Category: literature

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Magnetic fridge

Over at 2Blowhards, Michael Blowhard wants to know if the publicity site for Miranda July’s new book is “refreshing and creative, or is it the twee-est, most over-whimsical thing ever committed to pixels?”

I can see why people would opt for the latter, but I think it’s an awfully cute idea. Not that I have any interest in the book, but hey.

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New reads

In lieu of writing my substantive take on the idiocy of the subprime loan crisis — do ya think they were called subprime borrowers for a reason? — I’ll fill you in on my latest readings.

I began reading two books yesterday, and am enjoying both of them immensely. Around 3am Tuesday morning, I gave up on trying to get back to sleep, and headed downstairs to my library, where I picked up one of last week’s purchases, 79 Short Essays About Design, by Design Observer writer Michael Bierut. Even adjusting for middle-of-the-night delirium, I was entranced by the first few essays. Bierut has an easy style that manages not to understate the importance of his central topic. At their best, they have a “look behind the curtain” approach to history that I so enjoy from some of Ron Rosenbaum’s columns. The first 4 or 5 essays have helped establish what he sees as central schools of thought when it comes to teaching design, and how these philosophies play out in the real world. I’ll try to write a little more about them when I finish all 79 (and they are short; the book’s around 250 pages).

The other book was a roundabout discovery. Years ago, I tried reading London Fields by Martin Amis and I seem to recall that I found myself bored silly within a couple of pages. This is probably during one of those phases when I was denouncing just about all contemporary fiction.

A few weeks ago, I finished a new Mad Mix CD (I know, I know: I haven’t posted anything to that site in a while). It included a song I stumbled across in an iTunes shuffle session: Nicola 6 by Chris Connelly. I loved the Kinks / early Bowie sound to it, and tried to figure out a place for it on the new CD. The recipient of said CD, my buddy Mark, wrote, “The chorus in one of those songs involves ‘Nicola Six.’ Isn’t she a character in a Martin Amis novel?” I looked it up and, lo and behold, Nicola Six is one of the lead characters in London Fields.

“Well,” I thought, “it certainly was a long time ago and I’ve been awfully wrong about a lot of things.” So I checked with my local library online, picked up the book on the way home. I read 50 pages of it last night before turning in, and found that, yes, I was awfully wrong. I can’t say anything about Amis’ other books, but this one’s keeping me interested and engaged.

Of course, maybe that’s because its narrator is a man who hasn’t been able to start his novel in 20 years.

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Go, fish

I return to A River Runs Through It every so often. The exploration of art, grace and family has become a touchstone for me, even though I’m not Presbyterian, have never fished, and have no plans to visit Montana. I find the writing beautiful and always get teary in the final pages.

I just finished re-reading it this morning. Here’s a piece:

As the heat mirages on the river in front of me danced with and through each other, I could feel patterns from my own life joining with them. It was here, while waiting for my brother, that I started this story, although of course at the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books. But I knew a story had begun, perhaps long ago near the sound of water. And I sensed that ahead I would meet something that would never erode so there would be a sharp turn, deep circles, a deposit, and quietness.

The fisherman even has a phrase to describe what he does when he studies the patterns of a river. He says he is “reading the water,” and perhaps to tell his stories he has to do much the same thing. Then one of his biggest problems is to guess where and at what time of day life lies ready to be taken as a joke. And to guess whether it is going to be a little or a big joke.

For all of us, though, it is much easier to read the waters of tragedy.

–Norman Maclean

It’s funny but, as I look over that passage now, it lies flat and seems kinda preachy. I suppose you really need to read the whole thing.

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Otto… parts?

(Oh, just go to the slideshow.)

I took the day off yesterday, so you know what that means, dear readers! Yup: I hustled around in traffic, walked all over the place, and sweated like Patrick Ewing! (I swear: I’m taking tomorrow off and have no plans on leaving the house. I might go all John & Yoko and not even get outta bed.)

