Best of 2011

 #10 - A Winged Victory for the Sullen

A Winged Victory for the Sullen is a minimalist project composed by two veterans of the genre, Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Dustin O'Halloran. I spent a lot of time this year scouring the blogosphere for minimalism because I spent a lot of time alone working and reading. Really well composed post-classical minimalism has the ability to immediately calm me down, take me somewhere else, but it can also easily melt into the background when focus is required elsewhere. If I ever found myself frustrated with tedious tasks at work, this is the album I'd throw on. If I wanted to spend a night diving into a literary classic, I knew that the beauty of this composition would set the mood without requiring my full attention, leaving me able to focus on characters and plot twists.

This doesn't mean A Winged Victory is forgettable. In fact for me it is one of the most memorable albums of the year. The instrumentation of this album may be simple, but it's used to great effect employing countless heart-stopping key changes, beautiful solemn melodies, and a sense of tension and release that can only be described as oceanic. This album moves in waves, some high, some gentle. It reminds me of sitting on a boat in the middle of a lake feeling the soft, fluid motion. And this analogy applies most effectively to the ending. When you reach the end of the final track "All Farewells are Sudden," it's as if you take that first step on to dry land after an afternoon floating directionless under the sun. It forces you to re-orient yourself. But instead of dry land, the transition is back to reality. And I'm going to be quite honest, sometimes I chose to forgo reality, hitting the repeat button instead.

Best of 2011: Prologue

There are good years and bad years, memorable years and years that will fade into the dark cellar of forgotten memories. 2011, for me, will be forgotten. I don't have any bitterness about that reality; it gives me perspective. It means that certain aspects of my life are stagnating and I have to work harder next year to find direction. I can't help but think that my difficulty finding great music this year was a reflection of that stagnation. I found myself perpetually frustrated, upset by the creative meanderings of long-loved veterans, disappointed with new acts from all musical movements. And those lucky few who made it into my list are an odd bunch. For me they represent a group of bands that spent 2011 hunkering down and waiting out a rainy season; a group of musicians that played to their strengths because anything else would have been swatted away by the spirit of the times, who in 2011 was an unforgiving specter.

Book: The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe

I can't remember how many times I've gone to Barnes and Noble on a whim with the intention of finding this book, every time being disappointed at the void where Abe's name should be. But, this Christmas season I've been given another route of literary indulgence... an eReader... specifically a little black and white Nook. When I first sat down with it I was a little lost. I'd just been given the ability to instantly read any book I wanted and I didn't know where to start. So I fiddled with the settings for a bit until The Woman in the Dunes hit me as an obvious test run for my new gadget.

I'll first start off by saying, "Yes, I am a big fat hypocrite for getting an eReader having waged wars with people over the loss of the real, the tangible, the textures and even the smell of REAL books." I have no excuse; it was a gift and it's neat... I'll still be reading quite a few real books, but it's nice to know that for rare ones, I no longer have to wait a week for UPS ground delivery.

As for The Woman in the Dunes. I really quite liked it. It's funny how different it is from the other Japanese surrealist author I know and love (Murakami). Abe is much more clinical and cold, and the narrative is much tighter and simpler. While Murakami is a vine wrapping itself around the most colorful of environments, Abe is a lonely tree in the middle of a desert.

The story follows an entomologist on a trip to the shore searching for undiscovered insects, particularly beetles. He happens upon a small village with odd inhabitants who, at first, only concern themselves with whether or not the man is with the police (which should be a clear sign to run the other way). But the entomologist insists that he must stay the night in the village and leaves it up to a seemingly friendly old man to arrange room and board for him. He's led to a cabin precariously situated at the bottom of a sand pit and learns the next morning that the villagers intend for him to stay. The village turns out to be a collection of similar pits with homes that must be protected from the shifting sand. They shovel out an amount of sand daily from around the cabins so they aren't degraded and ultimately buried. The entomologist is placed in a cabin belonging to a widow because she doesn't have the strength to maintain her home by herself. And he is expected to stay there against his will for as long as he lives....

