Moooooooooooooooom, I'm booooooooooored.......

There was an article in the New York Times about boredom recently. It started with the fact that book reviews rarely use the word “boring”, even if the book in question is, meandered through the history of boredom and contemporary culture’s attitude toward boredom, and concludes with boredom in literature (specifically David Foster Wallace’s new book).

Boredom is something that I’ve thought about quite a lot recently, like within the last year or so. For me, at least, boredom is not a case of having nothing to do – it’s a case of low motivation and not wanting to do what you do have to do, or not being able to decide what to do (a big problem for me right now). Having nothing to do is boring, but you can justifiably fill the time with mindless entertainment or something. For me, boredom has a mild frustration element – of wanting to have nothing to do, of not being able to focus, of not having the panic of deadlines pushing me to finish things.

It’s lack of interest, mostly. Lack of interest in the things on my to-do list. Lack of interest in what’s going on in the world, in my life. When it comes to boring books or movies, lack of interest in what’s going on in the story. It’s not necessarily something inherent in the book or movie, although it might be. What is profoundly uninteresting to me might be fascinating to someone else, and vice versa.

The article brings up some good points about boredom – how it was created by the rise of the middle class, leisure time, and individualism born out of the Industrial Revolution. People pre-Industrial Revolution might have been bored, but not quite in the same way that people post-Industrial Revolution were. The argument, sort of, is that it took the rise of leisure time for people to realize that boredom was a possibility, that you were responsible for filling your own time and that you could enjoy what you did.

One of the references in the article is to a recent study that shows the neurological patterns of a “resting mind” – they analyzed the patterns of people in an fMRI machine who were told to “just relax” and empty their minds. For a lot of people, that is boring – but for me, at least for a while, it would be relaxing. I wouldn’t have to worry that I’m supposed to be doing something else, that I’m missing out on something. Of course, after a while, forced inactivity does become boring – but again, it’s because you can’t stop thinking of the things that you should or could be doing instead.

(I’m not sure if this post is turning out the way that I wanted it to…..I may have to revisit it at some point and rewrite….)

Are you a megalosaurus?

Today has been a book day for me. I am slowly making my way through my saved items on Google Reader, and this morning I read through some of the book items. Most of them were book reviews (there's a biography of Chopin that looks interesting; the new Elizabeth Kostova got panned).

The topic of interest over the last few months, and especially yesterday, has been e-readers. Yesterday, as everyone who has turned on a computer probably knows, Apple revealed the iPad. And most of the immediate online reaction has been to the name. (What hasn't been to the name has been "So....it's a bigger iPhone. That's not a phone.") Personally, I'm a little disappointed that Apple didn't go with iTablet or iSlate - I especially liked iSlate, and I think that iPad is too similar to iPod to really distinguish it effectively. But, really, couldn't they have foreseen the jokes? The jokes that I've seen are mostly feminine-product-related (the iPad will come in Mini, Regular, and Maxi, etc.) with a few Star Trek (iPadd, Paramount should sue) ones thrown in. But, like I said to a friend online, in a few weeks the name will be normal and worth nothing more than a wry smile (if that). So if you're going to mock it, do it now.

I also sought out a new second-hand bookstore today; I'd heard about it on Tuesday when I was volunteering at Oxfam. It's just up the street from the town square, so about a fifteen-minute walk at most from my house. It also seems to be staffed by volunteers, so no chance for a job, but any bookstore is a good thing in my mind (although sad: no income means an absolute moratorium on book buying, and I need to get through the books that I already own and haven't read anyway). I met a sweet but loopy woman who declared her love for the Sweet Valley High books, and who also gave me job advice. It took me about ten minutes to extract myself from the conversation.

There's also a couple of book articles from the last few days that I think I want to either keep around or talk more about; I'll try to work those up tonight and post them on the other blog sometime soon.

Randomness:

I found a flowchart online detailing whether you should eat food that has been dropped on the floor. It is very comprehensive - including questions such as "Are you a megalosaurus?"

A friend also posted a pun - I don't think it's originally his but it's very funny.

