Fitzie!

I just learned (thank you, Garrison) that today is F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthday. I think it must be a sign that  I should re-read The Great Gatsby, don't you ? Plus he's just so bloody tragic, and I've been feeling a trifle melancholy recently, so bring on the sadness, Fitzie. 

'We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed' Los Campesinos!

Uncensored

So Banned Books Week begins tomorrow. It celebrates the importance of the First Amendment and the freedom (and right) to choose what one wishes to read. It's quite surprising which books have been challenged or banned and on what grounds. There are the usual suspects, of course, such as Twain's Huckleberry Finn (inappropriate racial slurs), The Catcher in the Rye (because it's "a filthy, filthy book"), and The Satanic Verses (blasphemy!), the Harry Potter novels (Satanism and anti-family sentiments - really?) and Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy (anti-religious, political stance). But also the Lord of the Rings (burned in New Mexico as satanic), Song of Solomon (apparently it's "filth", "trash" and "repulsive"), As I Lay Dying (questions the existence of God - also contains a passage about masturbation), and The Grapes of Wrath (the names of God and Jesus are used "in a vain and profane manner"). Mostly it appears to be issues of sex (and homosexuality), inappropriate language, and the horrors and contagion of irreligious or "humanist" thinking (with a minority upset by the use of racial slurs). 

To show my solidarity with these and other writers, I'm reading a book that I own and that has suffered from repeated attempts to silence it's voice. Not sure which, though. It's between Nineteen Eighty-Four ("pro-communist"), The Satanic Verses ("blasphemous to the prophet Mohammed" and Islam and the Koran, too, of course), Brave New World ("orgies, self-flogging, suicide" with characters who show "contempt for religion, marriage and the family", and it makes promiscuous sex "look like fun"), and The Great Gatsby ("language and sexual references"). I considered The Catcher in the Rye but I've read it twice and I really prefer Salinger's stories. I'll probably pick one of the shorter works because I'm currently reading Crowley's Ægypt tetralogy, plus I just began Don Quixote (suffered water damage at some point), not to mention books borrowed from the library for research. In fact, I think it'll have to be Brave New World. Any book that can make promiscuity fun deserves a repeated reading. And I encourage everyone to read one of the challenged books from the American Library Association's list (even the Gossip Girl books have the right to be read and to an audience, I suppose). 

'Read & Re-Read' I Am Robot and Proud

Perfect Symmetry

Gorgeous new shimmery pop from Welsh indie kids Los Campesinos! 

'The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future' Los Campesinos!

Bounty

Tomorrow I begin harvesting Chinese cabbages. They're a variety of Monument cabbage - not the one I thought I'd planted (apparently this a common problem, even though the seed packet described the variety I wanted), but it'll still make gallons of kimchee. So I'm preparing the kitchen and turning it into my kimchee factory for the next two days. We may be forced to eat pizza and ice cream until we're able to cook again, but I'm pretty certain Lesha will manage to bear it somehow (she's awfully resilient). So here are some photos of the garden - beginning several weeks ago, the most recent from last week (and the cabbages are even larger now).

'Cook It Up (Madlib Remix)' Aesop Rock

It's All Too Much

Our neighbourhood in North Portland (University Park) is a delight to the eyes and nose. It's simply bursting with indescribably beautiful flora: trees (majestic, warty, delicate and fruit-bearing - our neighbours have Italian plums which shade our yard and we've benefited thereby with so much fruit), shrubs/bushes, grasses, vegetables (tomatoes and pumpkins everywhere - and, yes, I know they're actually fruits) and, of course, flowers - especially sunflowers. But, since the summer is rapidly ending, the sunflowers are suffering from advanced macrocephaly. They remind me of triffids, in fact (Lesha agrees that they're quite creepy - with their enormous expressionless faces). Still, I wish I could bear their burden for them. 

'Sunflower' Low

Art Attack

Damien Hirst is a humourless wanker of the first order. And Pharmacy is an iconic work of art? I'm mystified, truly.

'Art Attack' The Maynards

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag

I realized after posting the Gorey link that today is my (other) nephew's birthday, and in light of this my sister might assume that Gorey's work somehow indicated my feelings (conscious or otherwise) for him (or children as a whole). Which is completely untrue. I like kids, really I do (mostly) - there are many I even love. I merely stumbled into the Gorey website and decided I had to link to it. My nephew is probably the sweetest boy I know, and the funniest (ask him to tell you a joke, particularly a knock-knock joke). And what I said for his older brother's birthday is true of him as well; I don't see him often enough (it feels worse, in fact, because I moved to Massachusetts five months before his birth, and so have seen him even less frequently than his brother - and I can't believe I've been an expat for four years). Anyway, Happy Birthday from your west coast Aunt and Uncle, and I'll work on making a Gorey enthusiast of you.