Over the course of the novel the man makes several attempts to escape while dealing with existential conflicts about free will, about personal potential and contentment, about lust, and ultimately the frayed edges of love. He approaches each internal and external conflict with the cold, calculated demeanor one would expect from someone who made a life out of studying and preserving insects. And because of his distant attitude throughout, you never feel that close to him. The reader is forced to view him more as a caged mouse, a subject to study and formulate hypotheses about. And even though I generally prefer warm characters who I feel close to, who I can relate to, it was definitely captivating to watch the 30-something scientist scurry around his sandy pit, searching desperately for means of escape.

Kobo Abe was introduced to me as a recommendation after reading Murakami, and although they come from the same country and contribute to the same genre, it's hard to say that they have anything else in common; though I do enjoy them both thoroughly and will be seeking out more from Abe in the near future.

5/5

Gadget: Hifiman EF2A Headphone Amp

I'm a young guy. I don't have any intention of calling myself an audiophile. My expertise in Hi-Fi audio is at the level of an apprentice at best, but I am on the road. My most recent obsession was how to get the most out of a pair of studio headphones I bought for recording. When I first got them, I tried them out with some favorite tunes but was never impressed with the output. After months of dealing with their lack luster performance I had an epiphany. What if the headphones were just under-driven? The drivers are quite big to be fully powered by a sub-standard on-board sound card.

So I went looking for a headphone amp... something with charm, warmth, enough power and still budget friendly. These filters led me right to the Hifiman EF2A Tube headphone amp. It was easy to setup, just plugged it in via USB and Windows immediately recognized it as the default sound device. And from there it's just a matter of leveling it correctly. This is an important note which I found after doing a little research. Amps don't like to boost overly weak signals, so it's important to max out the volume on the PC first, then use the volume control on the amp to adjust to a comfortable level.

As for the sound... I am more than impressed. I finally understand what all these geeks are talking about when they say "sound stage." With this unit you can clearly hear the stage on which each instrument resides. There is so much space and clarity in whatever I throw it at, it's as if I'm listening to all of my favorites for the first time. The highs are crisp and unbelievably detailed and the lows are accurate and hit harder than I ever expected them to on this set of headphones. Overall I couldn't be happier, and this is still an entry level setup so I can only imagine what the really high end hardware sounds like...

As an aside, if you get this amp, I would recommend replacing the cheap Chinese made tubes with some old new stock made in the USA 6AK5's. You can find them all over the place on Ebay. They're not that pricey and give the amp a little more warmth.

5/5

Feature: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Consumerism

I was at a bar last Friday with my friend Josh. Upon entering, Josh captured the attention of a fairly attractive girl. She said, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" to which he replied, "I don't think so, but I get that a lot." He does get that a lot; he has one of those familiar faces that never seems burdened by internal conflict. The girl, who's name I can't remember at the moment, was with a few friends. They live in NYC and were in town visiting their stomping grounds, the bars that kept them sane while they attended College.

The overall interaction was going well, so well that the aforementioned girl asked me if I'd like to accompany her to a brewfest in the area the next day. I was glad to accept the invitation and immediately pulled out my phone to put in her number. This is when things fell apart... As I mentioned this girl was attractive, but it was her friend that had my attention for most of the night; she was tall, beautiful, but I knew from the start that the only reason she was there was to humor her friends. Her cold demeanor made it clear that she had no intention of wasting her time talking to a guy she'd never see again, and I understood this completely. But, I was not prepared for her reaction when I pulled out my phone. She sneered, she scoffed, she judged me without mercy. All this over my lack of a smart phone.

At the time this seemed like an overly harsh reaction, but it was explained. She works in marketing and her target demographic is young people with smart phones, so it's rare that she'll interact with anyone who doesn't have one. It's clear now that her actions were influenced by her profession and that there was no reason for me to take it personally, but in that moment I felt castrated.

I've always rebelled against what I perceive as consumerist marketing. I have a special hatred for marketing campaigns that insidiously work their way into the mainstream, causing people to feel abnormal for not buying the newest, shiniest products. I don't own a TV, I prefer to listen to music on a turntable, I prefer to read actual printed books. I've always argued that the tangible always outweighs the virtual. You can feel the tangible, you can own it, you can selectively share it, you can pass it on to future generations. The virtual is just a series of 1's and 0's, basically information; you can't own information and you shouldn't be sold information. Information can be shared, but not selectively. When you share information it is replicated infinitely without any practical means of control because information is addictive. We love new information; we love to fill in the framework of our perception of the world with as much detail and color as possible because the more you know about your environment, the more capable you are of navigating it.

