Una Confesión

Pages left untouched for so long. An arsenal of words unused. Let’s see what my mind gives me, this hour of the night:

Me encanta estas noches cuando estudiamos en las horas tardes en el silencio que llena todo el espacio del cuarto. Pienso que a veces, puedo sentir un poco conexión entre nosotros, durante un parte de la noche cuando estamos cansados y locos. Pero también tengo miedo. Tengo mucho medio. Porque en los momentos cuando nosotros estamos mentalmente lejos, tengo miedo que éstos momentos nos separan a una distancia que no puede desaparecer. No quiero perderte. Y por eso tuve, y ya tengo, miedo del viaje a E—. No quiero crear una distancia sobre el mar, una distancia sobre que no podemos acercarse. Quiero proteger mi corazón y mi mente. Pero por al mismo, tengo fe en ti, creo que no vas a dejarme.
Dígame. Me prometes que no me dejas cuando iré a E—.
Por favor y gracias.

(Que interesante)

Promise and Salvation

The smoothness of my skin today covers over the lines of yesteryears, a reminder of where I've come from and where I hope to never return to. I promised you I wouldn't again, and you know how I hold to my promises. 
So I promise you now: 
When that old urge rises up and my fingers itch for fine tipped pens and silver hairpins, I will come find you. I will let you soften the sharp edges of my turmoil and melt together my broken fragments with your words and your touch and your kisses. I promise to not hide under downy bedding or fancy words or my inability to trust and believe. I promise to talk because I know you will listen. I promise to seek some form of salvation from a twisted past that spans generations. I promise to try.

This Time Of Day

I LIKE THIS TIME OF DAY WHEN THE SKY IS A DARK AND DUSTY CORNFLOWER BLUE, WHEN THE SETTLING NIGHT BREATHES A BUBBLE OF SAFE SERENITY OVER EVERYTHING, TUCKING ALL MY FEARS AND WORRIES TO SLEEP. I LIKE THAT YOU ARE FADING INTO A DARK SILHOUETTE AGAINST THE TWILIT SKY; IT MAKES THE SHARP ANGLES OF YOUR FACE SO MUCH CLEARER.

TEACH ME ABOUT CLARITY, ABOUT HOW IT’S OK TO SAY THINGS FORTHRIGHT, ABOUT HOW SUBTLETY IS OVERRATED. AND THEN TEACH ME ABOUT BLURRING LINES, LIKE THOSE THAT DIVIDE WHAT IS AND ISN’T APPROPRIATE IN A PUBLIC SPACE, THE LINES THAT MARK UP THE PAGES ATOP MY PIANO. TEACH ME TO BLUR THE LINE THAT DIVIDES THE SPACE BETWEEN OUR BODIES.

NIGHT FALLS, THINGS SHARPEN AND BLUR SIMULTANEOUSLY. I STAND WITH THEM ON THE EDGE OF TIME, STRADDLING THE DIVISION BETWEEN A WORLD OF CHAOTIC STRESSES AND THIS CALMNESS THAT HAS SETTLED. SETTLED OVER ME.

Memory Loss

I tell you my secrets because I know you'll forget them anyway. They're safe in your perfect memory loss.

Here you are, someone who won't press, won't pry, won't ask, won't notice. Not until I make it so. And in those moments of telling, hold me and and hush me and kiss me. Whisper sweet words that peel themselves from the dusty pages of books left years untouched on your bookshelf, words plagiarized from movies and literature and social dictations, words that fit against mine like bodies in dance. In a frat party dance, thrown together into a strangely concordant closeness.
Part of me wants it to be the close contact position of a slow waltz danced barefoot under moonlight. Not two bodies moving with each other, but two bodies moving merged as one. But the moon is bright, the beams coaxing out every word of my soul and capturing them like dusty spirals of betrayal, drawing forth from the pale white vapor of my whispers so many words I dared not say out loud for so long. Secrets are not meant to live as silvery pieces of evidences.

So I tell you my secrets within the confines of a chaotic darkness, lit by blacklight and artificial colors so caught up in the excitement they embody that they don't have the time or patience to capture and secure my words. Move your hips with mine and I'll tell you another sentence. Rest your head on my shoulder, and I'll give you another. Wrap an arm around my waist and I'll tell you words of a species so rare they're critically endangered. I can almost see the words dance with our bodies in the flashing light, moving through your head and out like the pounding beats that surround us.

