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"It was always that way with women I found threatening, that there was some unfulfilled longing to be..."

Sun, 12 May 2013 20:36:08 -0400

“It was always that way with women I found threatening, that there was some unfulfilled longing to be friends. I didn’t know quite why she threatened me. She was full of life and verve and a refreshing bluntness, and yet I wanted her contained instead of celebrated for these qualities I secretly admired.”

- The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner

Just Don't Go See the Movie

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:38:03 -0400

The new Ender’s Game trailer was released this week, which led to a flurry of hand-wringing articles over the ‘ethics’ of seeing a movie related to Orson Scott Card — known homophobe. I can only assume that people will continue to churn out these articles until the movie comes out, so get ready for a lot of nerd waffling. Would that I could walk up to every person who is debating if they should see this movie and simply tell them: DON’T.

Because that’s the easiest answer; if Card’s real-life, very gross politics offend you and you feel guilty for seeing this movie, then don’t. But if you’re still trying to come up with excuses for why you can see this movie, here are some counterpoints to help you not go:

1. But I loved the books as a kid!

So? Are you a kid now? Have you read those books since your childhood? Speaking as someone who absolutely loved Ender’s Game and the more ‘mature’ Speaker for the Dead, I can safely say that what you liked as a kid probably will not stand up to your adult-level scrutiny. Anyway, who cares if you liked it as a kid? Why does that automatically mean you have to see this movie? Michael Bay is making a TMNT movie, which I’m sure you also loved as a kid, does that mean you’ll see that movie too? Movie studios are going to keep monetizing our nostalgia because we stupidly keep letting them. Here’s your chance to stop this cycle and prevent the inevitable Animorphs movie from getting made.

2. But plenty of other authors are racist/sexist/homophobic

True. Do you read their books too? If they’re a modern author, I seriously doubt it, which is probably why I have seen a few articles that try to use older authors as a defense for why it’s ok to read books written by people with less than progressive views. “TS Elliot said a lot of terrible things about women, so it’s ok if I see the Orson Scott Card movie.”

What bothers me about this argument is, of course authors from two hundred/one hundred/50 years ago were terrible misogynist/anti-Semites/homophobes. Attitudes like that were culturally normal! For us today, however, saying something that is blatantly homophobic is not cultural sanctioned, and should rightly be criticized. Orson Scott Card is not writing over 50 years ago, he’s writing today, and today we know a little better about how minority groups should be treated in literature. (Also, please don’t use TS Elliot as a defense for Orson Scott Card, it invites unfortunate comparisons that only diminish your argument for why it’s OK to read Card.)

3. But I’ll see the movie and just donate to a gay rights group later

I saw this defense get used a lot when the whole Chick-fil-a fiasco was going down. It seems like the perfect ‘have your cake and eat it to’ but what it really shows is how you’re willing to put your selfish needs before the rights of an entire group of people. Is eating a shitty chicken sandwich really more important than standing up for gay rights? Are you so incapable of looking outside of your own desires, that you can’t possible conceive of not eating shitty chicken sandwiches or not going to see a mediocre sci-fi movie based a series of books written for children? How about you donate to a gay rights group and not see the movie at all?

Now, do I think that not going to see Ender’s Game will end bigotry towards gay people? No, I don’t. In the grand scheme of the fight for gay rights, Ender’s Game is just a little blip. But the attitude that surrounds stuff like Ender’s Game is what’s the problem. It shows that the second people are forced to even consider choosing between not supporting homophobes or giving into their own desires, they often will go with their desires. And that’s sad. It’s sad that we are so incapable of empathizing with other people that we can’t even stop ourselves from watching a shitty sci-fi blockbuster.

Look, I know it’s hard to police everything you consume and make sure it wasn’t created by a terrible person. I’m sure that there are lots of authors or movies that I like that were made by someone with less than great opinions on gay people or women or other groups. But that doesn’t mean we should give up trying. It’s a constant struggle, but the fact that we even have the option to ignore that struggle shows what a privileged position we’re coming from. As a straight white woman, I could just ignore all of this and go see Ender’s Game and my life would be exactly the same, because I’m privileged. But I support gay rights and I know that if I make this concession and see this movie, I will implicitly be supporting a system that allows men like Orson Scott Card to exist and have a very public platform and I just can’t do that with a good conscious.

