Death is Certain. Afterwards, Not so Much.

I feel like one of the biggest things religion tends to do is answer the unanswerable questions we mortals were strangely given the power to ask but not know. Of the many questions, I find death particularly interesting, because of its inescapibly universal charateristic. I know that certain religions have defined certain paths souls or spirits or what-have-you take in the afterlife, often times depending on the acts this individual committed in his or her time on earth. This seems like a harmless enough of a mechanism through reward and punishment to guide the religious in their lives. But for most people that I've observed (including myself at a younger age), the mechanism seems to have the same effect that comes from parents telling their kids that Santa Claus is always watching, and if they are good, then they get loads of presents of all their favorite things; if they are bad, they're damned with coal and socks (I always need socks these days so I'd say that damning gift is case-based) and back-breaking chores, like digging the parents a pool in the backyard.

The effect of all this, however, isn't so straight forward. On paper, you'd think if kids were told (and assuming they believe Santa has the power to do this in addition to making them feel uncomfortable in various shopping malls) that Santa knows if they ever act bad thus begetting them crummy gifts, then the children would straighten up, pat each other on the back, and start preparing those tax forms for Daddy (it's always about the taxes) in order to get the gifts they justly deserve. Instead, after the first few Christmases that the kids are conscious of this broad schema, they start to notice that maybe they weren't so good throughout the year, punching their little brother in the stomach or setting the window curtains on fire, and yet lo and behold, they still receive presents promptly on Christmas morning. After a couple go-rounds of this they start relaxing a bit even though they still share that initial guilt during the worst moments. I feel like this is about as good as religion's reward and punishment scenario can work on the whole. People generally try to be good, but they're human - they're animals at their core, and sin will inevitably come in some form or another, maybe not all the time, but at least once in a while (more often with more stringent criteria - I'm looking at you, guilt-inducing Preachers).

But, you can always be redeemed, you can always be forgiven, because if you couldn't the Church would either be empty or full of liars. So there's always that creeping feeling of guilt and shame, but after a few repenting days/weeks/months(/years in jail) you're reborn and as good as new - people put on the rinse and repeat cycle for all their years. I feel like if people actually witnessed their friends and families who had sinned and died without repenting burning in Hell, then the point might hit home a little harder. Fortunately, we don't witness these things, and we also don't see the "good" ones playing tetherball with Papa God up in heaven, daquiries in their free hands. In fact, we don't witness anything that happens to the dead. We witness nothing. I mean we can still see their body and feel the warmth leave, but it becomes pretty clear that something very important is missing.

Again, this is where the consciousness comes into play for me. It appears that they can no longer experience anything, because there's no activity, no brainwaves, no letters home from camp in the clouds. They are no longer functional, but more importantly they are no longer conscious, and all that's left will become one with the rest of the natural world in no time at all. But these molecules, these particles that composed their body, were not suddenly introduced at birth and whisked away from existence at death. They've always been there. The only real change was the consciousness, on and off like the flip of a switch. Why, after all of eternity, do we suddenly get this blip of light in our eyes, sound in our ears, and the world at our feet, and then return to the same eternity that came before? Seems pretty ridiculous. But it happened.

This is where I start to wonder why people worry so much about death, painting pictures of burning, horrific hell or 72 degree, sitting pretty heaven, heaping golden chains and tridents on the casket for showing off in the afterlife, or laying out blueprints for the constellation they want to become. People can spend their whole lives worrying about death. Ain't that a little, I don't know, useless? After my brief high-speed internet search on afterlife in Judaism (out of curiosity, because I don't think I had learned about their thoughts on it before), I learned that there really isn't a whole lot of emphasis on the afterlife in Judaism (pending credible source). Seems, they think it's more important to reap the rewards of good deeds in the living life not the dead one. I have to say it makes a lot more sense to reap the benefits of loving all things in the life where you can actually feel some of that love returned to you. Now, don't get me wrong, I know their are instant rewards (ie in this lifetime) in likely all religions (obligatory Lennon's "Instant Karma" reference), but I just thought it practical to not have to worry so much about things we can't actually know. We've got life, so we should live it. Plenty of time for eternity later. And I think if anything, returning to the consciousness element of it all, death appears most like sleep, well dream-less sleep. You're just out, at rest, at peace. And that doesn't really seem so bad. For something (death) that so resembles what everyone can pretty much agree on that they love (sleep), it's almost surprising people don't welcome such relief at the end of a long life. But then again, it's hard to see humans welcome anything they don't understand.

I don't know, in the end I feel like the kids outgrow the whole Santa sham, but realize they should still probably be relatively good, because no one cares about assholes, in this life or the next. In the same way, I would think the religious (the reasonable ones) would also guide themselves more immediately on the consequences of their actions in this life and maybe take into account the whole heaven/hell thing as a more of the figurehead to their morality, just hanging out and looking powerful until death shows up. Thereafter, it's out of anyone's hands, leading to an involuntary leap of faith. So I guess if believing in something on the other side makes the leap easier to take on the preparatory steps up to the edge, go for it. Otherwise, I'd say just worry about things in this life, enjoy your blip, and have faith that everything will continue on as it always has whether you're alive or not (it will).

Jim and his pal God

After spending a good amount of time trying to think of an appropriate title for this entry, I have decided to begin writing- a title will follow.

So, in order for whomever is reading this to get a good look at my religious wrinkles I feel I need to describe where I come from. I am Catholic. I was/am not one of the 'Christmas and Easter' Catholics- I go to mass just about every Sunday and have been since I was born. My mother is extremely Catholic- my father just converted to the faith after a lifetime of rejecting any religious teaching.

It's always hard to ask questions when you are a child. Even in the first few years of college I found it hard to seek out information on the 'why' behind my faith. I blindly believed just as most children who grow up in a strict religious family do (though I know there are exceptions). And to be honest, I think that was good for me (mostly- - I'll explain in the next paragraph). I have a strong faith in God in the sense that I believe there is a God and He is there looking after me and my family.

It is only recently, maybe within the past two to three years, that I have been starting to question my faith. Here is why growing up with a strict religious tradition was bad for me: I think I was stifled. I was scared to do anything bad- anxious to live life. I used to think, ' I only want one girlfriend before I get married...how cool would that be?' or ' I don't want to do whatever they are doing because I want to be able to say that I have never done ______ in my life.' WHY? I wasn't experiencing life at all. I was afraid to go outside of my religious views and make a few mistakes.

