Yes Please

I love Amy Poehler so much. 

Actually, I lied a little: I love Leslie Knope so much.  Parks and Recreation is perhaps my favorite TV show ever.  I never even liked Amy Poehler very much before I discovered her show; I was never much of an SNL watcher or fan, I didn’t think Baby Mama was funny nor do I love her in Blades of Glory, and I always thought the Upright Citizens Brigade was (honestly) a group like Amnesty International, working toward a better world.  (Arguably, the UCB kind of is working toward a better world, but not quite the one I was thinking of). 

But I love Parks and Recreation so much, and I have watched it for years, so when I heard Amy Poehler was publishing a book, I requested it from my library right away.  Months later, when I finally topped the request list, it dropped into my lap just in time for a 10-hour road trip, like a beautiful snowflake of ridiculous stories and insights and thoughts. 

I love books like hers, where I get a little insight into someone I admire’s life and I can walk away feeling like the world is just a little brighter for having this person in it.  I did the same thing with Tina Fey’s book, Bossypants, over the summer.  Again, I never loved Tina Fey until I watched her TV show 30 Rock, but once I binge-watched that whole show in less than a month, I had to read her book.  She too sparkles in her real life, and I can easily imagine these two women as best friends, much as they both claim the other to be (each even has a chapter devoted to the other in their respective books, which is really cool). 

Amy Poehler is a surprisingly good writer.  She’s honest in her work, never once shirking how difficult a task it can be to write a book or parent a child or even just have a successful career.  That honesty is very endearing, although I admit it might be grating if you weren’t already a fan of her.  Regardless, she’s clever – her writing is light and funny, even in the few moments where she delves into the darkness of her life.  Her essay describing the birth of her children, wherein she recounts a hilarious moment on SNL between herself and Jon Hamm contains moments of grief subtly intertwined in the absurdity of the events.  The video interview version of this story is below:

The story is at roughly 1:30 if you want to check it out.  You can always read the book :) 

She also skims over some elements of her celebrity with grace.  For example, Poehler went through a pretty public divorce, an event that I bet would have lots of juicy details.  But she skims right over them; instead, throughout the book, anytime her ex-husband Will Arnett comes up, she has nothing but positive things to say about him.  This is especially clear when she writes about their two little boys.  I have no idea how amicable or awful their divorce was – I don’t pay a lot of attention to the tabloids, so the fact of their divorce is about all I’ve got on the subject – but she talks about all the positive things about Arnett, about how much she appreciates him because of her boys, how he supported her in their early careers, and more.  She could have easily trashed his reputation or revealed intimate details or anything else, but chose not to.  That’s pretty admirable for anyone, including a celebrity. 

I have to admit: Her essay over the experience of Parks and Rec is my absolute favorite.  Let’s face it, that’s a huge part of why I wanted to read the book in the first place.  She recounts how she got involved in Parks and Rec, of course, and spends a little time talking about the evolution of the show and its plot as it moved into its prime seasons (which she defines as 3 and beyond).  But the best part is the section at the end of the essay, wherein she recounts her relationships and experiences with each cast member and even delineates her favorite moments with them on the show.  It’s *amazing* to read, like a peek inside the show.  She and Rashida Jones, for example, really are basically best friends in real life, which to me makes their on-screen friendship that much sweeter and more hilarious.  Chris Pratt as Andy Dwyer spends most of his time cracking Poehler up, and her favorite moments are when Andy stops paying attention to someone, which luckily happens all the time. 

One of my husband’s favorite moments on the show is between Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe), Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott), and Leslie Knope (Poehler), where all three are in the car on the way back from Indianapolis.  Leslie and Ben have been trying desperately to ignore the fact that they are incredibly attracted to each other, and to do so, Ann (Rashida Jones) and Leslie put together a road trip mix filled with awful, awful choices – including Jimmy Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech and recordings of old-timey car horns.  There’s also a banjo track, which plays out as follows:

In an amazing coincidence, this is also Amy Poehler’s favorite Rob Lowe moment, and I could not have been happier about it J

This essay alone was worth reading the entire book.  Frankly I enjoyed the whole thing; Poehler’s writing style allows me to bask in her life, to be absorbed easily and then gently dropped back into my own when I was through.  And if you’re a Parks and Rec fan like me, it’s just one more gem to make you love it even more.  

The Six Wives of Henry VIII/The Children of Henry VIII

I have long been fascinated by Tudor-era history: the upheaval of religion, the reign of Elizabeth I, and of course, the martial affairs of the notorious Henry VIII.  I’ve seen all the movies, watched all the shows, read plenty of the fiction… but I had never read the experts, until I picked up Alison Weir’s Six Wives of Henry VIII a few weeks ago. 

A gigantic tome, the Six Wives chronicles the events, intrigues, controversies, and more behind Henry VIII’s love of women, along with his complication relationship with the Catholic Church and his quest for a legitimate male heir.

Like many others, I knew the basics of his story: His first wife, Katherine of Aragon, was older than him and unable to give birth to a surviving boy; their daughter, Mary, would one day become the first true Queen of England, but she was seen as unfit to rule by her father (and basically everyone else).  Henry sought to divorce Katherine and marry Anne Boleyn, with the hope of their union producing a son; eventually, when the Pope wouldn’t grant this request, Henry removed England from the realm of the Catholic Church and created the Church of England, declaring himself the rule of both church and country.

