What books are about

Why is a book such a novelty (no pun fucking intended, you forget about that pun) and a newspaper such a waste of paper? Somehow, through technology's forever advancing gait, books remain as important as books do. But an obnoxious running joke that can be credited to Andrew Rogers brings up a valid point.

Books ... what are those about?

You see a book in a bookstore and you pick it up. That's a lie. You see a book you've heard about or by an author you have previously experienced and enjoy or on a subject that's absolutely compelling to you, and you decide that's what you want to spend your aunt's gift card on this year. So you open it, which somehow is still a fun thing to do: turn a book from this craftily designed object to a wall of words that paints a four-dimensional (TIME IS THE FOURTH DIMENSION, MORE ON THAT LATER) picture. You set off on a journey, meeting friends and exploring places, you form and inherit opinions of characters and, while we're here, oftentimes the words you gloss over are the ones that set tone. Those inconsequential-seeming adjectives that you ride on by are forming a mood. Anyway, where do these characters go?

Books are obsessed with death. So many books. So much death. I haven't read relatively very many books. But, when you read books, people so often die in them. From the beginning of time, grand stories have involved death. It speaks to human nature, to want to hear about those that died, perhaps as a means of previewing our days' end. Sometimes it's that we're the ones who live while the wicked die. Other times it's the honorable who die (or are they honorable because they died?) and the wicked who deteriorate in other ways. So, in books, we like death. Death is finality, death is tone, death is the point around which the story then revolves, because death is ultimate, and for a story to achieve perfection, it must include death, be it of the beast or of the challenger.

So often, people die from other people. In stories, murder is always interesting, and I think that's because we all like murder. Not that we like when people are murdered, but the emotions of a person willing to wrench life out of someone else are fascinatingly tattered, usually, in one way or another. We read, we think "I wouldn't have done that," and are satisfied in ourselves. Or, in the rare instance, disappointed.

Characters are so fun. They rise and fall in favor like stocks. Dynamics make everything interesting. As in music, notes can make a melody, but dynamics are required, the shifting and configuring of those notes, to make music. Dynamic characters are we, and we love ourselves, thus we love dynamic characters. We love watching someone we hate do something we love, and turn it around; We abhor watching someone we love do something we hate, and loosen their status as beloved.

Books are about, so far according to this post, death and change. They're about life. Usually, in forms of it, the things that happen in it, the occurrences and unoccurrences. All the things we think of happening that don't, as well as all the things we don't think about that do happen. And everything in between. It is an intersection between thought and action, between hypothetical and actual, between standards and circumstances.

Books are also about love. We could say "and they were in love." and be done with it, but nay, we must make it so vibrant. As our hearts would beat more, we would describe the moment in greater detail. That's why kisses take place in slow motion so often. You must take in everything, the manner in which he closes his eyes, or what her eyebrows do when their lips finally touch, or that expression on both their faces when love actions are impending.

Love, I guess, also falls under the "life" category. And books, they do this because they can, hit on the things we don't get to see every day. Murder is big, because of course we would never murder, not us. Change is huge, because we do it ourselves, but we cannot see it, we only see it in others. Love is important because love is the flower of human interaction (deep shot, that) and it's much easier to watch the flower bloom than to be that blooming flower. Plus, when that flower dies, you survive, despite being disappointed.

We like seeing relationships begin more than we like seeing them end. Though we are more interested in their end than we are in their beginning. Books feed this interest appropriately.

What happens in life if not the deaths of those around you? Would the answer possibly the death of you yourself?

Some change is good, other change is bad. We want to know how to change and when. Enter books.

--Eliot Sill

Nick - I'm In New Orleans, Doing New Orleans Things

Oh hey guys. I guess I really don't have to post since Conor posted for all of us on Friday, but I don't know when to quit, so here I am.

Classic Brian and I spent 11 hours on Saturday (we made good time) driving south. It was pretty fun. I made Brian talk in his Lumpy Space Princess voice for the last hour of the journey. We drove through Mississippi, which is the dullest place in America according to Mr. Horne. (We second the opinion.)

We also had some interesting experiences with out GPS. See, it won't tell you the next thing you have to do unless you press the Voice Button. There was a good hour and a half where, when the Voice Button was pressed, it just said "Drive straight for over 300 miles."

Brian and I said nothing to each other, we just pressed the Voice Button every five minutes for an hour and a half, waiting for it to say something else. Good times.

