This passage reminds me of what went through my head (and at times still does) when I was a kid and couldn’t get to sleep:

At half past nine that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed as usual. They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and waited in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despairl He would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was afraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still and stared up into the dark. Everything was dismally still. By-and-by, out of the stillness little scarcely perceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking of the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad. A measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly’s chamber. And now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate began. Next the ghastly ticking of a death-watch in the wall at the bed’s head made Tom shudder – it meant that somebod’s days ere numbered. Then the howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air and was answered by a fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony. At last he was satisfied that time had ceased and eternity begun; he began to doze in spite of himself; the clock chimed eleven, but he did not hear it. (65)

Another (and final) passage that struck me:

The captive had broken off the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone wherein he had scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop that fell once in every twenty minutes with the dreary regularity of a clock-tick – a dessert-spoonful once in four-and-twenty hours. That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell when the foundations of Rome were laid; when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the British Empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was ‘news’. It is falling now; it will still be falling when all these things have sunk down in the afternoon of history and the twilight of tradition, and been swallowed up in the thick night of oblivion. Has everything a purpose and a mission? Did this drop fall patiently during five thousand years to be ready for this flitting human insect’s need, and has it another important object to accomplish ten thousand years to come? (204, italics mine)

So I’m finally giving Mark Twain a chance after years and years of untainted hatred, the reason for which I can’t identify. For whatever reason, I’ve always thought Mark Twain simply sucked. The catch is, if I’ve ever read anything of his (which I don’t recall), it was at most a short story. After actually reading his stuff, I’ve changed my mind. Who’da thunk.

Anyway, here are some quotes I’ve found amusing.

I love this description:

Away off in the flaming sunshine Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green sides through a shimmering veil of heat tinted with the purple of distance; a few birds floated on lazy wing high in the air; no other living thing was visible but some cows, and they were asleep. (54)

I find “the purple of distance” striking.

When Tom and Joe Harper are bored at school, Tom pulls a tick out of his pocket and starts to play:

Joe took a pin out of his lapel, and began to assist in exercising the prisoner. The sport grew in interest momently. Soon Tom said that they were interfering with each other, and neither getting the fullest benefit of the tick. So he put Joe’s slate on the desk and drew a line down the middle of it from top to bottom.

“Now,” said he, “as long as he is on your side you can stir him up and I’ll let him alone: but if you let him get away and get on my side, you’re to leave him alone as long as I can keep him from crossing over.”

“All right, go ahead – start him up.”

The tick escaped from Tom, presently, and crossed the equator. Joe harassed him awhile, and then he got away and crossed back again. This change of base occurred often. While one boy was worrying the tick with absorbing interest, the other would look on with interest as strong, the two heads bowed together over the slate and the two souls dead to all things else. At last luck seemed to settle and abide with Hoe. The tick tried this, that, and the other course, and got as excited and as anxious as the boys themselves, but time and again, just as he would have victory in his very grasp, so to speak, and Tom’s fingers would be twitching to begin, Joe’s pin would deftly head him off and keep possession. At last Tom could stand it no longer. The temptation was too strong. So he reached out and lent a hand with his pin. Joe was angry in a moment. Said he:

“Tom, you let him alone.”

“I only just want to stir him up a little, Joe.”

“No, sir, it ain’t fair; you just let him alone.”

“Blame it, I ain’t going to stir him much.”

“Let him alone, I tell you!”

“I won’t!”

“You shall – he’s on my side of the line.”

“Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick?”

“I don’t care whose tick he is – he’s on my side of the line, and you shan’t touch him.”

“Well, I’ll just bet I will, though. He’s my tick, and I’ll do what I blame please with him, or die!” (54-55)

Then they got caught. I could just see it happening. A fight over a tick made me chuckle.

Let me preface this review: I am a huge fan of Philip Glass. You might even venture to say he is my very favorite composer.

I know this will sound coarse, but I can’t think of a better word: Hydrogen Jukebox is, simply, retarded. It sucks. It really, really sucks ass. There are maybe two tracks of the fifteen that don’t make me want to vomit (those would be tracks 13 and 15 if you’re interested). Yes, you can hear the usual Philip Glass music in the background of a few tracks, which would be nice if there weren’t really bad vocals drowning it out. It alternates between operatic voices (tenor and soprano) and the dramatic, fake speech you hear at open mic poetry night. The majority of the lyrics, I think, are stupid. Some of the tracks wouldn’t be so bad if the lyrics weren’t in English, but they all are.

I absolutely hated this entire CD. It doesn’t make me like Philip Glass any less, but I’ll be getting rid of this CD very soon. Ugh.

I just bought this book from Amazon. I started reading Autumn of the Patriarch about a week ago. I checked it out from the library and figured I could read it fairly quickly. Ummmmm, no. There are a total of six paragraphs in the whole novel, and not many more sentences. Almost the only punctuation is commas: comma after comma after comma. It’s really interesting, though. I want to read it, but it’ll take a while. So I bought it, and I’ll make myself read a few pages a day. In the meantime, I’m gonna go back to the library and find another book – one that’s more readable.

