BOOKS: The Machine Stops

Here's who needs to read E.M. Forster’s prescient sci-fi short story "The Machine Stops" right away:

• Anyone who checks their email more than five times a day.
• Anyone who uses TiVo or a TiVo-like service.
• Anyone who has ever spent an entire weekend without leaving their house, instead availing themselves of the Internet, television, and various telecommunications devices to meet all their creature comforts. (Extra points if you did this over a long weekend.)

Here's a scary fact:

When I first read this story (which Forster wrote in 1909, believe it or not) as assigned reading back when I was in grade seven, I thought the idea of living in a hermetically sealed, entirely self-contained pod, with no person-to-person contact, was actually really, really cool. (Also, two words: "Isolation knob.") Finally, I thought, I could read for hours without interruption.

Here's a scarier fact:

[whispers]Sometimes I still feel that way.[/whispers]

Here's something even scarier:

I just used phony UBB tags to express emotion.

Scarier still:

I only used UBB because I tried phony HTML tags, and they didn't work. So I tried again. And again. And then again. And then I gave up. I'm not even a competent antisocial nerd.

Your assignment:

1. If you haven't read "The Machine Stops", the entire text is available online here.
2. Then check out the Spacebox residential units being developed in the Netherlands.
3. Then be afraid.

ETC: In Your Face, Charles Atkins

First, a shout out to the anonymous librarian who posted to tell me that libraries actually like it when they make money from your late fines. It inspired me to go and return my books with my head held high:

"My name is Doppelganger, and I'm a (re)tardy book returner. There, I said it."

While I near completion of my current Challenge book, might I distract you with a recommendation for the mother of all pasta cookbooks, The Pasta Bible? I know that being pro-carbs is all the reactionary rage these days, but trust me when I tell you that the whole Atkins craze was one bandwagon I never hopped on. A life without fresh bread and pasta is not worth living... especially when your only payoff for this self-denial is the acquisition of scary Demi Moore-esque razor-blade hipbones. But I digress.

My best friend The Fabulous Suzi and my housemate The Don conspired to give me a pasta machine and a copy of The Pasta Bible for Christmas, and I just about peed my pants in excitement. (For the record, when you're knocked up, almost peeing your pants in excitement isn't that uncommon and perhaps doesn't even merit mentioning.)

People, let me tell you that pasta machines, while intimidating looking, are dead easy to use. If you ever had a Play-Doh Fun Factory (TM), then you're already more than halfway to pasta machine expert status. Unless you were one of those kids who always fucked up their Play-Doh by letting it dry out or mixing all the colours together in indiscriminate lumps. I don't know what to tell you people, other than letting you know that, when I was a kid, playing with you drove me nuts. I didn't even want to, but my mom made me. Also, stick with buying pasta in a bag.

(Apropos of nothing, did you know there's a Play-Doh George Foreman Grill? And a Play-Doh McDonald's? When did the End Times begin? I can't wait till they come out with the Play-Doh Big Brother Interrogation Kit.)

What's your reward for going to all the trouble of making fresh pasta when you could just as easily buy the stuff in stores? First, even the "fresh" pasta sold in stores is crap. And second, home-made pasta is the best fucking pasta you'll ever eat. Don't believe me? How about a testimonial from my friend the Baco-Vegetarian, who said after recently eating my pasta:

"That's the best fucking pasta I've ever eaten."

BOOKS: It's Just a Plant!

Reasons why I am a loser:

1. I didn't go to the library for eight years because of my history of racking up egregiously huge late fines.
2. My new year's resolution -- my first new year's resolution ever in my adult life, mind you -- was to renew my library card and use it, rather than spending so much money buying books.
3. My first batch of library books is now two days late.
4. The library is exactly a block and a half away from my house.

(There are more reasons, of course, most of which have to do with my potty mouth and personal hygiene, but these are the book-related ones, which I figured are most relevant to this blog.)

One of the library books is Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, which I haven't finished yet. It's great, but it has this magical ability to make me fall asleep after five pages. So while I keep slogging away at it (whilst peering over my shoulder to make sure that my arch-nemesis, Neal Pollack, isn't catching up to me), I'll draw your attention to a couple of books that have drawn my attention.

If you're a pothead and you're sick and tired of your school-age kids judging you, did you know there are storybooks you can buy that will teach the little buggers to mind their own beeswax and ignore the funny-smelling cloud hovering above your living room/porch/crack den? It's true! Now, I'm no pothead (though I did try a pot cookie once, because I'd pretty much ingest any drug if it came in cookie form, and it made me hurl), but this strikes me as a rather interesting publishing phenomenon... if one can call two books a "phenomenon".

