Anthropology of Reading
This deserves a complete post in response. Expect and Anthropology of Reading post from me soon…
Literary Journal Monday – Gatsby Love
All About Additional Literary Journal Adventures at Good Books in the Woods…
I got to peek at some incoming journals today, they were hanging out on the owner’s desk…
The American Mercury was an American magazine published from 1924[1] to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s. After a change in ownership in the 1940s, the magazine attracted conservative writers. The magazine went out of print in 1981, having spent the last 25 years of its existence in decline and controversy. – from Wikipedia
So that’s cool, but the real juice is this, here in the June 1924 edition…
For those who don’t know, “Absolution” is important to fans of The Great Gatsby. Why? Well, you see, the writing of The Great Gatsby has a rich history. It may have been published by Scribner in 1925, but Fitzgerald had several previous versions of the literary classic.
In 1923, he had written 18k words for the book that was destined to become The Great Gatsby but scrapped most of what he had written and began again. These scraps can be found peppered throughout literature under different headings and titles – titles like “Absolution.”
“I’m glad you liked Absolution. As you know it was to have been the prologue of the novel but it interfered with the neatness of the plan,” Fitzgerald wrote his editor. The novel in question was none other than The Great Gatsby.
The above letter is a page from Dear Scott/ Dear Max: The Fitzgerald – Perkins Correspondence.
So many neat things can be found inside the pages of literary journals and I’m enjoying discovering the treasures.
Somewhat unrelated, but definitely something for the Fitzgerald collector that I found while researching this post, are some wonderful embellished journals. The creators have taken the first handwritten page of The Great Gatsby and imprinted it on the cover of leatherbound journals. So beautiful: http://blog.paperblanks.com/2012/09/f-scott-fitzgerald/
Housman for Kids
A Weekly Low Down on Kids Books
Title: A Shropshire Lad
Author: A. E. Housman
Illustrator: Charles Mozley
Genre: Poetry
In February I stumbled across A.E. Housman. Between the state of my soul, the weather, and Housman’s poetry, I found a little hub of safety. In the words of my best friend, “Where has he been all our lives?”
Apparently everywhere.
Even in kid’s books, of all places.
The book I found is a $10 hardback from Good Books in the Woods. It’s a hardback. It was printed in 1968, and the style of binding, as well as the illustrations, reflect that. To me, it’s the perfect edition to have floating around the house for your kiddo to discover and flip through as early readers. Same classic poetry with a much different kid friendly feel.
Literary Journal Monday – The Black Cat
It may have been a whole week since my last post, but the discovery I made today has made the whole week of dry reading worth it. In fact, what I discovered today at Good Books in the Woods made this entire series of Literary Journal Mondays worth it.
Today I found The Black Cat.
Tucked away, just two hardbound volumes (collections of the actual magazine), hidden in the Literary Journal room.
It was a beautiful, thrilling moment, opening the jacket to a random page and finding this:
“The Black Cat” is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, originally published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1843 – it was a horror piece about a murderer similar to The Tell-Tale Heart. It’s no wonder that in 1895, a literary journal called The Black Cat was born, dedicating itself to short stories of an “unusual nature.” Of course, I don’t know for sure that the founders of The Black Cat were referencing Poe, but I can’t help but jump to that conclusion. It’s something I would do.
The original m
agazine covers varied from month to month, like most magazine covers do, but they all have a spunky contemporary Gothic look that I imagine was hard for people to pass up. The publication ran until 1922 and featured some surprising contributors. Rupert Hughes, Susan Glaspell, Ellis Parker Butler, Alice Hegan Rice, Holman Day, Rex Stout, O. Henry, Charles Edward Barns, and Octavus Roy Cohen all made appearances in the journal. For Jack London collectors it has become a bit of marvelous legend, as London attributed his “A Thousand Deaths” story being printed there to saving his life. They paid him when no one else would, and when he really needed the cash. London is quoted having said, “literally and literarily I was saved.”
It is so coveted by collectors that the original edition featuring London sells at auction for more than the above hardbound books go for in antiquities stores.
