CONSUMED: SOME (MORE) HORROR
the rental. i got over the potential squickiness of staying at strangers' homes via airbnb a long time ago, which is helpful, as i've stayed at a shitload of airbnbs (most of which have been pretty good and a few of which have been spectacular: if americans are allowed into europe before the world ends, you should ask me about the rooftop terrace with a view of st. peter's basilica we scored for my 40th birthday, or the milanese jewel box to which we ended up retreating after the 2016 election). i even write about them for a living! well, i wrote about them for a living. anyway, this is dave franco's directorial debut, and the story of four earnest portland types who head to the coast for a weekend of the sort of disastrous interpersonal conflicts that crop up when you don't establish ground rules about drugs and hiking or acknowledge the fact that anyone who shares screen time with sheila vand (the star of a girl walks home alone at night, ana lily amarpour's exquisite iranian vampire western) will fall hopelessly in love with her. the excellent alison brie (franco's offscreen wife, of glow, who is also exquisite) is here too, but she's no match for vand's gravitational pull, and the non-murdery disasters in store for this quartet are pretty clear from the get-go. there is also a dog—dogs are big in horror right now—and if i found myself in this rental i would have absolutely survived, since i would have rejected the idea of breaking the no-dogs rule and jeopardizing my pristine user rating and refused to show up in the first place. these kids aren't so lucky, and nastiness ensues: it's even more harrowing than when i accidentally peed in our milanese host's bidet. like a number of reviewers, i think the rental would have been better without its final act, but you can't always get what you want. oh! dan stevens (of downton abbey, which i despise) is also in this, though he isn't anywhere near as entertaining as he is in eurovision song contest: the story of fire saga, which you should see immediately. i hope i get to sleep in another building someday, even if there's a hidden camera in the shower.
velvet buzzsaw. dan gilroy (nightcrawler) reunites rene russo and jake gyllenhaal and misses a golden opportunity to give the latter another terrible haircut; where nightcrawler satirized prurient local news, velvet buzzsaw goes after the los angeles art scene (and also ropes in john malkovich, toni collette, and daveed diggs; it's a crazy ensemble cast). an outsider artist dies and leaves instructions for his work to be destroyed; no one listens, so the work destroys everyone. i'm reminded a bit of bliss, another art-world slasher we saw at the tribeca film festival last year, but velvet buzzsaw is more fun; i'm no insider, but i've written a bit of curatorial copy in my time ("...meticulous scissorings, in turn, reveal her subjects’ poetic architecture: a gallery wall revealed in a cut is a caesura, not an absence"), and the silliness of the critical word salad here is entertaining. i feel pretty strongly that most if not all movies should probably end with john malkovich drawing with a stick, and i think that would have worked out rather nicely in the rental. did i ever tell you that my conceptual-artist brother-in-law's site-specific work in an old hospital is the reason kendall jenner painted her house baker-miller pink? true story.
Showing posts with label art?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art?. Show all posts
12.31.19
i'll have read at least 60 books by the end of this year! let's ignore the fact that i am a childless freelance writer and pretend that it is a proper feat. this is how i've felt about the last dozen (part 1 of 2).
verge (lidia yuknavitch): i have already forwarded my advance copy of this short-story collection to a friend, which might have been a terrible idea: there's wonderful stuff in there, to be sure, but there is also a (moving) story about a fellow with an artificial eye which might at one point have been called "eye of the beholder" (again, copy already forwarded). i liked it well enough that i took the book of joan (a novel) out of the library and will read it with gusto when i finish philip pullman's the secret commonwealth (lyra still seems a bit like a tween! the hbo adaptation kind of sucks!).
the contender: the story of marlon brando (william j. mann): mann's premise is that brando is a misunderstood dick, and this biography did little to shake that noun; he seems to have been a lackadaisical pet-raccoon custodian, a terrible romantic partner (in the loosest possible sense of the term), and a flaky activist. (disclosure: i have not seen on the waterfront.) i am prepared to revisit my opinion of brando via another biographer, but i expect deirdre-bair-level energy.*
catch and kill (ronan farrow): farrow's indictment of harvey weinstein, matt lauer, and his former employers at nbc is searing; i admit that as a self-centered former research chief, my first reaction to his impeccably-sourced work is predictable. you know the #metoo story, but the background is worth your time; it's also reason number four thousand and eighty-seven to appreciate gives-zero-fucks rachel maddow. passed this one to the same friend who received verge and i appreciate that she still wants to hang on new year's eve.
in the dream house (carmen maria machado): i loved CMM's short-story collection and knew her memoir would be wonderful; i didn't know that she would reframe my understanding of both queer abuse and emotional abuse as a general proposition. i want very much to pass this to one person in particular, as i think it would help her understand her past—as machado says, "if you need this book, this is for you"—but the person i have in mind has some extenuating circumstances. if you can read it now, please do.
the elusive moth (ingrid winterbach): woof. my literary experience with south africa is mostly limited to a couple of j.m. coetzee novels, and i was decidedly unready for this one, which is a painterly (literally, winterbach is also a painter) take on a small free state community in the '90s and a woman who returns there to Find Herself. the sense of place and history is strong, but the characters flit out of your hands like (don't say it, don't say it). (aside: while the novel's english translation is called the elusive moth, it's named for its protagonist, karolina ferreira, in the original afrikaans.) i would like to say that i'm getting better at reading experimental/ish fiction in my dotage, but this confounded me a bit unless i thought of it as a tone poem. i don't think that's what i was meant to think.
the silence of the girls (pat barker): it's hard to talk about this one without talking about madeline miller's circe and the song of achilles (both of which i also read this year, in that order); those novels are both what i would consider high-romantic takes on myth, and i found the former much more successful than the latter (achilles is just a dirtbag, even through the eyes of a devoted narrator as in miller). barker's novel leans into achilles-as-dirtbag, but she does it in an unapologetically contemporary way that's somehow even more off-putting than miller's occasionally-stilted style: i don't expect achilles and agamemnon (and briseis, the trojan woman at the core of barker's novel and homer's epic) to sound homeric, but i don't know that i'm ready for them to sound fully modern (with modern-ish slang!). i thought after reading miller that i wanted to see old villains in newer clothes, but barker made me realize that i actually want to see marginalized characters in properly heroic (and traditional!) weeds. briseis doesn't need a translator: she needs room where she lives.
*deirdre bair is one of the greatest biographers of all time. don't @ me.
verge (lidia yuknavitch): i have already forwarded my advance copy of this short-story collection to a friend, which might have been a terrible idea: there's wonderful stuff in there, to be sure, but there is also a (moving) story about a fellow with an artificial eye which might at one point have been called "eye of the beholder" (again, copy already forwarded). i liked it well enough that i took the book of joan (a novel) out of the library and will read it with gusto when i finish philip pullman's the secret commonwealth (lyra still seems a bit like a tween! the hbo adaptation kind of sucks!).
the contender: the story of marlon brando (william j. mann): mann's premise is that brando is a misunderstood dick, and this biography did little to shake that noun; he seems to have been a lackadaisical pet-raccoon custodian, a terrible romantic partner (in the loosest possible sense of the term), and a flaky activist. (disclosure: i have not seen on the waterfront.) i am prepared to revisit my opinion of brando via another biographer, but i expect deirdre-bair-level energy.*
catch and kill (ronan farrow): farrow's indictment of harvey weinstein, matt lauer, and his former employers at nbc is searing; i admit that as a self-centered former research chief, my first reaction to his impeccably-sourced work is predictable. you know the #metoo story, but the background is worth your time; it's also reason number four thousand and eighty-seven to appreciate gives-zero-fucks rachel maddow. passed this one to the same friend who received verge and i appreciate that she still wants to hang on new year's eve.
in the dream house (carmen maria machado): i loved CMM's short-story collection and knew her memoir would be wonderful; i didn't know that she would reframe my understanding of both queer abuse and emotional abuse as a general proposition. i want very much to pass this to one person in particular, as i think it would help her understand her past—as machado says, "if you need this book, this is for you"—but the person i have in mind has some extenuating circumstances. if you can read it now, please do.
the elusive moth (ingrid winterbach): woof. my literary experience with south africa is mostly limited to a couple of j.m. coetzee novels, and i was decidedly unready for this one, which is a painterly (literally, winterbach is also a painter) take on a small free state community in the '90s and a woman who returns there to Find Herself. the sense of place and history is strong, but the characters flit out of your hands like (don't say it, don't say it). (aside: while the novel's english translation is called the elusive moth, it's named for its protagonist, karolina ferreira, in the original afrikaans.) i would like to say that i'm getting better at reading experimental/ish fiction in my dotage, but this confounded me a bit unless i thought of it as a tone poem. i don't think that's what i was meant to think.
the silence of the girls (pat barker): it's hard to talk about this one without talking about madeline miller's circe and the song of achilles (both of which i also read this year, in that order); those novels are both what i would consider high-romantic takes on myth, and i found the former much more successful than the latter (achilles is just a dirtbag, even through the eyes of a devoted narrator as in miller). barker's novel leans into achilles-as-dirtbag, but she does it in an unapologetically contemporary way that's somehow even more off-putting than miller's occasionally-stilted style: i don't expect achilles and agamemnon (and briseis, the trojan woman at the core of barker's novel and homer's epic) to sound homeric, but i don't know that i'm ready for them to sound fully modern (with modern-ish slang!). i thought after reading miller that i wanted to see old villains in newer clothes, but barker made me realize that i actually want to see marginalized characters in properly heroic (and traditional!) weeds. briseis doesn't need a translator: she needs room where she lives.
