I'm back

It all started to come back to me last night. Ok, so I’ll back the truck up a bit to acknowledge that I essentially stopped posting here altogether. I could say I was busy which I was but I’m always pretty busy. That’s the annoying part; lots of interesting, comedic, embarrassing things have happened to me just as they always seem to do but I lost some momentum that pushes me to post them on this lovely green outlet for all my “crazy”. Observations, thoughts and involvement went in and out of me like cigarette smoke.

Back to last night… I was at the Free Library of Philadelphia on Vine for the much anticipated Annie Leibovitz lecture and book signing. I love a good book event and I like it even better at the FLP because I know the way they run their big events so that I can not only see the lecture but know when to cut out early to get to the front of the book signing line right behind the professional eBayers who have no interest in the author or their talk, just their authentic signature for the auction. The last time I was there was to see Garrison Keillor when Liberty came out a little over a month ago and while chatting with the people around me about how much we don’t like Sarah Palin but love her in the media I managed to offend one of those old ladies that hang out at the library and we got into a very awkward argument about the Bush Doctrine. I won’t go into it further. She started it. Moving on, I again was chatting with the fellow Leibovitz while clutching my book for it was soon be marked by a true icon when I thought of something that made me want to kick myself. I didn’t bring my camera. I am not one to bring cameras to these things but how cool would it have been if when I got to the front of the line I handed her my camera and asked her to take my picture. Nothing fancy, just a snapshot but then I could say I had an Annie Leibovitz portrait of myself! The most famous portrait photographer of all time (forget Diane Arbus) took my photograph. That would be one to show the grandkids. She was so kind and gracious when I finally did get my book signed I was sure she would have done it. Ugh! I could really kick myself.

Although I missed this great opportunity I did get something out of it aside from my personalized autograph. For the first time in quite a while I felt clever. I felt like my old self and next time she puts out a book, or any photographer for that matter I will make sure to pack a camera. Finally I feel the momentum building so next time I breathe in the cigarette smoke of personal experiences I will not neglect to blow it in your faces.

This Just In!

I just got an email from my friend at my favorite bookstore, Joseph Fox Bookshop, about an In-Store Reading and Signing!

On June 3rd Little Brown will publish Indefinite Leave to Remain - a new book by David Sedaris. On June 7th David Sedaris will be in the shop signing books. Watch for details...

The World Spins Madly On

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1419604348

I have been working feverishly to get my Christmas CD done so that I can have it out to you in the mail by Black Friday. You don't have to request this time; I will send them out to all of you. This will again be a double disc and it will be a blended album with some of my favorite Holiday songs along with a sampling of new music I have been listening to. Probably something from the new Band of Horses album as well a song from The Weepies (check out the sweet claymation video for "The World Spins Madly On") and of course some surprises. I strive for balance when creating these things. I don't just throw these things together haphazardly!

Like Rob said in Nick Hornby's wonderful book High Fidelity - when if comes to making mix tapes (CDs) "There are a lot of rules."

Let us examine my literary bed sores

Obviously I have been reading a lot more than usual lately so I am going to just include two or three books in my famous book review posts at a time as to not overwhelm you. I have been putting off doing a book post for a while because I am a bit overwhelmed myself. Over the past month or so I have blazed through a staggering eleven, yes eleven, books. It is a personal record that I doubt I will ever beat. Geez, I hope I don’t ever have another opportunity to beat it. Anywho, lets get started shall we?

Everyman – Philip Roth
“Yet, what he learned was nothing when measured against the inevitable onslaught that is the end of life. Had he been aware of the mortal suffering of every man and woman he happened to have known during all his years of professional life, of each one’s painful story of regret and loss and stoicism, of fear and panic and isolation and dread, had he learned of every last thing they had parted with that had once been vitally theirs and of how, systematically, they were being destroyed, he would have had to stay on the phone through day and into the night, making another hundred calls at least. Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre.”