I sent off my final assessment for my proofreading course; now I need to start on the copy-editing part of it. I've also been doing some stuff (volunteer, of course. I need to get into a field that pays me) on the proofreading site for Project Gutenberg. I'm still a beginner on that site, but it's pretty addicting. I have actually been limiting my time on it because I'm supposed to be looking for jobs and things....

My sleeping patterns are totally screwed up. It's almost like I'm jetlagged, except I haven't been out of the UK since October, and haven't even been out of Nottingham since New Year's. I'm hoping that I can stay awake all day today (no napping!) and fall asleep at and stay asleep for a reasonable time. It seems to be going pretty well so far.

I should probably get back to working on something. Focus on one of my writing projects and get at least a few hundred words written.

Jasper Fforde is awesome, and random encounters

Last night I went to hear Jasper Fforde speak about his new book, Shades of Grey. It was fantastic. I'd also let one of my friends know; we didn't exactly go together, but there was still an empty seat next to me when he arrived, so we hung out during and after.

The book's been on sale this week at Waterstone's - half-price - and the ticket price for the event could go toward the book, so I only paid six quid on the night for the book. Which I was very excited about, because (a) I don't have an income right now, and (b) I doubt that it'll even be that cheap in a year or so when it comes out in paperback.

Jasper Fforde was very personable and funny. He talked about his path to becoming a writer, about the book (including a few passages), and answered questions. Some paraphrased quotations:

"After stealing - sorry, paying homage - to other people's ideas, I decided to write my own story with my own characters."

"Writing is a series of challenges or dares - a bit like Scottish cuisine."

"Because I'm the author, and I can do whatever I want, I generally do."

"Writing is never finished, only abandoned."

He also mentioned his publication schedule, which is a book every year for at least the next three. He didn't say a lot about the sequel to Shades of Grey, but the next Thursday Next book and especially the next Nursery Crimes Division book (which isn't scheduled until 2013) sound fascinating. The most recent NCD book, The Fourth Bear, also sounds fascinating ("How is the porridge different temperatures when it was poured at the same time?"), and it's the only other one of his that I haven't read yet.

He signed books afterwards. James and I started off in what turned out to be the buying line, but switched to the signing line once we realized. We were chatting when one of the three girls in front of us asked if I was American. I said I was, and asked where they were from. Minnesota, Chicago....are you the Luther group? And they were. We talked the whole rest of the way to the front of the line.

Jasper Fforde in person was very friendly and cheerful, even after almost an hour of signing. I can't wait to read this book (I got to chapter three before the talk started).....and everything else that he ever writes.

My goals

They're not "New Year's Resolutions," because it's already January 17th. They're not deadlines, because I have a problems sticking to self-imposed deadlines. They're goals. Goals that will hopefully not be too onerous to meet, that are flexible enough to allow for my current schedule and social life (ha), and that should eventually lead to the ever-elusive income. And they are "at least" goals, so I can exceed them if I want to and can.

They are to apply for at least two jobs every day, and to write at least 500 words on something that is not a blog every day. I'm getting better about getting in the habit of writing, and the words are coming more easily, but it's far too easy to blather on for 1100 words about football or something and not make any progress on my long-term plans.

So, those are my goals.

An excursion

I went on an excursion today. A new art museum opened in November, Nottingham Contemporary, and its first exhibits are closing in a week or so. I’ve been meaning to go since it opened, and decided to take today to do so. It got me out of the house for a little while, and then I could be in town and hit the pound-or-less stores for Dr. Pepper and Pepsi, and go to Waterstone’s which is always a good time and relaxing for me (even though I have put a sort of moratorium on luxury spending which, until I get through all the books that I currently own, includes books. It does not, however, include a ticket to an author event from one of my favourite current writers. On Wednesday. For three pounds.)

