Mohammed and Camila

So the last time I’d met with Mohammed was before Spring Break. Time kinda slipped away from me as the end of the semester flew by. And now it’s almost the last week of classes. We certainly had a lot of catching up to do.

Mohammed and I met in our usual place at the TCU Bookstore Starbucks. It was a fairly hot Thursday evening – especially since my home town in Illinois usually has forty-degree weather this time of year – with high winds and some humidity. I forwent the usually coffee and just got an ice water. On this occasion, Mohammed, knowing I’m a Spanish major, brought along his friend Camila, an ESL student at TCU originally Bogotá, Colombia. She was quiet and timid at first, but as we chatted more she seemed to loosen up more. We spoke Spanish and English together, however English more so as not to exclude Mohammed. I used Spanish mostly to clarify things for her.  She said the thing most different between Colombia and Texas is that we have seasons here. It’s generally just hot and humid tropical weather in Colombia. Also, everything here is really spread out compared with Bogotá. It’s the largest city in Colombia and everything was in walking distance for her. She says the people here are also much friendlier.

Sooner or later, we got to the usual topic of soccer, and, after the important Semifinal matches the day before, there was no shortage of substance for discussion. Two days before we met was the Barcelona, Chelsea match, in which Chelsea triumphed as the underdogs. On the Wednesday before we met (during Lit & Civ), the match between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid took place, with another loss for a Spanish powerhouse team.

The Potbelly across University from the Bookstore is visible from the window adjacent to the table we sat at. Several weeks ago Mohammed asked what it was like. Since then, he’s tried it, and half-jokingly wants to open one back home in Saudi Arabia.

33,19,17

Jeez. I was not expecting the final short story to be a long one. I scrolled down to survey how extensive it actually was after seeing the miniscule scroll bar to the right of my interwebz window. However I decided I would turn off my dubstep music and buckle down to read the whole story.

The first part, all of the descriptiveness, was rather dry in my opinion. After the action got underway, I couldn’t get images of characters from Grease and The Outsiders out of my head.  I pictured Arnold Friend as one of the guys from the bad gang in Grease, the ones that get in the car crash in the end.  I didn’t realize the story was going to end up being so dark, and it was kind of shocking once Arnold became serious. It started out innocently enough, just a story about a girl slightly rebellious teen girl going around town with her friends. However the ending and events that transpired with Arnold and Ellie were a pretty dark contrast from the beginning. I read up on the background story and it turns out Joyce Carol Oates was inspired to write it by a series of articles in Life magazine about serial killers in Tucson, Arizona. I read this, and it totally solidified an ending to the story for me.

One of the most unique things in the short story was Arnold Friend’s gold convertible. It sounds like such an interesting car to see, especially with all of the paint, decals, and curious writing all over it. This, coupled with what I imagined to be a sort of sad-eyed side kick, boombox held on his shoulder, sitting in the back seat completely dejected, created a very picturesque idea in my head.

A Briton in America ca. 1950

Relocation can be a difficult time in a person’s life. Adapting to new surroundings can be a difficult and trying task: there are new cultural norms, new taboos, and new people. In 1946, Leonard McCombe moved from Liverpool, England, to New York City, at the age of 23. This is the age around which men are forced into the adult world, having to leave their childhood or young-adulthood behind.

This was not easy for McCombe, especially having to start a career in an entirely new country across an expansive “pond.” He recalls, “the summer light gave a continual headache…The heat was infernal. People got drenched without moving. Tension showed in twisted hands and peeled nail polish.” For him, dealing with the post-war temperament wasn’t easy either, McCombe writes “Something irritated me most of the time: the constant speed, the aggressive nasal whine, the wet heat, the bitter squint of the crowd, the assembly-line look of American life and the new crisis every hour…I’d stretch out on my bed and try to recall a friendly moment during the day. There wasn’t any.” Generally, he found America unreceptive, however he caught a glimpse of home that sparked his perseverance when he saw the Queen Mary in the Hudson River.

McCombe took up a job as a photographer for Life magazine, and the experiences of traveling across the country changed his outlook on this new world. He was amazed how easily he could photograph figures like “gangster czar” Frank Costello, or even President Truman. He was amazed by the American West, saying, “I like the natural life of the cowboys. It delighted me to see them working and to see horses running around unfettered.” A remarkable event he experienced was when he gave a single cigarette to a Navaho, and her reaction and their conversations revealed to him that “America’s history stretched away back beyond England’s.”

After 7 years of hard work and good moral standing, McCombe received a letter that acknowledged him as a citizen of the United States. 

