Saturday, August 28, 2004
Twenty-eight days later. Soon after Max Barry blogged about the death of his father, I sent him an e-mail of condolence: "We're about the same age, and I dread the day I have to go through what you're going through right now. Sorry." Four weeks later, I found out how prophetic my words were.
Though grief-stricken, I've been marveling at the timing of my message; I was even able to talk about it soon after being informed of my father's fatal heart attack. I have not, however, been able to see, hear, or read the news since that dreaded day. Peter Mansbridge and Lloyd Robertson could both stop by to personally read me the headlines and I'd tell them to fuck off. Television in general -- equally unimportant. The Olympics didn't even register. (How did we do, anyway?) I wouldn't call it bliss, but ignorance is certainly helping. And, ironically, works of fiction have been filling the void, time permitting. (One can get rather busy, both physically and emotionally, following the death of a loved one.)
On the book front alone, the last month has been an uncharacteristic one, to say the least. In that time, I've started and/or finished: Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology, edited by Bruce Sterling; The Ultimate Cyberpunk, edited by Pat Cadigan; Future Crimes, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois; Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club; and Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly. Plus I'm still muddling through Isaac Asimov's I, Robot -- it's so damn...1950s. ("Sizzling Saturn, we've got a lunatic robot on our hands.") On my first trip in connection to my father's death, I brought the two cyberpunk anthologies; however, frequent sleepless nights allowed me to breeze through them and I ended up making several desperate trips to the nearest Chapters to find some stopgap reading material. For my second trip, in a few days, I plan to pack a pile of (unread) novels alongside my underwear and socks, jeans and T-shirts, with a pledge that the clothes go before the books do.
If you're as voracious a reader as my father was, then you probably aren't impressed with my literary feats. Big deal, right? It is; I hate to say it, but each is a personal best -- accomplishments that my speed-reading father would have been proud of (or, at least, mildly amused at, given that his son loves to write). With the exception of a few favorites countable on one, maybe two, hands, he barely tolerated TV shows and movies. In contrast, the electronic media have been my constant -- and cherished -- companions for as long as I can remember; unfortunately, it took the sudden death of my father for me to finally ignore them and immerse myself in a sea of words -- to become, like him, a true reader of fiction. Even more ironic is the fact that I'm now thinking about getting a La-Z-Boy, flanking it with Ikea lamps, and reading novels instead of watching the fall television season. Imagine that: literature as prime-time entertainment instead of just bedtime escape. Go figure.
Unfortunately, my diet, exercise, and writing have also been forsaken during this dark time. (If I had blogged any less this month, I wouldn't have rated an archive.) Eventually, I'll get back on track; for now though, I'm consoling myself by being somewhat of a sedentary glutton, ignoring the goings-on of the world, and reading a pile of been-meaning-to-get-around-to books, not the least of which being Barry's Syrup and Jennifer Government. Perhaps the Aussie's work will inspire me to finally create something original instead of commenting on, and being bloody frustrated by, the never-ending stream of asinine bullshit emanating from the screens and speakers around me.
Dad would certainly have been proud of that.
posted by media_dystopia @ 18:54 [ link | top | home ]