Why I Love Used Books

This is why I love reading used books and library books best. Here, look...a purple question mark, left behind, tucked in the folds. I've been given so many gifts over the years, underlined sentences, wrinkled bookmarks, old ticket stubs.

I love knowing that a book has passed through different lives, that it has lived its own life too.

Career Assessment

A memory of career assessment.  I was twelve years old. My desk was a flat, wooden arm, winging off my hard-backed seat.  Lead pencil smudged across the bump of my wrist.  I filled in each bubble because I knew, I knew, I'm going to be a writer.  And with every question, my heart would whisper its own.  Is this the answer a writer would give?  I circled. I nodded. I knew.

Days later, a typed description in a printed booklet crossed my desk. Lines dipped and mountain-peaked and soared on a chart.  I scanned the fuzz of wordy descriptions, so certain, so sure.

When I flipped to the final assessment, however, my heart slipped. Writer was low on the list, practically last.  Healer, it read.  Number one.

I didn't understand.  Healer?  I thought I'd be barefoot. I thought I'd hold a flute, charm a snake, rub leaves across others cheeks, touch my hand to a bowed head.

What does this mean? I asked my teacher.

She turned a page, pointed to the description, to the suggested careers.  Doctor. Nurse. Member of the clergy.

I panicked. My grades in science class were abysmal. Doctor and nurse were not in my future.  I'd have to be a nun like Sister Regina at my church, who had made fun of my sign of the cross because it was backwards. Up-down-right-left.  But everyone else went left-right.  Left-right, she had smirked and grabbed my wrist, thunked my hand against my shoulders, over and over, left-right.  

I imagined my future self in a Climb Every Mountain-esque Mother Superior habit, shouting and stomping, left-right, left-right!

Writer was its own separate category with its own suggested careers. Journalist. Novelist.  Poet.  It sat at the bottom of my list.  It sat at the bottom of me.

The Way We Keep Books

While books bulge off my shelves and cascade on my night table with occasional dog-eared pages, for the most part, I don't own many of the books I love. Most are in circulation at a library or travelling through wandering hands at a used-book store.  I used to carry certain slim books of poetry through my life but, after so many brown-box moves, they have vanished.

I used to run into someone on the subway (a person who appears in my life in strange ways since a job I had just out of school.)  What are you reading? I asked once, because he always kept a book in his pocket, a paper fold leaking from the zipper. I'm not reading it, I just like to have it with me, he said. 

I thought I understood. But then I didn't. And then, I thought, he had always been somewhat odd.

I am an avid reader and, I hope, a thoughtful one. I do like to be with books, to have them in my bag, to stand among them in cozy shops or libraries, to know they are near. But books have always stayed with me in strange ways.  I could love a book, clutch it to my heart, oh, oh, oh, and, a week later, someone could ask me its plot.  I'll hmm and stammer.  Most of the time, I don't remember the main character's name.

Books have never been reference for me.  I can't quote a single line. I can't point to the shelf, pull it out, read a passage. Oh, I read that!  I'll say when someone mentions a title. But then I never seem to know the facts, the figures, the names, the place.  

It seems a book is mine and I am its, when it is in my hands.

Feelings, stirrings, moments, do linger after I leave the pages. They do keep.  A certain wishing of almost-twin birthdays on a plane, a girl peeling potatoes in the back room of a catering hall.  Sometimes I can connect these moments to specific books. But most of the time?  I can't tell you the writer or even the title.

For someone who often considers books her life's blood, I have wondered, am I the only one, who is only able to keep pieces of books in a dusty jar of memory?

At The Piano

I sit with the memory of her gold and green living room with its mangled smell of cat litter and sweet honey lozenges. She sat against the wall, tucked beside the piano bench, in a wooden chair with its own worn cushion. She always leaned over the keys, wrote the date, with her long, shaking but careful fingers, in the corner of the page.  The date became a beginning, a pull-switch, and it would send my own hands, too small, too slender, the reach between pinky and thumb too short, to the smooth ivory in anticipation of learning a new song.

She wore glasses that magnified the ocean of her eyes.  Her hair was a soft, rolling hill of red.  I'm a little witchy, she'd tease, titter at the edge of a giggle, the quiet, mischievous glow of a small child about to do wrong.  She said this, each and every year, of her Halloween birthday, and I would follow with the same story I always did, that I was supposed to have been born that day but came early.  So, there was no connection, not really, only that we could have shared that but didn't.

