The Original of Laura

My friend passed along this link to me a couple days ago to a New York Magazine article about Vladimir Nabokov's The Original of Laura, his last uncompleted work.  I've read Pale Fire and Lolita by Nabokov and enjoyed both of them (well, as much as you can enjoy a storyline like Lolita's) & after reading that article, I have this sense in me at this moment that every second I spend not driving to a bookstore to buy it is another copy lost, and by the time I muster up the strength to get there, they'll all be gone.  So I just wanted to let all of you people who read my blog out there know that this book sounds like a must-read, or a must-own, anyway.  A lost gem that was stored away in a safety box at a bank for 30 years while Nabokov's family tried to make a decision about what they should do with the manuscript: burn it (which would be adhering to his wishes) or have it published.  I think Sam Anderson put it well in the article when he said, "I’m still undecided about the ethics of its publication. (In his gratingly arrogant introduction—about which probably the less said the better—Dmitri Nabokov offers no real justification for his decision.) But from a purely selfish standpoint, as a reader holding the book in my hands, I’m glad Nabokov was overruled."  I cannot completely agree yet, because I haven't held the book in my own hands, let alone read it, but I'm happy to have the opportunity.  And with that, I'm off to buy it before everyone else in the world reads my blog and goes out to buy it for themselves! 

Manifesto Information, cont'd.

Upon further inspection of the red piece of paper, I found a phone number, email address, p.o. box number, and website for "Manifesto."  I still don't know if it's a novel or a collection of stories or poems or whatever else, because I haven't moved past the red piece of paper yet, but if you are intrigued by my short description in the long post 2 posts ago, then here are a list of places where you can find Manifesto for yourself: http://www.dedrabbit.com/

Support Manifesto, I guess?

Oh, yeah, and also...

I started the 29-day Giving Challenge, for obvious reasons.  You should give, too!

A Million Apologies, But Anyway!

So I suck at this blogging stuff but whatever.  I have a new project (or 2).  I went to visit a few fine folks in Western Mass Halloween weekend.  On Sunday, I was walking around Amherst before I left and my host took me to this record store he loves (I think it may have been called Mystery Train and I think there MAY be one of those in gloucester, mass as well, but anyway) and while I was there, waiting for people to finish buying things, I notice this white paperback.  Nothing is written on the cover or the spine; there is no title page; there are no clear partitions between sections, chapters, stories.  So obviously I was intrigued and felt compelled to buy it because it was $5.00 and why not?  I recently finished Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk and wanted to start a new book, so I decided to go with the mystery white book.

I opened it and inside there is a red piece of paper folded up.  In big type, sideways on the page, it says "MANIFESTO" (presumably the title of this work), and in much much smaller type on the top of the page it says "Manifesto is."  This is followed by titles upon titles upon titles, starting with The Catcher in the Rye and ending with the movie Koyaanisqatsi (which I really need to watch again).  I am making it my goal/project to be able to check off each listed work in this paragraph.  I will recreate the list here and if I have read it in the past 2 years, I will consider it done.  Movies I will rewatch regardless of the last time I viewed them, and I'm not sure if there is music involved, but I'll listen regardless of time, as well.  Here it goes.

