The Translation of Dr. Apelles

Author: David Treuer

This is the novel Krystle gave me for Christmas this year. I started reading it a couple weeks ago when it was below zero temperatures in Chicago. The book begins with two villages of Indians dying off in northern Minnesota because of a cold spell. Only two children survive the "bloodless massacre" as Treuer vividly describes it. So as the rest of Chicago complained of the cold, I couldn't help but feel lucky to have a house and a furnace and lots of blankets. It was an appropriate book for me to read right now. I could be feeling cold, but the setting of this novel is colder. I could be feeling lonely, but the characters of the novel, the only who remain of the community they were born in to, are lonelier. I'm beginning to think I'll always be able to count on Krystle to pick my winter reading. This was last year's pick.

Dreams from My Father

Author: Barack Obama

Part of why I love Obama is because his activism so obviously grows out of his life experiences. He does what he does (like run for president) not just because he feels like that is a good thing to do, but because he couldn't NOT do it. This book reminded me in a way of Michael's The After-Death Room: Journeys into Spiritual Activism. In both books the authors' journeys are simultaneously inward and outward. Ultimately they are able to make peace with their pasts and use it as fuel for their future work, yet the complexities of this journey, this peace, and this future are all present as well and I feel that is what makes the book, and the person, so affecting.

So yeah. Go Obama.
https://donate.barackobama.com/momentum

Six Feet Under

Where do I even begin? I have never been so affected by TV. Davi and I have been watching this show via DVD over the last few months and last night we watched the final episode. Not only was the last episode wonderfully crafted, bringing together beautiful writing, cinematography, acting, and music, it also had four seasons of rich material and characters to draw from. As we had been warned we would, Davi and I wiped tears and blew our noses constantly through the last twenty minutes. And then rewound and did it a second time. Even today, I will recall an image from this final scene and it will make me teary--partly because I have become attached to the characters, feeling as if they are my own family and friends, but mostly because I see myself in them. It has been interesting to note which scenes over the past couple months of viewing have really a struck a chord for one of us as the relationships between family members, friends, and significant others in the show echo our own current or past relationships.

The timing for watching this final episode couldn't have been better. It has been so good to watch and learn, to see myself reflected in the show, and to think to myself, "I want to be able to do this in my own work." And as Claire drives across the blank slate of desert, cheesy as it sounds, I feel as if I am in the car with her, as if I am her--affected by the lives of everyone around me and finally ready to create my own life.