Happy Hallowe'en, everyone! I hope the people back home are celebrating well, since everybody over here is pretty much missing out.

all hallow's read

It's the most wonderful day of the year! If you're me. October 31st is not only my favourite holiday, it's also the last night of freedom before the crazy rewarding masochism that is National Novel Writing Month.

And it looks like I'm going to have one more reason to love Hallowe'en in the coming years. Over on his blog, Neil Gaiman has made a Modest Proposal: he would like to start an Instant Tradition, of giving someone a scary book on Hallowe'en or the week leading up to it. It's called All Hallow's Read, and I would think it was a fantastic idea even if it wasn't dreamed up by my favourite author. Aside from the obvious correlation with Hallowe'en, the timing is perfect because it matches up beautifully with the RIP Challenge that is so popular in the book blogosphere.

Gaiman's reasoning behind the idea is pretty simple: we need more reasons to give books. (He's a huge supporter of literacy and all that goes along with it - I've lost the proof, but I'm certain he's called (especially children's) librarians the world's real superheroes - and is one of the heaviest-hitting proponents that free speech has got right now.)

He's right, of course. Most people don't think of books when they think of Hallowe'en entertainment. They think of monster movie marathons, trick-or-treating and costume parties, fireworks and bonfires, or the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And those things are all awesome, absolutely. Those are what Hallowe'en's about, and they're certainly why I love it. But why not add some literacy into the mix?

Personally, I think it fits right in. This time of year, when the sky gets dark quickly, the smell of woodfire and rotting leaves is in the air, and everybody's looking for ways to get cozy, is perfect for curling up with a good book. And the right scary, spooky, or Gothic novel will take you away from your cares in the real world like no other. Plus, something about the October/November air makes them that much more believable.

Unfortunately, I got this up too late to do much within my own social circle, but maybe you could do a belated All Hallow's Read book-giving? Personally, I bought myself a few spooky novels recently in lieu of having anyone to gift one to over here, and I spent a large part of the last week at work directing as many customers as possible towards some 'Hallowe'eny' reads.

For future reference (and because I'm a list-addict) here's some recommendations. Most of these are personal favourites:

*anything by the man who started it off, obviously. Neil Gaiman is a master of the spooky-if-not-quite-horror genre. His short story collections, and the children's books Coraline and The Graveyard Book are especially well-suited.

*It, The Shining, and pretty much anything else by Stephen King. Read one of them alone in a big house like I did and be unable to sleep for at least a week!

*something by the absolute king of the Hallowe'en-flavoured fiction, Ray Bradbury. Not his science fiction, but one of his short story collections, especially The October Country. Also perfect would be any of these novels: Something Wicked This Way Comes, A Graveyard For Lunatics, From the Dust Returned, and The Halloween Tree. The last is really the ultimate Hallowe'en novel, with a great story and lots of information on the origins of the holiday, and appropriate for all ages (it would actually make a great bedtime read, extended over a few days). It's even been made into an animated movie!

*not really horror, but every year around this time I find myself returning to the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels. Mysteries, gaslamps, and fog. Lindsay Faye's novel where Holmes meets the Ripper, Dust and Shadow, is as wonderful as the originals, which is not something one can say about most Holmes pastiches.

*speaking of Holmes and pastiches, the other ultimate Hallowe'en read, I would say, is Roger Zelazney's A Night In the Lonesome October. Even the title is perfect! A clever and darkly humorous story featuring a host of classic monsters from the horror genre and their familiars, there's a chapter for each night in October (plus an introduction) so you could give/receive this one early and read a chapter a night. Personally, even if I try to do this, I end up gulping it down in one sitting, because it's such a good, fun read.

*the classics themselves: Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft, Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Algernon Blackwood, MR James, William Hope Hodgson, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Woman In Black, The Turn of the Screw, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Wuthering Heights, The Haunting of Hill House, The Body Snatchers, The House of the Seven Gables, and so many more.

*Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. This only just came out. I read it in a few hours at a bookstore in the bright afternoon light, surrounded by shoppers, and was still scared absolutely witless.

*find out for yourself! Go ask your local bookstore clerk or (even better, really) librarian. They'll be happy to help you find something perfect.
Happy (& haunted) reading!

It's October 30th! That means two things: one, it's the day before my favourite day of the year! Two, and far more importantly, it's my Dad's birthday!

I've already phoned you, but happy birthday, Dad! Thanks for helping me with math, and looking up all the things I wanted to know in encyclopaedias with me when I was little, and exposing me to good music, and coaching my ball team, and buying me so very many books over the years (the kids' questions books! The Nancy Drew classic sets in shrink-wrap!). I miss you so much every day; I wouldn't be myself without you, and I certainly wouldn't believe in myself enough to embark on this crazy adventure.

