Another opportunity to talk crap about Faulkner.

Dear bloggy blogwater with blog bodies inside,

For most of my academic life, I thought Virginia Woolf was an idiot. She was just one of those modern authors that alleged intellectuals pretended to like so they can feel smarter than the rest of us. You see, I like old things. Antiques. History. Distinguished British actors. There’s a reason why I chose Medieval and Renaissance literature as my focus in undergrad. Well, a reason besides the bawdy morality plays. But, to my dismay, in my final year at the University of Michigan, I was subjected to a required class on what I thought would be the most heinous of literary subcategories: the modern novel.

In hindsight, all I can say is this. Inside every modern novel, is a little bit of nerd love. No, seriously. I anagrammed it out.

Speaking of nerd love, back to senior year. I’m not kidding when I say I loathed modern literature. I blindly despised anything written after, say, the first automobile was constructed. And don’t even get me started on this so called hippie beatnik poetry nonsense. Anyone can do drugs and then spew non-rhyming couplets onto their typewriter. Real writers are crazy enough on their own without drugs. I had no choice in the matter though. The class was “Required.” I dutifully gathered up my copies of “Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man,” and D.H. Lawrence’s “Women in Love,” from the campus bookstore, swallowing the bile in my throat, and headed over to Angell Hall for the first day of class.

Oh, literature, what a remarkable and clever minx you are! You see, the modern novel knew my secret weakness: Handsome men who know how to read. Perhaps it was my professor’s dashing good looks that began to turn my opinion. He was pretty much the John Hamm of the literary world. I am more inclined to believe, though, that it was because he was just so flipping excited about the modern era of writing, that you sort of felt like a jerk if you didn’t think so too. I can remember one class where he was reading us a passages from “Portrait of an Artist” and using this hilarious falsetto voice whenever he read the dialogue of a female character. Now that is passion for one’s job.

So I read Joyce, and Ford Maddox Ford and even a little T.S. Eliot, and choked down the cyclical, stream-of-conscious refuse that is Faulkner, and I actually began to appreciate the way they used their prose to reflect the chaotic, war-torn world they were living in. I loved T.S. Eliot, and grew to admire the unending complexity of Joyce’s work. What surprised me the most, however, was when I read Virginia Woolf’s essays. I rarely read books about writing, because I feel that writing is a craft you either possess or you don’t. It’s like having an opposable thumb. What I do like is when classic authors discuss the process or idea of writing, simply from a personal or observational perspective.

In one particular essay, titled “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” Woolf talks about the novel as being in a state of crisis, citing the differences in writing styles of her generation (the modern movement) versus those who had come before. Needless to say, she was criticizing the generation that came before. Look at you, Virginia Woolf! Talking smack with the best of them! Turns out she’s a far more relatable lady than I ever thought. Now, the article delves into levels of discussion a little too heavy for a blog with Steinho in the title, so I’ll leave it up to you to decide to peruse or not to peruse. Regardless, I learned my lesson in the end. Don’t judge a whole period of writing based off of one jerk face named William Faulkner. Also, hot professors can get you to read just about anything.

If By Camping You Mean a Cabin with a Hot Tub, Then Yes, I Like Camping

Some of you may have heard of a little book called “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, or as I like to think of it, “The Smelly Jerk’s Guide to Dying.”

Insensitive? Probably. I just know, somewhere out there, amongst my teeming hordes of faithful Steinho fans, there is likely to be one of you who hasn’t taken the message of my blog to heart, that message being that I know what is best for you, at least in terms of your opinion concerning all things in word form. Right now, that singular dissenter is reading this blog with a steadily clenching jaw, a furrowed brow, a small twitching of anxiety in the very pit of their stomach because deep down, they think I’m wrong and maybe even a little mean. Christopher McCandless was not a fool, they’re thinking. He was not flaunting his ignorance, blatantly disregarding the wishes of his family and friends that he keep himself safe and well. He was communing with nature! He was young and spirited, lovable, clever and various other vague, yet positive, adjectives!

No, dear fans. He was not. He was an idiot, who caused a lot of people who loved him a lot of pain. The Steinho cannot abide such insanely reckless behavior. I can only support moderately reckless behavior. Like sky diving, and eating questionable meat. I mean, is it really necessary to go try to survive in Alaska for a couple months? It’s gotta be really cold up there. I can barely stand in the freezer aisle at Ralphs without a long sleeve shirt.

I just don’t get it, but maybe it‘s a guy thing. Guys like testing their survival skills to prove that not only is their penis bigger, but it can also withstand colder temperatures and go longer without nourishment. Or something like that.

I don’t even really like sleeping in a tent, if we’re going to be completely honest with each other. What is the appeal to this lifestyle? What sort of spiritual awakening am I promised if I simply refuse to sleep in a bed and use soap? All this kid did was make himself homeless and suddenly he’s Gandhi and Buddha rolled into one?

Krakauer argues that this is the sort of thing most young men go through in some form or another. Throughout history, there have been writers, explorers, philosophers who pondered and ventured into nature, all for the sake of some kind of higher understanding of life and beauty. He argues that what happened to McCandless could have happened to any number of young men, could have even happened to himself.

Well, then, you’re ALL idiots! As far as I know, women don’t do things like this. We maybe be crazy, hysterical balls of emotion, but we do not die alone in the icy tundra, devoured by bears.

Now, I really do applaud Krakauer’s abilities as a writer. This is the second of his books I’ve read. The first, “Into Thin Air” literally left me anxious as I was reading it. Through his simple and honest descriptions, he captured all the intensity, fear and panic one could experience on a mountain climb gone dreadfully wrong. I think it was hard to capture that same tension in this book, because all Christopher “Supertramp” McCandless did was wander around being a hobo and thinking about nature. But he did successfully weave the details of his story in such a way that even though you knew from the start that McCandless was dead, you still wondered exactly what steps led from happy hippie to decomposing carcass.