Manifesto/my literature/movie consumption for an undetermined period of time is: The Catcher in the Rye, Fight Club (book or movie do you think?), Trainspotting, Junky, On the Road, The Sun Also Rises, Go Ask Alice, The Bell Jar, A Clockwork Orange, Fear of Flying, Tropic of Cancer, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Stranger, The Outsiders, No More Prisons, The Trial, Bomb the Suburbs, The Journey is the Destination, Leaves of Grass, A Separate Peace, Savage Inequalities, Passages, The Road Less Traveled, The Bluest Eye, Cherry, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, The Great Gatsby, Journey to the End of the Night, Giovanni's Room, Flaming Iguanas, Hunger, Crime and Punishment, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, War and Peace, Demian, Siddhartha, Rule of the Bone, Beneath the Wheel, Fast Food Nation, My Side of the Mountain, Man's Search for Meaning, Things Fall Apart, The World According to Garp, The Red Balloon, The Phantom Tollbooth, Watership Down, A Wrinkle in Time, My Antonia, Thy Friend Obadiah, The Little Prince (I'll read Le Petit Prince), Jonathan Livinston Seagull, Hamlet, King Lear, The Odyssey, Catch-22, Peace Pilgrim, The Basketball Diaries, Winesburg Ohio, Bread Givers, Into the Wild, Becoming Anna, You Can't Win, The Lord of the Flies, The Chocolate War, Night, Wuthering Heights, The Secret Garden, Don Quixote, The Last Bongo Sunset, White Noise, The Fountainhead, Moll Flanders, Harlot's Progress, Pilgrim's Progress, Les Misérables, MAUS, Paul's Case, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Ferdinand and the Bull, The Giver, Steal This Book, all works by Bukowski, Vonnegut, Kafka, Noam Chomsky, Steinbeck, Dickens, John Fante, Camus
films: Kids, Drugstore Cowboy, If..., Kes, Natural Born Killers, Wings of Desire, A Thousand Clowns, Baraka, The Last Picture Show, The Razor's Edge, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (I didn't know there was a movie for this, I will trade Fight Club the book for Fight Club the movie and The Unbearable Lightness of Being the movie for the book), It's a Wonderful Life, Life is Beautiful, A Man and a Woman, Crumb, Vagabond, In the White City, La Dolce Vita, Five Easy Pieces, The 400 Blows, Clerks, Spun, Spirited Away, The Color Purple, Il Postino, Donnie Darko, Julien Donkey-Boy, The Breakfast Club, Jules et Jim, The Journey of Natty Gann, Swept Away, Heathers, You Can Count on Me, You Can't Take It with You, Office Space, Old School, Rushmore, Permanent Vacation, Stranger than Paradise, Time Bandits, My Own Private Idaho, Empire of the Sun, Bonnie & Clyde, Edward Scissorhands, Midnight Conduct, American Graffiti, thirteen, Girl Interrupted, Explorers, Swingers, The Flight of the Navigator, Harry and Tonto, Deconstructing Harry, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, Harold and Maude, The Goonies, Good Will Hunting, The Truman Show, Scent of a Woman, American History X, Benny & Joon, Sonny, A Beautiful Mind, Reality Bites, Mad Max, Apocalypse Now, Napoleon Dynamite, Little Miss Sunshine, American Movie, Love Story, Igby Goes Down, Being There, The Legend of 1900, Out of Africa, Sophie's Choice, Bleu, Blanc, Rouge, Swing Kids, The Land Before Time, The Graduate, Shane, Stand By Me, Arcadia of My Youth, Man with the Movie Camera, Dogtown and Z Boys, Giant, The Never Ending Story, Citizen Kane, Platoon, The Killing Fields, Dark Days, Streetwise, Goodfellas, Hotel Rwanda, Born into Brothels, Hud, High Fidelity, Life of Brian, Brazil, Broadcast News, Newsies, Thelma and Louise, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Garden State, 24 Hour Party People, Koyaanisqatsi

So there you have it.  There's the list.  Every time I complete one, I'll write a review or commentary of some sort, and repost the list, taking away the completed film or book.  I'm going to TRY to have it all completed by year's end 2010, however, with all of the "all works by" authors, I might have to take some extra time.  We shall see.  I see a new library card in my future though for sure.

Before I start these though, I'm going to read the little white book that inspired this, Manifesto.  If anyone feels like joining me or if you're just looking for some  "new" books to read, movies to see, comment and let me know.

