Practicing Reading, Learning, and Writing

We’re in the Chihuahuan desert/Davis Mountains and everywhere you look you can imagine this as the home of the Native American population. Today we visited Fort Davis which was an outpost for our military’s operation against the Apache and Comanche Indian population in West Texas. American expansion into the Western frontier put us at odds with the Indian population that called this desert and these mountains home. We’re staying at the Indian lodge in the Davis Mountains State Park. 

Sometimes it’s a bit hard to imagine ourselves as reaping the benefit of past military conquests, but it’s going on daily. That’s certainly not the kind of thing to bring up on vacation, is it? This is beautiful country and the sky is always blue, but I do feel guilty. Of course, admitting I feel guilty doesn’t do any good for anyone but me. So, even this admission of guilt is self-serving. This setting and this time to myself makes me wonder how you get past the idea that your country has made mistakes. I wonder how you get to the point where you can feel comfortable with your place in the world when you’re exploiting what doesn’t belong to you.

One of my favorite books on the Comanche empire is Empire of the Summer Moon. It’d be an interesting fantasy to try to sit down and imagine what Texas would’ve been like had the Comanche’s won the war for the West. Are there any books that do that? I’ve never done any alternate history reading, but I might read something on that. I think that’d be a worthwhile meditation for us to engage in. Maybe we could repair some of the past damage by trying to do the Comanche culture the honor of understanding. Maybe we could open our eyes to the cultural differences and meld some of the Comanche heritage into our culture.

Put me in the set of people that both love The Great Gatsby novel and thought the latest cinematic take on it was true to the original. The most criticized aspect, the use of modern music, did not bother me because it had the effect of conveying the excess of the Gatsby parties. The second most criticized aspect, the use of modern cinematic effects, is a necessary element of any movie that expects any sort of commercial effect today. Can you imagine the pool of directors that would have been interested in being involved with the movie had you technically handicapped them by limiting their use of technology?

There were aspects of the film that were inconsistent with the novel, but when that was done it was with good reason. We had to know Nick Carraway was telling us the story, we had to know what he thought of Gatsby at the film’s conclusion.

I read some articles before seeing the movie, and it was George R.R. Martin’s comment about the words of the novel playing a major role in the film that ended up being the most true of any comment I read. The film uses many lines for the novel, verbatim. There are also times when the words are put on the screen for you to read while Carraway narrates.

Of course, you should read or re-read the book before seeing the film. Doesn’t that go without saying? Of the elements, though, that the book focused on you can expect to see them emphasized in the movie as well. Just like Gatsby, we can’t repeat the past, no director could make us feel what we felt when we first read the novel, but I do think the movie gives us a new experience that pays tribute to the original’s ideas.

When we’re traveling I try to notice the bookstores we pass. When we have time we’ll stop and see what’s going on. We stopped at a Hastings in Kerrville, TX the other day. They had a nice selection of new books, but their electronics section was bizarrely stocked with old portable cassette and cd players. I feel my age when I think how outdated those relics already are.

The Hastings was packed, which I always take as a good sign, but I wonder how long it’ll be around. Will Amazon run it out of town?

I have a love/hate relationship with Amazon. It’s so damn convenient, and it has everything I don’t have in my home town. But, at the same time, I can see how it’s every bit as villainous as Wal-Mart in terms of destroying local businesses. And forcing a good local business out of town is like throwing a dear friend out of your home just because you’re tired.

In a small town, though, when your bookstore is something like the Hastings I saw in Kerrville, and your choice is to buy the thing online or go without it, what is the more ethical choice? What if the thing you want is a book you’re excited about? Do the ethics change when you’re looking for a particular book? I think they must. I’m almost willing to commit to an absolute along these lines: when it comes to books, quench your thirst at any cost.

I’ll be taking a road trip next week so I’ve been charging my Kindle. I wonder whether that’s fair to the travel experience. Andrew Blackman wrote on this subject in August last year. We’ll stop at a bookstore in Marfa, but having the Kindle with me is a security blanket. I’ll buy some books and take them home, no doubt, but what if—on the first night away—I need to read before I can fall asleep? What if we haven’t made it to the bookstore yet?

I’ve become Pavlovian with my evening reading. I will usually read for at least 30 minutes before bed with noise cancelling headphones on. I use the headphones to keep the Alicia’s TV noise out. After reading I’ll usually start an audiobook and listen for a while before I start to doze off. I’ll catch myself falling asleep and stop the audio and go to sleep. I’m not sure the routine is recommended for getting the maximum amount of REM sleep, but it seems to work for me. I haven’t had a sleepless night in some time and that did used to be a problem.

I rarely finish an audiobook like that, but most often I listen to something I’ve already read. Hearing just a few lines brings the whole book back to mind. In that way, I don’t lose touch with old friends.

The other reason I bring a book or two is because it’s no fun to not have the thing you want to read at your fingertips. I’ve become extremely spoiled to instant access to reading material. I do plan some of my monthly reading, but I’m spoiled to the idea that, on whim, I can read anything I can imagine I might want to read mere moments after the notion strikes.