And this instinctual addiction is why the marketing campaign that is the smart phone was so organically adopted. It is basically a tool to find and display information that you can carry with you. Now, I have to be clear. I have no problem with information sharing, I actually find the ability to answer questions immediately with google to be quite convenient, but is it necessary in my life? Not in the least bit. I have patience enough to wait until I get home to get my fix of information. I have no interest in keeping up with the social networking revolution. I'd much rather focus on my friends and my environment without distraction.

But, will I be buying a smart phone? I'm not entirely sure... I would love to meet someone like me. Someone who thinks a night spent inside listening to records by candlelight would be a great time. But, I've only met maybe 2 people in my 26 years who feel that way. So I'm faced with a conflict. I love people, I need to be around them constantly, to simply enjoy their company. I feel like every minute spent alone is a minute wasted. Having this particular character trait means I need to be accessible; I need to fit in with the majority. Right now the majority likes smart phones, and tablets, and social networking. So, given the ultimatum to buy into a few consumerist plots or to be alone, I'll take consumerism. I don't have to abandon my convictions completely; I can keep them close to my heart and wait patiently for someone to come along who shares them.

Overcooked

dead men
baking in the fire
screaming for freedom,
smell of burning hair
singed pride
hopeful eyes,
unaware of brotherly comfort,
waiting for illusion
to save them
from feeling nothingness
in nothingness,
despair for what is,
not for what isn't
which is the greater issue
and reason for their
abandonment

Book: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami is my favorite author. I may have said it before, but it's important to establish what that means. I have many interests and hobbies and usually find myself completely unwilling to have absolute favorites in any given artistic medium, creating endless top 10 lists instead. And depending on when you may ask, those lists could be wildly different. But if we're talking books, the answer will always be the same.

Kafka on the Shore is one of Murakami's more surreal novels with heavy use of symbolism and plot lines that balance on the knife edge between profound and ridiculous. The narrative is split into two main arteries that alternate from chapter to chapter. One storyline follows Kafka Tamura as he runs away from home. The other follows an older, mentally disabled man named Nakata.

Kafka is presented as someone with purpose, someone who has control over his destiny. He decides to run away from home because of an unhealthy relationship with his father. His journey is driven by his need to find his mother and sister who abandoned him when he was very young. The control that he seems to have even extends to his perception of truth. He sees the big picture and creates his own puzzle pieces of truth that fit exactly where he needs them to even though they are never explicitly confirmed.

Nakata on the other hand doesn't seem to have any control over his destiny. He doesn't have the mental capacity to worry about his purpose or judge events as positive or negative in context to his universe. He simply happens upon certain cues to action and he acts as if he has no alternative. In this way his body is a vessel for some unnamed architect.

Kafka represents the real world throughout most of the novel. His conflicts are real and he seeks real answers. That is until he is brought right to the edge of reality; as he falls in love with the ghost of a still living woman, as he travels to a different existence and is nearly trapped there for an eternity.

Nakata represents the surreal. Nakata can speak to cats, he murders a cat killing maniac by the name of Johnny Walker (yes, the same one who makes the whiskey), he gets involved with Colonel Sanders, (yes, the mascot of KFC) and he is given the responsibility of opening and closing the door to the world Kafka is nearly trapped in, where time doesn't exist, there is no such thing as written word, and people conduct tasks not because they choose to, but because they have to.

The story has so many unexpected turns, so many life-altering conflicts and literally every detail is interpretive. I can't imagine any one person feeling the same way about this book, or coming to the same conclusions. This is a big reason why I love reading Murakami. He writes poetry in the form of a novel, poetry that goes on for hundreds of pages and never gets at all boring or stale.

5/5

Book: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

I've had this sitting on my shelf for a while. It was one of those books that I bought on a whim but just never got around to sitting down with. My motivation for buying it was its reputation as a sci-fi classic, an example of vision written way ahead of its time. Upon finishing it, I can confirm that it is definitely required reading for anyone even slightly interested in sci-fi but it goes far beyond science fiction.

