BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 5

To build on post #4, about finally getting an idea of what the runaway lifestyle is like, Bock's descriptions give a vivid sense of how grotesquely they live their lives.  As an introduction to a scene of the bald headed girl's first night as a real runaway, Bock writes, "Certain boys resembled various punks she was used to, only her friends took time to make themselves look properly disheveled, these punks WERE disheveled, their edges harder their seams more frayed...A game of My Past Sucked the Worst was erupting, with tempers flaring over the hierarchy of incest abuses" (200).  The reality he creates is amazing, and the rough ways these kids live makes me think again, are people out there actually like that?  Our bubble of Edina is so safe and typical, and Bock's writing style creates a whole new world and culture that I was previously oblivious to.  The bald girl becomes friends with a pregnant teenager, and they get drunk and walk around Vegas together, "Now she chugged from a clear plastic botle, swallowing three, four gulps, before she gagged and then doubled over, spilling thick green liquid from her mount, down her chin and neck" (200).  Not only is the description disgusting, but the crime she is doing do her body and her baby is even more disturbing.  This makes me question whether runaways don't know any better than this, or if they think their lives are so far down the drain that they are unrecoverable.  It seems impossible for somebody like that to ever have the ability to lead a normal life, and makes these kids futures seem very dim.

The pregnant girl and bald girl talk about how they've seen themselves on milk cartons.  The milk carton serves as a place to raise awareness of a missing child, but their conversation brings the idea of the milk carton into a different light.  The pregnant girl said they stopped making her face on the cartons, and she was disappointed because "It was gonna be cool as fuck, 'cause i'd be giving my baby milk from the cartons with my own face.  Get it?  How cool is that?  Cool as fuck right?" (202)  This is almost as disturbing as her drinking while being pregnant, because it shows that she doesn't care about how her life is turning out, and that she is hopeless.  The world and lives of "runaways" is so bizarre and unbelievable to me, part of me feels bad for them, but part of me thinks it's horrible and they should know better.

BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 4

This week's reading really opened my eyes to what the lives of runaways are like.  The author has developed characters, and their backgrounds, and has given us a good idea of the struggle Lorraine and Lincoln Ewing are going through as parents of a runaway.  This weeks reading had an awful lot about Lincoln's background, and his feelings about his son's disappearance.  His perspective is an interesting and drastic contrast to Lorraine's; Lorraine being almost phsycotic about her son's disappearance, while Lincoln takes us through his history of being a parent.  Lincoln relives the bad times, and how depressed he was about his family and the bad things of being a dad: "Yet for all the secret time he spend trying to learn how to play the boy's video games, for all the pride Lincoln took in his son's quick wit, there were evenings when Lincoln's migraines were pounding and his stomach was upset, and about the last thing he needed was to step inside his house and hear that little bastard's sass... You bet your ass there were evenings...and he was feeling on top of the world, and sure as hell he did not want to go home and have that feeling demolished.  During this past spring and summer, admittedly, more than a few sunsents had been under way when Lincoln had taken a detour on his way home, heading past Vixxen's, Little Darlings, the Can Can Room, and the Crazy Horse Too" (194-195).  I'm pretty sure all parents have times when they don't want to be around their kids, but Lincoln's experience should teach to not take kids for granted.  Family is extremely important, and Lincoln's experience in losing his child makes a person think again.  

beautiful children 3

By now, it's obvious that Beautiful Children won't make complete sense and will always be slightly confusing and seemingly incoherent until the end.  By now, Bing Biederboxx has lost his virginity to the stripper Cheri Blossom.  The normally "unromantic act of sex with a stripper" is made romantic for Bing, by his observation of Cheri, and he wants to know about how she got to this point.  Cheri explains how she got this way, to Bing:  "I was molested as an infant.  I was born into poverty and know nothing better.  I am a rebellious socialite sewing my wild oats.  A bored middleclass girl looking for kicks.  I am that misunderstood whore looking for love that you are always hearing about.  All my feelings of personal worth have been sublimated into my sexual identity...fated to selfdestruct.  I do this for kicks.  For money.  To meet sensitive hunks like you.  Why do you ask?  What's it to you?  You cannot have me.  You cannot learn my secrets..." (151).  Cherri's pain to nurture seems like an impossible task.  It makes a person understand that someones past affects their future to a very great extent.  Bing is being developed as a sensitive man, but this is contradicted by how he wants to experiment his possibly fatal tattoo idea on runaways.  I'm not sure if Bing is a manipulative character with malicious intentions, or an actual good guy.  

