Last night, at the urging of the always awesome Zane Grant, I went to the release party for abort! #23, a lit zine, at Williamsburg's book thug nation. This issue was SF-themed and several of the authors were present to do readings of the stories--their own or otherwise. I enjoyed all the readings, with the minor exception of the first, by the zine's editor, Jonathan Spies. He was reading someone else's material and kept laughing (surely at an in-joke?), and it was jarring and a little bizarre.

I loved the rest of the readings which included an AC story in a strong Boston accent, some autobio poetry and a looping, wild, alternate-past NYC tale. The last I loved--the reading and the story, while one of my companions enjoyed the reading but didn't care for the story. I read my copy of the zine on the train, and while the story, 'The Slarnax and the Six Train,' by Jessie Gray Singer, was good, it lost the hypnotic quality with which the author's reading imbued it. My favorite story in abort! #23, Laura Waldman's 'The One with the Insides,' worked on the page and in the ear though each was different.

This experience got me thinking about how the experience of a story can change drastically depending on the medium. As you may know, I listen to a ton of audio fiction, all of it coming from the Escape Artists podcasts. They have consistently good stories and rarely have a bum reading. (Though there was this one guy who loved to render female characters in a grating falsetto. But that is another post.) Often I am entranced by stories on there that have problems that would sink them on the page because the readings are done with great skill, drawing out the best in the story. And somehow, somehow, somehow, hearing about dragons or elves or alchemists is fine to listen to, but impossible for me to read. Because I semi-regularly read SF in online venues, I occasionally encounter a story on the casts that I've read before and marvel at how hearing it can transform it, or even more amazing, when the reader seems to channel the sound of the story right out of my brain. However, when Maureen F. McHugh's 'Ancestor Money' (I review the collection here) popped up in my 'tunes, I deleted it right away, not wanting to supplant the drawl of the main characters voice in my head with anyone else's.

I rarely go to readings because so many of them are charged with anxiety. The readers are hoping for sales, or at least attentiveness, and the audience is praying the evening won't require more than two drinks to enjoy. Last night was a relaxed affair and I look forward to checking out more abort! and more book thug nation, where the dollar book rack beats any in town.

back of my neck gettin dirt(y) and gritty

Cecil and Jordan in New York: Stories by Gabrielle Bell

“But then, I’ve never felt so useful.”

The title story of this collection, first published in Kramer’s Ergot 5, is one of my favorite comic stories. Cutting sharp-eyed realism with fantasy, it showcases the unique cruelty that New York dishes out to newcomers, as well as the wearing effect romantic relationships can have on their participants. Bell has a keen ear for dialog in her fictional stories and here it serves to give us just enough back story to make the main character, Cecil, situation heartbreaking. The story is also in vibrant color and this adds a nice liveliness to the story.

The rest of the book is a mix of fiction and autobio stories with main characters that are like Cecil—underappreciated and harassed by life. However, none of the rest of the stories resonate with me. An overwhelming bleakness pervades much of Bell’s work, including this collection. Although I love the way she draws and her ability to tease out a telling detail I don’t enjoy spending time with her characters. The desire to give them all a violent shake is too distracting!

*photo from drawn & quarterly because I already returned this to the library

i've been meaning to tell you

1) L. Nichols (whom you may remember from her contest win) is making some great garden comics right now. I must confess to envy, over here with my unhappy cucumbers and stunted greens.

2) "Were I asked (and I never have been), I would have to say that William Gibson is my favorite science fiction author, mostly likely my favourite "genre" author of all time, across all genres not labeled "literary", though I think that after Pattern Recognition, anyone trying to keep his work in the science fiction ghetto is a fool." August C. Bourré is writing about William Gibson's work--all of it, which is making me think it might be about time for a long reread.

3) Mary Phillips-Sandy is right, as usual, about why we love books about "humdrum objects." Aren't you glad she started blogging again?

4) Speaking of tumblrs, Ira Marcks' Morning in the Atelier is a great photo blog that takes place entirely in his studio. Ink water spill, pen's-eye-view and more.
photo by ira marcks, of course

Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan

I loved the colors of Exit Wounds. All that red contrasted with muted Ikea colors really suctioned my eye to the page.

