Buzz

One of many literary pleasures this summer was reading the first novel by Seattle wordsmith, photographer, DJ and bon vivant Robert Zverina. "Buzz" is a darkly funny not-quite-coming-of-age story about a young man born in the back of an Oldsmobile just as his namesake Buzz Aldrin sets foot on the moon. Despite what would seem an auspicious entrance, our hero is born under dreadful circumstances, the first in a relentless series of ambiguities that come to define his character. Buzz grows up in an insular world of disillusioned Czech immigrants in which the love for consumer goods - cars, televisions, domestic contraptions - replaces the love of human beings.

The cold world that Buzz inherits turns him into a open-eyed and poetic observer of people and their failings. Again and again he strives and fails to make meaningful connections, and his attempts grow more ridiculous, and more painful, as the book progresses. The true beauty of this book lies in Buzz's honest observations of the uncle who raises him, the lovers he clumsily works to impress, and his equally damaged friends and cohorts. Uncertain in its meaning but exact in its language, Buzz reads like a hopelessly exaggerated true story.

Buzz isn't available in stores, but you can find your own copy right here.

Book Marker

In the 1950's, the hugely influential filmmaker Chris Marker, who died earlier this year, worked for the publishing house Editions du Seuil and, among other projects, he was responsible for Seuil’s series of travel books, Petite Planète.

The books bear telltale signs of both Marker's wonderful sense of design and his eye for suggestive narrative details. In 2006 Marker collected a copy of each book that he designed for display at an exhibition titled Having Been Described in Words. After the show, Marker decided to produce a poster depicting the covers of the Petite Planète guides from 1954-64. A rare edition of the poster is currently for sale on the site Light Industry. Even if you're not in the market for a poster, take a moment to look at the hypnotic image created by all of these lovely books in one place.

Quim Monzó

I've been away on my annual Barcelona sojourn for the last 4 weeks, and have been dutifully ignoring the web while paying close attention to the world around me. I'll see if I can't post a few updates before heading back to Seattle and the world of work and bleach that awaits me. Since being here, I discovered the work of Quim Monzó, a writer often billed as the "foremost Catalan writer of his generation." Not reading Catalan myself, it's hard to say if that's true. But there is no question that his short stories and novels are odd and beautiful fantasies, dealing with the contradictions involved in every aspect of modern living, the hidden intricacies of family relationships, and the unknown fates of forgotten historical figures. Extremely thought provoking and unexpected, his books are published by Open Letter Press in the U.S. Allow me to recommend Guadalajara as a perfect place to start.

The Sound, the Fury, the Color

According to history, William Faulkner originally wanted wanted to publish his masterpiece The Sound and the Fury using colored inks to signify the many different times in which action takes place. But he eventually concluded 'I don’t reckon … it’ll ever be printed that way.' Some 80 years later, the geniuses at the Folio Society have done it. Available for a limited time at just $295. More here .

There and Back by Bike

In the summer of 2007 history professor Louis Mendoza set out from Santa Cruz on a bicycle with the idea of seeing first-hand the extent of the growing Latino population in the United States. Over the course of a year he covered 8,500 miles around the entire perimeter of the country, talking to people about their experiences as immigrants or as non-Latino residents who have seen a steady increase of immigrants into their communities. When asked what his motivation was for taking a bike instead of taking a car, he said taking a bike would let him meet people in a happenstance way, and he would be forced to go inside communities he might have passed if he were inside a car.

"A bike took me off the beaten path and made me encounter people in a different way," he said.

Four years later, Mendoza has published A Journey Around Our America, offering his hard won understanding of what it means to be Latino in the United States in the twenty-first century. “I witnessed, first hand, what it was like to be considered a problem.” With a blend of first-person narratives, accounts from other writers, blog entries and excerpts from conversations he had along his ride, Mendoza presents stories of manual laborers, students, activists, and intellectuals. This book, and the journey that inspired it, represents a unique attempt to gain a broad perspective on a persistent and vital American question.

Real Comet Press

Real Comet Press was founded in 1981 by Seattle arts activist, and owner of the legendary Comet Tavern, Cathy Hillenbrand. This prescient enterprise published an amazing array of books that formed the bleeding edge of Seattle’s cultural rise. Fantagraphics was just one of the publishers who followed Real Comet's lead, and this Saturday, March 10, the Fantagraphics Bookstore Gallery celebrates the legacy of Cathy Hillenbrand with Real Comet Press: A Retrospective which runs through April 10. Among the many highlights of the retrospective will be displays of Lynda Barry's first four books and rare public appearances by cartoonist Michael Dougan, and graphic artist Art Chantry. On March 30, Hillenbrand joins cartoonists Ellen Forney and Jim Woodring, for a panel discussion on "Seattle’s Legacy of Counterculture Comix” at the Emerald City Comicon.