ANYWAY, New Orleans. Classic and I have decided we're going to live here. Everyone here is friendly. There's so much culture, everywhere you look. Music on every street corner; all the shops and restaurants are local. There are artists selling their works on the streets.

I have a better sense of style than any of these motherfuckers. I'm used to being compared to other Champaign-Urbana people, but I expected better from you New Orleans folks.

We went on a run and checked out all the cool stores and hung out with a friend from Springfield.

Shoutout to my girl, Camille Floyd. What a cool lady. I would give a shoutout to her boyfriend too, but I'm terrified I'll spell his name wrong.

Anyway, yeah, this is the best. We're going to live here some day, because we like being here better than we like any of you people.

-Nick.

This seems like the best way to do this

Does anyone know Hillary's email address?

Thanks.

Robert

Conor and Brian and Nick - We're In New Orleans, doing New Orleans things

Oh hey guys. I am sitting criss-cross-applesauce in a bed, that is in the far corner of the room from the door.  I'm going to establish cardinal directions in order to provide a more easily imagined scene, but know that this cardinal directions are bullshit, and that I have no idea which way is north right now. Anyway, this bed is in the northwest corner of the room, and the door to the outside hallway is along the southern wall, slightly east of its center. In the northeast corner there is another bed, one that has obviously not been tampered with in a while. Stuffed animals cover the blankets and lean preciously against. Snoopy is cuddling with a big gorilla who is holding big ol' hearts that say "Wild About You." In between the two beds is a white dresser with some lotions, a lamp, and a flashlight, just in case that lamp sucks I guess. Next to the door is a TV on a stand. An old, Sanyo TV. A big brick compared to the thin compact ones we see nowadays.

All of this is significant because it is New Orleans. Because if I walk outside and look to what I have decided is the southeast, I see two bridges that lead across the river from the West Bank where we currently are (huh... This is called the West Bank. I'm not allowing this to change my declaration of the directions) into the city proper. Last night I was in the city proper for a short while.

And it was really cool.

I flew here with my two native New Orleans roommates, Maggie and Nina, yesterday. I'm staying at Nina's house for the next several days. Tonight, Classic Brian and Monday Nick shall join us*. They're on their way now**. We will all sleep in this small, nice room. I'm going to try to convince Nina to abandon her room and take one of the beds in here. I'll sleep on the floor, for the sake of solidarity, and cuteness of the story. It will be like a 3 or 4 day sleepover*.

I'm about to go on a bike ride in New Orleans*. I'm pretty excited about it.

*in New Orleans
*to New Orleans

Something Stupider

by Brendan Cavanagh

Again, I find myself taking an apologist stance here at Classic Brian. I'm sorry for my lack of regular, well-thought out Thursday blog posts. For today, here's basically what's been on my mind this week.

KRISTEN STEWART

Damn! I am once again helplessly infatuated with Kristen Stewart. Her character, Em, in Adventureland is so pretty and cool and...imaginary, but still. I'll get my Em, someday.

Thank you, and we'll see you here next week!

Just something stupid

He found it lying on the ground just outside his house, a crinkled, dirty piece of paper. Out of curiosity he picked up the discarded single leaf and turned it over to see what had been so worthless to someone that they would throw it out to wind up in his front yard.

Go and find the missing tomb,

for the keepers of the secrets, 

are after the treasure of the stolen blade

 

Howard saw this crudely written message as some kind of sign. He needed to get out and play, using the world as his playground, just as he had in summers past. He had played with the neighborhood kids, staging battles with enemies that were friends over territory that didn't belong to anyone. They fought battles in the Ohio summer heat with water balloons and super soakers that were never quite big enough. 

It was time to reclaim that glory that must have been 10, 12 years behind him, so said this crudely written note, scribbled by what Howard estimated to be a clumpy 9-year-old too naive to realize how profound his poem would seem in the wrong hands.

This summer was the end of the world. A college degree and employment were once happily married, but seem to be unhappy with each other, leaning toward divorce. He was caught in this separation. What's a degree in environmental sciences good for in a state that is characteristically not progressive? A job that pays $13.00 an hour apparently, all tips considered, as a server at the Olive Garden. Howard used to love eating at the Olive Garden. It would soon provide him enough to money to move out of his parents' home, if all was to go according to plan.