The first is called It's Just a Plant, and it's about a girl named Jackie who catches her parents smoking a joint. Rather than ream them out for smoking in the house (come on, dude, that's just plain rude), Jackie asks for an explanation. The next day, she and her mom dress up in their favourite Burning Man costumes (I'm exaggerating, but only slightly) and head out on their bikes for a magical mystery tour. First, they visit Farmer Bob, who explains how he grows marijuana (and presumably also explains how he doesn't let the Hell's Angels get involved in the distribution process), and then they head over to Dr. Eden's office, who explains why pot isn't harmful to grown-ups (with the requisite warning that Jackie shouldn't smoke it herself till she's grown up, but without warning her that pot may make her annoying to her friends).

The second, Mommy's Funny Medicine, takes the safer pro-medicinal marijuana stance. It's about a girl named Heather (the same one who has two mommies?) whose mother seems to be sick with some unnamed ailment, for which her regular medicine has stopped working. You can't really look for fault in the subject matter, because what kind of monster likes to see people suffer?

Glancing at these books made me remember a couple of things.

I remembered that I always hated "issues" books when I was a kid, and I still don't like them. They come off as too eager, condescending and didactic (those were the words I used when I was a kid, too), and they're generally more poorly written than other children's books. People think that kids don't notice these things, but they do, and they're not nearly as forgiving as grown-ups are, because they don't know they're expected to overlook poor style if it's Important Subject Matter.

I also remember thinking I could draw way better than the illustrators of these kinds of books. (I probably could then, though I couldn't now, because I was an awesome drawer when I was little.)

Query: Why are girls almost always the heroes of touchy-feely kids' books? I have only specious theories about this. Anyone?

BOOKS: Poo, Cheese, and Zen and the Art of Baby Maintenance

I want to mention a few non-Challenge books I've been skimming these days because, despite not being "real books" (at least not according to the mythical judges I keep imagining are jurying this Challenge), they rock.

1. According to our finest medical scienticians, the ideal environment for achieving the perfect BM -- and sound overall intestinal health -- is relaxed, unrushed and unstrained. But in these crazy times in which we live, how many of us actually give ourselves ample WC time for Number Two (not to be confused with the ample time needed for other euphemistic bathroom activities)?

If you've been looking for an excuse to spend more "me time" in the bathroom, you could do worse than get your mitts on a copy of Found: The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World. It may very well top the various Onion anthologies for on-the-can readability. Wing Chun and Glark sent it to Rusty Iron (formerly known as Sugar Larry and occasionally known as Acquilad) for Christmas, and it's been in hot demand around our house ever since. Having two bathrooms is a curse for the first time ever, since it's now led to the sad predicament of finding yourself in the bathroom that doesn't contain the book. Crap.

2. If you love grilled cheese sandwiches (and if you don't, what the hell is wrong with you? Seriously.), then you need to get the recipe for Mozzarella in Carrozza from Nigella Bites. Now I'm no chef, and I don't claim to be. I'm just a simple woman with an unhealthy addiction to food porn. I checked this book out of the library, and now that it's due back in three days, I'm all verklempt about giving it back. (This is how I got into big trouble with the library people several years ago. But that's a story for another day.) But I've transcribed the recipe into my recipe notebook (aka The Big Book of Culinary Wishful Thinking That Will Never Materialize), and I may surprise myself by actually making it some day.

3. Being in the family way, I find people suddenly hurling pregnancy and baby-care books at me from every which way. Most of these books are dense, opinionated, and filled with the kind of pictures that are apt to frighten you by suddenly appearing without warning when you turn the page. Which begs the questions: where are the books for the squeamish and the timid, not to mention books for people who'd rather not spend the entire duration of their pregnancy reading 900-page books? Surely there must be a huge niche market for this kind of material.

I've only come across one book that satisfies this requirement: The Baby Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips, and Advice on First-Year Maintenance. Short sentences. Non-partisan advice. Non-threatening technical diagrams. And at only 224 pages, mercifully short. It's the only baby book in our house that doesn't scare (or bore) Rusty Iron silly. If you have a baby, or are thinking of getting one, I highly recommend this book. If you don't have a baby but are looking for a laugh, scroll down this page to read the Amazon review entitled "Objectifies Babies as if they were not already" for a case-in-point example of how crazy new parents/baby zealots can be.

I am reading an actual Challenge book right now, which I'll hopefully be finishing up and posting about in a couple of days. It's good, but it's slow going.

BOOKS: I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

Fluke by Christopher Moore (#4)

The right whale is one of the few animals in the world that uses a washout strategy for mating. That is, the females mate with several males, but the one who can wash out the others' seed most efficiently will pass his genes along to the next generation. Consequently, the guy with the largest tackle often wins, and male right whales have the biggest tackle in the world, with testes that weigh up to a ton and ten-foot penises that are not only long but prehensile, able to reach around a female from the side and introduce themselves on the sly.

Because I'm actually twelve years old, it's this kind of trivia that made me rather like Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings. Unfortunately, it's supposed to be a comic novel, not a science text, and while as a science text it had its engaging aspects, as a comic novel, it was kind of meh.