I'm satisfied with someone to listen, for now, but let me know when you're ready to listen. Until then, keep my secrets for me in the perfect safety of your memory loss.

A handful of quotes

"You are full of pretty answers." ~William Shakespeare, As You Like It

"I am falser than vows made in wine." ~William Shakespeare, As You Like It

"'was' is not 'is'... the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster, they are both the confirmer of false reckonings." ~William Shakespeare, As You Like It

"What dost thou know?"
"Too well..." the petty love that words do show. (William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night)

I know just how easy it is to spin beautiful words from the mind and off lovers' lips. It's like robotic painting--beautiful to the senses, but without any sort of depth at all.

Make Love to Me -- Writing Experiment #3

yet another day-long writing project. enjoy :)

WAYS OF MAKING LOVE: list them.

12:01pm
1 cup of chocolate, half with a raspberry filling for those days of sweetness, half dark for those days where you just need to cry
2 cups of fairy dust, because god knows you'll need a lot of that

1 dash of tequila, for those spontaneous days
5 oz. vintage wine, for those romantic nights

2 advils, to quell the fights
2 strawberries, for natural sweetness

Several handfuls of music notes, for every occasion, with enough staff lines to bind you together
A pinch of kisses and tears, just to taste

Shaken, not stirred.
You can't stir love.

12:18pm
Start with words. Words spoken on a summer evening with a caribbean breeze that drifts past that balcony, that lifts the salt spray off the water, that stirs hair and dresses and dreams.
Make love to me with words alone. words are my slaves, but they're also my weakness.
Make love to me with words. It's an art form. Just try. You'll be surprised.

9:05pm
Experiment with proximity, play with the differences between close contact and distance.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. and Absinthe makes everything fonder.

Make love... intoxicated
Make love... rough
Make love... sparkle like drugged effects
Make it loud and glittery and dramatic.
That's how you make love. But to live it is something entirely else.

Map my mind -- Writing Experiment #2

Emma's Play has come to a standstill. Mostly because I'm far too lazy to edit all 100+ pages. I have another story underway with characters all screaming in my head, but I don't want to rush it since it has a strict week-by-week timeline. Words are withering at my fingertips. I need them to dance and live and thrive for me again.
-__________________________-

Do exeriements with sensory memory: record all sense images that remain from breakfast, study which senses engage you, escape you:

12:23pm
Droplets of dew that gather like bubbly stalactitest under a layer of plastic wrap, that make you wonder if the dinner underneath all that is still edible. Fridge or leave it?
Leave the leftovers; have that random peach in the fridge, wedged between strawberries and half an avocado, for breakfast.
Strawberries, and a whirl of memories of a different time. Images of white boxes loaded with strawberries and a dollop of yogurt, eaten fresh in a closed classroom somewhere in Gilman Hall, Aerosmith blasting from your headphones, white chalkdust all over your hands and jeans as you draw charts, numbers, letters, frustrate yourself over the solution to a game theory problem about weapons of mass destruction. 
My breakfast really is not that interesting... besides the part of a muffin that my sister couldn't/didn't want to finish. That was a good muffin. :)

2:12pm
Iced tea in a Dunkin' cup, with barely a third of it left. Two lemon wedges, one bobbing on its side like a displaced fish, wondering which way to turn, what to do with its life. Sounds kinda like me right now.
That's incredibly and unnecessarily depressing. The lights are off in this room and day is overcast. All my work glows with that cloudy filtered light, a copy of natural light, the type that tempers your breathing to pace with the quiet hum of the printer and eventually puts you to sleep.
I shouldn't fall asleep here and everyone in here knows why ;)

3:13pm
Think about time. And light. And music. How much your fingertips miss the feel of those keys, among other things that they miss. Paint. Graphite against a blank page, melting shades and gradients into live dimensionality. 

