stranger on the bus

in tenth grade i had to read the stranger by camus. i would read chopin's the awakening the following year. at the time i hated them both. i've talked about the awwakening before (how the first time i read it i thought it was lame because she just gave up, how i read it again off the bookshelf at a beach house on the outer banks and finally got it).

the stranger didn't reach me in high school, not in the way it has this time. i've been reading it on the bus ride to and from work. i finished it on the way home thursday, and found myself welling up during that dramatic final scene between meursault and the priest. perhaps it seems more relevant given the type of work i'm doing this summer. i remember the first time not understanding what drove meursault, a guy who seemed pretty normal to me, to do what he did. i remember saying really dumb conclusory shit about it in class (WHAT? the SUN was in his EYES so he KILLED someone?!?).

i have always had a problem with what i used to deem "unsatisfying endings." you know the type, where nobody wins, or where what seems to be the central conflict of the novel is never resolved. i think part of this for me anyway was that i had misidentified what the central conflict in fact was. whereas before i was terminally bothered by (and probably made asinine comments in class about) the fact that the book ends abruptly before we find out meursault's fate, i now realize that it doesn't matter. that's not the point. just like how chopin's heroine's (god i would have balked at calling her that in high school) final act was more a fierce act of individualistic defiance than a mere acquiescence to societal and familial pressures.

i never know how to wrap these thing up, so i'll just send a big "FUCK YOU" to the house of represeentatives for trying to put my man out of a job. bastards.

state library of doom

i was at the state library here in the lovely capital today doing some research. i want to see the records they have in the archives from the various governors who have granted executive clemency in death penalty cases. everyone was helpful until i made it to the archive desk. the effete little napoleon in charge gave me the stiff arm, citing some statutory language about how the governor's papers were under seal for 100 years, but i was more than welcome to return and look at them then.

i guess he didn't realize who he was dealing with. i looked up his little "statute," along with the VA freedom of information act--this took long enough that when i went back he was gone and i dealt with someone who was acutally nice and helpful and let me talk to the person in charge of those archives who could actually explain what the deal was. in the course of talking to him, we both realized that i was looking for the UNsealed, public records of the successful clemency petitions, not the unsuccessful ones. apparently, the unsealed ones come from a different office that does not require the standard 100 year wait. BUT--

he was reticent to just hand the goods over cause there might still be confidential information in them and he said the law is in a state of flux (for example, in about a week, my statutory wait will only be 75 years--woohoo). so now i have to wait for the damn head archivist to get back from vacation to just get a look at some crusty old documents. but according to my man there, they are the complete records--including letters the governor received from families of both defendant and victim, complete case files, recommendations of various important folks like judges and prosecutors, et.al.

so friends, always remember, never take no for an answer from grotty little library trolls.