Cal Poly alumnus Matt Johnson’s book “Life on Standby” was released earlier this year. It is available on his Web site, mattjohnsonink.com. Copies of the book are also available at Coalition. Courtesy photo

Matt Johnson never read an assigned book in high school. Not because he didn’t like to read, but because he didn’t like reading things other people told him to read.

Cal Poly graduate and a Cliff Notes skimmer, Johnson published his first book earlier this year. During college he decided to change the path he was on. In his junior year he discovered the life of a vagabond and not only embraced the carefree nature but also ended up wandering around unknown cities without a place to stay.

These trips were the subject of the book Johnson began writing as a senior at Cal Poly. He had an interest in words whether they were lyrics from hip-hop songs or from a Steinbeck book he read for outside reading. Johnson set his mind to writing a book and although he doubted himself sometimes, it was published in January.

If you would have asked Johnson what his plans were when he entered college he would not have said an author.

Johnson was one of those kids who thought he would be a professional athlete. After his freshman year at Cal poly, however, he realized that wasn’t the path he wanted to take anymore.

“There was no passion for me,” Johnson said. “I was a left-handed pitcher. I could have gotten drafted. I just realized I didn’t love it anymore.”

But he did have a passion for hip-hop, specifically break dancing. After striking up a friendship with Brian McMullen while living in the dorms, the two found a connection. They both had hobbies that needed a space to be expressed. McMullen wanted to collaborate and mix samples with other DJs and Johnson wanted to dance and also had an interest in graffiti.

Johnson said he enjoys socially conscious hip-hop like Aesop Rock and was tired of going to parties and hearing bands like Journey.

“Instead of looking for the place to go to meet these people, why don’t we create the place?” Johnson said of his idea to start a new club on campus.

It was this drive that helped him and his friends to begin the group currently known on campus as Hip-hop Congress. When it started it was called “SubhhCulture.” This stands for student united by hip-hop culture.

Hip-hop is not the only form of expression Johnson felt a connection with.

“I always had this sort of latent profound respect and admiration for the power of words,” Johnson said.

He eventually realized that his business degree with a focus in marketing was not what he wanted anymore. He proposed his own concentration called “The business of entertainment writing” to the dean of business, who approved it.

Courtesy image

Shortly after this was approved, Johnson wanted to take a plane somewhere, anywhere. After talking with his friends, he said they decided to stop being hypocrites and be spontaneous.

While walking into the library during finals week his junior year he pointed at a plane in the sky and told his friend Matt Ulinski, also known as Fumble, “let’s do that.”

That desire was the keystone for Johnson’s adventures that would eventually become the subject of his book.

The idea was that if a plane is about to take off and not all of the seats have been sold then the airline should sell the remaining tickets for cheap.

Even though it wasn’t exactly that easy, Johnson and Fumble secured seats on a plane for nearly free. They slapped a $20 bill on the counter and proposed that the lady behind the counter should sell them planes tickets for this amount. After she insisted that she could not even though there were empty seats they did not give up.

Eventually she told them about “buddy passes” that employees get and can share with family and friends. This allows the person with the pass to pay $25-$30 for each plane ride of the trip but it had to be a destination within the airline’s routes.

While Johnson and Ulinski’s dreams of ending up in Paris didn’t seem like it would be possible, the two did take a plane that day to Phoenix for their first trip.

The main rules for the adventures were: no predetermined destinations, no cities where they knew people and the umbrella rule – don’t spend money.

While this seems like a crazy idea it soon became second nature for Johnson and the various friends who would accompany him on his adventures.

Whether they slept in bathroom stalls, parks, outside furniture, benches or empty movie theaters they never checked into a hotel. Johnson said bathroom stalls became more of a standard.

“(I was) literally sitting in a bathroom stall propped up against a stall partition,” Ulinski said of their trip to Las Vegas. He said it was hard to sleep for longer than 30 to 40 minutes.

