Dispatch from the Hotel Coolidge: 3

Common Room secrets

Dispatch from the Hotel Coolidge: 2

I think they have different pollen in Vermont. Either that, or I somehow picked up a new, unhappy head last evening on the way back from buying groceries.

Dispatch from the Hotel Coolidge

I've got a review of Talamaroo 1-3 by Alabaster over at inkstuds.

double good mail day

In the mail today, this time the correct size:
Photo from Tessa Brunton's site, because my pics kept coming out like I took them.

I'll need to make a few alterations to make it more boob-friendly.

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Re: yesterday's good mail day: I can't stop reading What I Didn't See by Karen Joy Fowler. The first story in the collection, "The Pelican Bar," winner of the 2010 World Fantasy Award for short story, broke my heart after pulling me in with excellent details and the truths of parents and children.

good mail day

Most of the fun of pre-ordering is the surprise!

Shelley Jackson cover art sells me like nothing else—look at that sad mermaid. Look at her. Sorry that the image is a better showcase of the paper it came in. For better images, go here and here.

Old toothbrushes and elbow grease

I have been discovering crannies and nooks unknown to me. Spring cleaning is going on, a few months late by the calendar, a few months early by the weather. In my home, things are being mended and scrutinized, discarded and displayed. I am spending time alone with my (our) things, and being the sentimental type, this means spending time with my memories and attitudes. I prefer working on the present—the past is pitfalls and prattfalls—so, ways of being are being refined and defined and this is surprisingly rewarding. And, just like the freshened result of cleaning out the dryer's internal filter, you'd never know from the outside.

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It is planting season. I am too chilled to venture on to the roof, so my little plants and unpopped seeds are having an inside day:

In addition to my Gaia-like nurturing of food and beauty, I've been bringing home shopping bags of fruit and vegetables that, with their bright colors and healthy odors, amplify both my righteousness and sexual appeal tenfold.

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Best of all, I heard that Maureen F. McHugh will be coming out with a new collection of short stories from Small Beer Press in October 2011. It is called After the Apocalypse and you will preorder it now.

I am reading Half the Day is Night by her right now and enjoying its underwater murkiness, if not the other trappings of the book's world. More on that later.

arts from mocca 2011

I am just starting to plow through my MoCCA pile. In celebration of that, here are pics of the two arty art arts that I got at the fest.

Big:

Mountains I by Mark Burrier. I will frame this as soon as I get some framin' money.

Small:

A portrait from the G train. Are you the artist of this? Please contact me!

haps

Sorry to ruin a Spring day, everybody, but I am hoping for rain. I want the grey clouds that are now bunching over Downtown Brooklyn to turn black and heavy and blow over this way. Which, of course, means that I've started my roof garden and that the hose is a situation. A frustrating, wet, non-working situation. A trip to the hardware store could probably fix that, but when will that happen?

I have fallen into a book recently sent to me by a small press. The world is recent past and I want to be there. I hope to write about it somewhere else soon. It is a love story and a sibling story--surprise!

The third thing, the third thing is that I owe you a letter. I really do. I promise to sit down this weekend and write you one.

Twitter has recently been absorbing thoughts like the above, but I wanted to pin them here this time. I am still unsure about Twitter--how it shapes my thoughts. As a delivery system, it's great, but when I post an essay like this one or this one, it is hard to say why they are important in just a few lines. However, with retweeting, the audience for such a pick is limitless--perhaps that makes up for it? I don't know.

At The Rumpus, I have a very short piece on the subject of Near and Far. Mine is on the second page, sitting right above some lovely art.

In terms of writing in general, these last few months have been different, better. I may not have the greatest ideas but the work has been coming easier and the results are more satisfying than they have been in a long time. In terms of grief writing, I have been experimenting with different forms and been surprised at what is coming out. This makes me hopeful for my upcoming zine project, which will be done, I think, by August. You seem a bit dubious; so do I.

In other writing news, it feels like the only place I can be compassionate is on the page. I hope this passes.

