The Seems: The Glitch in Sleep

The Seems: The Glitch in Sleep by John Hulme and Michael Wexler
2007
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Donating

I received this book in 2007 and have finally read it, 8 years later.  It does not feel like eight years at all.  I struggle to believe it.  Maybe life speeds up once you finish college (or school in general depending on you as a person) because there is a less tangible timeline.  People may talk about marriage, kids, retirement as a timeline, but everyone does these things at a different time, if at all.  It is not like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade where all of your peers seem to be doing it.  If they aren't, you probably wouldn't know about it because school is where you make friends.  There may be a few homeschoolers in the neighborhood, but they still have goals that are tied directly to the law.  Most people are the same age, even if they get held back a grade.  It all seems so far away.  Even thinking of "being held back a grade" is so alien to my current life that I almost do not know where that thought came from.

Anywho...

How many times do I wander down that road?

I finally read The Seems, and I was under-impressed.  I thought it had some unrealized potential, but the authors did not seem to know their audience.  The authors would reference music and artists their audience were likely never to have heard of.  I thought maybe they wanted to teach them/expose them to great art but that, in and of itself, felt cocky because they had not earned the right to introduce.  By mentioning great artists they immediately placed their own book alongside of them all and quite clearly came up short.

The story itself would often get bogged down in meaningless details and when the "fixers" fixed the world it was always anti-climatic.  Who am I to talk?  Either way, I do not recommend it.
 

Mystic Places

Mystic Places by the Editors of Time-Life Book
Mysteries of the Unknown series
1987
Weight:
Method of Disposal: Leaving somewhere in Oakhurst (GA). Unless you want it, of course!





I was mesmerized by the supernatural as a child. I think there were a couple reasons. The first being, that it was so often wrapped up with unexplained loss, pain, and a scary unknowing. A certain emptiness took over space. The other being that I might be able to answer the questions no one else could. People would have to acknowledge my value if I found proof of a life form from another planet. Unfortunately, I now realize that developing an obsession with magical monsters, over-intelligent aliens, and lost civilizations really just makes you more invisible, which then leads us back to the first reason I liked it.

The book begins with Atlantis. Who wouldn’t be intrigued with paradise on earth? People have never been able to resist that. The book twists truth, speculation, and fantasy. Enough to make a kid dream or spark the dream of an island resort in some man’s mind. A man with access to a lot of money and a passion for tourism. Throw in some dolphins—paradise on Earth.

Then, the one that really kept me up at night. The Bermuda Triangle. It made me feel like I could just vanish at any moment. And where would I end up if I did vanish? That’s scary for anyone, but it is really scary for a kid. It’s the closest I came, at the time, to contemplating death. Of course, I didn’t know it, but I recognize the panic and almost irrational fear I sometimes I experience now. I still don’t like it.

Great Pyramids, Megaliths, and “Glyphs for the Gods,” and the inner core of the Earth. Did you know a man named Olaf (like is The Series of Unfortunate Events) claimed that he had been to Inner-Earth on his deathbed in the 1900s? He had to wait because the first time he tried to tell it he was institutionalized for decades but, luckily, a friend of his put it into book form posthumously. He lived with giants before he was labeled crazy. If you do not know that, it is because you didn’t read this ragged, ridiculous, and endearing Time-Life book as a child.