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I found another blog that has the same name as this one, so I’ve moved to a different blog: Indecisive Obsessive on WordPress.com

Drinking with Men: A Memoir – Rosie Schaap

I am not a bar regular and I will probably never be one, though Rosie Schaap’s memoir has given me a yearning to find a tucked-away cozy joint somewhere, which could be a little getaway when I need it. In every chapter Rosie takes the reader to a different bar, where she spent a significant amount of time and which became the context for that part of her life. When I think of someone spending most of their free time in a bar, drinking, I do not picture something jovial and merry, but rather something wallowing in depression and stagnation, regretting misspent years and opportunities… This book tells an absolutely and pleasantly contradictory story!

Rosie’s book and her life may well be packed with bars (bright and dingy alike) and filled with drinking of all shapes and sizes (happy, celebratory drinking, desperate sorrowful drinking, drinking to cement friendships or to give it a buffered farewell), but the feeling of the book surprised me. With that I mean both the feeling she puts into finding ‘her bar’ and maintaining the friendships she found there as well as the overall emotional impression I get of welcome camaraderie and friendly inclusion. There is much more of a warm homecoming feeling of acceptance, of finding a place and people to whom you can belong.

In Raleigh, VA.
Check out the epic road trip on Meerkat Travel Gang

It may be that at the time of reading it I completely understand and have in common that search for the circle of people you enjoy being around without pretense or effort, a place I can cuddle into with people who won’t pry, but will be human when you’re down. After being an obvious expat for a couple of years now (and being very aware of that label), I’ve looked for a place to genuinely laugh and meet new and interesting people who won’t ask me ‘what made you move to—?’ My search may have led me to book clubs, yoga classes or martial arts, but I recognized the same yearning and drive… and now I am not at all opposed to widening my search to finding a place I can call ‘my bar’.

Photo Credit: tricky (rick harrison) via Compfight cc

His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

I just finished reading the trilogy… 🙂 and here are my little thoughts

This series is very appropriately designated as young reader’s fiction: with simple themes of good and evil & fairness vs unfairness as seen through a child’s eyes. However, he does add a layer of context by not only making the Church an arm of evil and cruelty (as has been its portrayal in much of modern literature), but actually goes so far as to make the universally accepted drive of goodness (God) a passive antagonist. 

I still found the plot somewhat superficial, with a couple of main themes, but no underlying themes and plot lines that subtly alter characters and their motivations. The major story of Lyra’s journey runs parallel to other characters’, and there are instances when they briefly intersect her narrative, as a way of supporting her plans and decisions, but I didn’t find any meaningful growth in any of the characters as a consequence of their interactions. In fact, I couldn’t see any character growth in any sense – characters changed their minds, not because of internal struggle, and changes in vision, but merely as the slightest suggestion from outside (which leads me to think that none of them have strong characters or know their own minds). For example: whenever anyone says anything, they are immediately believed, in a few circumstances distrusted, but still taken at their word, which I found ridiculous.

Labeling the book as a young readers’ book does not give it license to write shallowly and with little variation in vocabulary, but Pullman does seem to take pains in his descriptions and creating novel contexts and settings. He wove fantasy and myth from many sources and cultures into a coherent multi-world, making the reader immediately comfortable in his imagery, because it would be something the reader is at least faintly familiar with. From witches, dæmons and giant armoured polar bears, to Tom-thumbian Gallivespians and hellish harpies – there is a fun mash-up of creatures.

Strangeness of language

People live consciously, in the context of their past (i.e. always aware of their past) and aware of the potential of their future… This is something fundamentally different from other creatures. There are definitely many things that separate us from the animal kingdom; most see this separation as a good thing – progressive – some see it as destructive, either way it’s inevitable.

All languages that I know of, have developed a way to express past & future. Most major languages have, anyway; certainly every language that is commonly used in more than one country. Why? Why is this concept, this perspective important to so many people? Ok… thinking about this on an individual level – we learn from our past and hope for our future, but why so profoundly? There are those absolutely slave to their past and those whose despair of their future is so devastating that it leads them to do the most absolute and irreversible of things: ending their own consciousness, they commit suicide.

What makes that concept of future so much stronger than the affirmation of being alive right now?

Postscript
I read this cool article on How Stuff Works about animals’ concept of time.