5:17pm
Sharpie fumes that swirl into the dark lines that make up a sketch of your lemons at the bottom of an empty Dunkin' cup. Fumes that swirl with enough force on your mind to challenge the effects of a handful of Advil. Fumes that turn vibrant summer yellows into an inky blackness whose intensity you cannot control.
Because sharpies are so difficult to draw with :(

Craving Inspiration

Flood my life with music,
And I'll write you a story.
Fill my days with timeless chords,
And I'll provide you the words.
Give me an endless rhythm,
And I'll give you your dancers.
Scatter a handful of notes across my world,
And I'll let the letters play off my fingertips
Just how you want it,
If you would only play your fingertips off me
Just how I want it.
"Touch me till my ribs become piano keys
Till there is sheet music scrolled
Across the inside of my lungs."*
Give me music,
And I'll give you your story.

*"Stay" by Andrea Gibson, a brilliant artist

Letter of the day: S

S's are very volatile letters.
They can look so delicious,
Or perhaps deliciously delightful,
With their full arching curves
And easy flowing lines.
Or they can look inquisitive,
But just barely, emanating in its form
The form of the master symbol of inquiry.
?
Or the S can be luxuriously fancy,
Slanting and spiraling across
Well more than its fair share of space
But it's so beautifully and masterfully proportioned
That its lounging habits are forgiven.
Or perhaps it's angry,
A sharp and hasty scrawl of a line
That barely has the peace of mind
To follow a singular direction.
Now say the letter:
Feel the curves in your mouth,
The smoothness of it over your tongue,
The tight hiss that forces its way through
Your lips and teeth.
S.
Such a volatile, versatile letter.
One of the most commonly used of our alphabet.
And for good reason.

Spurt

Sometimes, a lot of the time actually, my brain just makes up sentences of its own accord for no apparent reason.

Picture credit to friend & awesome artist Christine L.

            As temperamental as the play of light over a cathedral door, always in a state of fluctuating beauty against the tests of age and time. Separate pieces, but inherently pieces of a whole. A masterpiece in the making. Sweet one moment, playful the next, as if changing with the shifting sound waves in the air around, creating its product in reaction to its own product.

            That was the music he brought her. That was the melody she heard in her head as she scrambled for inspiration. Nothing could be better for spawning spontaneous creativity than spontaneous creativity. Every shift in the notes led her mind down a new direction, and the possibilities were endless. She can write forever, as long as there was enough song to match the gliding of her pen across paper, a dance in tandem, for the sole purpose of creation. This is where art is born, from the calloused fingertips of the passionate.

            A cascade of notes, like a shower of rain, or an early spring breeze through silver wind chimes. Music that swells from someplace far away, a place where laughs are made to add years to people’s lives, where skies are forever blue and birds in tropical colours shatter monotony with the charms of their rainbow songs. Art made between stone walls and stress lined papers, in the heart of a bustling yet troubled city. Focal point. Vantage point. Starting point, for a new study to a new Renaissance. How fitting, on this eve of Easter.

All the Unsaid

Write from the heart. Let the words breathe the same air as that of your soul. Hide within fiction all that you can
never say.

They were so young, back when their worlds first collided on a note strung high on a violin string, at some street corner in the middle of the fall months. She was just nineteen, only a sophomore in college; he was but a year older. Among the hundreds that attended the music festival that day, he drew her attention. She was intrigued by the bubble of calm contemplation around him, by the quiet observance with which he watched the violinist, by the angular lines of his face, his tall, lanky build, the delicately flexible structure of his hands. He had the build of an athlete, the face of someone who spent his days under the wind and sun, and the hands of an artist. Yes, she was intrigued, as intrigued as she was even further back, in a time of grass and open Midwestern air.

Was it even fair to him to serve six years as nothing more than an echo of what she was looking for? Because, she realizes now, that everything that she loved in him, was but an echo, a shadow of something much more, that she loved much more in someone else.

Thoughts?

My Friends Are My Muse

Things they do, things they say, the quirks of their personality. My books are made up by the compiled seconds of the lives around me.
Thanks Tiara for the quote (bolded) :)

“It’s not a good play,” he groans.

“Anthony, have you read the reviews?” Emma asks in exasperation. “The audience, every audience who sees this, completely loves it! How can you possibly say it’s not a good play?”

He shrugs. “It’s different. This is different. Performing at theater festivals and local stages are two whole different things.”

“I know, but—” Emma tries to interject.

“Maybe it’s only so successful because we’re the best, in this group of small crappy productions. It’s like a fish in a small pond. But going on Broadway is like freefalling into the middle of the Pacific! Everything is competition, really… competitive competition! It’s not good enough to go up against that. We’re drowning here, Emma,” Anthony finishes his angry spurt and sinks even further into this depressed state.