We Own the Night

From early 2009 to mid-2010, the Underbelly Project was the art world’s best-kept secret. After years of kept promises and hushed mouths, the book "We Own the Night" has finally been released offering some three hundred photographs of the project plus the death-defying stories from some of the participating artists.

The story has it that in 2005 New York street artist PAC first discovered a South Manhattan subway station that had been abandoned for 80 years. Compelled to revisit the place, he invited a collaborator, Workhorse, and the two of them conceived of turning the station into a gallery for the world’s leading urban artists. They arranged late-night trips to the "gallery" for more than 2 years, painting night after night to transform the space into the largest underground art gallery in the world.

When the curators declared the project finished in 2010, they invited a handful of friends and street-art friendly journalists who were sworn to secrecy, but there was no opening to show the work and the public were never invited. In late October of the same year, the secret was out when the New York Times ran a feature about an art installation that very few people would ever see. Soon afterward the space was boarded up by the MTA, and its location remains a secret to this day. The new book is the first full document of the work, and though I haven't seen it yet, I daresay it's set to become a seminal book on street art, and may even form the end of a history opened by Henry Chalfant.

More on this great project right here.

Things to Worry About

In 1933, writer F. Scott Fitzgerald ended a letter to his 11-year-old daughter Scottie with a list of things to worry about, not worry about, and simply think about. It read as follows:

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about:

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Things to think about:

What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:

(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?

With dearest love,

Daddy

From the terrific blog Lists of Note.

Short Run

If you're reading this blog, you've probably got a taste for old school media - ie. beautiful handmade objects and actual printed books. The Short Run Small Press Fest is in Seattle a first-of-its-kind small press expo featuring dozens of handmade literary journals, comics, zines, and small-press books, along with a fancy bake sale and screenings of recent work from Seattle Experimental Animation Team. Uniquely beautiful handmade books are a joy unto themselves, and the kind of thing you'll never be able to download onto your Kindle. At Seattle's all-ages Vera Project this Saturday starting at 10:30 am. Admission is free free free.

And if you want more, the show continues with an party and exhibit at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle. The party begins on Saturday after the Short Run show and the display continues through December 10.

Wild Animals

Wild Animals - a beautiful self-published book by Dutch illustrator Rop van Mierlo — is already in its second printing. They're pretty tough to find around here, but you can buy one direct from the illustrator. Rop's biography states that "He is a man" who "once had a dog that bit off the tip of his ear." The rest, apparently, is history. More here.

Nests and the Birds That Built Them

Photographer Sharon Beals recently published Nests: Fifty Nests and the Birds that Built Them, a book of 50 exquisitely observed nests built by different species of birds. The photos are remarkable, revealing a wide range of techniques and materials including from mud, branches, and sticks to spiderwebs, moss, saliva, fur and bones. Above, a housewren's nest. Below, a Spotted Nightingale Thrush. More here.

St. Jordi's Day

Today Catalunya celebrates Sant Jordi's Day, among my favorite of all holidays. It is the feast day of the dragon slayer Saint George, and also the birthday of both William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes. In Catalunya it is known as "El dia del llibre" or "The Day of the Book," during which all women receive roses and all men receive books, although it has become ever more common to give books to everybody. In honor of the beloved book makers of that region, an image from Galeria d'Imatges, a Catalan group blog which consists of book hounds Galderich of Piscolabis Librorum, Carlos Hernandez of El Gabinet Negre, Leblansky of Enceneu els Llums, and others.

Found at the redoubtable 50 Watts.

Here Comes The Story of the Hurricane

In October 1966 Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was a successful boxer, in training for a shot at the world middleweight title. He was arrested for the murder of three patrons at the Lafayette Bar & Grill in Paterson, New Jersey based on a description of the killers as "two Negroes in a white car." Carter was cleared by a grand jury when the one surviving victim failed to identify him. Regardless, the State produced two new eyewitnesses who made positive identifications, a sham of a trial followed, and Carter was convicted and sentenced to three life prison terms.

During the mid-1970s, his case became a cause celébrè for a number of civil rights leaders, politicians, and entertainers. He was ultimately exonerated, in 1985, after a United States district court judge declared the convictions to be based on racial prejudice. After serving 19 years in prison – 10 of them in solitary confinement – Carter has become a tireless advocate for the wrongfully incarcerated. He serves as director of the Association in Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted, headquartered in his house in Toronto and also serves as a member of the board of directors of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and the Alliance for Prison Justice in Boston. Carter recently published a new memoir Eye of the Hurricane: My Path from Darkness to Freedom billed as "a document of his spiritual and factual history." Carter reads from and signs his new book in Seattle, at the University Bookstore, on Thursday February 24 at 7pm.