Anyway. Nottingham Contemporary. It is, without a doubt, one of the ugliest designed buildings I’ve ever seen. For a long time, when I walked by it, I thought it was the scaffolding hiding the building, something that would come down to reveal the museum when it was done. It is growing on me a little bit, but it suffers in comparison to its neighbours – it’s right next to Pitcher and Piano, an excellent restaurant/cocktail bar in a converted church. It’s one of the most beautiful buildings in the area, and the art museum looks squat and ugly next to it. Close up, one can see the lace patterns on the outside of the museum, a nice nod to Nottingham’s history and the history of that particular neighborhood. However, you can’t see that unless you’re close up – even from across the street you can’t see the detail. And I haven’t even mentioned the Vegas strip/’50s diner style neon sign that points to the thing. It’s kind of unbelievable how badly this museum does not fit in with its surroundings.

But, anyway, I’ve wanted to go there since it opened, and today I took the opportunity. No point in just lying around the house all day, and then wishing I’d gone, right? Of course, I was not the only one who had that idea today. The place was much more crowded than I was expecting. Of course, it’s a rainy Saturday, so I don’t know why I was surprised, but it’s also Nottingham. I’ve never had a problem with crowds when I’ve gone to the museums here before. If anything, I’ve had a problem with undercrowding – when my sister and I went to the Galleries of Justice over Christmas, we were the only people there, and on a performance tour that gets interesting.

The exhibits themselves were pretty good, I thought. I’m not a huge fan of modern art, but this was a lot more representational than a lot of the stuff at, say, the Tate Modern. Two artists are featured currently: David Hockney, a name I’ve actually heard of, and Frances Stark, an American collage artist. Frances Stark’s work was in the first two galleries, one of her earlier work and one of more recent pieces, and David Hockney was in the other two galleries, which featured his work from 1960-1968 which covered his first trip to America.

Frances Stark’s first phase, if that’s the appropriate word to use, is collages made up primarily of words and pictures; the second phase used more images. I preferred the first gallery, quite a bit actually. The words, and the letters of the words, formed essential parts of the collages. Words were repeated almost ad infinitum to form the patterns in some of them, kind of like this:

t t t t t

h h h h h

e e e e e

My favourite of the ones in this gallery was one called “And also another one at the same time”, which used the words “And also another one at the same time, not” to form what looked like the trunks of trees, and then near the top the letters turn into birds. It’s kind of Escher-esque in the way that one thing turns into another – although it’s not quite so deliberate and subtle as Escher. The demarcation between the letters and the birds is quite clear, but there’s still that sense of motion, of transformation. And, as I said, from a distance at least, they look like trees.

The David Hockney galleries were much more crowded than the Frances Stark ones, both in terms of works of art and of people. There wasn’t as much room to move, because there was just so much more there, which meant that even if the number of people was the same, it seemed like more. I think, though, that there really were more people in the David Hockney rooms. I also realized my invisibility power, or whatever it is about me that says, “Please walk right in front of me and stop, especially if I’m trying to read the panels or look at the artwork in detail.” I managed to keep my frustration in check, though, and look at/read everything that I wanted to in the depth that I wanted to.

I have a few more favourites among the David Hockney works than among the Frances Stark works, even though overall I think I am more interested in Frances Stark’s style. Some of the ones I liked were “Great Pyramid at Giza with Broken Head from Thebes” (I want to go to Egypt. Also I have been listening to Doctor Who audio books that feature an Egyptian princess) and the ones that show him experimenting with water: Man Taking Shower in Beverly Hills, Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool (light reflecting in water as well as the glass of the sliding doors), and A Bigger Splash (so very active, for a static painting). The one with the coolest story, I thought, was “The First Marriage (A Marriage of Styles I)”: he was at a museum with a friend, and had fallen behind a bit. He saw the friend ahead of him, standing near a statue and looking in the same direction as the statue, and it seemed like the friend and the statue were looking at the same thing, as if they were together. So he painted the idea of it. I thought that one was cool.

The gift shop was a test of my willpower, just like Waterstone’s – there was the usual spread of art and cultural studies books (Derrida and the like), and a few shelves of Nottingham interest (i.e. Byron and Lawrence…they had a couple of Sillitoe books, but not Saturday Night and Sunday Morning which is the one I really want to read first), and quite a good selection of children’s books (Emily Gravett is everywhere around here, and they also had the true story of the Big Bad Wolf, which is hilarious). There was also the typical art museum jewelry and bags and things that look “artistic” – one set that was actually pretty cool was jewelry based around shadow puppets. Maybe at some point, when I have an income, I will splurge.