*deirdre bair is one of the greatest biographers of all time. don't @ me.
12.18.16
the dirty dozen {twelve movies i saw this year, and haiku discussion}
01 hell or high water. heist pics leave me cold, / but this one's nearly flawless. / is jeff bridges zeus?
02 moonlight. brilliant ensemble, / sensitive storytelling, / perfect denouement.
03 la la land. not all musicals / are terrible, i'll admit. / that one sure is, though.
04 american honey. shia labeouf sells / magazines, has tragic hair, / catches a turtle.
05 the birth of a nation. scandal aside, well, / its female characters were / just plot devices.
06 fantastic beasts and where to find them. how i love creatures! / beautifully imagined, / clumsily scripted.
07 miss peregrine's home for peculiar children. mistress of limbo, / i question you. carnival / battle was BOSS, though.
08 manchester by the sea. casey affleck: eh. / kyle chandler, editing: A. / michelle williams: QUEEN.
09 the handmaiden. really long, REALLY / odd, and more lemonade than / lemonade was, bey.
10 the lobster. my favorite thing / about loving it: i have / it all to myself.
11 the witch. moms, don't see this one. / goats, choose your dates carefully. / bearded dudes, you're good.
12 the neon demon. keanu! wild beasts! / inappropriate snacking! / god, i love horror.
01 hell or high water. heist pics leave me cold, / but this one's nearly flawless. / is jeff bridges zeus?
02 moonlight. brilliant ensemble, / sensitive storytelling, / perfect denouement.
03 la la land. not all musicals / are terrible, i'll admit. / that one sure is, though.
04 american honey. shia labeouf sells / magazines, has tragic hair, / catches a turtle.
05 the birth of a nation. scandal aside, well, / its female characters were / just plot devices.
06 fantastic beasts and where to find them. how i love creatures! / beautifully imagined, / clumsily scripted.
07 miss peregrine's home for peculiar children. mistress of limbo, / i question you. carnival / battle was BOSS, though.
08 manchester by the sea. casey affleck: eh. / kyle chandler, editing: A. / michelle williams: QUEEN.
09 the handmaiden. really long, REALLY / odd, and more lemonade than / lemonade was, bey.
10 the lobster. my favorite thing / about loving it: i have / it all to myself.
11 the witch. moms, don't see this one. / goats, choose your dates carefully. / bearded dudes, you're good.
12 the neon demon. keanu! wild beasts! / inappropriate snacking! / god, i love horror.
05.18.16
at ye olde charity bookstore cafe, V and i discussed the woman who came in last week and wanted to haggle down the prices of the two mildly shopworn donated paperbacks she wanted to purchase (which she did, by $1.50, after i conferred with an actual employee). she turned to her friend, who had just joined her at the counter, and smiled: "every little bit helps." she circulated in the store for a few more minutes and came back to ask what the building had been before we turned it into a bookstore. i didn't know; none of the other volunteers or the staffer with us did, either. "you should know that," she hissed. "that and books are what people want." V hadn't known about the haggling until this afternoon. "hausverbot! she is banned from entering this place."
when V left to rearrange a display i got to talking with P, an artist, as he replaced rare books in the glass cases near the front door. i made a somewhat disparaging comment about jeff koons and he mentioned that they shared an ex; "cicciolina, actually." he had been involved with her after koons was. "are you telling me you have koons cooties?" "yeah, i guess so." i asked about made in heaven; he said it was absolutely not weird that he'd seen it before they met. "it's just like anything someone did before you were dating them." i mean, visual artists, but i disagreed. "if jeff koons can make a living painting, why can't you?" she used to say to him. that sounded so cold to me that i misinterpreted P at first and thought he meant a living painting, like pageant of the masters (do you, southern california). no, a living painting, and P quoted her to koons when they met years later. they had a good laugh.
when V left to rearrange a display i got to talking with P, an artist, as he replaced rare books in the glass cases near the front door. i made a somewhat disparaging comment about jeff koons and he mentioned that they shared an ex; "cicciolina, actually." he had been involved with her after koons was. "are you telling me you have koons cooties?" "yeah, i guess so." i asked about made in heaven; he said it was absolutely not weird that he'd seen it before they met. "it's just like anything someone did before you were dating them." i mean, visual artists, but i disagreed. "if jeff koons can make a living painting, why can't you?" she used to say to him. that sounded so cold to me that i misinterpreted P at first and thought he meant a living painting, like pageant of the masters (do you, southern california). no, a living painting, and P quoted her to koons when they met years later. they had a good laugh.
01.31.16
end notes: january
01 on kidney transplants for cats. previously-unknown-to-me factoid: as in most human renal transplant operations, the native kidneys stay put, so the donor kidney makes three. we lost a cat to kidney disease several years ago; i have no idea what we would do if one of our cats developed CRF now.
02 when WFUV's the alternate side stream dried up and we had to dig around for new internet radio, joe discovered FIP, née france inter paris, a 45-year-old advert-free french station (if you're in france, it broadcasts terrestrially at 105.1). we listen to it for a couple of hours every night.
03 in march we'll visit our friends sarah and judd at their winter superhero headquarters in the dominican republic. like them, i have started referring to it as the DR, which makes me feel vaguely like a junot díaz character. this—the visit, not the junot díaz thing—will score me cool points at ye olde charity bookstore cafe, where sarah's tale of learning to budget her fucks so she could do things like move to the caribbean is holy writ. i will make an effort to dress like ernest hemingway. it feels right.
04 we aimed our old red car at philadelphia for a spur-of-the-moment road trip over MLK weekend and acquired a variety of cheeses from amish people, delectable smoked-coconut sandwiches from a taproom, and a huge bag of hand-cut soap from a man in a striking sweater (i am particularly fond of the black pepper bar). in other soap news, i have switched from lush's charcoal-based dark angels cleanser back to their ocean salt, as the former was clinging to my face and i am not fly enough to make that work.
05 speaking of vegan food and smells, i am quite enjoying moby's memoir, which teems with both. moby's voice is appealingly self-effacing, his run-ins with fellow '90s a-listers are frequent and entertaining (i attended a handful of the southern california concerts he describes, which weirds me out a bit), and he knows when to back away from industry details that would bore non-musicians (looking at you, keith richards). i have a hundred pages to go, but i'm already willing to forgive him for his terrible, ricci-forward "natural blues" video.
06 the final-ish draft of an essay i've been writing since june of last year goes back to my editor this coming thursday. for about a month or so in the fall i was so nervous about said essay that i'd sneak out of bed at one or two in the morning and run a few miles to wheedle the adrenaline out of my legs. it will be the first personal piece i've published in a national magazine, and it's the sort of work i'd like to do in the future (not exclusively, christ, the idea of trying to make a living by writing about myself all the time makes me want to chug tile cleaner); i have psychic skin in this game. i really, really hope it's good.
01 on kidney transplants for cats. previously-unknown-to-me factoid: as in most human renal transplant operations, the native kidneys stay put, so the donor kidney makes three. we lost a cat to kidney disease several years ago; i have no idea what we would do if one of our cats developed CRF now.
02 when WFUV's the alternate side stream dried up and we had to dig around for new internet radio, joe discovered FIP, née france inter paris, a 45-year-old advert-free french station (if you're in france, it broadcasts terrestrially at 105.1). we listen to it for a couple of hours every night.
03 in march we'll visit our friends sarah and judd at their winter superhero headquarters in the dominican republic. like them, i have started referring to it as the DR, which makes me feel vaguely like a junot díaz character. this—the visit, not the junot díaz thing—will score me cool points at ye olde charity bookstore cafe, where sarah's tale of learning to budget her fucks so she could do things like move to the caribbean is holy writ. i will make an effort to dress like ernest hemingway. it feels right.