3 from the subway

A woman is reading a book about yoga on the subway. She looks very earnest with her Integral Yoga plastic sack, stuffed to the brim with various expensive accoutrements. She is wearing high heels and her straightened hair has the heightened shine of battle. Between stops a twitchy man hops over to her. He is eager to tell her that he does yoga too. He is eager to tell her about getting over things, so, so many wrongs—hearts and dollar signs fly out of his mouth—and then just like that, just a few stops, he is gone out the doors.

She then comes to sit next to me in a two-seat section. She smells faintly of shit.

***

Skinny arms, ill-fitting clothes, too-big hands and feet, the whole thing. This boy is perfectly poised to break my heart in a moment. He is eleven or twelve and sitting by himself by the window on a medium-crowded train. I can’t look at him without seeing him right on the edge; he’ll either pull himself into the world or get smashed by it. He is looking out into the tunnels mostly, and in his own world totally. When we pull into a station, he looks at the two daffodils in his hands, two different kinds. First he looks at one and then he looks at the other. He has nothing else with him. I almost cry my way up the stairs. This is my problem.

***

It must be daddy’s day to watch her and behind his sunglasses and be-spangled outfit he is very uncomfortable with the task. Even with so many muscles, it is hard to look tough with a baby. It is hard to bend, over and over to pick up a toy that is not casually dropped. It is hard to be something that you are not. She is so cute, and he, well. I don’t think he has realized the reservoir of goodwill he could garner if he just removed his sunglasses.

LOC PPOC: Item url

MoCCA 2011

I spent the first day of MoCCA 2011 far away from the Armory, hanging with Philly friends of various ages and descriptions. On Sunday, I arrived with A and P and we hit the floor. B showed up later and we ended up having a good MoCCA:

I find the armory to be a rather glum space, but it does have a few things going for it:
--a tantalizing mezzanine
--a very Age-of-Aquarius 69 motif throughout, engaging the military use of the building in a sexy swirl of counterpoint
--wooden phone booths, as modeled here by A.:


There were far fewer minis and prints than I hoped for. As stated by everyone else in the world, the price of tables is forcing many minimakers out of the fest. Since I am mainly interested in comics and art with that handmade touch this is very disappointing, but unsurprising. I noticed a ton of slicker, stupider-looking, and/or child-oriented stuff, as well as the arrival of iPads for displaying art. None of this stuff really made me want to look further; I wish I had been able to spend more time on the floor, asking around about hot books. Last year newspaper anthologies were all the rage. I didn't see as many this time around, but that could be my own blindspot. Ugly ass neon melty faces still sadly dominate the print subject matter, but I did manage to find one silkscreen that was large and lovely, by Mark Burrier (see below), that didn't look like a poorly-raised Ft. Thunder/Basil Wolverton love child. As usual, I missed a few books I was looking forward to including CCS anthologies and Finders Keepers #3.

And, now, some of the many people and things I saw and bought, spottily and unskillfully photographed by myself:

Ah MAh GAh Breathers, one of our fave minis, is a book now, Justin Madsen does not say to me


Charles Forsman and Melissa Mendes make me happy


Anna Raffi is a master saleswoman


Alexandra Beguez belies her student status


Alabaster's website is broken!


Morgan Pielli is the only person is a Robin shirt that I would happily talk to


M. Jacob Alvarez means serious business


Mark Burrier and friend were wisely camera-shy


L. Nichols and Darryl Ayo are shining stars of joy

As are these portraits of B and I by L.

The requisite floor shots:



And a note about dissonance: Perhaps exhibitors would be less touchy about higher prices if the fundraising aspect of the MoCCA fest, that is supporting the museum, directly benefited the community. The museum's programming generally feels stuck in the past--perhaps a few more exhibits and events showcasing students, local, national and international self-publishers and small presses, or an artist-in-residence program, could create more goodwill in the community and at the same time increase awareness and support of the museum. As an attendee, I don't really feel like paying such a high door price to support a museum I have no interest in going to, ya dig? Next year it is quite possible that I won't. What do you think?

Check out my review of Tessa Brunton's In the tall grass, issues 2-4 over at inkstuds.

