Essentially an entire day spent on the toilet means more reviews for you in exchange for the cross-country journey planned for today. It also means that no one else should ever use my computer without washing their hands afterwards.

At least staying inside today lessens my chances of getting swine flu!

ETA: A sudden, four-hour, sick nap kind of ruined my plans for a day of reviewing. Instead I had dreams about filling out forms.

The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman

After reading The King’s Last Song, (review forthcoming), I decided to see what else Geoff Ryman had to offer, especially in the SF realm. I found The Child Garden at the Strand and settled on it though copies of a few of his other books were available.

The book is set in a future, somewhat socialist, London. As I remember it, children are taken to what is basically an organic supercomputer consciousness and wiped, clean of “infection,” ostensibly, but in reality, of certain socially unacceptable aspects of their personality framed as a type of original sin. If they have any talents, the rough edges (and genius) of them are donated to the consciousness to benefit society as a whole, and the person is assigned a role in society. Children are then moved into community living situations based on their role. The main character, Milena, is an actor.

Also inhabiting the world are a handful of descendents of failed genetic modification experiments and inexplicably old full- humans who are sour and crazy with age.

The plot hinges on a somewhat dissonant aspect of Ryman’s future—homosexuality is considered one of the infections mentioned above, and is all but eradicated by the wiping process. Milena, however, has never been wiped and falls for an alcoholic, musically gifted, massively built polar girl. They have a short, tortured romance than changes everyone’s life, blah, blah, blah, space trip, blah, blah blah, and humankind’s destiny is changed!

While I liked the details of the setting, the whole love story aspect felt aggressively shoehorned in. It was distractingly bad, especially when Milena describes the physical repulsiveness of her polar girl love, which makes the whole desperateness of the attraction seem like an incredibly weak plot point. Women do require some sex appeal to be attracted, something Ryman conveniently forgets to move his story along.

My review of Trivial by the I Know Joe Kimpel folks is over at inkstuds. Check it out.

Here in NYC, with swine flu and tan lines on people's minds, I am fighting both apathy and unpleasant tin-eared intruders.

Luckily, I have some news: I decided on a school. After much conversation, irons in and out of the fire, hand wringing and penny counting, it looks like I'll be staying in New York City. And that is your clue to where I've ended up.

Thanks for all your support, on and off-internet. It helped more than you could ever know, and I'll need more in the coming months.

Additionally, there is a lesson I can can pass on here: It's never too late to sack up and change your life. Even if you had some very bad times, even if you were a loser in a past life, even if you are scared. When this process started it seemed my prospects were dismal. In fact, I got into four of the six school I applied to and was solicited by a few more.

Excitement! My favorite short story comic anthology, Papercutter, has a new issue out. Number 9 includes work by Aron Nels Steinke, Elijah Brubaker, Hellen Jo and additonal art, as usual by by Nate Beaty. I am excited to see Hellen Jo's story and looking forward to seeing some non-autobio from Steinke. I love his art, but his storytelling (at least in Big Plans) is uninteresting at best. Look for a review of this by me sometime soon.
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"A World Digital Library?"

"Why yes, my masked friend, one does exist."







Check out the list of contributors. The selection isn't too great right now, but it will grow, according to the FAQ.
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A lecture on mirrors in horror film by a small press writer--what more could you ask for?

A Journey Around My Skull by Frigyes Karinthy

This illness memoir was a delightful surprise from New York Review of Books. I was intrigued by the synopsis- 1930s Hungarian writer gets brain tumor and survives to write about it. The intro by Oliver Sacks is lively and shows a deep connection with Karinthy’s text, both as an observer of mental weirdness and as a writer. The translation seems a bit aggressively British sometimes, (too many see heres and old chaps), but seems to catch the voice of the author overall.

Chapter one, “The Invisible Train,” all six pages of it, is fun reading. With a teasing tone, Karinthy describes a day in the life of a working writer, while also telling the story of his first experience with the symptoms of a brain tumor. “And at that moment the trains started. Punctually to the minute, at ten past seven, I heard the first one.”