Were I a millionaire, I would not hesitate to buy them all up. Standing in the store today I remembered Nicholas Basbaines’ A Gentle Madness as I salivated over the two collectibles on the shelf. This is true beauty, I thought, this in my hand.
I read Jack London’s contribution, it is only a few pages, then continued to snap photos as I carefully turned the pages, my eyes thirsty for old fonts and typesetting.
Generations of Kung Fu
Last night I watched many of my instructors and one of my students get inducted into a Martial Arts Hall of Fame. It was all done over belated Chinese New Year celebration and a Kung Fu & Tai Chi Reunion banquet. I took kiddo to the first half so she could enjoy a little bit of culture and learn a bit about what my life was like growing up in a Kung Fu studio.
Where you would have found me in a Kung Fu uniform or a simple banquet dress, little girl is all about the princess attire and insisted on wearing her princess dress to the ‘party’ where she also insisted on having cupcakes. In the car she told me that it wasn’t a real party without cupcakes and that she wasn’t sure about going unless there were cupcakes because, “I don’t really like people.” So expressive for a three year old.
No worries, the girl got her cupcakes. She got interviewed from so many black belts I’ve know through the years… “Do you know your front kicks yet?” “Let me see your center punch.” Even princess need to learn to protect themselves and their loved ones. She also got to hear a pretty stellar drum (The Lion Dance by Lee’s Golden Dragon) performance and see real Chinese New Year dragons. One came right up to the table.
Shortly after that she went home with her Grandmom and Grandad – it got a little late for little princesses and she was about to turn into a Chinese Pumpkin – leaving me to my own devices for a few hours.
Ran into Bill “Superfoot” Wallace. I used to adore going to his seminars and it was good to see him again. It’s been a little over a decade since I worked out with him last.
I’ve gotten fatter, he’s gotten older, the world turns. It would appear that I’ve gotten taller, too, but really I’m wearing five inch heels. Last night included an announcement and celebration of the fact that this amazing 10th degree black belt has his very own DAY in the city of Houston.
Annise D. Parker, Mayor of Houston, proclaimed March 8th as Grandmaster Bill “Superfoot” Wallace Day. My grandmaster, the late Grandmaster Victor Cheng, has his very own day as well – March 3rd. I don’t have any digital pictures of us over the years, but I can say it was a pleasure to learn what I could from him while he was still with us.
Above and on the right is a picture of me with my amazing FIFTH degree black belt friend, David Barnes. He got his fourth degree the same day I got my third, and has just kept on going. I’m so proud of him. I have no doubt one day he’ll have his own day proclaimed by the mayor.
My former student and black belt, Rick Strickland, in a Grandmaster costume for a banquet presentation.
There were so many present last night, people who have been training for 50-70 years, people like me who have been training for 20 years, and people who just joined the martial arts community in the last year. Young, old, new student, grandmaster, and everything in between – it is inspiring to see how influential martial arts is to the community at large. We are authors, booksellers, instructors, teachers, pastors, lawyers, rotary club members, small business owners, nurses, doctors, surgeons, police officers, cyclists… we are everywhere. We are parents, grandparents, wives, husbands, children, Black, White, Asian, and everything in between, Christian, Buddhist, Agnostic… we are everyone, peppered throughout generations, all over the world.
With one of my teachers… a friend, peer, fellow geek… We all love a good excuse to dress up.
One final thing I think I should mention – being that this is, after all, a book blog – all of us have read Kung Fu: History, Philosophy, & Technique
Bouquet of Color
Revisiting…
Title: I Love Dirt!
(52 Activities to help you and your kids discover the wonders of nature)
Today, we went for a much needed walk in the woods. When the weather is nice, we’re out there five days a week. When the weather is too hot to be nice, we’re out there four days a week. When the weather is obnoxiously freezing cold, wet, and completely unnatural to a born and bred Texan, we hide indoors and rock back and forth holding our hot coffee and teas. Well, not quite, but close. We actually sit by the window and watch the birds eat bits of things we’ve left in the yard, name the squirrels that live in the trees out back, and read stories by the fire burning in the fireplace.
Today, the sun was out for a bit. It wasn’t quite so cold. We needed the woods and we needed it bad. There was cheering involved.