Her husband came and went in shadow through their small home, shuffled past the open door, tinkered in the pantry. I'd hear the clank of porcelain against the metal sink basin, the quick, flinch of television static, then the kind of purposeful, certain quiet that comes with having to be quiet. Because the living room was hers.  And my fingers perched over the sturdy upright piano for those forty-five minutes each week meant that it was ours. The crumpled green grass of rug beneath the pedal.  The tink of silver chain that lit up the sheet music.  Heavy, thick, drapes hurdling to the floor.

Once a year, there would be a recital in summer. We'd fill that one room entirely, folding chairs tangled up in one another. Children in crumpled pants and dresses with lopsided hems. Our parents pressed up against the front door or the coat rack or the wall-papered seams of the space.  And we'd play in order. From youngest to oldest.  My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean to Debussy and Chopin. The same songs, each year that we progressed, until I was seventeen and college bound, playing a song I'd heard played ten years earlier by a teenager I never knew when I still wore patent leather shoes and my green-stained knees were covered in itchy tights.

It was only at the recital that we saw the rest of her home.  That we'd spill from that familiar room into the sun-soaked kitchen with its checkered curtains and round Formica table.  The screen door to the backyard would swing open and we'd scatter.  The oldest students with arms crossed, leaning against the shingles of the house.  The youngest hiding behind their parents chatter or running in the open grass.

She'd serve us lemonade and store-bought cookies, then present us with plastic statues, miniature busts of the great composers.  Some years I'd receive a statue I already owned and I'd line it up anyway, twin Bachs, on top of my piano at home, until that last year, when I did not receive a bust at all but, instead, a gold pin I've since lost. One gold note meant to hold all the notes I had ever learned.

Memory of Sintra

I woke up this morning and, for some reason, my head was here.  In Portugal at the Palácio da Pena in Sintra.  We walked the wet paths, clutching our umbrellas, through fairytale mist.  The lush woodlands carved out this picture of slippery yellow and grey, dripping to just a blur.

We took the train back to Lisbon and, the next day, my friend Lynn and I met up with Graça, a stranger to me and, up until then, just a woman who penned work e-mails to Lynn.  She was barely five feet tall, in a black suit one size too small, cheeks red and chubby.

Graça had a lot to say.  About everything.  Barely let us sneak in a word.  She led us through the streets, always marching many steps ahead, forced baked goods into our hands, analyzed event spaces (Lynn was there on business.  I was, as usual, observing...tagging along.) Her judgements were much bigger than her height.  She was unimpressed with almost all that she saw.

You went to Sintra yesterday? Her eyes huge with disapproval.  What a silly thing to do.  To see one of the most beautiful places in the world, in the pouring rain.


I don't know why I think of Graça and Sintra today.  But, for me, Sintra will always belong to the rain.

Such Stupid Things

The other night I attended a party where I didn't know very many people. I'm not good at mingling. The idea of wandering around a room, never able to truly settle into one conversation, makes me crazy. I'm not sure how to engage in a real discussion when everyone is there and then off again, to say hi to so-and-so, get another glass of wine, grab some kind of puffed pastry.

So I become an investigative reporter. I ask hundreds of questions until people are sick of me and desperate to move on. It's the only way I know how to get through.

One of my grueling interviews involved a series of questioning about what it is like to have a child attend college. My 'interviewee' was worried about his son running off to do something incredibly stupid and I asked if that was because he, himself, had done stupid things in college. He hadn't. But he wished he did.

I thought back to my own days at Cornell, 'on the hill', as they say. Thought back to a few of the stupid things I did in a state of wild abandon. I swam in a lake during a severe thunderstorm. (And it was no accident, I intentionally went out during a thunderstorm to swim and later discovered that a woman drowned in that very lake the same day.) I walked down a crumbling path into a 200 ft gorge at midnight to swim under the haze of alcohol, barely 100 pounds and having had far too many drinks to do something so dangerous.

But when I think of those times, I do not fear what could have happened to me, though I realize both experiences could have had a tragic end.

I only fear what would have happened to me had I not done them.

