Take a Picture, It Will Last Longer

This post is the penultimate part of a series of 10 rants about my ex-books. Parts #1 and #2 will help to set the scene. Parts #3, #4 , #5, #6 ,#7 and #8 contain relevant squawking. The end is in sight!

Ask me for my favorite book lovers haunt -- a place to enjoy reading a book, or a place to browse/buy books. I can rattle off several in the various metropolises I have called home. For a far-afield example, after picking up a title at Kenny's Bookshop, one might need to head over to Banana Phoblacht to escape Galway's gales and indulge in one of the best hot chocolates I've had in my life.

I just learned that one such haven for books (in another one of my former homes) has closed. Candida's World of Books shut its doors this February. Though I learned of its demise some six months after the fact, I still felt a great sense of loss. This bookstore was a gem.

Candida's was a half a block away from my workplace in Washington, DC. I spent many a lunch break and a good chunk of my paycheck there. After toiling away (at a place where we unabashedly created as much drama off stage as we put on stage), it was nice to have a place like this to decompress from a stressful day. I liked my job a lot, but having Candida's as a nearby crutch made it livable.

Candida's was truly a World of Books. It could have been described as a travel bookstore, but that wouldn't be quite accurate. Travelogues, maps and guidebooks were offered in abundance. It was a place to stop in if you wanted to pick up a a replacement copy of 501 Russian Verbs along with a photo journal of Thailand, an introduction to South African diamond mining, a novel written in Portuguese, Italian erotica, a shiny new copy of The Master and Margarita, a children's book about passports, and a hitchhiker's account of his journey from Bratislava to Bucharest.

Candida and her staff were extremely knowledgeable, and could provide really excellent recommendations. Say you're a big Haruki Murakami fan, but you're in the mood for a classic. Candida's staff might pluck the Japanese classic Wild Geese by Ogai Mori from the shelf. I've seldom had bookshops that have come up with suggestions so quickly and so reliably.

I have always loved to travel (perhaps more than I love books or, dare I say it, theatre) and I've kept a list of places I would like to visit since I was a little girl. Iran has been on that list for many, many years, despite the fact that as an American I am supposed to believe that I will be burned at the stake upon entering the country. (Lies!) At the time I was frequenting Candida's, I was also reading up on Iran. Reading Lolita in Tehran was a relatively new and popular title at the time, and I came into Candida's one day complaining that I found it to be a disappointment. Candida of course had the perfect suggestion: Persepolis and Persepolis 2.

I began to read the first one on the ride home on the Metro. I lived at the end of the line, so I had a lengthy trip home. I finished the book, unaware that the entire train had disembarked. I sat alone sobbing for this sad-yet-affirming book had stirred me so much. A conductor finally came through and had to ask me to leave.

By the time I left the train, I had missed my bus, and I had over a 90 minute wait for the next one. This gave me more than enough time to read the second. I cried the whole bus ride home. Over the next week, I re-read this pair of books at least a dozen of times.

After my introduction to Persepolis,** I ditched the Iran phase and went through a graphic novels phase. I read all the big titles of the genre. Like many others, I'm not particularly fond of the term graphic novel, and it's true that this list isn't solely graphic novels. Ergo...

Picture Books

The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey

Y: The Last Man #01 by Pia Guerra and Brian K. Vaughan

Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir by Graham Roumieu***

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi

Blankets by Craig Thompson

*Buy local and/or support the little guy!

**No, I have not seen the Persepolis movie. Yes, I would very much like to see it, so please invite me over to watch it already.

***If you haven't returned the Bigfoot book because you're still laughing, I understand. However, as a fee for having absconded with my book for so long, the courteous thing to do is to return my book along with its BRAND NEW SEQUEL, Bigfoot: I Not Dead.

Criticizing the Critics

One of my college professors just caught up with me and learned that much of my year had been spent schlepping around lead buckets of misery stew around like a morose milk maid. He was sorry to hear I had been feeling so bad and wondered if my problems were rooted in too much worry and stress.

Too much worry and stress? I guess that could be part of it, I said in response. Certainly worry, stress, guilt, anger, fear, over-analysis, and this nasty little repression habit are some ingredients that accompany this black mood. It could also be cyclic; every four years I'm fraught with this most inky and bilious of humors.

What I did not say but certainly thought about considerably after our email exchange was the fact that I had probably been putting up with it for longer than I was willing to admit. Depression is a disease that does not allow for pinpoint accuracy in terms of cause and effect. In my many go arounds with depression, there has never been a defining moment of "Well shit. Now I am officially depressed. Ho-fucking-hum." The threshold is gossamer, and one can easily teeter on the brink indefinitely.