But this doesn’t mean they didn’t use hotel services to check their luggage in, assuring employees they would return later to check into the hotel.

When returning from some of his trips he would document them in a short essay. These would later become part of his book.

In “Life on Standby” Johnson presents three motifs: whimsy-adventure, social commentary and love. These motifs are woven over the period of the year when Johnson took his trips. They were not planned so there wasn’t a schedule and some during seasons where he took more trips than others. This was also because they had no predetermined destinations so they didn’t know where they could end up if they went to the airport in the middle of January.

Just like Johnson didn’t plan his trips, he didn’t originally plan to turn his stories of his trips into a book.

When he graduated from college he knew there were expectations. People expected him to do something with the degree he had just received. But Johnson could not wrap his mind around working in an office.

When he told his parents he was going to write a book, they were supportive.

“I was always someone who had fleeting passions,” Johnson said. “They probably figured that in two weeks I would say I was going to go train dolphins.”

But two weeks later, Johnson was not buying a wetsuit and learning about porpoises. Instead he was still aiming at becoming a published author.

There were times when he questioned his goals and his purpose. But less than two years after Johnson started writing, he was writing inscriptions in his books as he sent them out to readers.

“There were times I thought that maybe it was a waste of time and I thought that people weren’t going to dig my writing,” he said. “I just kept reading other books and realizing how I felt when I read those books and how it would feel to get other people to feel that way.”

Some of Johnson’s favorite authors include Chuck Klosterman, Dave Eggers, David Sedaris and early books from Chuck Palahniuk. Johnson has been influenced by the writing styles of these authors but has developed a very unique style of his own.

With lots of imagery, tangents and creative sentence structure Johnson’s work tries to pull readers into his experiences and put them in the scene with him and his other characters.

In the first chapter, Johnson introduces Ulinski and uses more than a page to explain the reasoning for calling him Fumble. After exploring this tangent he jumps right back into the flight they are trying to take.

Whether the scene is at Cal Poly, the swings at Avila beach, in another city or on a plane, readers can be with Johnson.

Johnson wanted to get his story into people’s hands. He and his manager, Brad Fuhrman, and his designer, Scott Holtog began contacting publishers about his book. After working with companies like ICM, Random House and Harper Collins, Johnson saw that this process was going to take longer than he was willing to wait. They decided to publish the book themselves with the changes the publishers had suggested.

“We will just succeed as much as we can independently and then show them the numbers, show them testimonials, show them that there is a demand for it and basically get picked up that way,” he said.

Johnson would not settle for less than perfect. When he was sent the unbound mach-up book he didn’t like the bright white paper so he special ordered the paper he wanted and printed 300 copies of his book with his own money.

He picked up the book Jan. 22 and within the first three weeks had sold about 230 copies. Johnson said the plan is to promote the book and try to get a publishing company to republish it.

“This could go nowhere,” Johnson said. “If it just stopped now, it would still be here. My story is written.”

Melinda Truelsen is a graduate student in literature and a Mustang Daily book columnist. Her column, “Reading Between the Lines,” appears every Wednesday.

What is a good novel? Does it have to have beautiful, lengthy prose? Something that has complex sentence structure? How about metaphors, symbolism and all of those other terms we like to toss around in literary circles? Usually, my answer would be yes to all of the above. However, I recently read a book that made me think twice about how I define a good novel.

“Because I am Furniture” by Thalia Chaltes is not a conventional novel. What it lacks in complex sentence structure, it makes up for in thought-provoking material and emotionally charged writing. Written as a series of verse poems, this novel’s protagonist and narrator, Anke, reveals her life in an abusive home. Through a combination of poems, we get bits and pieces of Anke’s life in a home with an abusive father who torments her brother and sister, but virtually ignores Anke.

Though not your typical novel, “Because I am Furniture” is a captivating read that will keep you hooked until the end. Since the novel is written for a younger audience, it is an easy read, but one that you won’t want to put down.

