the joke is, we all have the same punchline.

My love affair with Steinbeck was followed with a one night stand with Palahniuk. His biting satire of the media, our conception of importance, fame  and modern religion is striking but fails to function as inspiring commentary. With lines like : "You realize that there's no point in doing anything if nobody's watching" and "If Christ had died from a barbiturate overdose, alone on the bathroom floor, would He be in Heaven?" Palahniuk makes it clear his reputation as a nihilist is well earned. 

Survivor, like many of Palahniuk's novels, thrusts the ugly and the embarrassing upon the reader. He exposes mankind, society, you and I as unthinking, animalistic nobodies. Tender Branson, the protagonist, is doomed from the very start of the narrative- he is alone on a commercial airliner slowly running out of gas. The book's first page is 289, the first chapter 47. The plane will crash, Branson will die, yet the reader still finds him or herself begging for Tender's redemption, his salvation. Tender is our innocent mortality. Just as we all one day will die, Palahniuk makes it clear that Tender will follow suit before the novel comes to an end. 

Just as our own rationalizations curb our fears of mortality, failure and rejection, Palahniuk crafts a narrative in which the reader begs Tender to get the makeover, take the drugs, have the sex in order to solve his problems. By changing himself, his psyche- he can find happiness, redemption. Although the novel closes with inevitable death and imminent destruction, Palahniuk offers us salvation and immortality within our own humanity. Within the blood, hair, bones and semen of our human cesspool we can find some beauty or connection that will outlive our timeline. No divine intervention. No miracles. Just flawed men and women living a a flawed world.

sleep with one eye open

The mosquito on my ceiling and I are eyeing each other.

I know as soon as I fall asleep he is going to bop over and bite me.

him and all his other mosquito friends lying in wait.

fuck.

the minnesota clouds have belly buttons

18 people, 15 pounds of fish. My Grandma Margaret, martini in hand, flour and crisco up to her elbows, was standing over the stove simultaneously flipping battered fish screaming with oil and fending off my mom and Aunt Robin who had intruded into her kitchen. Dave and I were discussing the pros and cons of owning a pet skunk while my Dad and Uncle Mike stood on the porch puffing cigars and planning what fishing spots to hit after dinner.

The Dittmers were hungry and happy hour had been in full swing for a while. Dinners in our little clan are the highlight of the day, so we all crowded into my family's cabin. 18 people all talking and laughing at once. As soon as it was announced that all the fish had been fried applause erupted and my Grandma was congratulated on a job that was surely well done- she is the pro. Without missing a step all 18 of the  Dittmers/Kurtzes/Owenes joined hands and said grace. I am not profoundly religious by any account, but as I looked up at my family with their heads bowed, reciting the same Hail Mary we always say before dinner, I was reminded of how much I absolutely love this crazy bunch of people.

everyone remembers their first steinbeck

I have been toying with the idea of starting a blog for a while now, but just like those looming 20 page term papers that tug in the back of your mind all semester long, I haven't known where to begin. 

Call this my introductory paragraph? My "hello, hows it going over there!"? I hesitate to set a theme, to reveal my thesis, delineate my goals. What ends up being posted here will be my front porch musings, my inconsequential anecdotes, my critiques and my giggles. 

....

I am reading my first John Steinbeck, East of Eden. Usually, when I read a book, I race through it. I want to know exactly what the author is saying, I crave to follow the narrative to its close. With Steinbeck, it is a different experience. Each sentence is so beautiful that I find myself savoring the diction and imagery more than the plot or subtext itself. He crafts a dichotomy of direct and beautiful language that reveals itself in every corner of this book. His discussion of love through the character Adam Trask is heart-wrenching. In the chapter I just finished Adam says to another: 

"Some men can't see the color green, but they may never know they can't. I think you are only part of a human. I can't do anything about that. But I wonder whether you ever feel that something invisible is all around you. It would be horrible if you knew it was there and couldn't see it or feel it. That would be horrible." (Steinbeck, 382)

Steinbeck finds a way into your heart without tearing it apart. This book centers not around high tension drama that brings you closer to the characters, but rather a well-developed sense of humanity. I don't think I have ever loved a character as much as Samuel Hamilton. Instead of racing Steinbeck to the finish line, I find myself not wanting it to end. Here's to you Steinbeck, you turned a sprint into a saunter.

post script: How badass was Steinbeck? I mean, really. I only wish I could sit in an armchair with that kind of command. homeboy meant BUSINESS.