tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post1425439936015175782..comments2024-03-26T09:01:16.368-07:00Comments on I Hate Cheryl Strayed: Part Sixteen of a review of "Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail," Chapter Condoms, Part Condoms: Condoms.Califohioanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11663315815873691593noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-12303738338425423852021-04-16T04:26:38.085-07:002021-04-16T04:26:38.085-07:00Thank you for this post, if you would like to know...Thank you for this post, if you would like to know more about <a href="https://endinghivoklahoma.org/free-condoms-from-health-department/" rel="nofollow">free condoms from health department</a>, this might be of your liking!Jamesisaachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11085528783793057042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-23292385924490083812021-04-16T04:26:16.912-07:002021-04-16T04:26:16.912-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Jamesisaachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11085528783793057042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-52559167600134327462015-10-02T14:33:06.560-07:002015-10-02T14:33:06.560-07:00Good one. Good one. MS M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10280791214271309023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-20210583254881071312015-10-01T16:31:08.313-07:002015-10-01T16:31:08.313-07:00And what credit might that be?And what credit might that be?Califohioanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11663315815873691593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-31134775461071435102015-10-01T11:01:17.571-07:002015-10-01T11:01:17.571-07:00Oh get real. That's not the same thing at all...Oh get real. That's not the same thing at all. Maybe you don't like her or her book, but at least give credit where credit is due. MS M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10280791214271309023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-4669868548435872812015-01-31T19:52:05.488-08:002015-01-31T19:52:05.488-08:00Then she burned the Michener book so no one would ...Then she burned the Michener book so no one would catch a glimpse of it at the next resupply stop and fail to be impressed by her sophistication when she pulled whatever her new book was out of the box. And after that whether she kept making an attempt to read her new books or just flaunted them around her fellow hikers and then tossed them into the flames the first time she was alone with a fire is anyone's guess. I don't believe it bothered her for one second. I rather suspect she enjoyed showing some of the most notable writers of the twentieth century who was boss: maybe she'll never write like Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor, but that doesn't matter because they're just kindling to a person like her anyway. If you can't join 'em, beat 'em, eh Cheryl?Truth Unleashedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09793982086613109484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-52885712230994780142015-01-31T19:47:30.146-08:002015-01-31T19:47:30.146-08:00Okay, let's suppose that Cheryl decided she ab...Okay, let's suppose that Cheryl decided she absolutely *must not* ever find herself without reading material, even for a night. Obviously, you'd think she could read Adrienne Rich in a pinch, but we know she didn't because at the end of the book she opens it for what she admits is only the second time on this hike. And we know she reads for escape, so curling up with the guidebook at the end of a day on the trail isn't going to work for her. So okay, she decides that instead of burning her books a few pages at a time, she'll keep each one and re-read if necessary until she has something new to replace it. But if she'd been doing that, she could send her old books home at the resupply stop, or leave them for someone else to enjoy, instead of burning them. If the O'Connor stories had been the first book she'd had with her, we might conclude that she decided the extra weight wasn't worth it and started burning pages then. After all, she admits that if she hadn't traded it for another book, she would have burned it that night. But she'd already admitted to having burned "As I Lay Dying" in nightly increments before that. So apparently the only book she was willing to burn, but carried around with her fully intact longer than necessary, was the one that was probably heaviest? Even by Cheryl standards that doesn't make sense.<br /><br />Thinking back over it, I don't remember anything she wrote that would indicate Cheryl had actually read any of those books. She has a lot to say about the guidebook, and quotes Adrienne Rich, but of the novels and story collections she claims to have read, she says nothing specific. I'm not asking for a book report here - just, perhaps, a line here and there about why she chose this particular book, how she feels about that particular author, how the subject matter in the book she's reading now speaks to her more than the book she read before and why. I mean, this is *Cheryl Strayed*, the brilliant writer: why wouldn't we want to hear her thoughts about the books she reads? Instead, other than an admission that a book by an author who isn't a Great Writer can be worth reading even if it lacks highbrow cred, she doesn't really have anything to say about her reading experiences.<br /><br />I suspect that she may have planned to spend the summer hiking by day and reading Great Literature by night, because actually that would be pretty awesome, but of course because she's Cheryl she had to go for a blend of notoriously challenging and semi-obscure for her reading list because she's *so smart* and *so well-read* already. Being the good feminist that she is, she was careful to pack mostly white male writers. Then she got out on the trail and realized she forgot to pack a dictionary (which kind of surprises me, actually, because it's the kind of thing you'd expect her to do) and some of these writers use some big-ass vocabulary words. And their language and themes aren't necessarily what you're up to tackling when you're tired and sore. And there's no one around anyway to appreciate how brilliant and sophisticated she is, so ah fuck it. She chucked Faulkner into the fire in disgust, convinced herself she was doing it for good hikerly reasons, and hey, maybe that's where she found the time to work on that journal of hers. At her first resupply stop she had that nice beautiful Flannery O'Connor book waiting for her, and she was motivated to give her summer reading program another try. Turns out that didn't suit her either, so when the chance arose to trade it for a James Michener novel, she pretended she was finished with it already and willing to settle for something beneath her standards just to have something new to read. Michener's smooth, nonpretentious prose actually provided the enjoyable escapism she'd been seeking, and she convinced herself she was broadening her horizons and rediscovering her mother, because cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.Truth Unleashedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09793982086613109484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-15944747425480872912015-01-30T20:22:27.484-08:002015-01-30T20:22:27.484-08:00Oh, I believe Doug and Tom were surreptitiously wa...Oh, I believe Doug and Tom were surreptitiously watching, all right, but not because they were checking Cheryl out. They were enjoying the comedy but had the decency to hide their smirks.