Now, at the age of 23 I am unlike my former self in some respects. I try not to avoid things, but like Edward was saying I now try to make things happen. Believe me it's blown up in my face recently because I think I might be an emotionally glorified 18 year-old -- but in a way it is good because I can tell myself that I am finally doing. I am no longer on the sideline.

Okay. Time to get into what I actually believe. Like I said, I believe in God. I believe in most of the Catholic teachings, but I definitely have grown a mind of my own and have started to question and disregard things I find moronic. What you might ask? Well, I find it stupid that according to Catholics, I need to go to a priest and tell him all my sins in order for them to be forgiven. I find it stupid that some people think I will burn in Hell for eating meat on Fridays during Lent. WHERE IS THAT IN THE BIBLE? Come on, Pope. There are a bunch of other things but right now the are eluding me.

So, I take the Catholic principles and I think about them. I question my faith a lot. More so than people who might know what I believe think. I ask my religious parents questions all the time.

Religion, for me, is a personal relationship with God. It's me walking down a road, or to class talking to myself, or rather talking to God. I used to see God as a bearded man angry at me all the time- not funny- almost unforgiving (Catholic guilt- which even now I cannot escape from). God to me is a best friend- like Daniel said, He is the most compassionate and funny. I mean He made us- He knows how He made us and He knows how we are. Why did He make so many rules He knows are soooo hard to follow? That's just another question I have.

I am one of those religious people who think things happen for a reason and I think am happier and more content for it. I think that people who use organized religion to pick scraps or start violent acts are absurd- though I tend to like organized religion. So many of the great acts that go on throughout the world are supported by some sort of religious entity (and I know that most violent acts can also be attributed to these religious sources as well) But I am a product of organized religion. I will continue to go to mass until I somehow reason my way out of it- which is unlikely. I will raise my children with organized religion with an emphasis of figuring out a personal relationship with God and going from there. Religion gets dangerous when zealots don't have a mind of their own and act upon impulse, generally doing the exact opposite of what is taught.

Anyways, this was a lot longer than I was expecting and probably pretty jumbled. If you get anything out of this- get that I have a mind and I use it especially on religious issues. I definitely want to learn more about my own and other religious beliefs. And booms goes the dynamite.

Edward's Reply to "God?"

Edward originally posted this as a comment under my post, but considering its girth I told him I'd put it on the big stage for all to see:

Alright, I am going to have to utilize some of the Eastern spiritual principles I was talking about in my last comment here, because my fucking computer just deleted a very, very long comment that I was writing in response to this and was almost done with. I am trying to hard not to fucking lose myself in anger here. WHY THE FUCK IS THE MOUSEPAD SO MOTHERFUCKING SENSITIVE AND WHY IS IT ALWAYS CLICKING OUT OF PAGES OR MAKING ME CUT AND PASTE INTO THE MIDDLE OF MY FUCKING DOCUMENT?

Alright, now that that is off my shoulders, let me try to recreate what I was saying, although there is always that sense that you are doing a worse job, that you can't quite recapture the magic--this reminds me of Colderidge's great unfinished poem "Kubla Kahn," which came to him from an opium dream, and in the writing of it he was interrupted by a visitor who caused him to lose his train of thought, rendering the poem incomplete, one of the greatest could-of's in literary history. Speaking of Coleridge, he reminds me a lot of me. Filled to the brim with absurdly ambitious ideas about what he would create in his art, obsessed with literary history, he was also a good-for-nothing cursed by drug addiction and laziness. He died at a young age, and despite having one of the greatest minds in Western intellectual history, he was never able to complete almost anything he set out to accomplish.

Anywho...as to my personal beliefs, I think I tend to ally myself with what Daniel is talking about in his final paragraph here. I find the notion that any sort of higher power resides in the interconnectedness of all creatures and all things, instead of in a human-like, conscious entity, to be far more compelling. I suppose in that sense, I believe a lot more in the things taught to us by the Eastern faiths than by the Western ones. I think we could all stand to learn a lot from all of the world's faiths, however.

I used to be a lot more violently anti-religious then I am now. I was one of the many pseudo-intellctual atheists out there. I was full of anger and disgust with what I saw as the unintelligent masses flocking towards the safety of Christianity. I am a lot more accpeting of others' faiths now then I used to be, though. Personally I think it is more helpful to see God as being in all things and in all creatures then to see him as some sort of distant being. I don't believe in a higher power that dictates morality and decides the fate of our afterlives. Perhaps some religious people might find my choice of the world "helpful" offensive, but I see religion as being very pragmatic. I have heard of many studies that say that those with faith are much happier then those without it, and I believe this to be true. As I said before, I think we could all do to learn lessons of wisdom from all of the faiths out there. I think religious wars are silly and childish, since religions share so much more then they lack.

I think our culture especially would be a great deal better if it learned some lessons from the East. If all of us just learned to meditate and to slow down and savor the moment and to respect all life, we would actually begin to feel a sense of togetherness and of beauty, drawing us out of our shells and out from behind our computer/cell phone/TV screens, to experience the beauty that surrounds us and binds us and lays dormant within us, waiting to come out. I would really like to start meditating and practicing yoga once I move out to an area where yoga lessons are provided. It's interesting that in India yoga means so much more then the flexiblity exercises that we associate with the word. It is a total plan of a variety of activities and exercises designed to draw us closer to the Godhead, or Brahmin.

I think in the vast wealth of religious texts from around the world lies a collective wisdom of thousands of years' worth of experience and deep thinking that we could all stand to learn from. May I recommend the introductory book about the world's religions entitled (handily) "The World's Religions," by Dr. Huston Smith. It is an excellent book to familiarize yourself with all of the major faiths out there. It is not a cut-and-dry book that merely writes down the habits and customs and beliefs of the major religions. After each chapter about a particular faith, you really feel like you know the "core" of that faith, like you know the people who practice it, and personally, after every chapter I read, I wanted to convert to that religion. But that is the thing: we can learn from ALL these religions. To me, you don't have to just arbitrarily choose one and then put all your chips in with that faith. That seems rather naive and immature. There is so much to learn from each faith, just like there is so much to learn from all cultures of the world.