Eventually Katherine died, and Anne, unable to produce a baby boy (despite birthing Elizabeth I), was sent to the executioner under charges of adultery and treason.  Henry quickly wed Jane Seymour, who produced his only surviving son but died less than two weeks later.  From there, his marriages were in quick and unsuccessful succession: to Anne of Cleves, whom he claimed smelled poorly and divorced within 6 months; to Katherine Howard, who was much younger, cheated repeatedly, and was eventually beheaded; and to Katherine Parr, a woman who had been married several times before and who was the only wife to outlive Henry. 

Until I read this book, though, most of my knowledge came from social studies classes and historically-questionable TV shows like The Tudors, which might be tense and sexy and fascinating but definitely isn’t accurate.  So much of the Tudor story seems focused on Henry VIII’s desire to fuck Anne Boleyn (to put it extremely indelicately); too often, that is explained as the primary motivator behind his divorce and separation from the Catholic Church.  That, as it turns out, proves to be only semi-accurate; far more potent a motivator was Henry’s desire for a son, a desire that put all others to shame. 

Alison Weir’s talent for historical writing is unmatched by any others I’ve encountered.  She blends letters, court records, recovered journals, financial records, and more to bring each figure to life; each record provides insight into the intimate details of these figures’ lives, and each makes them feel much more real, more tangible, instead of over 400 years old.  As I read, I was hearing Henry’s voice in his love letters to Anne Boleyn, listening to Katherine of Aragon’s prayers, witnessing Wolsey’s struggle to persuade the Pope. 

In addition to this powerful ability, Weir has also conducted research far beyond the events and intrigues of the time. She pulls information from all areas to inform this story: religious documents and experts delineate Henry VIII’s case against Katherine of Aragon and various ambassadors offer insight into the treatments of Henry’s wives, children, and nobles at court.  Weir even pulls in medical texts to discuss the possible afflictions of some of these women; Anne Boleyn is suggested, for example, to have suffered from Rh negative blood issues, which would have affected her ability to bear a child after Elizabeth.  I realize that this theory isn’t new, but Weir’s care in analyzing its implications for not only the lives of any potential children but also Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII’s marriage show just how devastating it really was.  There is so much information out there that simply gets ignored in fiction and TV (and sadly, in classrooms), and Weir, by embedding it into her work, helps keep the mystery and intrigue of this era alive. 

I read this book in less than 72 hours; I quite literally sat reading during the slow songs of a Pearl Jam concert.  When I finished this whirlwind of history, I scoured libraries until I found a copy of The Children of Henry VIII, a shorter work that focuses on the facts and stories of the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I. 

Henry VIII’s son, Edward VI, was his final child and eventual heir, who took the throne at age nine.  His reign, cut short by a deadly bout of tuberculosis at 15, was overshadowed by political in-fighting and attempts by his Regents to gain power.  Mary I, his half-sister and Henry VIII’s eldest child, took the throne upon his death; her reign, also brief, was remembered for her ruthless persecution/execution of Protestants.  Mary tried hard to conceive a Catholic heir, but her marriage to Philip II of Spain occurred late in her life, and despite at least one full-blown phantom pregnancy, she never had any children.  When she died, her half-sister Elizabeth I took the throne, paving the way for a period of peace like never seen before in England.  Weir’s book The Children of Henry VIII is just as fascinating as The Six Wives, and I anticipate that The Life of Elizabeth I  (her next work) will be equally absorbing.   

Still Alice

I am of the belief that if an ending is good, it’ll still be good even if I know it in advance. With that reasoning, I spoil things for myself – I look up the endings of my favorite video games, I beg my husband to tell me how movies are going to turn out, I read book jackets and reviews desperately for clues as to how a story is going to end. 

Still Alice is one of the only stories I’ve read where I’ve been disappointed that I knew the ending in advance.  This story, that of Alice Howland, a Harvard professor who develops early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, is incredible; I read it in three days, devouring more than two thirds of it in one morning.  In fact, I unexpectedly burst into tears trying to tell my husband what it was about.  This reaction came about halfway through the book, and even though I knew from the book jacket that Alice had dementia, I still couldn’t distance myself from it. 

At the young age of 25, I don’t deal with the health issues of the elderly in basically any capacity.  I personally have very few health issues, and my parents have very few as well.  My husband has none, and neither do his parents.  Our parents are starting to get older, as they are all in their mid-fifties or beyond, but they are decades from elderly.  Most of my husband and I’s collective grandparents are dead; his paternal grandmother passed away most recently in May 2014, and my remaining grandmother is alive and kicking at 94 next week.  Everyone else has passed away due to variety of health issues.

But two of our grandparents, his paternal grandmother and my maternal grandfather, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.  Both were very progressed when they passed, and both deaths were very much expected. 

I never knew what Alzheimer’s was really like until I opened this book.  The horror of it, the loss of self, is what scares me the most; I wonder how our grandparents experienced it, if they felt themselves slipping away like Alice does in this novel.  It is a horror I can only imagine, and I desperately hope I will never experience it. 

Alice is diagnosed when she is only 50, a very early-onset case; with both sets of parents creeping toward 60, slowly, I am hopeful now that none of them will develop it.  I had never considered it before three days ago, just as Alice had never once considered it in her life. This is what the book jacket spoils for this novel: the beginning of the book, as Alice starts to descend into the disease but before her diagnosis, I as the reader already knew where it was headed.  I knew her diagnosis before she did, and so some of the fear is lost.  If I hadn’t known, if I had been reading along smoothly just as Alice is living, and that bomb was suddenly dropped, the only thing to tie those symptoms together, I would have been blown away. 

