William S. Burroughs

My uncle always has found really interesting books for me to read. No genre could be excluded from the books he lends me: obscure sci-fi, dense fiction, or subversive texts are all expected and subsequently consumed by my “innocent” mind. I had received “Naked Lunch” for my birthday last year, but finally came to it in my reading queue. It’s something that’s hard to describe, so I won’t spend too much time talking about it, because I simply can’t put it into words that would do it justice.

This Book is Insane

Essentially, the plot is “a dude in the 60s takes far too much heroin and has all sorts of wacky and oftentimes disturbing stories to share.” But I’m not even sure of that. Some of it focuses on the depravity and desperation that “junk” addicts experience in their quest for more drugs, but “Naked Lunch” also takes frequent sidetrips into “the interzone,” which is where odd and thoroughly demonic creatures exist.

This Book is Disturbing

I don’t mean disturbing as in “OMG WE NEED TO CALL CONGRESS,” but in a “I’ve never been exposed to this kind of content” before kind of way.

Plot? What Plot.

There’s some semblance of a plot, but not really. Don’t focus too much on the overarching plot and instead narrow down to each individual story contained within. Otherwise your brain will explode.

This Book is Great

Burroughs created a masterpiece. Read it. Learn from it. Enjoy this oddly amusing and dark set of half-truths and prose known as “Naked Lunch.” You won’t regret it. Or maybe you will. But really, it’s only 200 pages. And if you hate it, you can just write a book like this and make me an evil character in it.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

A friend and I regularly swap books with each other. Although sometimes aiming to give them a book they’ll really enjoy, often we decide to share something that may be a little out of the normal topic or genre that they’re used to reading. It’s a great way to break out of our literary molds and be forced to read something that we may otherwise pass by in favor of something else. “In The Shadow of the Wind” is one of those books. Set in a slowly decaying Barcelona that has been overcome by fascism and an uncertain political climate, this book dips heavily into Gothic imagery and relies on a complex storyline to wave a complicated story about a teenage boy who finds a mysterious book from a secret book repository which his father introduced him to. Discovering this book is not what it seems, and quickly the protagonist is thrown into a quest to discover what really happened to the author of the book he found, and to discover why all copies of this text are being destroyed.

BUT OKAY LET’S NOT MAKE THIS A BORING REVIEW NOBODY READS. Here’s all you need to know about “In the Shadow of the Wind:”

It’s Gritty, and that’s a good thing.

This is a dark book. Characters are beat up. They die in terrible ways. After exploring abandoned mansions, they end up in even creepier environments. You can’t help but fall into this world Zafon creates.

The Main Character Is Unbelievable

Even WITH the reader thinking “well, this is a gothic novel, so I’m pretty sure it will be over the top and not altogether believable,” the author still had to assume we’d be paying attention to what the characters do and why they do it. I never really did figure out why he was doing anything, other than “it’s something to do, I suppose.” Even when his life was being threatened over this book, he was like “screw it. I’m going to solve this mystery! For the books!” Or something.

Story Arcs Begin, Stall, and Never Reappear Again

In this style of story, the reader should be looking out for all sorts of story arcs and be trying to figure out how they all fit together. This only happened about 50% of the time in “The Shadow of the Wind.” The first hundred pages or so of the book involve a 10-year-old character going after a much older girl, and is represented in all sorts of pre-teenage sexual angst. Then all of a sudden his heart is broken, he moves on, and we never really hear from her again. What the hell? Other characters just kind of appear, pledge their help, and then leave again. I can’t tell if this is a setup for a followup book, or just a case where the author got bored with these storylines.

Underwhelming Ending

It just kind of ends, but we probably already predicted what will happen with 20% left in the book. The only reason the reader keeps going is in hopes of clearing up why these story arcs are never mentioned again. Spoiler: they aren’t mentioned again. Reader is left unsatisfied and ultimately ends up eating a box of twinkies to fill this hole in their soul.

Read It Anyway

I’m not saying it’s a bad book or anything. When Zafon actually does address a story arc, it’s done in an over-the-top fashion and imagery that we’d come to expect from a post-WWII gothic novel. It’s gritty. It’s fun. Despite the generally angsty main character, the other figures who show up in the book are entertaining and much more fun to read about. If anything, the book is a collection of loosely assembled novellas that happen to make a larger plot. Reading each loosely defined section is great, but just don’t expect literary bliss after the author stitches these all together.

Google claims there are only 15,800 instances of the word “Oddishness” on the internet. I’ll leave it up for debate if this is a) an expected number, or b) grossly exaggerated. As previously noted, I’ve started spooling up my reading quota from the earlier production of roughly one book completed per month. I’ll start jabbering about them soon enough. For the first post, I’ll briefly go over the books I completed in the waning months of the recently departed year of 2011. After that, each book should get its own post. Unless I get lazy and start summing them up.