Karinthy structures the story of his illness in long anecdotes that often end with a wry take on unpleasant situations. These sections, which comprise the first two-thirds of the book, remind me of Mark Twain’s stories. You know that you’re being set up for something during the long descriptive passages and meandering asides and I find that fact to be charmingly old-timey. Less musty are Karinthy’s descriptions of his friends and family. I especially like how he talks about his son Cini (aka writer Ferenc Karinthy) and describes using the child for feedback on his newest pet theories like “a scientist experimenting with a test rabbit,” Cini in Vienna for the first time “manfully” concealing his excitement and “[hunting] about like a puppy in one of Jack London’s novels, and remembered the events of his father’s lifetime as well as his own.” When Karinthy writes about his second wife, a psychiatrist living in Vienna while he stayed in Pest, with fondness, some of the creativeness of this memoir becomes apparent; in actuality their marriage wasn’t very happy (well, according to wikipedia anyway).

This book made me reflect on the influence early psychiatry had on art and medicine in the years before this book was written and our continuing helplessness when it comes to many brain malfunctions. In the chapter “A Meeting by a Death-bed,” Karinthy describes the condition of a patient in the asylum where his wife works. It is pretty bleak, since at the time all the professionals could do for him was keep him sort of comfortable. When Karinthy shows interest in his case, his wife says, “ ‘Now, look here, how many times have I told you to not to show you’re sorry for the patient? It isn’t done. You might be causing him no end of harm.’ ” Chilling!

Late in the book he describes getting his head cut open and his brains mucked about, “these fumblings and creakings, gratings and clicks”—no small feat no matter how observant one is. “More terrifying than any pain was the fact that my position seemed impossible.” And it is the exploration of that impossibility that really made me pull through the final few chapters, as ellipses-filled as they were, to get to that final train ride and thank yous and waves goodbye.

books to the back

meat in a bag

Sunday, sunday, was filled with scrubbing, arranging, cooking and trying not to kill people.

Breakfast:
Delicious CSA eggs, fried in butter
prosciutto
prunes n figs
strawberries
sheep yogurt
cheese
bread
cereal options (not explored)
tea
coffee

Dinner:
Whole chicken with extra thighs, stuffed
white potatoes, carrots, fennel bulb, parsnips in chicken pan
sweet potatoes
purple kale
cabbage n fennel bulb

Guests included SEC, PS and my parents. It was a fun dinner despite my somewhat ragged nerves and some unfortunate storytelling. When everybody left, my clothes smelled heavily of chicken.

As much as I like making big dinners for a lot of people, I am not so sure that my new meat mastery is to be totally celebrated. I don't even really like chicken and I certainly don't want to make eating it a habit. Still, you throw all that shit in a bag, and your dinner is good to go. Chicken baked in plastic, my friends.

Dori Stories by Dori Seda and others

I went in search of Dori’s work about one second after seeing this picture on Mary Fleener’s convention blog. When I saw her gap-toothed smile and wild eyes, I just had to know more. From the gushing remembrances of her by friends and colleagues that fill this book, I gather that she tended to have that effect on people.

This is more than a collection of Seda’s comics, it is a memorial to the woman she was and a patch for the giant hole she left in her friends’ lives when she died. The essays, personal photos and memorial comics dedicated to her, bring so much background and depth to Seda’s story that when you finally get to her comics there is a weight and sadness that she never intended.

Like her much more famous male antecedents in the alternative comics world, Seda’s comics are sex n drugs-filled, a bit cartoony and portray a world long-gone where making comics could actually allow a hedonist to scrape by. Her art is lush, heavy on the blacks and quite detailed. Her auto bio comics are filled with filthy living, sloppy sex and being poor. Persona and personality are almost inextricable here, but in her stories about her dog Tona, Seda’s capacity for love and affection (mentioned in some of her friends’ writing about her) shines through all the fishnets and leather. Her fictional work is sex-filled as well, with a bit of horror thrown in. Also included are a few picture stories from Weirdo magazine where Dori plays vixen with other cartoon greats in “Foto Funnies” stories such as “Slaves of the Comic Book Factory” and “Girls Turned Into Vibrator Zombies”; everyone really looks like they are having fun, especially Dori, despite all we learn about Seda’s health problems and wild self-disregard. Was her look being exploited? Yes. Did she seem to care? Not really.

The final comic in the book is by Leslie Sternbergh and chronicles a meeting with Seda’s willfully hindering mother to sort out Dori’s legacy. Sternbergh’s detailed drawing blurs a bit gray in this sad and frustrating story. The haze is appropriate—the only things that become clear in this comic is how Seda got her famous smile and where she picked up smoking. Sigh, parents. “Dori was ours,” said Olga. “Dori was Dori’s,” said Leslie (and the reader). Dori’s perspective on her family’s attitude towards her life, told with a light, tongue-in-cheek touch, can be found in the story “How My Family Encouraged me to Become an Artist.” You get the feeling that her mother’s refusal to allow her work to be printed after her death would almost have been enough to force Seda to burst from the grave and freak everybody out all over again.