I cannot wait to start reading the Bible, but after that I want to try to read all of the major religious documents in the world, from the I-Ching to the Upanishads to the Koran to the Bhagavad Gita to the Analects of Confucius. I recommend that everyone read as many religious and philosophical texts as they can. Practicing spirituality, whether it is by going into nature and becoming connected to the ancient Mother which people have felt themselves drawn to for millenia or through meditation or through visiting the local places of worship for a religion that you are unfamiliar with or through reading and contemplating religious textings, all of these things help broaden a part of your mind that we otherwise neglect in this increasingly secular society that seems to be throwing away the wisdom of its forefathers in the face of the easy pleasures of technology and materialism.

Here is a quote about both religion and music--I see both things in the same light, just as I see all things of beauty in this world: "There is a philosophy which says that in order to feel God, you must begin to believe in Him, just as in order to feel the warmth of a stove, you must come close to it. This is also true with music. In order to feel its warmth, you must come close to it, and open your heart to it. Sometimes this can be awfully hard work....But music is not so aggressive that it will come through to you without your help. In order to feel its warmth and beauty, you have to shed your emotional insulation, just as if it were a coat, and prepare to listen with your heart. The key to finding happiness in music and to understanding it is not knowledge, because the music itself will teach you whatever you need to know. The key is feeling."

This is how I feel about everything. You have to be open and receptive to ALL things in life. I used to have an attitude that was negative, I guess is the easiest way to put it. I still see plenty of others around me that share that attitude. You cannot wait for the world to happen to you--you have to grab the experiences around you and EXPERIENCE them, instead of just letting things happen to you. I admit I still have a hard time with this, but time is fleeting and we must begin to live the beautiful life now. What Daniel quotes is correct: "When I think I'm cool, then all of a sudden I'm cool." It is the feeling that matters; it is your attitude, and we should try to accept the faiths of all others and to see the beauty and truth in each religion out there. While some things we may see as ridiculous, try to find the beauty in these religons. Get what you like out of each one and put that to use in your everyday life.

And I also agree with Daniel that it's better to be agnostic then atheistic. I just see it as being the only logical answer personally. I will never have proof that God definitely doesn't exist, so how could I be an atheist? But then again, we are pretty much agnostic about ALL things. But that is a question for philsophy: as Descartes says, "I think, therefore I am," and to him, that was the only thing that could be certain. Our senses can play tricks on us, so our mind is the only thing that we can trust in.

But in the mean time, let us all try to find beauty in all things and to be kind and loving to others. I think for me personally, I like to draw the sense of interconnectedness of all things and the idea that we should remain forever in the moment from Eastern religions, and from Christianity and Islam, to draw out the idea of being kind and loving to others, especially those who need it most.

--Edward

God?

That's a tough one. I guess it’s mostly because for me, “God” is incredibly difficult to define. The sense that I’ve gotten from Christianity growing up, from going to a Presbyterian church (chosen by my parents because they seemed to like the minister) and even to a church camp with my grandma and sister a couple summers, God is basically who you go to when everything gets quiet. In the sermons and scriptures he doesn’t appear to be your poker buddy as much as he is your local judge, your policeman, or your mom. When things get serious, you go to him. Usually it seemed like these serious things had to do with being down on your luck, going the wrong direction in life, or begging for forgiveness. But the seriousness didn’t stop there. It also spread to good fortune, thanking the Lord for everything, praising the Lord for existence, and owing all your great accomplishments to the Lord, for you couldn’t have done it without him.

And yet, growing up, all these things never appealed to me as what I found to be essential in my idea of God. I always considered him, if he did exist, to have the best sense of humor, understanding, and even empathy out of anyone. I considered him to be able to help me out like a friend would rather than a cop. But God would be even more than that. I think the last time I really tried to define him was at church camp in an exercise where you write a letter to God and the camp waits a couple years, then sends it back to you (reading anything for the first time years after you've written in it is a pretty good exercise). I remember making God almost a sort of ultimate conscience. God would be something that would keep everything centered within you and never be too forceful or overwhelming. God would give you peace.

In a lot of ways I believe that God exists for people in this way, that he gives people peace, and I tend to respect that incarnation of God much more than say one who deals with elements outside of yourself like wars, famine, destruction, and people as a whole. However, I can’t seem to find it as easy to define and then believe in God in this way anymore. Over time the amount of my thoughts and memories that fade and flood together increases, making it even harder to dwell on something beyond the already muddling consciousness of someone gone from childhood when it all seem so clear regardless of whether it made sense. It takes considerable effort for me to try and imagine something beyond existence now, but I certainly can never take away that slight possibility that something is present. I almost feel like it’s more reasonable to leave a slight chance than rule it out completely. It seems our consciousness bases itself on this sort of chance, constantly using that opening to make connections even on basic levels to connect the things we learn in life, like language or math. Our brain will inevitably push for that bit of imagination to see things differently so as to always remind us that we have stepped out of the picture to look back in, that we are self aware and even capable of contemplating alternatives to existence. I think that if I didn’t have that capability, like if I were a dog or a rock, I wouldn’t have a problem ruling out God as a possibility (because I couldn’t contemplate there being options in life and conscious decisions between them). The decision would be made for me. Rocks don't seem to have existential loose ends like that.

It’s strange though, that I almost take comfort in my inherent desire to believe in God when I can reason that it’s just my nature to do this instead of being from any actual proof of God’s existence. I like it because when I’m living and functioning on the inside looking out, it’s what is inherent and believed that matters, not whether or not it’s real. Like the guidance counselor on Freaks and Geeks said, “I believe I’m cool, so all of the sudden, I am cool.” Regardless of how dopey and foolish it seems to be able to see through your own faith, if you actually have faith, nothing else matters.

For my own faith, I feel I have to leave it open ended, to have faith that matter exists, that I am a part of that whole, and for whatever reason, that is enough (and all there could ever be). This is why some sort of figure, “God”, is difficult to place in this schema. A lot of the time I feel like “God” could best be thought of as what makes us able to contemplate anything, or our consciousness. But then I feel like it should extend to all life forms, not just the self-aware, until eventually I feel like it should extend to all forms in general. God is essentially everything without actually being anything. He is a presence more than he is an entity, a process more than a result, and an idea more than a concept. God is the silence before you know whether someone is going to answer or not. Hello?

Creatio Ex Nihilo--The DiMB Book Club

Welcome, fellow uneducated, slack-jawed, and wide-eyed yokels. If you, like me, would like to become more well-read, then welcome to the Demons in My Britches book club--Creatio Ex Nihilo. Like our film discussion group, this will be very informal and open to everyone who wants in. Anyone can suggest books and we will discuss them on our own time and when available, whether that means on this blog, in person, or via Skype, something I had not heard of until I saw Daniel using it a year ago to keep in touch with the victim of his torrid love affair, one Rie Ma.