Anke is a real and believable narrator throughout the novel as she describes in detail the emotionally turbulent home in which she lives. She constantly witnesses her father abusing her siblings, but for some reason, is herself saved from the abuse. However, it is soon clear that though she is not the victim of physical violence, she certainly is the victim of emotional and psychological suffering.

Anke is ignored by her father, and though she is thankful to be spared, she is led to question her own self worth. What is so wrong about her that he can’t even waste his time to give her attention, even negative attention?

This is a question that we don’t often hear, but to Anke, is quite important. She is left alone, isolated so deeply from the home in which she lives, that she slowly begins to fade into the background. She doesn’t believe that she is worth anything. She is furniture — something that you are aware of being there, but don’t care enough about to do anything with.

In addition to her questioning her own self worth, Anke also feels a certain level of guilt over her being spared from her father’s violence and anger while everyone else in her household is subject to his wrath. Her guilt is similar to what you hear soldiers undergoing when they have ‘survivor’s guilt.’ She is grateful not to be a victim, but guilty at the same time that others are suffering in her place.

Throughout the novel, she asks herself why she is spared. Why must she sit and watch these events going on around her? Why can’t she stop them from happening? Though these questions are quite important for Anke’s development as a character, we don’t discover their answers until the narrator herself does.

Anke’s journey of self-discovery begins with something as simple as being accepted onto her high school volleyball team. On the team, she isn’t ignored, she isn’t pushed aside for the first time in her life. Rather than feeling the numbing sensation of unimportance, she feels alive and conscious of herself and her actions. She no longer fades into the background, she becomes part of something, she begins to take some control over her own life. Though the transformation is gradual, we eventually see Anke develop a voice of her own — one that won’t accept her role as furniture.

“Because I am Furniture” comes to a climax of events that is completely honest and won’t leave you wanting. Although this novel is not an extraordinary example of beautiful prose or a literary masterpiece, it is still a great read. Thalia Chaltes tells Anke’s story with honesty and simplicity, traits that we too often overlook in today’s society. Chaltes reminds us of what it is like to be vulnerable, to feel lost, and how difficult isolation can be. This novel is a truly inspirational piece of writing that will leave you racing to discover the secrets and insights hidden within its pages.

Melinda Truelsen is a graduate student in literature and a Mustang Daily book columnist. Her column, “Reading Between the Lines,” appears every Wednesday.

Audrey Niffenegger, who has recently become known for her work “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” has triumphed again with her latest novel, “Her Fearful Symmetry.”

Set in London, Highgate Cemetery to be exact, Niffenegger weaves connections between sisters, strangers and even ghosts. The novel revolves around the relationships between two sets of twins, a bond that is often thought of as one of the strongest and unbreakable.

However, when Niffenegger reveals how these deep-seated bonds can be overturned, we are left to question every other relationship in the novel: if such a strong bond can be jilted, what are we to expect from other relationships? While this novel appears to be about symmetry and pairs, it is actually a story about finding individuality amidst the confusing, and often dangerous, boundaries of familial, friendly, and even erotic, relationships.

The two American twins at the heart of this novel, Valentina and Julia, move into a flat given to them by their recently departed Aunt Elspeth (their mother’s estranged twin sister). The news of an estranged aunt and a fresh start in a new country come as quite a surprise and opportunity to the twins who are lacking a sense of direction. After dropping out of multiple colleges, the twins move into the flat where they become stuck in a state of stasis and uncertainty.

From the beginning, the difference between the twins becomes clear. While Julia is excited to move to London and learn about their departed aunt through living in her flat, Valentina is hesitant, desiring rather to return to college to pursue her dream of fashion design. In the end, Valentina’s need to be close to her twin wins out, and she agrees to move to London with Julia. Along with the move into the flat though, there are some conditions: The twins must live in the flat for at least one year before selling it, and their parents are not allowed to enter the apartment at all.