<br /><br />Unlike you and tori, I'm no hiker. What I am is a voracious reader and all-around bibliophile, and here's where it's my turn to call out Cheryl on some of her bullshit. See, I actually understand where she's coming from - or pretending to - when she isn't thrilled about burning books. I know there's a difference between the destruction of an individual copy of a book and Nazi censorship, but the sight of a book on fire is just painful to me ... similar to how I know America isn't going to fall because some idiot burns a flag, but that doesn't mean I want to see something I love desecrated. Anyway, I don't actually think Cheryl gave a shit about burning books. Then again, I'm not sure she really burned all the books she says she did.<br /><br />I'm at least familiar with most of the books she claims she read on the PCT, and in fact I own several of them. "As I Lay Dying" and "Lolita" are fairly average-length novels, maybe around 300 pages. "Dubliners" is half that length. "The Novel" is over 400 pages, which is actually pretty short for James Michener, but it's a mass-market rather than a trade paperback, meaning that it's printed on a smaller size paper. These are NOT heavy books.<br /><br />Granted, they're still surplus weight. But there was one book, other than the Adrienne Rich poetry, that she didn't burn: The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor. Although she claims to burn the pages she's read that evening before going to bed at night, she somehow made an exception for this one. Remember that house where a kind family of book-lovers invited her to join them for a meal and get washed up, and Cheryl seriously considered asking if she could move in with them because obviously they would have been okay with that because she's Cheryl, but she didn't want to be a quitter and blah blah blah? She trades them the Flannery O'Connor for another book. For some reason, she hadn't been burning that one as she went along, and she'd already finished it and started back up at the beginning just to have something to occupy her time in the evenings. Well, here's the thing: a paperback of the complete stories of Flannery O'Connor is about 600 pages long. She'd already burned her book about the use of map and compass - a little over 100 pages - without having mastered these skills, so determined was she to get rid of excess weight, but now she's carrying around a 600-page book she's already finished. And it's a book of short stories - it's not even like a novel in which you might want to find yourself referring back to something in an earlier chapter. Something about this just doesn't add up.<br /><br />(To be continued)Truth Unleashedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09793982086613109484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-59020285033464261052015-01-04T17:43:22.844-08:002015-01-04T17:43:22.844-08:00Sorry, I'm just catching up.
I'm an agn...Sorry, I'm just catching up. <br />I'm an agnostic by name, weak atheist by belief. <br />I took my seven year old niece for a PCT section hike the day after Christmas. That's how we celebrate. My niece hiked from Kelso Valley Road to Walker Pass in three days with nary a bitch, piss, or moan....or throwing her shoes over a cliff. We slept in a tent for three nights, one at 5700 elevation with a dusting of snow and she enjoyed every moment. In all fairness, her dad ATVed in to check on us near Yellow Jacket, but she wanted to keep going. So, to summarize, a 7 year old girl did a forty plus mile hike in less than 18 hiking hours on the same trail section Cheryl likely skipped cuz' hikin' is hard. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-16667189979111152982014-12-25T12:38:48.199-08:002014-12-25T12:38:48.199-08:00Oh, and merry Christmas if you celebrate. I know ...Oh, and merry Christmas if you celebrate. I know you had said you're an agnostic, so I can't be sure. I'm a full-blown atheist, so instead of spending the day singing happy birthday to a magical, wish-granting sky wizard, I'm going to be writing about how much of a big fucking liar Cheryl Strayed is. Merry Thursday, friend!Califohioanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11663315815873691593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-21333031118125423212014-12-25T12:36:14.876-08:002014-12-25T12:36:14.876-08:00This information pisses me off so much. I'm l...This information pisses me off so much. I'm looking at her dumb book right now and it inexplicably says "biography" on the back cover, which confuses me because it should say "autobiography" if it's her own life she's writing about.<br /><br />Two things:<br />1. She is playing this off as if every fucking word of it is true, which, by definition, means it is supposedly NON-FICTION.<br /><br />2. What the fucking fuck are they talking about with this "project about loss and redemption" nonsense? When did the "redemption" part happen? Not anywhere in the goddamned book. She starts off as a stupid, self-absorbed whore and ends as a stupid, self-absorbed whore.<br /><br />Fuck everyone involved in this big bag of bullshit.Califohioanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11663315815873691593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-37914422798193326912014-12-24T20:07:46.656-08:002014-12-24T20:07:46.656-08:00Omg! So, this was bugging me last night and so I c...Omg! So, this was bugging me last night and so I called my trail Angel friend in Lone Pine to ask about the trail in 1995. You see, my trail friends has hiked from Tehachapi to The John Muir Trail, over Kearsage and then down into Onion Valley. Every. Fucking. Year. Sometimes, she has to do it in September due to work or fires, but usually, she hikes in tandem with the herd. <br />She remembers the talk on the trail that year and she said that a group of them contacted the production company to address some issues with the tale as told in Wild. They were told that the story, and the movie, didn't "claim to be non-fiction" and weren't interested in the hiking truth because "this was a project about loss and redemption". Ok. Fair enough...but, then, stop marketing it as a fucking PCT hike. Stop using her fudged distances in the marketing and what not. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1333541691333550838.post-43444985752136571892014-12-23T17:44:40.487-08:002014-12-23T17:44:40.487-08:00This chapter shoud've been titled "Mudwre...This chapter shoud've been titled "Mudwrestling with Condoms". <br /><br />You've said everything so much more eloquently than I could.<br /><br />One teensy, tiny note about her "journaling". In 1995, I couldn't get a bic to write for three days straight if it was cushioned in a moist, panda skinned pen holder...but Cheryl, never talks about the journal and has someone managed not to lose, damage, or run out of ink with a pen she's carried through the goddam wilderness in Monster. BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com