A sort of stunned silence follows. Emma doesn’t know what to do, or say. She’s already invested so much—mostly the months and months of time—into this whole thing. She believed in Anthony, believed in the play. Now, the possibility of him backing out on her doesn’t just sting. It hurts. “You’re not giving up on me, are you?” she whispers.

Anthony gives her that hopeless look she knows too well, has seen too much. Then, out of the blue… “I hate freelancing,” he tells her flatly. “It sucks the soul out of writing.” And when he looks at her again, Emma sees reflected in his eyes his secrets of the past eight years: the expectations for him to go to school closer to home, preferably the ones that offered him a soccer scholarship; the vague disappointment in his choice of Johns Hopkins, the choice of Writing Seminars, of all things, as a major; the unspoken but ever since presence of the pressure to make good, practical well salaried use of this expensive education he insisted on getting; the unpredictable job that paid decently well in only the best of times, mediocrely in the worst, and barely pressed against a talent of his that he’d once loved and found sanctuary in. Eight years have made him volatile, drifty as flyaway as the Oklahoma breezes that tousled his hair, her skirts, dandelion seeds burdened with hushed wishes. He needs stability, Emma realizes. Something to latch onto, something solid and definite and physically grounded. For a moment, a most inappropriate smile threatens to make an appearance as she conjures a mental image of Anthony secured to a rocky mountainside by a rainbow colored kite string, flapping in the wind that drives adventurous skiers down the same steep slopes. She knows Emma’s Play is Anthony’s biggest and possibly only chance to make something of his major, one that David’s wordless scoff describes so well. And if the void of nonexistent or perhaps simply unknown or unborn, agent replies is disconcerting to her, it must be frightening to his dramatically creative mind. She flounders around in her head for something fitting, something comforting to say, and finally manages to utter, “Drowning is not the same as dying.”

Anthony flashes a quick and emotionless smile. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There’s hope for us yet.” And it comes in a sudden moment of clarity and genius. “Matthew Eliot.”

He stares at her. “Matthew Eliot?”

Emma sighs, trying to reign in the frantic racing of her mental processes. “I don’t know how to explain, but there’s this gut feeling that his is more… valuable than he seems.”

“Emma, I think taking into account that he managed the festival stuff, he’s very valuable,” Anthony says evenly.

“No, that’s not what I meant. Think about it. He was a freelance writer, or says he was, but he’s still involved in the whole publishing and production industry. He was a writer type person, yet his official job title is administrator in one of the city’s private schools. He knows about book publishing, he knows about theater production, he’s friendly enough to most people. At least enough so people are willing to work with him.” Emma explains and pauses to see if Anthony has put two and two together yet.

He hasn’t.

“I think, truly think,” Emma enunciates slowly, “that your friend Matthew Eliot would make a fine agent.”

Anthony lets this sink in. Matthew Eliot is a strange character no doubt, but he has been immensely helpful with everything from budgeting to casting to marketing to the actual production. Not to mention, after working with him for those few weeks it became clear that Matthew Eliot is a fairly well versed with the literary industry and the city that would serve as their audience. He would do. “I’ll call him next weekend,” Anthony decides.

Emma nods. “Good. Then we swim.”

Thoughts?

Ode to Cupcakes

A student's mom got my sister & I a box of cupcakes from Magnolia's Bakery in NYC. She often brings food once in a while -- I absolutely love her, not to mention her kid is quite brilliant, when he wants to be, and can be adorable (though he's at that age where he might take offense to  being called "adorable").

As Thanks to her, and to the wonderful bakery, I was inspired to write the following ode.

A collection
Of pastel delight
Encased
In clear plastic,
It might as well
Be quality glass
To match
The quality within.
Sweet on the eyes,
Sweet on the nose,
And especially lovely
To the tongue,
Each crafted with
The purpose of enticing,
To pleasure the senses.
Treasure
That perfect swath
Of curliqued frosting --
Pink, mint green, lavender,
Chocolate,
Topped with a scattering,
A carefree pattering
Of rainbow sprinkles,
Result of a spring breeze
That added magic
Upon magic,
Beside the delicate flowers
Of molded sugar.
Take a dollop
Off the tip
With the tip
Of your tongue;
Just to taste.
Treasure
That singular moment
Of biting
Into a cloud
Of chocolate,
Of vanilla,
Of fluffy delight,
That captures
And enchants
Your sensual receptors.
Listen
To the demands
That are made of you:
Wicker chairs,
A porch in line
Of the spring breeze,
A glass decanter
Of barely sweetened
Iced Tea;
Match with
A china saucer,
With pale blue trim
And pink flowers;
Set across the yard
From
A blossoming
Magnolia Tree --
Namesake
To your delight:
Magnolia's Cupcakes.