Clearly, Niffenegger is hinting at some sort of familial disconnect between the departed aunt and her twin, the girls’ mother, but the surprising event that causes it is not revealed until much later in the novel. With these restrictions in mind, the twins move into their aunt’s flat bordering Highgate Cemetery, where they soon find more than expected.

As expected when you hear that the flat is on the border of a cemetery, it isn’t exactly a normal living situation. While the flat itself is beautiful and full of antiques and priceless books, the inhabitants of the building are not quite so normal.

In the downstairs flat is Robert, Elspeth’s former lover, who establishes a voyeuristic and quite eerie relationship with the twins. His voyeurism leads him to eventually begin a romantic relationship with Valentina, a girl much younger than him, seeing traits in her that he misses so desperately from his beloved Elspeth.

In the upstairs flat is Martin, a man who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and agoraphobia. Martin is trying to piece his life together after his wife finally cannot take the circumstances of his diseases any more and leaves him and moves to her native country, Holland. Julia, driven by curiosity, develops a relationship with Martin while she is left more and more to her own devices while Valentina spends more time with Robert.

Finally, and most importantly, the most unique inhabitant of the building is the spirit of the twins’ Aunt Elspeth, which is trapped inside her flat. While these relationships grow and develop, Niffenegger creates new bonds while others become weaker, forcing the reader to question the normal perceptions of what constitutes a strong relationship. By the end of the novel, the only character who has a clear sense of direction is the ghost of Elspeth, throwing the other characters into a confusing search for identity and purpose that will surprise and confuse the reader up until the very end.

While “Her Fearful Symmetry” appears to be a novel about pairing and symmetry, it is actually about how twisted our perceptions of the concepts of sisterhood, love and death actually are. Although there are still the familiar elements of love, coming of age and family, Niffenegger artfully presents them in ways that turn them on their heads, transforming this novel from a simple ghost story and into a statement on forging an identity that is actually quite extraordinary.

Melinda Truelsen is a graduate student in literature and a Mustang Daily book columnist. Her column, “Reading Between the Lines,” appears every Wednesday.

Do you find yourself complaining about midterms? Don’t want to write those final papers? Try putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. Imagine life outside of your college education. Many people would be happy to complain about taking finals, yet we take them for granted. Now I’m sure that this isn’t the case for all of us, but sometimes we need to add a little perspective to make us appreciate exactly what we do have.

One person whose story certainly adds some perspective to my life is author Jeannette Walls. She grew up without many of the comforts most of us take for granted every day. Although she was able to get herself out of a hard and heart-rending life, she had to go through a lot to do so. Instead of complaining about what she didn’t have or what she had to do, she found a way to transform her circumstances and inspire others along the way.

The opening scene of her memoir “The Glass Castle” depicts Walls riding in a taxi in downtown New York City, on her way to a party, when she sees a homeless woman digging through a trash can on the side of the street — her mother.

How did she end up digging through a trash can? And why doesn’t her daughter stop to do anything about it? The answers to these questions aren’t the ones you may expect, but through a deeply moving narrative, Jeannette Walls explains how her family came to exist in this split-up state, and why it continues to be this way.

Rex and Rose Mary Walls, Jeannette’s parents, were very eccentric people, which had much to do with influencing this scene of events. Though they loved their children greatly, they were often distracted by their outlook on life from providing what was best for them. Despite the many hardships Walls overcame, many caused by her parents, she does not sound at all like she is simpering about her situation and how they hurt her; rather, she speaks of them with great affection and respect.

Walls was raised, along with three siblings, in a very nomadic fashion for most of her young life, her parents moved the family from place to place quite frequently. While this may not sound overly strange, the odd thing about it is that her parents didn’t always have an actual place for them to move to — they often lived in a hotel or out of their car.

Often distracted by a high-flown fantasy world, Rex Walls frequently brought his children into a world of make-believe to escape real life problems like rent or proper meals. Rose Mary Walls was often more concerned with creating a piece of art than a meal for her family, which often led to the children fending for themselves rather than being taken care of.