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

The Hearing Trumpet was ohmygod 100% fucking amazing. I've been in this mode of reading about repressed and oppressed British ladies in surreal circumstances, and that describes this book, but only superficially. The main character, Marian Leatherby, is really old, living in a Mexico-type land, hanging with her outrageous and wonderful friend Carmella and essentially enjoying herself despite deafness and neglect. "Every week brings a certain amount of mild enjoyment; every night, in fine weather, the sky, the stars, and of course the moon in her season. On Mondays, in clement weather, I walk two blocks down the road and visit my friend Carmella." Marian's useless son ends this quiet life and puts her in a home at the urging of his terrible, also British, wife. How terrible to be in such a lush land and surrounded by prune-faced Brits! In the home, run by unsurprisingly avaricious and suspectly religious twits, Marian meets up with several other old ladies, all of whom are interesting, if not all benign. Conditions at the home degrade until Christian mysticism, murder and good, old-fashioned collective action shake things up, then down, down, down.

Besides just stewing in the wonderfulness of Carrington's sentences and delighting in her weird, but not one-dimensional characters, what I liked most about this book were its portrayal of old age as a high-stakes adventure where one's past is more than dead weight and friendship as not only a superficial past time, but a lifesaving relationship. I would trade all the snow in Lapland for a friend like Carmella...

Despite all I've said, subtlety reigns in this book. Marian is a mild and mostly passive observer and she tells this story with a sweetness that may distract from the author's absolute dissection of ideas of propriety, femininity, the body, human worth and the past. Her reality is not questioned by the book, though throughout the story several people deem her "senile" or vice-ridden or mad. If you read the intro to the book, or any other biographics on Carrington, it becomes clear why this theme is so important, but I urge you to wait until you've read the book and not let the facts fuck up the fictional truth.

I wish I could show you more of Carrington's writing, but the book has gone back to the library and Google-Booking around for quotes is agitating. Perhaps if everybody who reads this buys a copy from Exact Change we can pressure them into reprinting more of her work.

What do you do when everything is wrong?

Today would have been my brother's 27th birthday. I can't believe it; I can't believe that I am this old, that he's been gone so long, that he'll be gone for so much longer.

If you or someone you know is struggling with comforting a grieving person, check out this Dear Sugar column from The Rumpus. I think it is perfect.

Overqualified by Joey Comeau

My rides to work and school on the subway now seem to comprise all of my current reading time. I prefer something absorbing and a little escapist for these rides, as the train is sometimes crowded, loud and/or smelly and I need something that pulls me in.

So, the other day I pulled Overqualified, by one of my favorite comics writers and birthday twin, off of the unread shelf and ran to the train. When I finally settled into my molded plastic seat, I expected to get a little jolt of work-sucks catharsis before I hit the office.

Instead I got hit with a dead-brother story—a grief story—told in increasingly desperate and bizarre cover letters to companies. Despite the profusion of profanity so loved by my generation, including this bookending gem: "'Live for today, you retarded little shit. The end is near,'" I found the story touching, if a little slight. The main character, Joey Comeau, yes, Joey Comeau, goes through many of the stages of grief I remember: self-destruction; the desire to experience everything; the desire to experience nothing; anger; mythologizing; flailing regret; etc..

His degeneration is somewhat comic, which is where the book trips a little, but the book also contains lines that mirror the kind of thoughts that both anchor us to the past and give us some path for the future. "I love the feeling of running down stairs. It's an activity the body was made for, something that feels perfect and correct." The letter to Absolut Vodka is probably my favorite. It ends like this:" I am applying for a job, because I don't think you understand what to means to be cool or strong or invincible. You of all people should know. That is what alcohol does. It makes you strong. You can fight anyone. You can seduce anyone. You can drive faster than death." I don't think this is by accident, so I wish Comeau had whittled away at some of the bombast and deepened his main character a little.

ECW Press's treatment of the book is lovely. The paper is thick and the cover art by Comeau is striking. And the letter on the cover is dated with my brother's birthday.