Also, seriously guys, the movies looks really bad.

Game of Thrones is Horrible

Sun, 05 May 2013 22:47:06 -0400

“I don’t like that woman.” Arya Stark, in reference to a creepy woman who has randomly shown up at her group’s hidden camp in the middle of the woods.

“That’s because you’re a girl.” Smirking dude.

Do you get the HILARIOUS joke here? Smirking dude is telling Arya that she doesn’t like this suspicious woman not because she’s obviously suspicious, but because Arya’s a lady and all women are threatened by other women. It’s why women have no female friends and attack each other on sight.

I was ready to excuse this rather dumb (and sexist!) joke because it was being made by a character who clearly doesn’t matter (but who knows, given the way GRR Martin stories are written, this seemingly throwaway character could end up being the new king next season), but the most recent Game of Thrones episode had so many tone-deaf moments about women and gay men that I couldn’t ignore it.

Shortly after this great little scene about how women hate each other because we are all jealous/threatened by another female presence, there are several scenes where different characters make ‘subtle’ allusions to the fact that Loras Tryell is gay. By ‘subtle’ I mean that everyone keeps mentioning how much Loras just loooooves fashion. He just loves a gold, green brocade. Also, he is concerned about the correct usage of brooch vs. pin, because he’s gay, duh.

To top of the gay jokes and the women are all jealous monsters joke, there is a scene at the end of the episode where a character—who we’ve been led to believe will be important in some way—is unceremoniously killed off-screen. We only get to see her post-death, where it is clear that she was killed in a extremely sexualized manner. SHOCKING.

Now, Game of Thrones has a reputation for killing of characters at random (note: this does not mean that Game of Thrones has good writing), but the death of this character wasn’t random, so much as it was clearly a desperate attempt by the writers to quickly get rid of a side character as they struggle to contain a story that is already bursting with characters and plot. So this lady had to go, but it wouldn’t be Game of Thrones if the writers didn’t use one last opportunity to demean a female character by having her sexually brutalized for ‘dramatic’ purposes.

Seriously, this show is gross. I’m still watching it because I enjoy the majority of the actors and the plot is soapy enough that it keeps my attention, but after tonight’s episode, I doubt I’ll be able to watch more.

Why do adults read YA books?

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:52:02 -0400

”If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble.”

That quotes comes from an interview Claire Messud gave in The Atlantic about her most recent novel. The interviewer admitted to having a hard time ‘liking’ the novel’s main character, and this was Messud’s response. Disregarding the sexist undertones in this question (read any writeup on this interview for a discussion of its possible sexism), I think Messud’s statement brings up an interesting point about adult reading habits.

There’s a definite trend of adults who read books that are geared toward young adult readers. Ever since the Harry Potter series became a huge success, it’s not uncommon to see adults reading books like The Hunger Games or Twilight or any of the other series that are aimed at the teenage set. I have to wonder if the reason so many people my age and older are content with reading YA fiction is because they haven’t grown out of the idea that we’re supposed towant to be friends with the characters in books.

When you’re younger, the reason you read is primarily for escapism. The characters in YA books are meant to act as friends for the reader. All the popular books I loved as a kid either had characters who I wanted to be like or at least wanted to be friends with. But as I grew up, my literary needs changed, and I stopped seeing books as a substitute for friendship and more as a way to learn about the world around me. Suddenly the interiority and complexity of a character was more important than whether or not they’d make a good friend.

Maybe the adults who read YA fiction haven’t been able to make this shift. And can you blame them? Reading is hard enough as it is, and then you expect adults to devote hours of their time to the inner problems of some not so nice characters; it makes sense that people would want to avoid that. It’s easier to watch a character like Walter White on TV, where there’s a barrier of protection between his inner-self and the audience, than it is to read a book with a Walter White-type figure, where the complexities of the character are focused directly at the reader with a laser-like intensity. Visual media never affords its audience the chance to truly explore a character’s mind, whereas that’s all books offer, and I can understand why that might be something to avoid.

But I also think it’s a shame that adults might avoid books because they don’t like any of its characters. It seems too easy of an excuse to avoid any critical thinking. Having characters that you want to be friends with certainly makes reading easier, but personally I don’t believe reading should be easy. If reading is easy, then nothing is being challenged, the reader isn’t being forced to examine themselves or their world, and the whole purpose of reading is lost.

