Neil Gaiman on Gone with The Wind

“My cousin Helen, who is in her 90s now, was in the Warsaw ghetto
during World War II. She and a bunch of the girls in the ghetto had to
do sewing each day. And if you were found with a book, it was an
automatic death penalty. She had gotten hold of a copy of ‘Gone With
the Wind’, and she would take three or four hours out of her sleeping
time each night to read. And then, during the hour or so when they
were sewing the next day, she would tell them all the story. These
girls were risking certain death for a story. And when she told me
that story herself, it actually made what I do feel more important.
Because giving people stories is not a luxury. It’s actually one of
the things that you live and die for.” — Neil Gaiman

The Library

A while ago, I was rereading my collection of Paris Review Interviews. The Paris Review has a wealth of interviews with novelists, artists, poets and playwrights. The interviews are episodes of biography that focus on revealing the artist in her own words. The interviews always start with describing the author’s house or writing room, like a lamp that warms from within and conceives a space where creation takes place. The descriptions set the pace for the interview and for explaining the artist's personality.
Here is my Paris Review inspired free-write describing the classroom where I have my French lessons.
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The workroom is supported by bookshelves (wooden, wrinkled and stable) and a few couches wedged in between. Light comes in through the one big window (the window sill is ornamented by a Japanese bobble head)  over the couch and the sliding glass doors. Red paneled doors section off the bathroom and lead into the main house. The floors are tiled and covered in rugs. Normally we sit at the two tables creating an L shape in the corner of the room, where the laptop sits and hums in open competition with the books. But really there isn’t any competition, because the bookshelves strike me right away.
The books have come here on wings. I imagine them filling hours in airplanes, airports, hotel rooms, trains, waiting rooms. They are aging softly, with pages that cringe and cracked spines. Mademoiselle's books have come from Canada, England, Paris, Hong Kong. From wherever they’ve come, they’ve come to rest here.

I think of peoples bookshelves as results, where the collection of titles tells more stories about the person than the contents of the books themselves. There are four bookshelves in the workroom (the rest man their posts in the main house), each of which I’ve already given personalities. The lean, skinny one which leaps from the wall next to the sliding glass doors speaks in tongues. Here we find fairy tales, fables and history books in French, Spanish guide books, a history documenting the many inventions of China, Italian art and text books. The squat, horizontal fellow stationed on the opposite wall of the sliding glass doors is dedicated almost entirely to art. Coffee table sized monsters with illustrations from museums the world over, art criticism, art sketched and drawn with charcoal and also the occasional psychology or odd reference volume. The next two shelves house my favorites. The grand wooden gatekeeper stands proud and ancient behind the desk. He houses most of the histories, long and sprawling hardcovers detailing and giving shape to countries I’ve never been. I feel like the gatekeeper is whispering their names to me and telling me how to find them.

Directly across, on the other side of the desk and to the right of the big window and the Japanese bobble head is who I save for last. The bookshelf is made from a darker wood, with growth rings, and within its forests I can get lost. His content varies from shelf to shelf. The middle rung cradles the masters, Dante and Proust, Milton and Byron. And then the collection of classics whose spines are numbered, as if they could count down the memories of the earth.

Russian Valentines

In honor of Valentines Day, my family descended upon the beach. We brought a kayak for thrashing through the high tides and green apples, cheese and dark chocolate for snacking. An influx of Russian tourists (in addition to the run of the mill Japanese brides and hipsters) have invaded Tumon of late, and today I heard their language for the first time. I have something of a love affair with languages and characterizing them. My Mom and I were talking about how I've always liked words (in addition to names. I can't count how many times I've sworn to name my very lucky future child after one of my name whims. Right now, I like 'Salem' for a girl) and the way that they sounded. I had a notebook on hand at the beach, so here are my Russian language observations.

At first I think she's speaking English, but she's taken the words to a fun house mirror, she's resized and stretched them to fit the shapes of her tongue and teeth. It's Russian. She asks her daughter something and to me, her question falls somewhere in the free space between sound and expression shared by two people who trade in different tongues. It sounds like she's taken her words to a butcher, to burst the slabs of meat through with wire hangers. Geographically, Russia edges off of Asia, and I can hear something of Asian languages, the falls and rises, in her speech. Her children are miniatures wearing pink bandannas and when they talk to each other the language reminds me of Japanese animation: whimsical and a little violent.