Dori’s work simply left me wanting more. I wonder what her place would have been in the comics-drenched world of today. That’s the thing about early death; it robs the world of a proper ending. This book is “the Complete Dori Seda,” and it's just not enough.

Et Tu, Babe by Mark Leyner

Turns out I really wanted to read My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist . Whoops.

The first time I read this book, I was a young teenager. My mom got it for me at a thrift store. Occasionally she would do something like this, and the books always ended up being crazy and making an impression. (Another example: Neuromancer). All the sex, drugs and brand names in Et Tu, Babe, along with the fantastically narcissistic protagonist totally blew my mind when I was 13 or whatever, but upon rereading it just seemed like breakneck speed mediocrity.

For a quick reread however, it was a fun, if ultimately disappointing, blast from the past.

Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand

Though it's from Small Beer Press, Generation Loss is not a fantasy novel even by SBP’s loose (and wonderful) standards. Instead, it is a meditation on artists, specifically artists who go to extremes to complete their vision.

The main character, Cass, is an NYC throwback to punk nights passing out, shooting up and night clubbing—kind of a Nan Goldin type, except more lone wolf. Her photography, while respected is merely a footnote and with her stank walk-up and graying hairs, her career is that of a never-was. “But for the rest of your life you’re fucked, because you blew it. Maybe no one else knows it, but you do. In my case, it was no secret. Some people can make do in a situation like that. Me, I’ve never been good at making do.”

So, yeah, it’s in first person, and Cass’s voice can occasionally grates (mostly when Hand uses some tough-guy attitude to couch exposition). Mostly though, Hand’s characterizations are quite thorough. Her exploration of two types of outsiders—artists and the people in their worlds (unhappy children and partners, crazies, hangers on), and Mainers (ex-hippies, trapped kids and xenophobic natives) is what, even more than the tense mystery, drove the novel for me. Hand juxtaposes the setting’s natural beauty with the ruin that humans bring so deftly it becomes almost another character.

As for the mystery, which takes us from a boring present-day NYC to a remote community in Maine, its pretty good. Presented as a chance for Cass to make some money (and maybe a stab at a piece of art-celebrity) by nabbing an interview a reclusive photographer, her trip to Maine and the search for the artist in question becomes increasingly sinister. As Cass gets drawn into the mystery of Aphrodite Kamestos’ hermitude and disintegration, a different unpleasantness rocks the local community—the disappearance of a girl. The two are linked, of course, but the connection unfolds very delicately until the big reveal, which doesn’t disappoint.

If you are looking for a atmospheric mystery, and a window into a weird part of America, get Generation Loss now.

Can it be warm now?

Yes please.

help

Scene: Tourist-rich Eighth Avenue in the 40s, with a smattering of after-workers heading towards unsatisfying happy hours.
The players: A local mentally ill, substance abuser on the edge of her circuit, nodding in a lump on the pavement. Her new man, stalking the space next to the flower mart, intensity pouring from between his few teeth.

"All we need is a few pennies. Help us! If you help us, we can help you... to not be homeless."

Even he seemed taken aback by this new angle in his pitch.

the what nows

Amy Ambulette and Fortress America made a new human.
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Who doesn't like mail? Tiny hands and feet don't equal a blasé attitude towards special deliveries. Like zines for kids, but actually on-schedule, Uncle Envelope brings these folks to the children every month in the form of paper-based treats. Now if only they encouraged the kids to write back...
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Robin is reviewing up an April shower over at inkstuds.
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This week I will be putting on my green visor and making a decision about school. My top choice is out of the running, but I am still confident that I can make this process exciting wherever I go. If you've got advice, send it my way.

funny.

Smart, musical, right on. Eliza Skinner.

I saw Mitch Magee on Friday. He was stuck behind me and my flat of impatiens and graciously kept from pushing me out of the way.

It all comes together...

Lucky me in nyc.

Where have I been? Well, on planet Fabulon of course!

Kitsch, clothes and cock-- what more could you want?
(not necessarily SFW)

real life

Whew! only 15 more books from 2008 to go. As I look them over, I realize how few books of nonfiction I read last year. Not including the totally crazy Mia Tyler autobiography (which I will not be reviewing here), I read four and they were memoirs. A few of the comic collections I read had auto-bio bits, but I didn't delve into any nonfiction subject beyond internet reading and maybe a few magazine articles. Though you can't tell from the sidebar, 2009 is shaping up to be a much better year for nonfiction. Right now I am reading a book about the eye, and I have a few more science-y history books stacked and waiting.

