A lightbulb's death

Sometimes I wish I were a poet or liked poetry or wrote song lyrics because there are certain moments in life that I feel should be recorded not in prose but in swaying and sweeping phrases. Like it's a moment too beautiful to be over analyzed. Like you want to be able to go back and look at the sparse letters and words and remember with perfect clarity what happened even though there's little description. And have other people who weren't there be able to visualize it. So I'm going to use my nasty, teenager-y, valley girl prose to convey to you what I wish I could do through poetry.


The moment a light bulb dies.

There are some light bulbs that gradually dim and dim and dimanddimanddimanddim until you can't see them any more and the battery juice or the little metal filament just totally give out.

There are some light bulbs that decide not to turn on one day. They die in their sleep. No last words. No last wishes. Just graceful, eternal slumber.

And then there are the light bulbs that I like the best. The ones that go out with a flash and a bang.

I went to turn on the light that's in the lamp that's on top of my bookshelf tonight and it up and exploded on me and blinded me for a second and then disappeared completely.

It sort of reminded me of Tinker Bell from Peter Pan when she'd get all sparkly when she was happy but then also how when she supposedly dies her light goes out completely.

There was a little fairy inside my lamp and it performed its final spectacular show and passed on.

I think it was a happy death. I mean, how can it not be happy when it's all bright and shiny and awe-inspiring.

What better way to die?

Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman

Maus is the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and of his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father, his father's terrifying story, and History itself.
Moving back and forth from Poland to Rego Park, New York, Maus tells two powerful stories: The first is Spiegelman's father's account of how he and his wife survived Hitler's Europe, a harrowing tale filled with countless brushes with death, improbable escapes, and the terror of confinement and betrayal. The second is the author's tortured relationship with his aging father as they try to lead a normal life of minor arguments and passing visits against a backdrop of history too large to pacify. At all levels, this is the ultimate survivor's tale - and that, too, of the children who somehow survive even the survivors.
(Summary from jacket flap)

Graphic novels have always been a bit iffy for me. They don't seem to have the same amount of legitimacy as a novel with lines and lines of sentences and words and letters that have been put together artfully and thoughtfully and been rearranged a countless number of times. Pictures are so un-concrete almost light-hearted.

At least that was where I stood coming into this book.

Now I'm in a completely different place. Because Maus was amazing. Truly and seriously amazing.

The pictures are well done and the dialogue and narration fits in perfectly. Being able to see the expressions of the characters gave me a whole different perspective on the story than I would've had if it had just been written in prose. It was like watching a movie but one that was intelligent and creative and sort of monumental.

Maus tells the story of the Holocaust for goodness' sake.

I've mentioned my Holocaust obsession, right? I have one. It fascinates me. I can't get enough of it. Not the death or the horror but the knowledge. I feel like in order to be a world citizen I should be as educated and informed and horrified by the event as is humanly possible. Like it's my duty to understand the whos, whats, and whys. Please someone else say they feel this way.

Not only was this an outstanding graphic novel it was a moving illustration of what life was like for some of the Jews who were in hiding for months, trying to figure out what card the Nazis were going to play next.

The bad thing is that it left off just as the main character and his wife were being taken to Auschwitz. Which means I'll have to make a trip to the bookstore and get the second book.

So yeah, this is a phenomenal book. I recommend it to anyone and everyone. A must-read. Especially if you haven't read a graphic novel yet. This is a good way to start.

A

Exfoliation

I have come to the realization that gradually this blog is becoming more and more personal. I still do reviews and interviews and other book-ish features but there are starting to be a lot of posts about random stuff that pertains more to my life and random rantings than to the literary industry. Do you guys think this is a good or a bad thing? I don't think it's my goal to have a completely book-related blog. But would you guys want it more book-related? Or is all of the personal crap at least relatively interesting? Let me know either way. I want some people to weigh in.

This post is going to be personal. Just saying.

So over at makeundermylife.com the girl who runs it does this thing called an End of the Week Exfoliation. She gets rid of one thing every Friday that she hasn't used for a while or isn't being loved enough. Sometimes she'll give it away to the first commenter who wants it. But I just like the idea of gradually cleansing myself from all the crap that I keep around so I think I'm going to participate in this. Maybe I'll eventually give away some of the stuff if anyone shows interest but a lot of it is going to just be junk.