I’d have written about it sooner, but I stupidly checked my work e-mail last night instead of waiting till this morning. I discovered that one of the eight speakers at our conference (7 weeks from tomorrow) has to cancel, which means I need to scramble to find a replacement. And, being a neurotic, I began to fear that every single speaker who hasn’t sent back his or her confirmation letter is going to cancel.

Which is to say, it should’ve been a Xanax night, but I stupidly decided to play it straight. So, I woke up at 4am this morning and began formulating backup plans. This should explain some of the following disjointedness.

Anyway, I spent yesterday in NYC and, while it wasn’t very humid, the 90-degree temps really sapped me. I probably started out on the wrong foot by heading over to the Strand Bookstore, which never has good air circulation. Roaming downstairs to look through review copies and the philosophy section, I thought I was going to pass out. Fortunately, I stayed conscious long enough to snap this pic:

it sure does

I’m lying about starting out at the Strand. I actually started at a parking lot on 17th St. and 5th Ave., around 11am. The attendant asked when I’d be back and I said, “Around 7 or 8,” figuring I’d take my wife out for dinner after she gets out of work. He proceeded to park the car, hand me the ticket, and then say to me, “We close at 7.” I stared for a moment, then just left for the bookstore.

Since I know you’re all dying to find out exactly what I bought at the bookstore, here’s the list:

From the Strand, I walked down to Otto, a restaurant just north of Washington Square and co-owned by Mario Batali, where I planned meet official VM buddy Elayne for lunch. Elayne was in charge of a pair of kids — early teenagers, I guess — who came down to NYC from Connecticut so they could see a concert at South Street Seaport by Korn. Elayne asked if I knew them. “Not really,” I said. “I think they did a cover of Word Up! by Cameo. And they spell their name with a K.”

“That would explain why I couldn’t find them online.”

On to lunch. It’s one of Elayne’s favorite places to eat. The menu had an amazing array of pizzas, and I felt bad about settling for the Quattro Formaggi, but I’m a boring man. With a camera:

They say quattro, they mean quattro

Elayne was more daring, ordering a pizza with potatoes and anchovies. At one point, she left for a smoke break, asking me to entertain the kids with a story about the time Dad handed me a shotgun “in case anything happens” during a business deal he was making.

When she returned, she said, “Mario Batali’s here! He’s in the other room and he’ll take a picture with the kids!” So the four of us got up and hurried to the front of the restaurant, even though the kids had no idea who Mario Batali is. We tried explaining the celebrity chef phenomenon, but they didn’t seem to know much beyond Rachael Ray. I, meanwhile, was holding out hope that Anthony Bourdain would be on hand, too.

Elayne made quick introductions, and I snapped a pic of Mario with the boys:

The camera does not add 10 lbs. in this case.

I wanted to take a second one, just to show that he really does walk around in bright orange Crocs, but thought it’d be rude.

Back at the table, I said to the kids, “You guys don’t like REM, right?” They made faces and shook their heads. I mentioned that Batali’s good friends with Michael Stipe, and they laughed.

Elayne proceeded to tell the story of her very first NYC celebrity sighting: Carrot Top. “Pre-steroids?” I asked.

There’s not much more to tell about the day. I meandered with Elayne & the kids for a bit, then headed out to my wife’s office. It was good to finally see it, since I find it so difficult to visualize other people’s spaces. Now that I have some idea of what her workplace is like, I think I’ll find it easier to send goofy e-mails and IMs.

Anyway, I headed back into the city till her workday ended. Having left my books at her office, I needed to pick up something else to read for a bit. I stopped in at Shakespeare & Co. on 23rd St., only to find that the main floor is gutted and there’s just a small store downstairs while renovations are done. I picked up a copy of Winter’s Tale (30% off everything in the store), read/sidewalk-gawked in an Au Bon Pain near Union Square, and then headed back to her office.

As it turned out, we were both too stuffed from our lunches to want any dinner, so the parking lot situation worked out. We grabbed the car, made a surprisingly quick dash to the Lincoln Tunnel, and got home with plenty of time for me to worry about the conference!