My characters piss me off

I'm being quite productive with my book... As productive as possible given the months of writers block. The plot is moving along quite nicely until one of my characters (you know who you are >.<) decides to completely annoy me to my wits' end. And it always seems to be him that ends up angering me too. I quote:

"So," he says at length, tell me about this play. Emma's play." He laughs a little at the name.
"What do you want to know about it?"
"Well what is it about?"
She thinks about this. "I can't tell you because the author doesn't know. -.-" "

For those of you who are thinking "isn't the entire novel called Emma's Play?" : technically yes, but there is also a play that the main character wrote with the same title... And it's quite central to the book... But I don't know what this very important play is about. (better explanation here?) I don't know whether I should thank the above mentioned character or resume being upset at him.

Unconscious Writing

Ugly handwriting >.<

General rule that I should follow: don't write when I'm at the point of falling into dead sleep.

If you carefully read my last blog post, you'll probably notice the massive amounts of typos present in the post itself and in the excerpt text... Note the time I posted.
But that does not even compare to what I just churned out in the past twenty minutes or so.
Behold, the evidence of trying to write a book while extremely tired (I did doze off at a few points in the story, as can be seen by the degradation of my handwriting):

"Emma immediately knows what he is referring to. Part of her wants to refuse, and really do what she was 'considering' [sleep], but a currently much more dominant side is urging her to accept. She is at the point where relaxation and a distraction are desperately needed, and craved. Given the unending stresses of the past few weeks, this seems like a pretty good option. Simple, und unhindered fun with a dose of playful forbidden rough long awaited chemistry. So she runs with it, and tells him 'yes'. Within minutes, she receives a followup email to confirm her random Spring Break trip to Nantucket Island (Hyannis? Cape Cod?)"

I don't know how much of that even made sense, given what I was trying to convey. All I know is that it definitely needs to be rewritten... And that last sentence has absolutely nothing to do with the story; those are my almost random spring break plans.
Holy goodness.

Though now I am intrigued; next time I realize my writing is correlating with the inner depths of my unconscious rather than the actual plot, I should just keep going, and see where my pure and uncensored thoughts really take me.

And onto reading about the Middle East.

A touch of sap

This might not be at my usual standard, but I also haven't seriously touched this document in weeks & weeks. The reconnection is a taking a painfully long time to come about, but it is coming.

Inspirational words: "Spontaneous" & "dancing", courtesy of Esette.

Anyway, here goes (it's pretty sappy, but then again, which romantically based novel isn't?):
“He was waiting for her after the play was over. When she finally had the time to get herself away from the crowds of friends and family, she walked across the school, into dark night, still fully costumed in her fairy dress and holding the huge bouquet he gave her. ‘Hi,’ she said.”

The timer decides to ring at the point, interrupting the tense silence in the room. Everyone jumps, and Reina glares at Allie’s phone. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Shut that thing off.”
Allie does so before Reina even finishes her sentence and looks impatiently at Emma. “Finish the story.”
Livy nods eagerly.
Anthony hasn’t said a word.
Emma takes a deep breath. “Ok. So she went up to him and said ‘hi.’ And he told her how amazing she was as the fairy witch in the play. She thanked him for the flowers,” she quips briskly, speeding through the basic details, buying herself time enough to settle back into that pre-timer zone. She takes another deep breath, and goes more fully into the story. “He smiled at her, and said he’s glad that she liked them. And then he said, quite randomly and completely out of the blue, ‘Beauty and her prince found true love. Everyone at the end of the play is happy. But you never found your match.’
“She looked at him confusedly, not sure what he meant.
“And then he asked, just as spontaneously as before, ‘Dance with me?’”
Anthony suddenly takes over the story from there. He has been silently mouthing almost every single word that the fictional boy said.  Everyone stares at him in surprise, but he ignores the shocked looks and forges ahead. “She looked at him for a long time, then dropped the bouquet on the ground and stepped right into his waiting arms. ‘I’m going to get in so much trouble if I mess up this dress. They’ll make me pay for it,’ she whispered.
“‘I’ll pay for it,’ he said confidently, took her hands, and began waltzing her across the grass. They danced by an imagined rhythm, an imagined song that seemed to float from the wings the lightning bugs around them. A warm, late spring night song created just for them.’ There were so many things he wanted to say then, but he didn’t want to disturb the peace of the moment. Yet if he really had to voice one of his thoughts, he would have told her that he didn’t want her to find her match. He was hoping she would simply realize it.”