Because I knew once what it felt like to swim between the rush of a waterfall and the rain pelting down, not knowing or caring which washed over my shoulders and soaked my hair. To descend into a gorge and jump, fully clothed, from slippery rocks into water, under moon and endless sky, and not know its bottom. Not know its end.

Pages and Pages

I'm not sure how I found Kerri Arista. Somehow or another I stumbled upon her blog, or perhaps it was the other way around, and then discovered this wonderful voice. Both her blogging voice and singing voice are beautiful to listen to and I'm so glad I've come to know her through her blogging.

She recently chronicled her journey in The 50/90 Challenge, a challenge to write 50 songs in 90 days. And her final song reminded me so much of how it feels to finish the first draft of a manuscript, I had to post the song and lyrics for all you writers out there. I think creative endeavors are not all fanciful muses, inspiration, light bulb, and unicorns. It's a lot of work. A lot of pages.

Thank you, Kerri, for letting us listen! :-)

pages and pages

by Kerri Arista

i'm gonna make it to the bitter end without becoming bitter

i'll make it to the finish mark and declare that i'm a winner

i've crossed so many milestones

i've risen from the dead

the only bags i packed were full of words inside my head

i've filled pages and pages to get to the truth

dug up memories hoping they would give me a clue

sordid little details of unimportant things

forgive me for i've included everything

i'm run down to the ground and i'm on my last leg

i will crawl in if i have to cuz i've got something to say

but it's a fight down to the finish

and there are ink stains on my hands

i've been alone with all these words about as long as i can stand

i've filled pages and pages to get to the truth

dug up memories hoping they would give me a clue

sordid little details of unimportant things

forgive me for i've included everything

The Lost Stories

About a year and a half ago, my dear computer was on the fritz (is that a real expression? I've heard my mother use it). It had strange start-ups, often went into safe-mode, and it froze a lot. While I could still get on, I frantically took everything I had ever written in the past five years and put it on a flash drive. Just in time, because a few days later the computer officially died. I asked the IT guru at work and he told me I needed a new hard drive which, to my surprise, was not very expensive. He was also nice enough to install it and update it and everything. I basically had a brand new computer and it works to this day.

Flash forward to about six months ago. I had been knee deep in my novel for two years by that point and I was not working on anything else. Suddenly, I realized that I had never taken all of the backup files from the flash drive to put them back on to my computer. Imagine my surprise when I plugged in the little key and it said: ERROR. This can't be, I said to myself, You can't lose the backup. Who backs up a backup? That's what the backup is for.

For the past 6 months, I have enjoyed living in denial. I have plugged it back in several times since then and received the same error. I nervously giggled and politely said to my little flash drive: Oh my little flash drive, you're so silly. Your errors must be erroneous.

About two weeks ago, I decided that the flash drive's behavior was unacceptable. I downloaded a host of programs to 'reformat' the drive. And they were all unsuccessful. I took it to the geek squad and was laughed at: Sorry lady, that thing is completely toasted.

And so, I very slowly let it sink in. I have officially lost about 5 years worth of writing. Which includes three full length screenplays and at least a dozen short stories. As well as a lot of false starts that I always planned to come back to.

Alas, it is not meant to be.

I will miss the screenplays. They were not very good, but there were some good ideas there and I would very much like to read them. And I will miss the short stories. Because, my goodness, they've sat alone long enough. I thought I might like to edit them and work to get them published. But most of all, I will miss the false starts. Because I do believe they deserved a second chance.

And so, I'd like to honor some of lost stories here and now:

Baz and Andy. I hope you are well on the north shore of Long Island.

The girl who stole the piece of the old fountain. What will you do with it now?

The boy who lost the water fight who later ended up in jail. Sometimes it's hard to change true stories, even when you pretend they are fiction.

Susan who lives upstairs, who was always looking down.

The woman in France. I'm sorry that you are frozen in an unwelcome reunion with your gluttonous sister.

Leyna and the professor. My goodness I've left you two in quite a mess, haven't I?

And, mother and daughter, Anna and Claire. Two people who will forever haunt me. You're very persistent, more so than all the others. I know your story will get told.

Thank you all for getting me where I am today. Wherever that may be...

Please feel free to honor any lost stories in the comments below.