(The photoset has a bunch more pictures that I didn’t post.)

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Monday Morning Montaigne: Of books

I’m back! As with other forms of exercise, it was difficult for me to return to Montaigne’s essays after putting them off for a while. As Bizarro Aristotle says, “You make the excuses, and the excuses make you.”

What better essay to mark my return to this project than one entitled  Of books? In this one, M. discusses what books mean to him and why he reads. With his typical disingenuousness, he begins, “I have no doubt that I often happen to speak of things that are better treated by masters of the craft, and more truthfully.” He blames himself and not the books, claiming, “If I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retentiveness.”

He proceeds to write about particular histories and memoirs that mean a lot to him, but I’m taking this opportunity to discuss another aspect of the essays, namely their strange relationship to art.

That’s because M. makes a digression to cover “books that are simply entertaining.” He finds Rabelais and Boccaccio “worth reading for amusement,” then writes, “As for the Amadises and writings of that sort, they did not have the authority to detain even my childhood.”

I was struck by the irony of that comment, since “writings of that sort” inspired Cervantes to write Don Quixote. In fact, this brings me to one of the complaints I have toward M.’s writings; his lack of interest in fiction or poetry. Now, I know that the novel wasn’t All That during his life (1533-1592), so I’ll let him off the hook with regards to the former.

Regarding verse, M. takes the opportunity to praise Virgil, Lucretius, Catullus, Horace and Lucan, but chiefly for the beauty and grace of their writing. Throughout the essays — at least, in the first 375 pages — the ancient poets get used as “color commentary,” a line or stanza here or there to illustrate a point M. has made, not as the center of an argument or a passage from which to learn. It’s clear that he knows his poetry, but it’s not clear that he gained much from it, beyond rhetoric and a sort of “beauty for beauty’s sake.”

Don’t get me wrong; I understand that the project in which he’s engaged is learning “how to die well and live well,” and that he finds essays, philosophy and histories much more useful to that process. Praising the work of historians, M. comments:

[M]an in general, the knowledge of whom I seek, appears in them [histories] more alive and entire than in any other place — the diversity and truth of his inner qualities in the mass and in detail, the variety of the ways he is put together, and the accidents that threaten him.

It’s a pity that he died before Cervantes and Shakespeare got their groove on, even though there’s a strong possibility he’d have missed the point of their work, too, given his dismissal of “Amadises” and his criticism of writers who rely on ancient plots. My reason for this crops up a page or so later, when M. dismisses long-windedness in the works of Cicero. He writes,

For me, who ask only to become wiser, not more learned or eloquent, these logical and Aristotelian arrangements are not to the point. I want a man to begin with the conclusion. I understand well enough what death and pleasure are; let him not waste his time anatomizing them. I look for good solid reasons from the start, which will instruct me in how to sustain their attack.

I’m all for a cut-to-the-chase mentality, but I think the same things he complains about in Cicero may also render M. unable to grasp the life-changing-ness of art.

Since it’s almost Monday Afternoon Montaigne, I guess I’ll have to let this go for the moment.

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Embarrassment of bitches

In summer, our office hours are 8am-1pm on Fridays. It’s a nice treat, getting out before the weekend traffic, even if it’s just to get some shopping done or get home early.

Today, I stopped off at a comic shop on the way home, to pick up the new issue of Buffy: Season 8 for Amy. I hadn’t been to a comic store for a while — probably since the last issue — so, even though I’m in a cash crunch for the next month or so, I browsed the recent releases.

It was then that I realized the comics gods were taunting me.

It wasn’t enough that I found a new book by Eddie Campbell. No, it wasn’t even enough that I found

No, dear reader. Above and beyond all that, I found Comics Gone Ape, a book about the history of primates in comics. Presumably, it will include the great Jimmy Olsen: Gorilla Reporter.

Clearly, the comics gods want me to go broke. But you’ll be glad to know that I calmly paid for Amy’s comic, walked out of the store, and quietly sobbed as I slumped over the steering wheel of my car.