The Books

Dinosaur Comics: Dudes Already Know About Chickens

Ryan North

Dinosaur Comics aren’t the kind of thing that one can read for hours on end: after about ten consecutive strips, your brain will simply be too caught up in the sheer awesomeness of the previous comics it just read and completely shut down to any further thinking until it can clear the thought queue.

In all seriousness, when I need an intellectual stimulant with a heavy dose of humor, Dinosaur Comics is usually the answer. Read it; enjoy it. And my version has a hand-drawn T-Rex wearing a Starfleet Uniform (TNG-era, of course) from Ryan himself. It’s that awesome.

The World Without Us

Alan Weisman

Weisman is a journalist, and it shows. This book showed a lot of promise, but it often fell short of truly being great: it’s better described as a collection of short stories which focus on a different aspect of humanity’s influence on the environment. Just when each story starts to become interesting, he suddenly cuts it off and shifts to something completely different. It wasn’t a bad read and is an interesting thought experiment, but just don’t expect anything mind-blowing here.

The Sacrifice and Other Steam-Powered Stories

Valve Software

Valve is one of the few game companies that still cares about creating back story, exploratory texts, and creating a universe besides that presented during the course of the game. This book is the printed form of the work by their very talented graphic novel team.  Tracing the story of the four main “characters” from Left 4 Dead, The Sacrifice is a great zombie comic. Following it up is a series of short comics based off the Team Fortress 2 classes. I have nothing but unbridled rage for TF2, but these comics were entertaining, original, and ultimately kept me amused for far longer than the Hat Store Simulator TF2. Wrapping it up is Lab Rat, which was everything Portal 2 should have been, but wasn’t.

Literary Journals

I also pick up literary journals, collections, and magazines. Occasionally I’ll talk about exceptional stories or poems. Most aren’t available online, and I’m more than willing to let you borrow my copy to read! Please! I promise they’re awesome stories!

The Seattle Review

Read this simply for the wonderful story Elegy on Kinderklavier by Arna Bontemps Hemenway. Seriously. It’s unflinchingly human. Do it. Do it now.

McSweeney’s 38

The JPEG by Rachel B. Glaser is the standout here. It’s not very long, but explores friendships, cellphone contacts, and what it means to be a social being in a technological society.

Since graduation from college a couple of years ago, I’ve focused on getting up to speed with the popular culture centered around these things known as “moving pictures.” I watched a bunch, wrote about them, and generally had fun feasting my eyeballs upon all that the motion picture industry had to offer.

Then I totally got bored with movies, and haven’t seen a new one in months. It’s been that bad. But don’t worry: I’ve filled that void with Star Trek. Lots of Star Trek. Specifically, Deep Space 9. But I’ve also started shifting my time resources elsewhere: towards my reading and finally making real progress on my reading list rather than just treading water while bookstore sales continued to stymie any real progress.

Reviews Inbound

This means, my dear readers, that I shall be offering my opinion on whatever text happens to fly past my eyeballs. You have been forewarned. However, there’s a significant difference between my book reviews and movie reviews:

Books won’t be rated on a scale

I find it difficult to give a book a numerical rating, as it’s also difficult for me to find a book that I absolutely detest. Rather than using an arbitrary scale that I’d just abuse, there won’t be any scale.

The following modifications have been made to the Presswork theme, hereby forked as “NikkyWork,” since I’m creative as hell:

• Added “Next and Previous” links when viewing individual post pages, to make navigation a little easier. I have no idea why this isn’t in the theme already.
• On the main index page, the first two posts are displayed in their entirety. Because it’s more awesome that way. Except it could use some more work before I’m really satisfied with how it works. But everyone reads this site via RSS. Right?
• Sexy Bookmarks have been disabled. Because they’re annoying and sharing is totally not caring.

Sorry for the posting hiatus. I think this chat excerpt pretty much sums it up.

So
I’ve always done my serious writing on my laptop
Like if I NEED to get a report done
or write emails
or journal entries or whatever
I find it a lot easier to focus and get it done on a laptop
ever since mine was stolen
There have been times when
I’ve been like
I REALLY WANT TO WRITE
and then remember that my choices are
a) a huge distracting desktop
or
b) a small-ass netbook with a small keyboard that makes babies cry
This may seem like a first world problem
but it’s still a problem

Future Ideas

• “Quarter-Life Crisis” and the realization that I’m firmly in my mid-20s.
• Seattle Snowy Surfing
• The Grand 2012 Book Reading Expedition.
• The post series in which Nikky reviews every Science Fiction television series he has ever watched. And treats them with the justice they deserve. Spoilers: Babylon 5 is the best. Battlestar Galactica is crap.

Hope!

But never fear! I shall be ordering the HP Envy 14 as soon as it’s released. Blogging should then resume at its normal semi-regular pace.