On Monday I had two firsts: (1) I had a chance to visit Brazos Bookstore—an independent bookstore in Houston—and (2) met Damien Echols, the author of Life after Death, where he tells his story about being wrongly convicted and sentenced to death.

Brazos Bookstore is brilliant. If you’re ever in Houston you should make it a priority to visit. The staff recommendations are the heart of an independent bookstore and Brazos does them well. They can’t stock everything, but they can stock what they believe in and tell you why it’s important. I hope there’s always a place for independent bookstores because they are a discovery tool readers still need despite the internet’s ability to provide us access to the entire universe of potential purchases. How do you expose yourself to new ideas if you’re always directly searching for something? Amazon’s great for telling you what you can read that’s related to a certain author, but Amazon is not great for introducing you to something new, something you’d never think of on your own.

Damien Echols quietly commanded the room’s attention with his intensity and courage. His story is one that’s been told in various documentaries, most recently, West of Memphis, but in the reading he opened up more about his life instead of telling the story of the wrongful conviction. He was right to assume most in attendance were familiar with the conviction story. His reading was a series of anecdotes and he opened up for questions from the audience. He talked about his experience with Buddhism and his meditation practice. He talked about starting a meditation school in Salem, MA since being released from prison. He talked about getting tattoos with Johnny Depp and about staying with Eddie Vedder after being released from prison.

A question from a writer in the audience caused Damien to share that he’s a Stephen King fan and attributes the growth of his writing voice to reading widely, but in particular to reading Stephen King’s novels. He mentioned having read the great authors while in prison, thousands of books were brought to him on death row, but the author he keeps coming back to is Stephen King.

From Damien’s wrongful conviction I took away the idea that we are too quick to judge. Often our judgments are based on our own prejudices rather than our informed view of reality. Damien was convicted largely because an entire community rushed to judgment. He went on to spend eighteen years on death row because the parties involved with the conviction spent the rest of their lives refusing to admit their mistakes. Admitting a mistake is not death. Stubborn refusal to admit a mistake almost cost Damien his life. Admitting a mistake is one of the ways we grow.

Damien’s passion for meditation is contagious. He used it in prison to survive each day, fearing he’d be killed by the state or by a prisoner. I left thinking I should work some daily meditation into my schedule.

Independent bookstores, like Brazos Bookstore, are still needed to host events like this. If you’re an author I’d reach out to Brazos about scheduling a reading. If you’re a reader you should visit their website and get book recommendations and look for events that’ll expose you to people and ideas you wouldn’t otherwise come by.

I follow Chris Guillebeau and Austin Kleon on twitter—they’re inspirational follows—and they suggest this:

Chris Guillebeau ‏@chrisguillebeau21m

Make something every day and post it to the internet. Do it for at least half a decade. See what happens. (via @austinkleon)

I’m fairly convinced a daily writing habit is worthwhile, but the best way to find out is to test yourself. So—my proclamation—I’m going to write every day and publish it here. I think this is the right place for it because my blog readership has come to expect a certain schedule and thrusting a daily post on them might be offensive. I also like the idea that the audience, if any-ever, will grow out of this project.

In my flash of clarity I also came up with the idea to create a few templates to help ease me into the new habit. These will be my crutches on days when I can’t come up with anything, but I won’t limit myself to these templates every day:

1. For example, I could use an Experience/Takeaway format where I tell about something I’ve done then try to express what I currently take away from that thing.

2. I might also do something like Quote/Comment where I take a line out of a book, a tweet, a blog post, an article, or anything else I’ve read and try to make some worthwhile comment on it, at least preserving it for future contemplation and/or use.

3. Word Play - I can try to use the dictionary word of the day in a sentence or two, with no other real restrictions on content.

4. Editorial Comment - I will make some editorial comment about something going on at readlearnwrite.com. Some insight in response to a post, some expansion on a particular idea, etc. I will not make this merely promotional.

5. Notebook Theft - I may pull something out of an old notebook and try to revise it to share here.

6. Question/Answer - I pose some kind of question, or field one from someone else, and attempt to answer it.

Here are my additional aspirations:

1. I will write at least 250 words a day.

2. I will publish what I write. For my purposes tumblr will count as publishing.

3. I will not beat myself up because they’re too rough, unedited. I can always hire an outside editor at a later date if I decide I want to publish the writing in a different format.

4. I will not make this a journal. Instead, something that has value for others.

5. I will remind myself daily that this is an experiment—a practice—not a final product.

6. It is the cumulative effect of this daily habit that matters more than the final product.

Day one, done.

adamchanler:

lady-tyrell:

the funniest part of macbeth is when the soldiers all cut a branch off a tree to hold in front of them while they march toward’s macbeth’s castle in hopes that he will somehow think they are all trees and not an army

the second best part is that it actually works

(via litreactor)