04 we aimed our old red car at philadelphia for a spur-of-the-moment road trip over MLK weekend and acquired a variety of cheeses from amish people, delectable smoked-coconut sandwiches from a taproom, and a huge bag of hand-cut soap from a man in a striking sweater (i am particularly fond of the black pepper bar). in other soap news, i have switched from lush's charcoal-based dark angels cleanser back to their ocean salt, as the former was clinging to my face and i am not fly enough to make that work.
05 speaking of vegan food and smells, i am quite enjoying moby's memoir, which teems with both. moby's voice is appealingly self-effacing, his run-ins with fellow '90s a-listers are frequent and entertaining (i attended a handful of the southern california concerts he describes, which weirds me out a bit), and he knows when to back away from industry details that would bore non-musicians (looking at you, keith richards). i have a hundred pages to go, but i'm already willing to forgive him for his terrible, ricci-forward "natural blues" video.
06 the final-ish draft of an essay i've been writing since june of last year goes back to my editor this coming thursday. for about a month or so in the fall i was so nervous about said essay that i'd sneak out of bed at one or two in the morning and run a few miles to wheedle the adrenaline out of my legs. it will be the first personal piece i've published in a national magazine, and it's the sort of work i'd like to do in the future (not exclusively, christ, the idea of trying to make a living by writing about myself all the time makes me want to chug tile cleaner); i have psychic skin in this game. i really, really hope it's good.
11.02.15
the dirty dozen {notes from my hometown police blotter, as reported by the oc register*}
Keep the peace. 9:26 a.m. The caller with the homeowners association reported trying to return items to a resident from a storage pod, but said the resident is refusing to open the door.
Illegal peddling. 8:23 p.m. The caller reported a man soliciting for a teen challenge.
Suspicious person in vehicle. 10:09 p.m. A caller said a person vomited outside a parked black car.
Stolen vehicle. 2:30 p.m. The caller reported her car stolen last night. When asked why she didn’t report it sooner, she said she thought they would return it or come back because she knows who took it.
Citizen assist. 7:35 a.m. A woman said she found a nude photograph of herself posted on her car and she believed her ex-husband placed the picture on there.
Disturbance. 7:38 a.m. The caller said her 16-year-old daughter refused to go to school.
Citizen assist. 12:36 a.m. The caller said his neighbor is yelling at his dogs to stop barking.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 9:48 a.m. The caller reported a purse with a gold emblem on the bus bench.
Disturbance. 2:17 a.m. The caller reported several people fighting in the bike lane area.
Citizen assist. 7:35 p.m. A man said he wanted to report his gardener’s poor work to sheriff’s deputies in case he started tearing out plants in retaliation for being fired.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 5:37 p.m. A caller complained about a woman walking through the neighborhood, filming herself.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 9:38 p.m. The caller said he thinks he’ll be hit by a car.
*previous installment here.
Keep the peace. 9:26 a.m. The caller with the homeowners association reported trying to return items to a resident from a storage pod, but said the resident is refusing to open the door.
Illegal peddling. 8:23 p.m. The caller reported a man soliciting for a teen challenge.
Suspicious person in vehicle. 10:09 p.m. A caller said a person vomited outside a parked black car.
Stolen vehicle. 2:30 p.m. The caller reported her car stolen last night. When asked why she didn’t report it sooner, she said she thought they would return it or come back because she knows who took it.
Citizen assist. 7:35 a.m. A woman said she found a nude photograph of herself posted on her car and she believed her ex-husband placed the picture on there.
Disturbance. 7:38 a.m. The caller said her 16-year-old daughter refused to go to school.
Citizen assist. 12:36 a.m. The caller said his neighbor is yelling at his dogs to stop barking.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 9:48 a.m. The caller reported a purse with a gold emblem on the bus bench.
Disturbance. 2:17 a.m. The caller reported several people fighting in the bike lane area.
Citizen assist. 7:35 p.m. A man said he wanted to report his gardener’s poor work to sheriff’s deputies in case he started tearing out plants in retaliation for being fired.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 5:37 p.m. A caller complained about a woman walking through the neighborhood, filming herself.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 9:38 p.m. The caller said he thinks he’ll be hit by a car.
*previous installment here.
10.23.15
i discovered a prepper thread on consuming expired crackers when i took to the internet after joe and i each ate a 37-year-old saltine from a tin i bought for my birthday a few years ago. it's pretty great.
in unrelated news, my friend V noted as we priced inventory at ye olde charity bookstore cafe yesterday afternoon that a bright pink shrink-wrapped volume was called "don't behead the concubines" (in german). should we have unwrapped it to figure out what it was? nah, we decided. we then spoke of unwieldy compound german words—i've long been fascinated with vergangenheitsbewältigung, or coming to terms with the past—and V talked about how she and her partner would mutter strange phrases at each other when they ran their cinema in the british virgin islands, because the locals found the sound of their speech delightful. she rolled out one of her favorite semi-onomatopoeic tongue-twisters, konstantinopolitanischer dudelsackpfeifemachergeselle; it means "person from istanbul who's apprenticed to a man who makes bagpipes." (i begged her to write it down for me.)
speaking of german, we are going to the opera on tuesday; we shall see tannhäuser. i have never been to the opera, and though our friend kevin, arranger of and companion on the opera adventure, assures us that extreme fanciness is not compulsory, i am making my hair extra-purple at this very moment in preparation; i plan to wear a black lace proenza schouler dress i found at the thrift store two doors down from ye olde charity bookstore cafe and a '50s black velvet wrap coat i found on our road trip to pittsburgh. the man who sold it to me is somewhat infamous on yelp for being prickly to his customers, but he and i were old pals as soon as i complimented him on his signed morrissey poster; we traded stories about show cancellations and mozzer's heart-shaped sweat patches. probably most people can manage a heart-shaped sweat patch with proper provocation.
*she survived, and is now helming the new york public library. onward! upward!
Now: I expected them to be Stale in some way, shape or form. But what I got was a *real* surprise.
[...]
"I tasted one (of the crackers) and let me tell you that 44-year-old crackers don't taste so good," Weinshall* said."It tasted like cardboard."
[...]
When the SHTF, I'm hoping my canned Mountain House crackers are tasty with my canned butter!
[...]
Canned crackers will out last a cockroach, I've eaten old C & K ration crackers 30-40 years old and they were still good.
[...]
I've had very good success with Ginger cookies. These are only $1.00 a bag a the Dollar Store, and I've been canning them in mason canning jars with a oxygen absorber and a rice packet (moisture). Then this summer I opened up one that'd been canned a little over two years ago and I've got to tell you (everyone agreed!!!) that canning it somehow made it taste BETTER. Those were the best cookies I think I've ever had.
in unrelated news, my friend V noted as we priced inventory at ye olde charity bookstore cafe yesterday afternoon that a bright pink shrink-wrapped volume was called "don't behead the concubines" (in german). should we have unwrapped it to figure out what it was? nah, we decided. we then spoke of unwieldy compound german words—i've long been fascinated with vergangenheitsbewältigung, or coming to terms with the past—and V talked about how she and her partner would mutter strange phrases at each other when they ran their cinema in the british virgin islands, because the locals found the sound of their speech delightful. she rolled out one of her favorite semi-onomatopoeic tongue-twisters, konstantinopolitanischer dudelsackpfeifemachergeselle; it means "person from istanbul who's apprenticed to a man who makes bagpipes." (i begged her to write it down for me.)
speaking of german, we are going to the opera on tuesday; we shall see tannhäuser. i have never been to the opera, and though our friend kevin, arranger of and companion on the opera adventure, assures us that extreme fanciness is not compulsory, i am making my hair extra-purple at this very moment in preparation; i plan to wear a black lace proenza schouler dress i found at the thrift store two doors down from ye olde charity bookstore cafe and a '50s black velvet wrap coat i found on our road trip to pittsburgh. the man who sold it to me is somewhat infamous on yelp for being prickly to his customers, but he and i were old pals as soon as i complimented him on his signed morrissey poster; we traded stories about show cancellations and mozzer's heart-shaped sweat patches. probably most people can manage a heart-shaped sweat patch with proper provocation.
*she survived, and is now helming the new york public library. onward! upward!