The story--a man, Koby, is contacted by a young woman, Numi, who claims his absent father was killed in a cafeteria bombing and convinces him to go on a reluctant journey to find the truth—had its weaknesses, especially in the character development and plotting areas, but it moved along swiftly and I kept wanting to know what happened next.

For an outsider, Exit Wounds gave some insight into Jewish life in Israel through characters’ casual conversation. There is a running gag throughout the book about bombings—where the Hadera bombing that that two are investigating keeps getting confused with a larger one in a town called Haifa-- that shows the way a culture accommodates regular, extreme, violence into everyday life by becoming matter-a-fact about it. We also peek into the food, topography and customs of Israel, including a very unusual scene, to my American sensibilities, in which a man identifies his father, a bombing victim, by his ears over CC tv, then requests a video of the body for his mother.

Sometimes Modan’s detailing of faces in Exit Wounds veers towards cartoon-y, which undermines the character work she does, especially with the women in Numi’s family. This jars with the serious tone of the work and pulled me right out of the story in some cases.

I borrowed Exit Wounds from the library, and based on it, would check out more of Modan’s work in the same way.

*photo from drawn & quarterly

no more hellos

On the train I saw a young man that looked like my brother. Shock, then sickening hope followed by a forced numbness—the same nauseating drill. I repeatedly tried not to look at him, to not think that thought. And, of course, I hated him.

I hated his face that echoed my brother’s sharp features. I wanted to punch in his gnarly teeth because they weren’t braces-straight. His lack of style was repulsive to me, and his clothes didn’t hide the body that was not my brother’s strong, young one. I hated him for existing when my brother doesn’t. I moved my seat so I wouldn’t have to see him, but I couldn’t get away from his (thankfully) New York-accented voice, saying stupid things, my beautiful, dead brother would never say.

On nights like this, I want to kill that part of me that is always searching for him because it will always be treacherous, waiting to ambush me.

I've been here the whole time

I am awaiting a desk. A beautiful desk, already owned by my family, is as impatient as I to meet, I imagine, but logistics get in the way. In the meantime I am butt-on-the-floor, contorted, not writing.



The rapidly swelling sidebar shows what I have been doing--well, the part that doesn't involve a love affair with my new video store. The Jansson and Tillman books I'm in or just out of are summery and run in shallow and deep currents, as appropriate to my recent moods. Even the Kathryn Davis book I abandoned in its last chapter a few months ago had a seasonal feel.

Despite what should be inspiration, my resolve to write is as weak as a melted water ice.

Is anyone else twisting in the summer breeze?

Check out my review of Chuck Forsman's Wolf over at inkstuds.

learn and relearn, library science style

1) I do not like reference all that much, but I love reader's advisory--obviously.

2) Metadata is really, really interesting. I'd like to sign up for its newsletter.

3) Butler Library at Columbia provides an intoxicating atmosphere of old money, untold secrets and intellectual vigor. No wonder all those undergrads want to hump in its stacks.

4) Poster-making is inexplicably considered a valuable thing for a graduate student to do.

5) The NYPL offers so many free services like reference chat, access to databases and old-timey eye candy that is feels like I are getting way with something every time I use their site.

6) Group projects suck baboon ass.

7) Librarians are geniuses.
Rest assured that its ass is angry about my comment, too. Image via the NYPL, of course

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews

Reading A Complicated Kindness reminded me a lot of reading Geek Love for the first time. It is fast paced, strewn with pain and humor and told in a captivating first-person narrative that makes the form seem easy. Though not set in the freak show circuit like GL, ACK does follow life in, in the words of the 16-year-old narrator Nomi, a “secret town” of Mennonites in Canada called East Village. She spends a lot of time considering her place in the Village, and the flow of her thoughts is very true: “That I belong in the frightful fresco of this man’s dream unnerves me. I wonder exactly happened in Menno’s world that made him turn his back on it…The mark of the beast? Streets paved in gold? What? Fuck off. I dream of escaping into the real world. If I’m forced to read one more Narnia series book I’ll kill myself.”


Nomi is angry, defeated, self-destructive, but mostly just sad. Both her sister and her mother have disappeared from town, leaving her with her good-hearted but befuddled father and a bad reputation. She has a plan to leave town too, like we all did at 16, and it is equally possible and fantasy. The main thing keeping her is her lovely dad, Ray, whose own depression at the loss of the other half of the family. I love the character of Ray; his unfunniness and Dadliness are dead-on renderings by Toews and his treatment shows the depth of her understanding of the heartbreak of living in both a faith bound society and in the world, the real world as Nomi would have it, at once when all you want to do is be a good person and have a good life.

