Books of 2010

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
Meeks by Julia Holmes
The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry
Horse, Flower, Bird by Kate Bernheimer
Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction, Edited by Sabrina Chapadjiev
Zero History by William Gibson
Corrupting Dr. Nice by John Kessel
Bookhunter by Jason Shiga
Hound by Vincent McCaffery
Amulet by Roberto Bolano
The Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss
The Scar by China Mieville
Momento Mori by Muriel Spark
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey
Monsters by Ken Dahl
Rainforest by Jenny Diski
Hicksville by Dylan Horrocks
Absence Makes the Heart by Lynne Tillman
The Salon by Nick Bertozzi
Looking for Jake by China Mielville
Cross Country by MK Reed
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
King Rat by China Mieville
Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin
Artichoke Tales by Megan Kelso
Summer Will Show by by Syliva Townsend Warner
A Mess of Everything by Miss Lasko-Gross
Whirlwind Wonderland by Rina Ayuyang
Wide Eyed by Trinie Dalton
Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw
Exit Wounds by Rutu Mondan
Cast in Doubt by Lynne Tillman
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. Mc Hugh
Paper Cities, An Anthology of Urban Fantasy Edited by Ekaterina Sedia
Cecil and Jordan in New York: Stories by Gabrielle Bell
Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology by James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel, eds.
A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews
The City and the City by China Mieville
The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
Sweet Tomb by Trinie Dalton
Norwood by Charles Portis
Down the Street by Lynda Barry
Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Davis
Lolly Willowes by Syliva Townsend Warner

3 for you and me

Yesterday B went shopping for his family for Christmas. I was along to advise, but in a bookstore it is difficult to simply observe and comment. We were in Williamsburg so we went to Spoonbill & Sugartown and Book Thug Nation. While S&S carries the nonfiction and eye candy that would fill my shelves if book money grew in shower mildew, BTN is a used bookstore after my own heart.

But, I sure do miss Clovis. It was somehow less serious than BTN and had more comics and zines than Unnameable. I would always forget about it, but then there it would be, holding down that corner spot on Bedford quietly being the one place I really liked to go in the neighborhood. Until the day it wasn't, of course.

***

I did buy myself a book last night from the book thugs--Jules Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century. I heard about it on Amy H. Sturgis's superb column A Look Back at Genre History on Starship Sofa 164.

I love these segments for Sturgis's taste in history lessons and her hypnotic voice. She injects new life into tired genres (vampires for instance) by focusing on examples that I might actually be into. She certainly sold me on the unfortunately-named Varney the Vampire or the Feast of Blood, a penny dreadful available on all the best out-of-copyright sites on the web. Turns out I had an excerpt of it in an old Penguin anthology at my parents house.

Oh, old-timey horror, you're the best for hiding in the bathroom with!

***

I just ate several carrots, rinsed and skinned and cool to the tongue. The crunch was a sweet bit of escape from my nasty cold. I doubt I'll be doing any reading today but at least the food will be good.

My semester is over. Here is a picture from the NYPL Digital Gallery that perfectly illustrates my feelings:



Here are some things I've accomplished since last night:
1) Left the house
2) Didn't check my email for over five hours
3) Felt relaxed

A good start for the break, no?

2010 Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest

I've missed every con this year except MoCCA. This, the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest, is the other local show that I'm interested in and has happened to be on B's birthday weekend both years it has existed. Why do comics want to ruin my romantic life?



The gym of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Williamsburg was packed and sweaty with the unfortunate haired and bespectacled. A little different crowd than usual, but seemingly very into what was at the fest. I wasn't able to check out any of the panels

I got there around 4:45 and by 5:30 several tables had sold out of stuff, which I guess is a good sign for them. I was there to get minis and prints, and I did much better on the mini side. Though there were a few prints I was interested in, so many of the tables were laden with this neon-impaired-child-melting-heads shit that I am just not into.