The first thing I noticed flipping through pages is that Mannie, the narrator, has a unique dialect. The only way to explain this is to say that he speaks more efficiently than what is generally accepted as grammatically correct. He does this by leaving out articles and really any word that is unnecessary in conveying a thought. At first this threw me off balance; I found myself rereading sentences so I didn't miss anything, but after the first few chapters I adjusted to it. The fact that the story and descriptions remain so vivid with so few words is really remarkable.

Although Mannie was the center of attention for most of the novel, it was hard to take my focus off of Mike. Mike aka HOLMES IV is a computer that had achieved sentience without anyone noticing. Mike was originally tasked with controlling all commerce in a lunar colony where the story is based. When the computer makes an error by writing a check for an absurd amount of money to an underling, Mannie is called in to repair him. Mannie soon discovers that the error reported was Mike experimenting with humor and it was through the computer's interest in writing effective jokes that a relationship between a computer and his technician grew.

From here the story explodes. Mannie becomes involved in a movement of revolution against a political conglomerate known as the Federated Nations. To explain why I'll have to describe a little history as it was described to me. A lunar colony was originally established as a penal colony that earth used to send its most dangerous prisoners. The story begins several generations after its establishment when the prisoners had made lives for themselves, started families, and evolved into regular citizens, working, living like citizens of earth. But the Federated Nations never recognized them as a sovereign nation and ruled them as if they were still the degenerates that were originally sent there. The tension of this tyrannical rule eventually reached a tipping point and Mannie as well as several other outspoken characters banded together as the leaders of a revolution, including Mike who was used to devise strategy and weigh the odds of every decision made to ensure their success.

All this makes for a great story, and a believable one, which is unique in the sci-fi genre.The only criticism I have is one that I have for most sci-fi and that is a coldness that left me feeling a little empty when reading scenes of war and loss. The characters didn't show quite as much emotion as I like, although this is nearly balanced by the last few pages, which I can't describe in case you want to pick this up, which you should. It's worth it.

5/5

Movie: The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick

After hearing all the mixed reviews, the quiet respect balanced with passionate hatred, I decided that seeing this film was a top priority. And since I like to see people's reactions just as much as a good film, I'm glad the audience at the theater reflected the divided opinions of critics. I am not exaggerating when I say half the people who were in the theater were fuming with frustration, with anger, maybe even more than half considering what I witnessed was only the most intense reactions. People walked out, and they did so as a statement, with loud grumbling, body language to display their revulsion. What were they expecting from this film? Didn't they read the reviews, the criticisms? Maybe it was just to say "I read this movie was a piece of shit, I'm going to confirm it."

I don't know what they were expecting but I'll tell you what I was expecting. I was expecting a beautiful film, a film that describes life on a grand scale, the most grand scale possible and reduces it down to the most intimate details of human existence. Malick began by grounding his film, by introducing us to his characters and setting their lives into motion with hope and grace. Then he gave these characters context... and by context I mean, he created the universe on screen. He showed us cosmic explosions, star producing nebulae, galaxies and finally our planet. Then he showed us the beginning of life on our planet, simple organisms evolving, becoming more complex, fighting for life. He even showed us a few dinosaurs. Yes, this film about human fragility has a scene with dinosaurs... Malick thought, "Well, of course! how would we be here if not for all the life that came before us?!" And he was right; it was this sort of scope, the unbelievable breadth that made this film special.

The bulk of the film revolved around a traditional family of the 1950's era. Malick spent a lot of time focusing on the fragile relationship between the father and the oldest son. The father played by Brad Pitt demanded respect and obedience and the son was overburdened, he wanted to rebel and create mischief and animosity grew between them; animosity which became part of their relationship. Malick did such a wonderful job as the architect of this relationship, showing minute details, developing complex emotions, and adding each conflict to a big picture which followed the son into his adulthood where he had to deal with unresolved issues, insecurities, but also strengths which the father successfully instilled upon him. This wasn't accomplished with traditional storytelling though, it was accomplished using metaphor and surreal imagery. This film, simply put, is on screen poetry. It accomplished a whole lot, but in the end it was about interpretation. Short powerful scenes were meant to explode in the viewers imagination, letting us fill in most of the detail. Malick pulled this off without a single misstep; I remember being guided with care through the story, through the most ambitious story I've ever seen in a film.