I was still pondering my professor's question of the origins of my disease and the subsequent spillage of my cart full of nuts when I read that Randy Pausch, the professor of The Last Lecture fame, had died. I haven't read the book, but I did flip through it while I was stranded at the Salt Lake City Airport. It appealed to me because of my own fond memories of the Last Lecture series at college in which professors told colorful stories of being born in an elevator, or read several of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales aloud in Middle English.

Even though I left Pausch's book on the shelf that day, it kept crossing my path. Eventually I decided that I would purchase La Ultima Leccion, the book's Spanish translation, when I was feeling flush. This way I could read the book that kept following me around and practicar español. Believe me, my español needs a good deal of practicar.

When I read of Pausch's death, I watched the video of the original lecture, Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams as recorded at Carnegie Mellon. Within the first few minutes of the hour plus speech, I got a heavy dose of "your reality makes my reality make more sense," and it was inspired by an anecdote about football of all things. I have zero tolerance when it comes to football.

In his lecture, Pausch told a story of a football practice with his childhood football coach. He's been given a hard time all practice long, and another coach points out the importance of this sort of criticism. He says:

"When you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up... When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones who tell you they still love you and care."

This hit a really raw nerve. I know that very bad place all too well.

When I was temping, I knew I was doing a bad job. The work was menial and I never had enough to do. When I bothered to show initiative, I was castigated. I was unchallenged, under-utilized and bored. I listened for my critics, but I couldn't hear them clearly. This was a very bad place to be.

On a personal level, I was really upset by this workplace situation. I was angry in a way that made me feel as if my blood were thick with little toxic beads of quicksilver. I didn't know how to deal with being this angry. So I made work into a sort of a farce. I misappropriated the privilege of free time. I let the quality of my work slip to embarrassing levels. And to my astonisment, my flagrant abuse of the system is what caused my co-workers to be nice to me. People would show up at my cublicle to hear me gripe about the system. When I listened for a critic, I heard laughter. This was a very bad place to be.

When I finally left my last temp job to take a dramaturgy post, I thought I would be able to heave a huge sigh of relief. Afterall, doing something I enjoy as much as dramaturgy should bring me great pleasure. I would do it in my sleep. I would do it for no pay (even though all dramaturgs should make a living wage). I would do it while jumping up and down on the bed with bells around my ankles. Right?

Wrong. The experience made me feel even more miserable, and I considered my work to be subpar. I listened, but I didn't hear any critics. I wasn't even sure I knew who my critics were anymore.

Healthier people might say that their work was acceptable if they do not hear criticism. Healthier people would not need this sort of approval cum thorn in side. But by this time, I knew I was not healthy. I also knew that my way of thinking would not make sense whatsoever to any sort of reasonably healthy person.

This time when I listened for the critics, they came in droves. And the critic said, "I am worthless. I have failed. I don't matter. I am disgusting. There is no one that loves me. I have fucked up. I don't deserve to be alive." And I said it until I believed myself.

This disease took something I love to do, something I know I am good at doing, and it turned it into a source of misery. It made me spend more days that I can count on the floor of my apartment willing myself to die; unable to move even to use the toilet. Months later, even with medication and psychotherapy, I am incapacitated to the point where I am exhausted by an act as simple as brushing my teeth. Each and every effort is feels like swimming through cement.

So, with all due respect to the late Professor Pausch, I would like to say that he is only partially correct. Sometimes your critics are the ones who tell you they still love you and care. And, from time to time, your critics will need a little criticism. But there are some critics who need to be told to go fuck themselves. Gently. With a chainsaw.

Green Porno Addict

Cover your eyes, ye puritans. I'm hot and bothered about Green Porno on sundancechannel.com. Honestly check it out. It's more benign than its title may suggest.

Isabella Rossellini is the creative wits behind a new series of film shorts about the birds and the bees. Or, more precisely, the earthworms and the bees. It's nature. With an art department. And a sexy accent!

I don't want to give too much away about this wonderfully bizarre series. I cannot guarantee that it's Safe for Work material, but it certainly un-furrowed my brow for a bit this afternoon. It also proved once again that a big vocabulary is the quickest way to my heart with lines like, "I dig my palpi in her epigyne... and run off!"

While I'm busy plugging stuff, may I also give a nod to Theatre Vertigo's The Long Christmas Ride Home. The production is vital, heartfelt, and an excellent testament to Paula Vogel's masterful storytelling. It plays Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00 pm through May 17, 2008.

Oh, and speaking of masterful storytelling, I just finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Like, wow.

Jumping on the Bandwagon