Six-Word Memoirs

One of books I'd asked for and got for Christmas was Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure . Can you describe your life in six words? While flipping thru the book and reading some of the entries aloud Christmas day, we decided to give it a try and post our own six-word memoirs as our status on our facebook pages. I thought I'd extend the challenge to readers of this blog and friends on facebook. To help you out here are few examples from the book:

Journalist Chuck Klosterman: "Nobody cared, then they did. Why?"
9 year old Hannah Davies: "Cursed with cancer. Blessed by friends"
Chef Mario Batali: "Brought it to a boil, often"
George Saunders: "Started small, grew, peaked, shrunk, vanished"
Amy Sedaris: "Mushrooms. Clowns. Wands. Five. Wig. Thatched"


Questions arise when you start trying to come up with a phrase to describe your whole life and share it with others. How honest do I want to be, do I want to be funny, philosophical, serious? For me, it was actually easier than I thought it would be. I came up with a couple quickly:
"Life ain't fair, so what, enjoy" and a variation of that "Life ain't fair, get over it" but even though these do a pretty good job of describing my general outlook on life they're not quite it, but they did lead to a little introspection that resulted in this one "42 years later, it still hurts". But as true as that one is and how much it has to do with the first two, it doesn't really tell enough of the story. Start over, not really thinking about it, six words pop into my head. So here it is, my life boiled down to six words.

"Faith, Hope, Love, Buffy, Angel, Family"

Give it a try. Hope you'll post what you come up with.

5 Things

It's time for another of addition of Halloween 5 Things. There's nothing like curling up late at night with your back against a wall and cross close at hand and reading a good scary book. Here are 5 of my favorite scary or Halloween themed books.

Song of Kali - Dan Simmons - Simmons first published novel (1985) An American writer's journey into the dark underworld of the cult of Kali. What begins as an exploration of an exotic and forbidding world turns into a harrowing descent of steadily mounting terror, trapping him and his family in a web of unspeakable evil. Not as well written as some of his later books, but I thought it was very creepy and the ending was like a kick in the stomach.

Pet Sematary - Stephen King - I could've picked a number of books by King to include in this list, IT (freakin scary clown), The Shining, or my actual favorite King book The Stand but I chose this one because it was the first one I read and made me a real fan of horror. The road in front of Dr. Louis Creed's rural Maine home frequently claims the lives of neighborhood pets. Louis has recently moved from Chicago to Ludlow with his wife Rachel, their children and pet cat. Near their house, local children have created a cemetery for the dogs and cats killed by the steady stream of transports on the busy highway. Deeper in the woods lies another graveyard, an ancient Indian burial ground whose sinister properties Louis discovers when the family cat is killed. Stephen King is also the reason I will never go to Maine, apparrently alot of evil things happen in Maine.

Ghost Story - Peter Straub - For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past -- and get away with murder. Scary, scary book, maybe the scariest book ever. I was a little disappointed in the ending but getting there was worth the ride.

Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury - What if someone discovers your secret dream, that one great wish you would do anything for? And what if that someone suddenly makes your dream come true--before you learn the price you have to pay? Something Wicked This Way Comes is the story of two boys who encounter the sinister wonders of Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show. They will soon discover the show's awful mystery--a mystery that will change the life of every person it touches. Not as downright scary as the other books on this list but it truly evokes the spirit of Halloween.

October Dreams - A Celebration of Halloween - Edited by Richard Chizmar and Robert Morrish. Classic novellas, never before published stories, essays on the history, literature, and films of Halloween - and favorite real-life memories of October 31st from a large list of horror writers. A favorite of mine.