This is the first Philip Roth novel for me. I knew that he was some brilliant, widely quoted, Pulitzer Prize winning writer, and from what I read off the book’s cover, a recipient of a Penn/Faulkner award, but I avoided reading him because I got the impression he was all doom and gloom. As you can tell from that little sample, he sure is. This novel is about an average man, an everyman if you will, struggling with his own mortality while looking back over his life and measuring his failures against the good that may have come from his unextraordinary life. Despite that fact that I am not an old Jewish man approaching death I connected with this book. There seemed to be this detached panic that comes from knowing and accepting death will triumph and that idea sinking in while knowing you are completely powerless against it that seemed pliable enough to relate to any difficult situation where you know eventually you just have to bite the bullet. Maybe that’s just me. Regardless, after some time passes and I start to forget about this book and my reevaluated thoughts on death subside when my attention is given to the new fall TV lineups, I think the following quote will remain with me as enduring and poignant:
“There is no remaking reality. Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes.”

The Painted Word – Tom Wolfe
This I picked up in the Art Theory section of the National Gallery’s bookstore in DC. I took my bad mood and sulked over to this book and away from my mother who was picking out Kandinsky prints for her
classroom. What a fantastic little book! I loved it. The idea of the book is based on the following:

“Realism does not lack its partisans, but it does rather conspicuously lack a persuasive theory. And given the nature of our intellectual commerce with works of art, to lack a persuasive theory is to lack something crucial – the means by which our experience of the individual works is joined to our understanding of the values they signify.”

I know what you are thinking : YIKES! Forget that because he breaks it down in this funny social criticism where he uses his enthusiastic voice to sift through all the art world rhetoric. Though Wolfe is an expert on contemporary art theory, he writes as if he is an outsider or an anthropologist of the art world which he refers to as le monde. Best of all, this book is just over a hundred pages. All books on art should be so concise.

Flowers in the Attic

Did you ever see that movie? It was one of the most popular made-for-TV movies of all time and my sister and I loved it. It was taken from one of those cheesy cut out cover horror novels you can find in drug stores alongside the regular old bodice rippers and big sellers like She’s Come Undone, Lovely Bones, The Secret, and whatever new Tom Clancy/John Grisham vehicle the publishing houses are pushing. I thought the book was riveting with its adult subject matter and curse words since I must have been around 12 at the time. It was something about these kids who lost their father and were left penniless so they and their mother moved back into her parent’s house. The kids were kept hidden in the attic by their sociopath grandmother who tells them that (I am not exactly sure about this part) that their parents were half-uncle and niece so the shame of their existence was kept hidden from their mother’s dying father. This is because if they were found out by dying grandfather then their mother wouldn’t get her inheritance and they would remain poor. So, they are locked in the attic for several years while their mother is manipulated by their grandmother who slowly tries to kill them by sprinkling little bits of arsenic on their donuts. Oh, and the two oldest children, after years of isolation and reaching adolescence, form an incestuous relationship kinda like Brooke Shields and that guy with the blond curly haired guy did in The Blue Lagoon. Good stuff.

So I got a little carried away with that but… where was I going with this… oh, yeah, this is going to be my last post for 3 weeks or so since I will confined to the second floor of my parents house similar to that book/movie. I doubt it will be as bad. My parents have a lovely deck off their bedroom upstairs so I can be outside (and maybe get a little tan), they have cable in my old bedroom and my dad said he will put a mini fridge in my room too. Neato! The only thing is since I won’t be downstairs to get to the computer and have two days of work left and I have a lot to do to get all my ducks in a row. Feel free to call me and chat on your lunch breaks since that will probably when I will be the most bored. My dad will be at work and my mom got some scholarship to this artistic education camp where she is taking some strange sculpture class where she is building an alter and gluing buttons on trees. She is also taking an interpretive movement/dance class. That woman sure keeps herself busy…

So have fun and I’ll see you when I see you!

Don't worry about me, I will stay away from any donuts my parents bring me.

Oh, and I just found out that after a long arduous battle with my insurance provider I was approved for my out of network care! Just goes to show you crying will get you anything you need.

--wait, I will have one more post I will put up tomorrow of my new playlist/song recommendations. Its so good it will make your heart stop.

Feed Your Head

You know you want it!

