Well, we’ve had a nice week off and the post Oscar high is starting to fade.  It appears the momentum going for The King’s Speech was able to push it on through to the big prize.  I might have been too deeply involved in a Sorkin love-fest to notice what was right in front of me.  Everyone else seemed to know.

But no one’s perfect and life goes on.  Besides, I think still must be batting something like .996.  Not too bad even for me.

So spring is coming, shit’s growing in my yard that ain’t supposed to.  The birds that never fully departed for the winter are coming back in droves, waking me up on Sunday mornings in the midst of a terrible hangover, wanting nothing more than some fucking peace and quiet, which is why I bought the damn house in the first place.   But it’s alright, I have a pellet gun along with proof of violation of an unwritten social compact.  We had a deal and they reneged.  You know what that means…

But we musn’t get lazy as the sun warms are muscles, our bodies requiring less of us as the temperature rises.  Just because the sun is beginning to shine doesn’t give us an excuse to get lazy and fat.  There’s work to be done damnit and if we don’t do it, who will?  It is time for a new project, this is a little more of a long term project but life is a marathon we must run, and it gives us a pretty good reason to sit out in the sun and read until wed get too drunk to do so, passing out and suffering a wicked burn.  A hell of a way to kill a Saturday.

As an intelligent under-achiever, I have coasted into a job that does little more than keep me really busy much of the time.  There is little room in my working day for intellectual stimulation.  It happens on occasion, but not with enough frequency to satisfy a man of my manner.  I require a sharp mind; for such a tool will be as important as a sharp knife come the revolution.  Survival of the fittest my dear friend, and the way things are going, I suggest you stay fit.

So there are people out there who like to read books.  There’s not many left, and most of them prefer reading Stieg Larsson, Dan Brown, or whatever conspiracy-theory, action riddled swill we decide has a vague hint of cleverness.  I believe reading is to be encouraged, and if the material requires a healthy amount of rape, corporal punishment or profligate Apple Laptop plugs, so be it.

But there are those of us who still like a challenge.  There are others who kill themselves to create the kind of challenge worthy of our descendants’ efforts for the next few hundreds of years.  We all have personal preferences.  A small fraction thinks them geniuses, the other 80% calls it pretentious crap.  But these men and women make us think more than others, they are often ill understood if understood at all, and it gives us a sense accomplishment from simply attempting to read them.

Difficult books are a necessity as a high water mark for intellectual accomplishment.  Not everyone needs to read them, and those who read them don’t need to know them to a T.  But their existence acts as a measurement of our minds’ capabilities.  Surely Joyce’s Ulysses must act as some benchmark for the power of imagination.

This truly is what sets us apart from computers, other animals and all other beings in existence.  I cannot abide a man who feels we are neither more nor less than these beasts.  There is nothing wrong, and it is even recommended for one to get in touch with his or her primal side.  There are qualities amongst all living things that we share, and it is important to embrace these.  But all beings are unique in their own way.  some are great sprinters, others great hunters and some can change the color of their skin to hide.  All of these qualities set each respective species apart from one another, imagination is no different.

To the point?  Okay.  We are no mere mortals and it is important for us to appreciate that.  As a casual reader, I have endeavored for the past year to read the most challenging novels I can find (excepting Finnegans Wake, I mean c’mon!  That’s not even English).  It is these novels that pushes our respective imaginations to the brink of their capacity.  Surely there must be something as beautiful about that as any physical test of meddle.  Either way, I suggest we find out.

We will be discussing books over the coming months.  Difficult books.  We must push ourselves, there’s no other way.  I will be blowing your mind on other subjects at the same time, but we must remain faithful to this task.  We start with Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, a book that took me three months to read and I still couldn’t tell you exactly what it’s about.  Until then.

Alouishis