On another note, I started this blog last night.  So that's my second project.  A 50,000+ word novel in 30 days.  If anyone's interested, hit me up on Twitter (the link listed in the side bar OR http://twitter.com/makeshiftkatie), comment here, email me, message me in some way before Monday, November 23 (the start date), and I'll add you to the OFFICIAL ROSTERRRRRRR.  Go to that blog for more really exciting information about the novel-writing project.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

In the meantime...

I've been trying to be fairly active on my tumblr account lately (it's just easier) so visit that link on the side if you're interested.

A Note on My Slacking

Okay, so I'm overly aware of the fact that it's been exactly a month since my last post. 

I'm even more overly aware of the fact that it's been 8 days since I was supposed to write a 29-type list.  I have had a TextEdit doc of ideas going for those 8 days. 

Lastly, I am also overly aware that I went to Maine a couple weeks ago, and while there I broke my music challenge.  Now at the time I didn't consider it a break.  I never made this stipulation, but I think it should only count when I'm alone because forcing other people to listen to that shit is just cruel, cruel, cruel.  I left on Beyoncé before going to Maine and I haven't picked up since I've been back.  Even worse... I've listened to other music.  But in my own defense, I've barely even done that.  Also, part of this whole challenge was for me to hopefully make some elimination decisions in the end.  Instead, though I simply continued to download new music, that I wasn't even allowed to listen to because it didn't come in the first 2 letters of the alphabet or something and so I was just growing my collection and making no headway on fitting any of that onto an iPod.  So, the night before going to Maine I just went ahead and unchecked a LOT of music.  Blink-182 (except select songs) is gone.  Stand-up comedians, gone.  Things I've listened to in the past and know I'm never going to listen to, gone.  However, there are a lot of things on there still that I probably COULD uncheck (the whole Pussycat Dolls CD(s)), but since I haven't listened to them really yet, I don't want to make that executive decision. 

So, anyway, this is all just to say, to all of my fans.  I AM SORRY.  I have failed.  These things happen with me, more often than not.  I will pick up where I left off though, someday, I will.  And when I do, I will continue, starting with Beyoncé's "Listen" and moving on (or moving backwards as needed depending on new artists) as originally planned.  Today is just not that day.  I spend too much time at home to not at least listen to music I feel like listening to. 

Expect a list soon though, I'm trying to complete a couple and figure out which to use.  Amanda Dolan said it best: twenty-nine is a daunting number (for lists).  The first one came easily, but it's already proving to be more difficult than I expected.

Peace.

Music updates

So it's been almost exactly 5 days since I started my challenge (still not sure if "challenge" is the right word for it) to listen to my whole music library in order from A-numbered starts, etc.  I have only listened to 16 hours, 36 minutes, 51 seconds, and counting of music.  And I just added a lot to my library tonight (thanks to my good friend Ms. Caitlin Cullen).  So that means I have to backtrack and listen to Amy Winehouse, but I figure I'll wait until a CD break (post-Avril?) to do that so I know exactly where to pick up.  Anyway, this has been a slow moving project to say the least, and I still have no real ideas of anything interesting to do with it.  But I have taken some preliminary notes (when I remember to) and I figure at the very least I'll share them.
Things I've learned:
- Amos Lee is a male singer, and a pretty good one at that (John Legend-y?)
- Andre 3000 of Outkast actually sings, and not badly either (unless the Love Below singer is not him)
- Apples in Stereo are annoying.  Can you feel it? I don't know and I don't care. 
    - Energy sounds like Jenny Lewis

So.. rereading those here makes me realize they're not really all that interesting, but that is why I need YOU to give me ideas.  Because I am all dried out of them, it seems.  So please, to all my adoring fans, give me a project that I HAVE to stick to so that I can expand on this rather pointless assignment I've given myself. 

That's all for now.  I have been in the process of reading James Joyce's Ulysses for over two months now and have not made any real progress since coming home, so I'm going to try to fulfill one of my goals from my September 9th post and READ ULYSSES!!!!

Goodnight to all.