As the club's founder, I naturally get first pick for what we read, and I have decided upon the preeminent series of the world's best-selling author, Stephen King: The Dark Tower. Despite what you might think, his most critically acclaimed series isn't straight horror. Rather, it's a mix of fantasy and western, put together in one ludicrously epic package. As King himself says in the intro to the first book, The Gunslinger, he was inspired to write this series by both The Lord of the Rings and the Sergio Leone film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (join our film discussion group to watch this landmark film, and stay afterwards at our CD-signing tent to pick up Cam Heaslip's special energy drink, which releases hits of acid and molly so that they peak right during the shootout climax of Leone's epic western film). You can tell King really just wanted to make the most epic thing possible. This is like a pulpy, popular fiction version of Homer and The Aeneid. Don't worry, we'll eventually get to the classics in our book club, but I wanted to start with something a little easier and more fun, and I think this is the perfect intro. It has almost everything, considering its scope, and because it's King, it is incredibly easy to read and very thrilling.

There are seven books total in the series. This is them in chronological order (shut-up!), starting with the first: The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, The Waste Lands, Wizard and Glass, Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower. According to Wikipedia, King has described this series as his magnum opus. I have only read the first book, which was entertaining and a fun read, but I think it really only scratches the surface of this complex and epic series. I believe it is by far the shortest book. I'm sure people's local libraries carry these books, so there is no need to buy them for our book club. If someone needs them, I do have copies of the first four and I could loan them out individually after I finish each one.

Please post comments if you are interested in joining our book club. I stress that it's very informal and you can read as much or as little as you want. I'm hoping to see this book club as a way to get people like Matt or Mike started reading. I assure you guys that The Dark Tower is very easy reading and undoubtedly you'll find it an immersive, white-knuckle read. By the way, I don't plan on starting The Dark Tower for a little bit myself, because as you can read in my earlier post about my upcoming reading list, I have the Odyssey and the Bible up next on the plate. I don't plan on reading the whole Bible at once, though, so I say we'll probably start sometime in mid-September or so, would be my guess. If you want to, of course, you can always start reading now if you're a slow reader.

Please, please, please, feel free to post any suggestions about the book club you want. And anyone looking to join, just tell me or other members (as far as I know, Daniel is the only other member at the moment, but we'll have more soon). Happy reading!

--Edward

Hey yo! This is just a quick post but, I found this really rad website that the actor, Joseph Gordon Levitt started. It mainly appeals to all the JFP-ers in here, so you guys should check it out! It's an "online collaborative production company" and you can submit videos, songs, anything creative....I just thought it was a cool find and I wanted to share!

hitRecord.org

TP into the future

I know this is religious month- but I'm going to segway because this is a question that needs to be addressed- -plus Edward is getting on my case to contribute to the blog. Here it goes:

Think about it. We have weapons that can kill hundreds of thousands maybe even millions of people. We have successfully put men on something that is 238,857 miles away floating in space. We can shoot satellites moving at a ridiculous speed right out of the sky. We can grow a new liver from a piece of an old one... you get the point. So why are we still wiping our asses with paper?!?

Paper? Seriously paper? I'm sure most of you can think of more compelling stuff than what is above to signify human achievement and that is exactly my point. We have all this technology and yet we are stuck wiping with a refined bit of tree. Shouldn't there be some sort of robot that gently sucks shit out and then sprays some sort of summer wheat field scent? At the very least I am saying there is no reason to be using this primitive form of cleaning anymore.

Dont even make the argument of a bidet. Water is not the answer and it most certainly is not progress. And progress should not be stifled as a result of the 'Well if it ain't broke, don't fix it' argument.

Make a better way. Do it.

Topic of the Month (August): RELIGION....Edward's Picks for the Top 10 Religion Band Names of All Time*

*This list was created during the fabled "Interludes" period (during my freshman year of college) in my multi-part, thousand-page-long band name commentary entitled "Updated Name Commentary." The Interludes, consisting of various lists paying homage to the great band names of high school, were written by me as I waited for Daniel to uncover the treasure trove of post-Greg's House high school lists. I was absolutely and hopelessly addicted to commentary-writing at that point, so I could not stand to wait for him to go home on a college break to find one of his many overflowing folders full of band names. So I made best-of lists chronicling the history of band names up until that point in time (meaning up until where I had commented on, since in real time we were already working on college lists, I believe, although we might not have started yet...it's a hazy time period). (DISCLAIMER HERE) So NO, technically this isn't a list of the all-time greatest religion names, since it only covers up to a certain period, but you get my drift. Maybe as a special treat for Religion Month Daniel or another writer will detail the best religion names made after this time period. (END DISCLAIMER) Back on track: in honor of August, month of religion and "volatility," I am republishing my list of the top ten religion names.

Okay, ye who are unacquainted with our "band names" (no, they are not actually real rock band names), you are probably wondering just what the fucking shiite ol' Eduardo is talking about right now. Let me do some more quoting (since I'm a bit lazy to actually describe for myself right now) and paste here what Daniel had to say about the genesis of the band name (note that this is a Facebook version of Daniel's explanation; I will provide the real explanation just as soon as he finds it, Allah willing): "Dedicated originally for creating band names, now a band name or 'name' is really as long as an encyclopedia, as short as a single word, or as medium as a paragraph. They can be full fledged epics, fleeting thoughts, a name of a person, a moment in time, a title, a short story, or words that just sound good together. They're generally but definitely not restricted to fiction. Basically, write anything worth reading."

Here is another Daniel-explanation, perhaps the one I was originally looking for, about what band names are to us: "During a slow going study hall not unlike any other, we assembled together and begin to banter about nothing consequential. Somehow the subject of band names came up as one among us had actually been in a band, as he had some legitimate artistic talent. Debate over what would make a good band name was thrown about, so I decided to try and publish it by tossing out a piece of paper and seeing what we could get done. The group jumped on it as a way to pass the time and soon we had a decent list of band names from the childish to the cerebral and back again. I pushed for this to continue until we had a few lists together and then we recruited our most enthusiastic participant and later critic. He grabbed the list and scribbled down a phrase likely not as possible for a band name for its sheer length. But no one objected of course and gradually we pushed outwards from the constraints of how people generally think of band names. It soon became a medium for anything on your mind, whether it was a jumble of non-sequitor words made hilarious by their combination or two or three eloquently constructed sentences about poop. There was talk of making whatever the best name we’d written our actual band name for an actual band. But like many endeavors the planning and brainstorming was miles more fun than actually trying to run with just one name and create a novelty band.