—

1:06 PM — allynfolksjr: should I do today
1:09 PM — Orbital_Armada: all
1:09 PM — Orbital_Armada: the things
1:09 PM — allynfolksjr: I know that when I ask you for advice
1:10 PM — allynfolksjr: I can get an unconventionally unhelpful answer.
1:10 PM — Orbital_Armada: I never dissapoint
1:10 PM — Orbital_Armada: you should just play civ all day
1:10 PM — allynfolksjr: Hey Sean what should I eat today
1:10 PM — Orbital_Armada: ramen
1:10 PM — allynfolksjr: NIKKY YOU SHOULD GO HUTING AND KILL A BEAR TO MAKE BEAR STEW
1:10 PM — Orbital_Armada: yeah that’s a good idea too though
1:10 PM — Orbital_Armada: do that

Nikky Discovers the Seahawks Win

“WOAH. Who replaced the Seahawks with a good team?”

“I see we’re trying really hard not to win the Andrew Luck bowl this year.”

“Too bad we still suck.”

“Seahawks? More like Seahonks.”

Nikky Discovers the Seahawks Lose

“Seahawks are dead to me.”

“I wish I got paid to play football as poorly as we did.”

Conclusion

I only have room for one team in my heart, and that’s the University of Washington Huskies football team. The Seahawks are but a poor substitute. With colors that aren’t as awesome.

I’ll admit it: I can sometimes get too involved with work and my own life that I can forget that I’m not just one person in this world, but a being living in a collective establishment known as a city. And not just any city, but a population center in world-class city.

When this happens, I get something I call “Nikky Vision,” which is almost self-descriptive in nature. Everything else–societal ills, class warfare, and confused politics–all blend in the background as only what I want to view comes into the forefront.

Two things today forced me back into reality.

Lament of the Subway Employee

Making my weekly visit to Subway in the U-District today, a converstation between the customer and the employee behind me struck a cord. It was as resonating as it is simple. After they went through a few pleasantries:

Sandwich Orderer: “So do you go to school?”

Employee, with a hint of sadness: “I wish I could.”

And that, my friends, is basically all that’s wrong with our society. Where we are incapable of sending willing and able young adults to college. And instead we waste their talents and enthusiasm making sandwiches for those lucky enough to be able to go to school. Disgusting.

Encounter on the 49

On the way home from work I usually get on one of the first stops of route 49, so I’m almost guaranteed a window seat where I’m perfectly content with staring out the passing cityscape as I try to empty my mind of terminals and web publishing.

Instead of looking out the window, today I was dinking around on my tablet with a new magazine application. After settling on reading a blog about video games, I noticed that someone got on next to me. I don’t know how or why it struck me, but I sensed that they were someone who was down on their luck and was around my parent’s age. As they glanced at me, reading about gaming, I suddenly felt a overwhelming sense of guilt and shame.

I give as much as I can to a multitude of local charities that all do exceptional work, but I felt like no matter how much I did and supported, things could never be perfect. There would always be suffering and many very well-meaning and nice people are worse off than me. And there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s a sobering concept, and a tough one to swallow.

And it was good. MGS4ing it up while starting to consider my proto-living room home was a good first step in adjusting to the idea of actually decorating and filling an apartment rather than just a room. EXPANSION OF THINGS AND STUFF COMMENCING.

Exactly a week later, I got back from the Apple Cup to discover something odd: my apartment door was unlocked it was certainly cool and drafty inside. And what is this? Oh, there’s a hole where one of my windows used to be. Interesting.

I suppose someone else wanted my TV more than I did. And take it they did after busting out one of the windows (which is rather hard to get at from the outside, so they must have certainly wanted it) with a brick and climbing through the non-safety glass and wounding themselves quite a bit.

They certainly took a particular path. My TV and HDMI cable were gone, but the PS3, Blu-Rays, and PS3 games were all there. My laptop from 2006 was missing too, but my desktop, monitors, and DSLR WHICH WAS JUST SITTING ON THE FLOOR were all untouched.

My large hiking backpack, partially filled with really awesome things, was taken to presumably stuff the laptop into. Brown Argyle sweater from high school? Gone. Merlino Wool Purple sweater? Gone. MY FAVORITE TEA INFUSER? Gone. One of my gloves? Gone.

In a calm and collected manner, I called our friendly 911 and a nice SPD officer showed up about an hour later to look things over and take some fingerprints. It was a fun converstation when I mentioned that my hammer was also stolen.

Me: “Oh, and they took my hammer.”

Officer: “Your hammer?”

Me: “Yeah, I keep a hammer in my bedstand in case this happens when I’m home during the time.”

Officer: “And they took it?”

Me: “Well, it isn’t there now!”

Officer: “Hunh.”

So anyway, I have Renter’s Insurance that doesn’t include depreciation, so things should be pretty good. The residents around me were cool and were pretty shocked about what happened. They haven’t had another incident like that in recent memory and we figured that there was literally nobody around Thanksgiving weekend that probably let them scope out the places a bit. I didn’t have curtains in my living room yet (which actually was on my to-do list), but I certainly do now.

After half a decade in Seattle, I suppose this was bound to happen sooner or later. And Capitol Hill is still super cool despite this little incident.