Clicky clicks for NYC people

-- Topic Magazine's EIC talks with other magazine folks at what looks like an awesome event. Go and see David, he's great.

-- Mocca's Art Fest looks so fucking fun that my head could just explode. I hope other obligations don't keep me (or you) away. More info via Flog!

-- Rocketship brings the noise (in the form of an amazing in-store party) for the Mocca Art Fest. I gotta get my copy of Squirrel Mother signed...

book 25: Love Invents Us, book 27: Come to Me, book 30: A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You

Amy Bloom’s stories tear through my heart. I am weak and tired, I have been for three years, and the tiny walls I have built to keep myself in (and the world out) in the meantime wash away like they were nothing, like they were made of spit and lint when I read her stories. My tears start and stop and I cry for the people I love, and have loved and everything we keep from echo other and every thing we give away to keep loving each other. I cry instead of making an unfortunate phone call. I cry instead of screaming.

I first read Bloom’s work in a nonfiction essay about in-laws in Topic Magazine. [Full disclosure: I am currently a web editor for the online edition of this fantastic mag. Go, get a free login, and enjoy. Bloom’s essay is in Topic 7: Family. The Family issue was what made me want to work with them. I admired a place that would find and publish such a piece, one so unflinchingly angry and yet so beautiful.] When I finally decided to spend the piddly amount of money on her novel Love Invents Us, I thought I was going to get a smartish, bubbly read. What I got instead was a love story that rubbed me raw with terrible realness, nit in the plot machinations so much, but in the moves of the characters, what they do when doors open and close in their path.

Then I had to read Come to Me and then A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You. Yes, love, love, love—all Bloom’s stories are about love and none are sweet. She has an amazing grasp of what real love is- that it hurts sometimes and that it changes over days and years and moments. Her characters force themselves to forgive and trust and get angry, and are only slightly more articulate about it than the average person who has felt deeply for another person. No one is excluded from Bloom’s world of love- not brothers and sons, lovers and mothers, not the undeserving and the wicked. She manages to capture passion without drama, and makes it seem like an elementary writer’s trick.

We meet Julia, Lionel Jr., Buster and Ruth in Come to Me for a first round of fucked-up families and good intentions in “Sleepwalking.” They come back in ABMCSHMILY, older, maybe wiser, but still straining against family bonds, both external and ones they created, on purpose and by accident. I liked the older story better, where the possibilities for the children Lionel Jr. and Buster seemed wide open, but the newer stories satisfied me like a decent movie sequel—Bloom is riffing on an old theme, and drops the ball a few times, but seeing how it all turned out makes her occasional stumbling in tone and voice worth it.

I would not suggest reading these three too close together. The characters will get jumbled and the endings will blur together. You will miss the rough edges of each protagonist, as they should be experienced, singularly, like running a thumb over a pocket-sized rock, found on that lasting camping trip or pulled from the rubble of a destroyed place. Read with caution and consider the love in your life.

***Edited to add: FYI: not all her writing in these novels is spectacular, but she is well worth checking out if you're thinking about love.

YES!

Thank you bstewart23.

When I bang on the back of your parked-in-the-bike-lane-car, alls I'm trying to say is "Fuck you." No need to get excited.
______________

In other biking news, I got punched in the head by a special person on Manhattan Bridge yesterday. Today I got doored on 19th St.

I hurt.

Moustaches in NYC

Via Maud (and her listings compiler, Lauren):

Go to the IFC to see some Frenchy moustaches in La Moustache!

I guess this means I need to hurry up and finish the book...

book 20: Life by Gwyneth Jones

It has been awhile since I finished this book, so forgive me some vagueness:

Winner of the James Triptree Jr. award, Gwyenth Jones wrote about sex and science in Life. I was intrigued by the purpose of the award, to recognize writers who tackle the subjects of sex and gender in SF, and after doing a NYPL search on Jones, I decided to read Life.

