they were surveying it and trying to decide if they wanted to get in or not, but we didn't stick around long enough to see if they did or not.  When we got to Walden we ate at the River Rock Cafe. Craig likes to find misprints or typos or whatever and at the River Rock Cafe he found this gem:  Our desserts change daily cobblers, cake and ice cream. 

These three pictures are from a stop on the road when we were almost there.  As we got higher and higher there was more snow to be seen as you can see in the third picture.

After eating dinner we headed home and our mission was to see a moose!  Craig loves moose and they are a shy animal so they are a lot harder to spot than an elk or bison.  We actually were driving back through a part that was known for moose and we were looking intently for them when we actually saw one standing in the road.  We tried to get up to him but by the time that we got up to him he was ready to take off again.  Craig tried to get his camera out but didn't succeed.  I did manage to nab one picture of the moose but it was the backside of him :-(  After that we pulled off onto another road so that we could drive about 5 miles down a dirt road to an area where you are supposed to be able to see lots of moose.  Unfortunately we didn't find any there and it was getting dark.  As we kept driving toward home we found two moose on the side of the road.  I had been on moose watch on my side of the car and I actually found two! I was very proud of myself.  It was getting dark though so it was really hard to get pictures of them.  They were all blurry because of the lighting but I included one for you anyway!

Here is what Craig is like when he is tired of me snapping pics of him....he has all these pictures of me making funny facial expressions so I try to get funny ones of him too (always good to have blackmail, right)...