Books and readable things.
I've been reading Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land because a student wants to work an academic essay on it. I recommended this initially because I heard of Heinlein's reputation, but I now feel that I've only made things difficult for myself. I find it very difficult to analyze a work that isn't 'literature'. There's so much detail in Stranger in a Strange Land that isn't going anywhere. My tools become useless.
(Edit: I realized I wasn't clear. The student wanted to work on an academic essay on The Alchemist, Stranger in a Strange Land or The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. I said Heinlein would be the best, because I really dislike Coelho and I've not heard much about the monk and ferrari book. It looks like I'll end up using Coelho anyway.)
I become very self-conscious when I write stuff like this. If I write about books and art I feel that I should have known all about this at least three years ago, but if I don't admit this then I just don't write about books, which leads to a worse condition: I forget about them.
I'm listening to early stuff by The Horrors and some tracks from Journal for Plague Lovers.
I'm re-reading John Keats. I'm suddenly reminded of why he was such an influence on me. My Keats-inspired poetry really sucked, though.
I wonder how much about my state of mind has changed since I last taught Keats. I find it very difficult to read Keats now. It used to be so effortless. I don't know what has changed. Maybe the nature of my theism has changed, so Keats's truth-is-beauty-is-truth thing doesn't ring anything for me. Unless you think despair, desperation, madness, and self-immolation are truthful and beautiful. Then maybe, yes.
I'm reading Coelho's The Alchemist. That was painful, but not as terrible as The Zahir. It's not that Coelho is a bad writer or anything, it's that he tries to be really artful in all sorts of things that don't matter at all to his message and when there is a message to be conveyed he HAMMERS IT DOWN hard. I don't know how many times I've been blatantly told in the face that the universe conspires to give you what you want while reading The Alchemist. It's such a waste of artfulness, to write so many 'symbols' but end up shoving the core so artlessly into the reader's face, just in case we don't get it. I think that Coelho takes refuge in the bookstores' literature section because his spirituality is too shallow to be a substantial religious perspective, when it's pretty obvious that the books are meant to function as vehicles for Coelho's religious ideas.
I really like Faris Badwan. He's one of the few guys I enjoy looking at when taken a photo of with a woman. With ex-girlfriend Peaches Geldof. Again with Peaches Geldof. With some model for a fashion shoot. And my personal favourite, with Rachel Zeffira for his band Cat's Eyes.
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