Would you rather travel this road by motorcycle or foot?

Either way, you might enjoy a book called Born to Run. . . . That is, you might enjoy one of two books, both called Born to Run.

It’s amazing that, when Bruce Springsteen wanted to, for some reason, only seven years after the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall became a runaway bestseller, publish a book with the same title . . . the publishing house actually let him do it!

(That was a joke.)

While these two books are very different—in subject matter and style—their similarities don’t end with the title. Both books, you see, harbor countless pockets of wisdom, interspersed among fascinating stories.

I’d like to juxtapose two quotes from these books that I adore . . . though don’t necessarily fully understand. Both quotes are about the feeling of doing something you love: how it feels to do something so naturally that you become somehow one with it.

Here’s a lesson in running from an incredible distance runner known as Caballo Blanco, as quoted by McDougall:

“Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast. You start with easy, because if that’s all you get, that’s not so bad. Then work on light. Make it effortless, like you don’t give a shit how high the hill is or how far you’ve got to go. When you’ve practiced that so long that you forget you’re practicing, you work on making it smooooooth. You won’t have to worry about the last one—you get those three, and you’ll be fast.”

And here’s a lesson from Springsteen in letting the good times roll—while performing:

“I’ve still never regularly quite had the mojo to freely let the ‘bon temps rouler.’ Except . . . onstage. There, strangely enough, exposed in front of thousands, I’ve always felt perfectly safe, to just let it all go. . . . I don’t know why, but I’ve never gotten anywhere near as far or as high as when I count the band in and feel what seems like all life itself and a small flash of eternity pulsing through me.”

I don’t really know what it means to run easy, light, and smooth (though fast makes perfect sense); but if I try, and sometimes even if I don’t try, I feel these things while running. And I don’t really know what it means to dwell amidst pulses of all life, plus a small flash of eternity, while engaged in an artistic, or otherwise skilled, endeavor; or perhaps I do. . . .

Do you?

On New Year’s Day, the inquisitive one sat down with a brand new pad of paper and brand new pen, both received as gifts the previous month.

The inquisitive one thought very seriously for a few minutes, biting softly on a thumb. Then suddenly, the inquisitive one removed the thumb from the mouth, picked up the pen, and wrote a string of words on the pad, reciting them aloud while writing:

“This year, I resolve to GROW more VEGETABLES, RUN more MILES, READ more BOOKS, and COOK more HEALTHY MEALS than I EVER have in ANY YEAR before!”

The inquisitive one underlined the key words several times and then drew little illustrations of veggies, running shoes, books, and cooking utensils all around the sentence on the pad. Happily, the inquisitive one tore the top sheet off the pad and taped it to the fridge.

But a week or so later—alas!—things were not going well as regards the resolution. You see, the inquisitive one had had some pretty impressive years in the past, in the realms of vegetable growing, mile running, book reading, and healthy meal cooking. This year so far, the inquisitive one had been sadly neglecting those activities, in favor of relative entertaining, light bulb replacing, nose blowing, highway driving, obscure fact Googling, schmancy gala attending, and frantic HVAC guy calling.

To make up for lost time, the inquisitive one tossed some dry beans, frozen kale, and stock in a crock pot, drove to the gym, got on a treadmill, and attempted to run while alternating between reading a novel and browsing a seed catalogue.

By the end of that day, the inquisitive one had decided to grow tomatoes, variety TBD; run half a mile; read half a page; and cooked a healthy meal that tasted like pebbles in a polluted stream.

Angrily, the inquisitive one snatched the resolution off the fridge, crumpled it up, and threw it away. The inquisitive one got out the special pad and pen and wrote a sentence on the topmost sheet, reciting the words while writing:

“This year, I resolve to make NO New Year’s resolution!!”

The inquisitive one, having neglected to draw anything around the sentence, proudly ripped off the sheet and taped it to the fridge.

The next day, however, the revised resolution did not sit well with the inquisitive one. Every time the inquisitive one went to get some string cheese, hummus, broccoli, butter, or whatever, the sentence seemed to stare outwards with menace.

