Dreams are what you wake up from: "The Scratch" by Raymond Carver

For today's poem, "The Scratch," by Raymond Carver, click here.

This is a favorite of mine. It is short and simple, but true, and asks a question. This one is especially relevant to me right now, because I can't seem to stop shooting myself in the foot. Figuratively. It happens so often, that I have to ask—why would a man raise up his hand against himself?—and fear the answer.

Carver is one of the States' most major writers. He grew up in Wahington, worked as a teacher, janitor, library assistant textbook editor, etc., and was largely unrecognized as a writer until the early 80's.

His most canonized work is the short story "Cathedral," where a blind man unwittingly teachings a man, one with the power of sight, to see.

Carver died 2 August 1988, at 50, from lung cancer, in Port Angeles, Washington.

His gravestone reads:

LATE FRAGMENT

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

The marker also includes his poem "Gravy," which is largely autobiographical, hugely beautiful, and enormously touching, and you really should be reading it, like, now.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Ch-ch-change: In Which The Team Takes a New Direction

There has been controversy here at the offices of Lowbrow Lit. A vote has been made and changes will be undertaken.

It all started when Vice-president in Chief Officer Mortimer Fredericks threw his computer screen the length of the building. It sailed through the air with a noteworthy spiral -- Morty played football in college -- then burst against the wall. Mort spoke these words:

"A violent bloom,

that flower is thus

no fragrance.

no color.

just techno dusts"

We began snapping our fingers involuntarily.

After day it was a landslide, a snowball, yes, an avalanche, and there was no stopping it. One by one we fell. Marketing Account Coronel Gertrude Smith spouted verse over her morning Red Zinger. Our accountant, Rochester, vocally observed cotidian nonsense all day long in iambic pentameter. And then I, Chief Executive Person of Lowbrow Lit, inspired by their passion, penned these very lines you read now.

In the end, it was decided to create a blog that featured one poem daily, and maybe other stuff inbetween.

Rochester, trying to be clever, said, "A poem a day, will keep the doctor away," but we slapped him for that one.

In conclusion, there will be changes made in the coming days. Do not be alarmed, expect them. Enjoy.

The Man in the High Castle: Progress

So in my off-time from school assignments I've been keeping up with The Man in the High Castle. Quite frankly I'm not sure what to say about the book. So far it consists of various intertwining story-lines, that are certainley working toward a climax or some sort of conclusion (I hope, at least), and until I get there I cannot say much. Nevertheless, here are some observations:

Characters: Known for hasty writing, Dick leaves something to be desired in the prose, at least in my opinion he does. We must note, however, that he never aspired to lyrical heights, but -- according to interviews -- churned out stories mostly to pay the bills. Despite these short-comings, manages to create some interesting characters. My favorite is Mr. Tagomi.

Concepts: There have been some interesting concepts of aesthetics and history in the book so far. Dick plays with the nature of objects as real and fake, imitations and the real thing. This is a prominent theme; the book even appears to be self-aware that it is an imitation of real history, and there is a sense of metaficiton, as a book within the book has an additional alternate history per the ending of WW2.

Here is a fan trailer someone made for a would-be movie of the book. It's pretty interesting.

As I finish the book, I will post more.

A Work of Worth: Grace McSorely

Death, romance, and humor, all at no cost to online readers. What more could you ask of a graphic novel?

I first became aware of the comic while watching the music video you see below (too add some class to your browsing, hit play). Naturally, I looked the thing up online. It was Grace McSorely. In the book, we meet Grace and her boyfriend, Death. Yeah, they met on the internet. We become witness to the day-to-day workings of their relationship, their adventures, and their mishaps. In addition to all of this, it just happens to be awesome.

The book is familiar, slightly surreal and quietly conveyed. There is humor, there is sadness, and the drawings are cooly copacetic.

The comic's craft is equal to its art. The book was written, drawn, and published by one sole creator, Katie Murphy. Read about it here. She drew the pages, printed them on a home press, then sewed them together. If that doesn't knock your socks off, I don't know what will.

One of the things I love about the book is that it's the product of one person's passions and elbow grease. In a time when most art seems the product of audience screenings, it's refreshing to see someone create something from their own ideas.

Read the comic. Enjoy it. Then get inspired to do something too.

Faulkner and Dick, Gods and Monsters

In an interview with German writer Uwe Anton, Philip K. Dick cited William Faulkner's Nobel Prize acceptance speech to describe the purpose of his protagonists, which he described as neither heroes nor anti-heroes. Here is what Faulkner said, "I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail....because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance... [The writer's duty is] to help man endure by reminding him of ... the glory of his past."

