in defense of stowing a kindle in one's pocket during an excursion in the jungle, or andrew reveals his insatiable need to respond seriously to facebook comments made in jest

i broke another kindle. my third. this time i was hanging from a jungle vine, and the kindle, which was in the pocket of my brown cargo shorts, must have been crunched between my thigh and the wooden railing beside me.

i posted something to this effect on facebook, lamenting my sudden lack of books for the remainder of my trip--one week in new zealand and more than a day's worth of airline time and sitting in airports, ack! what am i to do? my friends were, understandably, incredulous--how did i manage to so easily destroy yet another kindle? why was I bringing my kindle into the rainforest in the first place? why use a kindle at all? 

and as usual, i couldn’t help but overreact:

before arriving in the rain forest, that lively universe that was the site of my latest kindle’s demise, i first had to take several other types of transportation. i knew from other similar excursions around cairns, that these legs of the journey could involve a lot of staring into space, which i'd rather fill with something more entertaining and constructive, like reading.

as it turned out, i spent much of the travel time playing "i spy with my little eye" with some aussies from melbourne and a man from jamaica. but upon arrival in kurunda, i did relax for awhile in a shady park, reading on my kindle and--pay attention here, you e-reader cynics, this is one place where the kindle, if it didn't have a pansy screen, beats out a pocket-size paperback--finding illusory literary community with friends back home: that is, using the kindle's wireless function, i was able to share some passages from a short story collection I'd been reading with my bazillion closest friends on facebook.

now, no one commented on those quotes or my reflections on those quotes (just as I don't tend to comment on other people's quotes), so perhaps whatever community i felt by posting them was false, and perhaps whatever community is achieved through an online social networking site like facebook, even if it is with real people who you know and love, is already false, but this felt like some step toward not being stranded in my own head, a thousand-plus miles from friends and people who like to talk about books.

i should end there. that sounds about as close to profound as i can get when unnecessarily blathering on about a stupid broken device. that's the true ending. but i also want to mention these two logistical points: (1) the sharing of those quotes on facebook was free, whereas to share them with my iphone, which wasn't on me at the time, would have entailed an international phone service charge; and (2) i'm pretty certain that any other electronic device that i own--my iphone, my (work's) macbook air, my nikon camera--would have survived the bump just fine; these kindles have excellent customer service but their screens are less durable than the spindly stick of a candy cane after it’s been sucked down to a needle-sharp tip, which is to say that, apparently, you can’t take them anywhere.

and i have no idea what candy canes have to do with kindles or rainforests.

to my bored reader(s) and neighborhood thieves

i recently received some blunt criticism regarding the 17 point scale. a loyal reader frowned and said "your blog hasn't been very good lately." and that's it. no request for expanded seahawks coverage or spicier cooking tips. no call to cut out the photography. not a mention of how i might ammend my errant ways. well, what the crap do you want me to write about?

and speaking of crap, why would someone steal a tent pole from my backyard? thanks for leaving the tent, but what are you going to do with a single tent pole?

oh, and has anyone seen my headlamp? in any case, i'm leaving for saskatchewan on thursday--with or without my tent pole (and head lamp). thus, i won't be posting until i return next week.


andrew david. "the rejects 2: hand jive; our casa complex; a fence; the way; untitled #43" yelapa, mexico.

the colors in 'our casa complex' are not digitally altered. i don't know where the greenness came from...

'untitled #43' was a picture that i really liked. i played with it for awhile, but i couldn't find a good crop. another interesting idea that just didn't work...

back page: cherry

VI.
cherry by mary karr

10/19/04
"yet another 'messed up girl grows up' memoir. i think it left me feeling sentimental and that 'cherry'-- [i think that's the main character]-- is really missing the point (of life). i guess i [just] find it hard to relate to her. it may have been well written [it seems that i was afraid to say one way or another] and includes some objectionable content."

i rarely mark on the front or back covers of books. it's unsightly and somehow discourteous. however, after concluding cherry i apparently felt free to scribble messages to past reviewers:

frank mccourt: "she's a poet and there are passages in her writing that glitter."
andrew david: "i probably agree."
sunday times: "...she writes with wonderful exactness and candour about sexual experiment and girlish desire."
andrew david: "...and this is probably why i don't relate."
caroline gascoigne: "this frank account of a wild texas girlhood is the most unbeatable read of the year...."
andrew david: "this frank account of a messed up texas girl is...."

