The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Well, I found a great bookstore here in town. I bought the Count of Monte Christo. I was quite happy because not only is this one of my favorite novels, but it was much bigger then I remembered. I think I might have always read abridged versions without knowing it. As such, I could have 200 new pages to read through. Combine this with my mothers gift of "The Portable Oscar Wilde" and I have my work cut out for me in a very very good way.
I also found out that I am going to be having a root canal very soon. I had surgery on a tooth about 6 years ago which was never canalized (which should have been part of the procedure.) Now, bad things are happening, and I require a root canal. And I hate having knifes and drills in my mouth. It seems so very drastic.
I spent the rest of my time wandering through the city. Parts of it have a old, colorful yet faded look to it. I personally do not like that in a larger city. In small villages, that look makes them quaint tourist traps, but in a larger city, it gives a tired air. I just have trouble in a place that eats mostly fish. Fish is to meat as tofu is to vegetables. They theoretically belong to the other categories, but it takes a hippy to enjoy them. And hippys steal and lie. I suppose that is why my parents dislike my night time wanderings.
The more I read of Dante, the more I am puzzled by him. Unfortunately, every detail must be considered important. But this leaves me puzzling about the nature of some of the characters, such as Minos the Judge and Phlegyas the ferryman. They are not demons or angels or tortured souls. But they do not seem to fit into the category of pure constructions of thought. They serve too integral a purpose in Hell.
On the other hand, some parts of Dante strike me for the first time. Because of the structure of Hell, I have always thought of Satan as being half out of hell. For the first time, I realized that he is half in hell. Just as he is chewing on the three great betrayers, Hell physically has him (the greatest betrayer) in its mouth. Dante provides a great image of Hell in the chewing of Brutus, Cassius, and Judas. While Satan is chewing, bloody tears are running down his face. He is not enjoying himself. Yet he is determined to make the three of them suffer just as much as he is suffering. Even if he must hurt himself to cause them pain, he considers it worth it. So opposite of our God. Thankfully.
--Andy

To Brasil in 2 Days.

I have arrived. My journey down started out great and gradually spiraled downward (although in the end everything was fine). One of the concerns was my Miami-Sao Paulo connection, because I had less than two hours to get my two huge bags off the carousel, recheck them, get my ticket, find my proper gate, and go through security. However, after asking very nicely at the check in counter, the very nice lady (her niceness was boosted because one of my bags was exactly 50.0 pounds and the other was 5 pounds over. Instead of paying $50 for those 5 pounds, I took out a box of gummi bears and a bunch of pixie sticks and gave them to her. Sugar makes everyone happy. Except two year olds. It makes them bratty. Not that they do not start out bratty.) checked my bags all the way to GRU, where I had a substantial layover. This was great, and in Miami, I made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare. I even got to help a little old Brasilian guy find his way. He had been away from Brasil (and therefore his wife and kids) for about two years, living and working in the States to earn a bit of money. He barely spoke a word of English, the poor guy.

After this point, things started to go a bit downhill. When I arrived in Sao Paulo, I found that my bags had not made the flight with me. Which was actually kind of nice, because it meant that I did not have to take my bags through customs. They ended up being delivered right to my door in Recife. And I had a bit of a scare when I was looking for my parents number, realized that I lost my notebook with all my contact information and could not find my cellphone. I found my phone after upending my backpack, but the consequences of not being able to find it would have left my stranded at the Recife airport with no way of talking with my parents to let them know what was going on.

Upon arriving in Recife, I found (or rather, didn’t) that my parents had not come to pick me up. Calling them, it turned out that they could not leave our neighborhood because of the water levels. Having been traveling for far too long, I decided to take a taxi as far as I could, and then walk the rest of the way. I rationalized this potentially risky maneuver by convincing myself that Recife’s sewers had alligators of a size easily killed, the wombats lacked the numbers to be a true threat (they are small furry creatures who overwhelm their prey through the sheer weight of their numbers, biting with little teeth.) and than no criminals would be out in the rain. The taxi made it through without ever stopping, keeping death matches with Recife’s wild animals to a bare minimum of zero. Since then, I have been home doing nothing. It is boring here. But it is Brasil, containing very nice people, and lots of Guarana and Acai.

--Andy

Steinbeck Had It Right

Alas, the best laid plans of Mice and Men (or as Douglas Adams would say, no, just of mice). I went down to the Amtrak station to buy a ticket to visit my auntie and then off to New York and found that in the bustle of the crowd, had misplaced my pass that would allow it. Even though the pass was made solely out of paper, Amtrak refuses to reprint it. On the plus side, this accelerates my leaving for Brasil. That I am quite happy about.
I recently purchased Harvard's 5 food shelf of books, and am going to spend some time trying to figure out which books I can take. I think I am going to stick to some tried and true books, Dante, Milton, Goethe (which comes along with Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, which I had wanted to read) as well as an autobiography written by the charming and utterly self conceited Benevuto Cellini. It really is fun to start reading all of these old books. Milton is a bit of a pain because he does not provide convenient stopping places like Dante does.
I was in Borders looking for the final book I have not read in a roughly 6 or 7 thousand page series. As you can imagine, I have really gotten into the characters, so imagine my frustration in not being able to locate the book. Not being able to leave Borders with out buying a book, I bought Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's collaborative spoof on the Apocalypse, as well as an anthology of poetry based on the concept of solitude. I much prefer an anthology based around something concrete (well, sort of) then one simply titled "America's Favorite Poetry" where the compiler has made quite a few assumptions about peoples preferences. The first poem was by Walt Whitman, which I rather enjoyed, even if Whitman was a dirty hippy along with Thoreau and probably Emerson. In fact Poe is one of the few poets (barring a few obvious ones such as G.K. Chesterton) who is not a dirty hippy.
--Andy
p.s. The book by Gaiman and Pratchett is called Good Omens, and is dedicated to "G.K. Chesterton. A man who knew what was going on." Amazing. Explains why those two are such good writers if they are following he lead.
p.p.s. Buy I think Wordsworth is also okay. He seems like he would enjoy scaring small children.