Here is new book list and sadly it lacks fiction but full of interesting reads nonetheless.



As I Walked Out One Evening – W.H. Auden
Since I finished Leaves of Grass I figured I would continue to expand my poetry knowledge I moved on to this one since I really like the poem Funeral Blues read by John Hannah’s character in Four Weddings and a Funeral. I am not that good at reviewing poetry but I will say that this isn’t heavy stuff. Light, shorter poems that are quite lovely and enjoyable. If you aren’t that into poetry but feel that you should be familiar with a famous poet, this is the book for you. Another poet who is funny, clever, in an almost childlike way is Stevie Smith.

Love, Loss, and What I Wore - Ilene Beckerman
At first glance this would appear to be a novelty book but despite the simplicity of the writing and amateur illustrations by the author, it has quite a lot of depth. Beckerman recalls clothing that conjures up memories of significant times of her life. She speaks of her girl scout uniform, her prom dress (she remembers this vividly but can’t remember the boy she went with), the dress she wore when she told her husband she didn’t want to be married to him anymore, and when she lost a child in infancy. She grew up in Manhattan during the 40’s and 50’s and recounts her life through wardrobe up to the 90’s. I think I could write a book like this which makes it so special. Maybe I will.

Edie, An American Biography - Jean Stein and George Plimpton
I read this book this winter (I am pulling this one out since I haven’t been reading all too much lately) and after I finished I felt like I knew her. Before I was convinced she was this debutant socialite fashonista who wandered into the 60’s New York scene to do drugs and party. I was very wrong. Her family was fucked up. Edie was fucked up. Although her family was very wealthy two of her brothers committed suicide before they were thirty and Edie was an amphetamine addicted bulimic who was in and out of mental intuitions most of her life and sexually abused by her father. It was interesting for me to learn that relationship with Andy Warhol was only about a year and a half and she only dated Bob Dylan for a few weeks although it is believed by many that Just Like a Woman was written about her; the girl who set fire to the Chelsea Hotel when trying to cook a baked potato. This book is entirely compiled by interviews of people that knew Edie Sedgwick and her family including Patti Smith, Betsey Johnson, Lou Reed, and many more.

The night of her all too early death from an overdose of barbiturates she was at a party in Santa Barbara when a palm reader told her that her life line was very short, she replied “I know”.

How Sassy Changed My Life- Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer
Leslie lent this book to me the night we went to see Dar Williams a few weeks ago. Sassy changed her life, and although I read it off and on I wished I read it with the regularity that I did Teen and YM.

Santa Evita - Tomas Eloy Martinez
A book about a corpse?! So good but I will let Amazon do the talking on this one:

Among the great corpses of our age are Lenin, Mao Zedong and Stalin. Mao, at least, is still on view for the masses to see, some two decades after his demise. But no corpse engendered as much intrigue as that of Eva Peron. Elevated to near sainthood in Argentina after her death in 1952, her perfectly preserved corpse was seized by the Argentine Army following the ouster of her husband in 1955. By then, her corpse was the equivalent of a sacred relic, and while army officials wanted to keep it out of the hands of Peronists, they were loath to destroy the corpse for fear of the wrath that might follow. Tomas Eloy Martinez has reassembled the story of the corpse of Eve Peron in Santa Evita, and in the process, produced a riveting, rich book that not only tells the tale of one of the more bizarre sagas in the history of South American politics, but that also gets to the heart of the age-old human impulse to create myths and tell stories.

Something for Everyone

Now that the weather is warmer it is the perfect time to sit outside, soak up some sun and read a book. Here are a few of my recommendations.

The Secret History – Donna Tart
Ok, I didn’t just read this but noticed it as I was re-organizing my bookshelf. Clay (bless his heart. He ment well) moved all my books around to make it look nicer but I had them in order. Mostly autobiographically, as in when I read them, kinda like the character Rob in High Fidelity did with his albums. This was not intentional but just how it worked out. I have on the end books I bought that I have not read yet and the exception is how I lumped books by the same author together. I am the only person who takes books out of there so it works for me (Keith, I want that Fran Lebowitz book back. Its been a year and if you haven’t read it by now you never will). Anyway, as I was moving the books around and I came across this one. I read this a few years ago and it is fantastic. Although it does not take place in the South is considered by many critics to be written in the style of a Southern Gothic novel. It is a little long but don’t let that deter you. Again, it’s fantastic.

