On: Magic in The City and the Current Reading List

While specific books and I have certain and often complex relationships that I won't get into now, with Books in general I've noticed a sort of cycle. It starts with a twinge, perhaps after reading a review, or seeing the same book a few times - a sort of slight ping in my mind, a switch being pressed that says: "Why aren't you reading!?" Then, I move on and get busy and weeks will go by, but all the while, I will begin to crave reading. It will be a source of anxiety of sorts, of me being silly and not making time for what I want most.

Finally, I'll make way to The Library and spend a few happy hours browsing, looking, being lost, being frustrated, wondering why I'd waited so long - and come home to at least  half dozen tomes that could be anything and wonder how I'll have the time to read half of my haul. I then read one book, or two at once, get enthralled or get bored, pick up another, or ignore them all and rack up fines and finally return them. Then, a few weeks will go by and the same will start all over.

It's a bit of a silly pattern, but I followed it even while living in Columbus, just an alley away from the Main Library there, which, to this day remains as one of my favorite places on Earth. Whoever runs that ship sure know what they're doing and it's something that's truly lacking in Chicago's 100 times larger system.

But. Something that I didn't have in Columbus was something I find ever-present here in Chicago. It's not a thing or place and it's not even anything I can describe in concrete terms. It is more of a sensation and a consistent, persistent thought, like some great inside joke about to be told that only a portion of the city is directly aware of that nonetheless affects and impacts the city each and every day, if only you let it. It may be silly, but the only word I have for it is magic.

Of course, it's not unicorns or bolts of thunder. It's not even anything terribly interesting, but there are a lot of coincidences that happen here all the time. It's getting on the train with absolute strangers and then, on your commute back, seeing the very same people, several days in a row, all at wildly different times. It's thinking about how to contact someone and then having that person get in touch. It's thinking, "Oh, I wonder if that book that finished the trilogy that I started ever got written?" - and it being the first thing you see when going to the library for the first time in months, which of course happened to me last weekend, with the book you see above that I am now reading and very much enjoying. These things are all minor, and I wouldn't think to comment on any of them, unless they happened all the time, constantly and consistently.

If that's just part of living here, then I am all for it. It's odd, bizarre and sometimes startling, but it's part of the wonderful vibrancy that brought me here is allowing me to now thrive.

Chicago

This friday, I and some friends plan to spend a day and a half in Chicago. Not nearly enough time in one of my favorite cities. Why I favor it so, really, is beyond me. Not having lived there and only having visited twice, it is perhaps because each time I visit is a celebration, time spent with good friends and a dear aunt and a feast of art, culture and time spent in a vibrant, alien place. It's just too damn cold.

This will be the warmest time I've ever visited the Second City and I hope the weather will be kind. I plan to visit my aunt, see the museum and be gone in time to start the next work week.

Speaking of work. I am sorely lacking in this department, but it is not so simple as me being underemployed and I haven't really the words to voice just what it that has come over me. Have I changed, have I stalled - I do not know, but I become more and more upset each day. With myself, with my shortcomings, with my sudden lack of will and drive and movement. Excuses. I am lazy and, having been so suddenly dropped off from my illusion of decent work, I now don't have that cover and must actually roll up my sleeves and work. Can I do it? Of course, but how?

So I am going to Chicago. I do not intend to give the trip a lot of importance, but a change of pace is sorely wanted. My life needs to start now, to pick up. I need to go places, to meet people, to start something. I dally. With my future and my career, no less. I work to earn money but I am near content with the easy, mindless, labor and am near satisfied to not want anything more. But that is not who I am. Ambition, drive and passion are there inside of me and when released, it is a beautiful feeling, a wave that carries me from one moment to the next. But I dally. I do not look, do not apply myself, do not make myself known. Time is an excuse, but like all things, time can be made and the excuse is wearing thin.

It is hubris, though. How proud I was and how stubborn. I thought myself better, smarter and better positioned than my classmates and peers and now this. But I still have so much and have all my faculties to regain my footing. It will happen, what I need now is time.

New work, a new portfolio, a website and more connections are also in order. The furnace has grown cold and damp. Time to add fuel to the fire and let loose the fiery beast. Stupid analogy, but now more than ever I see myself as a great machine, idling, while the world moves ahead.

Another Dream

My dreams continue to astound me. Last night, not only was I back home in Colorado, but I happened to be watching Gloria Estefan's dog, who pooped all over the office as she came to get it.
...
What the what!? Why do I dream about celebrities about whom I care so little? Sandra Bullock, Celine Deon, and now Gloria Estefan. It is amusing, sure, but oh so bizarre.