10.12.15
in the closest brush with the methods of marie "life-changing magic of tidying up" kondo i'll likely ever have,* i've been reading and divesting myself of books i brought home from the office and shelved years ago. one, a jack nicholson biography, gets rolling with some bleak notes about his love life:
speaking of head colds, i ran a half marathon with one yesterday! that was alright when we were scrambling to get up, out of the house, and down to the staten island ferry before the sun came up; as when i worked in an office and had to train in the morning before heading there, i was so sleepy and groggy that i barely registered the inelegance of the hour. coughing my way across staten island was less of a treat, but i can blame my unimpressive time on illness instead of the late nights i spent writing and concertgoing last week, and that's something. either way, i have a medal and the reptilian contentment that accompanies it. i don't think less is more, as warhol said; more is better.****
*unless you count when my thoughtful friend lesley konmari'ed the living daylights out of her place in brooklyn and i inherited a bunch of her clothes, which was indeed magical.
**(the year in which nicholson learned that the woman he'd believed to be his sister was actually his mother, and that his "mother" was in fact his grandmother)
***as in as good as it gets, for which he won one of his three oscars.
****..."big paintings cost more than little paintings, and magazines pay by the word."
After 1974,** with one or two exceptions,*** [Nicholson] never played a purely romantic lead. And in real life, while women continued to be a source of both pleasure and pain for him, true love was something he could never fully accept, believe, or trust from them. His seventeen-year relationship with Anjelica Huston, the woman able to get closest to him, was a series of hellos and good-byes, angers, frustrations, and, on both their parts, infidelities strewn throughout their time together. It is significant that in the end they both wound up alone.i just finished anjelica huston's second memoir, is the thing; she was widowed in 2008 when her husband of 16 years (the sculptor robert graham) died of a horrible blood disease. in the absence of this weird month-spanning head cold i'd yell about bad biographers here for awhile; instead i will but say that it's a shame i can't leave books unfinished, and that i'll try to spark joy in you by following up with additional sins as i read them.
speaking of head colds, i ran a half marathon with one yesterday! that was alright when we were scrambling to get up, out of the house, and down to the staten island ferry before the sun came up; as when i worked in an office and had to train in the morning before heading there, i was so sleepy and groggy that i barely registered the inelegance of the hour. coughing my way across staten island was less of a treat, but i can blame my unimpressive time on illness instead of the late nights i spent writing and concertgoing last week, and that's something. either way, i have a medal and the reptilian contentment that accompanies it. i don't think less is more, as warhol said; more is better.****
*unless you count when my thoughtful friend lesley konmari'ed the living daylights out of her place in brooklyn and i inherited a bunch of her clothes, which was indeed magical.
**(the year in which nicholson learned that the woman he'd believed to be his sister was actually his mother, and that his "mother" was in fact his grandmother)
***as in as good as it gets, for which he won one of his three oscars.
****..."big paintings cost more than little paintings, and magazines pay by the word."
05.26.15
as of the middle of june, our little family will boast a total of zero steady jobs, unless you count whatever it is that steve does. joe realized a few weeks back that he needed to stop spending three hours a day getting to and from his office in the bronx, that we should reap the benefits of having been employed and childless before we are too old to really appreciate said benefits, and, oh yeah, that we should stick with the plan of picking up the old car we were going to buy from his parents (to streamline the process of getting to and from the bronx) and we should drive it across the country. i agreed to all of that, he put in his notice, and now we're planning a month-long road trip? customary catsitter, please reconfirm for me that you're able to feed and water the dudes in our absence (this is, predictably, one of the most stressful parts of what's happening, for me).
frequently and/or fictitiously asked questions
Q: what will joe do now?
A: we don't know. something in the same field, probably. an important part of the job-leaving experience is the lack of a job on the other side, he tells me, so i made sure we were up to date on the sort of things you need comparatively fancy health insurance to tackle, and that was that.
Q: where will you go?
the car is in phoenix, so we're starting there; after visiting with his parents for several days, we'll drive to los angeles and see some of my family, see showgirls, and start heading east.
Q: how are you addressing the fact that since matty hides from strangers, no one is going to see him for a whole month?
A: a wi-fi pet camera to catch him when he sneaks out for food, sort of the yuppie version of the planet earth tech used to film the elusive snow leopard? i'm still working on this.
Q: is benjamin black's the black-eyed blonde a worthy successor to raymond chandler's novels?
A: no, unfortunately. that times review i linked in the title made me laugh, as i too read "cancer stick" and promptly checked to see if the term would be anachronistic for a chandler character (it probably is). in my case i wasn't jumping on black because i thought he was too good; i think he chokes the reader with (often subpar) chandlerisms, and i really hated his zillion clumsy references to the long goodbye (for my money, chandler's best work). the black-eyed blonde is worth reading as a chandler-nerd talking point, but it belongs in the canon like a pearl onion on a banana split.
Q: what does the old car look like?
A: this, more or less.
Q: are you going to write about the trip?
A: we've made plans to stay in a '55 spartan imperial mansion in west texas and at the mississippi crossroads where robert johnson sold his soul to the devil so he could play the blues. what do you think?
frequently and/or fictitiously asked questions
Q: what will joe do now?
A: we don't know. something in the same field, probably. an important part of the job-leaving experience is the lack of a job on the other side, he tells me, so i made sure we were up to date on the sort of things you need comparatively fancy health insurance to tackle, and that was that.
Q: where will you go?
the car is in phoenix, so we're starting there; after visiting with his parents for several days, we'll drive to los angeles and see some of my family, see showgirls, and start heading east.
Q: how are you addressing the fact that since matty hides from strangers, no one is going to see him for a whole month?
A: a wi-fi pet camera to catch him when he sneaks out for food, sort of the yuppie version of the planet earth tech used to film the elusive snow leopard? i'm still working on this.
Q: is benjamin black's the black-eyed blonde a worthy successor to raymond chandler's novels?
A: no, unfortunately. that times review i linked in the title made me laugh, as i too read "cancer stick" and promptly checked to see if the term would be anachronistic for a chandler character (it probably is). in my case i wasn't jumping on black because i thought he was too good; i think he chokes the reader with (often subpar) chandlerisms, and i really hated his zillion clumsy references to the long goodbye (for my money, chandler's best work). the black-eyed blonde is worth reading as a chandler-nerd talking point, but it belongs in the canon like a pearl onion on a banana split.
Q: what does the old car look like?
A: this, more or less.
Q: are you going to write about the trip?
A: we've made plans to stay in a '55 spartan imperial mansion in west texas and at the mississippi crossroads where robert johnson sold his soul to the devil so he could play the blues. what do you think?
05.14.15
CONSUMED: A PARTIAL LIST.
the girls from corona del mar (book). i've been meaning to crack a book by someone my age that takes place where i grew up for years. i've resented maggie shipstead a little for painting the OC broadly in comments, but she isn't really talking about my (middle-middle-class, public-school) orange county. rufi thorpe, on the other hand, is: i know the shabby condo apartments she describes, the planned parenthood in costa mesa. that said, that mia and lorrie ann's afternoons sound like mine with my elementary-school best friend owes more to thorpe's facility with emotional architecture than it does with the fact that i too have admired the koi at fashion island in recent years; her tale of a stone-hearted girl who is terribly fortunate and an angelic girl the vultures of bad luck won't let alone, and how their relationship mutates as their fates develop, hits me where i live. i have some people to call.
glow (book). in thinking about young ned beauman's third novel i'm trying not to focus on the charming inscription (to someone who is not me) in the uk edition of it i found at my bookstore last week or the equally charming way he directs readers to his "new personal" twitter account, with some but admittedly limited success. glow concerns itself with south london, neurochemistry, pirate radio, and foxes, and i will tell joe to read it if he ever finishes kavalier & clay on his terrible daily commute to the bronx (why are you so far away, the bronx? i need that zoo); it feels like contemporary noir, but for the fact that the main female character is three-dimensional and determined (unlike the main character's sidekick's three indistinguishable japanese fashion-student roommates, described only and always as "magnificent," which is funny until it's insulting and, alright, possibly funny again). beauman was the youngest writer included on granta's most recent 'best young british novelists' list, but i don't feel the sort of contempt for him that many friends of mine developed when, say, jonathan safran foer turned his princeton thesis into a novel; this could be because in my mid-thirties i've lost the ability to care about when and how other writers decide to publish things, but i think it's because he sounds like a decent guy.
it follows (film). horror is the capsaicin of the film world, right? those jolts of unpleasantness goad your body into releasing serotonin as a self-soother, and you get a nice flush of feel-good chemicals to congratulate you on simply identifying with a pretty detroit-adjacent teenager who sleeps with a new guy and is consequently terrorized by an invisible-to-everyone-else sex demon instead of actually being one. good on writer-director david robert mitchell for using detroit and its suburbs as a thoughtfully updated version of the landscape john carpenter moved through in halloween instead of two-dimensional ruin porn, and for depicting a group that contracts protectively around an imperiled friend instead of scattering and getting picked off one by one, a la the majority of mainstream horror characters. i also very much appreciated how mitchell flipped the script (several times) on traditional treatments of sexuality; it follows is no mere VD metaphor, but a fine exploration of personal responsibility. it also scared the shit out of me.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 have you admired the koi at fashion island?