Meanwhile, Kenny and Newell are starting to realize how inexperienced they are, and their night of fun is starting to take a turn for the worse.  Kenny sees two homeless people, who he realizes he used to go to school with, and right then we are introduced to the final character that will be developed into the story of Newell's disappearance.  Newell is tricked by the seemingly very rough and hopeless people, and realizes the scheming gutter punk has robbed him.  Newell's regret and feeling of fear is triggered by this event, "Every answer was not any sort of answer.  Every path led down into a black hole.  Dull noise lulled throug his ears.  His mind raced and raced and ran in place.  And now Newell glanced over his shoulder, struggling for an escape hatch, some direction, a conclusion that did not end up being the obvious one, a result that left him anywhere but this pace" (178).  These boys are only teenagers, and the sketchy nature of Las Vegas will leave unexperienced people to shreds.  This description including "black hole" is very revealing of how their experience will end up.  There's no turning back now, and without his money and cell phone these boys are headed to danger more rapidly than before.

BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 2

Beautiful Children is moving along hypnotically.  In the first part we were introduced to Bing, the comic book illustrator, Kenny, the shy and lonely artist, and Newell Ewing.  In the next section we meet a young anarchist, who looks at the world as a great conspiracy.  In our first meeting of this girl, an example of her extreme views is described in a somewhat humorous way, "Anyone who cared (any many who did not) had heard the girl with the shaved head explain that she'd pretty much existed on wheat and bottled water for three months now--and wheat was on shaky ground depending on how much she could download about this administrations policies toward corporate farm subsideis, and as for bottled water, two dollars for fucking water?  Totally elitist.  Another scam" (102).  Though I don't know much about this girl yet, the first impression Charles Bock has set up makes me wonder how she got so cynical and extreme.  My feelings of being naive were increased in this part because I had no idea that such extremes were out there--and at such an age!  Another character we meet is named Cheri Blossom, and is a stripper.  We are given vivid descriptions of her dancing, and learn that she pretends to be in a movie with all the sex and dancing she does: "Cheri could do theese things because she was performing not for the mark but for a movie.  And in this movie she was beyond sexy.  She was A STAR.  This is what she told herself" (112).  It's sad that Cheri has to pretend her life isn't her own, and that she's just acting.  I think that her search for salvation will be one of the most interesting, and so far she's the one I hope will find her way.  She's so unhappy and ashamed of what she does, so much that she has to feign being a movie star in her life.  The way that these characters will effect each other will be so interesting, and meeting these new characters who have lives I've never even imagined keeps me interesting in Charles Bock's book.

Another main part of the reading is how desperate and sad Ewell's parents are.  Lorraine has taken in many cats, and one could say it's to fill the emptiness Ewell has left in her heart, but I think it's just for something to care about and pass the time.  She's desperately searching, disregarding her husbands attempts to help, and her frustration continues to be fueled with every rejection she faces about Ewell.  I can't imagine the pain a parent would feel if their kid would run away, and I actually think Lorraine and her husband are holding up quite well considering what's happened.  They've tried to give Ewell a good life, and his obliviousness to the world is sickening when we see the foreshadowing of how bad it will end up for him.  

Beautiful Children Post #1

The book I chose to read for quarter 3 is titled Beautiful Children and is written by Charles Bock.  The book is about many "misfits runaways" described as "A comic book illustrator...; a shy and possibly distrubed young artist; a stripper who imagines moments from her life as if they were movie secnes; a bubbly teenage wiccan anarchist; a scheming gutter punk."  These characters will all be connected as the Ewing parents search for their missing son, the main character, Newell Ewing.  

The story alternates between different characters' stories, and in the first 60 pages we've been introduced to Newell Ewing, a twelve year old boy who loves comic books, and is a rebellious boy who is friends with Kenny.  Kenny is an older teenager, who is a very talented nude comic book illustrator.  Kenny and Newell have a plan to go out one night...the night that Newell goes missing.  Kenny comes in contact with Bing Biederboxx, an awkward 24 year old man who realizes his unsuccessful nude comic book series, who at a short run-in tells Kenny that he has talent.  We are also told about the relationship between Newell and his parents, he talks back to his parents and makes inappropriate remarks; behavior in which his parents think are due to his 'tween age.  The relationship between Lorraine and Lincoln Ewing is losing sexual activity, and Lincoln is seemingly walking on eggshells around Lorraine.