(It's also my aunt's birthday! Happy birthday, Moe! Thanks for encouraging my quirkiness, making Hallowe'en costumes, and teaching me how to bake!)

a little wounded, but on fire

Song to Myself at Seventeen
- Gerard Wozek


I didn’t know how to save you then,
so forgive me. How you were able
to latch onto your spirit and go on
breathing, astonishes me even now.
Even though you knew who wrote
Faggot on your locker in indelible ink
your junior year, you never said a word.
And still somehow, you kept going.
In your mind, you sang to them
and your voice filled them with light.
You imagined they became your friends:
the ones who stole your gym bag,
smashed the headlights on your car,
or yelled Queer down the hall at you.
Still, you kept walking. And singing.
Quietly, almost silently, to yourself.
But then, how you found the courage
to take on the choir solo, I’ll never know.
Your lips trembled next to the mic.
At first, a tremor, catch in the throat.
Then the first notes, unsteady
and broken, but poised to soar.
Flaming Caruso. How you torched
the auditorium with your song.
Then afterwards, the handshakes
and back pats from the prom king,
captain of the varsity football team.
All docile. All dumbstruck. All yours.
Until you left alone that night.
I didn’t know then. If I could have
somehow stood next to you,
walked you to your car. Made sure
you got safely through the dark parking lot.
Now some twenty years later,
I still touch my throat. That thin line
of raised white scar tissue. But
I am not silent. I’m singing
to the you who once was me,
and to all the brave Carusos
who dream their voices into the world,
a little wounded, but on fire.

You must be somewhere in London,
You must be loving your life in the rain.
You must be somewhere in London,
Walking Abbey Lane.

I tend not to blog much when I'm stressed or upset. Which, unfortunately, is how I've been feeling lately. But I think I may have snapped myself out of it finally.

Here's the thing. I’m in London, now. This city is… it’s hard. And expensive, and disinterested, and overwhelming. And I’ve cried pretty every day lately. But at the same time it’s beautiful and intoxicating and I’m living my dream. I had a great job interview for a position that I desperately want today, and my stepmom's visiting in just under a month.

I’ve not yet visited Abbey Road, but I did spend a week in Liverpool this summer. I’m planning on moving there for at least six months of my two years in the UK, because I’ve never fallen in love with a city like that. It was friendly and clean and full of positive energy. I adored it. But for now, I’m in London - probably till January, then five months in a live-in in the mountains of Wales if I can make that happen.

And then. On my birthday… not only will my daddy be visiting, but. We have tickets to see Eric Clapton. At the Royal Albert Hall. On my birthday.

So I’m broke as fuck, living out of a hostel having trouble finding a job, all my friends here have decided to move out of London, and I’m missing the people back home like crazy, but even with all that… I wouldn’t trade this for anything.

I went for a walk today. There’s nothing quite like an autumn-evening stroll along the Thames.

Put an ocean and a river between everybody else,
Between everything, yourself, and home
Put an ocean and a river
Between everything, yourself, and home

on heroes

On Tuesday evening I dressed myself up, slipped on my brand-new Oxford shoes, had a delicious take-away curry picnic in Hyde Park (excluding today, the weather has been so nice here it would be a shame not to spend any and all spare hours out-of-doors), and then crossed the street for an evening with one of my heroes: Stephen Fry was speaking at the Royal Albert Hall.

And what an evening it was! The Guardian once called Fry a “national treasure,” and judging by the audience, there’s a lot of people in London who agree. Every single seat was filled. Apparently, the Monday night show was similarly attended, and an additional show was put on the roster for tonight due to demand. For my part, I was sandwiched between two young couples - one lovely pair of lesbians, and one equally lovely yuppie businessman and his Spanish model girlfriend. There was a group of four hilarious teenagers in front of me, and a late-middle aged couple behind me. This is a man who really does appeal to a wide cross-section of the population. (For good reason, as any one of us would be willing to tell you.)

It’s a funny thing, this business of idolizing people. Here are some of the people I call “heroes”: Allen Ginsberg, Oscar Wilde, Neil Gaiman, Angela Carter, Tori Amos, Tom Stoppard, Sherlock Holmes, Alan Bennett, Virginia Woolf, Diana Wynne Jones, Ray Bradbury, and the Doctor (I am especially found of Eleven). I am aware that several of the abovementioned are purely fictional; I do not think this matters. I do think it noteworthy that the majority are writers even in this small selection of all the people that I look up to. (I am a cultural magpie, always searching out new ideas and entertainment. This excess of inspirational figures is not in any way a handicap as far as I’m concerned. “All novels are sequels;” as Michael Chabon says. “Influence is bliss.”)

ANYWAYS. Heroes. We have heroes for all sorts of reasons - inspiration, awe, wanting to be as great as them, learning from them… and sometimes, if we’re really lucky, we find heroes that show us, genius as they are, that it’s okay to be who we are. Stephen Fry is one such hero for me. Granted, he started out (in junior high) as the funny Melchett character from Blackadder to me, and then I moved on and found A Bit Of Fry and Laurie (it took several years for me to develop an interest in Jeeves & Wooster - either the TV series or the books. Oh, heathen soul!). But it was in high school, that time when we are most impressionable, and thus most likely to find heroes I suppose, that I truly became enamoured - I was one of those unbearable twats of a high schooler who thought themselves greatly cleverer than anyone else, utterly misunderstood, and who listened to The Smiths and The Libertines and carried around The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde all over the place. (To this day I have a great fondness for both Moz and Mr. Wilde.) …Which is when I stumbled upon the film Wilde, starring none other than Stephen Fry. And if I wasn’t utterly hooked by that, then I found his novel The Liar at the library, and reading it sealed the deal.