02 are you able to get rid of books which have been inscribed to you without removing the inscription?
03 would an art project involving books inscribed to strangers be exciting or unsporting? both?
04 who's the best young british novelist?
05 how does one defeat an invisible-to-everyone-else sex demon?
(ghost photograph on our refrigerator inspired by angela deane)
01.04.15
50 BOOKS I READ IN 2014, IN ORDER OF HOW INTERESTED I WAS IN SLEEPING WITH THEM BENEATH MY PILLOW (STRONGEST CANDIDATES FIRST), AND HAIKU DISCUSSION
01 little failure (gary shteyngart). this memoir is boss: / it's funny, bitter, tender, / and features short pants.
02 mr. fox (helen oyeyemi). demure helen o. / has magnificent monsters / at her fingertips.
03 all creatures great and small (james herriot). i cried on the train / as i read this. why wasn't / i a vet, again?
04 the thin man (dashiell hammett). glorious old sots, / nick and nora. their new york's / got its own logic.
05 five came back: a story of hollywood and the second world war (mark harris). directors' wartime / experiences traced through / their careers. brilliant.
06 white is for witching (helen oyeyemi.) helen has nightmares / as she writes her books. that makes / a lot of sense here.
07 updike (adam begley). biographies this / good are dangerous: i went / on to read couples.
08 daughter of smoke & bone [daughter of smoke & bone trilogy #1] (laini taylor). art student collects / teeth for her foster demons. / YA at its best.
09 days of blood & starlight [daughter of smoke & bone trilogy #2] (laini taylor). taylor doubles down / on smoke & bone's heartbreak; i'll / save this for nieces.
10 dreams of gods & monsters [daughter of smoke & bone trilogy #3] (laini taylor). the romance...is, but / the rest of this finale / doesn't disappoint.
11 gone to new york (ian frazier). jamaica kincaid / loves frazier more than i do, / if that's possible.
12 the fault in our stars (john green). fine, i sniffle when / i see an "ok? ok." / shirt on the subway.
13 the secret history (donna tartt). this is why she's loved! / clean, confident, well-structured / fucked-up privilege.
14 the magician's land (lev grossman). atoned for book 2's / sins, sort of; quentin still bugs, / but this arc ends well.
15 on such a full sea (chang-rae lee). sly dystopian / fic narrated by a "we" / closer than most "i"s.
16 the art of fielding (chad harbach). an un-baseball book / lyricizes corpse-dumping. / i was deeply moved.
17 astonish me (maggie shipstead). black swan + freedom? / a strong, well-researched saga.
/ not canadian.
18 cooking with fernet branca (james hamilton-paterson). a goddamn brilliant / comedy of manners: take / note, ye food writers.
19 new jersey (betsy andrews). a book-length poem / of the turnpike, the city, / and their detritus.
20 NW (zadie smith). white teeth with veneers. / still waiting for zadie smith / to wow me again.
21 annihilation [southern reach trilogy #1] (jeff vandermeer). if lovecraft's your jam, / this trilogy's a great read / (NOT AT BEDTIME, CHRIST).
22 authority [southern reach trilogy #2] (jeff vandermeer). a mysterious / zone eats research teams, psyches, / and bureaucracies.
23 acceptance [southern reach trilogy #3] (jeff vandermeer). little is explained; / much is made permanently / creepy. no mean feat.
24 couples (john updike). updike terrifies / '60s america with / tales of his sex life.
25 california (edan lepucki). post-apocalypse, / siblings and spouses dirty / each other with fear.
26 the changeling (kenzaburo oe). i was with oe / 'til weird cannonball torture, / which lost me, sadly.
27 the goldfinch (donna tartt). this is highbrow doge: / much dickens...so overwrite... / drug reference; wow
28 all things bright and beautiful formulaic, but / a formula i'll read all / day. like a warm bath.
29 the dinner (herman koch). fancy dinners are / always rotten at the core, / right? i trust the cheap stuff.
30 adiós hemingway (leonardo padura fuentes). atmospheric noir / (hemingway in cuba!) with / an older man's pulse.
31 MFA vs. NYC (chad harbach ed.) not sure how it is / that i've no dog in that fight, / but here i, L, am.
32 happy all the time (laurie colwin). generous and twee / thirty years before twee was; / a calm, safe new york.
33 tender at the bone (ruth reichl). so much nicer than / RR's novel! personal / stuff i'll read all day.
34 comfort me with apples (ruth reichl). ruth r. the daughter / is as honest as ruth r. / the critic. lovely.
35 my misspent youth (meghan daum). she's great, but her more / recent essays pack more punch / for me. here's to...time?
36 friendship (emily gould). i prefer essays / from emily, but i liked / this, and wish it well.
37 the last days of california (mary miller). these teens are vivid, / this apocalypse well-drawn. / a good road trip book.
38 all things wise and wonderful (james herriot). i wish he'd written / more about his war service, / but i forgive him.
39 pretty in ink (lindsey palmer). former colleagues write / the most disturbing accounts / of our world! deep sigh. 40 what i talk about when i talk about running (haruki murakami). i started writing / an essay about running / that should surpass this.
41 the o'briens (peter behrens). CANADA SAGA / ALERT: trees will fall, hearts freeze. / reader lids will droop.
42 why have kids? (jessica valenti). when i pitch you my / tepid womb-related book, / sock me in the spleen.
43 delicious! (ruth reichl). the tale's pivotal / cake recipe is...not great, / which weirded me out.
44 a dangerous liaison: one woman's journey into a world of aristocracy, depravity, and obsessive love (sheri de borchgrave). most fascinating / memoirist i've crossed greenland / beside, for damn sure.
45 the bear went over the mountain (william kotzwinkle). this satire's targets / (publishing et al.) deserve / a better takedown.
46 joss whedon: the biography (amy pascale). a coronation / so bald i turned on whedon / for balance's sake.
47 subtle bodies (norman rush). middle-aged coitus / in smug, nightmarish detail. / what an awful book.
48 the book of life (deborah harkness). worst use of nazis / since frankenstein's army. oof, / deborah harkness. oof.
49 medium raw (anthony bourdain). bourdain's posturing / remains wheezy, unwinning, / and super-lazy.
50 half bad (sally green). YA's getting weird; / this race-y tale of witches / is somehow tone-deaf.
(previous list here.)
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 what was the best book you read last year?
02 would you be willing to help exhume a corpse, if circumstances called for it?
03 could you recommend a sweeping canadian saga that won't bore the crap out of me?
04 do you enjoy nonfiction about whether one should or shouldn't have children?
05 if you were to write a post-apocalyptic novel, what would cause the apocalypse in your story?
06 who's the most interesting stranger you've ever sat beside on a plane?
01 little failure (gary shteyngart). this memoir is boss: / it's funny, bitter, tender, / and features short pants.
02 mr. fox (helen oyeyemi). demure helen o. / has magnificent monsters / at her fingertips.
03 all creatures great and small (james herriot). i cried on the train / as i read this. why wasn't / i a vet, again?
04 the thin man (dashiell hammett). glorious old sots, / nick and nora. their new york's / got its own logic.
05 five came back: a story of hollywood and the second world war (mark harris). directors' wartime / experiences traced through / their careers. brilliant.
06 white is for witching (helen oyeyemi.) helen has nightmares / as she writes her books. that makes / a lot of sense here.
07 updike (adam begley). biographies this / good are dangerous: i went / on to read couples.
08 daughter of smoke & bone [daughter of smoke & bone trilogy #1] (laini taylor). art student collects / teeth for her foster demons. / YA at its best.
09 days of blood & starlight [daughter of smoke & bone trilogy #2] (laini taylor). taylor doubles down / on smoke & bone's heartbreak; i'll / save this for nieces.
10 dreams of gods & monsters [daughter of smoke & bone trilogy #3] (laini taylor). the romance...is, but / the rest of this finale / doesn't disappoint.
11 gone to new york (ian frazier). jamaica kincaid / loves frazier more than i do, / if that's possible.
12 the fault in our stars (john green). fine, i sniffle when / i see an "ok? ok." / shirt on the subway.
13 the secret history (donna tartt). this is why she's loved! / clean, confident, well-structured / fucked-up privilege.
14 the magician's land (lev grossman). atoned for book 2's / sins, sort of; quentin still bugs, / but this arc ends well.