Oh well, life...

The Woman on the Bus

There was this woman on the bus. She had her son with her who was no more than six. Her skin was the color of brown silk - perfectly smooth, matte, unblemished and her eyes were like thin almonds, as though squinting, they tapered at each end and were accentuated with the most beautiful pair of folds at their ends that made them seem twice as long and gave her face a sense of endless serenity and wisdom. Her lips were full, sensual, accentuated by the slight protrusion of her jaws and her cheekbones were plump, sitting high under her eyes. She was beautiful.

With her hair covered by a simple black rag tied into a knot in the back, she wore a plain white collared shirt that must've been two sizes two big and grey sweatpants and by any white standard she was overweight. With no jewelry save a three stone band and no makeup, save lipgloss, she was still beautiful.

Even if dozens of generations removed, I had the image of this woman dressed in vivid kente cloth that may have been the uniform of her ancestors. I saw her belonging more elsewhere, than here, in Columbus, riding the bus with me and dozens others and her son.

"You gotta eat vegetables to be strong." she told him "Don't you want to be strong?" she asked and struck a bodybuilding pose. "Nuh-uh" was his expected bratty response to which she laughed, pulled him close and kissed him on the forehead. Such a simple exchange, but one that had the full potential of melting glaciers, steel and any other thing in sight. The warmth was palpable and the amount of love pouring out of this woman was overwhelming. Now, to remove an eyelash from her eye she closed her eyes, leaned forward and had him pull open her lids slightly and blow right on it. Not producing the desired effect, she laughed again, rubbing her eye, saying "You're supposed to get it out, not blow it back in!" She had him do it again, more gently. "There you go." Another hug, another kiss.

I could not help but think of myself with my mother when I was that age. We rode the bus back then too - could we have had a similar exchange? In a different place, and time, with different words, but with the same emotions. The thought was almost overwhelming.

30 Second Review - Isabel Allende "Ines of my Soul"

My love affair with Isabel Allende continues with me reading her "Ines of my Soul," a novel that is the fictitious telling of the true story of the colonization of Chile, written from the point of view of Ines Suarez, the woman at the center of the founding of the city of Santiago and thanks to whom the city survived. It is an amazing story, made more unreal by the fact that it's linked by true events. The book is a novel because no true account survives of the journey the colonists took, nor of their difficult first years. Instead Allende uses the magic of her pen and a lot of research to craft this book.

Still, it did not truly dawn on me that this actually happened until the disclaimer at the end, because the story is so colorful, the people so large and unreal, their lives possessed by the allure of exploration, by the taming of a wild and dangerous land at the very end of the world. It is an amazing story. And again, the craft and quality that I've come to expect from Allende is there, in full force. Soft and gentle, the words demand your reading. This being one of her most recent novels, her writing has definitely improved and metastasized.

At the center is Ines herself, hailing from simple roots, who, by chance, destiny and her gift of finding water, becomes the mother of Santiago and all of Chile. Intelligent and cunning, she is surrounded by a host of strong women who maintain the city and its men. Also central to the novel is the systematic dismantling and subjugation of the natives of the continent and the wars the colonists wage on the them, especially the Mapuchu. A difficult subject, Allende does not gloss over the savagery that was so common then and while never excessively graphic, it's still sometimes shocking.

Beautiful, fascinating and meticulously written, this is another must-read.

30 Second Review - Isabel Allende "Paula"

I have not read much ever since the writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez displaced the entire sum of human literature as insignificant and ever since I'd resigned to the memory of his endless sentences, the dreamy metaphors, the impossible settings that moved me to tears. Here and there, I'd pick and choose but never read more than a page of an actual book. And yet.

Isabel Allende was referred to me several times and each time I said I'd get to it. It seems she chose to come to me first as her "Paula" was lent to me with great hesitancy, with only the simple promise of my enjoyment of its pages. Which I did, very much.

The writing of Allende, as I am discovering, is not only fine as lace but has the consistency and magic of a dim room unopened from a previous century. There is also the unmistakable miracle of the taste and feel of Marquez' finest writing in her pages and her being a separate human being from another country, time and place remains a surprising fact. Like I said when I read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" - forever in my mind the greatest single feat of writing ever known to man - these books, his and hers, read like fairy tales. The sentences go on, the years pass and the people that populate the pages seem to live and breathe with an air that is their own.