Shelve that, he thought. He changed into his oldest pair of worn sneakers and loosest fitting jeans, and set off into the forest that fondled his old high school, where Howard and his more persuasive friends would smoke pot after school on half days and climb trees to unintentionally ward off any female attention. No pot today, just a piece of paper that probably was snatched up too soon before it could arrive at its fated destination, where it would be of some use to somebody who could benefit from relishing their youth instead of a college grad who didn't fit into the future's extensive plans, internships and entry-level positions he should be focusing on unearthing— nevermind. Shelve that.

As he looked around the patch of trees — it had become much less of a forest as Howard grew older — for something to do, he read the note again and felt bored. He ran his hand through his coarse, bronze-brown hair, and rubbed the gristle on his chin, and thought about going home. But he had already invested nearly an hour into this foray back into his childhood, and was determined to do something worth telling friends about, or at least his mom at dinner.

He circled around a large rock that seemed to be partly lodged into a bank otherwise covered in sticks and negligible, green brush, and his focus was drawn to the rock. He decided to push it. Because that's where the buried stolen blade probably was. And because he would have wanted the strength to push over such a rock when he was younger. He exerted himself quite a bit, but was able to dislodge the rock with an awkwardly angled push with the rock pressed against his hands and right shoulder. The rock tumbled down the bank, moved for what was likely the first time in years, exposing a cavity the size of a full backpack. He pressed his hands against the tender, damp dirt.

He looked at what the rock had left behind, and again looked at the note, which had, along with his hands, become dirtier already. He hadn't found a tomb. He wasn't worried what the keeper of the secrets were up to. And the treasure of the stolen blade sounded as far away to him as it would to the mayor of New Jersey — this effort was fruitless, he thought.

He grabbed for his cell phone, and saw that he had nothing to attend to, and carried on. Twenty feet away, he spotted a Miller Lite bottle and looked down at the cavity he had just created in the embankment. He sat beside it and laid back, letting his head land on the mostly soft ground, he reached back and flipped a stick away from where his head was, and exhaled as he looked up to the trees, flush with color, huddling over him. 

He began to sing and noticed his head lean from side to side, to make sure high schoolers weren't smoking pot behind a nearby pine, busting a gut at his expense. Finally he let his eyes close and his voice lost its vigor, and his singing diminished into a hum, and he sat up, spotted a tree he could climb, and situated himself on a branch that sturdily hung almost parallel about eight feet above the ground, with one arm hanging off the tree and the other acting as a pillow, Howard once again closed his eyes and let the breeze, which he wished was a tad stronger, blow through his hair.

As he opened his eyes, he slid off the branch, landing on his feet, ready to turn back, when he saw another piece of paper. This piece seemed to be a brighter, less dirty white. He walked over and picked it up.

Nothing was written on it, but a corner had been ripped off. Howard gave it a crumpling squeeze, and dropped it, striding for home. He stopped by where he had pushed the rock away. With his already-dirty finger, he drew a smiling mouth, two eyes, and inwardly tilted eyebrows to give his face a menacing look. He then grabbed a patch of leaves, and placed them under the mouth, forming a sort of beard. The leaves would probably blow away, but that's ok.

As he walked back headlong into the lowering gaze of the setting sun, he saw a child run down the opposite sidewalk, and turning over his right shoulder away from the dull wind to watch the kid's awkward jaunt, he pulled the paper out of his pocket, ripped off a tiny portion of the top, gave the rest of the paper a crumpling squeeze and released it into the wind, where it moved lazily along in the direction of the child. The child turned left and slowed to a stroll. The paper continued to tumble away from Howard, and he turned forward and walked on. 

Howard washed his hands and changed into athletic shorts and a clean shirt. He put the ripped piece of paper in the top left drawer of his personal desk. He made dinner for himself and ate in his room. He wondered where the paper had blown to. He grabbed a copy of his resume that had been sitting on the top of his desk and looked it up and down. 

He balled it up and threw it across his room and banked it off a wall into his trash can. Again he laid his head back and closed his eyes. "Fuck," he exhaled. He decided he would print another copy in the morning.

--Eliot Sill

Goals for Adulthood

Learn Swedish, German and Spanish

Live in Europe more than 5 months

Work on an organic farm

Get married

Have some kids

Learn to like shrimp

Find a cause I care about

Climb some badass mountains

Own a home

Own a flat in Europe

Own a moped

Stay fit

Learn to cook really well

Own a boat

Be a part of a comedy troupe (sketch or improv, don't care)

Dress well

Coach sport for my kids

Go big

Don't go home

Only when I accomplish every single item on this list will I allow myself to be happy. EVERY SINGLE ONE.