Moore has been compared to Douglas Adams, and I can kind of see the basis for comparison. In this novel, he coins the rather clever term "action nerd" to describe the marine biologists who are the main characters, and I'd say that Adams's characters are -- as Adams himself was -- kind of action nerds. Heck, I'm kind of an action nerd myself, so I can relate. But clever wordplay aside, this novel, while more than competently executed, just didn't deliver. And it didn't do itself any favours by constantly reminding me of Adams and coming up short in the constant comparison game my brain kept playing.

I first heard about Moore from the good readers over at Chicklit last spring, and since he seemed to be fairly highly regarded, I went out and got my hands on Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. (One thing you can say for Moore: he has a gift for coming up with catchy titles. Some of his others are Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Practical Demonkeeping, and The Stupidest Angel.) I liked Biff somewhat better than Fluke, but still I felt like I was missing the joke.

Is it me? Someone prove me wrong. There are precious few truly funny writers out there. I'm reluctant to write someone off if there's even the remotest chance he or she could provide me with a laugh.

ETC: Call Me Petty...

...but so far I'm beating Neal Pollack. Boo-ya! In your face, Pollack.

ETC: Oh Jeez

Now some dude's come up with a list of rules for the challenge. Great.

BOOKS: "Tonight, I find myself here in a guest house in the city of Salisbury..."

The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro (#3)
I've been wanting to read this book for years, but when I finally committed myself to finding a copy, it was surprisingly difficult to track down. But worth the effort.

Imagine that P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves wrote a memoir at the end of his career, and imagine that in this memoir he came to the realization that he'd wasted his life as a handservant to noblesse oblige, and then imagine that reading this memoir totally fucking broke your heart. That pretty much sums up this novel. I've never read such an example of gut-wrenchingly sad yet controlled narrative. Jesus, I'm going to cry just thinking about it.

Read this book. But try to time the ending better than I did. I finished it all alone at 3 am this morning and had to wake up my dog to give me a hug.

BOOKS: The Clan of the Big Friendly Giant Cave Bear

I just found out about the 50 Book Challenge over at Bookslut. Usually I hear about stuff like this two months after it's started and I end up cursing myself for being too late to jump on the bandwagon (and if you knew how much I love bandwagons, you'd realize how much it hurts me to miss one), so I took the fact that I learned about this so early as a holy sign that I should actually get off my sorry ass and do it.

If you managed to read the boring and pointless first paragraph of this entry, congratulations! This is paragraph two, which already promises to be much better. Onward and upward! Don't look back! Never surrender! Surgite!

Ahem. So my first official post for 2005 is actually for two books:

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel (#1)
I'm not saying this by way of bragging (okay, yes, I am), but my house is so stupidly full of books that when a recent houseguest brought this to me and asked me if it was any good, I had to ask, "Did you find that here?" She had. I had never read this book. My husband, Rusty Iron, had never read this book. Our housemate, The Don, had never read this book. What I'm trying to say here is that I have no idea how this book got in my house, but I was between books and took it as a sign that I should read it. So I did. And it was okay.

I'm not a huge fan of the genre (okay, I don't exactly know what genre this novel falls into -- so sue me), and I'm the first to admit that, snob that I am, a book that comes from a series entitled "Earth's Children" makes me more than a bit trepidatious, but as a quick (and free!) read, it was okey-dokey. I may even go rent the movie, just to see what kind of job Daryl Hannah did playing a character who's pretty much non-verbal. Maybe it's her best role ever. Play to your strengths, that's what I say.

The BFG by Roald Dahl (#2)
This book rocks, and I'm glad I finally read it. "BFG" stands for "Big Friendly Giant", but if you're anything like me, you'll keep wanting to call him "Big Fucking Giant". He's not even that big: 24 feet, as opposed to the nine other (much less friendly) giants in the book, who each top 50 feet.

If you loved Willy Wonka's wordplay in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you'll see even more of the same by the BFG. And if you rooted for the underdog Charlie, Dahl has created his female counterpart, a brave, bespectacled orphan named Sophie. As in his other novels, Dahl shows his dark side: dozens of children die horrible deaths at the hands of the other giants, who hunt for "human beans" every night. And Dahl tops the burping in Chocolate Factory with some explosive farting in The BFG. There's even an appearance by the Queen of England. Truly, this book has something for everyone.

The 50 Books Players

Rusty
My husband, best friend, and arch-nemesis. Short for Rusty Iron. Also sometimes known as Acquilad, Sugar Larry, and The Mister.

Young Master Sam
My baby boy. Long version: Samuel Atticus. Short version: Sam. Nicknames: Samuel Platypus, Samuel Fatticus, Sam-I-Am, Samwidge, Salamander, Samwise, Sam the Clam, The Clam, and Clambake.

The Don
Our long-suffering housemate.

Dobbs
My Portuguese water dog. Also goes by Schlobbs and Goof Poodle.

Puck
My smart grey tabby. AKA The Cat.

Lulu
My non-smart grey tabby. AKA Poor Ol' Lu.