The End of the Page

Love is a Mix Tape: Musically Powered Prose

What do you mean, “What is a mix tape?” I feel old.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Memoirs are dangerous and tricky things. They can be selfless and selfish at the same time, an expulsion of emotion and memory that you just needed to get out for your own sanity, while simultaneously inviting everyone through the door, basically begging them to ask for even more probing details than those laid out in the book. A common problem that arises in the development of a memoir is that you have to come off as someone interesting enough to read about, while still remaining human and humble enough that people don’t hate you for having an actual book written about your life. It’s an ambitious undertaking, but as Matthew Good points out so eloquently in his song 21st Century Living:

Ambition, ambition’s a tricky thing
It’s like riding a unicycle on a dental floss tightrope over a wilderness of razor blades (Matthew Good – Avalanche)

How much do you give of yourself before turning back from that line in the sand? How far do you walk away from the past to allow yourself to put it all down on paper, leaving others a breadcrumb path to wander back into those days gone by? Most importantly, how do you wrap it all up into a package interesting enough to make others want to ignore their own lives, step out of their shoes and walk a few hundred pages in yours? All of those questions and more plague the writer of a memoir, but now and again one finds the right combination, or in this case, the right mix, and everything flows in and out with the regularity and rhythm of the tides. It becomes relaxing and thoughtful, peaceful and terrifying, ever-changing yet always familiar. These are the ones that you read and somehow feel we all lived in our own way.

Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield is a musically charged farewell letter to a person we’ve all met at some point in our lives. The one who in normal circumstances we would never have the courage to talk to because the worlds were too far apart, but whether through cosmic destiny or the luck of the draw, that person enters your life and ignites the change you always knew would come. The book follows his relationship with his wife Renee and carves out each section in relation to a mix tape made during those cherished moments in history. This harmonic trip into Rob’s life also reminds us of the true power of music, the passion it can instill, the sorrow it can unfold and the memories it can unearth.

I saw this book a long time ago at the store and was instantly drawn to it because I was in the middle of writing my own memoir. My main reason for not reading it back then was I could already tell it was done well and something I would feverishly enjoy, but I didn’t want to consciously or subconsciously rip-off any of Rob’s devices, so I left it lying on the bookstore display table and hid it away on the shelf in the back of my mind. Years later, with my memoir wrapped up, destiny once again dropped this book in my path while trolling through Borders on the first day of their store closing sale (Everything Must Go!…and I want it all to go home with me.).

Any author of a memoir wants the reader to find something to identify with, one portion of their personality or circumstances that can draw the reader that much farther into their world. While I do enjoy my iPod injected rides to work in the morning, singing my way into the work day, hoping it will hold me through, I definitely do not identify with the level of knowledge or intensity Rob has for music (mine is more on the movie front). But as the pages turned and Rob begins to reveal his loss and how it was to walk through the fog of those weeks and months, the words spoke in an entirely new level of honesty and bravery. Anyone who has come through to the other side of a terrible tragedy will find portions of his story incredibly reminiscent of their own, although probably put in more colorful language and set to a better soundtrack.  Even those who might still be lost in the fog of sorrow would benefit from this tiny playlist of memories, almost an attempt at one person’s “Guide to Life after Life”. Die hard music fans, especially those who grew up in the angsty revolution of the 90′s, will constantly chuckle with recognition at each song listed out on the mix tape covers, but even those less musically inclined will find their heartstrings played beautifully by this story of rambunctious love and loss.

The End of the Page recommendation: Read Love is a Mix Tape to remind yourself there is music in everything, pleasure and pain, and to never tune it out.

p.s. Favorite line: “We were just a couple of fallen angels, rolling the dice of our lives.”

The Zombie Survival Guide: Humor Done Dead Serious

If only I’d read this before summer camp of ’84…

Rating: 8 out of 10

You’re standing on the top of your local water tower, while below you is a moaning and clawing horde of the walking dead. Your pump action shotgun has proved mostly useless and you’re almost out of shells anyway. What could you do to summon help? Is there any way out of your self-made trap? What could you have done to prepare better for this onslaught of undead? These are all great questions that many people think they will never have to ask themselves, but in the world of Max Brooks those questions get asked each and every day and he takes them very seriously. (Kind of…)

The Zombie Survival Guide is a completely serious approach to the methods and training needed to withstand a zombie attack. The first section details which weapons are good to use (tried and true machetes will always outdo flashy firepower, like an Uzi), which terrains are best to travel in (cities are great for location protection, but easy to get trapped in, while the frozen tundra is technically your best bet), and what kind of equipment you should pack if you’re going on the run (surprisingly, this list is eerily similar to any well-prepared hunter). Once you have the basics down for offense, defense and escape tactics, the guide proceeds to detail the long and largely secretive history of zombie attacks all over the world. From the pre-historic regions of Central Africa to an attack on the Virgin Islands only six years ago, you’ll read case after case of cover-up, deceit and blatant denial of any existence of the zombie phenomenon. Unfortunately for those trying to keep it hidden, zombies have a long standing tradition of sitting and waiting for the right moment to strike.

Max Brooks is the son of comedy legend Mel Brooks and screen icon Anne Bancroft, so life in the entertainment world was in his blood. He also picked up from his father the truth that making people laugh is very serious business and shouldn’t be taken lightly if you plan on doing it well. He also honed his craft in the writer’s room of Saturday Night Live for three seasons and wrote for over forty episodes. I have no idea where he found the time, but in those crazy days of skit comedy and hair-pulling deadlines, he wrote this survival guide against the undead, which went on to become a New York Times Bestseller. The completely serious tone he maintains throughout the novel is critical to the underlying humor of it. He knows that true humor comes from when the person delivering the punch line doesn’t know it’s a punch line. There is an odd sensation while you move through the chapters where slowly you almost forget it’s a joke. I wasn’t getting any urges to stock up on kerosene or long-range rifle scopes, but there is a lot of truth tucked in between those pages. The survival techniques spelled out in the book could easily help any hiker or traveler stuck in the woods without food or one being chased by a bear. Those kernels of down-to-earth facts help strengthen the tone and keep the reader hooked in. In the historical sections, Max also brilliantly laid them out in chronological order, which allowed him to refer to past instances as the reason or cause of future outbreaks (as in cases were the zombies from one attack were not properly disposed of, only to come back years later to strike once more).

Max went on from the success of this book to pen his sequel, World War Z, which again is a seriously toned historical fiction detailing oral accounts from people who survived the worldwide outbreak of the zombie race. I actually read that one first, mainly because it was given to me as a gift, but the order of the two books matters very little in terms of enjoyment. World War Z is now being adapted into a movie for Paramount Pictures and Brad Pitt’s company, Plan B Entertainment. Max turned down the offer to write the script since he felt he wouldn’t get the best out of it, so the screenwriting duties fell to J. Michael Straczynski, who is currently enjoying great acclaim for his possibly Oscar nominated script, Changeling (not necessarily from me, but I’m only one voice among the many). No real word on what Max is working on now, but you can be sure it will be serious…seriously funny.

Recommendation: If you’ve ever read any of those other survival guide books, take a crack at this and see how easy it is to get sucked in. Also, this is a true goldmine for any fan of the undead.

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