Although these attitudes may seem like neglect, Walls does not condemn her parents for making poor choices while raising her and her siblings. Rather, she speaks about her parents with great respect and love for the good things that they were able to pass on while raising them. She reinterprets their behavior in much more positive ways. Rather than seeing her father escaping reality, she praises him for giving her a sense of imagination and hope that there might be magic in the world. Instead of blaming her mother for not providing food for her and her siblings, she appreciates the importance of the art that her mother put so much into creating.

Through an incredible series of events Walls tells her life stories and explains how she overcame extraordinary circumstances to be where she is today: a successful author who has used her talents with words to come to understand her difficult childhood.

Virginia Fay is an English sophomore and her book column "Sweet Story Scribbler" will appear in the online edition.

Love, sex, money, heartbreak, travel and friendship. What more could you ask from a chick-lit novel? In the case of Lauren Weisberger’s “Chasing Harry Winston,” these elements are all present, but there is still much to be desired.

Admittedly, as the author of “The Devil Wears Prada,” Weisberger had a lot to live up to in order to follow such a hit. Unfortunately, “Chasing Harry Winston” doesn’t even come close to matching her witty and biting bestseller.

“Chasing Harry Winston” focuses on three best friends, Emmy, Leigh and Adriana, each with her own set of insecurities and issues to deal with. It begins with newly single Emmy pledging to have a year of meaningless international sex if Adriana, a Brazilian sexpot who has never held a relationship past the time it takes to get out of bed after a romp in the sheets, will commit to one man. Meanwhile, Leigh is stuck in a relationship that everyone, including her boyfriend, thinks is perfect, but she fears will never be as fulfilling as it appears.

All of the typical criteria for chick-lit are there: tightly bonded female friendships, romantic troubles, sex, extravagance and handsome men around every corner. What is lacking is an original storyline. The pact that Adriana and Emmy make to essentially reverse roles has the potential to provide a creative backbone for the novel, but fails to follow through.

Each of the three main characters comes with her own set of idiosyncrasies, some annoyingly stereotypical and some endearing. Emmy, my personal favorite, is heartbroken after her boyfriend of five years runs off with his personal trainer. Her mission to “broaden her horizons,” both by traveling the world and attempting to have no-strings-attached sex in each exotic locale is entertaining in an almost voyeuristic way, but also made me pity her.

She clearly just wants to meet someone with whom she can settle down and start a family, but her friends won’t stop urging her to step outside of her comfort zone with a “Tour de Whore.” Maybe it’s idealistic, but I couldn’t seem to get on board with the notion that a sweet, overall lovable woman who desires nothing more than a stable relationship could be cajoled into facing the random sex and abandonment issues of one-night stands.

Leigh, a hard-working book editor, becomes all-too-swiftly engaged to the handsome sportscaster boyfriend who everyone believes is perfect, but she can’t seem to make herself feel the giddiness expected of a newly affianced woman. She experiences frequent panic attacks, exuding a sense of anxiety throughout the novel, and Weisberger makes her unhappiness all too clear, yet it takes Leigh until the end of the novel to break things off.

Though she does eventually find her happy ending, her behavior toward her fiance and friends becomes grating, as she seems to feel caged in her picture-perfect life. She not only refuses to take matters into her own hands but also takes her angst out on everyone around her.

Adriana is a completely different story. A Brazilian bombshell with a talent for seducing men, she is under pressure from her parents to find a husband and settle down. Their parental disappointment, coupled with the fact that she lives in their apartment, dependent on their credit cards, creates an immature and self-centered personality. Her arrogance regarding her looks and affectations such as her usage of the word “querida” to address everyone from her hairdresser to Emmy’s pet parrot fail to provide a relatable or even particularly likable character.

The plot is made up of several storylines that should be interwoven to create a cohesive narrative, but instead feel fragmented and a little lost. Weisberger jumps in and out of each woman’s personal life, from time to time bringing them together in even more confusing stories, such as a spontaneous trip for three to Curacao, that seem to come from and lead to nowhere.

