Gray skies are gonna clear up, Put on a happy face
As a self-proclaimed Pollyanna, I will be the first to admit that I would want to punch you in the f Gray skies are gonna clear up, Put on a happy face
As a self-proclaimed Pollyanna, I will be the first to admit that I would want to punch you in the face if you said this to me. What the hell is wrong with a little rain? Huh? You can't be happy if it rains? Fuck you.
You can have your gangnum style and complain about never ever ever ever getting back together again and umm... okay, that's my extent of youth culture... you guys like furbies again, right?
Happy face is old school teen angst. There are no vampires or faeries or dystopian threats... hell... HIGH SCHOOL is a dystopian threat. It is the absolute clear definition of dystopia: "an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives." Can't get much realer than this.
Brush off the clouds and cheer up, Put on a happy face.
Seriously. Fuck you.
Happy face is special in that it gives you the out. It tells you how to beat this. It's all right there in front of you. Believe it or not, the song has it right....
Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy, It's not your style; You'll look so good that you'll be glad Ya' decide to smile!
....
See? I just told you. DO NOT BE YOURSELF. You will be ridiculed, you will get beat up, you will be lonely and want to die.
You see, I was this thing. I was a miserable a-loaded-gun-won't-set-you-free-so-you-say sixteen year old who wore my Undead t-shirt proudly and played my 1987 UK second issue 3-track 12" vinyl single, also including How Soon Is Now? & Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, Billie Whitelaw image picture sleeve with light blue die cut and I was totally into IT. Where did it get me? Being spit on at Pep Rallys, my friend... do not follow my example.
So, I decided to stick out my noble chin... I decided to wipe off that 'full of doubt' look. I decided to... no offense to the hair colored challenged... go blonde. Literally. I got rid of the Siouxsie Sioux hair color and cut my bangs and found the bleach beat my hair into submission. I even went further.. I found saddle shoes and letterman sweaters and poodle skirts and listened to rockabilly and man DID I EVER SMILE. I slapped on that happy grin! And spread sunshine all over the place, goddammit. And guess what?
People actually bought it. They totally liked the new me. It depressed the hell out of me. Didn't they understand the mockery?
And then... I bought into it. I said, hell... if this is what it takes, then this is what I will be. And I bounced and I giggled and I hello kittied my way through my senior year.
So, I can relate with Happy Face. He gets it. If you are pathetic in your old life, then create a new one. Yes, eventually this will lead to some sort of dissociative identity disorder and you may need sleep hygiene therapy, but maybe by then you will be out of high school and finding a new "society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding."
We can only hope.
And if you're feeling cross and bitterish Don't sit and whine Think of banana split and licorice And you'll feel fine
I remember the first time I read Self-Help and when I picked up Lust and Other Stories. There was this intimidation, this contempt, this other sadness I remember the first time I read Self-Help and when I picked up Lust and Other Stories. There was this intimidation, this contempt, this other sadness. I wanted to be this good. I wanted to crawl, to burrow into the reader and make myself known.
Dammit.
Gaitskill's collection creeps in like that... at first I was kind of bored. I wasn't impressed with the beginning stories.. it was what I had been experiencing this entire year with the books that I've chosen to read. Meh. But, with Mirror Ball I began to feel that clenching, that annoying jealousy. With an opening line "He took her soul--though, being a secular-minded person, he didn't think of it that way." I was right back at that growling, mewling MINE stage.
Seriously, this sucks.
I am not a good person, I want to applaud these women, I want to feel some sisterly bonding with them, but I know that if I had the chance, I would so pull their hair and scratch at their eyes.
I am the effaced soul on the musician's floor, I am the agonized face, I am the monsters, the demons, the Alzheimer's, the malaria ridden day laborer, the stupid trysts.
Once again, I am reminded of how lucky I am that I shuffled off this dysfunctional family coil. There are times, I admit, that I feel I might have den Once again, I am reminded of how lucky I am that I shuffled off this dysfunctional family coil. There are times, I admit, that I feel I might have denied my children the opportunity of Rockwellian holidays but then I presently slap myself in the face and say ‘Right… Griswoldian, if I’m fucking lucky, would be more appropriate.