After a couple of days of repeated, unsettling intimations from the fridge door, the inquisitive one tore down the paper, crumpled it up, and threw it away.

Once again, the inquisitive one got out the deliciously beautiful, and amazingly functional, pad and pen. Once again, the inquisitive one chewed softly on a thumb. And once again, suddenly the inquisitive one wrote and recited a sentence:

“This year, I resolve to make a New Year’s resolution.”

The inquisitive one decorated the page with illustrations of flowers, birds, clouds, and special pads and pens; boogie danced on over to the fridge; and taped it up.

The next day, the inquisitive one spent a lot of time working on a project for the boss, shopping for clothes, and talking on the phone.

The day after that, the inquisitive one went on a long run, finished reading the novel, and baked a big batch of granola.

And the day after that, the inquisitive one, with great excitement, decided to plant a variety of sweet pepper that was, according to the seed catalogue, “very productive,” “early maturing,” and “displease resistant.”

I know, I know—we were in the middle of a series of posts about Émile Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise, but I’d like to hit pause on that to share some exciting news with you all: I have acquired my first byline! So, apologies, but you will have to live in suspense as regards the nineteenth-century novel I was previewing—it’s a lot to ask, but I’m confident that you will find the strength to abide the delay—as I tell you about something really cool called Silent Book Club.

Unlike traditional book clubs, Silent Book Club has no assigned reading. You don’t have to read what other people are reading—although you can, if you want to. Like traditional book clubs, Silent Book Club brings book lovers together to talk about books and interesting ideas, make new friends, and hang out with old friends.

What do people do at a Silent Book Club meeting? Well, first, we bring whatever book we’re reading to the venue, and we order a drink; meetings are often held at places like bars, wine bars, breweries, and the like (though, of course, there’s no obligation to drink alcohol, and people order what they please). Then, we alternate between chatting informally about books and anything else we feel like yammering about, and reading in friendly silence.

I first heard of Silent Book Club through an article in Poets & Writers magazine. Upon learning that the nearest club was farther from my home than I wanted to travel, I started my own local club. This was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I discovered that Silent Book Club is a great way to meet interesting, smart, and fun people. It’s also a great way to get some reading done.

I have been hosting Silent Book Club meetings for two years now, and our club has recently expanded from offering meetings every other week to offering meetings most weeks, at two different times and days so more people can participate. We also recently took a “field trip” to a bookstore / wine bar in a nearby town, which was great fun.

But back to my exciting news—I was invited to write a blog post for the Silent Book Club website, and it is now live! I invite you to read my article New Year’s Book Solutions, which is about tips for making time for reading. If you’ve ever struggled to find the time to read, or if you, like me, have made a New Year’s resolution to read books, you may find something useful in there. Click here to read the article!

I want to thank you all for reading my writing—it means a lot to me. I hope it helps you in some way. Our regularly scheduled programming will resume on Wednesday. Until then, stay safe, stay warm, and keep on reading, folks.

Just as the illustrator of these Parisian women of the late 1800s wearing fashionable hats did a brilliant job of capturing the nuanced variety of the attire, Émile Zola did a brilliant job of capturing nuances of the nineteenth-century female experience in his novel The Ladies’ Paradise.

Moreover, as in his descriptions of large versus small businesses, the themes he describes are universal—and astoundingly applicable to the world today. Take, for example, this description:

“She could not go downstairs to buy a candle . . . without feeling a warm breath behind her, and hearing crude, insulting remarks; and the men pursued her to the very end of the dark passage . . .”

Replace “candle” with “pizza” or another modern consumable, and . . . #MeToo, anyone?

Oddly, the description on the back of my paperback copy pretends that the male big business owner is the protagonist. The description does not mention the actual protagonist—a woman—at all! This, along with the omission of the word “Ladies'” from the title, makes me suspect that the marketer of this edition was trying to scrub it of its female-oriented qualities. Do books about men sell better than books about women? At least the photo on the cover accurately depicts the content: a young woman in a fancy dress stands behind a counter, assisting two female customers in even fancier attire.