This is such an awesome game… Even Michael (who hates anything Nintendo except Zelda) really likes it. Word to the wise: the initial brain age test wants you to identify the colors of the text colors are written in (consfusing, i know: as in you would say “red” to text typed “yellow” but is the color red). Problem is for some reason it has a problem recognizing both our voices when we say “blue.” The first time it gave me a brain age of 80 because of this problem, and Michael got so frustrated he started cursing and the game said it couldn’t recognize his speech (which is funny… the only time it said that to me was when I cursed too). Anyway, say you can’t speak and it gives you math problems with really good handwriting recognition. Michael, who is brilliant, got a brain age of 22 (best possible is 20), and I got a brain age of 31, which I’m content with. Brain Age is SO COOL!

An amusing passage:

Jaromil’s body was lying sick in bed, while his soul dwelled in contemplation of the great upcoming event. Anticipation of that date consisted of abstract happiness and concrete worry. For Jaromil had no idea at all what making love to a woman was all about, in terms of the barious specific details involved. He knew only that such an act required preparation, skill, and knowledge. He knew that behind the lovely visage of Venus leered the threatening grimace of pregnancy, and he realized (this had been discussed innumerable times with schoolmates) that there were ways of preventing it. In those barbaric times, men (like knights donning their armor before battle) put on a kind of transparent little sock over their amorous extremity. From a theoretical viewpoint Jaromil was richly informed about such matters. But how can such a little sock be procured? Jaromil would be too ashamed to ask for one in a drugstore! And how could he put it on without the girl noticing it? The little sock seemed embarrassing to him, and he couldn’t bear the idea that the girl might find out about it. Was it possible to put it on beforehand, at home? Or was it necessary to wait until he was standing naked before the girl?

He had no answers for such questions. Moreover, he had no trial or practice little sock at hand, but he told himself he must get one at all costs and practice putting it on. He imagined that success in this matter depended largely on seed and skill, and that these could not be achieved without practice. (116)

This reminds me both of Don Quixote, USA and that episode of South Park where the boys wore condoms all the time because the teachers had made them scared of STDs.

A passage I really like:

He copied the poem on special paper and it was even more beautiful than when he had recited it aloud, for it had ceased to be a mere group of words and had become an object. Its independence was beyond doubt. Ordinary words exist only to perish as soon as they are uttered, for they serve only the immediate moment of communication – they are subordinate to objects; they are only their signs. By means of the poem, words had been transmuted into objects themselves and were no longer subordinate to anything. They were not destined for ephemeral signaling and quick extinction, but for permanence. (56)

An interesting paragraph:

Intelligence is one of evolution’s failures. In the days of the first prehistoric humans I can just imagine some little tribe where all the kids run through the scrub chasing lizards and picking berries for their dinner; they gradually learn from the adults how to be perfect men and women: hunters, gatherers, fishermen, tanners. But if we look more closely at the life of this tribe we’ll see that some children don’t join in the group activities: they stay sitting by the fire, sheltered inside the cave. They’ll never learn to defend themselves against a saber-toothed tiger, or how to hunt; by themselves they wouldn’t survive a single night. And it’s not out of laziness, no, they’d like to be capering about with their friends, but they can’t. When nature brought them into the world, it slipped up. Within that tribe there’s a little blind girl, a boy with a limp, another one who’s clumsy and absentminded….So they stay by the fire all day and, as they’ve got nothing to do and video games haven’t been invented yet, they just have to think and let their thoughts do the capering. So they spend all their time thinking and trying to decipher the world, dreaming up stories and making inventions. That’s how civilization was born: because a bunch of imperfect kids had nothing better to do. If nature never maimed anyone, if the mold was always flawless, the human race would have stayed a protohominid species, quite happy with no thoughts of progress, living perfectly well without Prozac or condoms or Dolby digital DVDs. (55-56)

I absolutely loved Mr. Whittle and the Morning Star. I ran across it in the library yesterday while I was randomly browsing the shelves (I’ve discovered many of my favorite books that way), and I happened on this one. The blurb says:

Mr. Whittle became convinced that the end of the world was at hand.

The second World War was over, and the prospects of humanity looked bleak indeed. But Mr. Whittle, though meek, was an idealist who had spoken with the Almighty.

In the story of Mr. Whittle’s attempts to prepare himself and his friends for the coming of oblivion Robert Nathan has written one of the most delightful of his novels. It is a book that will inevitable invite comparison with One More Spring.

This only partly covers the content of this novel. I chose it because the end of the world (non-religious) really interests me. It reminds me in a way of the movie Donnie Darko, but without the sci-fi element. It’s about man (specifically Mr. Whittle) bringing the end of the world upon himself, but not meaning to. Kind of like a microcosm of Koyaanisqatsi. A brilliant novel. I hadn’t heard of Robert Nathan before, but I’m definitely going to check out more of his work.

The language in this book is sooooo dated that it’s funny. Example:

As for Lucinda, death was completely meaningless and only happened to other people. However, when she realized that the whole world might blow up, she felt a twinge of alarm, and exclaimed:

“Jeepers.” (8-9)