There’s a blister on the back of my foot. Every day it scabs over and every night I reopen it...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:10:01 -0400

There’s a blister on the back of my foot. Every day it scabs over and every night I reopen it when I go running. My shoe has a permanent red spot in it’s heel — a small sign of my evening ritual.

I love running. I love how it allows you to be completely aware of your entire body while at the same time it forces you to ignore any pain or weakness your body may feel. I’m far from a great runner, but I’m at the point where I no longer feel the need to run because of any obligation to exercise; I run because I enjoy it.

I also hate running. When I run, it’s one of the few times I’m completely alone in public and therefore, it’s one of the few times I’m aware at how much people look at me. It’s a disorienting contrast: being so in touch with the physical actions of your own body, while also being so painfully aware of how others are so blatantly scrutinizing that same body. Most nights I can block it all out and just pay attention to what my legs are doing, but not tonight.

The second I saw the car, I knew it was bad. It was stopped in a small side street, engine on. There was no other traffic preventing the car from moving, and I instantly knew the car was waiting for me. As soon I as I ran by, the lights turned on and the car pulled out alongside me. For a brief second, I thought it would continue on at a normal speed and leave me behind. But it quickly became clear that the car was slowing down, slowing down so it could pull up alongside me. The car was so close that I could now see its passengers: two young men, maybe my age, maybe younger. They both were looking at me. I tried not to look back — looking usually encourages them. I tried to just pay attention to running, to breathing, to not panicking. Then the car sped away. I saw one of the men in the car laugh. I kept running and tried not to cry.

The blister on the back of my foot is bleeding again. I wish that was the only mark my nightly runs leave on me, because at least this mark is something I have control over. At least this mark is something that I can stop.

"You always tell me the truth. You are my Mirrored Me, my Self seen by You. I want to discover all..."

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:41:58 -0400

““You always tell me the truth. You are my Mirrored Me, my Self seen by You. I want to discover all the secret archetypes of the body.” That evening we inaugurated the expression “discovering archetypes” to indicated our moments of greatest intimacy.”

- Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco

The Narrow-Mindedness of 'Accepted Wisdom'

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:01:36 -0400

Rock Paper Shotgun has a great interview with the lead writer from Dragon Age III on accepted sexism in the gaming industry. The whole interview is worth a read, but the crux of the argument is that the gaming industry makes excuses for not pursuing boarder gender representation, because it ‘doesn’t sell.’ I see this tautological excuse come up a lot in the games industry—games with equal gender representation don’t sell well because there aren’t many games with equal gender representation—and it absolutely infuriates me. Even people I really admire in the industry, like Ken Levine, seem willing to accept this idea as fact. I attended Levine’s Bioshock panel at this year’s PAX East, where one of the female audience members directly questioned Irrational’s decision to put Elizabeth—a female character that members of Irrational had just spent an hour praising—on the back of the game’s cover. Levine’s response basically boiled down to: ‘we make decisions because that’s what marketers tell us will sell, don’t worry about the cover and just play the fucking game.’ His call to stop harping over the cover was met with raucous cheers from the crowd (mostly men) sitting around me, as they happily applauded a woman being shot down for expressing her discomfort over how her gender is marginalized in a community she loves.

In Levine’s defense, he quickly apologized on Twitter after the panel. I know that he’d been fielding variations on this same question for months at this point, and a PAX panel was probably not the best forum to restart this discussion. Levine and Irrational are not solely responsible for changing the tide of women in games, and it does seem unfair to lob complaint after complaint at him for a cover design that everyone has mostly forgotten. On the other hand, his defense props up the bullshit accepted wisdom that so many other game devs tout when they explain why they can’t put more women in games. It’s an incredibly insulting idea that women in games mean the game won’t sell; not only to women, but to men as well. Because seriously, what kind of mouth-breathing troglodyte is incapable of enjoying something because it has a female protagonist? Who are these assholes and why does the gaming industry continue to defer to them? If the success of your game depends on appealing to this group of people, then maybe you shouldn’t make that game.

