Steinbeck and Three Fountain Green.

   It's funny how literature pops up oddly in our everyday lives. It really is. Those books that our English teachers force down into our stomachs during high school actually do have resonance outside of those jail-cell walls.

   

   This past summer I read John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" and enjoyed the hell out of that book. The story and the characters in that book are sublime--American Lit gems that only Mr. Steinbeck could concoct. And I find it funny that in the past six months, my life has played almost exactly out to the plot of "East of Eden" as if Athens were early-20th century Salinas, California.

   

   It's hard to believe that such characters depicted in novels--especially "East of Eden"--can exist. They're imaginary, right? They exist only in the context of our minds and allegories. 

   

   But if you take the time to think about it, these characters aren't merely symbols: they're people we've come to know in real life. 

   

   It's also funny to find yourself playing the victim in this case (shit, in your own story).

   

   So maybe I need to find my own Adam Trask-style catharsis. But maybe in reading "East of Eden" I suddenly know what I've needed to do all along about Kate. 

   

   Thanks for that, John. 

   -Also, for those of you who haven't checked Speakeasy's review of my fellow dorm mates's band, Three Fountain Green, please read the story:  http://www.speakeasymag.com/entertainment/music/2009/mar/11/three-fountain-green-combines-passion-music-unique/.

   Great article about a great up-and-coming Athens band. Much love, 3FG.

Trees.

I think that people make up some of the most bullshit allegories when it comes to interpreting life. Who in the hell needs so many ways to decipher what's real in life and what isn't? Do we need so much Dr. Phil garbage stuffed down our throats on a daily basis?

As trite as it is, such allegories define us. There's never a simple way to understand our surroundings and there's never a clear-cut way to make meaning out of life's hurdles. It's human nature to create these symbols (thanks, Stan). We love, we hate, we lust, and we yearn for what we have and don't have. It's simply human--as hypocritical as I sound.

Looking out the front porch of Washington Hall, a cluster of beautiful, morose trees dot and litter East Green. Sitting on this front porch, i have noticed that these trees could easily plot one person's life. The base of the tree represents our birth and our early years--a haze of filial memories and events that aren't easy to remember, yet they inevitably lead to our later years.

But as you get further up the tree, you notice branches and wily arms that could signify our present and our future. Each branch twists off into oblivion helping to show the people and things that make us. It's nature's emblem for life. Probably hence the concept of a "family tree." 

If you think about it, you never know where these branches will start and where they will end. These branches just wind and contort into lovely or melancholy recollections of one person's path. Each branch has its own destiny, its own convoluted way of showing where a relationship will finally guide us. 

The branch could stop suddenly; a representation of something that has run its course or turned sour. A branch could continue on forever and supply us with a metaphor for something that we never want to end--or will never cease to end.