“Tragedy rewritten as farce” is a phrase that Franzen uses within the story. Yes, this is so. I found myself giggling and then wanting to flog myself because ‘it’s not funny’ not if this is your family. I was spared/robbed/spared of dealing with my parents as an adult. I don’t even want to think about what kind of relationship I would have had with them… I can’t see myself being very patient with their ignorance or blindness or wondering why I left New Hampshire (seriously? You ask have to ask?)
On the whole, I like The Lamberts. I like Alfred and the kids, Gary, Chipper, and Denise. Enid. Yeah, well… not so much. Until she is loaded up on illegal meds, then I can tolerate her. Franzen’s depictions are solid. Their stories are just shy of incredible that they have to be believable. The writing, oh the writing… I almost wanted to use my Gen X defensiveness and call him a ‘hipster’ but when someone can say this: He turned to the doorway where she’d appeared. He began a sentence: “I am---“ but when he was taken by surprise, every sentence became an adventure in the woods; as soon as he could no longer see the light of the clearing from which he’d entered, he would realize that the crumbs he’d dropped for bearings had been eaten by birds, silent deft darting things which he couldn’t quite see in the darkness but which were so numerous and swarming in their hunger that it seemed as if they were the darkness, as if the darkness weren’t uniform, weren’t an absence of light but a teeming and corpuscular thing, and indeed when as a studios teenager he’d encountered the word ‘crepuscular’ in McKay’s Treasury of English Verse, the corpuscles of biology had bled into his understanding of the words, so that for his entire adult life he’d seen in twilight a corpuscularity, as of the graininess of the high-speed film necessary for photography under conditions of low ambient light, as of a kind of sinister decay,; and hence the panic of a man betrayed deep in the woods whose darkness was the darkness of starlings blotting out the sunset or black ants storming a dead opossum, a darkness that didn’t just exist but actively consumed the bearings that he’d sensible established for himself, lest he be lost; but in the instant of realizing he was lost, time became marvelously slow and he discovered hitherto unguessed eternities in the space between one word and the next, or rather he became trapped in that space between words and could only stand and watch as time sped on without him, the thoughtless boyish part of him crashing on out of sight blindly through the woods while he, trapped, the grownup Al, watched in oddly impersonal suspense to see if the panic-stricken little boy might, despite no longer knowing where he was or at what point he’d entered the woods of this sentence, still manage to blunder into the clearing where Enid was waiting for him, unaware of any woods---“packing my suitcase,’ he heard himself say. This sounded right. Verb, possessive, noun. Here was as suitcase in front of him, an important confirmation. He betrayed nothing.
Fuck. Hate him.
And that… that… was describing the onset of Parkinson’s….. holy shit. I really wanted to hate him. I wanted to take his Shopenhauer references and stick them in Al’s phantasmagorian growth. Hellz yeah, I be jealous. Tots.
Franzen’s care in giving just enough illumination of each of the children to relate back to their parentage is incredible. How Chip’s distrust and disgust for capitalism and the corporate world’s hold on the average joe’s superego leads him to sleep with an underage student… a ‘trust fund product of hippies’ that leads to his demise and decision to write bogus economic advertisements to mislead Americans to send money to Lithuania for the opportunity to have streets named after them. All normal.
Gary’s story… Gary’s concern with being labeled ‘depressed’ is my favorite. Gary is the oldest, the one that is supposed to succeed… supposed to be the carbon copy of what the next generation does…and drink himself into that belief.
“he estimated that his levels of Neurofactor 3 (i.e.; serotonins: a very very important factor) were posting seven day or even thirty day highs, that his Factor 2 and Factor 7 levels were likewise outperforming expectations, and that his factor 1 had rebounded from an early-morning slump related to the glass of Armagnac he’d drunk at bedtime. He had a spring in his step, an agreeable awareness of his above-average height and his late-summer suntan. His resentment of his wife, Caroline, was moderate and well contained. Declines led advances in key indices of paranoia (e.g.; his persistent suspicion that Caroline and his two older sons were mocking him), and his seasonally adjusted assessment of life’s futility and brevity was consistent with the overall robustness of his mental economy. He was not the least bit clinically depressed.”