As it was, the book is still emotionally destructive.  Each time she got lost, or forgot something small, I cringed for her, just as her family members cringe.  But I also started to see my own family members in her; I remember when a great-aunt developed Alzheimer’s, and while she was still alive, her husband passed away.  I remember my mother telling her that her husband had died, remember watching her grief, only to see that next time we visited, she had forgotten.  I remember the decision to not tell her anymore, how the grief was fresh every time, much like Alice must re-live her mother’s and sister’s deaths 30 years earlier fresh when her daughter mentions it offhandedly.  When she starts to forget her children’s names, when she has to ask if they are married or have children because her brain has failed her, I remember watching my grandfather ask my mom the same questions, watching my mom try to put away her own grief to help him place her again in his life. I remember conversations with my husband’s father, him trying to pass of his own mother’s dementia with a casual joke, while my mother-in-law would counsel us quietly, when he was out of the room, over how tough it really was for him to watch his mother forget him, forget her life.  By the end, I started to wonder how much I was crying for Alice’s loss of self, her husband John’s loss of a wife and friend, versus how much I was crying for my own family. 

When Alice is diagnosed, she develops a test for herself: she will ask herself several basic questions about her life – where she lives and works, how many children she has, etc – and when she can no longer answer them, she will end her life on her own terms.  She writes herself a letter of instruction, saved on her computer for her future self.  As the novel progresses, these questions reappear, and the reader can carefully gauge just how fully the disease has ravaged her brain.  Near the end, there’s a scene where her husband asks her these same questions, none of which she can answer anymore.  She has no memory of this letter to herself, no memory that her earlier self did not want to go on living if she lost that much of herself.  It’s clear that her husband found this letter to herself but has no stomach, even in the midst of his own struggle with her disease, to see her suicide through; he is trying to be supportive, trying to jog that memory so Alice’s personality and desires can shine through again, but he cannot bring himself to do it. 

At 25, I don’t think about my elderly years very often.  I think about retirement, sure, but that’s about it.  When confronted with nursing homes and their depressed occupants (who perhaps only seem depressed to me, as a young outsider), I say what so many others say: That will never be me. And like so many others, I instead express the desire to end my life on my terms instead of forfeiting control to the ravages of age.  I’ve indeed had conversations with my father and in-laws before, where they’ve expressed both an explicit forbidding of putting them into a nurse home and a wish for us: if they cannot do it themselves, we should put a pillow over their heads and let them die. 

I never know if I could do this.  I imagine that if I had the presence of mind, I could probably bring myself to swallow a lot of pills and drift off instead of submitting to the incapacity or dependence of a home.  But I don’t know if I could do that for my family; I could guard the door, I know that, but I don’t think I could bring myself to end it for them.  I think I would be like John in this book: supportive, but still clinging to the life that I remember with them, still too attached and unable to let go to do it myself.  In a way, I almost feel bad that I couldn’t do that for my family.  I can, again, only desperately hope that I am never faced with that reality. 

This is an incredibly novel.  It’s hard to read, painful in the most real sense, and full of the awful reality of what could be, if the stars are so poorly aligned.  The reality of Alzheimer’s is a horrific one, but also an important one to recognize; anything that takes away someone’s humanity must be dealt with and cured, and  we as the generation of the future must be prepared to undertake that task.  If you have ever wondered, if you have family members who have or might experience this reality, if you are part of our collective humanity, read this book.  

Visit the Alzheimer's Association to learn more or donate to research for a cure at http://www.alz.org/

American Gods

Dear god, how I loved this book!

It is dark and swirling and mysterious and I cannot believe it took me so long to read it.

Quite honestly, the only part I struggled with was the main character’s name. 

Shadow Moon (I told you) starts the story in prison; he’s been there for about three years, for a crime he took the blame for to keep his wife out of prison.  With just a few days to go before his release, he finds that his wife has been killed in a car accident and he is returning home to nothing. 

Almost immediately, Shadow is recruited by Mr. Wednesday as a bodyguard.  Wednesday, a bearded and mysterious figure with a glass eye, is working with the ultimate goal of preventing a coming storm.  The storm plot starts rather vague, as like Shadow, we are in the dark as to what’s going on.

Slowly, in travelling to the depths of cities and the wilderness of rural towns, the storm gains shape.  Two sides, both powerful, are moving toward a battle; each side of that of gods, but those gods have distinctly different flavors.  One side is made up of the traditional gods – Egyptian, Norse, Native American, etc – while the other contains the new gods of America: Media, Television, Technology, and so on.  Short vignettes throughout the novel illustrate how the old gods came to America, originally powerful but slowly abandoned as cultures grew and changed and slowly melted into what’s now recognized as American religious beliefs.  The new gods are those the old gods have been abandoned for; instead of caring for those our ancestors did, Americans now care more, even worship, more material, measurable gods. 

The set-up of this storm suggests that even though their worship is dying out, the old gods retain a striking amount of power.  They are imagined in the novel as people scattered throughout the country, people who blend into the average life but maintain their status as more than mere mortals.  Some, like the Slavic gods, seem more humbled by American life, while others, like Easter (the Germanic Eostre) have long been abandoned or replaced by Christian beliefs.  None of them have the kind of power the new gods have however, simply because these old gods don’t have the same level of worship as they once did. 