15 on such a full sea (chang-rae lee). sly dystopian / fic narrated by a "we" / closer than most "i"s.
16 the art of fielding (chad harbach). an un-baseball book / lyricizes corpse-dumping. / i was deeply moved.
17 astonish me (maggie shipstead). black swan + freedom? / a strong, well-researched saga.
/ not canadian.
18 cooking with fernet branca (james hamilton-paterson). a goddamn brilliant / comedy of manners: take / note, ye food writers.
19 new jersey (betsy andrews). a book-length poem / of the turnpike, the city, / and their detritus.
20 NW (zadie smith). white teeth with veneers. / still waiting for zadie smith / to wow me again.
21 annihilation [southern reach trilogy #1] (jeff vandermeer). if lovecraft's your jam, / this trilogy's a great read / (NOT AT BEDTIME, CHRIST).
22 authority [southern reach trilogy #2] (jeff vandermeer). a mysterious / zone eats research teams, psyches, / and bureaucracies.
23 acceptance [southern reach trilogy #3] (jeff vandermeer). little is explained; / much is made permanently / creepy. no mean feat.
24 couples (john updike). updike terrifies / '60s america with / tales of his sex life.
25 california (edan lepucki). post-apocalypse, / siblings and spouses dirty / each other with fear.
26 the changeling (kenzaburo oe). i was with oe / 'til weird cannonball torture, / which lost me, sadly.
27 the goldfinch (donna tartt). this is highbrow doge: / much dickens...so overwrite... / drug reference; wow
28 all things bright and beautiful formulaic, but / a formula i'll read all / day. like a warm bath.
29 the dinner (herman koch). fancy dinners are / always rotten at the core, / right? i trust the cheap stuff.
30 adiós hemingway (leonardo padura fuentes). atmospheric noir / (hemingway in cuba!) with / an older man's pulse.
31 MFA vs. NYC (chad harbach ed.) not sure how it is / that i've no dog in that fight, / but here i, L, am.
32 happy all the time (laurie colwin). generous and twee / thirty years before twee was; / a calm, safe new york.
33 tender at the bone (ruth reichl). so much nicer than / RR's novel! personal / stuff i'll read all day.
34 comfort me with apples (ruth reichl). ruth r. the daughter / is as honest as ruth r. / the critic. lovely.
35 my misspent youth (meghan daum). she's great, but her more / recent essays pack more punch / for me. here's to...time?
36 friendship (emily gould). i prefer essays / from emily, but i liked / this, and wish it well.
37 the last days of california (mary miller). these teens are vivid, / this apocalypse well-drawn. / a good road trip book.
38 all things wise and wonderful (james herriot). i wish he'd written / more about his war service, / but i forgive him.
39 pretty in ink (lindsey palmer). former colleagues write / the most disturbing accounts / of our world! deep sigh. 40 what i talk about when i talk about running (haruki murakami). i started writing / an essay about running / that should surpass this.
41 the o'briens (peter behrens). CANADA SAGA / ALERT: trees will fall, hearts freeze. / reader lids will droop.
42 why have kids? (jessica valenti). when i pitch you my / tepid womb-related book, / sock me in the spleen.
43 delicious! (ruth reichl). the tale's pivotal / cake recipe is...not great, / which weirded me out.
44 a dangerous liaison: one woman's journey into a world of aristocracy, depravity, and obsessive love (sheri de borchgrave). most fascinating / memoirist i've crossed greenland / beside, for damn sure.
45 the bear went over the mountain (william kotzwinkle). this satire's targets / (publishing et al.) deserve / a better takedown.
46 joss whedon: the biography (amy pascale). a coronation / so bald i turned on whedon / for balance's sake.
47 subtle bodies (norman rush). middle-aged coitus / in smug, nightmarish detail. / what an awful book.
48 the book of life (deborah harkness). worst use of nazis / since frankenstein's army. oof, / deborah harkness. oof.
49 medium raw (anthony bourdain). bourdain's posturing / remains wheezy, unwinning, / and super-lazy.
50 half bad (sally green). YA's getting weird; / this race-y tale of witches / is somehow tone-deaf.
(previous list here.)
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 what was the best book you read last year?
02 would you be willing to help exhume a corpse, if circumstances called for it?
03 could you recommend a sweeping canadian saga that won't bore the crap out of me?
04 do you enjoy nonfiction about whether one should or shouldn't have children?
05 if you were to write a post-apocalyptic novel, what would cause the apocalypse in your story?
06 who's the most interesting stranger you've ever sat beside on a plane?
12.29.14
we played "bowl of nouns," as we do every year, when we had family over for post-christmas christmas on saturday night. my dad chose a slip of paper from the bowl, read the word on it, clutched his chest, and slumped to the floor. "dead, dead!" his team shouted, an adjective that doesn't even begin with P, the first letter for that round's words. it turned out that he'd read PROP upside down, which looked for all the world like DEAD in my handwriting, so we gave him the point (i wanted to give him bonus points, really). he and my stepfamily stayed for a second round before retiring to the upper east side, and the seven of us who remained arranged ourselves around the apartment: my sister, brother-in-law, and baby niece in the bedroom, my other sister and brother-in-law on an air mattress in the hall, me and the cat on a busted air mattress in the living room, joe and the other cat on the sofa. the idea of a hotel room to supplement our square footage had been suggested many times, but my sisters and i scorned the idea, as we get just a single night together each year. you guys can get a brotel room if you want. it feels like we spent half our childhood in sleeping bags on the family room floor, in front of the fireplace. why did the houses in our suburban-southern-california development have fireplaces? off-white stucco walls, curved terra cotta roof tiles that'd grind together like teeth when i climbed across them, fireplaces called into service as often as the national guard.
it's been a year of letting things in, of new and exotic arrangements, of trying to do what twelve-year-old me would've done in similar circumstances. the single, humble press trip i took in 2013 begat trips to hawaii, iceland, and turkey; my job wandered off from beneath me, and i became a freelancer; i took on weekly shifts at a wildlife rehab center and a charity bookstore cafe; i started training for a half marathon. my sister had a baby. joe's job mutated into something unrecognizable, and he found a new one.
a shard of anger will turn up in my foot when i hear news of my old magazine, though i left them with the widest smile that would adhere to my face. a decade of my life i gave them! a former freelancer of mine announced to me and the rest of her facebook friends that she'd accepted the new version of my job. Like, i clicked. my sister is designing a monogram for the pro writing site my dearest friend built me; my old mentor is publishing my first piece in the new year, an essay on calling my mother every day for a month. PROP or DEAD? hand me a pillow case and a couch cushion. let's do this.
it's been a year of letting things in, of new and exotic arrangements, of trying to do what twelve-year-old me would've done in similar circumstances. the single, humble press trip i took in 2013 begat trips to hawaii, iceland, and turkey; my job wandered off from beneath me, and i became a freelancer; i took on weekly shifts at a wildlife rehab center and a charity bookstore cafe; i started training for a half marathon. my sister had a baby. joe's job mutated into something unrecognizable, and he found a new one.
a shard of anger will turn up in my foot when i hear news of my old magazine, though i left them with the widest smile that would adhere to my face. a decade of my life i gave them! a former freelancer of mine announced to me and the rest of her facebook friends that she'd accepted the new version of my job. Like, i clicked. my sister is designing a monogram for the pro writing site my dearest friend built me; my old mentor is publishing my first piece in the new year, an essay on calling my mother every day for a month. PROP or DEAD? hand me a pillow case and a couch cushion. let's do this.
02.05.14
I'd practise translation so much that I could say many things, at least the sort of things that typically I'd say in my own language. Comprehension, however, was another thing altogether. After I'd presented my own carefully displayed sentence like a diamond necklace on black velvet, the other speaker, the French person, would throw his sentence at me like a handful of wet sand. It would sting so badly that I'd wince, and an instant later I would wonder what had just happened to me.
[...]
At Marie-Claude's dinners no one spoke in any predictable way. They were all intellectuals and writers who I learned had to show how ironic they could be, how droll, how quickly and easily they could anticipate every objection their interlocutors might make. The advancement of a simple idea or piece of information was not the object. The task was to show they were civilized beings who caught every allusion. They were capable of enclosing linguistic brackets inside conversational parentheses.
Moreover, they interrupted constantly which, it amazed me to learn, was not considered rude in Paris. Madame de Staël in her book about Germany had written that German was not a proper language for intelligent conversation since you had to wait till the end of the sentence to hear the verb and couldn't interrupt.