5/5

Discontent - Parasite

I figure it's time I start uploading some of the little music projects I work on now and again. I wouldn't say any of it can be considered good song-writing yet, but it's progress toward that ultimate goal. The name I've chose to represent this music is Discontent. It seemed fitting for the style, which is a slow trotting sort of black metal with emotionally charged melodies and lyrics. This short project is called Parasite.

Movie: Monsters

Another film that was originally released well under the radar of pop cinema but caught my attention because of its originality. The story takes place several years after an invasion by an extraterrestrial life form that isn't initially explained beyond its introduction to earth by a recovered space probe. At this point in the invasion, massive tentacled beasts wander a large portion of Northern Mexico with the Mexican and US militaries attempting to keep them contained and eventually wipe them out.

With this sort of premise one might expect an action movie, an "us versus them" summer feature of bloody battles and inspiring speeches, but this wasn't the vision of writer/director Gareth Edwards. He instead chose to focus on just two very modest characters; an aspiring photographer for a notable publication and the daughter of the publication's CEO. Scoot, the photographer, was originally put on assignment to photograph the beasts but is asked to find and escort Whitney, the daughter, to the United States border. We follow Scoot and Whitney through poor villages and deserted cities while they do their best to avoid the aliens which are portrayed as beautiful creatures, capable of immense destruction and violence, but not in an evil way; in an innocent, instinctual way. They are simple animals thrown into a civilized world they could never understand. Instead of being the conflict, like every other film about aliens, they are a symbol. The major conflict is human emotion, it's the romantic tension that builds up between Scoot and Whitney in an environment of confusion and fear.

That said, Monsters might be a snooze-fest for some, but it's a film I enjoyed because it explores human emotion in such a refreshingly different environment and does so rather effectively.

4/5

Feature: Spirituality: A Transitory Condition or Ultimate End

Like many people in my generation, I was raised with religion. Although I can't remember the first encounter with faith, I can remember many Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings reading from the Bible, taking part in arts and crafts, ultimately treating the presented subjects with the same general indifference as early Math and English. Yet it was ingrained into me. There were times in my childhood when I pleaded with God to give me solutions to my problems and sometimes I even thought I received answers by interpreting things around me. I would say "If things are going to be alright, please make the wind blow." And if I felt the tiniest breeze through my hair, on my skin, I would posit that things were going to be just fine. This mentality went on for a time then ended.

The transition to atheism wasn't sudden. It was something I grappled with daily, because it meant no one was around to tell me things were going to be alright. I was alone in life and the idea of death now terrified me. Instead of heaven and the ability to carry out all the things I would never get a chance to on earth, death became a void; it became the moment when the lights go out and existence ceased. I would have brief relapses thinking there needs to be a God because I need to live forever. But this became unreasonable and eventually I stopped thinking about faith as a rational option. It became a fairy-tale no different from Santa Claus.

I can't say whether any of my friends were feeling the same thing around the same time because I didn't talk about my feelings with anyone. The subject didn't come up and I was very shy, a follower of who I interpreted as stronger, more capable classmates. But in my mid-twenties the subject comes up a little more often. Not necessarily because I bring it up, but when meeting new people, it's a "getting to know you" topic. Whether or not a person has faith is very telling of their personality, or at least most people think it is.

This leads me to a conversation I was having the other day with a new friend at a local bar. In fact it's the conversation that provoked this post. She told me that she doesn't believe in organized religion, but maintains that she is a spiritual person. I'm no stranger to this ideology. But it's difficult to define such a belief system because it means something different for every person who believes it.

I would normally dismiss the stance, shamelessly and coldly proclaiming that any amount of faith is ridiculous. But I find myself more open-minded these days, maybe not so open-minded to adopt the spiritual ideology as my own, but open-minded enough to relax my interpretation of spirituality so that I can accept that one can be rational and still believe in something that can't readily be sensed.

But why would one need spirituality? Is being spiritual just a relaxed sense of religion for those too stubborn to dismiss the relentless brainwashing of their childhood, or is it the ultimate ideology that is destined to thrive in a modern society?

