Caught My Eye: Do It Anyway

When I began my summer vacation, I was gung ho to chew through the large shelf of books that I'd neglected to read during the school year. At that point, I didn't quite know yet how strenuous my job at the Washington Bus would be and how little time I would have to gnaw on dense feminist classics and other miscellany.

Of the precious few books that I did end up reading over the summer, Do It Anyway by Feministing's Courtney Martin was by far one of the best. I am a sucker for interviews about amazing activists, for one, but the book also takes upon itself the heavy task of reigniting positivity and inspiration in the activist community, which was refreshing. It acknowledges the hardships and complexities of activist work while injecting some much-needed excitement for the everyday struggle.

A Good Hard Look: Book Review

Quick! What do you do when work gets tough and you need a break?

For me, the answer was take on another project that is completely separate from my working life - in this case, reading and reviewing A Good Hard Look for BlogHer.com. Read my review, A Hearty Character Soup, over at BlogHer.

To give a little context, BlogHer is a website that promotes women bloggers of all sorts, and the ads on the right side of the homepage are provided by their syndication. I have also elected to be a member of their Book Club, hence the reading involved. I hope to get more involved in the community that they have on the website when I am not swamped, but for now, I am contributing my thoughts to their growing pool of amazing reviewers and writers. Ah, the precious few thoughts that get put down on the page. Enjoy them!

Caught My Eye: Colonize This!

This week, I read Colonize This!, a book of essays by women of color about their experiences finding - and molding - feminism. I read this book (394 pages) within four days - not just because the library due date was coming up, but because I was absorbed in the stories of these amazing women of color from all different walks of life. Check out my thoughts after the jump!

Book Review - Click: Moments When We Knew We Were Feminists

As part of my Well Women duties for next year, I am duty-bound to read a book from our library - you can imagine how giddy I was to receive this assignment. It's like summer reading, but revamped to suit my feminist and inspirational needs. In keeping with these themes, the first of two books that I chose to read was Click: Moments When We Knew We Were Feminists, which is edited by Courtney Martin (of Barnard and Feministing) and J. Sullivan.

Caught My Eye: Reading Women

Alright, I know that I said that regular posting would resume Friday, but I didn't account for one major thing: sleep. Upon arriving home, I attempted to stay awake, but instead collapsed into an earth-shattering slumber, not to be awoken unless food was available. So, this post that was supposed to be put up Friday is actually coming to you today. My apologies for the delay!

Contrary to popular belief, finals time for me is great for doing all the things I miss out on during the rest of our very busy school year. So, when reading week began and I realized that I actually didn't have anything I needed to catch up on, I dove into this book that had been waiting on my shelf for quite some time: Reading Women by Stephanie Staal.

Haha...

I'm a little embarrassed. I had my blog post all written up the day before, had a ton of time during the afternoon, and then just came home after Totems Got Talent and fell asleep! Ahaha...
Anyway, here is the old post that was supposed to be from yesterday. My next post will be from today! Hoorah!

J Reviews... Death of a Salesman
I got my reading fix last night. Starved as I am to finish any source of literature, our teacher gave us Death of a Salesman yesterday to finish before spring break. Since I'm one of those annoying kids who feels that she must always be working and yet, when working, feels as if she should be doing anything but, I decided to start reading in class and got through the first 13 pages. Then, after our tennis match, I brewed a cup of tea and went through the other 99.
Death of a Salesman is an engrossing story. The stage is really interesting because its specifically broken up and there is a lot of transition with time and light, etc. It feels like the set of a movie rather than the stage of a play - there are constant changes and the observations are mainly on character building rather than real plot. I felt that the plot was very similar to Waiting for Godot in the fact that the people just kept spinning their wheels. They never really completed anything but talked a whole bunch. But, for some reason, this play freaked me out more than Waiting for Godot.
I'm not sure why, but the symbolism hit much closer to life in this one. Probably because it's not as hyperbolic of a setting and depicts a fairly realistic family dynamic - other than the fact that Willy Loman has some attractive mental issues that send him plunging into the past while he thinks he's staying in the present. I think the reason it scared me was probably because of those memories fading so easily into the rest of the storyline. It felt like there was no transition between what was real and what was fake; when that happens, it really raises the issue on whether that's how we see our own lives or whether it is just the world of the play. Perhaps I felt the monotony hit close to home for our situation at school as well. We work and work and try to make things happen, but we can't all be great people and there will never be someone who can drag us out when we're punch drunk and unable to keep our ambitions flowing. Ultimately, this play put a great emphasis on the individualism that Americans so enjoy - then Arthur Miller struck it down by showing that, in a lot of ways, we are reliant on other people and that we are just too afraid to talk about not "being someone."
Who knows? The final scene with Ben really scared me. I think it's because I didn't realize that he had even come into the scene at that point - I even thought that Willy was talking to some other person in the room. Then, of course, since Ben's lines are all memories of a dead man, I realized that he was speaking in generalities about prospects and having flat conversation with the wall. Strange.
Anyway, at least I got my reading fix down. I think it'll really calm me down if I take a few of those little indulgences every once in a while; two or three hours to read doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to fit into a weekly schedule, does it?
Maybe next time I won't freak myself out (but, if I do, it will probably be because I am thinking again...)

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.
Several other book reviews are also featured on my blog, including reviews of feminist literature.