The main character in Life is Anna Senoz, a hard-working gal with a passion for science, who secretly has a hot body and a wild side. This last part is a major part of the story arc. Unfortunately, Jones likes to use the word "hole" in a sexual way. Gross. But anyway, sex, in many of its permutations, supposedly drives the plot and brings all the disparate topics and characters together, but generally I felt as if I were reading two books: one about a romance, and one a poorly researched text on sexual politics and its influence on science and academia.

The main love triangle- Anna, her American college lover Spence and crazy, mostly lesbian Ramone (oh shocking!)- lacks tension. The supporting characters, mostly older women who mentor either Anna or Ramone in some way, were more interesting and Jones managed to tell us more about them in a few lines here and there than she did about Anna in the whole book.

The scifi in Life comes in a near-future, hard science flavor, sprinkled with some crunchy AI flakes. Anna discovers (by accident) an evolutionary trend in genetics that will slowly obliterate the male sex chromasonal structure on a genetic level, showing gender to be an almost entirely constructed thing (I think, anyways. It was complicated, and I'm sure if I had liked the book more I would have absorbed the theory more fully). Her research on this project is thwarted, but her obsession grows. The science writing and the comment on women's current place in the sciences, were the best part of the book, even if Jones' writing feels labored when she tries to tie all the chromosonal hoo ha in with the plot. I was disappionted that the whole book wasn't as interesting- I'd love to read some smart, female-inclusive, hard SF. Too bad Life was not it.

Any recommendations? I'd still love to read more Triptree winners, hoping that they all don't suck as badly.

The database is down...

... so I am free to wish I was reading.

Anyway, I just finished one good book (Love Invents Us), one gooder book (Great Granny Webster) and I am in the middle of a collection of two novellas (Class Trip and The Moustache by Emmmanuel Carrere) that is knocking my socks off so far. The translation is amazingly elegant in Class Trip which made the reading even more delicious because I was wondering through each nasty little scene what, if anything, had changed from the original French.

(Apparently The Moustache is now a film too.)

Reading Carrere makes me want to check out this book by him, which caught my attention when it came out a couple of years ago. It is a bio of Philip K. Dick, the idol of a certain kind of nerd, one I usually like very much, and writer of some of the most engrossing sci-fi ever. Dick has also written some amazingly impenetratable crap(like the last two books in the Valis triliogy), but even his worst casts a spell on a line-by-line basis. I imagine writing a bio of Dick that adequately captures both his brilliance and his glaring shortcomings as an author, as well as gives just enough facts and specualtion about his twisted private life would be very hard. From my small taste of Carrere, it seems like he has the subtlety to do it so I'd like to give I am Alive and You are Dead a try when I am in the mood to be someone else.

Hi all

I am backdeded up with reading ans, more obviously, writing. I blame working. I love the money, I love the endless free tea and toilet paper, but I miss you all. The books I've been reading recently have been pretty good and I will tell you about them soon.

In the meantime, here is a partial list of things that are on my desk at home:

- a broken bicycle bell
- small Fiskars
- Lonely Planet Spain 2003
- Letters that need responses
- my parents' wedding photograph, reminding me how much better life looks in pictures
- matches
- erasers
- a green silk hankerchief
- a freecycled VHS copy of 'Downtown 81'
- a small basket of bobby pins and hair bands

On my desk at work:

- crumbs
- empty tissue box
- various training manuals
- half full Temple University water bottle
- smudgy fingerprints

What's on your desk?

pray for my ass

Here I am, diligently entering medical data and try (hard) not to fart and listening to my officemate surpass my previous conception of "dumb as a box of rocks," and I wish I were writing about books for you.

As you can see by the sidebar, I've been keeping up with the reading, but not so much with the writing. I need the money that this boring ass job provides. I promise to steal some time from the Man the next few weeks and catch you all up with reviews and news, but for now, pray for my ass not to bubble up with hemorroids from all this sitting.

Newsflash from the temp world

I am extending the watershed poll until May 1st for all the stragglers and newbies. Thanks guys! The answers so far are pretty interesting...