From the instant I picked up "Paula", it was difficult to set down. Written with endless grace, the book is the ultimate exercise in restraint. Facing the slow death of her child, Allende summons from the deepest depths of her being a text that is a haunting, painful memoir of the years in which her daughter inched closer and closer to death. Woven into the story of mind-numbing days and months spent in the hospital waiting, praying for improvement, is Allende's own story of woe and triumph, of mountains and rivers crossed, filled to the brim with an impossible family made real by the sheer quality and austere seriousness of the writing.

The immense sorrow Allende felt for those months is universal and while we will all face the loss of those we love, the inexhaustible font of words that guide Allende's pen has given voice and words to an ultimate letter of sorrow. Dense, dark and moving, the novel is not an uplifting tale and has no happy ending but instead finds closure in the ending of another of the endless cycles of life and death.

Godspeed, Paula, woman.
Welcome, Paula, spirit.

The Luck Factor - 30 Second Review

I generally roll my eyes at any book that promises to somehow make my life better. Whether it's my happiness, my sense of style or even my shape, I can't help but doubt it's intent. So then me picking up a book called "The Luck Factor" and subtitled: "Changing Your Luck, Changing Your Life: The Four Essential Principles" is unprecedented.

Considering it's cheesy game-show-worthy title and the fact that it's written by a former magician, even I am surprised that I liked it. The book is written to try to understand why some people are so fortunate in life while others are not. Lucky for it, it's not especially full of itself although it struggles to stretch limited material with graphs and charts and does believe it's advise is life-changing.

Essentially, though, I liked the book because it says that the luck you get in life rests on the effort you make to be open to opportunity and that simple attitudes and behaviors have life altering effects. I'm not exactly giving anything away here, and do not detract from the message of the book because it's common sense. Still, I was never aware of the severity of that thought and "The Luck Factor" did an excellent job putting everything in perspective. In fact, the book has inspired me to take a more proactive perspective on my life, and has made me realize just how lucky I have been so far.

So keep your chin up and smile more. :)

http://www.amazon.com/Luck-Factor-Richard-Wiseman/dp/0786869143

RAMA

Today has been a terribly exciting day.

The RAMA event I have been anxiously waiting for finally arrived, and it was great. I had the chance to have my work reviewed by Jeff Tritt, executive vice-president of Leo Burnett. He is very high up in the food chain, and my work very much impressed him, and that was a pleasure. Truly a boost of confidence that only means I need to push harder, and work more towards reaching success. The interview and the talks gave me great leverage with which to enter the design and retail business and I am thrilled.

30 Second Review: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude.

I have realized that words are inadequate when describing this novel because even the most lyrical descriptions would not even come close to capturing the overwhelming sense awe that the novel inspires. At it's core, it tells the story of five generations of a single family, and the town they found, which, like the people, shrinks and grows as do the people, but that does it no justice. Because in this town, Macondo, flowers rain from the sky and blood does not move in one direction, and time never moves in a straight line. And although the book reads like a fairy tale, Macondo is so deeply rooted in the earth and the charachters so real that such episodes are never distractions but instead are woven into the very existance of the town and its people.

But this does no justice to the book. I could write, write and write and never really capture it. I will mention, however, that as I was reading the book, it's end dawned on me before I had reached it. Not detracting a bit from the experience, instead from then on it seemed like it's internal clock picked up with my realization and moved faster and faster until its ending, which though expected, was illuminating and only inches away from rapture.

Note:
When released, in 1967, the NY Times called it as being a requisite read for the entire human race.
Also, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the 1982 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Read more

Yes! Go! Begin!

I used to be a prolific blogger. I hopped from one service to the next, spilling myself onto the web with little restraint. I was a frustrated and emotional teenager and what better way to vent that to the dull obscurity of the internet? With time, and a little maturity, I lost the zeal for writing about my feelings, because it was becoming a familiar rehash of the very same. Especially since I only wrote when in a bleak mood, my entries we reading like emo poetry. All I had to do was start drinking coffee and I'd be there.

So, i stopped. Now, with the design world so heavily pushing into new media and all that, I feel like a reluctant late-comer to this party. Still, now I actually have many experiences and thoughts worth voicing. As a blooming artist, illustrator and artist, I truly have something worth sharing.

But I don't just want to blather on about myself and my life. Instead, I want to share my experiences and thoughts, and all the really cool stuff I stumble across every day. I'm excited, but where to begin?