Crazy Cat Lady of Mango Street.

I was fairly interested when I picked up Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street. It seems startling short for such a critically acclaimed novella. However I realized that its brevity is part of what makes it such an iconic book. Along with that, Latin American authors are some of my favorite writers.

One of the best parts of this novella for me is that Cisneros tells her vignettes with sparse and concise diction. She says exactly what needs to be says without any flowery language. It almost seems Hemingway-esque, mixed with the story telling of Gary Soto, who I remember reading often in elementary school. Despite the minimal amount of words, Cisneros gives vivid descriptions of the House and its surroundings, along with the people who live there. (Another contributing factor to my interest in this book is the fact that it’s set in Chicago).

One of my favorite things about this book is the extensive list of characters, all of whom are believable despite some brief entrances and departures in Esperanza’s life. Darius is a prime example of these characters. He is only mentioned in one, but he provides insight for the children by pointing out that one of the puffy clouds is God. Then, on the other hand, there are other, central, non-familial characters like Rachel, Lucy, and even Cathy, Queen of Cats. That name alone is a great part of the book for me (she has cats and cats and cats: I imagine she will end up like this one day).

An interesting aspect that Cisneros focuses on is the nature in the story. Whether it’s the animals: Cathy’s cats, Meme’s dogs, or the scarcity of butterflies; or the world: Eskimos’ 30 names for snows, the lack of clouds, or the lack of vegetation or a yard apart from municipally planted elm trees. It provides a glaring contrast to the sprawling urban jungle that is the south side of Chicago.     

My Favorite Books

When asked what my favorite book is, I don’t think I’ve ever given a definitive or concrete answer. I’ve don’t think I’ve ever read a book that I truly consider my favorite. This doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy books. I just believe that, for me at least, so far, there is no one book that entirely stands above the rest. While there are some books I’ve read (like the works of J.R.R Tolkien or J.K. Rowling) that are incredibly entertaining and enjoyable, I don’t consider them my favorites. I’d say I have several favorites, maybe even a top 5 list, listed in no particular order.

1.       Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis. It is a dark tale of rich teenagers in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills during the 1980s. It’s a portrait of one boy’s, Clay’s, distance from his former friends after returning from his first semester away at college, and the misadventures in  the 90210 night life. It is written in stream-of-consciousness first person narration that accurately depicts the way teenagers think. Even 27 years after it was written is the mentality of invincibility and careless that the characters exhibit still prevalent. Also, it was made into a mediocre movie with Robert Downey Jr. as the Clay’s wayward friend Julian. And the sequel that came out 26 years later with Clay as a grown man was pretty good too.

2.      A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess. Written in the 1960s, it is a Cold War vision of a dystopian future England where gangs of teenagers rule the night and partake in vandalism and “ultraviolence.” It focuses on Alex, a charismatic teenage gangster who ends up in jail after a crime spree gone wrong. The novel is written in three parts, showing Alex’s transformation and (technically) coming of age. It could actually fit into the curriculum of Literature and Civilizations II, however it is very graphic in its depiction of rape and murder scenes. For the book, Burgess created an entire set of slang, called Nadsat (teenage-speak). It is initially a difficult read, but once the reader picks up on the language it is not too difficult aside from the subject matter. Also made into a film adaptation by iconic director Stanley Kubrick. 

3.      The Broom of the System – David Foster Wallace. Better known for his magnum opus Infinite Jest, Wallace writes about an eccentric young woman, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman, from an eccentric family, whose mental search for identity and love coincides with the physical search for her missing Great Grandmother. While highly philosophically and psychologically engaging, discussing the importance or triteness of words, it is also largely satirical. It has a wide array of strange characters, including Lenore’s boyfriend, who is a short story editor for a journal who lives vicariously through his own failed works of fiction, and her parakeet, (Count Vlad the Impaler,) that can only recite Bible verses.

4.      All the Pretty Horses/The Crossing – Cormac McCarthy. I’m lumping these two books together because, although centered on different characters in somewhat different settings, they are part of a series and very similar in nature. ATPH is about a boy who runs away from with his best friend to Mexico on horseback and ends up finding work there, along with forbidden love. The Crossing is about a boy (named Billy) and his brother who try and return a lone wolf that was terrorizing their ranch back to Mexico. They return home to find their ranch destroyed by Indians, and follow them to Mexico where Billy’s brother becomes a revered outlaw, a Robin Hood-esque figure. McCarthy’s style of writing and descriptive nature of the Texan and Mexican countryside make these into modern Romantic novels.