(edmund white, from "american vogue," granta 126)
11.22.13
the dirty dozen {notes from my hometown police blotter, as reported by the oc register*}
Suspicious person/circumstances. 9:33 p.m. The caller said his 15-year-old son and the caller’s mother have barricaded him out of his home because he recently quit smoking and the son is now upset because he bought an e-cigarette.
Unknown trouble. 3:51 p.m. The caller said the caller's roommate has a machete.
Suspicious person/circumstance. 5:58 p.m. Informant called from McDonald's saying people at Arby's took her balloon and treated her badly.
Disturbance. 5:10 p.m. An informant said the neighbor is angry at the informant's son because the son moved a tree and a seed fell, upsetting the neighbor.
Suspicious person/circumstance. 3:53 p.m. Informant reported that pornographic films recovered in the mail were not ordered.
Terrorist threats report. 8:51 p.m. The caller said a student shoved the caller and said she is going to file a report that the caller was the one who pushed her.
Disturbance. 7:14 p.m. The caller reported a man rolling around on the grass in front of the mortuary.
Disturbance. 12:36 a.m. Informant reported a neighbor that goes out and blows a bugle type horn and marches around the yard with a sword. Subject reportedly does it all the time.
Suspicious person. 7:19 p.m. A man reported that his phone lines had been tapped and that someone was hacking into his bank account. He later said he might be a methamphetamine user.
Disturbance. 4:38 p.m. A male transient who reportedly goes by "Hollywood" was seen urinating in public. The transient was reportedly wearing a shiny cape.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 1:41 p.m. The caller reported neighbors burning their fireplace for the last four or five days without stopping and a very odd smell coming from the house.
Suspicious person/circumstance. 6:48 p.m. A male subject was reportedly standing on a white van and was preparing to skateboard off the top of it. A subject was reportedly videotaping.
*previous installment here.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 9:33 p.m. The caller said his 15-year-old son and the caller’s mother have barricaded him out of his home because he recently quit smoking and the son is now upset because he bought an e-cigarette.
Unknown trouble. 3:51 p.m. The caller said the caller's roommate has a machete.
Suspicious person/circumstance. 5:58 p.m. Informant called from McDonald's saying people at Arby's took her balloon and treated her badly.
Disturbance. 5:10 p.m. An informant said the neighbor is angry at the informant's son because the son moved a tree and a seed fell, upsetting the neighbor.
Suspicious person/circumstance. 3:53 p.m. Informant reported that pornographic films recovered in the mail were not ordered.
Terrorist threats report. 8:51 p.m. The caller said a student shoved the caller and said she is going to file a report that the caller was the one who pushed her.
Disturbance. 7:14 p.m. The caller reported a man rolling around on the grass in front of the mortuary.
Disturbance. 12:36 a.m. Informant reported a neighbor that goes out and blows a bugle type horn and marches around the yard with a sword. Subject reportedly does it all the time.
Suspicious person. 7:19 p.m. A man reported that his phone lines had been tapped and that someone was hacking into his bank account. He later said he might be a methamphetamine user.
Disturbance. 4:38 p.m. A male transient who reportedly goes by "Hollywood" was seen urinating in public. The transient was reportedly wearing a shiny cape.
Suspicious person/circumstances. 1:41 p.m. The caller reported neighbors burning their fireplace for the last four or five days without stopping and a very odd smell coming from the house.
Suspicious person/circumstance. 6:48 p.m. A male subject was reportedly standing on a white van and was preparing to skateboard off the top of it. A subject was reportedly videotaping.
*previous installment here.
10.29.13
as i'm about to argue that an open-notebook approach to compensation for creative work is both honorable and optimal, disclosure is important. note, then, that i have written poems for several small literary journals and received contributor's copies but no payment; i've been a salaried editor at and writer for a print magazine for the past decade; mcsweeney's paid me $25 for contributing to a book; miranda july sent me a contributor's copy of learning to love you more, though my work was referenced in an essay rather than reproduced; my flickr photos were available under a creative commons license until about a year ago, and were used by national geographic, the wall street journal, the food network, a few print authors, and many websites; i once consented to receive a review copy of a chuck klosterman book that i subsequently panned; i once drank a bunch of brennivin and posted bruce springsteen cover art on this site; i do not ask for permission from or compensate anyone for the photographs i post on birthday cakes for animals; i have never received payment for my writing on this site (which has never featured ads) or for guest posts on a few friends' sites (one of which features ads); i paid my little sister $300 (as i recall) to illustrate our save-the-date cards and wedding invitations; i paid michel gondry $20 to draw my portrait.
a colleague and friend of mine, easily the most prolific writer i know (she's got something like ten novels and probably hundreds of essays and articles for everyone from the new york times to women's magazines to sites like salon.com and nerve.com under her belt), wrote a long facebook post last week about a site she'd just pitched with an essay. her contact declined to buy her piece, but said that she was more than welcome to post it on their site for free. what magnanimity! i won't quote directly from the post (it still isn't public), but in short, my friend made a strong case for writers needing to protect themselves from "exposure" gigs, noting that actors with union cards aren't allowed to work outside of contracts (to do so would be damaging both to them and their peers). groups like actors' equity, AFTRA, and SAG don't really have analogs in the publishing world, but maybe they should; as tim kreider noted in the sunday times this weekend, it's a hot mess out there right now.
the majority of my experience giving it away is with photography, and honestly, i'm ashamed of it; i think that because i'm an amateur, to put it mildly, it didn't occur to me that making my photos accessible via creative commons could affect anyone's livelihood. it felt good to collaborate with, say, self-publishing authors who really couldn't afford professional images, and the random bigger hits were entertaining. hey, my selfie is on gizmodo! i started getting messages from professional photo assistants who wanted to use my stuff, uncredited, for free (for the titillation i would get, i suppose, from seeing them distributed to a wider audience?). i noticed traffic to my flickr stream from public-domain search engines, and it occurred to me, after way too long, that my hits were replacing paid work. whether or not someone can afford to pay a photo contributor is beside the point these days; why should they, when there are millions of folks like me out there? my default licensing setting is now creative commons/attribution/non-commercial. that feels right to me, but i still don't really know what i'm doing.
the titillation of exposure for non-professionals as currency has been examined to death in discussions of, say, reality television, but i'm starting to think about how it affects the food chain in other ecosystems. my friend's post-your-essay-for-free! offer is what kreider calls "death by exposure" for professionals, and in a media climate where everyone with a keyboard is a potential content provider and traditional outlets are dying off like giant pandas who can't figure out how to mate in captivity, the less-experienced writers who think they're building portfolios by working for nothing or next to nothing are going to find that there's no one left to look at them. long ago when the earth was flat and lots of newspapers still existed, i wrote a column for my college daily that was syndicated across the country. it was less impressive to the intern coordinators at big publishers here in new york than the fact that i'd been promoted at the on-campus coffeehouse (that, at least, showed i had management experience), but as far as i know, my friend's mother remembers me as "that girl who wrote about having sex with you." at some point in the near future, the kind of titillation keyboard-havers get from seeing themselves onscreen could be exposure's main value—or its sole value.
is it fair to resent amateurs and aspiring pros for what's going on in the media world? does resenting them do any good? some of my friends believe the market will sort itself out, but i...think about how that worked out with regulations and big banking over the last several years, and i have my doubts. also, have you ever watched writers try to split a restaurant tab? what we as "content providers" and lovers of thoughtful communication can do, and what we must do, is take responsibility for what we're doing, and how it affects our industries, peers, and contributors. i mean that literally: why don't we talk about things like how much we are or aren't getting paid for our work, and how much we pay each other? "Maybe [people who ask you to write for free are] asking in the collaborative, D.I.Y. spirit that allegedly characterizes the artistic community," kreider writes in sunday's times piece. "I have read Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, and participated in a gift economy for 20 years, swapping zines and minicomics with friends and colleagues, contributing to little literary magazines, doing illustrations for bands and events and causes, posting a decade’s worth of cartoons and essays on my Web site free of charge. Not getting paid for things in your 20s is glumly expected, even sort of cool; not getting paid in your 40s, when your back is starting to hurt and you are still sleeping on a futon, considerably less so." gift economies work, or "work," in closed systems like burning man, where collaborative community is institutionalized. in practice, proprietors of profitable businesses depend upon (and in some cases prey upon) contributors who decline to commodify their work.
friends and colleagues, please make your contributor-compensation policies easy to find and easy to understand. take responsibility for how your participation in this new, weird community affects the rest of us. make sure you're not the guy who doesn't kick in on the tab. we're supposed to look out for each other.
a colleague and friend of mine, easily the most prolific writer i know (she's got something like ten novels and probably hundreds of essays and articles for everyone from the new york times to women's magazines to sites like salon.com and nerve.com under her belt), wrote a long facebook post last week about a site she'd just pitched with an essay. her contact declined to buy her piece, but said that she was more than welcome to post it on their site for free. what magnanimity! i won't quote directly from the post (it still isn't public), but in short, my friend made a strong case for writers needing to protect themselves from "exposure" gigs, noting that actors with union cards aren't allowed to work outside of contracts (to do so would be damaging both to them and their peers). groups like actors' equity, AFTRA, and SAG don't really have analogs in the publishing world, but maybe they should; as tim kreider noted in the sunday times this weekend, it's a hot mess out there right now.