Pass it along.

And hi Francis! Francis is one funny motherfucker, plus he loves his Mother Earth.

only 3 more days

for the dudes to bare their literary hearts... See the sidebar and comment away.

No, seriously, DO IT!

book 21: My Happy Life by Lydia Millet

(out of order, but you'll just have to wait for book 20...)

Since I had to wait so damn long to get my hands on a library copy of Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, I decided to see what other books by Lydia Millet were getting dusty on the NYPL's shelves. Enter My Happy Life, the story of the least happy life I have read written in such a hopeful yet hilarious tone.

The main character narrates her life from the confines of a mental hospital, which we soon find out has been abandoned by its staff and inmates. Where and why we don't know, but it doesn't really matter. The real story here is how this woman ended up eating toothpaste and taking cold showers in her whitewalled cell, when she has such a great descriptive gift and a fine attitude about the fickleness of fate. Hee ha ho, the irony-- but wait, this book is actually quite good.

Each chapter is titled with the name of one of the objects that the main character has gathered in her life that represent the time and place of its capture. This simple device is beautifully employed by Millet, and gives a real resonance to a metaphor that could have gotten worn out with a quickness in a more heavy-handed writer's hands.

Millet's greatest feat is her ability to carry a whole novel in the first person. The main character's voice is always strong and individual. The details come through organically, never causing the kind of fucked up narrator to have to notice more than she should.

There is a lot of violence and abuse in My Happy Life, but the tale coming from the mouth of the narrator is one of a person with great limitations making their way in a hostile and degrading world full of darkness, finding a path only through some kind of internal light. I found all kinds of situations to identify with in MHL-- mostly the narrator's ghostly feelings of lonliness and loss, and the way thoughts come without warning (Millet does a great thing when she has this character talk about the different qualities of different kinds of memories). I am glad that Millet presented them in a way that made me laugh, made me proud for my past selves and everyone else who has struggled not to break under the strain of living in an absurdly alien society, and let me jump of from her character's intensely bizarre existence into deliciously sustaining reveries.

Yes, I said reveries. All smart ladies have them, you know, even tough ones.

* ETA: sorry Lydia, for calling you Linda for so long

just autograph right here

Here's what a few of my boyfriends look like from kinda far away.

Hee hee.

if you live in nyc

You'll have to ride the rocketship.

This seriously the best comics store around. Enjoy!

reading nyrb

I want to read this right now!

I am actually reading this right now, and I want to marry those crazy Granta nyrb folks!

Holy crap! Where's my credit card?

Absofucking addictive!

book 19: Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis

I went to the Strand recently and while I was there I wanted to see if Kirsten Bakis had any other books I could buy at the not-quite-low-enough-but-who-cares-it's-right-here Strand prices. What I saw were seven or so copies of Lives of the Monster Dogs.

I was vindicated, it seems. You see, LMS was fun to read, but it wasn't that good. The plot had everything going for it: monsters with a mysterious origin and lots of money, a smart, young female narrator, New York in the near-future, diary entries of a mad creator, etc..

But it was flimsy. I enjoyed reading the diary entries and the analysis of the dogs origins by a dog researcher, but the plot and the protestations of the human narrator were annoying and just not fine enough for this book to transend the SF/horror ghetto. It was a good bathroom book.

I would like to read more by Bakis. This was her first novel,first novels are always a little uneven (or most of the time-- don't email me!), and I'd love to see what she turns her imagination to next.

book 18: A Changed Man by Francine Prose

With all that hoo ha about the watershed, I forgot to write about A Changed Man. Too bad for you guys, because the insights I had and the pretty words I strung together in my mind have all but drifted away. Lesson: procrastination is not good for reviews.