The specter of excommunication, a concept that seems especially cruel to me, hovers over this story, and that is especially sinister since Nomi’s frothing uncle is the town’s religious head. As we learn more about the family’s history we can decide to see Uncle Hans as a damaged individual with a poor choice of coping mechanisms or just a complete asshole, or both. Hans shows well the unfortunate arc a life can take when a person chooses to transform an incidence of pain into a grudge against the world and how potent and scary that transformation can be in a religious context.

Women in East Village have it noticeably worse than the men and Toews engages this subtly. The fine line between being a child and being an adult is especially perilous in East Village, and I like that Toews exploits this by having Nomi left by her mysterious, vibrant mom at age thirteen (still a kid) and telling this angry, revelatory story as an outraged teen, near the age when her outrageous sister took off. Other women who can’t or won’t leave go sick like Nomi’s religious best friend, get drunk like her grandma or just go dead like her aunt, extreme reflections of the options available to women everywhere who can’t conform but can’t leave.

All this sounds depressing, but A Complicated Kindness is funny and vibrant too. Though she feels stuck, you know that something is happening with Nomi. All that teenage energy comes busting through the pages, and it is an inspiration and a warning at once.

Good

*Click to enbiggen*

this...

turned into this

The roof is actually even more potty than this now that I've begin to thin and repot seedlings. Besides the vegetables you see here I am growing some sunflowers for B, and some zinnias for me. Between the two is nasturtium; I have several pots of those grown from seed. Will they actually flower?

&&&
From my parents' basement...
It shoots popcorn! It jazzes up the counter with its wild lettering! It only smells a little like burning wires! Bonus: giving it to me makes my parents seem less like hoarders.

&&&
This week was a bad one for stress, but a good one for art. My friend Pete not only brought his bad self to visit, he brought a housewarming painting with him:
One Day by Esther Pearl Watson
I keep going back and looking at it over and over. Especially the little socks.

&&&
More art arrived with Eva today. I commissioned a set of portraits for B's birthday awhile ago from Simon, and she graciously lugged them from Vienna to Brooklyn. They look so much like us that I had to redact! I thought that we'd put them in the bathroom so guests feel safe knowing that we are always watching.

nice lettering

Any letterers out there? How about form fetishists?

Check out this event at Columbia's Butler Library on April 20:

Notes of an Alphabetical Fetishist: Lettered in Rome

"Russell Maret will discuss his recent alphabetical investigations and experiments conducted while a fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Russell's initial intention in Rome was to document and analyze lettering in the catacombs. Upon arrival, however, he was quickly diverted by the great variety of classical lettering styles; and what began as an inquiry into non-Imperial lettering developed into a more playful study of diverse alphabetical "themes." Join Russell for a tour of what he found in Rome and what he made as a result."

If I wasn't mired in work, etc., etc.

#ohcrap

"a better life for everybody"
Eleanor Davis on inkstuds. She is such a great thinker--I love hearing her perspectives on the importance of children's literature, the complicatedness of life, gender politics and why you should have bought her mini comics already. Robin also briefly talks about his struggle with sane presentation of women on his show, which was quite interesting to me as a listener.

nunununununun

Did you know that the Library of Congress just acquired every tweet ever? Now that all those messages about nausea and disappointment (just me?) will be available to researchers of the future I feel a little chastened.

nunununununun

Among the many things I can't do because of school crunch time is this:

Lectures on the Dime Museum, head hunting and automata--what more could you ask for?

Sorry to disappear so soon after MoCCA but between the end-of-the-semester-crazies, being back at work and trying to juggle some other obligations, blogging has slipped down the list of priorities.

I have a couple of reviews in the works, both for here and inkstuds, and I can't wait to get them to you.

MoCCA 2010 haul

Between purchases and generously-given review copies, mine and B's MoCCA bounty was large and impressive. Not pictured are a Tshirt and large print also purchased at the show.

This time around I got to visit many of the tables I'd been hoping to see and am greatly regretting the ones I missed. I'm sure as more MoCCA reports come out, the more regretful I will be.