The plot of the story can be slow-moving.  Shadow spends a lot of time driving, which Gaiman thankfully does not elaborate on a la Tolkien.  Between drives, his life changes a lot; he briefly lives in a small northern town called Lakeside, where his life almost seems ordinary, and just as briefly lives with Mr. Jackal and Mr. Ibis, two Egyptian gods living as mortuary owners in small-town Illinois.  He moves through the deep places of American, like the House on the Rock, a terrifying side-show attraction in rural Wisconsin and the geographic center of the contiguous United States, outside Lebanon, Kansas. These places are much like the Deep Internet: they exist, they don’t get a lot of attention, and they aren’t quite for the average person.  But the gods thrive there; these places seem to be ‘thin’ in terms of reality, allowing the gods to move through them easily.  Both sides of the storm move in and out of the story fluidly, with only Mr. Wednesday staying for longer than a chapter or two. 

As tension increases between these two sides, their meetings become more violent, culminating in the death of….

Spoiler Alert!

Mr. Wednesday.  This move on the part of the new gods (Media and Tech Boy in particular) seems meant to inspire fear for the old gods, but instead it provides a rallying point.  When they gather to extract his body, the final events of the novel are put into motion. 

As the reader, I was of course rooting for the old gods; the novel is set up for that.  But if it weren’t, if Shadow was neutral instead of part of the old gods’ mechanism, I think I’d still be rooting for them.  Their characters are so richly imagined, so carefully brought to life, that even for someone non-religious like me, they are beautiful and seductive and clever.  To watch Mr. Jackal, Gaiman’s iteration of Anubis, move through an autopsy, nibbling at tiny slivers of the dead’s hearts and livers, just as Egyptian mythology says it happens in the afterlife, is a creation of astounding ingenuity.  Mr. Wednesday, who is eventually revealed to be the Norse god Odin, is a remarkable caricature, with his glass eye, grey beard, and affinity for pale Nordic women.  Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction and creation, wears a silver bracelet of bones, akin to her goddess form, where a necklace of skulls and tongues drapes across her chest.  Each god is written to illustrate his or her original forms while carefully transferring their essence into the modern era. 

On the other side, the new gods are so dimensionless and boring! They have interesting powers, to be sure – Media, for example, can reach out through televisions or radios to speak with whoever she likes any time – but they themselves are flat.  I’m sure they’re written that way on purpose, to make them less appealing, but it changes change their reality. 

Think about it: While there are some fantastic television shows out there (Parks and Recreation comes to mind, as do Breaking Bad and Rescue Me), many are boring and predictable.  The obsession with reality TV leaves television without plots or strong writing, instead offering viewers simple voyeurism instead of value.  And think about the ways media has eaten away at society; all too often, studies or reviews are published discussing how social media hurts relationships or self-esteem, or people deplore their jobs’ expectations that they be available 24/7 due to technology.  Media isn’t a round, dynamic, idea; it’s a flat, destructive one, and technology only enhances that. 

In that way, American Gods draws in a deep commentary on the flawed nature of American culture.  It presents the issues with that kind of worship-like attention we give to technology, media, money, and more, and when embodied as people, these things show off their own deep-seated fears about losing that attention.  I recently read that teens today spend close to ten hours per day involved with media of some kind; that’s a staggering number.

I see the positives of things like technology and media.  Obviously they have made the world an easier, more fun place to live, and they offer opportunities for connections, for story development, for deep, intelligent thinking and conversations – but those positives have a lot of negatives attached.  And when I see information like those ten hours, I have to wonder if what we’ve gained is more than what we’re slowly losing. 

The other commentary the novel draws is one I’m not sure I buy into: the loss of religion in modern American culture.  I’m not talking about the religious extremists; any quick viewing of Fox News will tell you they are alive and well.  Instead, the loss American Gods seems to be commenting on is the general loss of religious appreciation as we’ve moved away from traditions.

Even though I see the point being made, I am not sure I agree with it – or even care about it.  I’m not religious myself, though I see the value of religion; I understand why some want or need it, and I understand the power they can give it as a result.  But it doesn’t draw out a lot of sympathy from me. Too often on social media, I see people offer prayers instead of time or help, or I watch people give up on problems to instead “trust God” to fix things.  Those are the ideas I struggle with.  Being a teacher and having studied a fair amount of psychology, I understand that people learn best, feel more accomplished, and improve their self-esteem when they learn or do things themselves.  Abandoning that in favor of letting God do it for them doesn’t make sense to me; I don’t understand the motivation behind it.  So when American Gods critiques our movement away from religious appreciation, I hesitate.  I’m not sure those attitudes are ones more people should be embracing. 

In addition, and it may be the extremists alone, but religions tend to offer some very close-minded ideas about which people carry value and deserve rights.  Women struggling in many religions, as do those in the LGTBQ community; would it really better America if more people appreciated those values and moved backward into that mindset? I suspect not. 

So I can stomach some themes of this novel better than others.  But its beauty in creating these characters, and the boldness of putting forth these ideas, is admirable. 

Since reading this book, I’ve discovered that Starz is working to pilot it as a TV series.  I’m not surprised, given the success of Game of Thrones, that more channels are aiming to cash in on the popularity of novels lately, but I’m hopeful that Starz will take a note from HBO and create something truly worth watching with American Gods.  Neil Gaiman’s universe expands beyond just this novel, encompassing several other books including Anansi Boys and some of his short stories.  There is a lot of source material to be drawn on; American Gods is roughly 600 pages (the equivalent of one Song of Ice and Fire novel), so likely the show’s creators will need to expand its story.  Gaiman is working as a creative consultant/producer for the show too, which I’m sure will help the expansion feel natural and allow the darkness of the novel to translate well to the screen. 