"So we kept running with it, throwing together lists whenever groups gathered. Our writing among groups was pure and vulnerable to salivating crowd surrounding the list (it didn’t help that it was lunch). We’d feed off one another by either carrying on the energy of one writer or making a point to completely contrast the present forces set in motion. Eventually, high school ended as it must and should, and we were left to isolated name-writing from our college dorms. This period only added to the extreme breadth and depth of the band name writing realm that we’d fashioned from its beginnings on scrap paper."

And without further ado, I will move onto what I promised in the post title--my top ten religion names! Here ya go:

The Top Ten Religion Names of All-Time

A sacred category of writing that only the most humble and faithful of authors wrote in, and even then, only with the utmost care and respect, religion names were actually the battlefield of either authors like me looking for tasty characters (like God) and situations, or Zack West, who seemed to write about religion only because he thought that it was controversial and would make him a courageous playboy who the ladies hung on to and the fellas envied. He was wrong, and to be fair, it was pretty hard to make an actual controversial name what with our audience of heartless bastards, but it wasn’t impossible. Not exactly the finest style of names ever, most of us didn’t really delve into the genre too seriously, but sometimes we’d just put out one involving God or Jesus once in a while, and quite a few of those were funny. And no, I’m not including Christmas names on this list.
Honorable mention: Singleterry had his eyes sewed shut and the next day God appeared for a special treat for the village people, the doctors took out the strings but the weasel snuck out with the eyes…ha, he thought they were testicles.: God’s appearance in here only seems to be as a random guest character (similar to many of mine), and it doesn’t really deal that much with religion, but I had to stick this one on here somewhere. I love the idea of God appearing as a “special treat,” though, adding a lively sense of appeal to it.
Honorable mention: God finally found a person he could play chess with in the form of “Pop ‘n’ Scotch” Veronica and that juicy intellect of hers: a pretty random storyline by me, I liked the idea of God possessing such stupendous intellectual abilities that he could find no match in the universe with which to challenge himself. On along comes “Pop ‘n’ Scotch” Veronica and he’s finally met his match. I thought of the stupidest, most teeny-bopper name for the girl as I could to add a nice twist, and “juicy intellect of hers” almost signified that God would eat her brain if she actually did beat him, but I think this one was a nice little name of mine.
10.) Mormons: I was a little surprised when I realized I had chosen to go for a one-worder, and this was the first one of this length since all the way back on the study hall lists, but I couldn’t think of anything better to say about Mormons other than, well, just “Mormons.” Hugely open to interpretation, I think that’s what makes this one so good. It was an innovative take and a relatively innovative subject, and you can’t say it was tasteless, because it really had nothing to say. One I hold pretty dear in my heart, I’m not so sure how others liked it, but I swear, the more I hear about Mormons in real life, the more true this one rings in my ears.
9.) Jesus was the king of men, Jèsus Gonzales was a sex offender serving time in State Penn.: Ryan went for a nice twist on this one striking both religion and race in one blow. It doesn’t deal that closely with religion, but as you’ll see, not many names on this list do. Nice use of “State Penn.” showing off some streetwise sentiments, and I also like “the king of men” part.
8.) God made me what I am—a stepchild of myth: showcasing the overwhelming arrogance of some religious fellows who believe that they form a special link in “God’s plan,” this one wasn’t obnoxious, however, but a strange and charming contribution of mine. I think when I wrote it, I kinda wanted the other people around to actually think that I was the narrator in here (at the time, there weren’t many first-person names, so that wasn’t too unreasonable) as opposed to just a random character of mine, and maybe get the others freaked out by it and help the name. Who’s to say I’m not a stepchild of myth anyways? This one is fairly short, but I think every word in here helps it, and it was a fine name. I like the matter-of-fact innocence of it, and the fake-grand scale of it.
7.) -WHERE’S YOUR GOD NOW SALLY??!!-, -Jesus, Jonathan she’s a three year old for Christ’s sake!-: Daniel’s thrilling conclusion to the History/Lunch List lit up the eyes of everyone present when his pen left the paper and he turned the list around smugly so that everyone could read and gasp. I wish we planted a hidden camera that day at lunch to see what his face was doing while the others read it. I’m not sure about how much of this has to actually do with believing in God, but I love the excessive anti-religious sentiments of the first person. You’re lead along to kinda agree with him, because sometimes people can get a little bit out of hand when it comes to Christianity, but Daniel added a nice conclusion when you find out Mr. Psycho is yelling at a three-year-old. As I said above, this is a thrilling name, and one of Daniel’s most classic.
6.) Left to his own devices, big jerk Jeremiah wiped his butt with torn out Bible pages: I’m not sure exactly what this one is supposed to mean—is Jeremiah just putting up a religious front to fool the imbeciles? (is he even religious?) does he like the Bible so much that he uses it in the bathroom?—but it clearly deals with the Book of God pretty handily right off the bat, and it certainly works because of its somewhat shocking nature, so this is the third appearance of Daniel’s potent Sticker List name on my lists so far. Keep your head up in the future—it just might show up again.
5.) Religion blows: probably the flagship of the religion names, this one makes my list so high up more for that than its quality. Its luster has faded somewhat to a dull yet soothing glow, but I still remember the smug look on my face when I wrote it (not altogether too distant from Daniel’s look that I talked about above), and this one was bound to go down in history, simply because there weren’t all that many blunt names on the lists when it came to topics like this. Sure, there were lots of obvious ones about people being gay or moronic crap like that, but there just weren’t that many about honestly meaningful topics. I wanted this said with a distinct and clear voice, and I wanted something terribly simple, and I think ultimately this one was worth it to write, no matter how much or little critical appeal it’ll ever get.
4.) Sherman Williams the preacher thought he lost the bet, but then he realized his life was already over: I’m really not sure at all how much Daniel meant for this one to be about the man’s faith, but I absolutely love the negative tone that drenches this one to the bone. Starting off negative already with the man thinking he lost a bet, it dips into depression when you find out he’s already dead. It could perhaps be seen as a fitting end for a preacher who gambles, but for some reason I just find myself drifting over towards this one among the field of names from the New England time. The hidden appeal of it is that no matter how doom-filled and morbid it seems, it hints at the suggestion that maybe death isn’t all that bad in the end, and might be an escape from our everyday worries. There isn’t anything scary or fearful at the end when Sherman realizes he’s dead, and despite its bleak exterior, I think it has a soft heart somewhere inside there.
3.) The school picnic was finally here and all the school children were eager to take a taste at the kool-aid that was made only once a year. Timberland was caught in the school oven douching himself with it and talking like Jesus. Looks like he’ll be servin’ life!: the role of “talking like Jesus” is small in this set piece, but the whole thing seems like a sort of pseudo-religious ritual to me, but more one by extremely organized islanders or tribal people to me than any sort of Western religion. The “kool-aid that was made only once a year” seems to be particularly sacred here, and perhaps Timberland became so entranced by the heady brew that he went crazy in the school oven with it. It’s clearly some strong stuff (I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on a batch of that shit, but clearly we’d have to go through great lengths to procure some). And there seems to be a steep price, as shown by the last sentence, for stepping out of line in that society. On good names like this, Greg created whole worlds for us to explore.
2.) When told by the prophet God meant for him to be crucified, Jesus responded, “That two timing whore”: Zack’s last line comes very close to breaking the mood in this one, but you can’t help but notice the biblical-epic style from early on. I love how Jesus goes to a simple, garden-variety prophet to find out his master’s plans for him. One of the few that deals with religious events head on, it gains momentum from using history and putting it into context along with some dirty slang. Among Zack’s best names ever, it’s also one of the best religious ones ever.
1.) Rembrant was in agonizing pain from his sexual disease he obtained at age 9 and saw the light. Hoping for Jesus he walked towards it only to have flames consume his body.: going along with the sin-and-consequence scenario of Sherman Williams, this one improves upon it by setting the stakes considerably higher with Rembrant being in “agonizing pain” and at the end walking into the flames of hell (presumably). It’s hilarious to think of Rembrant getting the STD at age nine, then lying bedridden the rest of his life in an uptight, stodgy family home, whose occupants passed by his quarters every morning with shameful sideways glances towards the sinner of the family. When this came out, it was something completely new, because of its highly thoughtful scenario and style of humor, and it’s one of the classics of our time. This was one of Greg’s first twist endings, an omen for the rest of the night, and it served as good motivation for me to kick myself in the ass and step up my writing.