My interpretation of spirituality is this: It's important for a person to feel like his or her life has a purpose and that their existence is part of something bigger. But, instead of equating this personal need to anything supernatural it's enough to simply understand that the human race is a species of the earth, and your purpose is simply to contribute to the success of our species. This might seem so obvious but when you take a second to think about it within the context of modern society, the concept of the human race as a species is incredibly foreign.

Most of us get up from our warm beds, go to work, come home, engage in some leisurely activity and go to sleep in an endless cycle of "productivity," but what is the purpose of such an existence? The simple truth is that for many people there is no purpose to their life because capitalism is not compatible with the idea that the human race is a species of animal. In the model of capitalism, the ultimate purpose is not bettering our neighbors, the ultimate purpose is growing individual wealth. This means that the focus in our current economic system is on creating opportunities for people to grow as individuals. These opportunities are in the form of jobs, but jobs aren't created with an explicit purpose of helping society, rather jobs are created to give someone the chance to make money. We go about our daily lives with the goal of "getting by" or making enough money to sustain a successful life, but we have no connection to the rest of our species. We're left to imagine the connection with our brethren and with the earth. And this act of imagining our place in the world can easily be interpreted as spirituality.

This is admittedly a big jump in logic, assuming a connection with the earth and the need to explain that connection, but I don't think it's an entirely unreasonable one. In this explanation the earth is a symbol for the origin of life and we as a species have been obsessed with our origin since we had the good sense to question it. This is, in fact, the most common argument in any theist v. atheist debate. Since we haven't figured out how the first strand of DNA was created, we can't positively reject any explanation for the creation of life. So the theist naturally concludes that a god is responsible. Theists, or in context to my argument, spiritual people, attempt to answer difficult questions with easy answers. In this case, the question is "Do I have a purpose?" and the answer is "Of course I do because I feel a connection to something bigger." But instead of realizing this connection might be to our species and millions of years of evolution by natural selection, they explain the connection in terms of their individual life, their individual success, which was ingrained in them by our selfish society model. And since there is no purpose of an individual life, the average person is forced to make one up in the form of some faith-based ideology.

So is spirituality the best explanation for our purpose in modern society? I think for right now it is, because it gives people the motivation to educate themselves, to educate others and to grow. As long as capitalism reigns as the dominant economic system of modern society, we'll keep interpreting the world in terms of our individual growth and success and require faith to keep us prosperous. But, if in the future we start thinking about progress in terms of the species rather than our individual importance then there will be no need to explain our purpose with spirituality. We'll understand that we are born of the earth to further our species and will return to it in death.

Movie: The Ice Storm

Lately I've been using the Criterion Collection to guide my less than frequent forays into forgotten cinema. Browsing through lists and lists of honored films The Ice Storm seemed worthy of my attention.This is a character driven film depicting two neighboring families and the complex conflicts of marriage and infidelity, of youth and sexual confusion. The film is wonderfully scripted and acted although I can definitely understand why it didn't get much attention in the theaters. The story is dense with conflict, but there are hardly any resolutions. There's not a single moment where the viewer is instilled with hope, with the feeling that everything is going to be OK. Rather all of the conflicts pile up, one on top of another, until the town is blanketed in ice by a passing storm. This might not seem like an important detail for a story about emotional conflict and fragility but the way it's presented and the way each character reacts to it is ultimately nothing short of beautiful story-telling.

5/5

Book: South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

It's Valentine's Day. Fitting I would finish this book just in time for the infamous holiday. South of the Border is at its heart a love story. It's one of Murakami's more modest offerings but it still carries the emotional weight he's known for and after having read a few books that were heavy on satire and light on emotion, this was refreshing.

The novel follows Hajime, the main character, from his childhood through to adulthood highlighting relationships with various girls. His first experience was with Shimamoto, who he perceived as perfect and it was funny how Murakami described their compatibility. He noted things like how she walked and that they loved the same music. It's funny because the answer I usually give when asked to describe a perfect mate involves the walk and musical taste. Anyway, he's separated from this girl and left with an enormous void which he spends the rest of his life trying to fill. The following relationships were simply a response to feeling lonely, and the want to explore the physical aspects of dating. He never finds anything similar to the love he felt for Shimamoto with anyone else, and even winds up marrying a girl he views as a good friend to have kids and find success in his life.