This week's exfoliation comes in two parts. Cuts and cowboys.

I got a weird hair cut. Not sure if I like it yet. I'm going to wait for it to grow out and shag up a bit before I decide. I am liking the airiness though. I have extremely thick hair so having it long was not working so well. And in the second picture I'm wearing pajamas. So don't judge me on that. I was too lazy to change.

The real exfoliation was a cowboy hat spray-painted red for my school's homecoming this past year. I feel bad for the people that made them because they put hours of work into them but no one wore them. Eh. So it goes.

So there you go. Thumbs up or down on all of this personal business?

Booking Through Thursday #35 - Unread

Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!'

Oh boy. I'm doing this all out so get ready.
In no particular order, these are the books sitting on my "still to be read" shelf.

My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews
Seeds of Yesterday by V.C. Andrews
Melody by V.C. Andrews
If There Be Thorns by V.C. Andrews
Heaven by V.C. Andrews
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Getting Warmer by Carol Snow
The Vampire Diaries: The Fury and The Dark Reunion by L.J. Smith
Are We There Yet by David Levithan
Glass by Ellen Hopkins
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson
Amigas and School Scandals by Diana Rodriguez Wallach
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Top 8 by Katie Finn
The Oath by Elie Wiesel
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Golden Girl by Micol Ostow
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
How To Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson
TMI by Sarah Quigley
Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
Th Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Let It Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle
Twelve Long Months by Brian Malloy
Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
Peace, Love and Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle
Vegan Virgin Valentine by Caroline Mackler
When Lightning Strikes by Meg Cabot
Marley and Me by Josh Grogan
The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
Slant by Laura Williams
Wondrous Strange by Leslie Livingston
Bikeman by Thomas F. Flynn
Shine Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger
The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean
The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
Burned by Ellen Hopkins
The ABC's of Kissing Boys by Tina Ferraro
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
Kiki Strike Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson
Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson
Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti
House of Dance by Beth Kephart
The Missing Girl by Norma Fox Mazer
Dream Factory by Heather Hepler and Brad Barkley
Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner

Yeah...

Bits 'n Pieces - Cyn Balog

book // website // blog

City or country?

Country, definitely, cities make me claustrophobic!

Favorite coffee chain?

I don't drink coffee, so my favorite would be the one that charges people a lot of money so that I can sit there and laugh at them as they spend 5 bucks a day to feed their caffeine addiction.

Have you ever sang karaoke?

Nope, I think the world would explode if I did that.

Would you rather have stars in your eyes or eyes in the back of your head?

I would much rather have stars in my eyes and just be blissfully ignorant about everything. I look at my 2-year old and she is so happy because she doesn't understand what "taxes" and "work" and all those horrible things mean. I'd like to be like that-- always seeing the positive about life. People who have eyes in the back of their head are generally very negative-- how can you see all that and not be?

What does your perfect day look like?

I would just love to spend a nice summer day on the beach with my whole family, then go home and have a big pasta meal, some fun fruity mixed drinks, and maybe play some card games like Michigan Rummy or Seven and a Half.

What movies could you watch over and over and still love?

I love stupid movies like Dodgeball and Vacation, but I also love romances like 13 Going on 30. And I am BIG into Disney movies! But my favorite movie of all time is The Goonies. I saw it in the movie theater, and have watched it a billion times since then. I can recite every line to that movie by heart. I have the DVD and once watched it with Spanish dubbing, but translated it to my husband as it was going along. He thought I was whacked. But he can do the same thing with Raiders of the Lost Ark, and that's really messed up.

What is the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?

In 4th grade we had this assignment where we had to write about a dream we had-- I had a dream about a kid in my class named John, so I just wrote about that, because random people always showed up in my dreams. Then my teacher read it out loud and everyone was like, "Ooooooh, Cyn and John, sittin' in a tree..." Puhleeze. He was a total goober.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A writer! I have been writing stories since I was 5 years old. I used to sit inside writing all these crazy tales while all the other neighborhood kids were outside getting fresh air. As a result, my growth was stunted and I am two feet tall. No, not really, but I thought this interview could use some pizazz.

If you had to change your name, what would you change it to?

Stephenie Meyer.