Jim Morrison the Poet

No One Here Gets Out Alive by Danny Sugerman
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Tour De Force sled ride down a snow covered slope but watch out for the building down below and dont let your older brother trap you. This book is like a bible to me and I have read it at least six times. It also really got me into the Doors even more so then the music. Definitely like the full paper back version over the audible version.

Do you think Jim Morrison is really dead? When his death was reported Elektra executive Bill Simonds only saw a sealed casket and a death certificate. No body was seen and no autopsy was performed. Of course what reason would Jim have to fake his own death?

Jim lived a fast furious life often fueled by alcohol. This book documents many of the exploits to getting drunk at a party and then relieving himself in a crystal chalice or how he seduced a girl in a Hollywood apartment and pulled off her rings. Seems he loved two women rather deeply yet was a philanderer. Jim had a Wiccan wedding with Patricia and he died in Paris with Pamela.

Two legal issues were hanging over Jim’s head. One was what happened in Miami when he challenged the crowd and caused a riot. After they left they charged him with lewd behavior with prison fines and monetary fines. On board a plane he was rowdy with the stewardesses. That got him into trouble.

Jim had a roller coaster ride of a lifetime. He was flamboyant, creative, recklace and wild. The Lizard King always thought himself a poet rather than a rockstar and some times he despised that image. I am sure I will read this one again at least one more time during my life.

I am the Lizard King and I can do anything.

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Sweet Blasphemy

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Elifa Shafak, British and Turkish writer, made waves when her first novel made mention of the Armenian Genocide. This novel is much different very reconciliatory . The novel is all about love. Love is everything. The 40 rules were composed by the wandering Sufi Dervish, Shams of Tabriz. He was also the one who converted Muslim scholar Rumi to Sufism . The novel also deal with cross cultural relations. Ella Rubinstein the protagonists is a Middle Aged Jewish woman who is unsatisfied with her marriage to her husband dentist. Her friend and confidant is a Scottish gentleman who converted to Sufism.

Feeling the need for a change, Ella decides to take on job of reading republished novels for a publishing company before the books are published . The book she is reading is called “Sweet Blasphemy” The book is a noveliztion of how Rumi and Shams of Tabriz met. Ella is trapped in a loveless marriage . She never though love was important for a marriage but rather other things like stability and responsibility. The marriage seems to work but she is not satisfied. Her husband has numerous affairs. While getting absorbed in the reading she decides to send the author and email. This soon sets off a chain reaction of correspondences.

The story “Sweet Blasphemy “ starts with Shams of Tabriz receiving a dream that he is to find a companion and teach him the 40 rules of love. The dream guides him to Damascus where he stays at a Dervish lodge in Damascus waiting for word of the companion. Within time a letter arrives and Shams of Tabriz goes to Konya to meet Rumi.

The arrival os Shams caused quite an uproar. Dervishes are looked down upon by fundamentalist Muslims as heretics. Shams causes Rumi to change how he interacts with people and who he interacts with. He will cause Rumi. To gain and lose friends. Different parts of. this novel are told. Through different sets of eyes. Some parts are told through the eyes of Shams or Rumi but also Sulaymaniyah the drunk and desert rose the prostitute.

In the end everyone gets set on a different course. The ending will leave you saddened yet hopeful. I myself want to explore Sufism more closely

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An Ancient Evil Arises

The Ceremonies by T.E.D. Klein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Back in the prehistoric times around where the New Jersey forests are today there crashed a meteor with something ominous inside. For aeons it lingered there waiting. Until one day a young boy wonders in there. There is waits perched and waiting. Something happens to boy that day. That was back in around the 1800’s.

Flash forward to modern times, Jeremy Freer is a college professor ,who wants to spend the summer with the Bretheren in the town of Gilead. Gilead is an isolated town in the middle of the New Jersey forest. The Bretheren are a religious group that are much like the Amish. Jeremy rents a room from the Porath family. Things are a little weird at first when he he lives with this family. He being a modern 20th century’s man from New York and the family being part of a religious group that tries to make due with as few modern conveniences as possible. The community has a biblical outlook which many would call quaint.

The other part of the story involves Carol. She is a New York girls who lives a very sheltered life. At one point she wanted to be a nun but she rejects that idea and ends up working in the library . While working at the library she meets a certain Mr. Rosebottom. Rosie as he likes to be called changes her life around by not only paying her but also introducing her to some of the better things in life. It is not a romantic relationship.

She also meets Jeremy as the library. The spark is instant and they hit it off. He meets her at the library and she attends one of his classes. Unfortunately he has arrangements up in Gilead. There are always visitations.

Once Jeremy is there weird things begin happening. Crop failures, infertile chickens and stillborn babies. Sar Porath, owner of the house has a mother that seems to know certain things and she does not have a good feeling about Jeremy and CRol. Jeremy’s twentieth century moral class with the old biblical world view.

Little do they know that Rosie is behind it all. Some ancient evil is about to be awakened.

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