So, we loaded up our trustee going out bag and went for a trek. Tucked inside was our copy of I Love Dirt and as soon as we hit the trails we read from chapter two: Bouquet of Color.
Bouquet of Color is an exercise in finding flowers and identifying how many colors we can see. It’s a purely natural I Spy game.
We discovered more flowers we would call purple than I would have supposed. Lots of purple field pansies, baby blue eyes (that look more purple than blue), and even some butterfly peas. We saw a lot of pointed phlox, but that is categorically considered a ‘red’ wildflower… so maybe we’re a little colorblind because they looked pinkish purple to us.
Of course, there was a lot of yellow in the form of dandelions, but not as many as I would have guessed. We found a lot of dewberry patches sporting their telling white blooms, and took note of where they were so we could come forage berries come summer. Yet, tt seemed Kiddo was still shouting “I see purple!” more than any other phrase.
We were pretty excited about the blossoms on this tree. See what they look like up close. Anyone know what it is?
Click this photo to find out…
Sometimes on the trail we get distracted from whatever task is at hand and just enjoy ourselves. Here she said, “I want to put the sun in my mouth!” I couldn’t resist snapping that picture.
It All Started With an Upskirt Photo
Maybe I read too much dystopian fiction. Maybe I was a little too brainwashed by my very paranoid grandfather as a child. Maybe it’s a reasonable theory… maybe it’s not. Either way, as soon as I read the news about the man who got off the hook after taking an upskirt photo, a story idea presented itself:
It all started with an upskirt photo. A man on a subway sneaked a picture of a girl’s panties under her skirt and got away with it. The media went wild, the girl was indignant, the government smiled.
You see, it perpetuated a ball that had been rolling for decades. The government already had their talons in the news room, swaying stories in their favor here and there. But now – in the name of privacy and public safety – the right to take pictures on subways would be eliminated. In the name of protecting innocent bystanders from having their ‘public privacy’ violated – of course – the government gained more control.
From no camera subways came no camera buses. Then planes. No photographs could be taken by a non-government official or civil servant anywhere where fifty or more gathered.
Suddenly government didn’t just control how a story was told and which stories were the most important, they could eliminate the ability to tell a story at all. Bloggers and documentarians could no longer cover protests that major media groups were not covering. No visual documentation could be made against the wrongs of any government official. It evolved from having no fight against police brutality or civil servants on power to trips to far worse things. The police and military could be sent somewhere at any time to detain or massacre anyone at any time without fear it would be captured on film and shared via social media. In a time of technology and the globalized internet, the government brought the sharing of information and relevant news back to the 1700s.
The worst part was, the people asked for it.
In the name of safety – and privacy – of course.
Maybe that’s a far fetched story premise. Maybe I should branch out and write some dystopian fiction. Maybe not. Maybe we should watch very carefully how this legal situation is handled.
6 Things Every Extrovert Secretly Has To Deal With
My extroverted self relates. My introverted self laughed at the whiny-ness of it all. I’m a 50/50 crap shoot on whether I’m an introvert or extrovert on any given day. People label me as extroverted (because that’s typically what I am if I’m bothering to be around people), but I always test out as introverted. Yes, people ALWAYS think I’m more flirtatious than I actually am. People always think I *should* be more outgoing if they’ve met me in a scenario where someone needed to be the outgoing one. If I sit back and observe, they think I’m a moody psycho. People almost never think I have any sort of reasonable IQ at all. I’ve known many people who at some point say, “I didn’t know you were smart, I just thought you read a lot of novels.” Moral of the story = I relate to ALL the lists for both introverts and extroverts and therefore feel like I belong to everyone and no one. It’s an odd place to live in society. Maybe I should write a half-bitter blog about it.
Art Available!
New Etsy Shop from a fun little chick I know. Check it out.
Anakalian Whims 
Literary Journal Monday – Mapping My Mind
March 10, 2014 at 10:14 pm (In So Many Words, Reviews, The Whim) (ADD, ancient history, books, dystopia, dystopian society, fiction, Gone, good books in the woods, Hunger, Lang Leav, literary journals, London Review, love, Michael Grant, poetry, reading life, reviews, romance, series, social commentary, Tonight You're Mine, You Instead, young adult)
I am not ADD, but my mind is often many places at once. It goes and goes… it races… it is unstoppable.