Denise, the youngest, the most guilt ridden of the three, is also quite interesting. Her motivation in life seems to be centered on the fact that she was beautiful, talented, want-for-nothing, and hated herself for it. Her never-ending unknowing quest to destroy herself by sleeping with people who she feels would never otherwise have what she has leads her down paths near lunacy… all the while holding herself up as a world renowned chef and all around nice girl.
I can’t do these descriptions justice. I’ve read so much Franzen that words are stringing themselves together on their own and not nearly at the fluency or perspicacity that he can give us.
Enid… now Enid, I can tell you I despise… I have read and seen too many Enids in my time (read more than seen since I am a booknerd). She is manipulative, she sees herself blameless, she concocts stories to impress neighbors, she has that tone.. that tone of vindictiveness that makes me want to wrap my hands around her oil of O’lay laden neck and squash.
“To Enid, at this moment came a vision of rain. She saw herself in a house with no walls; to keep the weather out, all she had was tissue. And here came the rain from the east, and she tacked up a tissue version of Chip and his exciting new job as a reporter. Here it came from the west and the tissue was how handsome and intelligent Gary’s boys were and how much she loved them. The wind shifted, and she ran to the north side of the house with such shreds of tissue as Denise afforded: how she’d married too young but was older and wiser now and enjoying great success as a restaurateur and hoping to meet the right your man! And then the rain cam blasting up from the south, the tissue disintegrating even as she insisted that Al’s impairments were very mild and he’d be find if he’d just work on his attitude and get his drugs adjusted, and it rained harder and harder and she was so tired,, and all she had was tissue----“
Maybe I’m afraid that I will become Enid. That I will hold my regrets and hostilities in until I feel justified in making others carry it. God, I really hope not. I don’t want to be Alfred either, with his woods and his hallucinations and just out of reach is since sense of what is right and wrong. Yes, this book made me afraid. If my kids grow up feeling that immediate family is the ONLY family, I will understand. Because, I’m sure at about that time, my Enid like alter ego will be making an appearance and that middle school CDC education will regurgitate out and my poor poor grandchildren will suffer. No way, Jose… keep them away.
“I leave it to your discretion” was Alfred’s go to sentence and I will use it here. I leave it to you to delve into this maladjusted family. Beware of the self-insight that follows, the neurosis, the sense of failing, the relief, the combustion of tears, the guffaws.
I have to admit. I was hesitant. I found this on one of the circle twirly tables in the library that sucks you in with its passive aggressive suggesti I have to admit. I was hesitant. I found this on one of the circle twirly tables in the library that sucks you in with its passive aggressive suggestions. It was shiny. It had a neat cover. It was new, no binding creases or sticky residue. Okay.
Craig Ferguson? Isn’t he that pervy boss from that Drew Carey show from the 90s? He has a talk show now right? I’m old and haven’t watched late night since Letterman was funny. Ever more hesitant.
Okay, now this is downright just… is he making fun of me? I mean, you write a book and you get Mitch Albom and Lawrence Block to write the bookjacket testimonials? Really? And you expect self respecting booknerds to read it? This has to be some sort of underhanded snarkyness on Craig’s part. He’s testing me. Fine.
What I found: He can write. He really can. He’s like a good Christopher Moore with an acute case of ADD.
He starts off with an ‘apologia’: “This story is true. Of course, there are many lies therein and most of it did not happen, but it’s all true. In that sense it is deeply religious, perhaps even biblical.”
He defines time as: “ is only linear for engineers and referees.”
He says about science: “The laws of physics states that given the mass-to-wingspan ratio of a bumblebee, it is impossible for the creature to fly. But it does.”
And, this is just the first page.
I loved his rants, his innuendos, his observations. I thought his characters were human to a fault or many faults. His view of American culture is dead on. His acerbic wit puts me squarely in my humbled American pie Lazy-Boy.
