The Road - Book Becomes Movie

I read the book "The Road" months ago and I was very thrilled to find that now a film is out based on the book. The Road was written Cormac McCarthy, I don't know much about the film as I haven't seen it yet of course. Plan to see it this weekend if its in the theaters. The book was depressing and felt intensely real. At the time, I was always playing a video game, Fallout 3, which you may or may not have heard of or played but it sort of fit in with the general theme of a post apocalyptic world and people attempting to survive in it. The Road is less about what happened and more focused on the two central characters of a father and son. I won't give away any of the novel, but I recommend you read the novel before seeing the movie.

Romance of the Uber Journal

If you go to epica.com you will see a wide of products, mostly leather journals and albums. You'll also see the worlds thickest journal. A monstrous 1000 pages (combined) and 3 inches thick, touted as an inexhaustible supply of paper to write whatever on. Well this has captivated me for about a bloody 2 years now. The cost of what I've come to call the "Uber Journal" is $275.00 plus tax and shipping and handling, a good $300.00 smackers. Yeah, that's pretty steep for a journal. But some people pay that for meals. You have to consider priorities. If you're a wealthy lord or lady (in this economy?) then it should be nothing. It matters if you are obsessed with writing in books with the vague notion that someone in a 100 years will read it someday, then you may as well satisfy your obsession.

To the credit of the person who does purchase the Uber Journal, Epica products are expertly made by people who bind work with leather and bind books for a living. These people know what they are doing and they do it extremely well. So you will purchase a product that you can rest assured will last a century or two. If you want something to just write in that can last just as long, get a moleskine. They are great for lugging around and can take a lot of abuse.

Mysterious Lady On Morning Metro Who Also Works In The Same Office Building

On weekday mornings, I catch the Metro to downtown Washington, DC. If you are familar with the Metropolitan Washington, DC area you basically know something about the Metro Subway System. I catch the greenline starting from Greenbelt, MD every morning along with thousands of other commuters. Its a matter of ritual. I usually get off at the Navy Yard stop, and walk a block or two to the office building where my office is, if I don't feel inclined to walk across the street to Starbucks and get a latte'.

Now, just last year, I've noticed a young woman who I've labelled the "Mysterious Lady" this is her more recent title. Before it was "Frenchie", "the Algerian" and "the Morocan". I have no idea what her name is. I know her by her large eyes and crop hairstyle as pictured here. I found an example of her exact hairstyle in wikipedia with the picture of late actress Louise Brooks. I must say that she looks a lot better than Brooks. She is so beautiful, that she's intimidating, and I have now asked her what her name is. There isn't a chance in hell she'll read this post or even blog but there's always hope in divine intervention.

So, being a bachelor of the neurotic and hopeless variety, I have looked her over many times, trying to notice if she's wearing a ring. Now this isn't always an indicator that she's either available or not, and to be sure a beautiful rarely sleeps alone. I measure myself against more confident and sure men (or women if she's so inclined), and I come up short. Hell, stranger things have happened as far as romance is concerned, but my chances are probably average. While at work and walking the stairs for exercise, I have run into her at times, said hello and that was that. I am sure she notices me from the subway, and how can someone not notice her?

Well, the Mysterious Lady will remain a mystery until I gather some nerve and ask her just what her name is. Things rarely happen by chance.

Been A While Since I've Posted

Its been awhile since I've posted anything. Currently its Christmas Eve and soon it will be the New Year. Happy Holidays to all and everyone. I have to make a committment here to keep up with the posts. Consider this a New Year Resolution. Thing is, I've been busy starting up graduate school and other projects. Not an excuse but, it's been a little hectic. A post can take 5 to 10 minutes at the most. Well, that's an idea at least.

Passed by the House of Eugene O'Neil

As a contractor, I've been on travel frequently and in my line of work I've had to travel to New England often to attend meetings or conduct audits at various facilities. I travel to New London, Connecticut in area of Groton. On one of my travels I got lost looking for a site and happened to pass by this landmark pictured here and found out that it was a place where playwrite Eugene O'Neil once lived and spent a significant amount of time. You may have seen a production of or read The Iceman Cometh or Long Day's Journey Into Night as two of his most famous plays. I'm due to travel to New London next week. It's a place that has a lot of history that's worth exploring if you ever get the chance.

Dated Entries And Numbered Entries

When writing in your personal journal you may consider a format for an entry. A date is commonly used to identify the day on which the events described happened. Some people actually include the time with the date and even indicate the weather outside. Yet there are those who place a date at the start of the journal only and the subsequent entries are numbered.

What I've done is similar to the picture shown here. I typically number my entries. I wanted to be unconventional not that it's original but the thing with dated entries is that there are times when you miss days. With a dated entry format, I felt committed to keeping a daily log, and even with my hypergraphia there are days when I don't feel like writing about the remains of the day. Most entries in a dated journal that's updated daily are of mundane events that are pretty routine. With the numbered entry system, you can skip days, months even years and come back to the journal when you feel like it. It's better for people who keep multiple log books or notebooks. I have a notebook for work and several for different creative themes. Which ever works for you is fine.

On Writing And Drinking

Generally, I would say that some of my favorite writers have had drinking problems, Charles Bukowski being chief among them with Jack Kerouac being a close second. William Faulkner was said to have had a drinking problem as well as Oscar Wilde (absinthe was his bane). But there are plenty of well known famous writers who weren't alcoholics. I am thinking right this moment of Chester Himes, he wrote Cotton Comes To Harlem (which was made into one of my favorite movies that sort of follows the novel), Fyodor Dostoevsky the "Mad Russian" who wrote two of my all time favorite books Crime And Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, well he had a gambling problem and he suffered from hypergraphia. The point being you shouldn't develop a taste for alcohol just because someone famous couldn't help themselves when it came to the sauce. Brilliant people tend to be very eccentric and abnormal, there are plenty of exceptions and of course you can be pretty average and still be an exceptional this or that. I have found that addiction in particular drinking, doesn't necessarily aid you in your craft. If you lack a talent for it, alcohol isn't going to help to bring it out, Bukowski himself said as much. Charles Bukowski, the "Poet Laureate of Skid Row" would often reference drinking in many if not all of his works. Check out his bio on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski

Anyway, his best work in my opinion was Post Office, he was a poet and a novelist and coming off trying to read Jack Kerouac's other works outside of On The Road, he brought me back to the basics of what it truly to be "beat", the Beat Movement was basically contrived nonsense compared to the experiences of Bukowski, at least I got that feeling reading my first Bukowski novel Ham On Rye. There are those who would say that his work is vulgar and unrefined but there is not only beauty in the simplicity of language but if you can convey a sublime thought in common everyday language, you can not only reach more people, you have more than demonstrated your acumen as a writer. Certainly there has no writer like Bukowski, just as there won't be another Dostoevsky, Himes, Richard Wright or any other influential writer. So don't be an imitator. I say this having tried and failed at it. I am not so much a writer as I am a diarist. I basically write for my own benefit and I also have hypergraphia. Drinking isn't going to help you. There are famous writers who had drinking problems or if you're cynical like myself you can say that there were famous alcoholics with writing problems. What's more important is that you write because you enjoy it and that you find your own muse.