Thoughts?

2:40am

Wrote this in sophomore year of high school, but I think it's quite applicable now. My brain will also short circuit if I have to think of Marxism anymore. Oh comparative politics paper, why must you exist?!

2:40AM

Ho hum

Click clack

Hum hum

Click clacking

Keys clacking

Mind slacking

        Thoughts churning

        Head spinning

Eyes dimming

Click clack click clack

Spanish orals

        Backgrounds

        Florals

                Facebook

                Email

                •••>>send

Look!

Scritch scratch scratchy scratch

Cosine theta

        Sine theta

        nCr

Factorials!

Click clacking

Creative writing

        Attention thinning

                Head spinning

                        Thoughts churning

                Mind slacking

        Keys clacking

Clacking clacking

Click clack

Clack clack

Ho hum

Sigh thump

Snore…

The Show Must Go On

It's been nearly two months since I actually wrote anything for this, but as they say, the show must go on. Emma's Play will continue.

Figured some of you may like this excerpt. I had fun writing it :)
Let me know what you think.

“Yes. Green tea. Just how you like it,” Emma responds with a laugh. “You would not believe the amount of tea bags I put into that thing. It was almost like that time you got pissed at the school cafeteria.”Anthony glowers at her as she explodes into a fit of giggles. Sometime during their sophomore year of high school, the school cafeteria failed for the third time in two months to serve nachos, when it had apparently said it would. In a fit of sudden rage, Anthony, the nacho aficionado, decided to go and steal all the green tea bags the cafeteria had put out for their lunch period. At the end of lunch, Emma discovered a packet Anthony apparently missed, a packet she offered to her friend Brian, who subsequently turned it into a photography series entitled “Vladimir, the traveling teabag and his quest through Clermont high school.” The photo series was ridiculously popular and beautifully compiled, won a staggering pile of awards, and eventually helped Brian get his admission letter to the Rhode Island School of Design. Anthony, on the other hand, was left with several months’ worth of teabags and a heightened liking for green tea.

What writers read

Some time ago, a friend, who seemed pretty interested in going through the contents of the bookshelf in my dorm, told me "I want to know what writers like to read."
Fair enough.
The book collection in my dorm consists of textbooks which probably won't be touched again until absolutely necessary (except perhaps the history one), a small collection of historical political writings/the IPLE writers (Locke, Rousseau, Machiavelli, Erasmus), selected British novels from that killer of an English class (Dorian Gray, Portrait of the Artist, Brideshead), and my own books.
But, as I told my friend, that shelf is not an entirely accurate depiction of this particular writer's reading habits.

Having spewed out 3.5 novels, I have somewhat of an understanding of what writers typically like to read. Quite generally, the shelves would probably consist of:

Shakespeare, Pulitzer, Jane Eyre, history books

more history, Chinese books, Somerset Maugham books

Lots and lots of old books, to study the styles and elements that have stood the test of time, to see the numerous ways language can and has been used. As I tell my students all the time, writing is wordplay, and nothing gives more interesting examples of wordplay than old books.

Twilight, Harry Potter, James Patterson, Bill Clinton
Romeo & Juliet, Monte Cristo, Narnia

Contemporaries, just to see what other people are writing at the same time as you are. Read the good, the bad, and the exceptional, and figure out why they are the way they are.

At least that's what's on my bookshelf at home, and the reasonings behind why they're there (besides for the simple joy of reading).

Most importantly though, after having written so much, reading becomes more than just for enjoyment, or for seeking knowledge. It becomes an exercise in analysis of success and enchantment, a study of the very mystique that captivates human minds through the simple presence of ink on a page.