By the end of the novel, the story comes together, but in such a simultaneously predictable and unrealistic way that I still cannot fully get on board with the characters or their happily-ever-afters. There are both sweet and amusing moments, but overall, the fluff overshadows the unexpected, and “Chasing Harry Winston” just falls flat.

Imagine iPhone applications that could change the world by promoting recycling instead of killing brain cells trying to master the Tic Tac Toe app. The imaginary iPhone apps that line the front cover of a recently released book, “Generation Change,” encourage reading, adopting shelter animals and disarming weapons, reflecting the book’s theme of progressive change.

Jayan Kalathil, a San Luis Obispo native turned New Yorker and a communications and marketing professional, collaborated with public-service announcements writer and director Melissa Bolton-Klinger to create this 200-page handbook that suggests 150 ways people can make a difference in the world. With Kalathil’s background in nonprofit work and Bolton-Klinger’s experience with writing, the pair created a “perfect storm” of collaboration over the year they spent writing the book, Bolton-Klinger said. Their backgrounds in nonprofit organizations gave the writers a head start on researching issues regarding change.

The book is sectioned off into three concepts of change: ways to change our country, our world and ourselves. Under each category, there are ideas meant to inspire progressive thinking followed by a list of Web sites or books to explore. From blogging to following the 10 green commandments at the end of the book, Kalathil and Bolton-Klinger hope that readers use the resources they are given to invoke change in their community and the world.

These two New Yorkers wrote the handbook like a Twitter or Facebook page, mimicking the short, casual jargon seen in online social networks. The paperback speaks to the reader like a comment on his or her Facebook page instead of a dry, textbook-style manuscript about nonprofit organizations or the U.S. Congress. Both of these topics are covered in “Generation Change” in easy-to-understand manner.

Bolton-Klinger said that this style of writing was intentional. In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, Bolton-Klinger and Kalathil wanted to create a book that was engaging, informing and above all, concise.

“We wanted to write it like it’s a blog, like it’s a voice, like we’re talking to people. It’s kind of how we’d write or talk to people,” Kalathil said.

The technology-inspired handbook is intended to reach out to the “Obama generation,” a group of young individuals who have been moved by Obama’s “yes we can” campaign.

“(The election of President Obama) really galvanized a lot of young people to get involved. His message of change really rang home with a lot of the younger demographic,” Kalathil said.

While the book references President Obama’s speeches, readers don’t have to be an Obama fan to enjoy the book, Kalathil said, since the writers discuss universal issues.

Bolton-Klinger says he hopes the message of making a difference reaches a wide spectrum of people. She describes the book as one to be enjoyed by an entire family, in a similar way to how they enjoy activities like board games.

“When you look at like a Parker Brothers game and they say ages 2+, we want it to be like that. Like a mom could read it to a four-year-old and the four-year-old would ask his mom to take him to adopt a pet,” he said.

Regardless of age, geographic location or political party, the beauty of the book is that it applies to everyone, Kalathil said. Students at Cal Poly are lucky to be at such an amazing university with different resources available to them. However, even students who don’t go to universities like Cal Poly will be able to pick up the book and get involved in whatever organization hits home with them with a click of the mouse, he said.

“That’s one of the takeaway messages: If you want to get involved, you can,” Kalathil said.

Born and raised in San Luis Obispo until his early years of college, Kalathil has a fairly large local following on the “Generation Change” Facebook fan page that he and Bolton-Klinger created. Lori Matthew Hauge, a Cambria mother of two, went to school with Kalathil from middle school until college. She’s looking forward to reading Kalathil’s first publication.

“I am guessing it will be a good read given that Jayan is partially responsible,” Hauge said. “I really only have a desire to read the book because of my long lasting friendship with Jayan.”

The book was released Nov. 1 by Skyhorse Publishing.