--Edward

Movie Discussion Begins! Experience the Coen Brothers!

Just a reminder to everyone involved that our movie discussion group has officially started as of 12:01 A.M. on Sunday, August 1, the year of our Lord two thousand and ten. By unanimous consent--meaning I get the first pick for our first month since I am the greatest--the Coen Bros. shall be our opening directors. If you want more information about the group, please click on the film tab on the right hand side of the blog screen and one of the posts will be, in big letters, "MOVIE DISCUSSION."

I added Daniel's selection of directors and his picks for which films to watch by the directors to the comments of the initial "Movie Discussion" post, since he had for whatever reason neglected to tell the rest of the world about this list (I know, he's not very helpful--he's kind of an elitist), as well as some secondary selections for some of his directors which I made. Keep in mind that all of the movies we suggest are just that--suggestions. You can watch whichever movies you want by these directors and in whatever order you want. It's all up to you. We just want to get people watching movies basically. Our dandy and cynical friend who shall remain nameless questioned what the point of this group was. I will let the other members post their own answers to this, but for me the point is merely to watch new movies, to cherish old ones, and to talk about both with my friends so maybe we can gain some new insight into them. I don't know about the others in this cold and threatening world, but I for one find a great deal of comfort in films, so I don't really need an excuse to watch good ones.

Without further ado, I will repost my personal selections of the biggest Coen Bros. films (in chronological order...as always):
-Blood Simple
-Raising Arizona
-Miller's Crossing
-Barton Fink
-Fargo
-No Country for Old Men

--Edward

Upcoming Books on My Reading List

Just to try to keep myself motivated here, I'm just going to give a quick rundown about what I have up next on my reading list. Ever since I started wanting to read the classics of world literature (which was about a year ago), I had decided that my first year of this reading plan would be devoted to building a solid foundation with some of the most important and alluded to classics. The father of Western literature is Homer, the supposedly blind bard of ancient Greece. The two epics attributed to him (I say attributed to since scholars know essentially nothing about the man the Greeks dubbed Homer, and there is and has always been a great debate about if one man wrote both poems, or if either was even written by a single person) are the Iliad and the Odyssey. I read the Iliad last year, which took a while but was definitely worth it. The next book I plan on reading is the Odyssey, which I think most modern readers like more than its predecessor. It is the single quintessential adventure story of all time, just like the Iliad is the original war story. I think it's fairly important to read the Iliad before the Odyssey, since there are many characters in both, and reading the Iliad first gives you a solid bedrock of narrative understanding that will aid you in the looser, more meandering Odyssey. The Iliad is almost overpowering in its graphic and gigantic descriptions of war. I have started to read the Odyssey before, but kept getting sidetracked by other things. It is a lot easier read than its big brother, but based on the approximate half of it that I've read before, I would have to disagree with the modern audiences who like it more than the war epic Iliad, which documents a couple days in the ten-year Greek struggle to lay siege on Troy (ten years and untold amounts killed over a husband trying to get back his wife who left him for the Trojan prince Paris!). The Odyssey has lots of magic and interesting stories, but it cannot compare to the sheer power of the colossal descriptions of war and human suffering in Iliad. One of my favorite parts of Homer is his use of gigantic similes, using lines and lines to compare warfare to nature's power. Those parts are the heart of Homer to me, and they do not pop up often in the Odyssey. But I will give it another shot, since it clearly is not a bad book. In fact, it is one of the central works in Western literature for all time. (Note: I am reading the Richmond Lattimore translations of both works. He has long been considered the gold standard for Homer--especially the Iliad--since his Iliad came out in, I believe, '61. If others were to start reading Homer, I would recommend to them the Robert Fagles translations, which are a little newer and undoubtedly easier to read, while still capturing the elemental power which makes Homer so special and universally loved.)