Here's my haul:


I got to see a ton of people that made me smile; most are not pictured here:
Mika Oshima, author of Dense Valley, as seen above

Travis Robertson & Joel Speasmaker

This seemed to be a Pepsi church, and I am really more of a Coke gal...

Finally Robin and I met in person. Did you hear the fireworks? The guy on the left was sassy, and is named Zack Soto.

Three people converse intensely about comics. Or something.

The green glow apparent in many of these photos was not created as an artistic nod to nausea or the rotting corpse of arty comics, but was in fact the color of the light in the exhibition room. Very flattering!

letters to I

Recently I started a correspondence with an almost-3 year old. So far we've had two volleys by mail. It all started because while we were visiting this charming child, went to a big girl's birthday and came home with two favors--a decorated megaphone and a little red mailbox. I thought it would be fun to slip a note into the box.



It was fun, for her and me. So, we've kept on doing it.

As I wrote to her father, I'm not just paying attention to one little girl,(though that's no burden), I'm furthering my serious agenda to bring back letter writing, to write myself, and to capture my history note by note.

*Sadly, the wax sealed letter in the pic above was set on fire when I tried to reseal it. I was able to save the stamps, though. The second draft is on its way!

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry

Fleshy characters are all I desire when I need distraction. I want heavy adjectives that knock wetly against my head as I wade through a book. I want a book that sprawls in interesting ways and, even if it’s a fantasy, feels “real.”

So, perhaps I’m just not in the headspace to enjoy Berry’s noirish mistaken identity mystery. Set in a no-name city, the story follows Charles Unwin, a clerk in a monolithic detective agency called simply the Agency who files cases for a star detective. When the detective goes missing and Unwin is suddenly promoted, he decides to investigate his former detective’s disappearance. Pretty standard stuff this is, and though it gets wrapped in layers of fantastic happenings including mass dreaming and giant archivists, the story can’t survive on plot alone.

All we really get of each character is a tic (Unwin won’t relinquish his hat, his secretary is a narcoleptic, a security guard important to the case can’t remember anything) with a few bits of back-story stuck to it. This does not inspire involvement with Unwin, the missing detective or any of the other major characters, so it is quite difficult to stay engaged with the quest or to feel any urgency to return Unwin to his former, dull occupation and life. It doesn’t help that Berry’s dialogue channels the output of an untalented 40s screenwriter, as in this exchange:
“Detective Sivart?” he said.
“Yeah, Charlie,” said the boy.
“I can’t remember the name of this game.”
“It’s an old game,” said the boy. “Older than chess. Older than curse words and shoeshine. Doesn’t matter what you call it, so long as you know how to play. Everyone’s in on it, except one guy, and that guy’s ‘it.’ Okay?”
“Detective Sivart?”
“Yeah, Charlie.”
“I’m ‘it,’ aren’t I?”
“And quick too,” the boy said.

Much of the sense of fun that Berry tries to inject into the book with wacky scenarios is smashed flat by the overwhelming gray of the story. It rains everyday, places and people are described with affectless names, the intimation of oppressive by hints of labyrinth rules of the Agency—I get it, I get it—world building happening here! But without a little red blood, I don’t care.

2 things Unnameable

1) I got my first email from Unnameable Books today. It was full of information on their upcoming readings and events. Because I had a crappy morning, I pretended that its sweet, excited tone was just for me. Now I feel better.

(Sometimes these tricks are the carrot that keeps the pony moving.)

2) Adam Tobin, owner of Unnameable, is interviewed at Prospect Heights Patch in a new series they are doing about working in PH, inspired by Studs Terkel's classic book Working. "I really love going through piles of books and picking out the ones that I want. I really enjoy trafficking in them, moving them from the hands of one person into the hands of another person. And just coming across surprising things all the time."

photo from brownstoner

This could be good

Avi Steinberg will be at Pratt Manhattan to discuss prison librarianship and his new book, RUNNING THE BOOKS: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian.