I’m glad that people like the Dragon Age team are standing up to this bullshit and refusing to submit to marketing wisdom that may have been true 15 years ago, but has absolutely no place today, when half of the games community is made up of women. I really believe that the industry is heading in a better, more egalitarian direction and that in ten years this dust up over female characters will be laughable. But for now, it’s important that men and women in the industry and the community continue to openly and publicly support the idea that a female presence is not going to completely tank your sells. That’s the only way we’ll ever be able to prove how utterly wrong this ‘accepted wisdom’ really is.

How Not to Compliment Women

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:54:36 -0400

A little background: I recently read this story on sexual harassment in the video game industry and was moved to write something. Just based on the many, many comments attached to that story, it’s very clear to me that a lot of guys are confused about how to speak to women in public. So, please, confused men, allow me to educate you:

If you see a woman in public, please do not feel the need to yell something out to her about how nice her legs/boobs/etc look. This is not a compliment, it is harassment. As someone who has been ‘complimented’ in this way, I can tell you that it does not feel good; it actually feels incredibly embarrassing. Every time someone has made a comment to me in public, I felt ashamed. Why do I feel ashamed? I feel ashamed because it’s a reminder that as a woman, my body is constantly on display and that certain people feel entitled to examine and comment on it; because it’s an emotional violation that makes me want to lock myself away and never show myself in a public space, for fear of the unwanted attention I might attract; because it shows that no matter what I do or say or accomplish, by the mere fact that I’m a woman, I will constantly face objectification based on my appearance; because it fucking sucks.

Now maybe if you’re a decent sort of person, you can see the problem with street harassment. What you might be having a harder time understanding, however, is the appropriate way to speak to a woman in a bar or other social setting—places where people usually go to meet someone. Well let me clear that up for: the same rules apply.

It’s just as gross and demeaning to tell a woman she has ‘nice boobs’ whether she’s in a bar or on the street. Sure, you can try to defend it by saying the woman was ‘dressed in a certain way’ and clearly ‘intended for someone to notice and compliment on her boobs/legs/butt/whatever’—but you’d be horribly, stupidly wrong. Yes, when women go out to a bar they tend to dress nice, (men do this too, it’s a thing). And yes, sometimes dressing nice or looking attractive is part of an attempt to meet someone and maybe, possibly have sex. But that does not mean that a woman is specifically dressing for your pleasure nor does mean she’s giving you consent to objectify her. If you want to flirt with someone, then flirt! There are less gross, more successful ways to get a woman to be interested in you, and they don’t have to involve reducing her down to a specific body part you happen to like.

Really, the best way to sum this all up is by saying that if you want to compliment a woman in public, treat her like a fucking human being and not a blank slate with appealing anatomy attached.

Things I Like.: What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:53:51 -0400

Things I Like.: What would you do if you weren’t afraid? :

meagan-marie:

As many of my female peers are doing at the moment, I’m reading a book by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg called Lean In. The first chapter asks: What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

My answer? I’d write this blog.

Hello. My name is Meagan Marie, and I’m a person. I’ve decided I’m going to…

Thank you for writing this; it’s so important for women to not be afraid or ashamed of speaking out against gross comments that get thrown at them under the guise of being ‘complimentary.’

"Men are made slaves to women by a cunning nature, who designed lust as the means to the continuation..."

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:19:26 -0500

“Men are made slaves to women by a cunning nature, who designed lust as the means to the continuation of out kind; we are made slaves as well by a trap of our own devising, whereby we desire to stand, as it were, for one of those stiff and smug photographer’s portraits, as man and wife amid our offspring in that proud and self-contained protective society, a family.”

- Warlock, Oakley Hall

idlethumbsblog: Actual artwork from US patent 8246454 B2,...

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:25:47 -0500

Commercial Content Manager

Interactive-Commercial Server

Romance or Action?

Use Arrows to Drive Car

McDonald's!

MAKE IT YOUR WAY

idlethumbsblog:

Actual artwork from US patent 8246454 B2, registered by Sony Computer Entertainment: “System for converting television commercials into interactive networked video games.”

The words ‘Commercial Content Manager’ made me sick to my stomach.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Word Feminism

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:03:24 -0500

Every so often, articles will crop up on the Internet that involve a lot of hand-wringing over the meaning and use of the word ‘feminism.’ Does the word fail to properly depict feminism’s goal of gender equality because it specifically denotes ‘female?’ Is this a bad word? Why are so man young women nervous about labeling themselves feminist? These articles always engender lots of arguing from all sides of the feminist universe, with an occasionally sprinkling of inflammatory anti-feminist comments, but very rarely do they get close to discussing anything substantive.