After I finish that--and since I think religion will most likely be the next topic of the month on DIMB--I will begin an even harder struggle as I attempt to tackle the central work of Western literature: the Holy Bible. Since I think trying to tackle the Bible head-on and slogging through the entire work in one go is a bit suicidal, I will see how things go, but probably I will end up reading the Bible a book or two at a time. After all, the Bible was not written by one author or considered to be a chronological, seamless narrative. It is a piecemeal collection of different writings by a whole lot of different authors. From everything I've ever read about it, the Bible is often considered to be one of the weirdest books in existence. I think probably the majority of Christians have never read the entire thing, and I think there are large swathes of it that Sunday school teachers probably never teach to their students. It's full of sex and violence and all kinds of other weird things. I want to read it because first-off, it's considered to be one of the greatest works of literature in all of existence. Despite having pages and pages of unreadable lists and other esoteric passages, there are moments of raw sublimity that perhaps surpass all other works in literary history. I would say its only peers are Homer's epics, Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost, the best plays of Shakespeare, Cervantes's Don Quixote, and perhaps Proust's long narrative In Search of Lost Time (or, alternatively titled, Remembrance of Things Past). You can't really call yourself a literature fan without having read it. And certainly I don't think you could call yourself a really wise Christian or Jew without having read the entire book that your faith is based upon. But I do understand its difficulties, as my version of the Bible clocks in at over 1,600 pages. Note that I am going to read the King James version, which is again the absolute gold standard. Along with Shakespeare, the King James Bible helped shaped modern English as we know it. This is the version with the most powerful language, in part because even when it was written at the beginning of the seventeenth century, its language was pretty archaic. This helps lend weight to the weightiest of all narratives--the creation of the universe that begins with Genesis and ends with Revelation and the Apocalypse. Again, I imagine the KJ version will make it a harder read for me, since it was written in the seventeenth century. But that is the price you pay. In literature, as in many other things, the harder you work, the deeper and more profound pleasure you get as a result. This is going to take me a while to read, and I will probably intersperse other works between the books of the Bible.

A couple of quick tips here for those wishing to delve into the awesome world of literature: please, if you are picking a book written in a foreign language to read, research which translation you want to get. This can make or break whether you like a certain work. There are atrocious translations out there, there are ones that are great but don't adhere too closely to the original, and there are ones that are just right. Please research what translation you are getting, and also what edition. Some editions have great notes, which can really add meaning to your experience, as well as great introductions or other essays. For instance, if you are planning to tackle Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, you can choose to read it in the original Middle English (I have read parts of it in this, and it's a unique, invigorating experience once you get the hang of it) or you can read a modernized version. Personally, I would suggest a version that has the original on one page and the modernized version on the facing page, since this way you can tackle the more challenging Middle English while having a helping hand on the other side in case you get stuck.

Another tip is to please read slowly. Growing up I had a tendency to skim along at a very rapid pace. I got away with it since I was mostly reading easier works, like Harry Potter or Stephen King books or Crichton thrillers, but when you are reading great works of literary art, you gain so much more by taking your time. I personally look up all the words I don't know as I'm reading, so this adds a lot of time. I also like to take notes or underline sometimes. Again, the more you put into a work of literature, the more you get out of it. You are doing a great injustice to an author like James Joyce or William Shakespeare or Dante Alighieri or Marcel Proust or especially all of the poets by reading their works at a rapid pace. They are considered the absolute greats because they pack so much into their works. Something like Hamlet is so dense with lyrical beauty, with complex metaphors, with pulsing rhythm, with alliteration and puns, and with irony that it takes a lot of effort to dig even moderately deep into its den of dark beauty. People don't read great literature just for the plot, which can of course easily be discerned with speed reading or skimming; they read it for the writing itself.

It is also good to reread stuff. Great literature gets better the more you read it. You uncover new layers and discover things you never saw before. This is especially true with the more challenging works--say, Ulysses or Moby-Dick or The Sound and the Fury or Spenser's Faerie Queen. And it helps to really try to wrestle with your book. Don't just read it, but try to really get inside of it. Try to think about everything going in--why is the author writing in this specific style and how does it relate to the work as a whole? Etc. Try to do more than just read a book to find out who dies at the end. A couple tips here from Jack Murnighan's Beowulf on the Beach (an excellent starting guide for 50 of the world's classics--this single-handedly made me want to tackle the great works of world literature): don't see the movie first! I really can't stress this enough. It's so much better to read the book first, because as much as I love movies, I think that truly breathtaking literature has a more profound effect on us (at least me) than do movies. You really live with a great book. I will try to start doing this from now on, although sometimes it's hard (and sometimes the movies really are better than the books, such as The Godfather or Psycho or Jaws or many others). Another tip of his is to keep a "commonplace book," which I've started doing, to write down your thoughts on the work, new words, great quotes, or just chains of thought that you started on because of the book.

Alright, back to my upcoming reading list. Being me, I decided to go all-out and try to read William Shakespeare in his entirety in chronological order. What the fuck is with my obsession with chronological order lately? This is a rather ballsy move, considering his worst plays are the first ones, but I want to grow with the world's greatest author, so that by the time I get to the sheer masterpieces of Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, I will be a much more mature and intelligent reader, ready to engage with the most technically gifted and soul-stirring writer out there. The Bible and Shakespeare are I think the two edifices of literature where it's most important to read slowly and try your motherfucking hardest to really dig deep into these monumental monoliths of human art. But so much of literature and indeed our entire human culture itself is based on these two things that I decided to get them out of the way early in my quest to master world literature. But I am ready to be fucked mercilessly by these things, so expect to see a tired Edward in the upcoming months. At least according to my massive Riverside Shakespeare, his first play is Henry VI (not to be confused with the much better Henry IV and V). This is of course the subject of much scholarly debate, since there is very little known about the world's greatest writer, and of course there is even the endless debate about whether the plays were even written by William. But that is another story for another day. Unfortunately, Henry VI is considered one of his absolute worst plays (it has three parts), but you have to start somewhere. I simply cannot wait until I get to his second period (out of four, at least by my standards), which includes such timeless masterpieces as Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet. For any other writer, these would be the absolute pinnacles of their career, but for Shakespeare these were mere warm-ups for his dark and truly spectacular tragedies: Hamlet (whose protagonist many consider to be the greatest literary character of all time), King Lear (perhaps the most tragic of all works), Macbeth, and Othello. These are usually considered to be the masterpieces of Shakespeare. But it will be a long time before I get to those (unfortunately, but then again, I don't think I'm ready as a reader for them yet).

