Archive for March 8th, 2007

Journey Into Imagination

Thursday, March 8th, 2007

Here is where I give you my review of what I consider to be a great and important novel. It’s not new, but I don’t believe that the only books that should be reviewed on a regular basis are the new bestsellers just hitting the shelves. I strongly believe that there are books out there that have been forgotten and need to be rediscovered.

One such book is Mitch Cullin’s “Tideland” which was first published in 2000, only to be left on the shelf and forgotten until recently when film director Terry Gilliam discovered it and decided it needed to be made into a film. The film was shown in small indie theaters for a little while back in 2006, and finally made it to DVD early this week. I, myself, have not seen the film as I wanted to read the novel first. But, since this is an “old” book (by the standards of Barnes & Noble) it was hard for me to find so I had to order it. But, I received it the other day and now that I’ve finished I’m ready to send it on to all of you who read this.

The story told by 9-year-old Jeliza-Rose is set in rural Texas. After her mother’s death from a heroin overdose, her equally addicted father Noah decides to pack her up and take her to live in his late mother’s home in rural Texas. Noah is an aging rock musician, who achieved some notoriety in his day, as flashbacks to his career include encounters with Pete Townshend and Keith Moon. It was Keith Moon who gave Noah the woman who would become his wife.

They arrive at the house and Jeliza-Rose is in a whole new world. Most of the story from this point on takes place in her imagination, with the occasional flashback to her life in California. She’s by herself in a lonely world, with no friends aside from Barbie Doll heads her mother bought her at a thrift store and fireflies who reign in a burnt out school bus just off of the property.

Jeliza-Rose is on her own. Her father will no longer speak to her or acknowledge her presence, he just sits and stares at the wall. She brings him food everyday, but it remains uneaten. She lets him be because she’s seen him this way before. He and her mother have spent days in various trance like states after Jeliza-Rose has brought them their needles. So, she invents her friends and goes to live in her imagination until her father returns from his.

She and her disembodied Barbies have adventures in the fields that surround her late grandmother’s home. They play in the school bus with the fireflies, and wage wars with the army ants on the front porch. They spy from the brush on the lady ghost that haunts the grounds, who wears a veiled helmet so no one will see her face.

She doesn’t stay alone, though. Eventually she meets the ghost-lady, a woman named Dell who lives with her epileptic brother Dickens close by. Jeliza-Rose finds a friend in Dickens and the two embark on adventures of their own together as they pursue the great killer shark that rides the train tracks near the school bus.

Many of the images of this book are disturbing, and many are equally beautiful. A lot of people won’t like the images of a 9-year-old giving heroin to her mother and father. A lot of people won’t a lot of the images in this book. But, they’re real. The story is very real even though it’s told from the perspective of a young girl with a wild imagination. But read it, then watch the film. Then, expect a whole lot more from up and coming author Mitch Cullin, because he’s a true wordsmith.

EDIT: Last night I finished Cullin’s first novel “Whompyjawed” about a high school football star and his life in a small Texas town. It’s very different from “Tideland” but just as good a read.

Pick What to Attack, the Image or the Issues.

Thursday, March 8th, 2007

It is obvious to me the political stance and/or the political record of a candidate should be the core foundation on which arguments, for or against, are made.
Are we in agreement here?

It seems that when you have no issues to attack the image becomes the target.
Take Barack Obama for example. I have not heard or read one single single attack on him that was based on his work in politics. Everything that is slung at this guy from the opposition has to do with things that, in an intelligent debate, would be non-issues.
Things like his name. His full name is Barack Hussein Obama. Some of the mud-slingers have taken to calling him by his full a name and adding emphasis the the Hussein part. Does it really matter? Do they think American people are so stupid that we will think of some other Hussein now? I have even heard it pointed out that Obama sounds like Osama.
Talk about avoiding any real argument.
One blogger even tried to say that an anonymous source inside Hillary Clinton’s camp informed her that they had “dug up” information that Obama went to a Muslim school when he lived in Indonesia. A magazine that is owned and operated by the same company as the Washington Post (Liberal bias my ass) printed almost the same thing a short time later. Again with an anonymous source. The story then made it onto FauxNews.
Again they try to blind us with fear.
A spokesperson for Clinton’s camp denied that this story was true and went on to say it was an “an obvious right-wing hit job.”
The articles made it sound like this school was a training camp for future suicide bombers. The truth?

“This is a public school. We don’t focus on religion,” Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told CNN Senior International Correspondent John Vause. “In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don’t give preferential treatment.”

Obama in his two books, “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope,” wrote about spending two years in a Muslim school and two years in a Christian school while in Indonesia. One thing that these “news” reports failed to mention was that Obama was in Indonesia between the ages of 6 and 10. Even if it was a school that taught hatred he has had a long time to step away from it. Look at it this way, how many things did you believe in at that age? How many do you still believe?

So where does that leave us?
Right back where we started.
So if you want to form your own opinion on Barack Obama and not let anyone else tell you what you should think you need look no further then the Congresspedia page on him.

Do the world a favor and think for yourself.