I think I ought to add this one to the list, don't you? Bug girl certainly makes a case for it.
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Longtime readers and friends may have noticed that I let my brother's birthday yesterday go unremarked upon here. I certainly felt the unfinished business of his life press about my shoulders and face and spent parts of the day wishing with that raw feeling that is so much angrier than wishing that he was here to get my card and my love. Mostly though, I spent his birthday nourishing myself and my tiny family, did some maintenance of myself and my home and reveled in all the personal work I have done the past five years or so.

It was almost enough.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Yum. Fingersmith is the perfect book for a rainy night or a long train ride. In fact, I was facing a somber, book-less and long train ride with no book when I bought Fingersmith from a depressingly unpopulated (by people or good books) store in D.C.’s Union Station. Just buying it relaxed me enough to cause a ride-long slumber.

When I finally picked it up a few weeks later, I took it on a trip to Philly. All I knew about Sarah Waters was that she wrote historical mysteries with lesbians and that she was sufficiently creative to have her books shelved in the regular fiction section. Upon diving in what is essentially the story of a long con played out by multiple characters, I was worried that the instances of dialect (i.e. old-timey British) would become annoying, but Waters managed to stay on the enriching side of that fine line most of the time. Best word: “fuckster.”

Oh my, you may thinking, that doesn’t sound old-timey to me. Well, Waters’ tale is not only set in seething dens of poverty and vice, but it is filled with crossing and double-crossing, greed and secrets. There are plenty of fucksters about in Fingersmith; in fact, the very structure of the novel underlines that. The two young, female, main characters are both the authors and victims of their own destruction and each tells her story in a well-controlled first person. Though the story she weaves is twisted, somehow Waters’ manages to keep it fast-paced and realistic enough to keep the tension running high.

Even when things get bleak, and they do, this book is incredibly fun.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Mathematicians as monks, monasteries as think tanks, an unsophisticated and somewhat hostile outside world and an unknown menace. Who do you think will save the day?

If you don’t already like Neal Stephenson’s sprawling novels, Anathem will not endear you to his style. It is crazy long, full of asides and borderline-annoying lingo and the main character suffers from the same two conditions of many of Stephenson’s protagonists—everymanism and right-place-right-timeitis. And while it does get a little irksome to read follow the actions of a character ruled by other people’s actions and beset by “quirky” supporting characters. There is a bit of superficial commentary on government, race and religion but where Stephenson’s dedication to research really shines is his masterful transformation of geometry theory into a workable religious concept. The time travel element in the book was a nice surprise and an important addition to stories on the topic.

I was worried that it wouldn’t come together, but I was really pleased at the result of the author’s creative sweating. You can really tell that he is having fun with his writing and the joy that comes through in his books goes a long way to ameliorate his in-your-face zeal for nerdy intricacies. There are footnotes, my friends.

The only times I start to get exasperated with his style is when he insists on adding love story plotlines. They are awful, and the ground he gained with writing believable female characters in the Baroque Cycle seems to have been reclaimed by the dark side of geekdom. He practically trips over himself to show that the ladies are powerful, tough and in control, especially in romance. It’s condescending and annoying. Whenever characters start making eyes at each other I start to skim and there are two major instances of this in Anathem. Luckily in a book this long there are plenty of other things to focus on.

Freddie & Me: A Coming of Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody by Mike Dawson

Being a mid-level Queen fan and a lover of autobio comics, Freddie & Me seemed like a can’t-miss book. And Dawson’s wonderful black and white art certainly supports the theory that this book is worth having. His masterful control over the aging of the characters is up there with the Hernadezes, and cartoonists looking for a lesson in realistically following a character through years would do well to check out this book. Dawson’s depiction of his art’s maturation is also very well done. Lastly, Queen and Freddy Mercury look as cool and alien as they were and life just pours from the page when they, or Mike impersonating Freddy, are in frame. (The Wham! guys, in a delightful fictional aside, also come across as really real, pop bouffants and all).

The problem is in the story itself. Dawson’s instances of Queen-worship and adjustment to growing up and moving to America lack tension and never coalesce into a real narrative. Sadly, how the two elements inform each other is never fully established emotionally for the reader. Queen’s music is so dramatic that the tedium of Dawson’s telling of his story is unfortunately highlighted in bright red and underlined in glitter pen.