The Bible, Homer, and Shakespeare: these are the centerpieces of Western literature. After them, I'm not sure what I will work on. There are just so many routes. I will probably intersperse all of these works with lighter fare. I really want to read From Hell, often considered to be one of the greatest graphic novels of all time, about Jack the Ripper and written by the author of Watchmen (please read this if you haven't already--love it). I could attempt Dante, who is considered to be perhaps the finest writer there is after Shakespeare. I worry about the difficulty of his absolute masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, though, so I might wait until later to attempt him. The same goes for Milton's Paradise Lost. These are genuinely challenging epic poems, but as I said before, the harder the work, the deeper its pleasures. I also want to tackle the central works of the American canon, which are as follows: Melville's Moby-Dick; Twain's Huckleberry Finn (due for a reread); Thoereau's Walden and the works of his friend Emerson; the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman; the novels of Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, and Philip Roth (these are the central American authors who are still cranking out books); Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter (I don't think I ever finished this); the novels of Henry James and William Faulkner (America's two greatest novelists); and the works of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Faulkner and Henry James are both particularly challenging, and it'd be cool if we did some sort of discussion group to give us motivation to slog through their big lists of masterpieces. This is just a blueprint as you can see, but these are all authors I plan to tackle eventually.

There are some nonfiction writers I wish to experience as well. Plato and Montaigne (the great French writer who basically invented the essay single-handedly) are just as much the cornerstones of our culture as Dante and Shakespeare are. I would like to read some Freud, as well as some of the great philosophers. Two things I'm interested in tackling are drama and poetry. I don't have much experience with either, and I find the latter particularly challenging (reading epic poetry like Homer isn't too bad compared to read lyric poetry, at least for me). Poetry really takes concentration and experience to even begin to master. One day I would like to write it, but I definitely need more experience reading it first. In terms of drama, I think I really need to read the Greek classics first (and of course Shakespeare), since this is where it all came from. Sophocles, Euripedes, Aristophanes, and Aeschylus--these are the masters. It is interesting to note, as I have read about, that oftentimes the first examples of specific genres are often considered to be to this day the greatest. A lot say that no one has surpassed these Greek tragedians at their art (except for Shakespeare--his plays are often considered to be a different genre than traditional Greek tragedy, and no one has surpassed Shakespeare at the kind of tragedies that he invented). Homer wrote the first--and many say best--epics. The novel as we know of it starts with Miguel Cervantes's Don Quixote, and you could make a strong case for saying that it is the greatest (at least until Joyce and Proust wrote their masterpieces at the beginning of the twentieth century, but even then....could they offer more than the Don and Sancho gave us?).

Two things I would like to read soon are the first two major works by James Joyce, often considered to be the finest writer of the twentieth century. Known especially and infamously for the eternally challenging masterwork Ulysses, Joyce is considered to be one of the finest technical writers of all time. Gifted with a tremendous vocabulary and intellect, Joyce did not go easy on his readers at all. While Ulysses is almost universally hailed as the greatest novel of the century (it is literature's version of Citizen Kane), it presents an almost impenetrable maze for its readers to try to weave through. There are dozens and dozens of books trying to explain or help the reader through it, but I think most still fail when attempting to read it. It is sad that books like that or Tolstoy's War and Peace are seen as literary Mt. Everests instead of being the rich works of art which they really are. They aren't simply challenges; they should be works of great beauty and wisdom which enrich us. (If you think Ulysses is hard, Joyce spent over a decade working on his final book Finnegans Wake, which is perhaps literature's hardest and most impenetrable read, but some say it is the finest work of literary art of the century past. One day I'd like to tackle it.) Anyways, I don't want to start with either of those books. It is best with Joyce to start with his easier, earlier stuff, which lays groundwork to help you understand his later masterpiece Ulysses (which is modeled on the Odyssey and also Hamlet--each section adheres to a passage from the Odyssey, and is also linked to a certain branch of academia as well as a part of the body--very confusing book). Dubliners was, I believe, his first published book, and is a collection of short stories. "The Dead" is considered to be one of the finest stories of all time. This is going to be what I read first, followed by A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which is the autobiographical tale of his youth, adolescence, and young adulthood. Many of the characters from this recur in Ulysses, which is another good reason to start with this first. I think both should give me a taste as to why Joyce is considered to be one of the finest authors of all time.

The other candidates for best twentieth century authors are Franz Kafka and Marcel Proust. I might read some Kafka coming up. He is known for being eternally weird and obsessed with themes like alienation and religious doubt. He is often considered to be a prophet who foresaw the atrocities of World War II and the Nazi regime. Several of his family members were killed in the Holocaust, but Kafka died before Hitler's rise. Proust is basically known for one book: the aforementioned In Search of Lost Time. This is an extremely long (3,000+ pages) novel that basically tells the story of its creation. Like many Modernist works, it is heavily autobiographical and experimental. Proust's almost completely unnamed narrator (I believe he is called Marcel only a few times in this gigantic work) bears many similarities to his creator, and the climax of the novel is the decision to create the novel by its narrator. This more than almost any other work is a reason to read slowly and carefully. Probably no one even attempts to read this book anymore, so no one fails, but it is I would say definitely one of the hardest challenges in literature. It is incredibly slow and pensive, but I think if you read deeply enough in it, its almost endless riches will unfold themselves to you. Proust created a work that digs itself perhaps deeper into the complexities of the human mind then any other. Influenced by Freud and the groundbreaking quantum theory in physics, Proust writes a novel that is more metaphysical then plot-based. According to Clifton Fadiman, "Proust is less considered with these matters [story and characters, although Proust has been praised as being the equal of Shakespeare in terms of creating completely vital and memorable characters] than with dramatizing a metaphysical system. Metaphysics tries to answer the question, What is the fundamental nature of reality? Proust devoted his life to answering the question in the form of a work of art. Of course he answers only part of the question. He tells us what reality means to Proust. But the answer has enormous scope and range." Many consider this the finest novel of all time. It is something I don't plan to tackle for a long time--both because of its challenge and because I hear you get so much more out of it with more life experience and wisdom that comes with age--but when I do, it will definitely be something I record either on here or somewhere.

Anywho, that is just some of the things I want to read. There are billions more, and I only listed the works of "high literature" primarily. There are just as many popular books I want to read. This new craze of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books has made me want to read that series, so I'll be doing that sometime soon.

Also, don't think that video game month has ended just yet for me. I have an upcoming list sometime for the top 50 weapons of all time in a video game, so stay tuned.

--Edward