recommended reading

Well, I figured it's about time to do this again, even if not much has changed since last we spoke. I'm still working my way through Yagyū Munenori's Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War, which is bound up in the same volume as The Book of Five Rings, remember? And when I say that I'm still working my way through it, I mean that it's sitting on my nightstand with a bookmark stuck in it, humming idly to itself. I've been doing other things, you see. Like flying. And editing. And...uh...well, flying and editing. And chores! Dad and I are in the midst of painting the garage. Half of it is now properly white instead of the sickening, jaundiced bone-white it used to be. Dad and I also painted the shed a while back. First I painted it by myself. A few years ago, we'd painted it a slightly pink, mostly orange color, but in those few years, the blasphemous desert sun bleached and cracked that paint into oblivion. So, at my parents' behest, I went out and repainted it last month. (I'm much too good a son to refuse a request like that, particularly since I'm living under their roof and snarfing all their food.) First I primed it, then painted it a darkish orangey-brown, but the desiccated wood was so thirsty that it sucked up two coats of paint, and I had to wait to be resupplied by my folks during one of their errand-runs into town. In the interim I painted a big frowny-face on the unpainted east side of the shed, where it would be visible from the road. (Our neighbors got a kick out of it.) That darkish orangey-brown color didn't sit too well with Mom, so she selected a new color, and Dad and I went out and repainted it again a couple of weeks ago (I just finished trimming it in white a week back). The color that Mom picked was called Sundance. What's Sundance, you ask? Good question. This is one of those things that irritates the hemorrhaging f___ out of me. The bloody paint companies all have to come up with these so-called "edgy, creative" names for paint hues now, don't they? So instead of "blue," "yellow," "green," and "brown," we get a bazillion different shades of each, all with names like "Saratoga Sand," "Paris Perfume," "River Road," "Sundance," "Firewood," "Gaucho," "Darby Creek," "Sphinx," "White Oak," "Saddlebury," "Ottertail," "Mushroom Taupe," "Nutmeg Frost," "Antique Lace," and "Horny Schoolgirl." Okay, yeah, I made that last one up. Wishful thinking. But still, all the rest of them are actual names of paint hues, taken from paint chips my mother has lying around. Does anybody out there have any clue about what color these monikers might represent without actually looking at the chips themselves? You might be able to figure out that Saratoga Sand is a soft sort of light yellow, and that Paris Perfume is slightly pink (mostly orange). You might even know that taupe is generally grayish. But what the hell is Mushroom Taupe?! Would that be different from Thunderhead Taupe, or Elephant Taupe, or Abortion Debate Taupe? Enough about paint, this is making me sick. Especially since I'm not finished painting the garage. Thank God the label on the paint can reads simply "WHITE." Anyway, the point is this: I've not progressed any farther in The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War. Took me a while to get that out, didn't it? I have, however, kicked in with a few other volumes. Let's start with Little Women. You would not believe how many queer looks and interrogatives I've been receiving from those to whom I've announced I am reading this book. (Boy, THAT was an awkward sentence. I think I'll leave it there just so people can trip over it.) They seem to think that my masculinity is in doubt, and merely touching this book has made me into some kind of metrosexual. Soon as I get those two title words out, I can see the "ohmigod COOTIES" look in people's eyes. I'm not sure what to make of this, really. Last I heard, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women was a classic piece of literature: an uplifting, heartwarming glance into the lives of the four daughters of a U.S. Army chaplain during the Civil War. I've heard that the book is funny, cute, intelligent, wise, and has a plethora of profound insight to offer. Okay, yeah, sure, the protagonists are all girls. So what? If it's a good book, I'll read it. I'll read anything I think I can learn from or get something out of. Just because I'm a man and I'm reading what was once called a "girl's book" doesn't mean my sexual orientation should be questioned. Jeez, if I'd read Nancy Drew instead of The Hardy Boys when I was a kid, would you have played the cooties card? Huh? Would you? I thought not. Moving on... I'm only a couple chapters in, but so far Little Women is proving to be everything I've heard, and how. I'll keep you posted. Next up: a book that's been on my parents' shelves for time immemorial, but I've never picked up and taken a serious look at until now. It's called Black Elk Speaks, by John G. Neihardt. First published in 1932, it is a personal account of the life of Black Elk, a great chief of the Oglala Sioux tribe, a second cousin of Crazy Horse, and a veteran of the Indian Wars (including the Battle of the Little Bighorn). Again, I'm only a couple of chapters in. The first two chapters are, respectively, Black Elk's opening invocation to the Great Spirit (which eerily resembles an ancient Greek poet's invocation to the Muses before the commencement of a magnum opus), and his childhood. Black Elk lived through and saw some heavy stuff. He was only a boy when the Fetterman Fight occurred, when Captain William J. Fetterman and nearly 100 soldiers were killed (I hesitate to say "massacred") by a much larger force of Indians near Fort Phil Kearney in the Dakota territory in 1866. This is as far as I've read, but later, as I understand it, Black Elk receives a monumental vision from the Great Spirit and is told that he will deliver his people from oppression to prosperity. In this way he becomes a great chief, a spiritual leader, an Indian Messiah, if you will. Along the way he fights in the Indian Wars, journeys to England, and does a whole bunch of other amazing stuff. And in the end...well, we'll get there when we get there. In the meantime, I'm utterly fascinated. Black Elk, like most Native Americans, has a direct and earthy way of speaking that is almost intoxicating. Spirituality and practicality are so tightly interwoven it's difficult to tell one from the other. Black Elk accepts that what he sees isn't all there is to the story, but he keeps his feet planted on the ground. Inherently sensible, that's how his speech (translated by Black Elk's son, Ben, and recorded and transcribed by Neihardt) strikes me. Already I'm charmed by Black Elk's description of his childhood: roaming the plains, making friends, and playing awesome games that would never, ever be allowed on a school playground. For instance, he describes one pastime that the older boys pursued:

And the big boys played the game called Throwing-Them-Off-Their-Horses, which is a battle all but the killing; and sometimes they got hurt. The horsebacks from the different bands would line up and charge upon each other, yelling; and when the ponies came together on the run, they would rear and flounder and scream in a big dust, and the riders would seize each other, wrestling until one side had lost all its men, for those who fell upon the ground were counted dead. When I was older, I, too, often played this game. We were always naked when we played it, just as warriors are when they go into battle if it is not too cold, because they are swifter without clothes. Once I fell off on my back right in the middle of a bed of prickly pears, and it took my mother a long while to pick all the stickers out of me.

Man, except for the nakedness, the prickly pears, and imminent threat of horrible death, Throwing-Them-Off-Their-Horses sounds pretty cool. Soon, Black Elk's speech turns to graver matters: the coming of the Wasichus, for instance. ("Wasichu" is the Sioux word for "white men"; however, to the Indians' credit, no reference is made to skin color within the actual definition of the word itself.) Black Elk talks of soldiers coming and building "towns of logs" (forts), and driving roads through his tribe's hunting grounds. I can only imagine what's to come, and I can't wait. As I've mentioned before, Black Elk is a hell of a narrator. I have no illusions that some of it will be tragic; and it'll be hard to read about the slaughter of U.S. Army soldiers, no matter what the cause; but reading about the Indian Wars from the other side's perspective is going to be enlightening and maturing, I just know it. That's about it for the moment. All bets are off as when I'll actually finish this stuff, seeing as how I'm so [cough] busy and all. But once I do, you can bet you'll be the first to know. Postman out.