friday, october 14, 2005
An unbalanced yet literary banana
I’ve wanted to read The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan, for a long time. The UCSB library catalog said it was on the shelf, but every time I looked, it wasn’t there. The fifth time I looked, it was on the shelf below. Anyway, I’m hooked after reading fifteen pages. So far it’s about apples, and I like apples — I eat two or three a day (mostly of the Golden Delicious and Fuji varieties, though the Red Deliciouses are OK) — so the smashing of the Johnny Appleseed legend is great. You may remember my study of apple stickers.
There is a book about oranges by John McPhee that I want to read. I read part of it one night, long ago, when I couldn’t sleep and asked my dad for something boring to read. The book might have been the most fascinating thing ever, with all those details and processes and the idea that this is something I drink every day. I wonder if it sparked my interest in books about ordinary things: pencils, libraries, cities, tea kettles, forks, houses, parking meters, food, perfume, and everything that is mundane and complex and tells you something about the world and how people are.
I love books like that. I think I want to write books like that, but I haven’t tried because I don’t know where to start. Journalism seems terribly difficult when you’re teaching yourself. This is why my underground newspaper had three issues and not the ten that were in my brain. But tonight I went to a Daily Nexus (UCSB newspaper) training session, and so I will write about things like meetings and artists to get a feel for this journalism-type thing. Maybe I’ll like it. Maybe they’ll let me write a story about bananas.
For my Letters class, I’m thinking of doing my final project on emails between me and Internet strangers, so feel free to email me.
comments (1)
I used to read books on ordinary things like that. Then one day, in one of the gift stores at the Smithsonian (Air and Space Museum, as I recall) I was waiting for a friend and I read a small book about garbage. It ruined my life. Or at least it made me feel guilty guilty guilty and aware aware aware. But there's nothing I can do. If I want to eat yogurt-- it comes in those little containers. Or bigger containers. Whatever size, containers that don't biodegrade and that my town won't recycle. And so much more. I wish I'd never read that book. I'm not energetic enough to engineer a solution, even on my small level. (Like buying a yogurt makers and making my own. Who has time? And it would come in all that packaging...probably styrofoam padding in the box. Sigh.)
– cupcakecentral on 10/17/2005 08:10:06
comments are off. for new comments, my email address is brittag@gmail.com.
