This blog’s not a bad idea…that’s why it’s now consolidated with a different awesome blog, “Hey, That’s My Life.” Go check it out!
In the meantime, if you want to use this domain, just leave a comment here and hopefully I’ll check up on it. Otherwise, drop me a message!
See you there!
-Josh
So, I finished Resolution 1! Queue up the fanfare! HOORAY! But…I didn’t read Life of Pi.
I just couldn’t get into the book, couldn’t find it gripping or engaging…it was certainly cerebral, encouraged a deep thought of sorts, but it just didn’t catch me…I found myself zoning out after reading only a couple pages. And though I knew the goal was to read a whole book by the end of the week, I knew I wasn’t going to make it if I kept trying to struggle through that novel. Sure, I plan to read it eventually…just didn’t read it last week. And I didn’t end up reading Boomtown either…So what did I read?
The classiest book I've ever read. The word "breast" is featured on each cover, so you know it's a hit.
Yes, I own a “smut book” from 1961. It was 50 cents on a March of Dimes fundraiser table at a local K-Mart, and it was worth the 50 cents alone to perform a brief oration while walking with my friends from the K-Mart to a nearby restaurant. But after being jaded by the dreariness of Life of Pi (which I’m sure gets better and definitely will get read by me sometime), I think I just wanted to read something I thought would be fun. Turns out I got a lot more than I expected from this book…it seems that in the early 1960s they demanded actual plot and semi-quality writing in its “adult reading,” and so I found out that Bedroom Alibi was actually a decently-composed mystery novel with plot twists, murder, and, yes, bedrooms.
Turns out that reading this book provided me a pretty awesome view back into the 1960s as only an English major could travel. You can actually see from the cover alone the female subjugation, the male’s fully-dressed gaze of ownership on the naked female body…yeah, it’s a “smut” book, but there’s still plenty for an English major to do here. The characters commonly refer to hired help as the “Mex maid” or “Mex waiter,” terms that could be seen as derogatory in a modern context. Also, there are continual references to women having intellectual weakness, women talking about how they felt they were victims because the criminal knew they would be weak… Then again, there’s also the back cover…
A woman who knew what her tongue, mouth, breasts and thighs could do to a man — make him lie, steal, gamble his life and profession for her. A man, whose maleness (codeword for…uh…male equipment…) made a woman lie, steal, gamble her life and profession–even kill for him!
And the power of the phallus rears its ugly head…maybe that was a poor play on words….
Regardless of whether or not I read something intellectually stimulating, I ended up reading a novel which had all of three sex scenes of about 2 paragraphs a piece, and found out that the rest of the book was a decently composed novel. Resolution 1 served it’s purpose: I made a goal, completed the goal, and learned something I might not have if I hadn’t set the goal. I’m not sure that I ever would have read Bedroom Alibi if I hadn’t cut this particular deal with myself…not to say that my life would have been completely unfulfilled without it, but it would have lacked a little…perspective.
Resolution Score: 1/1.
See you later for Resolution 2!
-Josh
It ain’t easy. At least, this week it hasn’t been. Thus far I’ve not started the resolution stuff strongly…
So, it’s midweek now (get it? 1.Midweek!)… while trying to pick a book, I settled on breaking in my new copy of Life of Pi, an interesting book about a boy named Piscine and his adventures growing up in India. Though I’ve typically seen it as your typical soft-cover novel, I found this illustrated hardcover when I was at Borders last week that I couldn’t pass up. I got it for 4 dollars.
If you saw this on a bookshelf for 4 dollars, I think you'd have to pick it up, too.
I’ve decided I’m going to jump ship on this one…it’s not that it’s a bad read; on the contrary, it’s pretty deep and whatnot. But it’s a bit of a mire to swim through, a rough read to try to take on in three or four days. And to be frank, I’m 30-some pages in and still just not interested. I keep reading it because people say it’s a good book, because it’s got an element of mysticism and philosophy and religion that sounds intriguing, but I don’t have a strong desire to keep moving through it. I’ll do it eventually, but not this week.
In the meantime, I’m trying to find something that I’ll really enjoy reading to convince me to finish this first challenge. I’m thinking about Christopher Buckley’s Boomsday; the multi-colored cover has been sticking out on my shelf for a little while.
As you can see, it's very attention-grabbing. Hopefully the book itself will be, too.
Either way, I’m going to have to make a decision soon. I’m trying to get myself back into my creative element…but they say the best writers are readers first, right?
-Josh
This is my new blog, Weekly Resolution. Each week I’ll attempt to take on a different resolution or goal, some big, some small. This week’s is pretty simple: read one whole book.
I met with my friend Laura this afternoon and she told me about some of the reading that she’s been doing over the past few weeks..it really got me to thinking. For someone who claims to want to be a writer, I don’t do much reading! So this week, I tackle a book I’ve never read before. I haven’t quite decided which one yet, but I’ll let you know once I do. 🙂
By the way, I’d taken all sorts of photos and such to add to this blog, but my phone’s being lame. I’ll tackle the problems tonight and then talk a bit in my midweek post. See you Wednesday!
-Josh
Weekly Resolution 