And here is what Dick said: "The entire universe and all the parts therein continually malfunction. But the great merit of the human being is that the human being is isomorphic with his malfunctioning universe....And when he recognizes that he is a malfunctioning part in a malfunctioning system instead of succumbing to this realization and just lying down and saying...there's nothing that can be done, [h]e goes on trying.
...And I think that it's certain Faulkner's man will not merely endure, he will prevail. That in the midst of the rubble, there will still be the sound of a man's voice planning, arguing, and proposing solutions. I think Faulkner caught the essence of what is really great about human beings, and so I don't write about heroes. "

I think that they are saying this: there is greater beauty in mankind's strivings for perfection than in the achievement of it.

One of my favorite paintings is a large representation of massive waterfalls. It hangs in a library I frequent and is mediocre at best with its dull colors and dumb cliches, such as the stripe slathered across the abyss, a sulking rainbow. The amateur artist invoked the auteur and failed. He probably knew it was no Rembrandt, seeing it through to the end.

When I see the painting, I see the struggle of man -- the gasps for the divine breath that made Adam animate, and could make us more than mammals. Marked with the scars of that conflict, the work transcends banality and enters the inspired.

In the classic film The Super Mario Bros. Movie, there is this great line. Daisy (a character) says, "It’s beautiful. It’s almost as if he was a monster trying to be a human being..."
The artist, the writer, the creator, is a human being trying to be a god.

Antiques, Nazis, and the Illusion of Reality: Philip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle

This semester at BYU-Idaho has been kind to me. My teachers are awesome. The classes are interesting, and for the first time in my college career (which, admittedly, is not that much) I have had free time to read for myself.

I've been reading voraciously.

In the past three weeks or so I've knoc

ked back six novels, some poetry here and there, and numerous short stories. I love every moment of it.

Next on the reading list is Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. It's basically about this: America lost WWII. The country is now part of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The back cover describes it as "harrowing" and "breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas." Sounds good to me. Oh yeah. And it won the Hugo Award for Best Novel.

First off, Philip K. Dick was little crazy, but self-admittedly so. Click here to read a brief

illustrated history of Dick's stranger musings, drawn by the legendary comic artist R. Crumb.

Here is a cool 10 minute BBC documentary on him.

Secondly, the man was absolutely brilliant. Don't let the stigmatic "science fiction" tag fool you. This is serious stuff. In my opinion, the profound is best expressed through the banal. In the words of my brother, "...it's less pretentious and more sincere." I agree.

With 36 novels and 121 short stories (the majority were published in cheap sci-fi mags), Dick was overlooked in his lifetime and wrote in poverty. Like many of the brilliant, his contribution to the arts was only appreciated after his death.

Just check out this fancy The Library of America edition of his works. You only get in that if

you're dead and hot stuff.

A quotable quote regarding the dude:

"[He] has chosen to handle ... material too nutty to accept, too admonitory to forget, too haunting to abandon."

—Washington Post

Hot diggity. Let's get reading. I'll be tracking my progress and questions here.

Happy trails.

Book Report: Flatland

Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland is intriguing, enormously influential, and refreshingly simple. It is also much overlooked.

A person would enjoy this book if they once studied star-slugged skies as youth, or cheered on the Fantastic Four versus Dr. Doom, or -- as the Introduction puts it best -- if you: "...are young at heart and the sense of wonder still stirs within you, [beat] YOU WILL READ WITHOUT PAUSE." [Shouting not in original.] So read it.

It is a still-studied mathematics of the fourth dimension and pre-dated Einstein. It is a satiric comedy, and a religious parable.

It has social themes sharpening Orwell's 1984

It was published in 1884.

Abbott was an English schoolmaster, and basically a regular Dumbledore*. Straight out of Rowling. In Flatland we, as readers, become the Potters and learn from a legend.

Its alarmingly brief -- about 100 pages -- divided into "1. This World" and "2. Other Worlds."

It is the story of a two-dimensional [hence Flatland] square and all the social implications of living in the 2nd dimension. Of course, this social structure collapses upon encountering the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and so on dimensions.

Surprisingly, as I read it, all I can think is how relevant it is in contemporary culture.

Check it out. You will be entertained. And challenged.

PS: There've also been a few attempts at turning it into a film. I was going to embed them, but they look prrretty lame. Check them out on youtube if you're interested.

*just read his wikipedia article.