Following the Rules

I've always been the kind of girl who follows the rules. I always did my homework. I always listened in class. I always came home on time. I rarely gave my parents any grief. Of course there were a few screaming fits with my mother in my early teens that ended with me getting my ponytail yanked and getting some privileges taken away. But, for the most part, I never strayed far from the path. I remember being in high school, taking an exam in my French class. I was so innocently involved in the exam that I didn't notice that the entire room was actually involved in a huge cheating chain. Imagine my surprise when everyone got an A on that exam but me. Clueless.

But, I can't say that it didn't benefit me to follow the rules. I cut class only once in my high school career, towards the end of my senior year. I didn't even do anything scandalous with my time. I think I just sat in the lunch room for an additional period. I received a detention and when I walked into the room with my detention slip, the Assistant Principal laughed and said, "Melissa Sarno? I've never seen you in here before. Go home." One other time, I had some brat in my gym class begin harassing me. I might be innocent, but I don't take lightly to people getting in my face. I believe my exact words were: "F&%k off you little b^&ch" Of course, this got me sent straight to the Assistant Principal's office where she laughed and said, "Melissa Sarno? What did that girl say to set you off? You go back to gym class and send that one back to me!" So, being a goody-two-shoes can have it's perks.

When I applied for an internship in college, I remember getting an interview and being told to respond to a specific e-mail with a writing sample or information of some kind. I responded directly to the e-mail I received (not the one specified). I was told that I couldn't follow instructions and that they weren't interested in interviewing me. And that this was a 'lesson' perhaps more valuable than the internship itself.

Maybe it was. I tend to do fairly well in my professional and personal life. And, ya know, I stay out of jail. It also means I'm an excellent query-sender, quadruple checking guidelines and following instructions like it's my job. So, you can imagine my surprise when I made a pretty big omission in my latest submission (An omission in the submission. Conjunction junction, what's your function? )

I did not take well to this. I remembered that honorable C on my French exam. Not one, but two, free passes from the assistant principal. The fatal error that kicked me out of the running for the internship. No! I prided myself on being the one to do it right. That's my shtick. That's my gig. Not following the rules? Not reading the instructions? I actually began to cry. Head buried in the bed and everything. (Oh, Tyler, you're a saint.) Yes, I'm that crazy. But I didn't know where to go, what to do? What are the rules when you forget to follow the rules? I frantically admitted to my mistake, sending a kind of sickeningly-professional e-mail to an unsuspecting literary agent's assistant (oh this poor dear child). And the response?

"No worries. Happens all the time."

No worries?

If you need me, I'll be in therapy for the next 5 years.

Unfinished

I have had this strange feeling in the past few weeks of being left behind. I watch lives unfold and realize that I’m the little girl who has been sent to bed, wondering what all the adults are doing just outside my bedroom.
I suppose it is okay to feel a little unfinished while everyone else forges ahead. But I wonder if patience will ever find me. If I’ll ever be able to close my eyes and be content. Sometimes it’s difficult to ignore everything that’s happening just outside the door.

My Literary Day

Today was quite a day. A day that made me happy to be a writer and a reader. A day that made me happy all around.

I had been very excited to meet the author of The Babysitter's Club, Ann M. Martin. She is one of my all-time favorite writers. Or should I say author. My favorite author. Because when I was a child, that's what I called it. I never said, 'I want to be a writer when I grow up'. I said, 'I want to be an author when I grow up'. I'm not sure when all of that changed. It probably had something to do with me running around college campuses with manuscripts in my messenger bag listening to old men in tweed jackets. But, in any case, I met that author today.

It was not until after I met her that I realized the significance of what had just happened. I was absolutely obsessed with this beloved series. To say that it shaped who I was as a person and how I understood the world is a bit dramatic. But...honestly, when you're 8 years old, and your world is so small and who you are is ready to be defined, YES, these stories are epic. You know the neighborhood you live in, the school you go to, the friends and family you have, and when you open a book and you find a similar world alive in a story it leaves an impression that lasts forever.

I am very grateful that I was able to meet the woman who brought these stories to life for me. The stories that were such an integral part of my childhood. The stories that taught me what stories actually were and made me want to read and write them. It's hard to express what that means.

Just minutes after this, I was off to my very first book launch party. Tyler's friend, Sarah MacLean who I am friends with by proxy, was celebrating the launch of her book Nine Rules to Break When Romancing A Rake, her first adult romance novel. The 1st of a series that is sure to gain tremendous success. How wonderful it is to know someone whose dreams have been realized, who has brought her own stories to life for all the readers waiting to devour all the books in this amazing genre. I am excited to read a romance novel. I've never read one before...