Give this guy a shot. He might surprise you. Interestingly enough, this was written in 2006. What took so long for it to end up on my circle table??? ...more
Some girls are weak, some girls are conniving, some girls are wretched, vile, petty, reprehensible, fucktards, beastly, browbeaters, evil, injurious, Some girls are weak, some girls are conniving, some girls are wretched, vile, petty, reprehensible, fucktards, beastly, browbeaters, evil, injurious, dreadful, loathsome, tormentors, insolent, spiteful, and just fucking mean. Some girls are twats.
Let me take a second to pop my eighth vitamin C drop and blow my nose on my ‘face wipes’ because my place of employment do not believe in tissues. I will also take this moment to let you know that this damn summer cold thing has greatly altered my perceptions and the ‘all people have good in them somewhere if we give them a chance’ crap is out. Weg. Wamekwenda. Outta heahhhh
We’ve seen this before... many times, a YA book about bullying? It’s like old school, we know have YA books about crank and cutting and mad cow disease and sex and sex with animals and sex with teachers and..... (cough*gasp*wheeze*) Anyway, GR’s top 5 YA books as voted by all of you involve a boy wizard, a dystopian battle to the death, a clutzy vampire lover, a demigod with daddy issues, and a poor boy chosen to carry on the memories, sins, history of his people. (Really? You guys gave The Giver the #4 spot? Good on ya!)
I did not become attached to this book. I read it as I would a magazine article. Hey look there, huh. I didn’t care enough about the characters to put much into them. Why? They wouldn’t give me the time of day. I know this lot. I know how they work. I was ‘bullied’ but I was lucky. Mine was pre social media and really just took inane cheerleaders who had nothing else to do but torment me. I fucking still can’t stand them, Susan Deblois and Tricia (Twissa) Paradis. They didn’t do much.. a giggle there, an eyeroll here, they weren’t even the ones that spit on me... those I hold no real grudge about... But Sue and Twissa... you guys are pathetic.
My children get bullied... and now this is a bit more serious... since, if you look up my town on Wiki you will see that we have the honor of being mentioned for “in 2003, as a result of the nationally publicized suicide of an Essex Junction teenager, Vermont, and other states, passed legislation against cyber-bullying.” Yay.
My kids are pretty resilient, I hope. It’s what I see… at least in my two oldest… But, I think they hold a lot back. They have more gusto than their mom, probably got that from the dad, but they do hurt. Like the day that Izzy came home because she heard a couple of girls talking about a rumor that Izzy threw up before lunch so no one should go near her. ??? Or Satchel being bullied by two nasty little twin girls in pre-school that was soon fixed by my ever loving bff Michelle ‘Booby’ Metro when she suggested that “Like when Miss Ashley (his teacher) isn’t looking, you squat down in front of the girls and you tell them that if they ever touch your son again you’ll drive them out into the woods where nobody will see them until spring when their wolf-ravaged carcasses are found sticking out of the melting snow.” I need my own Booby for times like this… But, for the most part… I’m not seeing it so much… But, to think that I could be as blind as the mom in this book--that frightens me.
I don’t care about Regina. I don’t care that Regina is pretty much one big ball of acidic gasses. She deserves it. She can try to repent all she wants, she can try to undo all she wants, she can fucking martyr herself. I don’t care. She shouldn’t have ever been attracted to that Heathers Crowd. First of all, wearing the same outfits every day? Hello? First clue? Then, being the alpha bitch’s bitch? Really? You think so low of yourself that you cannot figure this out? How important is all this to you? I don’t get it. I just never have. Popularity seems equivalent to being stupid. I would never strive for such. I wouldn’t lower myself to the shit that Regina does for that posse. It’s so sad to watch. Yet, I know… I know… that there are girls out there doing this. Christ. Where is the fun? Is drama your main motivation? Ruining the high school years of girls who are already dealing with the high school fears and not trusting their true self and all that garbage that every After school special drilled into us the parents? Where are the parents of these monsters? Watching babies in tiaras or desperate housewives. Yes, this goes much deeper than a humbled, shy, ill, 40 something with her own self worth issues.