In reading about this potential show, I’ve come across several less-than-favorable reviews for American Gods… and I have to say, I think those reviewers have missed the point. 

There are some novels like that, where if you can’t get anything out of it, I truly wonder if you and I read the same book. 

I’m not trying to criticize other readers; this is a big, complicated novel with a lot going on and a slow, steady pace.  It takes a lot of work to read without a ton of action, and the pay-off is subtle. 

American Gods takes some intelligence, of course, it takes some suspending of disbelief, and it certainly takes a fair level of cynicism – and I think that’s the most important part.  Without some cynicism about modern American culture, the pay-off just isn’t there; it’s going to read as simple and cliché and tied up with a bow.  The ending of this novel is none of those things; I can’t over-emphasize that.  But it is also not a novel for everyone. 

I love this book.  I may go read it again, just to re-capture its magic.  

Columbine

I am sitting at my kitchen table, my head in my hands. My husband is surreptitiously watching me from the living room, unsure what, if anything, he should be doing to help me. I am not crying, nor have I asked for anything. In fact, I probably haven't said anything out loud in several hours.  

Finally I look up.  
"How much," I ask him quietly, "do you know about Columbine?"  

I don't have to say anything else. Everyone in America knows what "Columbine" refers to, and my husband is no exception.

I asked him what he knew about it, about the shooters and their motives, and without hesitation he parroted the media story that we’ve been hearing since it first happened, back when we were in 5th or 6th grade and school shootings were nearly unheard-of.  

That story can be summarized as two boys, possibly involved in the Trench Coat Mafia, are outcasts, victims of years of bullying and abuse. At the end of their senior year in high school, they decided to fight back against the jocks and others who had hurt them, seeking revenge specifically against those who had wronged them. They terrorized a school and ended up committing suicide when they were done.

The problem is this: all of this information is wrong.

Columbine, written by an investigative journalist named David Cullen who was on the scene when the news first broke and followed the story for years, walks the reader through both the day of the shooting and the year-long choices and psychological issues that lead to it. He looks at every media story, every myth that's become fact, every horrifying element of the tragedy in an attempt to show what actually happened, how those boys got there, and ultimately, help prevent it from happening again.

My husband's story, the media story, is a easy if horrific one to accept: these kids were pushed to the edge and walked into that school with vengeance in mind.  I don't like calling it easy to understand, but it is true; thinking that they had targets makes people feel like the gunmen had a purpose, that they were acting out of some twisted revenge fantasy, that they could possibly have been, in some sick way, justified in their actions.
Back in 1999, the media made the choice to put forth an understandable lie, one that the average person could understand even as they were repulsed, instead of an incomprehensible truth. But when Cullen opens Pandora's Box into their motives, when he peels back the layers of their own words, psych evaluations, criminal records, and more, the truth is laid bare.

These two boys didn't have targets. They weren't intending to shoot up their school. The reality of Columbine, what the media never really revealed, was that Columbine was supposed to be much, much worse. It is true that Eric Harris was the mastermind behind their plan, that Dylan Klebold was more accomplice than partner, and that both boys lived with violence and death on their minds. But what is also true is that the boys were trying to kill every single person in their school -- trying to out-do the Oklahoma City bombings in deaths, actually, and had obtained guns merely as a back-up plan -- and it was a combination of faulty wiring and blind chance that kept so many more from meeting their ends that day.

This fact makes their choices and thus the result nearly impossible to understand.

And it is for that reason that Columbine, the novel and the event, is one of the scariest things I have or will ever encounter.

This photo of Columbine High School is the only image you will find in this post. Plenty of images of that day live online; my blog won't be one of them. 

I’ve heard it said that schools are haunted by Columbine.  You bet your life they are -- the ghosts of Columbine march up and down hallways across the country, inspiring intruder drills and hotline calls and referrals to counselors and principals.  

But those ghosts are most scary because they hint at the possibility of the next Columbine, the next Sandy Hook, the next Virginia Tech.  And they scare schools because, deep down, we aren't sure how to prevent it from happening again.  

Until about two weeks into my teacher career, I was unfamiliar with Intruder Drills, an unnerving phenomenon designed to prepared students and staff with what to do if someone unwelcome or dangerous entered our building.  I’d never had one at my private, all-girls high school, and with good reasons: while most school shooters statistically are white, as were most of my classmates, most school shooters are also male.  Since we lacked that element, my principals must have assumed (correctly, thus far) we were safe.  

My first intruder drill passed without incident.  But a few weeks later, that same cold, emotionless voice came over the intercom and announced that my school had an intruder.  For about twenty dark minutes, we legitimately thought something awful had happened.  We were wrong -- the alert had been set off accidentally.  I’m sure intruder alerts get accidentally set off all the time, and we were certainly lucky, luckier than too many other schools where shootings have occurred.  

Intruder Drills are a necessary evil of our current society.  They work well against the Adam Lanzas of the world, those who do indeed enter uninvited and kill.  

But my concern after reading Columbine is this:  Intruder drills don’t work as well against the Eric Harrises and Dylan Klebolds of the world -- those who can walk in as students and (perhaps) choose to walk out as murderers.  

Of course the Adam Lanzas of the world are scary -- they are unpredictable and totally foreign.  But to me, as a teacher who interacts with students on a constant basis, the Erics and the Dylans are far more terrifying.  I witness kids full of hate, kids full of anger, kids who never make any kind of threat or write anything off-putting -- those things that I could report to the school and make those above me aware of just how nerve-wracking and scary some students can be.  Few of my students are like that, and for that I am extremely grateful.  But I have seen them, and wondered.  

