1. I just finished a trio of books (in order from most recently read): A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut, History of Love by Nicole Krauss, and Name All the Animals by Alison Smith. One of the good things about traveling is that it makes for great reading time. They were all quite different from each other. It was nice to have such a shift in tone, writing style, and content after each read. Like cleansing the palette. I enjoyed them all very much, and would recommend them all…though there are very few books that I have read that I didn’t enjoy.

A Man Without A Country is a very fast read. It’s just some of Kurt’s thoughts in no particular order, for no particular rhyme or reason, but it doesn’t come off as high-minded or pretentious. Those are two adjectives that are about as far from Vonnegut as I could imagine. It’s insightful, funny, warm, and unsentimental. Then again, I would probably enjoy reading Vonnegut’s grocery list.

I really really liked History of Love. Yeah, it did remind me of Jonathan Safran Foer’s work (her husband), but does it really matter as long as it’s good? Krauss understands her characters, and their full lives off and on the page. If you asked her what Alma had for breakfast yesterday and how she prepared it, she could probably give an answer fully consistent with her character right off the bat. A lot of contemporary, young writers (Foer, Krauss, Zadie Smith, most of all Dave Eggers, et al) have come under fire and some sort of backlash against their postmodern leanings and inventive, witty, sometimes experimental prose and while these writers are vastly different and I’m not meaning to lump them all together or make any sort of statement, but I guess I would want to say “Hey, at least they’re trying. They’re trying to express and to communicate, and to play and experiment with the form…often as a means of getting at a deeper emotional meaning or to evoke a feeling.” It’s true that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, but why so many haters? In this case, I think her style works for the novel. The writing, to me, doesn’t attract attention away from the content…I mean in a way it becomes the content, and man, her style is impressive. I mean she really knows how to write. It’s poetic and descriptive, but also taut and honest. The asides don’t feel like asides, they feel like a secret that you’re being let in on, a secret that gives you greater insight into what feels like a living, breathing human being. And the structure is intricate and complex, but totally makes sense (especially upon a partial re-read). I liked how it alternates narrators, who have distinctly different voices and thus writing styles. It had to have taken a lot of work to write this.

Name All the Animals is a memoir. The author lost her brother in a car accident when she was 15 and he was 18, and it is about her and her family coping with that fact and how she formed her own identity in the wake of his death, a kind of coming of age story as well. It is a sad novel, but quite unsentimental, which I really liked. Smith seems to be able to have an outsider’s insightful perspective on herself and her family, which is a difficult skill. It’s less about feelings, than it is about our actions and behavior in the face of something so devastating, and ultimately, our lack of control. She chooses to recount detailed, specific episodes rather than give a snapshot of their lives post-trauma, which is much more interesting and effective.

2. I meant to write this awhile back, after I saw Ocean’s 13. One thing I noticed (besides the fact that Brad Pitt is almost always seen chewing or eating throughout the series of films), was that the featured choice of air travel amongst those highfalutin capers was none other than Southwest. I was proud to see the Southwest orange and ochre displayed proudly. Even a gang of high-rolling, swift-minded, movie-star quality thieves can’t resist those deals. They don’t need assigned seats either.

So I’m going to ease back into this writing/blog thing with a wonderful quote from Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors, from his book A Man Without A Country. I was re-reading it on the plane ride back from L.A. to Omaha (or to be more precise, Phoenix to Omaha) and found it to be inspiring:

“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

It is exciting to think that we always carry the power of imagination and creation with us. At any given moment you have the opportunity to create something, with your mind or your hands or both, and bring something wholly new and original into the world.

To extend what Vonnegut said, much more simply and eloquently than I will here, you can create to have fun, to express yourself, to make others happy, to give as a gift, to share your thoughts and feelings, to discover something about yourself, to pass the time, to experiment, to make a mess, to distract, to play, or to grow your soul. You don’t need a reason either, but you may find one of these along the way.

Art is created every day by people around the world, many of them not even knowing it. Doodling while on the phone, taking the time to create an outfit, preparing a sandwich the exact way you want it, making a homemade card or cd, signing our name on a receipt, dancing to music in the car, practicing a new basketball move, these are a few of endless examples of everyday art occurring at a constant pace. We are all creators of art, and together we make up a world where a second doesn’t go by where a performance or piece of art isn’t created. It’s pretty wonderful and uplifting when you think of life in that way.