Tepper isn’t Going Out – Calvin Trillin
I just read this and it’s short so I read it in the Hilary-style one sitting. Such a good little book. Funny, smart, endearing… basically classic Trillin. Good spring read.

Candide – Voltaire
Well, I don’t recommend reading this because it is pretentious and dull but I am quite proud of myself for completing it and wanted to tell someone. Is it part of the Canon? I wanted to punch out a classic and this one was the shortest I could find. Only ninety pages even though it felt like two hundred.

The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke – Suze Orman
I wouldn’t have used the word “broke” in the title because it is really for people just starting out who might have student loans, credit card debt, or not making a lot of money yet. It is a great too for setting up your finances and acquiring early on responsible spending habits. I had been wondering if I should put more towards paying off my student loans or put it into savings and she laid it out for me. If you are under 30 now is to set up your IRA and plan your financial goals for the future. She talks about how newly married or couples living together should keep some assets separate and which ones to share. She is straightforward and makes the book an entertaining read. Her lists and personal stories about being a personal finance advisor keep it from being a dry despite the subject matter. I am going to bring it to the little financial planning party my friends and I are having this weekend. I am going to go ahead and “nerd alert” myself and my close Philly buds for you.

My New Daily Addiction

http://deansden.net/portlandfiction/

Origional. Daily. Fiction.

Edited by Mr. Doug Dean

Yes Tanya, you read that correctly.

O Captain, My Captain!

Last May I said I was going to complete Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass by the end of summer. I made it to page 24. This May I will take another stab at it. It is a classic for Christ’s sake. Bill Clinton gave a first edition copy to Monica Lewinsky. I should read it.

I made the same promise about Norman Mailer's The Executioner’s Song in the Fall. I didn’t even finish the preface. Did you ever see a copy of that book? I didn’t either until I received it in the mail packed in a shoebox. It is (and I am not exaggerating) over 4” thick. It is just sitting there on my shelf just taunting me.

Eat Your Vegtables , Read Your Books

Another list of books I recently read that I think you may enjoy:

Housekeeping vs. Dirt – Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby is the premier author for disillusioned men in their 20’s and 30’s. He is the writer of bestsellers made into movies such as About A Boy, Fever Pitch, and High Fidelity. I picked up this one, his most recent, at Joseph Fox last week and read it in one sitting. It is a book about books he read and it is entertaining as hell. As a finalist for The National Book Critics Circle for Criticism, Nick is a gifted critic as well as a beloved novelist. In this book he covers books by authors ranging from Voltaire to Motley Crue .

Heartburn – Nora Ephron
Ok, I mentioned her twice recently so I felt I should suggest something of hers. Nora is known for her sharp wit and compassionate humor. This is a novel based on the breakup of her own marriage and it is a beautiful, heartbreaking book. If you want something lighter of hers read her new one I Feel Bad About My Neck. It’s hilarious.

Inventing a Nation – Gore Vidal
Everybody should read at least one book by him and this is a good one. He is a national treasure.

I Like You - Sandol Stoddard and Jacqueline Chwast
A novelty book that is so good. If you read this without feeling something then you need to take a trip to Oz and get yourself a heart stat. I keep my copy in my sock drawer until I find someone special enough to give it to.

On Bullshit - Harry G. Frankfurt
An essay in a cute little book by a Princeton philosophy professor that is a good, quick read. One reviewer said: This compact little book, as pungent as the phenomenon it explores, attempts to articulate a theory of this contemporary scourge--what it is, what it does, and why there's so much of it. The result is entertaining and enlightening in almost equal measure. It can't be denied; part of the book's charm is the puerile pleasure of reading classic academic discourse punctuated at regular intervals by the word "bullshit." More pertinent is Frankfurt's focus on intentions--the practice of bullshit, rather than its end result.

If you check any of them out drop me a line and we can discuss.