The conflict is presented when Shimamoto reenters his life by coming into one of the bars Hajime now owns. Even though forty years have passed since he last saw her, the primal attraction he felt when he was younger is even stronger now and it turns his life upside down. Shimamoto is however caught up in something Hajime can never know about and she leaves without warning several times just to come back months or years later.

Shimamoto's mysteriousness introduces elements of the surreal which should be expected when reading Murakami. She never gives a single detail about her life, or if she's in any trouble. All the reader is told is that people are watching her, protecting her, and that she suffers from some affliction that causes her to go into a sort of arrest unless she takes a certain medication. This lack of detail forces the reader to make his own conclusions about what's going on; to interpret little fragments as parts of a puzzle with many pieces missing. Eventually all this ambiguity leads to the climax of the story when Hajime must make the decision to either be with Shimamoto and accept that he'd be throwing his entire life away or never see her again. At first we're led to believe Shimamoto is asking him to leave his wife and family, but this ultimatum may mean Hajime has to sacrifice much more than that.

One of Murakami's shorter, simpler novels, but if you like deep emotional characters grappling with other-worldly conflicts, this is essential reading.

5/5

Book: Women by Charles Bukowski

This is my first Bukowski and it was a harsh introduction. I had no idea what I was getting into but I'm glad I found another writer with such lawlessness, such complete disregard for etiquette and good taste. Bukowski shows no concern for anyone except himself. I can picture him being very similar to his protagonist Henry Chinaski. Henry's only concern was how to make life move quickly and painlessly. He had given up on love, health, culture, spirituality. Anything that most people find profound meaning in was an annoyance for old Hank. He simply wanted to find pleasure in the easy, while doing what came naturally to him, which was writing.

The story finds Chinaski at the peak of his career with women flocking to him, fans of his romantic belligerence. Most of the women didn't mean anything to him and as soon as they spoke out of turn or challenged him he simply walked away without a raised word, without the slightest remorse. The women he did enjoy had grace, beauty and intelligence but were ultimately victims of insecurity. He kept the few in constant torment, informing them of other girls he would fuck and leave. I could say that he had honesty, but in this context that wasn't a quality of his character, it was a complete disregard for human feelings. But, this behavior kept him writing, it kept him alive when his body was abused beyond repair.

I have seething hatred for Chinaski yet I'm constantly drawn to subject matter like this. It's just another example of the senselessness of life, the insanity of it. It's comforting to read about characters like this because it makes me feel like I'm not the only one who's wandering around trying to experience as much of the fringe as possible. I would like to walk to the edge and look over, but in all honesty I don't have the balls to do so. Chinaski did and will die with memories of his exploits without regret because he was sufficiently desensitized by a harsh past and liberal amounts of booz. I hate Chinaski, but I envy his fearlessness. As for Bukowski, I'll keep reading his stuff for short glimpses of clarity, brief moments of the profound, with backdrops of absurdity.

5/5

Book: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

I'm constantly playing catch up, constantly seeking out books and movies and music I should've experienced before, and I've been thinking about why I interpret my situation this way. It's certainly not for my own personal enjoyment, although I do enjoy most of what I absorb. I think it's simply because I'll have one more artifact of culture to share with someone else. I yearn for someone to ask me what the last book I read was, so I can reply without hesitation, "the 200 page acid trip titled Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." And then I could describe a couple of my favorite scenes and they could describe a couple of theirs. Isn't that the only reason we do any of this?

But I can't remember the last time someone asked me what the last book I read was. So I'll use this place to say that I loved Fear and Loathing. It was a trip, a high speed chase, a hurricane of social commentary filtered through the consciousness of a drug addled paranoid schizo. The story and the dialog moved so quickly I was done with it in two days and now I'm left with images that will no doubt inhabit my subconscious for the rest of my short life. Thompson was a lunatic, a dangerous person, but that didn't stop him from understanding better than most people how insane existence in this country is. How the American Dream is a void when looking at it as a spectator. When in search of it, all you'll find is an obese ex-stripper sitting at a slot machine so drunk she can hardly keep herself upright. But if you choose to live it, the dream can be literally anything you want it to be, from a crazed dope fiend to an uptight family man. And it doesn't really matter which you choose to strive for because both identities will ultimately end the same way.