I was craving a little bit of dystopian society literature after reading Herodotus. My brain spinning in a circular momentum about democracies, oligarchies, and dictatorships. Darius and then Xerxes tyrading around ancient lands building the Persian Empire. A thousand utopian and dystopian variations of all societies throughout history – a million possible outcomes for our modern world – twisting about in my mind. Conveniently, it was at this moment that a trailer for the movie Divergent came on and I thought, “It’s about time I read Veronica Roth.”
Cue discussion of autism I’ve been having on and off with people since reading Not Even Wrong written by Paul Collins. Collins is an amazing author and obscure historian. Still suffering from story hangovers from Divergent and the movie Tonight You’re Mine (all about instantaneous human connections) – I found myself thinking about my niece’s Gone series.
Set in a town in California, all the kids fifteen and under have been left in a supernatural bubble – all adults over puberty have vanished, leaving kids and babies to fend for themselves and create a new government. Not unlike Lord of the Flies, different factions have formed. One is under the leadership of Sam Temple, another under his half brother Caine (the biblical implications of Caine and Abel not to be lost on readers, of course). Sam and his new girlfriend, Astrid, are two of the oldest left behind. They have formed a parental union for the younger kids, caring for all the helpless, including Astrid’s autistic brother.
Like bumper pool – or pinball, if you missed out on the bumper pool phenomena – the synapses in my brain spark and twitch and leap bringing me back to Paul Collins/Not Even Wrong/ McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. Then, I find myself thinking, “Goodness, it’s Literary Journal Monday.
London Magazine February/March 1981 Vol. 20 Nos. 11 &12
The Private Letters of Tennessee Williams and a piece on Gore Vidal catch my eye. I flip through the first few ads, the table of contents, then stop dead on a heading: FINAL REMINDER.
My thoughts have veered so far off track that I forget what I was reading altogether. I flip through the journal in my hand trying to grasp the reason I had sat down to look at this in the first place.
It’s March. St. Patty’s Day is coming up. Irish authors keep popping in and out of my mind. Ireland… Scotland… Tonight You’re Mine… music… poetry… Derek Mahon, an Irish poet’s name blinks at me from the page of the literary journal in my hand. Literary Journal Monday, of course. I read the poem “The Elephants” first. I love elephants. Then my eyes skip over to “April in Moscow” and I read “Spring burst into our houses…” It does, doesn’t it? Just bursts right in and none too soon. At the end of the poems there is an ad for the Poetry Society Bookshop at 21 Earls Court Square in London. I wonder if it is still there.
If they do still exist, I bet they have a copy of Lang Leav’s Love & Misadventure. I’m dying for a copy. Leav has been speaking to my soul lately. Misadventures stuck in the cogs of the mind of a woman turned 30.
A line from Grant’s book swings into full view of my mind’s eye:
There rarely is when a hug is really needed. It’s that moment Leav writes about…
The lack of selfishness between the characters at this point is refreshing in fiction and real life.
In a 2014 American Society of infantile adults who never learned to fend for themselves and work hard without constant praise, we are fascinated by literature and movies where children and teens are forced to grow up overnight and be adults.
It’s sad when the idea of fifteen-year-olds co-leading a community and making wise, unselfish decisions for themselves and each other sounds absurd and fictional. My associative mind leaps back to all the ancient history I’ve been studying, back to the likes of King Tut – pharaoh at age nine – dead by nineteen, married somewhere in between.
We believe in responsible marriages like the Romans, but we chase telepathic connections like the Greeks. What a very convoluted and contradictory way to live – the reality of a dystopian society is that every society is a dystopia – even a society of one. Our minds are everywhere and nowhere. Of course we are in conflict.
I suppose you Literary Journal Monday followers got a little more than you wanted. I bit off more than I could chew today. I attempted to map my own mind and identify all the associations and patterns, leaving myself somewhat exhausted from chasing whimsies.
At least I got to spend a few stolen moments in this room…
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