It's been a loverly literary day. A good one.

Book Memory

In anticipation of meeting Ann M. Martin on Thursday, for the release of her much anticipated prequel: The Summer Before, I started to think about all the things I loved about The Babysitter's Club series when I was a kid.

Despite the fact that I read every single Babysitter's Club book in existence...I have absolutely no memory of any one of them in any kind of detail.

This made me think a lot about my memories of books. They always seem to be small, simple, strange snapshots. A hazy look at what happened once, long ago, in a quick moment. Most of the plots have completely escaped my mind.

So, I thought it might be interesting if I re-capped some of the strange things I remember about my favorite books as a child...

The only distinct memory I have of The Babysitter's Club is Claudia Kishi's phone. Claudia Kishi had her own phone. In her room. This was epic. A lot of girls wanted a phone just like Claudia Kishi's.

The only thing I remember about Black Beauty is that my childhood friend, Mimi, loved this book and had a very melodramatic, romantic image of herself riding across green pastures with her her hair flying through the wind. I hope you lived out that dream, Mimi, wherever you are...

I know the basic plot of Charlotte's Web, but what I remember most is the cover. Charlotte's hair looked like pencil scratches with thin and messy swirls.

The only thing I remember about Heidi is that I left the book in my friends backyard. And it rained. When I recovered it, it had dried up and all of the pages were stuck together. When I tried to separate them, they would rip. All the beautiful pictures were blurred.

I remember nothing about Sweet Valley Twins, another series I devoured. I think one of the twins might have been named Jessica. I feel it would be unfair to google it now. I just remember that when I got to the next level, Sweet Valley High, things got A LOT racier. I actually didn't want to tell my mother I was reading these books and decided to confiscate them from myself before she did. (Oh my goodness, was I that prude?!)

I had a similar experience with Flowers In The Attic. But I was a bit older by this time. My friend Kim recommended it, with the caveat that this had to be read in the library stacks after school, not at home. I knew that everything that was going on in this book was seriously naughty. And now I have all kinds of weird affinities for stories about incest (don't judge.)

My favorite book as a tween (although I'm not sure what they were calling that age back then) was Homecoming by Cynthia Voight. It was about a group of siblings. I don't remember the where, the why, the what. Only the how. They walked, by foot to their destination (I'm talking across state lines.) There was a beautiful sister, who couldn't speak. The themes are shockingly similar to the novel I am writing now.

I think it's interesting that the books I sigh over and remember with such fondness, books that instilled a love of reading and a love of story, books that I could not get enough of and begged my parents to buy for me or take out of the library, told stories I can not, for the life of me, remember. I think it may be time to scour the old bookshelves in my childhood home and figure out exactly why I even like to read. Geeze.

How well do you remember the books you read as a child?

Photo: Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Biking Memory #2

I had no idea I had so many biking memories, until the weather got too cold to bike. I guess this is what happens when you grow up in the suburbs and live your summers outside, sunrise to sunset.

We glanced at the darkening skies, only a quick glance, before continuing on. At that time, the streets in our neighborhood were new to us. We'd never been on them before, by ourselves, our hands gripping the handlebars whose rainbow streamers fluttered in the wind. I felt the smallest drop of rain and ignored it. We wanted to keep riding, see how far we could go before we couldn't go anymore. The rain fell harder, but it was warm against our skin. A summer rain that didn't leave a chill. Soon, it was pouring. We didn't think about our tires skidding, our hair and clothes getting soaked, our parents probably wondering where we were, we only thought about going farther, never turning back around.

I think that's what I love about biking, it makes the streets you walk and drive on every day seem new. You can always go a little bit farther and see what else there is to see.

And, there's no disclaimer here. I firmly advocate biking in the rain.

Biking Memory

Now that the frost is nipping at people's noses and it's dark and dreary at 4pm, it has become impossible to do one of my favorite things. Bike. Every year I come to this point, constantly checking weather.com hoping that there's a weekend day above 40 degrees (that's my biking temperature cut-off). It doesn't happen often and when it does, I still battle cold winds and numb cheeks, and I find it difficult (and sometimes painful!) to do the long bike rides Tyler and I so desperately enjoy. This year, due to busy and/or rainy weekends this fall, my biking season ended much earlier than it should have. Now I find myself even more restless than usual as the cold weather drops in and overstays it's welcome.