The reason a lot of people—especially young women—have a hard time identifying as feminist is twofold: 1. A lot of people don’t understand what ‘feminism’ means. They’ll say something along the lines of: “I believe women can do anything men can do, but I’m not a feminist,” which is infuriating to anyone who has ever read bell hooks; 2. Women, especially younger women, are afraid of alienating their male peers by identifying as feminist. I can attest to point number 2, because I used to be one of those women. When I was younger, and so focused on how others perceived me, I was afraid of labeling myself as a feminist. Who would want to hang out with a girl that’s going to complain about how women are portrayed in a Transformer movie?—was a common defense I had for not being more vocal about my beliefs. How will I ever find a boyfriend, was another, shameful fear I had about calling myself a feminist. But then, as I got older, and more confident in expressing myself, I stopped fearing the dreaded f-word, and more importantly, stopped having the desire to date anyone that would be potentially hostile to my feminism.

I understand where this frustration over labeling oneself as feminist comes from, but I have a hard time feeling to upset about it. At some point, people grow up realize that’s it’s OK and even important to express themselves, and learn to feel comfortable with feminism.

Being a Woman Online

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 12:07:51 -0500

It’s a widely known Internet fact that if you’re a woman—especially if you write about being a woman—you will experience some kind of harassment. Guarding against this harassment is similar to “protecting” yourself from sexual assault: don’t go around asking for it and it won’t happen, as if it is completely dependent on women to prevent trolls from calling them a bitch online.

Now I’ve never experienced the full weight of Internet misogyny, but I’ve also been very conscious of what I’m saying online and who I’m saying it to. And that’s bullshit. That’s bullshit that I, or any woman, have to even think about this for a second; that the fear of what reaction I might get is preventing me from expressing an opinion. Women shouldn’t have to worry about what kind of clothing they wear when they go out at night, and they shouldn’t have to worry about what beliefs they express in public or online. Self-censorship for fear of backlash is a terrible thing, and I for one am going to try and stop being afraid of the online misogynist boogieman.

Two Different Takes on Memory

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 10:34:17 -0500

In the past year, I’ve read two books whose focus was memory: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes and Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante. Both books use memory as a way to tell their stories, but the role that memory plays in each book is widely divergent. In Sense of an Ending, memory is a philosophical; Barnes uses it to show how we create our own understanding of our past that often does not match up with reality. Memory is a construct.

Compare this to Turn of Mind, which deals with memory as a physical idea—by showing how fragile our minds and our memories are to biological factors, in this case, Alzheimer’s. In Turn of Mind, there’s never any question on the validity of a memory or why a certain person would choose to remember events in a certain way; instead, memory and identity are excepted on face-value and are linked with the physical body. As goes the physical, so goes memory.

Of the two, the philosophical examination of memory is what interests me more, probably because it is a less horrifying. I’d much rather prefer ruminating on the philosophy of memory construction, than have to confront the reality that regardless of whether not memory is constructed, it will ultimately be betrayed by your physical body.

The one thing that both books agree on is the link between memory and identity. Once you remove the former, the latter ceases to exist.

idlethumbsblog: Idle Thumbs remixer laureate Snooglebum is...

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:17:35 -0500

idlethumbsblog:

Idle Thumbs remixer laureate Snooglebum is still going strong with his bizarre electronic interpretations of our podcast episodes. Earlier this month, he released “Edit it Out (Thump the Table Mix),” and now he has conjured up the light and airy “Instantly Winning Puffins.” Please enjoy it.

You know you’ve made it when people are doing remixes of random stuff you say on the Internet.

What does it mean the cancellation of 'Objectify a Male Tech Writer' mean?