Yes, Regina… suck that antacid and deal. Spend the rest of your life wondering what made you decide that this was the path that you needed to follow. That it was better to do this than to be alone at lunch. And fuck you for getting the cute, dysfunctional writer boy in the end. (oops spoiler) because you don’t deserve it. You deserve to be in your mid 40s sitting in some bar discussing the ‘merits’ of Christian Grey and how hot that is because if you really believe that then you have just totally vindicated every smart bullied girl my age (yeah, directed at you Sue and Twissa… I hope he rocks your worlds because sex must really really suck IRL)
And the whole ‘don’t hate the playah, hate the game’ attitude? Screw that? The game is bullshit and the players are twats. Please get a life. ...more
"Everything popular is wrong” so writes Oscar Wilde, and why wouldn’t he? The snarky bastard. He was in a mood, of course. He wanted to be adored, rig "Everything popular is wrong” so writes Oscar Wilde, and why wouldn’t he? The snarky bastard. He was in a mood, of course. He wanted to be adored, right? Who doesn’t really? Isn’t that the angst of it all? Who hates me? Will I be the freak du jour today? Oh shit, the head cheerleader is talking to me, what the hell?
High school was not the best time for me… believe it or not. I was shy and therefore considered a bitch because I stared at the ground, hiding behind my 7 inch bangs and never making eye contact. I wore black, spoke softly and read a lot of books. I had a group of friends and we were the outcasts, listening to Joy Division and Minor Threat and The Smiths and The Dead Kennedys…our view was skewed, yes.. but after getting spit on at pep rallies or tripped in hallways we needed to be skewed… whatever.. it’s high school.. get over it. (I can say this 25 odd years later but now I have two kids in middle school and my stomach turns every day at the thought of what they have to endure… kids are fucking mean).
This book is no different than other coming of age stories. There is a protagonist who has to find out who he truly wants to be. There are peer pressure issues; there are judgments and misconstrued intentions. Except in this story it’s not Cinderelly getting her slipper on, it’s Charming wanting to be Quasimodo.
Liam is the son of Cindy Crawford and Bill Gates… or the fictionalized versions of them. He lives in Westchester… he looks like his mom… he grew up on Paris runways and New York Fashion weeks… We should hate him, right? He’s beautiful, he’s rich, he’s… beautiful and rich. Um… and popular. Yes, he is popular. But, remember…this book is called King of the Screwups… there’s some meat in here.
Liam considers himself the ultimate fuck up. He can’t say the right thing, he barely squeaks by in his classes, he is constantly finding himself in exactly the wrong spot (like lying on your father’s desk with the president of the national honor society half naked on top of you and being so drunk that you hurl all over his office). Yes, Liam is to blame.. he doesn’t get off that easy… he made these choices… he accepts that he’s a screw up and therefore he feels worthless.
I think that this is where we can all relate. Who doesn’t ever feel worthless? I mean how many of us are THAT well adjusted to say that they have never had that feeling? If you’ve listened to The Smiths, that automatically disqualifies you… put your hand down now.
Liam gets shipped off to live with his cross dressing Auncle Pete in a trailer park in buttfuck county. He feels lucky to be here, this or with his militant grandparents, well.. take the plastic flamingos any day, right? Here he decides that he will not screw up… He will be UNpopular. Yeah, that’s an insult to all us freaks, right? C’mon… like we haven’t already judged this hot, well coiffed rich boy..and now he wants to be LIKE U S? Riiiiight… keep walkin’ boy…
I would have thought that, except this kid is so damn SINCERE. I mean… there are times I just want to slap his perfectly sculpted cheekbones and un-tousle his bronze copper colored hair (yeah, that’s a 50 shades reference right there).
Liam tries so hard to be uncool… he wants to be considered studious and most of all he wants to impress his dad.. which is what the whole gist of this story is… the nature vs nurture argument… Liam is a product of his mother… he gets fashion, he gets how to get your point across by just looking a certain way. His dad thinks he is useless and doesn’t mince words telling him so. As we get to know Liam, we see that everything that drives this poor kid is only to please his bastard of a father.
Been there, tried that. Except, my dad was nowhere near anything that should be impressible. I was a fool and Liam is too. He is scarred by this overwhelming need to be something he’s not. Man, that sucks. I feel for the kid.
“You can’t create love, you just have to take it where you can find it.”
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