Inspired by Jenny - American novels in high school

Posted to my LJ on March 31st, 2008 at 03:15 pm

So, after reading and replying to Anya today on her LJ post concerning American Literature and authors, I began remembering stuff I read and didn't read in high school, specifically American Literature. I remember that I did NOT have to read a lot of what other classes read. I was not in honors classes or AP, though I easily could have been (I just chose not to apply myself more - sad really....) But my classes just ended up not having to read a lot of those books you hear about everyone having to read and hating every second of it. I read quite a few that I loved, but some of the "classic" ones, I have never read to this day. Here's a list I found on, of all things, the INTERNET!! ;-)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Never read it
The Scarlet Letter - Never read it
To Kill a Mockingbird - Read it, LOVED it, STILL love this book and the story makes me cry
The Red Badge of Courage - Never read it
The Great Gatsby - Never read it
The Grapes of Wrath - Never read it
Call of the Wild - I think I might have read this, memory of it hazy, might have read at home
Invisible Man: A Novel - Never read it
A Farewell to Arms - Never read it
Fahrenheit 451 - Never read it
1984 - Never read it
Catcher in the Rye - Never read it
A Separate Peace - Read it, loved this story too
Of Mice and Men - Read it, saw the play and the movie, love this story and hate it all at once
The Glass Menagerie - Read it, have ambivalent feelings about Tennesee Williams. His plays all have very screwed up women in them and that sits oddly with me.
Alive - Read it, was fascinated by it since it was true.
Death Of A Salesman - Read it, was not impressed, liked the play better.

We didn't do George Orwell, Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Stephen King, Jack Kerouac, John Irving, Hemingway, or any notable Science Fiction (Heinlein, Asimov, Vonnegut, etc.)

So did any of you read any of these in high school and did you like them, hate them? Did you read anything else that you liked, hated, etc?

We're on the subject of American Literature at this point. I may have to do one of these on British Literature, too.

Disclaimer: I am pretty sure most of them are by Americans, I may be off on one or two.

Spring Forward aka: lose an hour!

So this weekend we sprung forward, thus losing an hour. An hour of sleep, an hour of life, an hour of whatever. I know why they do it, but its still a weird concept. As weird as changing time zones when you actually drive through them. Suddenly, its an hour earlier. Just a second ago, it was 9:00 pm and now its 8:00 pm. It is a pretty surreal feeling.

I haven't got much more than that. The work week is beginning again tomorrow. *sigh* I wish I had a boatload of time off from work. I am just generally tired.

One other thing, I went to a wake today. The wife of someone at work. Very nice guy from the trades shops. She was 57 and died in her sleep. Probably congestive heart failure, but the husband didn't want to have an autopsy. Sad though. She was not sick or anything, though she had some health issues. I just felt very sad for him. Nicest guy. Saw a bunch of people from work there too.

Just makes you think, that's all.

saddened by the passing of a personality

When I got to work Monday morning and checked on LJ, as I normally do, I read a post from a friend who mentioned that she had read in someone else's LJ that Perry DeAngelis had passed away. I looked around and found it, though there was not more information. I checked with Lou as she is a longtime friend of the family and she had also heard about it from another friend.

I am so sad about this.

Perry was one of the founding board members of LIONE Rampant along with 6 other guys from NH and MA. They decided to start their own game after playing the only other one around at the time, NERO. They had their own ideas, each of them, and wanted to put their creative minds together and make their own game.

He wrote and played some of the most memorable events/characters/creatures/modules in my LARPing career. To this day, his penchant for making up the most bizarre, poorly-statted, late-night micro is infamous! At the final event of the LIONE 3 campaign this July, I gave one of the present board members a brick together with a roll of duct tape and called it "The Honorary Perry DeAngelis Award" - because this board member (Lee) always played the most evil, most conniving, most surprising characters in that campaign. I thought of it off-the-cuff the day before, and now I am so glad I did it. It's just a testament to the contribution that Perry made to that game and to the lives of the people who played it.

I was not in contact with Perry for the last few years. But when I searched Google on his name I found a lot of people who were. He was active in the New England Skeptics Society. I remember when he and Steve founded that and it was just them. There were a lot of listeners and members of the group that have been touched by his death, even though they never met him.

Skeptics Guide to the Universe-Main Page
Skeptics Guide Message Boards

Steve Novella's Blog and comments

One of the posts was from Perry's close friend Evan:

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:31 am Post subject:
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Hey all,

Forgive my intrusion on this thread, but unlike Rebecca and Steve, I don't have blog or another place to type a few words.

I am going to save my deepest thoughts and recollections about Perry for the next show that we record. But I must say that reading all the posts here, at Steve and Rebecca's blogs, and the SGU fans site today has been both amazing and very difficult at the same time. Your words of kindness and expressions of heart-felt grief has brought me to tears several times today.

I just got home from an impromptu gathering at Steve's house with about a dozen of Perry's closest friends along with his sister Celeste. We hugged, laughed, told story after story over a delicious beef dinner that my wife prepared in Perry's honor (thank you Jen, my soulmate forever!), drank a little wine, laughed some more, told more stories .... you get the idea. It was a little strange, but there seemed to be no time for our tears of sorrow - we just wanted to talk about Perry as much as we possibly could, and we did so for hours on end.

It's here at my computer that I find myself wet around the eyes as I read every word that has been typed. Its kind of surreal. I can't say that I can't believe Perry is gone, only because he suffered for many many years with multiple diseases, and we knew that this unbearably sad day would have to occur. But what I can say is that your outpouring of raw emotion, kindness, and love is heart-felt, warming beyond words, and incredibly astute. I met Perry in 1986, and I admired him within about 2 minutes of talking to him. A life-long friendship was born. As I read all that you have written, I think back to my first moments of being in Perry's company and I say to myself "Yes, I know exactly what they are talking about and how they feel."

I can't thank you all enough for your words and thoughts. You're the ones that are helping make this agonizing pain bearable. Please continue to express your thoughts and feelings. This is extrememly theraputic for Steve, Bob, Jay, Rebecca, myself, and Perry's closest family and friends. I'm off to find a fresh box of tissues.

Evan
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And words from someone else who knew him as well:
John's post

Perry will be missed by a lot of people for a lot of reasons. You don't have to be a close friend to miss someone when they are gone.