Your Right To Say It

Nick posted this list and his responses over at his personal blog TCRA.  Then he tagged me with it, meaning that it was my turn.  Also I believe that he, like many who have visited this site, just wanted some activity on my end.  Sometimes I need a little extra push as I am a world class procrastinator.  On top of that I’ve been busy with work and school and other aspects of my life.  I just wanted to thank everyone for their support, interest and patience.  Rest assured there will be more posts in the future and that your comments have not fallen on deaf ears (or would that be blind eyes?).  An especially loud shout-out goes to Inaeth whose posts I’ve followed with great interest and whose blog I visit regularly now.  Iif you haven’t yet, go check it out right now.  He’s a cool cat with an informed view of the world that puts me to shame.  Now let’s get to it —

A Book That Changed Your Life – It’s hard for me to say that any book literally changed my life.  However, a book that profoundly affected my outlook on the world and the way I think about things would have to be Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.  I have a poster up in my room now that was inspired by Ishmael and I think speaks to the spirit of the book.  When you first look at it up close it is a mess of white squiggles and blue blotches.  It’s only when you step back that the message reveals itself:      

           “The genius of seeing that which is so evident as to be unseeable”

A Book That You’ve Read More Than Once – Slaughterhouse Five Or The Children’s Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

A Book You’d Want On A Desert Island – A big one.  That floats.  I’d use the pages for sails. 

A Book That Made You Giddy – The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: The Increasingly Inaccurate Trilogy.  “Zaphod Beeblebrox crawled bravely along a tunnel, like the hell of a guy he was.” “You’re a Jerk, Dent. A complete kneebiter.” “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” “Its unpleasantly like being drunk.’ ‘Whats so unpleasant about being drunk?’ ‘You ask a glass of water.’” “Ford, I think I’m a sofa.’ ‘I know how you feel.’” “If theres anything more important than my ego round, I want it caught and shot now.” “Don’t try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.” “It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.”

A Book That You Wished Had Been Written –  I’m still holding out hope for this one: Kurt Vonnegut, 87 years old and running on nothing but unfiltered Pall Malls, mentioned a novel he was writing about a comedian back in 2001 when I was fortunate enough to see him at the Chicago Public Library.  He mentioned it briefly again in his latest collection of essays A Man Without A Country.  A new Kurt Vonnegut novel would be an event of epic proportions for me.  Would I give my right arm?  I’d give someones.  Second place goes to A Salmon of Doubt – the novel the late great Douglas Adams was working on when he passed away.  It may have become the 6^th book in the Hitchhikers series as Adams said it wasn’t working as a Dirk Gently novel and the last Hitchhikers book had a bummer of an ending.    

A Book That Made You Sob – The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall

A Book That You Wished Had Never Been Written – The Wooden Sea by Jonathon Carroll. Worth reading if only for how spectacularly baffling it is.  This one pissed me off so much I had to make a friend read it just so I had somebody to bitch with.  He has still not forgiven me.  Also, I could do without anything by Ann Coulter.

A Book That You Are Currently Reading – The Seven-Percent Solution by Nicolas Meyer.  Sherlock Holmes And Sigmund Freud Together Again For the First Time!  I swear to God it says that on the jacket. 

A Book That You Have Been Meaning to Read – You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers and Cloning the Buddha by Richard Heinberg.  Gotta clone somebody.