| 3/11/08 Fantastic Mr. Fox I read this when I was about nine years old, and it made me want to be a fox who lived in a rich, cozy, imaginatively decorated little burrow underground. This is probably because I happened to read the version not illustrated by Quentin Blake. Among intelligent adults, Mr. Blake seems to be widely regarded as a terrific illustrator of beloved children's books. And he might be, but as a nine-year old boy I thought his drawings were total pieces of shit. James and the
Giant Peach I read this when I was about ten years old, and it made me want to be a little orphaned boy who made friends with human-sized mutated insects inside a delicious, sumptuous-looking giant peach. This seems inexplicable on its own, so it was probably for the same reasons as above. Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory I read this when I was about ten and a half years old, and I loved it because at this time I started to realize that, contrary to what my unsuspecting parents believed, Roald Dahl was sort of seriously fucked up! Danny the Champion
of the World I read this when I was about eleven years old, on my brother Nathan's recommendation, and I loved it. Nathan, incidentally, used to tell me great bedtime stories about a boy and a girl (named Priscilla, I still remember) who went on great adventures together all over the world. In one adventure they flew to Egypt together by riding on the wing of a 747 airplane, which is totally impossible. Bruno and Boots: Taken from the Wikipedia entry: "Bruno and Boots is the name of a series of young adult novels by author Gordon Korman; they are arguably his most famous works." There's nothing arguable in that statement. I've spoken with the six people who have read these books, and they simply ARE his most famous works. I won't fault Wikipedia for annoyingly using the word "arguably" though, because I wrote my own Wikipedia entry, so obviously any hack can be on there. My entire Wikipedia biography is arguable. Indeed, as my brother Marke once pointed out, saying "arguably" to ostensibly disclaim any statement that is inherently subjective by nature or cannot be scientifically measured, is pretentious and redundant, and anyone who does so is arguably an asshole. Anyway, these three books are arguably the best books ever written. Anna Karenina The fact that it took me nearly five whole months to make it half-way through this gigantic book has almost nothing to do with it being an extremely immense, complex, and intricately-woven epic, requiring devotion and dedicated perseverance from its readers, and almost everything to do with the fact that I was watching a lot of reality TV at the time. In the ongoing battle between Good and Evil, I like to think I've struck a pretty big blow for Evil. Fuck you, Russian literature! You 'aint got shit on Flava Flav! On Bullshit I really enjoyed this little book (or hardcover-bound essay, to be precise), but this is what I hilariously told my brother Marke when I returned his lent copy to him: "Dude, that book was bullshit." Like I said, hilarious. The Bible This is probably a really great
book, but not if you have to read it nonconsecutively, a few randomly
chosen chapters at a time, and then are made to memorize tons of individual
verses by rote by your Bible teacher for a grade in a class at a private
Christian school which will actually affect your high-school GPA and,
conceivably, affect your chances of getting into a good college and
ultimately leading a successful life. Lolita Who knew that a dark, intensely drawn, complexly psychological novel about aberrant sexual behavior (namely, pedophilia) could be so hilarious? The dirty looks I got from Meredith whenever I laughed while reading this book were priceless. They also successfully made me feel bad about myself. American Psycho I tell people to read this
book all the time, but nobody ever does. That's usually because then
I remember what's in this book and mumble, "Actually, nevermind." This book apparently won a
Pulitzer in 1939. I don't know why, though. It's four hundred and sixteen
pages long, and it's about a boy and his adopted deer. Gay. I really love this book dearly, but like everyone else, I was a total asshole for two straight years after I read it. My friends claim this has nothing at all to do with reading this, or any, book, and also scoff loudly about the "two years" part, exclaiming, "Two years? Two years?! Please." My friends are assholes. The Da Vinci Code Everyone has read this book,
and everyone thought it was totally awesome, so don't even bother pretending
like you haven't read this book, or that you didn't think it was totally
awesome. Consider this: In his genius, unparalleled description of the
physical appearance of lead character Robert Langdon, Brown actually
drops all traditional literary methods and pretty much just says that
Langdon looks like Harrison Ford. Awesome? Totally! My other favorite part is when Brown makes an incredibly culturally-savy joke that goes something like this: Character 1: What book are
you talking about? This book is so awesome that
sometimes I can't even believe it. In fact, the only thing more awesome
than The Da Vinci Code was any book written by a Christian author actually
taking The Da Vinci Code seriously. "Oh, thank God. Could every church in America also make sure to spend an entire month of sermons devoted to refuting it when the hollywood movie version directed by Ron Howard and staring Tom Hanks comes out later this summer?" "Yes." The Brothers Karamazov I've never read a book greater
in depth or scope. This masterpiece, completed shortly before Dostoevsky
died, is about nothing less than the entirety of life and existence.
