Maxigumee

I came home today to find a package sitting on my coffee table. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the packaging had the words “Leya ASA” printed all over it. This is when I started screeching and jumping up and down and running into the kitchen to grab a knife to tear open the package. I’m pretty sure Shannon thought I was having a heart attack. I almost did.

About a month ago, I received an urgent e-mail from a woman named Mafalda. She told me that she worked for a publisher in Portugal and that they wanted to use one of my photographs on the cover of the Paul Auster Book, Hand To Mouth. It was difficult for me to contain my excitement over this. This wasn’t some random ass author on some random ass book. I’ve seen Paul Auster books in book stores! I own one of his books! Granted, it would be released only in Portugal, but STILL. AWESOME. Even better, they agreed to pay me for it. And send me two copies of the book. And put my name on the inside of the cover!

The photograph was from the photoshoot I did with Russell at Coney Island over the summer, entitled “The Stranger.” It’s kind of funny that this photograph would end up on the cover of a book, considering its literary inspiration, Albert Camus’s book of the same name. Russell will undoubtedly be very excited that he’s on the cover of a book, especially because it’s the author’s autobiography.

Anyhow, the package with my two books arrived today and I practically passed out from hyperventilation as I unwrapped it. The book looks awesome and it even has fancy-shmancy embossed lettering on the cover. Check out the information about it on the publisher’s website here!

It is really starting to scare me how much people seem to be against the main character of Albert Camus’ The Stranger. It was assigned as summer reading and now we’re going over it in our literature class. The reason that all of this Stranger-hating is starting to freak me out is because I can relate so well to him. When people in class start to dissect his personality, they’re all basically like, “Yeah, he’s basically a cold, numb, emotionless poop head. He’s cruel and heartless.” I just want to stand up and go like, “Uh-uh. You’re wrong.” I tried to defend the character a little bit in my answers to the guided reading questions we got the other day, but my literature teacher didn’t read them.

Basically, the story is about this guy. And by the way that the book is written, in short, dry sentences, it sounds like this guy, Mersault, pretty much doesn’t care about anything but himself. Or…. at least that’s what the people in my literature class say it sounds like. The book starts with Mr. Mersault going to his mother’s funeral. There are several things that might make some people think that Mersault is an evil self-obsessed pee brain. Like how he doesn’t sound too upset at the fact that his mother has just passed away. Or like when he says that maybe after the funeral, everything would have a more official feel to it. Or like when he wanted to get home straight away after the funeral.

Yeah, I guess that does sound pretty cold and evil. But really, you have to look deeper into the story, people! I think this guy suffers from some pretty massive ADD. Or at least some kind of anxiety disorder. He isn’t devoid of emotion. In fact, I might even say that Mersault is extra sensitive. From the way that Mersault reacts to environmental influences like bright lights and noises, it seems like Mersault has to remain relatively emotionless simply to keep from teetering off the edge…… like he does later in the book.

I honestly feel very bad for Mersault as he endures his mother’s long funeral procession. For somebody with his impatient personality, the whole thing must have been tortuous. Not because of his mother’s death (it isn’t really clarified in the book whether or not he feels anything about that, he might and he might not), but because of the environmental factors: the blinding sunlight, the drone of insects chirping as he walks down the country road, the utter dullness of his surroundings and the monotonous color scheme of the day. All Mersault wants to do is feel safe and secure inside of his normal day-to-day routine.

I just don’t get what this book is supposed to teach us if everybody thinks that Mersault is truly bad to begin with. What’s the point of that insane murder trial at the end of the book? I think that we’re supposed to sympathize with Mersault. I honestly thought that that was the point of the book. To show us how small events can lead to something very tragic and how cruel the world can sometimes be. We should feel bad for him. Everybody else in the book seems to be against him already…. But then again, I found many parts of the book very humorous, while many people told me that they found it horribly depressing…. Well, anyway, I’m really sorry if you just read this entire post and the whole thing just flew over your head. I didn’t feel like giving much background about the book….. Go read it, though. It’s pretty good and it’s VERY short.

My sister, my mother, and I went to Barnes and Noble this afternoon to search for a college book for my sister. Ana had seen a book that our friend Cecilia had purchased from Barnes and Noble that listed a kagillion different colleges, their majors, the percent chance you will get in, and a whole bunch of other collegic tidbits. I’m not really sure what my sister’s obsession with higher education is all about. I’ve said it before, and it’s probably not the last time you’ll hear me say it, anything relating to academia terrifies me. I seriously think it’s the design of educational books. Seriously. All of those PSAT, SAT, Regents, etc. review books are so butt ugly, I can hardly stand to look at them. When I see something like that, I immediately associate it with some disgusting, overachieving, school-is-my-LIFE, reeking of body odor and sweat from STUDYING HARD, school freak. (No offense, school freaks, I’m sure you’re not really like that.)

But seriously, when we finally did find the educational review, college section in the book store, I got way too excited about a book on graduate schools that actually was really well designed. I was all, “OHMIGAWSH. Ana! BUY THIS!” I hate to admit it, but I’m totally a judge-a-book-by-its-cover kind of person.

Before finding the whole exam review, collegy section of Barnes and Noble, Ana and I raided the magazine section. Lately, my sister and I are being magazine junkies. Along with being subscribed to such magazines as In Style, GQ, The New Yorker, Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart Kids, and Nickelodeon, we’re also buying a ton of them off the newsstands. Yesterday and today, my sister and I purchased Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Details, Vogue, Bizarre, and Vitals. Some people might say that we’re be obsessed. Yesterday, my sister told me that she has a magazine fetish. I think she might be right.

After picking up our pile of magazines, we searched for the exam review, collegy section. Once finding it, my sister went right to work trying to find the exact same college book that Cecilia had purchased. She was unsuccessful. I, however, did find something interesting. A series of teen novels created by SparkNotes and published by Barnes and Noble that use SAT vocabulary on each page. With good design, and a good sense of humor, I think this is a very, very clever idea for SAT review. The titles in the series include Sun Kissed, Vampire Dreams, Busted, and Head Over Heels. I bought Vampire Dreams because of its funny tagline thingy: “A thirst for blood, a taste for brunettes… and an unusually large vocabulary.”

Okay. I usually don’t believe all of this title rumor garbage, so when a friend showed me a list of trademarked Harry Potter titles (there are quite a few more than seven, the number of books J.K. Rowling says she will write for the Harry Potter series), I didn’t think much of it, thinking that perhaps they were fake to throw off snooping fans. But…. today I found out from J.K. Rowling’s official site that the title for J.K. Rowling’s sixth book will be Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. That was one of the titles on the list! So…. that’s interesting…. :P To get to the list, go to http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm and then go to search, and search for Harry Potter.