I READ A BOOK AND WENT TO NEW YORK CITY

Salem St, Boston

I'm just finishing Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven. Besides being a fan of his previous works, I think it's commendable that he took the initiative to write about shocking Mormon fundamentalism that occurs in America's own backyard shortly after September 11, 2001, not to detract from the tragedy of that moment in time, but to draw attention to dangerous religious extremism that goes largely disregarded from American criticism that eagerly and arrogantly directs itself instead at foreign ways of life.

The hypocrisy of humans never ceases to both amaze and disgust me, and the book is convoluted with such disturbing aspects of polygamy, incest, rape, inbreeding and entitlement that I must admit I felt inclined to vomit. Add to that the delusional religious fanatics the world over who think they're having direct conversations with God and are his self-proclaimed prophets and you have yourself a book that masterfully encapsulates the dreariness that is human existence, in the same sense that his book, Into Thin Air reveals human cruelty and self-centeredness.

Spent my birthday in New York City. Little brother was also there for a bike expo taking place in Queens.

I was really just the clueless person who walked around looking at bicycles pretending to be intrigued.

WORST BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

Is The Circle by Dave Eggers the worst book I have read this summer?

Yes.

It's a disappointment, to say the least. Because I'm a big Eggers fan, ever since first reading his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius in my late teens. And then my brother giving me his copy of What Is the What to borrow, which blew my mind.

So while browsing the bookstore some weeks ago and seeing this newly released novel from last year, and the multitude of praise from every publication in existance, and shockingly, the much feared Michiko Kakutani, I willingly forked out the $15 to make a copy of it mine. Trust in Eggers, I thought. He's going off on the internet age of today, where people blindly allow technology to control their lives, diminish the value of privacy and intimacy and actually living and making experiences count. He's pointing out the problems of living through a screen, making all information available through social media in an eager, dangerous, naive, egocentric need to be seen and heard and acknowledged by everyone.

Trust in anyone who goes to great lengths to spell out the truth for the unthinking masses.

I'm on board with the subject of his latest novel. But the execution just seemed horribly wrong. For one thing, the story is 500 pages long. Due to a lot of excessive repitition and the superfluous explanation of just how impulsive and reckless the innovative minds that lead the sheep generation deeper into the abyss of a totalitarian society, the story becomes dull yet hyperbolic.

The characters are unappealing, especially the naive, submissive female protagonist (but of course), Mae, who is such an idiot I kept thinking after some time, "Come on, dude...Really?" But perhaps that's what Eggers was trying to convey anyway, that having one's life revolve around the internet and social media day in and day out makes one into a monotonous robot-like machine. Add to the fact that the dialogue was implausible and grating, I just had to relent and finally allowed myself to lose interest somewhere in the middle. After 300 pages I just started skipping paragraphs and pages impatiently, something which I very rarely do when reading, determined still to see how it all ends for naive, hopeless Mae. 

I think it was Stephen King who once wrote in his bit on writing advice, that some writers, however talented they are, can't write realistic dialogue for shit.

And it was Douglas Adams who opined that a book doesn't have to be longer than it should. He pointed out with accuracy that American writers are in the habit of writing extremely long novels, when you can say something in less words. I too, agree. If I wanted to read something that was the length of a bible I'd just read the bible.

I'm still a Dave Eggers fan, but The Circle was pretty bad.

THE CONTINUAL DESECRATION OF RAMADAN

Here is an interesting article I read a few days ago about the commercialization of Ramadan in recent times, namely in the Arab world and Southeast Asia. Reminds me of seeing Muslims flocking to restaurants and ordering everything on the menu to break fast, like they'd just spent a week starving under a tent made of rubble and debris. Way to completely defy the entire purpose of the practice. Fact is, Ramadan is all about discipline and empathy and the "cleansing of one's soul". But it's sad when one of the few holy holidays left in the world is now going the way of Christmas and Thanksgiving (not a real thing but deluded people like to think it is) and succumbing to Western ideals of excessive consumption and commercialization.

Or when people like Tamara Al-Gabbani in the article above says, in regard to DKNY creating a special Ramadan collection aimed at Arabs, "I think it is really, really important the world come together as one and the fact that an American, New York-based brand is coming to us and saying, ‘Hey, we acknowledge this beautiful time of year that you have, and we have made this just for you.’ I love that."

People are too blinded by gluttony, mistaking exploitation for goodwill. I read somewhere once that the more advanced we are the stupider we actually become. Nevermind the fact that Tamara Al-Gabbani sounds like an idiot who can't read between the lines, but if the world does "come together as one," especially during Ramadan, it should be for a significant, urgent, and collective purpose, like the rioting and demand for an end to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Can't wait to see DKNY's collection of cheongsams for Chinese New Year and tallits for Hanukkah.

SCIENCE FICTION AND CAKE

Reading more this summer, which gives me more good reason to stay off the internet. I was browsing the sale section of the bookstore one day and decided to read something lighthearted and English. And science fiction because I don't read enough of that. And Douglas Adams, rest his soul, is ace so there was no question.

I bought So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish first and laughed so hard I went back to the bookstore and bought The Restaurant At the End of the Universe, which I am just finishing before I start Life, the Universe and Everything.

This was right after I read Toni Morrison's Beloved and...well, if you've read any of Toni Morrison's novels you'd probably understand why I'm reading three of Douglas Adams' novels consecutively.

And then I made blackberry cheesecake for the first time.

CAN HUMANS DO WHAT PROPHETS SAY?

"Sometimes we attribute certain things we do not understand to the demon, not thinking they may be things of God that we do not understand." (80)