5.      The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams. In one of the funniest books I’ve ever come across, Adams tells the story of a man, Arthur Dent, who flees Earth with his long-time friend (secret alien Ford Prefect, named after the car) and is thrust into the weird and wild world that is outer space. They encounter the former President of the Galaxy, who travels in a ship of infinite improbability, in which anything can happen. Adams uses poignant satire with creative science fiction, along with a quick narrative pace making it an easy read. Don't Panic.

Lost.

WARNING: THIS BLOG ENTRY MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.

Six years of my television-watching life were dedicated to one show. Sure I’d watch other programs in between the times it aired or between seasons, but nothing has ever held my attention and wonder in a stranglehold the way Lost has.

To the outsider, it seems like a religion. To the viewer, it practically is. So much happens that each episode poses more questions and answers fewer.

I didn’t start at the very beginning. Because I was busy as a middle school student it was difficult to be watching TV all the time looking for new shows. However, I started at the beginning of the second season, and immediately caught myself up with the first season. These were some of the greatest episodes of the show. They explored the human condition when foisted into a scenario of panic and survival. However, (and this is by no means a bad thing) the island began to prove enigmatic: there were other, prior inhabitants of the island; a constant French distress signal saying “it killed them all” had not been answered for 16 years; some sort of behemoth (presumably what killed “them”) roamed the jungle; a hatch labeled “quarantine” with a single window was buried in the jungle; there were ruins of a scientific facility from the 1970s; a mysterious figure named Jacob supposed ruled the island; the island had peculiar scientific properties, specifically electromagnetic anomalies.

Damon Lindelof and J.J. Abrams did a fantastic job of keeping viewers enthralled and coming back for more. It was the perfect combination of drama and, to some extent, science fiction or fantasy. There was a wide enough array of characters on a flight from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles that it created entertaining social conflict. There was good and evil inside of each character. Everyone had a favorite character, whether it was the quintessential "good-guy" Jack Shephard, the grizzly scoundrel Sawyer, or my personal favorite Charlie Pace, the bass-wielding rockstar (who also happened to be a hobbit). Everyone had their theories too: there was nearly infinite room for debate. The next day after an episode aired everyone would be buzzing about the show and what they thought happened.

Basically the only negative thing I have to say about the show is the 6^th and final season. It jumped the shark in many ways. It was a cop out to cheaply resolve the story and answer many questions that persisted through the series. Other than this one quarrel, Lost is my favorite TV show, and the only TV show that has ever made me cry.
Also, some of the most memorable lines of the show. 

WAAALT!!! 

Slappin da bass mon!

My brother is extraordinarily musically endowed. He picked up the trumpet in 4^th grade, the guitar in middle school, currently attends the prestigious Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester to study trumpet performance, and will be attending Yale for graduate studies in the field of ethnomusicology (basically an anthropological and sociological study of music). In middle school, he was focused more on guitar than trumpet, but he is nearly virtuosic on both instruments. This story is not about him, however.

John is three years older than me, and has always been the image of “cool” in my eyes. So, as a 5^th grader who played the trombone, yet wanted to emulate his cooler, rock-star older brother, I wanted to put aside the ultra-lame trombone and learn how to play the bass guitar:  the more mysterious, less glamorous, but still-necessary cousin of the guitar.

The experience of receiving this amazing gift is still picturesque in the reels of my memory: it was a cold and overcast spring day (weather not reflective of my mood, however), the Friday of our spring break. That morning, my mother, brother and I drove from our town of Libertyville down to a town closer to Chicago, Schaumburg, to meet up with my dad and get lunch at Maggiano’s Little Italy. I had lasagna there, and relished it. It was raining as we drove back on the highway. We exited the highway and drove through the downtown of Libertyville which is not the usual way we’d go home. When we got to the music store (aptly named Libertyville Music) my face must have lit up as I tried to pick my jaw up off the floor of the car. Weeks of careful asking and good behavior must have finally paid off.

I got a Fender Starter Kit, which came with a red Squier P-Bass (a cheaper model of the standard Fender Precision Bass,) an amplifier, and a gig bag, along with an instructional video. When we got home, I went to the basement (my boyhood Man-Cave) and proceeded to watch the duration of the 5 hour VHS.

I played bass guitar fairly consistently all the way through high school, acquiring a darkgreen Peavey Fury IV, and an acoustic Ibanez 5-string bass guitar (traditionally they have 4 strings). I did not bring one to TCU so I’ve gotten rusty, but I still love to “slappa da bass mon."