A Changed Man was excellent. I found it at a library sale for a dollar, in hardback, and read it in fits and starts until I finally got the time to just sink into the story. The plot follows youn(ish) Vince, a broke-ass neo-Nazi who had a revelation about the world while rolling (that's taking ecstacy for all you lucky people who did not grow up with peers who thought going to raves was where it's at). He steals his trashy cousin's pickup, a thousand dollars and a bag of abusable prescriptions and drives to NYC. When he appears in the office of Meyer Maslow, a Holocaust survior who runs a non-profit that tries to better the world, his arrvial is taken as a miracle-- one that could bolster the rep and gala ticket sales of the venerable, but struggling org. A divorced woman and her two young sons get thrown into the mess too, and the way their lives change is not dramatic, but very important.

What Prose excells in in this novel is excavating the desires, motivations and pasts of four very different characters in the thrall of a pretty fine-tuned plot. What she also does is show us what they are thinking as they are thinking it, a technique almost impossible to make interesting and fluid, and she does it amazingly well. The character's voices are very strong and very true, so much so that I felt transported as each chapter switched POV.

Prose also manages to comment on New York, the Holocaust as an industry and survivor's guilt in a way that seems fresh and thoughtful at the same time. She has an amazing grasp of what drives divorce, greed and complacency. She writes in the voice of a 15 year old boy as well as she does a 40-something woman. Her take on non-profit work is extremely nuanced and will be interesting to anyone who has every worked for or with an institution with "vision."

Oh, and it's funny too.

Read it now.

The Mens all in a Watershed

***Edited again to add: I'm going to close this on April 27th, after which I will post a highly scientific report on my findings. So, comment and be a part of the arbitrary-arity!

***Edited to add: Seriously? Nobody besides Matt wants to be a part of this highly important poll?
I may have just lost my faith in the internets... or maybe no guys read this.

According to this (via Bookslut), a informal study by the Guardian, men are only touched by boring, crappy books written by other men. Women, on the other hand, like a wider variety of mostly boring books, pooped out by both genders.

I have a feeling most of the guys I know would say they had a watershed moment after reading Neuromancer or Mao's Little Red Book. Well, they probably wouldn't say "watershed".

So men in tryharderland, what would you say? The comments are open to you.

Hi, I'm Carrie

And I'm an alcoholic, but for books. [apologies to AA and The Onion]

After a Daylight Savings-thwarted trip to Skyline Books near Union Square, my friend Dave and I went to the Strand, even though I begged poverty during our coffee date. Luckily Dave is generous and I have a credit card. I was going to look for some comics, mostly anything by Phoebe Gloeckner, suggested to me by Mary, my new booger pal. She is a lightening linker, and loves the life as far as I can tell.

Instead Dave and I combed the dollar racks and finding nothing, I hunched and squatted to find some paperback fiction. This is what I chose, with my rationalizations for spending the money:

1) The Bad Seed by William March
Rationalization: I loved the movie and it was only $5. Wait, "only $5"? Obviously, I was high on book mold and soy milk.

2)Bigfoot Dreams by Francine Prose
Rationalization: I am on a Prose kick. It is hardback and unavailable from the library. And I love the title. I think I've had that dream, but instead of bigfoot it was Bill Clinton.

3)I am not Jackson Pollock by John Haskell
Rationalization: I see this Haskell character everywhere. He must be good, right? Also the stories contained are about movies, art, and literature and I am always looking for a twisted take on sacred cows. Plus, I almost typed Polack, and that's fun.

4)Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood
Rationalization: the cover is great. I have been wanting to read by this publisher for awhile. Now I can.

Any thoughts on these? I would love to have my decision justified by my rational and unbiased readers.

***Edited to add: here is a Bookslut article on nybr, and it looks like I picked a good novella to start with.

april clicks

Head over to Bookslut and read my reviews. Read everything else too.

Also, don't email me about the typos. I know, and I will get around to fixing them soon.

Also, also, someone get me a fucking job [that pays]!

when you think of metalheads, tell me, what comes to mind...

... maybe stonewashed jeans, a mullet, a guy who's evolutionarily one step behind- Atom & His Package

I love you Atom, but maybe you were wrong.

Or, maybe not.

(via Bookslut Blog)
***edited to fix links