thursday, february 19, 2004
there was a second part but i didn’t like it
octavia butler gave a talk today at usc. she’s on tour for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publishing of kindred. it’s also black history month and the african-american studies department wanted to give her this lifetime achievement award that looked like a glass salad bowl, sitting on an unattached piece of wood. i hope she finds some appropriate use for it; most award-items seem so physically useless.
my tenth grade teacher assigned us kindred as summer reading. i liked it. i read dawn on my own, but i thought it was somewhat silly.
the talk was about her beginnings as a writer, her inspiration for writing the book, and her views on writing in general. pretty much the same idea as the amy tan talk i went to last spring, but quite a bit more interesting. it might have something to do with the fact that i like octavia butler’s books a lot better.
i didn’t take notes, so i don’t remember many specific things she said. she read a couple of verses from parable of the sower that were intentionally political. they were about liars and fools.
my journalism teacher said something interesting today: the majority of the united states worships the same christian forces, but sunday is the most segregated day of the week.