I know there’s no point in demanding that businesspeople pay artists for their work, any more than there is in politely asking stink bugs or rhinoviruses to quit it already. It’s their job to be rapacious and shameless. But they can get away with paying nothing only for the same reason so many sleazy guys keep trying to pick up women by insulting them: because it keeps working on someone. There is a bottomless supply of ambitious young artists in all media who believe the line about exposure, or who are simply so thrilled at the prospect of publication that they’re happy to do it free of charge.i haven't had to spend too much time thinking about the implications of writing for free. my literary-magazine credits are ancient history, and i am confident that turning my juvenilia over to those now-extinct journals did no serious harm to my community (i do squirm a bit over the strange poem about christina aguilera, but that's another story). this blog predates Big Web Money for personal writing, and my feelings about it haven't changed over the years; i hope it's been of use to other people, but i'm not ashamed to admit that i've written it mostly for my own benefit, and i'm comfortable with its potential financial impact on my peers as a not-for-profit public site featuring my recreational writing and photography. as for the writing i do as part of my full-time magazine job, it's work with formalized pay, bless it, and fairly uninteresting in the context of this discussion.
the majority of my experience giving it away is with photography, and honestly, i'm ashamed of it; i think that because i'm an amateur, to put it mildly, it didn't occur to me that making my photos accessible via creative commons could affect anyone's livelihood. it felt good to collaborate with, say, self-publishing authors who really couldn't afford professional images, and the random bigger hits were entertaining. hey, my selfie is on gizmodo! i started getting messages from professional photo assistants who wanted to use my stuff, uncredited, for free (for the titillation i would get, i suppose, from seeing them distributed to a wider audience?). i noticed traffic to my flickr stream from public-domain search engines, and it occurred to me, after way too long, that my hits were replacing paid work. whether or not someone can afford to pay a photo contributor is beside the point these days; why should they, when there are millions of folks like me out there? my default licensing setting is now creative commons/attribution/non-commercial. that feels right to me, but i still don't really know what i'm doing.
the titillation of exposure for non-professionals as currency has been examined to death in discussions of, say, reality television, but i'm starting to think about how it affects the food chain in other ecosystems. my friend's post-your-essay-for-free! offer is what kreider calls "death by exposure" for professionals, and in a media climate where everyone with a keyboard is a potential content provider and traditional outlets are dying off like giant pandas who can't figure out how to mate in captivity, the less-experienced writers who think they're building portfolios by working for nothing or next to nothing are going to find that there's no one left to look at them. long ago when the earth was flat and lots of newspapers still existed, i wrote a column for my college daily that was syndicated across the country. it was less impressive to the intern coordinators at big publishers here in new york than the fact that i'd been promoted at the on-campus coffeehouse (that, at least, showed i had management experience), but as far as i know, my friend's mother remembers me as "that girl who wrote about having sex with you." at some point in the near future, the kind of titillation keyboard-havers get from seeing themselves onscreen could be exposure's main value—or its sole value.
is it fair to resent amateurs and aspiring pros for what's going on in the media world? does resenting them do any good? some of my friends believe the market will sort itself out, but i...think about how that worked out with regulations and big banking over the last several years, and i have my doubts. also, have you ever watched writers try to split a restaurant tab? what we as "content providers" and lovers of thoughtful communication can do, and what we must do, is take responsibility for what we're doing, and how it affects our industries, peers, and contributors. i mean that literally: why don't we talk about things like how much we are or aren't getting paid for our work, and how much we pay each other? "Maybe [people who ask you to write for free are] asking in the collaborative, D.I.Y. spirit that allegedly characterizes the artistic community," kreider writes in sunday's times piece. "I have read Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, and participated in a gift economy for 20 years, swapping zines and minicomics with friends and colleagues, contributing to little literary magazines, doing illustrations for bands and events and causes, posting a decade’s worth of cartoons and essays on my Web site free of charge. Not getting paid for things in your 20s is glumly expected, even sort of cool; not getting paid in your 40s, when your back is starting to hurt and you are still sleeping on a futon, considerably less so." gift economies work, or "work," in closed systems like burning man, where collaborative community is institutionalized. in practice, proprietors of profitable businesses depend upon (and in some cases prey upon) contributors who decline to commodify their work.
friends and colleagues, please make your contributor-compensation policies easy to find and easy to understand. take responsibility for how your participation in this new, weird community affects the rest of us. make sure you're not the guy who doesn't kick in on the tab. we're supposed to look out for each other.
10.25.13
say what you will about the conservative groups claiming that bill de blasio will be soft on crime and drag new york city back to the seventies, but you can't pretend the british-graffiti epidemic that's swept the city since he won the democratic primary last month isn't real.
why people deface banksy's work; the banksy v. robbo war in pictures.
05.29.13
my sisters and i joined the line for moma's rain room (a temporary installation in which fancy tech creates the experience of walking through a downpour without getting wet; it's dazzling, and it's been wildly popular) at something like half past noon this past friday. it was (old-fashioned) raining (on the outdoor line) at the time, and a staffer with an umbrella and an impeccably-cut mackintosh approached me. "just so you know," he said, "the wait is about three hours right now." i grimaced. "no, you don't understand," he whispered. "that's the best it's been for a week." we ended up waiting a bit less than that, in fact, and it was...quite nice, all things considered? as kidchamp dot net is obviously above all things a destination for practical data, allow me to share some strategic information. if you intend to rain-room,
bring pals, three if you can; that way two of you can peel off to explore the rest of the museum (or forage for provisions, or use the bathroom) while the other two perform feats of strength for each other, or play cards, or argue about the new daft punk album* in line. the line must include one member of your group at all times, but beyond that you're free to come and go as you please, provided that you hang on to your ticket.
bring layers. i wore a short-sleeved silk shirt and suffered. misty, late-spring rain gets into your bones when you're standing in it for a long time, even if you've got an umbrella.
bring booze. i'm not saying you should whip a bottle of wild turkey out of your purse, but if, say, you jog up to the columbus circle american apparel in search of a cheap cardigan and pass both a liquor store and a starbucks on the way back, you should bring your sisters fortified coffee.
bring a real camera. it's pretty dark in the rain room, and most cameraphones aren't fast enough to take decent photos. unless you're deft with baggies or a wild kingdom-style photographer's tent, moreover, you've probably never shot in the rain with good equipment; do it now. speaking of,
bring a crossword puzzle, or some origami projects, or the sunday times book review. dancers in the rain are nice and all, but they can get wet; it rains in every dance movie ever made. if you just want to be cinematic, like, recite roy batty's speech from the end of blade runner. i say use the special circumstances to make something new.
*meh.
05.15.13
@evencleveland On my way home last night: a mini dachshund in an argyle sweater and rhinestone collar who answered to the name "Diamond."
@kidchamp @evencleveland would bowie be pleased? i like to think so.
@evencleveland Now I have a happy thought for the day: David and Iman, reading, suavely relaxed, surrounded by dachshunds in diamond collars.
@kidchamp @evencleveland would bowie be pleased? i like to think so.
@evencleveland Now I have a happy thought for the day: David and Iman, reading, suavely relaxed, surrounded by dachshunds in diamond collars.
04.27.13
It is a wonderful book to have around in case of emergency. No one should ever set out in pursuit of unholy excitement without a special vest pocket edition dangling from a string around the neck.
For this book tells exactly, and with compelling lucidity, just what to do when cast off by a grandfather or when sitting around a station platform at 4 a.m., or when spilling champagne in a fashionable restaurant, or when told that one is too old for the movies. Any of these things might come into one's life at any minute.
[...]
I think the heroine is most amusing. I have an intense distaste for the melancholy aroused in the masculine mind by such characters as Jennie Gerhardt, Ántonia and Tess (of the D'Urbervilles). Their tragedies, redolent of the soil, leave me unmoved. If they were capable of dramatizing themselves they would no longer be symbolic, and if they weren't—and they aren't—they would be dull, stupid, and boring, as they inevitably are in life.
(zelda fitzgerald, from "friend husband's latest," her review of the beautiful and damned for the new york tribune, april 2, 1922)
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