The unavoidable fact that I cannot help picturing this school as my own does not ease my trepidation.  When Cullen discusses how the boys put the bombs up against the columns in the cafeteria, I imagine it as the cafeteria of the high school where I teach.  When they shoot up the library and science classrooms, I imagine my own library and science classrooms.  When Patrick Ireland breaks through and climbs out a window to attempt a fall to safety, I picture firetrucks and paramedics clustered outside my building, while above a student crawls out of the front and broken windows of my school.  In some ways, that is more traumatizing for me than simply reading about the events, because that is truly what is so terrifying about Columbine: it could be my school.  

There is potential for it at every school, no matter how many times my principal says he believes we have a safe school (which I agree with).  That doesn't change the reality: Columbine could be my school, could be any school in America.  

Occasionally, as part of a unit about social issues and their solutions, I show Bowling for Columbine, the Michael Moore documentary that attempts to deal with the issues and aftermath of Columbine.  He’s largely about ruffling feathers, I get that, and usually I use it to talk about logical fallacies in arguments (it’s an excellent resource for that!) and how to make connections beyond the simple scope of a topic.  Every time I show it, we talk about school shootings: about how unprecedented Columbine was, how unexpected and terrifying, and about how it changed some fundamental parts of education and its settings.  No matter how much I talk with them about it, no matter how many times I get on the soapbox, the novelty and outrage it sparked never seem to fully click.

At first I wondered why this was.  And then the truth of it dawned on me: School shootings are normal for my students; they are used to hearing about them.  As horrifying as they are, as emotionally as students respond when it happens, school shootings are no longer out of the ordinary.  

I have trouble accepting this.  I recognize its truth; these shootings, and the expectation of further and quite possibly unpreventable violence, are perhaps the worst part of American society, worst because people are used to them, and when people get used to something, they can let it pass without comment, without it inciting change.  When something becomes normal, it becomes okay.  It loses its moral obligation for us to fix it, to solve it, and that should never happen with school shootings.  The issue desperately needs to be solved, but my concern is that it never will be.  

It may be a microcosm of American society and politics in itself.  After all, a conversation started after Sandy Hook about gun control and mental illness treatments in America.  But nothing came of it.  Politicians started shouting about the Second Amendment and others started shouting about the American Disability Act and discrimination and others started shouting about conspiracy theories and hoaxes and pretty soon actually solving the issue sank back into the turmoil of American social  problems.  

I understand some of this; it’s not an easy issue to discuss, let alone solve, and too much of what motivates these shooters is deep and complex and beyond the abilities of any one group (be it schools, lawmakers, mental help professionals, or others) to handle.  But doesn’t that just mean we need more cooperation, less shouting and finger-pointing?

This questioning process, the what if's and what can we do's, are a natural repercussion of violence like this. But it's time for that to change and for us to truly say, "never again," and make it the truth.

Please read this book.

And don't just trust my opinion: New York Times Book Reviews: Columbine

Final Note: This post took me a very, very long time to write. A great deal of this reservation stems from my struggle with the subject matter; this book scared me, a lot, and being a teacher only makes it harder to process.

Inferno

I have loved previous Dan Brown novels -- he tends to write engaging characters with incredibly complex and interesting stories. Oddly enough, I always liked Angels and Demons more than his other works, even when The Da Vinci Code clearly did more for culture. All the ideas of religion, the tensions in the Church about Mary Magdalene that were brought to the surface, made for fascinating reading, especially for a lapsed Catholic like me.

But it's been a long time since I've read those books, and so I wonder if I've somewhat romanticized them in my head.

Upon opening up Inferno, I was somewhat surprised. The novel is new, so I expect growth in the writing, but instead I've been finding work that's much more clunky that I remembered.

Inferno's protagonist, Robert Langdon, carries on Brown's previous work; its plot centers on the same rather unrealistic idea of a Harvard symbologist (Langdon) solving mysteries/murders while young, hot women fall for him. I've always pictured Langdon as a tall, handsome but rather pudgy older guy, which may not be accurate -- but it certainly wasn't dispelled when the movie cast Tom Hanks as Langdon. But I digress.

The language here, at least starting out, feels different. Maybe it's just because I'm not into the heart of the story yet. But it's very stilted, very formal and stuff, and truly rather un-fun to read. I don't feel any emotions coming off the page; instead, everything reads very clinically and cold. 
The more I read, the faster things pick up; the characters start to flow, and the plot opens up into something almost as complex and mysterious as Brown's previous novels.

What I love most about Dan Brown's books is the level of symbolism he reveals. I'm an avid reader, and was raised as a Christian even if I'm lapsed, so I loved the controversy The Da Vinci Code created, all the spin-offs and conversations that were raised as a result. So much of that conversation had never really been out in the open, and the novel's provocative inquiry into the realistic nature of the Christ story certainly opened that door.

Now, in Inferno, Brown tackles Dante's classic story. I've read snippets of The Divine Comedy before, but that's about it. I probably own a copy somewhere, but I've never thought to read the whole thing -- The Inferno is, after all, the most famous section and the most studied, so that's the only section I've ever thought to touch. Here, that section is clearly the focus, with some of the rest built in, but thankfully Brown includes enough details and background so that, if you haven't read the whole story, or even just The Inferno, you can still easily understand and appreciate its depth.