This novel is creepy and makes me feel uneasy and naive.  I'm sure part of this feeling is due to my lack of knowledge of the culture of Las Vegas, but most of it is due to Bing Biederboxx.  When the columbine event is broadcasted, Bing realizes how much alike the boys who commited the horrible slaughter he is: "...he also possessed a firsthand undeerstanding of the ways in which an act of destruction can be viewed as a piece of creation, the means by which an act of violence might translate into a perfect piece of art...he did not tell anyone that he'd watched the real-life slaughter play itself out while surrounded by the same neighbors who's doppelgangers were to be chased through his computer game's virtual hallways...Bing had identically rendered, specifically so he could inflict bloody damage upon their images" (20).  Another part where Biederboxx terrifies me is in a chatroom with his friends he comes up with a genius idea to create 3-d tattoos.  These tattoos would call for, "not one but FIFTEEN electricity-laden needles injected marginally toxic chemicals into LAYERS of skin" ( 61).  And when asking where they could experiment their idea his friend suggests, "Runaways dude.  Nobody cares about runaways" (61).  The fact that we know Newell will come in contact with this man, and that Newell is a runaway is absolutely terrifying.  The sick and twisted mind of Biederboxx is a serious and dangerous threat to Newell, and makes the reader begin to understand the danger of the characters.

Another character who seems less threatening is Newell's friend Kenny.  His shy nature hides his disturbed mind, but he also puts butterflies in my stomach.  During an argument with his mom, Newell jokingly says about Kenny, "'A total perv...serious.  He's gonna take me out tonight and abuse me" (32).  However, later on the the novel Kenny is rummaging through his dad's porn collection, making artistic touch ups on the naked models,  Bock writes, "And he was not ashamed of being a perv who rummaged through his dad's cardboard boxes for dirty magazines; indeed, in this realm of his own creation Kenny did not worry about the currents that run between a naked woman, the guy doing her, and the noyeur getting off the scene" (36).  This shows Newell's naivety, and though he jokes about things like this they could seriously happen.  So far this novel has been scary, and makes me want to continue to read about what will happen to Newell, and how all of the disturbed characters will play out in the story.  

Traitor? Whistleblower? OTW

In On the Waterfront, the difference between Traitors and Whistleblowers isn't very clearly defined other than by the character Terry.  Terry goes against the unethical mob to stick up for the people they are oppressing.  Although the mob considers this act to be one of a traitor, this is where instead he should be considered a Whistleblower, because he is standing up for more than himself and is trying to benefit many other people.  A whistleblower's actions usually stem from something personal, but the realization that other people have been affected by the same corruption is what pushes the whistleblower to act.  In Terry's case, the murder of his brother is what starts his revenge.  Everybody agreeing is what keeps him going on his difficult journey to defeat the mob.  

I think the difference between a Traitor and a Whistleblower is that a whistleblower's actions are benefitting not only themselves, and stand up against something on a large scale, such as a problem in society.  A Traitor acts out of a mean nature, trying to get someone in trouble just to get them in trouble.  Something that a traitor would do is help someone steal a pencil, and then tell on the person they were helping.  A whistleblower in this situation would argue against the high price of a pencil to help everyone else.

A Million Little Pieces 6

The book A Million Little Pieces is a graphic and touching autobiography by James Frey about his time in rehab.  He's been through many, many ups and downs, wanting to leave rehab, suffering emotional and physical pain, renaissance in family life and with his friends, etc.  The last section includes two major tests for James.  One, before he is released from rehab, is when he is on a quest to find Lily and finds himself resisting the power of drugs during the journey.  After he is released, while out with his brother he orders a drink and refuses to drink it.  James is sober, and his self blazed path worked out for him in the end.  He's still sober, and after reading the entire account, I have slightly mixed feelings about James.

James is smart, and self-willed.  But after reading the comments on my last post, my view of him is slightly different.  Yes, he conquered his addiction, but then again, he was the one who let himself do it in the first place.  I'm proud that he stayed sober, but there is still a possibility of relapse.  In the very last pages of the book, little summaries of how his friends and other patients lives are included.  So many of them relapsed, or were found dead in crack houses, etc. and it makes me think that rehab isn't very effective.  It will be interesting to see if we hear any more from or about James, and I'm curious as to if it will be positive, or negative.  His story is truly amazing and touching, but I do have a bit of doubt about the whole story and his future success.