MoCCA roundup

obligatory crowd shot
This year's MoCCA was much more fun than last year. Here are some things that I noticed:
1) business cards everywhere
2) prints--so many more than last year
3) ft. thunder-influenced neon color jams everywhere. too bad...
4) the babies of mocca should be a calendar. 2008/2009 must have been sexy years for cartoonists.
5) CCS has become a formidable presence and I love it. their tables dwarfed even the large publishers.
6) the reading area was bullshit. guess the high table price backfired. some seats would have been nice for actual relaxing.
7) comic newspapers abounded. this is an exciting development. if you didn't pick up at least one you are a confirmed idiot.

Things I wished I had done:
1) see what the school kids were up to. the risd, sva, etc. tables were jumping.
2) gotten a copy of pood.
3) not gone inside the village pourhouse. i couldn't get the smell of cheese-stuffed desperation out of my nose for hours--and i didn't even make it down to the party!
4) gone to limerick earlier
5) checked out more of the Scanda contingent
6) eaten fewer eggs

Some pictures from Day 2:


l. nichols rules you

kenan rubenstein and girlcate bring intensity

neil brideau is very tolerant

j.t. yost is loving and virile

sara edward-corbett is creating something beautiful

mike bertino is not afraid

"sofia olsson"* brings some Swedish flavor

sara lindo, steve seck and darryl ayo were excited in the face of disappointment

the grants can see into your soul. they do not like what they see.

mr. phil, peter rios and charlito are about to go for a post-fest fun run

Why didn't I take a picture of you? Probably because your comics sicken me. Or I ran out of memory. You decide!


*that's what the name tag says, folks.

MoCCA, cha cha cha

Because I need to sleep, and also need to be late for everything, yesterday at MoCCA was a bit of a wash. So, in lieu of a detailed rundown of people and things, here are some photos from this morning:


MoCCA walking shoes


First day's haul


window gardening- nasturtium seedlings

See you at the armory!

3 important comics

If you don't read these, you are an asshole:

----------------1--------------------

----------------2--------------------

----------------3--------------------

thoughts from a cold snap night

Revenge has been a topic of conversation in tryharderland recently. We've been talking about the revenge film, but when I am talking to myself the conversation is about wrongs both small and impossibly large and the poisonous wish to redress them all with the limitless force of unsoothable rage. There are, of course, problems with this.

That is what this story is about and it is truly frightening:
Oded the Merciless by Tina Starr

The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

Last year I read the still-unreviewed book of short stories Animal Crackers by Hannah Tinti and enjoyed it overall. I bought The Good Thief at Unnameable Books the other day, fueled by vague remembrances of good reviews, a bookish companion and the ten bucks burning a hole in my pocket.

I started the book that night and got sucked in immediately. The story is about an orphan named Ren with five sticky fingers and a mysterious past. After years of lining up in front of a sinister statue of St. Anthony for prospective parents looking for a farmhand, a shop boy, or maybe even someone to love, and not being picked, he gets adopted by a man that claims to be his brother and seems especially convinced by Ren’s missing hand.

The Good Thief is an enjoyable ride marred only by Tinti’s protective love of her main character. Firstly, she occasionally imbues him with internal thoughts that a boy who’s rarely seen the outside of a Catholic monastery wall wouldn’t likely have. When he thinks of God, he pictures a “benignly neglectful garden, carefully snipping His roses,” a musing that seems too sophisticated and far from the Catholic indoctrination he received. When he imagines a real home he imagines a set of “good “ dishes, unconvincingly knowing such a thing exists, specifically “white porcelain” and a “small bowl of wildflowers, picked from behind the kitchen door, pink and blue with tiny yellow buttercups.” Apparently, Ren has a flair for fantasy interior design! The few passages like this tore me right out of the story and detracted from Tinti’s otherwise careful rendering of Ren by trying to give him delicateness that just translates into preciousness.

Additionally, as much as no one wants a one-handed orphan boy to suffer extra bad luck, real pain for Ren is necessary to make his story real. His journey is certainly not without pitfalls, but at each tense moment the reader knows that Ren will end up essentially okay through quick thinking, luck, or the mood swings of another character. The circumstance that is supposed to make the ending bittersweet doesn’t quite hit the reader where it hurts, because the blow is weighed down by the sack of coincidences that lead up to it.