Wednesday, November 17th
5:30 -7:00 PM @ Pratt Manhattan Campus- Room 610
144 West 14th Street

Interested folks MUST RSVP to prattsilssa@gmail.com by noon on Tuesday 11/16 to reserve a spot and get on security's list. They are very into not letting people into the building, so definitely RSVP w/ your full name.

From Publisher's Weekly:
“In this captivating memoir, Steinberg, a Harvard grad and struggling obituary writer, spends two years as a librarian and writing instructor at a Boston prison that’s an irrepressibly literary place... Steinberg writes a stylish prose that blends deadpan wit with an acute moral seriousness. The result is a fine portrait of prison life and the thwarted humanity that courses through it.”

I'll be in class that evening, but you should go and send me a report.

Brain savers

While I've been plugging away at school and other projects, I've had to maintain a stricter internet schedule than I'd like. However, there have been a few sites that have recently helped me keep sane. I thought I'd share them with you:

Final Girl & The House of Self-Indulgence write about movies that I like in hilarious fashions, keeping me thinking while I can't watch movies.

Pure and hearty like beet soup, The Rumpus prods several of my emotion areas with good writing and the joy of experimentation. And, of course, Sugar is the sweet on top.

I turn to StarShipSofa for beautiful, occasionally confusing accents and extreme dedication. Plus SF of course.

Wendy MacNaughton's site is good for the eyeballs and re-humanizing.

Image from the NYPL Digital Gallery

I miss you and I'll be back soon.

I'm doing a lot of reading and working for school, which is more enjoyable as the semester goes on. But there is SO MUCH WORK.

I'm reading Zero History by William Gibson. It's making me want to reread Pattern Recognition and Spook Country because I know that I am missing stuff.

Any bookstore recommendations for Middlebury, Vermont?

birthday bonanza

I forgot to tell you about the best gift I got for my birthday. Sorry for leaving you on the edge of your seat.

On the day we left for Portland, two packages awaited me in the pile of crap that usually constitutes my mail. They were both from my Mom and contained an assortment of well-chosen items of practical use, well, practical if you are me. Which you are not. (I hope!)

My mother and I have been reading Muriel Spark books--picking up whatever copies we find in thrift stores and used bookstores and trading them back and forth. My mother was apparently doing some research because, several months ago, she told me that ol' Sparky had once written a children's book. And, get this, the illustrations were by Edward Gorey, friend to odd children everywhere! We jokingly put it on the wishlist at Unnameable Books and went on with our day.

You know where this is going:




My mother never ceases to amaze me. The above is an enjoyable example of that trait, and I try to relish those.

home and away

I review J.T. Yosts's Losers Weepers 1 & 2 over at inkstuds. Comment there!

Samuel Steward: Studs in the Library

Last Wednesday, instead of the usual class, we went to a talk being held downstairs at the NYPL with Justin Spring, author of Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade. I read about the book and was cautiously interested.

When we entered the auditorium the image on the screen was a of a dusty black file box with a label reading Stud File in Germanic lettering. Does it get more enticing than that?



The presentation began with a slideshow by Spring, the author of the biography, to acquaint us with his subject. He included historical maps, family photos, pics of famous friends and fucks, hotel postcards, a pubic hair reliquary, hotel bills, erotic paperbacks written by Steward, homemade hardcore stationery and Polaroids filled with the usual thing. There was talk of a five-hour Kinsey interview, Hell’s Angels and unwritten novels. The unwritten codes of gay flirtation, safety and safety from safety. Plus we got to see some naked men. Not only was it exciting to learn how the author pieced together Steward’s life from Steward’s meticulous file-keeping, but the Q&A focused on Spring’s relationship with his dead subject and how living with a sex obsessive in your mind changes your view on your own sexuality.

