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Various people kept telling me to read a trilogy of books called The Hunger Games.  They were supposedly about a post-apocalyptic world in which the Capitol of 12 districts demands a tribute of two children from each one to do battle to the death in a public arena.  I was dubious- maybe it's because it's so taboo to show the murder of a child on TV, but their battling to the death seemed really unrealistic.  Now I am obsessed.  The books are so well-written, so fast-paced, I stayed up through the night to read the second one. 

Now I am on the third and final book, and I was thinking about how the author, Suzanne Collins, must have come up with this idea.  I don't think it is giving anything away to say that it almost seems to be modeled on the story in Casablanca- the love triangle, the oppressive occupation of the districts, the rebellious spirit of the people.  The Capitol Peacekeepers have all the qualities of Nazis to me, so maybe that's why a story that sounds so fantastical in a two-sentence description actually reads quite realistically.  Whatever it is, I highly suggest that you pick up a copy.

LXX
(from The Book of Questions)

What forced labor
does Hitler do in hell?

Does he paint walls or cadavers?
Does he sniff the fumes of the dead?

Do they feed him the ashes
of so many burnt children?

Or, since his death, have they given him
blood to drink from a funnel?

Or do they hammer into his mouth
the pulled gold teeth?

-Pablo Neruda

"Why did cheese decide to perfom heroic deeds in France?"

I was so excited the other day when I was killing time in a book store and I came across Pablo Neruda's The Book of Questions.  I have been trying to find this book since college and it seemed to have gone out of print for a while.  Now there it was sitting nonchalantly on the shelf. 

Some of you may recognize Pablo Neruda's name from the character in the movie Il Postino.  He was a political Chilean poet.  This collection is different from his others because all the poems in the book are made of questions.  They don't have rational answers, but they are meant to just make you reflect on things. 

Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

If all rivers are sweet
where does the sea get its salt?

Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?

Do tears not yet spilled
wait in small lakes?

What are you guarding under your hump
said a camel to a turtle.

And the turtle replied:
What do you say to oranges?

And what did the rubies say
standing before the juice of pomegranates?

Does the earth sing like a cricket
in the music of the heavens?

Where is the child I was,
still inside me or gone?

Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Positively Hitchcockian

I generally go through life thinking I have an unspoken agreement with a lot of things.  Pretty much if you don't bother me, I don't bother you.  One of the things I have this agreement with is birds.  I don't really think about them one way or another except when they crap on my car and I shake my fist at the sky, but some birds are cool.  Some of them have super powers and can talk and stuff.  Peacocks are all right because they're nice to look at.  Sparrows are unassuming and happy simply if you give them a crumb of bread.  Turkeys and eagles are patriotic so I have no beef with them.  Parrots are only cool because they are riding the shoulders of pirates and Monty Python once did a hilarious sketch about one.

I know people think most birds are not so smart, but I am convinced we are not giving them enough credit.  Some birds are evil and with that evil comes strategizing capabilities.  The other day I was walking, minding my own business, in a busy area of town.  I had to get to a crosswalk to cross a busy intersection.  Off to the side were all these pigeons gathered around a tree and a telephone pole.  There were quite a lot of them, but I didn't even think "hey, that's a large group of pigeons."  That's how much I was minding my own business.  Suddenly they all took off at once.  No big deal, but I tried to steer clear from walking directly under them so I could avoid any droppings.  They flew past me, so I thought I was safe.  I was still headed for the crosswalk.  Suddenly back they flew in the direction whence they came.  Again, I edged away for scatalogical reasons.  I shook my head.  Weird birds.

The cross walk was only about 15 feet away at this point when they took off again.  These pigeons were everywhere.  There was no escape.  They were pumping the air like DJ Paulie D on the dance floor.  These freaking pigeons would take off and land, take off and land, but when they landed, they barely even touched the tree or the telephone pole before they were up and off again.  My next thought was, maybe we're about to have an earthquake.  Animals can sense these things and these birds were going nuts.  But by the time I was waiting for the light to change, the earth had not quaked once.  These crazed pigeons were treading air.  Two of them clawed at the bar above the "don't walk" sign.  They were looking at me.  This was highly disturbing.  My next and final thought on the matter was whether there was any factual basis for the movie The Birds and what it would feel like to be pecked to death by a dirty air rat.

Luckily, the light changed before I could find out.  As I ran across the street, I looked back and saw they had taken off again, this time with another poor soul trapped in their whirlpool of feathers.

Triangles

Three triangles of birds crossed
Over the enormous ocean which extended
In winter like a green beast.
Everything just lay there, the silence,
The unfolding gray, the heavy light
Of space, some land now and then.
Over everything there was passing
A flight
And another flight
Of dark birds, winter bodies
Trembling triangles
Whose wings,
Frantically flapping, hardly
Can carry the gray cold, the desolate days
From one place to another
Along the coast of Chile.

I am here while from one sky to another
The trembling of the migratory birds
Leaves me sunk inside myself, inside my own matter
Like an everlasting well
Dug by an immovable spiral.
Now they have disappeared
Black feathers of the sea
Iron birds
From steep slopes and rock piles
Now at noon
I am in front of emptiness. It’s a winter
Space stretched out
And the sea has put
Over its blue face
A bitter mask.

-Pablo Neruda