Just a quick update and an observation I had today.
I’m currently belly button-deep in Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves and it is great. The words are a little tricky to get through but the story is intruiging and fun. I have heard from folks who have read it that the book gets scary, which will be interesting for me because I have never actually read a book that frightened me. I don’t say that in a macho, nothing-scares-me-but-being-a-sissy kind of way, I have just never read a scary book before. Along with Danielewski, I have been making my way through yellowrocket, the poetry collection by Minnesota poet Todd Boss. The book is little and cute and full of the kind of stuff that fills my heart with that warm, happy feeling. I have been going through the book slowly, drinking down each poem with relish, letting the words alight on my tongue and tick-tack around my teeth. Todd reading his own poetry made me realize how much better words can sound when read aloud and so I have been doing that, alone in my room, with his words. I can’t say that it is even the tiniest bit as wonderful as it was when he read to us, but whispering those words to myself gives them a life and vigor that can’t be found when they stay dormant on the page.
Walking to class today, I noticed a few small birds not far from me, hopping around on the ground in some feathery game of hopscotch. It was neat to see and I had stopped to do just that when a larger bird, glossy black and blue in color, landed in the midst of them all, scaring the young wings away. As I stood there watching, the old bird walked around, pecking the ground and casting his quick, frantic eyes around in the ever important task of spotting danger. It occured to me as I watched that big usurper that I had never seen a little bird walk by alternating both feet, while most of the big birds I had seen all walked one-foot-in-front-of-the-other style. I’m sure this doesn’t hold true for every bird on the planet but the more I think about it, the more I can remember always seeing little birds hopping along with both feet at a time, as though on some mobile trampoline, meanwhile, the big raptor-descendants are calmly stalking around the same area, checking the skies for incoming enemies. Interesting, no?