Bonus: A shout out to a web comic-er Ryan North and his penis are included in a letter to Yahoo.

dribs

Hi to new followers and twitter folk. Please comment when it moves you; like a network TV comedy and rigidly-defined gender roles, bloggers need comments to live.
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Speaking of twitter, through the feed of M K Reed, I found out about Tessa Brunton's comics. They looked familiar and it turns out a read a piece by her a few years ago. Good story, no? Anyway, I am loving these comics, especially Brunton's attention to the small pattern--polka dots, leave and wiggly lines are everywhere in her work and they add a sweetness to the work that I love. Plus, she has a favorite podcasts section on her site.

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Better than cut any day.

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My subway rides have been filled with The Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. It took me about a third of the way in to get into it, but now I am enjoying the swirl of spices, plant names, opium smoke and righteousness that blows through the book.

I've been lucky with my reading recently. More reviews soon.

Still loving The Hearing Trumpet. I will be finished soon and was ruffled by the fact that unless I want to spend tens of dollars to buy a copy of her older work, my only other options for reading more Leonora Carrington is one copy of one book of hers in the BPL. Will somebody please, please reprint her other works?

While researching my reading options for Carrington, I looked more into the catalog of Exact Change, the publisher of the copy of The Hearing Trumpet that I am reading. They publish a ton of stuff that I am interested in, including the recent indie craze, Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet. I am thinking of picking up that and The Death & Letters of Alice James: Selected Correspondence by Alice James and The Heresiarch & Co. by Guillaume Apollinaire. If anybody has any suggestions, let me know.

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A few nights ago, B came home very late. He went to his computer and, through my sleepy haze, I heard the sound of files being transferred at a rapid pace. What could he possibly be doing after a long night of sport and jazz?

Turns out, he was blogging.

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Oberlin College has a 97-item online mail art collection. I was very excited about this until I actually looked at the collection. What is really available on the internet is basically a catalog record, with uninteresting and barely helpful object metadata exposed and only a thumbnail image available. Some entries have links to biographies of the artists and postal data, but the tiny representations of the pieces make it useless for anyone not able to make it to Oberlin to check out the physical collection. (But do check out the very good collection overview to learn about and see more mail art).

I am spending a lot of time thinking about digital collections right now for school. Mostly I've been thinking about what putting a collection on the open web means. How much do we need to take into account the needs of the remote, and possibly casual, use when thinking about displaying metadata, offering quality representations of works and driving users to physical locations? This is a frustrating question for me. I believe that researchers should be doing the research, but I also think access is vastly improved the more data about an object is attached and available. And if your objects are visual, you've gotta have good representations--otherwise I really don't see the point of putting more than an excellent finding aid on the open web.

What do you think?
(via Letter Writers' Alliance)

Brothers, lovers & British women

Abandonware by An Owomoyela on PodCastle is an excellent SF story about grief, siblings and powerful love. Owomoyela captures so much about the experience of a "shrinking family," the strange, painful tension between the roles of child, adult and sibling and the strange rituals required for "moving on." I don't believe in moving on exactly, more like moving through, but this story was a nicely wrought piece of sibling fiction.

Here's an interesting interview with Owomoyela at Fantasy Magazine.

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The other blogger in my house finally posted something! If you like music and blurry pictures, you will love this mega post.

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Because I lost two awesome books in a row, my subway reading dwindled to reading those eerie "Does NYC need church?" ads and NY Post headlines. This was not sustainable, so after a very long class I went to the library on campus and checked over their paltry fiction section for something to distract on the ride home. At first nothing seemed to grab me from the college-bookshelf collection, but then I saw Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet. It was a nice edition and looked intriguing. I'm loving it so far with its wise and anarchic old ladies and precise, pulsing language. I can't wait to dive back in. That's one of her amazing paintings on the cover. After I finish the book I want to find out more about her art.

Recently lost, in transit, in limbo:

1) my glasses
2) my keys and various other things in an excellent, and also lost, tote bag
3) a half-read copy of You Were Wrong
4) a just started copy of Lucius Shepard's short stories
5) the only cord that works for my computer
6) time to write
7) my attention span
9) healthy wrist movement