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:34:00 -0500

Well most obviously it means that Leigh Alexander is open to criticism, since she received a lot of it for her ‘Objectify Male Tech Writers.’ The idea to raise awareness about the objectification that many woman face by objectifying men, was never going to amount to anything more than a giant Internet joke and no legitimate dialogue or discussion on any substantial gender issues in the tech/video game community. Alexander herself points out how the ‘objectify’ campaign would have unfairly lumped marginalized men (queer, transgendered, minority) together with the privileged men (usually white) of the tech community. All of these are fair criticisms to raise and it makes sense that Alexander chose to cancel. Still, with a little more thought and planning, I think ‘Objectify’ could have turned out better. Maybe instead of men, the focus could have been on ‘objectifying’ something ridiculous, like actual inanimate objects, to highlight how ridiculous it is when women are on the receiving end of such treatment. The major takeaway from this brief campaign and others like it— #1reasonwhy comes to mind— is that Internet activism is good and all, but it can only do so much when it comes to exposing problems of gender equality. Sometimes it takes more than a few jokes on Twitter or a viral hashtag to accomplish your goal. Still, I’m glad that there are women in the tech community who aren’t afraid to publicly confront these issues and deal gracefully with their failures or their successes, but I think we need to push harder, in more concrete ways if there is every going to be any lasting change.

I miss Russia

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 10:57:01 -0500

Every so often, I’m struck by an intense nostalgia for the period in my life when I was living in Russia. I miss my tiny apartment with its little bed; I miss the quiet town I lived in, where you could only find peanut butter at the fancy European grocery store; I even miss Moscow, especially Red Square at night.

It’s sad to think that a language/culture/history/country that meant so much to me for so many years, is no longer a prominent fixture in my life.

idlethumbsblog: Hello, Idle Book Club readers! We hope you are...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:48:25 -0500

idlethumbsblog:

Hello, Idle Book Club readers! We hope you are enjoying January’s book, The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, more than Sean is. Its episode will arrive in early February.

If you have already ready to get started on the next book, you’re in luck. Here is our schedule for the following three months:

February: By Blood by Ellen Ullman

March: Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

April: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

You Can't Read a Dead Man's Book

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 12:52:24 -0500

An old—well, older than me—copy of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, has been sitting on my shelf for the past eight years. It has followed me to every new location—my parents’ house, college dorm, back to my parents’ house, apartment—that I have lived in, where it has always been safely nestled inside a bookcase, untouched.

There are many books I own that I’ve never read; it’s not so uncommon a thing for people who prolifically read books. But The Name of the Rose is different from the other books I’ve bought and not read, because I didn’t buy this book. I took it. I took it from dead man.

Almost 10 years ago my grandfather died. His death was the first death I had to confront as an aware human being. My grandmother—his wife and my mother’s mother—died when I was five and therefore had no real emotional or intellectual understanding of what had happened. But I understood when my grandfather died; I knew very well what death was, after I knelt over the body and prayed for my dead grandfather.

In the aftermath of his death, I helped my mother and her siblings collect my grandfather’s possessions. They had already performed a version of this when they had moved him from his home—the home my mother grew up in and the one my grandmother died in— to a rest home. That first move had been the main show, what we were doing in the rest home felt like an epilogue. There wasn’t much left to pack away, mostly books. Somehow I managed to leave with several of my grandfather’s books.

The man was a prodigious reader. An immigrant from Italy, he could read in Italian and English, as well as Latin and Greek. I have one memory of being seven and my grandfather leading me up to his study where he kept his nice edition of the Iliad. I remember how he proudly opened the book and pointed to the side by side Greek to English translation, and I remember never loving my grandfather more than in that moment. I don’t know what happened to that copy of the Iliad, I assume one of my uncles has it now. What I have, is The Name of the Rose.

At first I didn’t want to read the book because it felt wrong to touch something that belonged to a dead person. As the years went by, that feeling of guilt waned and my excuses for not reading it grew flimsier. Finally, after a number of people recommended the book (and here I discover a new guilt: it wasn’t my grandfather who finally convinced me to read this book), I took the book from its resting place on the shelf and started reading. I thought at first that I could ignore the fact that the book I was reading belonged to a dead man, but then I saw this note, written by my uncle in the front cover:

Dad,

Happy Birthday. Please read this fast.

Love,

Mike

The first time I saw the note, I cried. I cried because my grandfather was dead but also because I knew that one day I would be in the same position as my uncle: finding leftover notes to parents who are long dead. You can’t read a dead man’s book and not think about these things.

"As the doctors have said: Beautiful also are the breasts, which protrude slightly, only faintly..."

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 22:14:30 -0500

“As the doctors have said: Beautiful also are the breasts, which protrude slightly, only faintly tumescent, and do not swell licentiously, suppressed but not depressed…””

- The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco