5 Monologues

Here goes, the "5 Monologues" entry of this week:

(If you don't know what this is, read the previous entry. Please.)

SUMMER

When I think of summer I always think of being warm and sweaty and gross. I've always hated it. This is Portland and I like it gray and wet. But this year I found that I had probably hated it more than I should have. Like many unpleasant things in life I tend to think and worry about them too much. The real thing of anything is never as bad as the picture in my head. I think there is some benefit in preparing for the worst, but when you spend as much energy stressing out about things as I do, you might need to learn to stop. I learned to embrace the heat this year--well, most of it. I went out to my backyard and sunbathed for a few days, which I enjoyed, until I stopped because of all the unidentifiable minuscule insects that kept flying in my face. And on some of the really hot days I just went out in my undershirt to the waterfront, and to the library where is was air-conditioned. I still don't like the heat, but I did, to a certain degree, enjoyed those days.


RAIN

I loved those rainy fall nights two years ago when I took an amazing night class at PSU. I loved getting out of class when it was dark outside, and when it rained it was only more fun. I remember being cold, shivering in my pea coat, sometimes with and sometimes without an umbrella, walking from the building to my bus stop. During moments like that so many things go on in my head. When I'm alone I'm usually lost in my own thoughts, and amidst an insane atmosphere, my thoughts tend to run wild. Without knowing why, I do cherish those moments. I don't vividly recall what I was thinking about or how I was feeling, but I remember that it felt good, and now, recalling it, makes me feel happy also.


HAIR

I have been cutting my own hair for months. It's difficult, and I'm learning new things every time I do it. I started doing it because I wanted to save money, but now it's more because I enjoyed taking charge of my own look. I know that a barber would be able to do a much better job, but I've been enjoying not depending on them so much that I can never go back, at least not for a long while. There are many things I intend to do on my own, things that I should probably pay people to do for me--but where's the fun in that?


INK

I've recently started keeping a journal in longhand. I gain a sense of pride in looking at the white pages I have filled with my handwriting. It gives me a sense of accomplishment, such that I don't find from blogging or typing. I used to hate my handwriting, but it has improved over times, and looks pretty decent now if I'm in a good mood when I write. A few days ago, when I was on my vacation, an old lady who sat at a table by mine at the restaurant told me it was great to see somebody write with his hand. That made me happy. I secretly hope that I look cool when I write, so that perhaps some younger kids would see me and want to start doing what I do. I think technology is great, but I dread the sights of these people and their iPhones. I don't think half of them have any need for it, and most of them will probably become more and more stupid the more they use that device. I'm not looking forward to the future wherein most of the world's population can't tear their faces away from some sort of a handheld device; that, to me, is the end of civilization.


YELLOW

Yellow is the color of my legal pad. It is also my least favorite color in the world. I don't mind it on a legal pad, or on sticky notes, but you have to pay me extra if you want me to wear yellow. I just don't find it flattering; there may be a shade of yellow that looks good on me, but I have yet to find it. I also don't think it's flattering on other people; I don't recall having seen one person look good in yellow. In fact I don't recall seeing that many people wear yellow. Maybe everybody feels the same way I do about it.


At last it is over, five random monologues about myself. It's harder than I thought--maybe I'm just not inspired enough tonight--but the point is to do it and get it done.

A few days ago when I was on my vacation in Ashland, I got a new idea about a new blogging project. As an aspiring writer, I know that I will only get better if I write more. Quantity eventually brings quality, I believe. So, I decide to blog more. At first I was going to start a new blog, because the new idea doesn't really fit in with what I intended this blog to be. But then I thought, who cares? I can do what I want with my own goddamn blog! So here we are.

I try everyday to use the things I read and do to somehow enrich my writing. I want to improve my lifestyle by integrating things that I find beneficial to my writing. This, from now, is what this blog is about. And because I find schedules useful, I decided to make myself one--every month I will post entries about the following:

-a novel (1 entry per month; when finished)
-a Shakespeare play (1/month; when finished)
-a play (1/month; when finished)
-short stories (2/month; 2nd and 4th week)
-an old film (1/month; 3rd week)
-a new dish (1/month; 4th week)
-5 monologues (1/week; every week)

Pretty much I plan to write about one novel, one Shakespeare play, one other play, and two short stories a month--I read a little bit more than that. These entries are for my other blog and will also be posted here. I plan to spend some time watching old films--I like them and think them swell--and write about one of them every month. These films are so complex and worth studying.

I want to learn to cook a new dish every month, because I love being domestic, even though I haven't had much time to do so lately. Every time I try something new it always gives me a sense of accomplishment, so it's only proper to blog about it.

Not too long ago I came up with a writing exercise that I found really intriguing: write down five random words that came up on top of your head, and use them as topics for monologues. Through it I learned many new things about myself, opened numerous doors to the past and discovered thoughts that I didn't even know existed. I wanted to do it consistently, hence it ended up on the schedule.

Encourage me by reading my blog and leaving comments! Your attention counts; it will help me to stick to the schedule.

Lorrie Moore's "Self-Help"

I've been reading Lorrie Moore's short stories collection called "Self-Help." The stories are good individually, but reading them back to back can get a little boring. She is a bit repetitious, recycling the same themes like adultery and cancer over and over. She sometimes uses second-person narrative, which she does well. Despite the repetition I find it a real page-turner.

The story I just read this afternoon is called "Amahl and the Night Visitors: A Guide to the Tenor of Love." It is about a woman in a dysfunctional relationship with an opera singer, who is convinced that her boyfriend is having an affair with someone else. I read it out loud, and bursted out laughing unexpectedly at one point. Her joke caught me off-guard. Later the opposite happened; I came across a sentence that made me start crying.

I'm not going to quote the sentence because somebody might want to read it, and I do hope that you do read this collection. But the sentence struck me because it says something to me so directly. It didn't offer anything that never crossed my mind before. Instead it said something that I have heard myself say before, maybe in my journal, or out loud to myself. It made me think of people I had loved, who had left. Sometimes you come across a work of art that speaks so honestly, and speaks directly at you, right to your heart, and it affects you so tremendously. That's when the most powerful form of catharsis happens.

Whoever you are, if you read, I hope you find something that touches you, that affects you. I have this ability to kind of feel along with anything I read, but only once in a while does something sweep me over like this. I know I would be reading anyway even if moments like this never happens. But when it does, gosh, it reminds me why I love reading.

Reading

There are things you learn or should have learned in high school Comp. Lit. class that, instead of becoming a part of you or the reader than you are, you tend to forget. Or maybe I'm just talking about myself. Anyway, sometimes paying attention to the most "basic" things is what makes a reader a good reader. These things, which are basic because they are taught in high school, concern the construction of a work of literature. Since I'm on fire today I'm gonna talk about them now.

First of all, you know how in like every novel you read there are scenes or chapters that make you think, "Oh my god this is so boring! Get to the main story line already!" Well, that always happens to me. But when I was reading "Mockingbird" I found myself questioning, "OK, why does the family have to spend their Christmas holiday out of town with their extended family?" "Why are we introduced to Uncle Jim if he's not going to appear again through the rest of the novel?" "What's the significance of the chapter with the mad dog?" It's true, sometimes these chapters mean nothing; the authors perhaps came up with them and love them so much that they can't possibly take these chapters out. But when you read a work by somebody as brilliant as Harper Lee, these chapters do mean something. So when you consider them in relations to the character development, or the theme of the story, you find the significance, and you realize how intelligently the work is constructed. The very thing you see is, in sum, the craft.

You know how in high school or middle school we do things like mapping out the story? That's when we point out the rising action of the story, the climax, the falling action, etcetera. Well, who does that outside of class? I don't, and in most works you simply can't; it's not that straightforward. Nonetheless, it is still important to pay attention to the themes and how they are explored, the characters and what they represent, and how the message(s) of the book are conveyed. These are all craft issues; as a reader you gain a deeper understanding of the story when you pay attention to them; as a writer there is no other way to learn to write better than to pay attention to these things. At least that's what I think.


This morning I read Raymond Carver's short story called "Nobody Said Anything." Already I should be asking, "What does the title mean?" I don't want to spoil the story because I think everybody should read it, but here are some of the crafty things I find while reading the story:

-The age of the narrator is never mentioned directly. But you can guess that he's a boy who has recently reached puberty by the constant reference to his sexuality, masturbation and sexual fantasies.
-It's not perfectly clear whether his brother is older or younger than him. I thought the scene in the beginning made him seem older than the narrator. However later on the narrator encounters a boy who is supposed to be about the same age as his brother, but the narrator refers to him as a "kid."
-The themes of the story, I find, is family in relations to the follow: safety, sex, shame, fishing, and pride. I can write essay on each of these things, but I won't. At least not on here.
-The story is "a day in a life" sort of story, and it goes around in circle; the narrator starts off at home, goes out, meets a woman, goes fishing, meets a boy, fishes, and comes back home; he also deals with a fight between his mom and dad in the beginning, and comes home in the end to the same thing.

So, that's kind of like something I do every once in a while when I'm reading.

Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird"

I recently read "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee; up until that point I probably was the only person in the world who had lived to be 22 without having read it. The book has won many notable awards; I haven't heard one person say anything negative about it, and I'm not going to be the first. I find it genius; there has never been a book that gave me as much pleasure as it did. I love the characters, the story, and, most of all, the way it is written.