Now, because I draw influence from so many places, my love affairs with certain figures wax and wane as other interests crop up - I don’t discard any of them, I am not quite so fickle as that, but I do cycle through them, sometimes paying more attention to one than another. Such was the case with Mr. Fry. I got through my exams (the ones, to be perfectly honest about my selfish and lazy attitude towards schooling at this point, that mattered to me, anyway) with the help of Stoppard, Shakespeare, and Eliot. Etc, etc, etc, through college and my subsequent dropping out, until we get to a week ago.

I’ve just arrived in London, after what was frankly a rather miserable time at a live-in job in Cornwall. Feeling a bit adrift without having a friend to wander around with after spending over a month attached at the hip with a wonderful girl who will be cropping up more often as we move in and adventure together, I wandered into a place guaranteed to make me feel at home, and provide me with more friends than I can number - a bookstore. The flagship Waterstones store just down from Piccadilly Circus, if anyone’s interested. By the best-sellers shelves, there is a sign: Stephen Fry’s brand-new autobiography, half-price “because we love him.” I pick up what turns out to be the last book in the store - as the clerk I end up buying it from delightedly informs me, he’s knocked Tony Blair of the top of the charts.

Now, memoirs can be really hit or miss for me - they have to be both well-written and interesting to keep my attention. Focussing on his years at Cambridge and subsequent rise to fame, it instantly engrosses me. Witty as expected, terrifyingly honest, and heartbreakingly poignant with his writing, Fry talks about his obsessions and fears, of always feeling like a fraud, like he’s about to be “found out,” of his love of language and knowledge (as far as Fry is concerned, the only true sin is incuriosity), and in the process makes you (me) feel quite a lot better about being human, about your own doubts and fears.

And that’s the end of that, until a gentleman sees me reading on the Tube and asks me if I am going to see him (Fry) at the Royal Albert Hall. …what? Could it be possible? As a matter of fact, it could.

And so on Tuesday night I went to see him, and came away feeling like everything was going to be okay. It’s an amazing thing to look up to someone who looks up to the same other someones that you do. And it’s an even more amazing thing to look up to someone as gracious and intelligent as Stephen Fry. After an evening recounting things like his first meeting with Hugh Laurie, a few of his old one-man sketches (including the Dracula one), and answering Twitter questions, he decided to end the evening by dedicating it to Oscar Wilde. And so he launched into a speech praising not, as everyone who talks of Wilde tends to do, his wit, but rather his humanity; his braveness, his gentleness, and above all, his kindness. It put me in mind of Fry’s autobiography, when he tells the reader one of his favourite quotes from a Dean at Cambridge:

“A word of advice: don’t try to be clever. We’re all clever here. Only try to be kind, a little kind.”

1,2, skip a few... 99, and back to the beginning

My next few posts will be all over the map as I attempt to catch up on my trip so far. And I have a lot to write about - about stony Edinburgh and sea-bound Cornwall and the magical properties of Liverpool. But first, here’s where I am now.

I arrived back in London almost four months to the day that I first came to the UK - something that I didn’t realize until I was already here, but that seems fitting. This city has an excess of gravity, I think; like a planet, it causes everything that falls into its orbit to either revolve around it endlessly or give in and come back. There are a lot of ‘ifs’ at play, too, of course. If I had found a job in Edinburgh… If I’d enjoyed St. Ives more…

But in the end, London’s gravity was strong enough to hold me, and I came back. And I am happy here, despite not yet having a job or a permanent place to stay, happy enough to realize just how much I wasn’t enjoying the last place I was in. But enough of that. This post is for the here and now.

Samuel Johnson once said “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford,” and I think that is even more true now than it was in his time. In just five days, I have found dinosaurs, English majors, businessmen with Disney-character ties, an Indian music video shoot, most of the known species of butterfly in the world, part of a spaceship, comic shops that I won’t let myself buy anything from until I’ve found a flat, people asking me for directions, a giant statue of Freddy Mercury, a theatre built into the side of an underpass, Shakespearean plays, a painting come to life, and a fairy-tale castle with seven dreaming princesses, among other things.

I did not find Paddington Bear, despite looking high and low.

And now I am sitting in the courtyard of the Natural History Museum, one my favourite public spaces anywhere. I’ve found a small patch of sun between the trees, and the cup of tea beside me helps chase the last of the early autumn chill away. When I am finished typing this, I will go across the street to the Victoria & Albert Museum, to look at a collection of 60s rock‘n’roll photographs, and then I will take the Tube and spend my afternoon wandering Bloomsbury, looking for places to apply for work. Bookish Bloomsbury, which is fast becoming one of my favourite parts of London

No, I don’t think I will tire of this city. Because in London, to find your way to the riverside, you don’t follow the yellow-brick road. Instead, there’s a path lit by orange streetlights for you.