I don't know how anybody has had the balls to write a book since, but
I respect anyone who has greatly. And that obviously includes women
who have had the vaginas to write one.
My Girlfriend is a Real Butt-Muncher My girlfriend is a real butt-muncher. If you don't believe me, listen to this story about our rotating-fan: So Meredith and I have a rotating-fan in our living room. This is because it is so goddamn hot in here! We also have air-conditioning, but last month our electricity bill jumped from the previous month's thirty-two dollars all the way to a whopping seventy-eight dollars! "Holy shit!" I said, when we got our bill. Meredith, in turn, said: "Zaaaach!" Because things like that are my fault. There is a funny saying that Meredith is fond of using. It goes like this: "I didn't do it!" For an example: Meredith will spill her lemonade on the couch or something, and then she will turn to me and gleefully announce: "I didn't do it!" Sometimes she will be doing her make-up in the bathroom, getting ready for work, and from the other room I will hear a big crash. Kaboom! Clatter-clatter! Tinkle-tinkle! And I will wait, with a smile. And then, following not long after, I will hear, "I didn't do it!" Anyway, another saying of hers
that she likes to use goes like this: To be fair, I do have a habit of walking into our apartment, or really any apartment, and gleefully turning on every single light in the place. I make the entire rounds, as if to say: "I am Zach: Let there be light!" I am also very much like my older brother Marke, in that he doesn't seem to get any enjoyment out of leaving his apartment unless he is also leaving all of the lights on when he goes. I love that about me and Marke! I don't know why, exactly, but I really love that about us! Of course, Meredith, my resident party-pooper and electricity-bill-payer, really doesn't love it. "Zaaaach!" she says. So, anyway, anyway, anyway: We have this rotating-fan in our living room, and tonight we were calming down after a day of working. We were watching Friends on TV, because it's awesome, and then Meredith said, "It's so fucking hot in here," because it was so fucking hot in there. I said, "Do you want me to turn on the air-conditioner?" She said, "We can't afford it!" I said, "Is the fan on 'high'?" She said, "I don't know!" She said, "I could barely figure out how to turn the damn thing on in the first place!" It isn't that our rotating-fan is new and complicated or anything -- it's a regular old rotating-fan. It's just that, like me, Meredith sometimes likes to decide that there are certain simple things, like turning on a fan, or figuring out why a DVD is skipping, that she is simply incapable of doing. Why? Don't ask me, for Christ's sake! I am the same way! Certain things that I myself am simply incapable of doing: Running the dishwasher. Putting things back in the fridge when I am finished with them. Hanging my towel up. Cleaning the toilet. Who can tell why! This sort of thing used to drive my brothers, Nathan and Marke and Seth, who all know how to do things, absolutely crazy. Apparently everyone else in the household was simply incapable of figuring out how to work the new DVD player! "You just press this button,"
they'd explain, for the twentieth time, speaking slowly and showing
the rest of us the remote, like we were idiots or something. But anyway, anyway, so I went
over to the fan and, presto!, turned the little nob from "low"
to "high." Then I gleefully announced, "I am a genius!"
Meredith concealed a smirk at that. Because that is a favorite saying
of both of ours. I said, "How's that feel?" But here was the surprise: The fan rotated directly in front of my mouth while I was in the middle of saying that, distorting my voice and making the second half of my sentence sound like a computer. Do you remember, as a kid, getting endless amusement out of talking into a fan? That is probably the terrific thing about kids. They will spend idiotic amounts of time sitting in front of a fan and saying things like, "Luuuke. I am your father." Then they will crack up. Then they will do it again. I haven't talked into a fan since I was about ten years old, and so I was caught off-guard tonight when I heard my question "How's that feel?" transformed into the voice of a robot. So this is what I did next. I looked at Meredith for a few moments, transfixed, in sheer amusement, and then I turned again to the fan. And I said: "Luuuke. I am your father." And then I cracked up. Meredith was still concealing her grin, but you could tell she was amused by me. But anyway, this is why she is a real butt-muncher: She interrupted me and said, "No, no, no. You're not doing it right." I said, "What? Yes I am." But I was intrigued: what if she had a better technique for making me sound like Darth Vader? So I said, "Okay, how are you supposed to do it?" She said, "You have to get closer." So I did. No difference in robot-voice. No closer to the voice of the real Darth Vader, which was done by James Earl Jones talking into a rotating fan. "No," she said. "You have to get in real close. Like really close, so that your tongue is right in there." And I was about to try it, until I was like, "Hey!" She laughed. I said, "You fucker!" I said, "You tricked me!" And she laughed and laughed. And I put my mouth up to the fan again, a safe distance away, and I said in my robot voice: "Meeerrrredith. You are a butt-muncher." So? My point? I don't know. Rotating-fans: Still a hell of a lot of fun. Meredith: Still a real butt-muncher. Darth Vader: Pretty fucking cool.
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