Some people have told me that being an English major would ruin books for them. I think it's the opposite. Maybe reading closer and thinking critically would ruin some books, but not when what you're reading is something as intelligent as this. The more I think about it--the more attention I pay to it--the more I get from it. Lee's work is like a delicious, multi-nutritous dish that gives as much joy as nourishment for the brain and the soul. It explores childhood in relations to race, gender, and society, in such a way that could not have been more insightful or heartfelt. There is not enough praise in this world for this book, and I can't possibly think of one that hasn't been said before. It is a true classic, one which belongs in a bookshelf of every household, and in everyone's heart, old and young.

This and That

I have spent the past couple of months being completely obsessed with the theater. I wanted to start writing for the stage, so I read a lot of plays and studied everything I could about playwriting and the theater. The downside of that is that I have become unable to accomplish anything. While struggling to write my first play, it had been impossible for me to write anything else. In an attempt to fix that, I decided to get back into writing short stories again.

In order to do so, I have to start reading short stories, so I go and check out a collection of short stories from the library. After browsing through the collection and reading some of them, I become rather disappointed. There is nothing about the stories that I find innovative. They are well written, don't get me wrong, but the stories are just not interesting. It seems to me that these writers have great ability but nothing of importance to tell. It's a wonder that they have won the notable prizes that got them into the collection. One of them, for example, is about a college student who sleeps with her professor to get a better grade and to steal his money. The main character is well developed, but there just isn't much in the story. I even find some of its elements cliche, like the professor character, for example. Many writers mention that it is important to get to know what is being published these days, what is currently considered good, but I find that most of the things that I have read that are on the market has nothing to compare to the classics, which are mostly what I read. I'm not sure what is going on in the literary world today, but I do not like it.

Putting that away, I return to my collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury, who I think is one of the best writers that ever lived, especially in America. His stories always give me inspiration; they have helped me through many writer's blocks over the years. But reading and learning from the same writer after a while can also become a bit of a bore. So I decide to pick up some new collections--ones that I have heard mentioned and recommended for so long but haven't gotten a chance to get to. These are Raymond Carver's "Where I'm Calling From," Tim O'Brien's "Things They Carried," and Lorrie Moore's "Self-Help." I have read some stories from these collections, and it is time to read all of them.

I started with Carver's story entitled "Nobody Said Anything," which is marvelous and exactly what I need. There will be some sort of an analysis on the story in a later entry.

Milton's "Paradise Lost"

It seems that there is this widely misunderstood notion about art, that if it is good then you have to like it, and that if you don't like it then you are stupid. The statement can be reversed: if it's bad then you have to hate it, and if you like something bad then you are stupid; or, if you like something that is good then that means that you are smart. The truth, as I see it, is that art isn't only about intelligence; it is on some level but not all. What is unique about art is its ability to touch people, and there are many ways for you to be touched, moved, affected, or influenced. Art is for the heart, and I don't think there is any one thing that can touch every heart. I have read many great works of literature in my life that I do not like. I can see why they are good; I can sit and analyze and agonize over them, but that doesn't mean that, realizing their merits, I would have to like them. That's not what art is about. Meryl Steep is one of the greatest actors of all time, and she is disliked by Catharine Hepburn, another one of the greatest actors of all time. You get the idea.

The other day I had a meeting with one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, my professor. I shared with him my newfound affection for Milton--I recently read and fell completely in love with "Paradise Lost"; the pleasure I took from reading it was very rare, especially when I read epic poems. He told me that for him the experience of reading the text was painful, and he did not enjoy, despite admitting that he did like Milton in the abstract, and that the work was structurally interesting. I was surprised and impressed by his honesty. The truth is that up until that point I had to always convince myself that it was okay for me to dislike something that is supposedly "good" and have been revered by other scholars in my life and in history. I'm learning now to be honest; if I like something I like it; if I don't, it doesn't mean that I am foolish. If anybody thinks I am foolish then I will probably thing the same about them, because no work of art is meant to be like by everyone. I appreciate the "great" works that I have recently read (Proust's "Swann's Way," Nabokov's "Lolita," Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," to name a few) even though I didn't enjoy reading them.

Back to Milton, I thought "Paradise Lost" was a great work. It held my attention, and I liked the way the words rolled on my tongue. The story was intriguing, the characters well developed, and Milton a great dramatist. He doesn't change the story from the Bible--one of the work's great qualities--but merely dramatizing and enhancing it. I think your feeling about it may have to do with your attachment or detachment to Christianity; as for me, an ex-Catholic, currently somewhat agnostic, completely free from attachment to any organized religion, I fell in love with it completely.