The research Brown puts into his books in order to set them up is truly incredible -- the man must have (or deserves!) a degree in art history and possibly conspiracy theories as well. The basics of Inferno -- Dante's journey into Hell; Virgil as his guide; the nine levels, each divided and punished according to their sins -- I've always understood; those basics are flooded into pop culture, even to the point where I have a Nirvana t-shirt that has the 9 Circles of Hell on it. But there is so much more to The Inferno, and then even more to the rest of the story, than I had ever realized.  Then, just like in Brown's other books, the works of art incorporated into the plot of the novel both add clues and intriguing details and provide a visual guide to the mystery at hand. Some of these pictures I had to dig up because I had no idea what they were, and to that end, it really helped to have an internet connection as I was reading, because someone out there took the time to put together all the images necessary to understand the story. The link is here; the images are in chronological order for the plot, so be careful about reading ahead if you check it out.

This is the type of image -- Botticell's interpretation of Dante's Infero -- is what you'll find on that site.  I can't overemphasize how helpful this was to understanding some of the discussions of art in the novel.  

The basic plot, as I hinted at before, is Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor solving mysteries based on his knowledge of symbols and art. I know that's a little unrealistic, at least to me, but bear with me; it's sometimes a stretch, but most of the time Brown makes it work. Frankly, if you're reading Inferno, then you're probably like me and have read some of the other Langdon novels, so you're used to this blip.

In this iteration of that plot, Langdon wakes up in a hospital bed with amnesia, having no memory of the previous few days or his discoveries and explorations of Florence, Italy. A benevolent doctor, Sienna Brooks, takes pity on him and helps him both figure out what happened to him and escape from those who are searching for him. Underneath this story is a conversation between Elizabeth Sinskey, the fictional head of the WHO (World Health Organization), and Bertrand Zobrist, a scientist and a genius intent on solving the issue of overpopulation. These two butt heads over this issue early in the novel in a flashback, and it becomes clear that this is the focus of the novel.

As Langdon tries to escape from whoever is seeking him (that point isn't clear until later), he and Brooks gradually uncover evidence that Zobrist has created something dangerous; it's unknown exactly what he created, but all information points to it being very, very bad. With the many symbolic references to the Black Death in the 1300s, including Zobrist's obsession with Dante's Inferno and all its deeper meanings, I suspected early on that Zobrist had reincarnated the bubonic plague.

Spoilers coming soon! Don't worry, I won't give ALL the twists away.  

Langdon and Brooks spend the majority of the novel dealing with the deep symbolism of Dante's Inferno, and a number of short flashbacks to Langdon's Harvard lectures help the reader put some of the more complicated levels together. Ultimately, they do find what Zobrist was working on -- but they are too late (in a twist I didn't see coming and rather enjoyed -- usually the hero swoops in an saves the day! Not this time.).

Zobrist's plague, which has been already been unleashed by the time Langdon locates it, isn't the Black Death; it's a sterility plague, one that is fast-spreading, afflicts at least a third of the population, and is thankfully fictional. Despite the WHO's positive outlook, the plague is basically unstoppable and the future of humanity is uncertain.

I'm not sure how I'd feel if I suddenly found out I was sterile, especially as the result of some lunatic engineering a virus. I don't want kids for a whole host of reasons, none of which is sterility (that I know of), but I still have the option, if I change my mind. Losing that opportunity might be a god-send -- I can never get pregnant! yay! -- or an absolute curse -- my god, I can never have kids... -- I simply don't know.

This hypothetical plague brings up lots of potential questions, both personal and affecting humanity as a whole.

So before I go any further: NERD ALERT!

Even though it wasn't with humanity, I have already seen this story play out via Bioware's trilogy Mass Effect. This game's deep backstory is part of what makes it so amazing, and the history of its races has some intimate connections to the events of Inferno.

Bear with me because this is pretty deep nerd territory: in Mass Effect, a sterility plague has been unleashed on the krogan, a semi-reptilian race of warriors and tribes. The krogan were considered weapons by the salarians, who gave them technology and lifted them out of their formerly primitive lifestyles in order to use them to win a war. However, the krogan rebelled, expanding their empire and population aggressively and fighting back against salarian control. Eventually, to preserve themselves, the salarians enlisted turian (another alien race) help and together, they designed and delivered the genophage, a sterility virus that afflicts almost all of the krogan population. (I'm simplifying a little here, especially in regards to motivations. The full story is on the Mass Effect Wiki.)

SPOILER ALERT: This genophage is remarkably similar to the plague unleashed by Zobrist on humanity in the imagined future of Inferno. He offers it as a solution to overpopulation and its range of effects; after it infects everyone, roughly 1/3 of human is rendered sterile. The main characters, Langdon and Sinskey, eventually come to the conclusion that this is probably okay, even when accomplished by unethical means, and everyone is happy. The plot resolves on a very positive note, full of acceptance, which is a little heavy-handed, even for someone like me who agrees that overpopulation stands as one of the most serious issues facing the world, one we're going to have to own up to eventually.

In the Mass Effect universe, the genophage has rendered the entire race of the krogan infertile, and, having been around for more than 1000 years, the krogan are on the verge of extinction.

Before the genophage, the krogan had an extremely high fertility/birth rate; females could produce over 1000 fertilized eggs per year, meaning their population was constantly on the rise. After the genophage, suddenly only 1 of those 1000 eggs was surviving, and the population plummeted.

