A new book club meeting
Sunday, May. 23, 2004 - 20:25

The lawnmower is a stupid piece of crap and it won't shoot the grass clippings into the bag properly so it took me like three times as long as it should have to mow the lawn today. That said, let's begin the first meeting of the year of This Diary's Book Club.

Me: Welcome back everyone!

You: Thank you, woo hoo.

Me: Glad you're excited about this. If you don't mind, could you please begin the discussion for us? I'm listening to The 6ths and I'm a little distracted.

You: Then you shouldn't have started typing, or you should turn off the music, because I don't want to start the discussion.

Me: Please don't be difficult. Just do it.

You: Oh fine. Okay, folks, today we're discussing one of John Donne's Songs. At least it wasn't as long as some of the crap she's made us read, like that horrid 1984.

Me: Crap? Oh come on.

You: I didn't mean it.

Me: Okay, it's the end of Oahu now, so I can concentrate.

You: Go for it, champ.

Me: This is the first poem we've read, isn't it? I think it is.

Whisper: GEEZ, I miss poetry. The last time I actually read poetry to get to a meaning was in highschool.

Me: I don't really like poetry all that much. I think most of it is pretentious sappy crap. But some of it I like. I should like poetry, and sometimes I try to, but I'm too shallow and lame to really give it an effort. But some I like, like this one.

You: This poem's a little anti-woman, isn't it?

Me: A little? Yeah. I like the rhythm of this poem though, the beat. But yeah, it's anti-woman. He starts off by setting up all these impossible things, like catching a falling star and finding the place where the past is still going on. All these impossible things.

You: And what does this have to do with the Pixies?

Me: Nothing, just that some of the lines in Wave of Mutilation, in particular the ones I quoted, remind me of this poem.

You: So the first stanza is setting up all these impossible things, then what's the second one about?

Me: Well, so like, there's this guy, and he's magic and stuff, and he can do all these impossible things and stuff, so John Donne sends him off on an adventure to find a woman true and fair, i.e. beautiful but not a whore.

You: And he's saying that's impossible?

Me: Yeah. In the third stanza he's all, "Dude, if you find one, tell me where she is and I'll go get it on with her. Oh, but wait, ha ha, never mind, because maybe she wasn't a whore when you met her, but she'll turn into one before I can get there."

You: Because all women are whores.

Me: All beautiful women are whores. Ostensibly there are some ugly women who aren't whores.

You: John Donne must've been bitter when he wrote this.

Me: Yeah. I don't know anything about him, but we can pretend. He'd probably just gotten burned and he was mad about that.

You: He was probably an annoying whiney saphead, a bitter bitter man.

Me: Of course he was. But the man had rhythm, so it's okay.

You: Um.

Me: You read poems about how women are whores or are fickle or whatever, but the thing is, they're all written by men, men who were probably just throwing a temper tantrum when they were writing because the girl they liked didn't like them back. There's some poem that I read that said something like love is a game to a man but to a woman it's life and death. I think the last line was "to a woman, life and death". Something like that.

You: Who wrote it?

Me: I don't know, but it was by a woman, and I'd like to see it again, so if anyone knows what I'm talking about and tells me about it, I'll give them a lollipop.

You: Wow, enticing.

Me: Is there anything else we should discuss about this poem?

You: Yeah, you're all "Oh wow, the rhythm, the rhythm" but the poem doesn't even rhyme. "And find/what wind/serves to advance an honest mind"... that doesn't rhyme. 'Wind' looks like the others but doesn't sound like them.

Me: Language change. Spellings, once set, aren't easily changed, even when the pronunciation changes.

You: Which means...

Me: It used to rhyme.

You: Okay, whore.

Me: Excuse me?

You: Well, you are making us read anti-woman poetry. You can't expect it to not rub off on us a little.

Me: That's retarded. Okay, this discussion is over.

You: Good.

Me: Shall we discuss the next thing to read?

You: No.

Me: How about, um, I was thinking about reading On The Road again, but maybe later. I think, after I finish reading the Howard Zinn book I'm reading now, that I'm going to read something in the fantasy genre. So I think we'll read something by someone named Terry. I can't remember the name exactly, but it was recommended to me by one of the boys at work.

You: Have you ever read fantasy?

Me: No, but I'm going to start.

You: You're a whore.

Me: Oh please. Stop it. I've thought that I should expand my genretical horizons, literaturarily speaking. It has nothing to do with whether I'm a whore or not.

You: Whatever dude, you're just trying to impress him.

Me: Shut up. Once I get the book I'll let you know so we can all read it together. How's that sound.

You: Excellent.

Me: Thank you for coming.

You: Whore.

Me: At our next meeting I hope you're not so belligerent. I can and will make you leave.

You: Terrifying.

Me: Goodnight. I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Wah wah, it's Sunday? I have to work all week this week for the first time. I'm going to be tired. I should get to bed pretty soon. Wah. Wah wah wah.

P.S. Here's what I was doing a year ago, and two years and one day ago, and three years ago (also here (and that's still true)), and four years and nine days ago.