5/5

Book: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

I've been wanting to read this for a few years now, ever since my friend James brought it home our senior year of college and suffered through jokes and ridicule until he completed it. The pickup artist community has always fascinated me in a strange way. I more or less knew what it was about, a group of people who believe that human interaction can be reduced to a series of variables that if manipulated correctly can give an otherwise insecure person the ability to attract women. The fascination obviously came from my own insecurity, an insecurity I think a lot of people share in modern civilization.

We're born into a family, most often by a mother and a father, and we see that as the model of existence from a very young age. Our parents are our role models and if they were able to make a family then we should be able to as well. But, there are no lessons to be learned, no guidance, no strategies that parents can instill upon their children because their union is a result of their life experiences up until their meeting. Their being together doesn't give us any reassurance that we are also capable of beginning a family. They simply show that it's possible and beneficial, but we have our own journey, our own life experiences to learn from in order to get there and there's no guarantee that your better half will ever come along.

This point has been frightening for me ever since I became an atheist. At that moment you realize the only possible avenue of immortality is to pass your genes on to the next generation of man. If you fail to procreate then you die without a trace. Given, if you're a generous person, people will have benefited from your existence, but without children your physical traits will be lost forever.

So I picked up this book and another (Bang by Roosh V) to maybe learn something about human nature; to filter out the shallow bullshit that is inherent in the art of pickup and learn enough so that I might be more prepared to achieve my ultimate purpose.

This particular book isn't a how-to, it's a story about a group of people who founded the business of pickup, people who stream-lined the concept into a product and sold it to men who felt like they needed help meeting women. Neil Strauss, the writer and main character also known as Style did a great job. He taped so many conversations, described so many delicate moments and strategies that he developed and passed on to his students either willfully or not. The only thing I could criticize Strauss for would be his lack of objectivity. There were definitely passages that were unjustly colored, characters that were described in an unflattering light because of his feelings toward them. And although he admitted his own faults now and again, I think Strauss displayed an unattractive sense of elitism throughout which was detrimental to the effort as a whole, but at the same time, made the read more honest and human than if it were written by a more objective observer.

Did I learn anything that will help me with my journey? That question is complicated. As with any complex topic, research only leads to more questions, but there are several key points that the book made quite clear which I will list:

1) Independent of venue, the only way to meet a girl is to talk to her. Even the best pickup artists get rejected 95% of the time, but they meet more women because they talk to more of them.

2) The opener is the hardest part. If you get over the anxiety to begin a conversation then your chances of meeting someone special are going to increase. There are actually many wonderful openers described in this book and Bang that would be effective simply because they serve the purpose of initiating conversation. When no words come to mind there's nothing shameful in having a few openers memorized to get things going.

3) The actual conversation should be natural, you don't have to have entire stories memorized, but if you talk about aspects of your life that even you consider boring then you're going to bore your audience. There's no way around that. So talk about something you're passionate about and if she seems uninterested, walk away and try again with the next one.

4)  Include everyone. If you see a girl you're attracted to and she's with people, it's going to seem creepy to approach her and alienate her friends. Approaching a group is the ultimate skill of pickup because instead of singling one girl out and forcing her to make up her own mind about you, there is a group of people to reinforce the idea that you're a fun person. If her friends like you, she will have all the more reason to like you.

5) Don't feel the need to get hammered to loosen up at a bar or club. Alcohol helps, but your chances will be better if you control yourself and portray the image of someone who can have fun without it.

6) Don't be a prick. It was the intention of almost everyone in this book to sleep with the girl they approached, but if you're reading this and you know me then you'd know that I don't agree with that line of thinking. One night stands are an experience, but a relationship is a fulfilling experience. And as I stated, the ultimate goal is to start a family, so if you find yourself seeking validation by sleeping with women you don't know, take some time to reflect about your own insecurities and find a more sustainable solution.

Maybe obvious points to you, but they weren't obvious to me. And although I'll still have anxiety with the approach for some time, at least I have some stories, some tools, some knowledge of other people's experiences to help me. Let me know if you'd like to borrow either The Game or Bang and I will gladly accommodate.

4/5