Look at the United States in comparison: our fertility/birth rate is around 2 per 1000 women, a number that's fairly average for a developed country (undeveloped countries seem to have higher birth rates). Considering our population of roughly 330 million people, that's a lot of births, even with a relatively stable population growth rate (meaning enough people die to balance out births). If you then take that number of children born, and make 99.99% of them stillborn, you have the krogan genophage. Inferno doesn't paint quite such a stark picture of infertility, but the idea's the same.

Faced with infertility, the krogan as a race have not banded together to find a solution or support each other. Instead, they have devolved into small warring tribes where males rule and fight over the few fertile females that are around. There are no labs searching for cures; there is only violence. Everyone is treated with distrust and paranoia automatically, and prejudices run deep. Even more krogan head off-world to become mercenaries or thugs, causing their population to dwindle still further due to unnatural causes.

It's a fate that I wonder if our own race would be doomed to, given that Brown's story was true and a large section of humanity was revealed infertile. I can see humans focusing on those who were fertile, encouraging them to have as many kids as possible instead of rejoicing in the more sustainable population.  I can see wars and anger breeding more problems, instead of the common enemy of extinction pulling humanity together.

Zobrist meant to curb humanity's self-destructive tendencies, much as the salarians and the turians meant to do for the krogan, and yet I don't think humanity would appreciate his actions.

So many other elements of the world tie into overpopulation, including my personal opinions and choices on having children. The world of Inferno provides the opportunity to muse on our own future, and I am left hoping that we wise up before we have to face the issues overpopulation can bring.

Ashfall

My guilty pleasure has always been disaster stories.  I absolutely love them in any form.  I've seen Armageddon at least 20 times, The Core is one of my favorites, and I may be the only person out there who enjoys 2012.  My dad even bought me a collection of 'B' disaster movies for Christmas this year.  So when a friend recommended Ashfall, all she had to say was, "There's a supervolcano" and I was in.

I loved the whole story of this novel, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy (mostly, I'm hopeful that it doesn't pan out like other YA trilogies I haven't enjoyed lately, that would certainly be nice).

What's most interesting is that, as much as I liked this book, I don't have a ton to say about it.  It opens with the explosion of the supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park, a fictional event with absolutely true backstory and possibility.  The main character, Alex Halprin, is home alone in Cedar Falls, Iowa, when it blows, and the story unfolds as his trek across the state to find his family, who were on a vacation in northern Illinois at the time.  Along his way, he encounters plenty of post-apocalyptic dangers as well as makes a friend in Darla, a mechanical genius of a girl who eventually joins him on his journey east.

It's a well done story -- I kept expecting the standard encounter with the farmers who've been eating visitors that seems to show up in end-of-the-world narratives, but it never did, never fell into cliche as it could have easily done.  The characters seem fairly realistic, and more importantly, they are well-balanced to their situation.  The backstories -- Alex's taekwondo work and Darla's mechanical gifts -- fit their origins: Alex has been learning the martial art since he was a kid, and Darla grew up on a fairly isolated farm.  Neither seems forced, like Mullin decided those would be useful skills after a catastrophe and thus imposed them on his characters; instead, they feel organic, just hobbies of two people that ended up being more useful than their previous comfortable lives would have suggested.

Ashfall makes me want to read its sequels, ending on just the right enticing note to keep me going.  There isn't much I found overwhelmingly amazing about it, nothing where I was say you MUST go out and read this book immediately, but it is a good read.

What was incredibly entertaining was hearing this author speak.  My awesome school librarian had arranged for him to visit us, which inspired me to pick up the book, and after I enjoyed it so much, I made sure I took my students to hear him.   (Actually, several of my students asked if we could go see him before I had even heard about it. I was really proud.)

Mike Mullin proved to be a fabulous speaker.  He was very enthusiastic, running around before the presentation with a taekwondo board and grabbing students to break it.  After he goaded one of my students into breaking it, they then poked me until I tried it out -- it was pretty fun! :) With that kind of start, the kids were already involved, and Mullin clearly wanted those kids paying attention and talking to him.  He asked them questions and shouted and pulled volunteers,  all stuff that helps kids actually stay awake and listen to what he had to say. And his message was one that even I found inspiring -- all about the value of hard work, how taekwondo and writing and getting better at anything takes practice, and he even brings in some of the psychology of practice and how to become an expert at something.  Of course, he also talked a lot about supervolcanoes (which are super interesting!) and his novel, and at the end he even broke a concrete block!

I loved seeing him speak.  He comes across like such a fun, geeky writer-guy, someone who is so happy to be doing something he loves and sharing that enthusiasm with not only his fans but also just young people in general.  And he was inspirational even to me, reinforcing that sometimes-sagging motivation I experience to work toward my own goals.  I have to hope that my students were listening :)

Mullin actually broke a cement block during his presentation, as part of his taekwondo skill set. Awesome! 

As one student put it (after we'd gone to see him and were back in the classroom), "He's super engaging.  I wasn't bored at all!"  That's high praise coming from an 18-year-old.

Seeing a professional writer is a cool chance for my students.  Not at all of them care, and that's fine, but those who do can really benefit from the opportunity to see how writing can influence the real world, how English has value out in the real world.  Sometimes they get so caught up in the cycle of grades and colleges that they ignore the practical value of being able to think critically and analytically, of being able to think creatively and have fun with language.  It gets lost in the shuffle of credits and graduation, especially at the end of the year.  And it's something I don't want to get lost, something I try very hard to make sure doesn't get lost.  Thankfully, all it takes sometimes is 49 minutes with a professional like Mike Mullin to bring that all rushing back.