Before the visuals went up, either Spring or the cohost, Honor Moore, stated that without rescue “our [LGBT] history is lost.” This is of course true of all of our history, and each history is a part of a larger and larger one until the histories get so expansive that they come back to you, yes, you. You or I. You and I.

Are you a loser or a keeper?

It’s complicated to save other people within yourself without losing yourself. This is something I've grappled with for a long time. I'm not sure how close to an answer I've gotten.

I am back from sunny Portland and several things have happened:
1) I turned 30.
2) I finally went to Guapo comics.
3) I ate Guamanian food at a food cart.
4) After too many years, I got to visit Retown and meet her main man.
5) I visited an American houseboat. I saw a bat!
6) I rediscovered the redeye rash.
7) I saw Brooklyn in pre-9AM. It was horrible with industrious movement.

More soon.

in and out of my brain

There has been talk in my twitter feed about inspiration, so I thought I'd share some of my recent inspirations with you. I tend to accrete viewpoints and styles in large bursts, usually because of travel or several days alone, and therefore outside of the motions of the everyday. Some influences (Studs Terkel, Marianne Faithfull, sailors' attire) are longstanding, others last a month, a year, and usually lead me to other, better thoughts.

Inspiring now:
Radiolab
Maximus Clarke interviews William Gibson on Maude Newton
The Dear Sugar column on The Rumpus, #25 on
Final Girl, especially her reviews
Nature Illustrated: Flowers, Plants, and Trees, 1550-1900 in the NYPL's Digital Gallery

image from NYPL

I don't understand what is taking so long. I mean, I have several pens and ideas and yet that perfect, emotionally punchful piece just hasn't leapt from my fingers onto the edit pile. It's Sunday and everything. The weekend was over hours ago and the hard work is supposed to be done.

I find it hard to go from living to writing so I just end up doing something in between. I think it's called twitter.

When I was a young woman, my idol was Studs Terkel. When I read Working for the first time my mind just blew up out of my head. Not because of any of the stories really, but because I found out that someone's job was to wander around with a tape recorder and listen to people. (Or at least that's how I imagined it.) Later I read Underground by Haruki Murakami, as well as several other books of oral history, loving them all. Sure you wonder about editing and transcription with those books, but I can suspend my disbelief to extract the magic in those stories. Committing to listen to an unedited recording has even more rewards. Luckily I get to do that in one of my classes this semester.

Speaking of class, I will be in one when this free event is going on, but you should go and tell me all about it:
“What is Oral History?”
Ronald J. Grele, is the former director of the Oral History Research Office. He is author of Envelopes of Sound: The Art of Oral History as well as numerous articles on the theory and method of oral history. He is a past president of the Oral History Association, and was a founding member of the Executive Council of the International Association of Oral History. He writes and lectures widely on oral history and the nature of historical consciousness. Grele will talk about the theoretical origins of oral history as a field and practice. Mary Marshall Clark, current director of OHRO, will comment on recent developments in oral history theory and practice.

Sept. 16, 4:10 – 6:00pm
RSVP at site. Not sure if it's required, but that's a good bet.

well, that was wet

We attempted Brooklyn Book Fest. I got to see my once-a-year bud Goodloe Byron and chat with Alexander at the South End Press table. I would have loved to have spoken with Gavin Grant, but instead just bought Small Beer Press books, which is perhaps just as good for him. Those books are Hound (I'm not sure my Mom will let me borrow the copy I gifted her), Meeks and two more copies of Mothers and Other Monsters for loaning (my frothing review here).

I stopped in on one panel, "Is Beauty Painful?," with Jenny Hollowell, Peter Hedges, and Matthew Sharpe. I was in it for Sharpe, but missed his reading, of course. Then a soda machine's fan went on rendering the Q&A inaudible. I wasn't able to find his new book in all that mist.

No Colson Whitehead, no Jilian Tamaki, no Jennifer Egan. And wet books everywhere. Blah.

night moves