In any case, without a doubt, this is a book about women. It’s a book about women and consumerism; women and beauty; and women and manipulation, sex, and power. It’s a book about relations between women and men and between women and women. It’s a book about intelligent women and frivolous women; about women who abide by the dictates of society and women who abide by their hearts and minds.

Somehow, through the amazing and very human powers of observation and imagination, Zola, though a man himself, has captured some important truths about womankind. I won’t give them away here. I will note, however, that the protagonist is wonderful. She has her faults, as do we all, but she also has many admirable qualities. On the whole, I think you will love her. I hope you get the opportunity to meet her one day!

What different metaphorical hats have you noticed twenty-first-century women wearing?

Another year’s end has snuck up on us: Happy New Year’s Eve! Let’s take a moment to reflect on the past and look ahead to the future. Let’s do it for old times’ sake! We do it every year; why break a good tradition now? . . . especially since it’s such a wise and valuable tradition.

New Year’s Resolutions

Have you made any resolutions for the upcoming year? If so, I’d love to hear what they are—tell me about them in the comments!

As for me, I’m pretty boring—that is, consistent and persistent and other positive adjectives like those—because I make the same resolution every year. My New Year’s resolution for 2019, as for every year, is to read 50 books. I only rarely achieve this goal, to tell the truth, but it’s good, I feel, to have high aspirations.

This year I read a total of 37 books. Gulp—that’s not nearly as close to 50 as I would have liked. However, I did, this year, read the 1079-page masterwork Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, from start to finish. That must count for at least 10 or 20 books . . . right?

In any case, I am finding it more and more important, in the digital age, to stake out reading time for myself. Early in the morning and before bed seem to be the best reading times for me. I love, love, love reading—but, still, my phone calls to me softly. Softly, incessantly, it beckons; I have to resist, and to actively decide to read: as opposed to tap and scroll around aimlessly. Does anyone else struggle with this? Any tips?

More Opposites That Are the Same

While writing my post Shopping Cart Wisdom, I was delighted to stumble across another set of opposite words with the same meaning! (See my recent post These Two? Exactly the Same.)

Writing about the categorical imperative, a philosophy developed by Kant, made me wonder about the word categorical. Shouldn’t that, I thought, be uncategorical? The answer is no. Confusingly, the word categorical means “unconditional” or “unqualified.” We modern folk, however, often add -un and say uncategorical when we mean categorical. Technically, these two words are opposites; but in everyday usage, they have, mistakenly, come to have the same meaning. Check out the embarrassing malapropism in this video between 0:30 and 0:40 . . . oops.

This prefix confusion made me think of another duo of opposites! Inflammable means “capable of being set on fire; combustible.” It’s a relative of the word inflame. However, as this word is very important for safety reasons, people started using the word flammable to mean the same thing, fearing that people might mistakenly think that the prefix in- means “not.” And so we have two words that seem as if they could be opposites, but have the same meaning. (See dictionary.com’s Usage note for more info!)

What Is a Blog?

While we’re on the subject of word usage, let’s talk about the word blog. Its etymology is “web” + “log” = weblog, or blog for short. A blog is a log—that is, a diary or journal—that’s on the web. Nobody uses weblog anymore (did anyone ever?), but it’s a good mnemonic device: a blog is a web log containing many entries. Each individual entry is called a post. Admittedly, some dictionaries have a secondary definition indicating that one post can be referred to as a blog; but other dictionaries do not. I’d like to stand by my assertion that a blog is the entire collection, not just one item in the collection.

Auld Lang Syne

I’ll refrain from analyzing the etymology of auld lang syne, as doing so may try the patience of all of us! Besides, we have things to do, places to go, people to meet, and flammable and inflammable objects to ignite . . . or at least watch being ignited. Have a fabulous last day of 2018 and first day of 2019!