I am looking forward to seeing what else Nottingham Contemporary puts on. It probably won’t be a place I go all the time, but it will definitely be a place I go back to.

Football talk

The NFL playoffs started this last weekend. “My” teams – the Vikings and the Saints, since the Steelers didn’t make the playoffs this year – don’t play until this weekend, but I love football and I’m going to miss football when it’s over for the year so I’m trying to saturate myself while I can. One of the best investments I’ve made this last year is the NFL.com Field Pass access – radio coverage for all the games, plus archives for a while.

That being said, WHAT HAPPENED THIS WEEKEND? I slept through most of the Saturday games (stupid time zone…..) but I caught the first half of the Ravens/Patriots game and where were the Patriots? They certainly weren’t in Foxborough. 24 points in the first quarter? REALLY? And then the Packers/Cardinals game – I may have to get the archived coverage of that and find out WHAT HAPPENED at the end there (it was past my bedtime so I missed the ending). Highest-scoring playoff game in history? Overtime? What?

I hope that the Vikings and the Saints both do well next weekend. I don’t care so much about the AFC this year – the Steelers missed the playoffs, and I’m a sort of fan of New England, who lost this weekend, and was hoping for good things from the Bengals, who lost this weekend, and the Colts have been nearly unstoppable so far so I’m not too worried about them. But the Vikings and the Saints both have histories of choking at horribly inconvenient times, and I really want an NFC team in the Super Bowl that I care about.

Online round-up!

There are a fair number of tabs up on my browser right now. Let’s see what I can get rid of:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/6952220/Why-were-in-the-grip-of-medieval-mania.html

Okay, let’s get one thing clear. Tudor and medieval, as periods, are not the same thing. Don’t conflate them, or the medievalists and Tudor specialists are going to kick your ass. We have studied close combat. I write about music and musicians and romances, and I have studied close combat. There is such a huge difference between the fourteenth century and the sixteenth. When I say I am studying “medieval literature”, no, I don’t mean “like Shakespeare.” They are not even close to the same thing.

Basically, this article…sucks. He seems to think that an interest in anything pre-19^th century is unusual and worth remarking on, even as he says that it’s always been popular, and even as he remarks – twice – that ancient history is just as popular (although he only refers to two writers on ancient history, and one of those two he uses twice). He also only uses two publishing events and the new V&A exhibit that are actually medieval to establish his “mania” and “obsession” with the medieval period (three if you count Wolf Hall, which is Tudor) – and completely ignores the continuing success of the Georgian and Victorian periods in literature.

Skimming this article a couple of days ago, I was annoyed. Reading it more carefully, it just makes me angry.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/6957419/The-true-great-20th-century-novelists-who-irked-the-Bloomsbury-snobs.html

Am I just in a bad mood? This article annoyed me as well. Of course, he put me off almost instantly by praising Joyce and deriding Lawrence. (Not denying that Lawrence had “carnal obsessions” but HELLO, Joyce was obsessed by the body to the point of nausea. At least I find it nauseating.)

He makes a fair point about the snobbery of Bloomsbury and the focus in schools on the modernist movement to the exclusion of the Bloomsbury enemies (Wells, Bennett, etc.), but is it really fair to denounce Bloomsbury for propping themselves up at the expense of others and then do that exact same thing? There must be a way for Galsworthy et al to regain some measure of respect and popularity without having to put down Bloomsbury and the other modernists first.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/02/demetri-martins-palindrome-poem.html

Palindromes are awesome! I know this is from nearly a year ago, but I just heard about it recently. Also, Demetri Martin is cute and funny.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=computers-cant-show-you-the-monet-10-01-04

This is just cool, and proof, of sorts, that computers are not going to take over the world any time soon, because there is still a place for emotion and emotional response.