Every once and a while I like to nestle in a memory. Today of course my mind wanders to days of biking...

Before our annual block party, all the kids that lived on the same tiny street of my childhood home participated in a strange ritual. It took place in the morning, as our parents dragged out patio tables and chairs to the street, set up the bbq and placed toys on the lawn. We all hopped on our banana seat bicycles and proceeded to line up and ride in a tight circle. Around and around, over and over again, in a swirling, dizzying, wonderful circle. I remember how important it was that we participate in this ritual year after year on that special day. A day we looked forward to all summer. It's a blurry memory and I really only envision the dizzy, grey concrete underneath my bicycle tire. But I love that memory. And I always wonder when we broke away from the circle, one by one, and parted ways.

The Lisle Inn

Last February, I posted my Ode to Small Towns and mentioned the town of Lisle:

It also reminded me how amazed I had always been driving up to Ithaca, NY revelling in the small town of Lisle on Rt. 79 which is completely run down with it's dilapidated, abandoned buildings on its tiny main street. And despite the vacant, grey vibe that town always gave me, I found it simply beautiful. It was fascinating that it could be so intimate and yet spacious and empty all at the same time.

Thanks to Lost City I learned a little bit more about why Lisle was in this condition: A series of floods back in the 30's and the movement of people down South as NY became too costly to do business in. I also learned that I am not the only one who had a soft spot in their heart for this place. But, most tragically, I learned that the Lisle Inn, which I always considered a landmark on my journey to and from Ithaca year after year, burnt down this past week.

The reason I bring it up is because one of the settings in my novel is actually based on the town of Lisle, so I feel I must pay homage to it. It amazes me that a town in such ruin was able to inspire me. So much so, that I was able to create an entire world for my characters to nestle inside of.

The Inn itself always stirred the imagination. Who lived there? Who kept it up? Who would have wanted to stay there? It always seemed the Inn represented a place that was holding on to a false hope. For someone to visit. Or return.

I think there are many stories about this place that are still left to be told...

Hope Endings

Before I launch into my nonsensical rambling of the day, the title of this blog post just reminded me of something. Literally, just this moment.
Sitting in my piano teacher's house, leafing through her Reader's Digest Songbooks, and picking out an inspirational song called Whispering Hope ( And because I'm a dork, find a beautiful rendition of it here). My teacher, Mrs. Jeanne Lance, had a habit of humming songs she loved while her students played. Whenever I played this one, she couldn't hold herself back. She actually sang the lyrics out loud in a sweet, shaking soprano voice that I'll always remember her for. I am not a religious person and I had only picked the song because there was a picture of a dove on the sheet music, but this song has always lifted my spirits. Whenever I play it, I can't help but sing it out loud and proud as well. I'll always remember Mrs. Lance fondly. I don't quite know what happened to her in life. But I imagine she is happy and hopeful in her cozy home where she welcomed so many students and families and gave them the gift of music on her sturdy upright piano.

Now that I am sitting happily in this memory, I am not sure how much I need to elaborate on the concept of hope. But, in a recent writing workshop, we discussed happy endings. It was unanimously agreed that happy endings are not necessary. In fact, a majority of the class agreed that they enjoyed a real devastating ending now and again. Craved the depressing reality of things. Killing protagonists were generally frowned upon (imagine if Voldemort defeated Harry?!) but nobody seemed to mind the fictional sudden death of the old, beloved neighbor who just won the lotto (Anyone know that one?) the tragic loss of a parent, or the suicide or cancer diagnosis of beloved friend. We can handle these things.

What we determined readers can't handle is an ending without hope. Even if your protagonist has been literally and figuratively bruised and battered...beaten down by life. Even if the last thing that happens is so down-right awful it's not clear how anyone will go on. They need to GO ON. You always need to leave the reader with hope.

I agree with this conclusion. A moment of hope is how every story should end.

So what do you think? Too bold of a statement? You know plenty of hopeless stories the world loves? (If you do, please let me know, I'm trying to think of one.) Let 'em cry and close the book dejected? A little tough love is just what the world needs? What has Hollywood done to tragedy? Inquiring minds want to know whatcha think about the necessity of ending with a lil' hope.