if you read my blog as closely as i do, you'll notice that my book reviews tend to appear in alphabetical order by author's last name. today marks the end of that tradition. after unknowingly bumping into karr last week, i felt it was only fitting to conclude her time on this blog with a back page review. as my editorial marks attempt to highlight [i.e., these boxy brackets, the pesky pets of overly attentive editors], i didn't have much to say about this book. i'd just finished janet fitch's white oleander, so i was on troubled-girl-overload. still, i wonder if my response would change had i known that karr was a recent (?) convert to catholicism. would i have embarked on a wild goose chase, searching for a subtle message of redempton whereby i could exclaim, "ah hah! i told you she was a christian"? would i at least find some nugget to dissuade me of karr's pointless vision of life? maybe one of you will read it and tell me...

andrew david. 'wimps die 1 & 2' yelapa, mexico.
the guidebooks claim that there are no roads in or out of yelapa. however, any andrewesque wanderer who journies beyond the cemetary, up a dusty trail, and past the occasional clothes line may find a most marvelous sight: a nonexistent road. and maybe, if this window is particularly portentious, one may find this same vehicle, still waiting the return of its daring dead owner.

h2oj

everyone has morning rituals. i myself start each work day with a styrofoam cup full of orange-water juice. it's a refreshing reminder that i'm awake. this blog, the 17 point scale, is a lot like that orange-water juice.

point one: orange-water juice is a cheap alternative to full-on regular orange juice. it costs half as much! likewise, in contrast to other fine literature (which may require a costly visit to some used bookstore or online vendor), the 17 point scale costs half as much! well, actually, like most blogs, it's free.

as you may know, i'm cheap. but h2oj is the result of more than everyday economic obsessive compulsiveness. as much as i love orange juice, it has a decidedly acidic aftertaste. frankly, it's a bit much for my tastebuds. thus, i decided to go half-and-half, to combine fresh water from the VA fountain with low pulp tropicana.

there are many ways to relate this process to my blog. for instance, each post blends photos and prose. the blog fuses religion with art, literary commentary with mouth-watering recipes, pseudophilosophy with random goofiness.

better yet, the 17 point scale splashes somewhere between confessional and detatched. i share about my life, but i choose not to bore everyone with my daily activities (except making h2oj of course). this isn't a blog where you'll find sylvia plath with her head in an oven or --

holy goose! i hate to interrupt our regularly scheduled blog like this, but i just happened upon something a little bit crazy. you see, i was hoping to say something like: " [another famous confessional poet] poetically recounting the acrimony of her sex life," but i couldn't think of a good poet to fill-in-the-blank. so, as any frenzied blogger would do, i turned to google. there i typed "confessional poet sex." instead of finding robert lowell (did he write about sex?), anne sexton, or (thankfully) some strange and artsy porn site, i found mary karr...to everyone but beth (?) this may seem ho-hum-who-cares? but, beth, isn't this the girl that wrote that essay you were having me read tonight? the essay that some single-initialed literary type forwarded to greg wolfe at image? maybe not, but it sure sounds the same. and, if so, this is the girl who wrote cherry, that coming of age memoir that i was telling you about! crazy, eh?

errrrrrr...okay, so i'll write more about this blog's battle with confidentiality in some later post. sorry, good night.


andrew david. "view from our casa" yelapa, mexico.

the first essence [5]

here is the seventh poem from my unpublished anthology Poems Written in Brady's UCORE Notes at 3AMish ca 2001:

Theater of Hate
Thumb.
I bite it
At you.

beth and i are considering a cross-country road trip to attend danny warren's wedding. hoping to secure lodgings in spokane, i contacted the original inspiration for these poems, brady hatfield. brady seemed optimistic, but spokane is just the first pit stop; danny's wedding is in saskatoon, which means, according to brady, they might as well get married on the moon. that's a lot of driving. unfortunately, today's poem is not about weddings or driving. i'm afraid that might be a bit too sentimental. therefore, i have selected a poem that is perhaps the most raw of the anthology. it is a poem with teeth. it bristles in a way that the reader can't quite explain. with its economical style, the poem bypasses the analytical matter of the brain and races straight for that ancient primordial throne of anger. Theater of Hate is certainly not my favorite poem in the anthology, but it is the most dangerous. For more information concerning this poetry, please refer to my post entitled 'the first essence [1]' or other poems from this anthology (simply search 'first essence' in my blog).


beth the s.o. 'showering in the jungle.' yelapa, mexico.

i wish i had taken this picture. i really like the contrast of light colors on the left and the dark, almost silhouttey, figure on the right. and i love the two characters of water: the spray and the cascading drip from my face. and she captured a great facial expression; i'm not sure what it means, but it's certainly interesting. still, in this case i think i'd prefer to take a shower than take a picture of someone taking a shower, because it was sooooooooo cooooool to shower out in the open jungle!