Krakauer almost managed to even make McCandless somewhat sympathetic towards the end of the book, pointing out that perhaps the young man had learned his lesson in terms of avoiding relationships. If we take meaning form the specific literary passages he highlighted in the days before his death, he was beginning to shift his focus from finding meaning in nature to the importance of human contact.

It’s a moot point at this stage. McCandless’ was found dead almost ten years ago. I suppose the thing that fascinated me most about the book was how so many people adored him, everywhere he went, when in my mind he came off as so pretentious, elitist, clueless and at times even delusional. And no matter how many of these people begged him to be more careful, to stay out of danger, McCandless willingly balked at every single one of them. I really do wonder if in those final moments of his starvation, McCandless thought back to any one of those offers for extra help or protection with regret. Or maybe he died as he had lived for the past two years, alone, but at peace, in nature.

Don't Judge, The Scientists Were Really Nice

Dear Blogavadgita,

In case you were wondering who would go see Piranha 3D, the answer is Steinho. That’s right. I drove halfway across LA, (okay not halfway, just from WeHo to Culver City, and only because the stupid Grove had lost its power) to see Christopher Lloyd play Doc Brown the Paleolithic fish expert. And the fat kid from “Stand By Me” pretend to be a porn director. It was one of those films where I left completely grossed out, and yet not surprised, nor disappointed. The film gave me exactly what it promised. Piranhas… in 3D. Plus a whole lot of topless chicks. Okay, if we’re going to be nitpicky, the film should have been titled, Piranhas and Boobs 3D.

Somewhere during the climactic final bloodbath, as I was peeking through my fingers at the screen, I wondered to myself, why did I want to see this film so badly? I could be home, drinking hot chocolate and staring at a picture of Jay Baruchel. Why the visual torment? Let me put in perspective. Remember that review I wrote of “The Fly?” Well, Piranha made “The Fly” seem like an episode of the Lawrence Welk show on healthy dose of benadryl. For those of you with parents born after the Vietnam War, this was a show in the 1950s that old people like. And if you don’t know when the Vietnam War was, go to the nearest library, find the encyclopedia starting with the letter V, and smack yourself in the face with it.

Now that I’ve proven how smart I am, let’s move on. My point is that I willingly paid fifteen dollars to see Jerry O’Connell scream out “The fish took my penis.” No, now I just proved how smart I am. Yikes.

I’m sure at this very moment, at the Ivy League university of your choice, some nerdy psychology PhD candidate is researching this very subject of why we seek out things that terrify us. The experiment probably involves subjecting lazy undergrads to heinous photos, and then performing odd, seemingly-unrelated tests on them, all for ten dollars an hour. As a former lazy undergrad/psychology lab rat, I have to say, there are worse ways to earn quick cash. Like getting a real job.

Whatever the reason that drove me to witness such a gore fest as Piranha 3D, it’s the same motivation that drives me to read (almost) every book Stephen King has written, as well as the works of numerous other horror authors over the years. Every so often, I find a horror novel that while reading late at night, alone in my room, I get so creeped out, I have to stop immediately and put the book down. There’s been one or two times where, despite being exhausted and longing for bed, I’ve forced myself to read something else, even just a few pages to get the freaky, gross, horrifying image out of my head before I give up my impressionable brain to dream land.

So, if you’re feeling well rested and just a little masochistic, here are three books to lose sleep over. But, in the words of Lt. Geordi LaForge, you don’t have to take my word for it.

“It” by Stephen King.

I’ll start with a classic. What isn’t scary about a being of pure evil, personified in the form of a demented clown. It’s been a long time since I read this, but I’m pretty sure within the first ten to fifteen pages, a kid gets his arm ripped off by said clown in the sewer. Forget the movie if you’ve seen it. This book will take you into recesses of your imagination you thought television killed years ago.

“The Ruins” by Scott Smith

Such a simple concept. A group of college students go hiking on Aztec ruins, only to be caught between a group of murderous natives and a jungle full of flesh eating cognizant plants. Think this is just a bad “Little Shop of Horrors” rip off? Let’s just say, after reading about how a vine burrowed its way underneath a man’s skin through an open wound, I felt a little less motivated to water my aloe plant the next day.

Anything by H.P. Lovecraft

Now, if you’re not familiar with Lovecraft, his work is kind of hard to explain. I’ll put it the only way I know how. If there was a meter that measured the ability to create or imagine on a scale of 1-10, and the average ho hum pedestrian was around a 2 or 3, men like Stephen King would probably be at an 8 or 9. Lovecraft would be at a 67. I’m pretty sure he was either visited by demons or aliens or demonic aliens in his youth. Regardless, he was a genius and from my research, it seems a little bit of a madman as well. I suppose you’d have to be to write some of the things he did.

Finally, if you like BAD horror, here are a few to laugh over.

Steve Alten “The Loch”

A sexy but traumatized marine biologist is in an accident involving some kind of aquatic monster, has to go back home to Loch Ness to visit his imprisoned father, only to find he was framed. By Nessie.

Clive Barker “Coldheart Canyon”

After an action star’s plastic surgery goes awry, he holes up in an old haunted mansion in the Hollywood hills, where dead stars have nightly orgies. With animals. And have humanimal babies. Like a Greta Garbo ghost ostrich baby hybrid. Now that’s Hollywood for you.

Sweet dreams, my little bloggieflowers.