In which I play with books

Well, my last few posts were depressing and horrible. Or, rather, horribly depressing. Good news! I went to the doctor, I got happy pills, I got my appetite back, and I feel like I can do things again.

Like enter a short story contest.

One of the things I do with my time is play with books. That sounds facetious. I volunteer at a charity shop (Cancer Research UK) and organize their book donations. We try not to have goods on the shop floor for more than a couple of weeks – after that, they get “culled” and go to one of the other shops in town, to get to a new customer base or something like that. So after I sort through the donations, I go through the books on the shelves, pulling the old ones. Then I price and set out new books from the donations.

It’s quite the process, really. I have so much power over these books! I decide whether they are in good enough condition to go out on the shelves (if they’re not, they get recycled in some way), or recent enough. Fiction isn’t a problem, of course, but textbooks and travel books especially – if they’re not from the 21^st century, I toss them. I tossed one today that was a guide to Windows 95. I’m assuming that no one needs a user’s guide to Windows 95 for anything other than nostalgia value. Sometimes I feel bad about some of the travel guides, especially – it can be really interesting to see the differences in tourist advice, or popular areas, or prices over the years. But there’s a point when it’s interesting and a window where it’s too recent to be interesting, too old to be relevant. That window is when I put them in the big white bag.

I have a system of sorts for the storage room, too. Most of the books we get are, of course, fiction. They go on the built in shelves on the outside wall. They’re organized by size rather than anything else, purely for ease of stacking and access. Mass-market paperbacks are on the lowest shelf, just under eye-height, then trade paperbacks (slightly bigger, with slightly harder covers), and then on the top shelf are the large paperbacks – the ones that I’ve seen now as “airport editions” and things like that. Also on the top shelf are some of the non-fiction paperbacks: history, biography, etc. Basically that wall is for anything that you – I – would check out of a library.

Hardcovers are on the other wall, kind of in the same way. Fiction in one area, non-fiction in another. And then we have the reference/specialty books. Diet books, cookbooks (so many cookbooks), gardening books, bird-watching, languages, basically anything that doesn’t fit in with the other categories. They get a shelf of their own, with cookbooks getting a stack on the shelf right by the door. (Seriously. So many cookbooks.)

Kids books are separated into the ones that can go in the 50p bin (picture books, etc.) and the ones that are more for tweens and young adults, which are priced about the same as adult books are. We got a box a couple of months ago that was stacked full to overflowing with teen-girl type books. Some of them are still in the box. I’m shifting them as quickly as I can.

I’m shifting all the books as quickly as I can, really. We have five and a half shelves on the shop floor for books – three of them usually have paperbacks of various sizes, one has hardcover, and one has miscellaneous non-fiction, with a half-shelf near toys for the tween/young adult books. We sell quite a lot of books, and cull quite a lot on a regular basis, but the storage room never seems to diminish.

And some of that is because of days like today. I walked in today and I could not enter the book storage room. We’d gotten so many donations over Christmas (the last time I was in was December 22) that there was literally nowhere else to put the books. It took me at least two hours just to get things sorted, and I was absolutely ruthless about recycling books. If there was any doubt about condition or suitability, into the white recycling bag it went. I then put something like 60 books on the shelves – and one of my fellow volunteers had already done two shelves.

There were three or four boxes full of books today, as well as the mass of bags. I think they were part of an estate sale or something like that. They were nearly all older books, with quite a lot of cookbooks and gardening books and wine-making and things like that. This was one of the times that it was difficult for me to be ruthless when throwing them out (or not), even though I knew I had to be. I kept thinking of my grandparents’ house, which was, and I’m sure is still, crammed to the rafters with books. The collection reflects so much about my grandparents: their interests, hobbies, activities, and so on. I could tell, going through these boxes, what the person who’d had this collection was like in a similar way. I could picture my grandparents’ books going through the same treatment (once the family has pulled out the ones we personally want of course) – sorting through my grandparents’ lives with only minimal consideration for the emotion and history of the books, only looking at how saleable they are. I know it’s necessary, but it’s still difficult.