To Hell With February

February is the month where people start thinking about Spring. They’ve endured November, December, and January, the holidays are well past, and now February -- which is just dark and cold. Personally, I’ve always been kind of depressed in the month of February. I used to joke around with friends in college that February was coming and it kind of took on a persona. This is when I was living in Buffalo. February is darkness and brutal cold and all gray and ice and dirty snow. It’s a disgusting month that must be stopped.

From an interview with Shane Jones at Bookslut.

It's a perfect moment to pick up Shane Jones' charming novel Light Boxes. Jones was born in Albany and educated in the impressive poetry program at the University of Buffalo. In 2009, at the tender age of 29, he published Light Boxes, his first novel, as a “chapnovel” by Publishing Genius in an edition of 500 copies. Light Boxes, now published by Penguin in considerably larger numbers, is a small and bewildering fable of a town battling to free itself from the brutal hold of the month of February, which has maintained its grip for 300 days. When the despairing townspeople, led by the valiant Thaddeus, suffer reprisals from February and its priests for trying to break the weather, a group of former balloonists don bird masks and instigate a rebellion. It's a lovely little book, full of sadness and magic.

A fine interview with Shane Jones at 3am Magazine.

Dinner With Wallace

Essayist, playwright and actor Wallace Shawn will be in Seattle on January 20 to present his new book of essays, called simply "Essays." Shawn wrote the strange and stirring plays The Designated Mourner and The Fever, but is probably best know for sitting across the table from Andre Gregory in the art-house staple My Dinner With Andre. Local journalist and musician Sean Nelson will be hosting a conversation with Shawn at the Sorrento Hotel as part of their Penthouse Symposium series. A $40 ticket includes dinner by the Sorrento chefs and a copy of Shawn's new book. On Thursday, January 20 at 7 pm. Tickets available here.

B2o1oks 2

...and non-fiction.

Just Kids by Patti Smith. It's been widely praised and well lauded, and all for good reason. Smith's memoir captures a long gone time when she and Robert Mapplethorpe were young, poor and unknown, barely surviving in New York City and dreaming of better things. A personal and evocative look inside the private world of two unique young people who became stars.

The Bog People by P. V. Glob. A compulsively readable introductory archaeology course, taught by an eccentric and enthusiastic professor, about the ancient bodies discovered in Denmark’s peat bogs. Though the book is replete with archeological details, it is also rich with Iron Age poetry, mythology and truly amazing photographs.

Oranges & Peanuts for Sale Eliot Weinberger. An embarrassment of riches from a contemporary thinker and man of letters. In a few dozen essays, Weinberger offers a reassessment of E. B. White’s Here is New York, a manifesto for rudderless poets, a poetic assesment of Barack Obama's language and his election campaign, and a lush collage of impressions gathered during a trip on the Yangtze River. Like the State of the Union address delivered by a Confucian sage.

Despite Everything: A Cometbus Omnibus by Aaron Cometbus. Cometbus is a legendary zine, self-published irregularly for more than 20 years from locations around the world. This is an extensive retrospective collection, weighing in at more than 600 pages, featuring comics, interviews, low-budget trips through Europe, stories of hitchhiking, reviews of coffee, cereal, bookstores, and lots of punk rock adventures. Cometbus remains a testament to what can be done when an artist rigorously applies DIY punk ethics to his own life. Entertaining and inspiring.

The Photographer by Didier Lefèvre and Emmanuel Guibert. A beautiful and terrible book, part photojournalism and part graphic memoir, telling the true story of a group of French doctors and nurses who traveled into northern Afghanistan by horse and donkey train in 1986 at the height of the Soviet occupation. Using small sequential frames of photographs combined with drawings, the book details the damage done by war and the frantic struggle to mend the broken. It's a powerful and arduous story, with the misery of war presented so powerfully that it's impossible to look away.

B2o1oks

Without any attempt to list all the books I read this year, much less try to gauge the "best" of them, these are some of the books that I thoroughly enjoyed, or which had a strong impact on me, in 2010. In two parts.

Fiction:

Warlock by Oakley Hall. An absolutely epic novel which is ostensibly a morality tale set in the wild west, but which evolves over many pages into a deeply thoughtful meditation on good and evil. Not only a damn good story with many complicated characters, but also a cynical look at a national myth, ending as a damning report on human society in general. Riveting.

Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham. A tormented tale from the 1940's of a travelling carnival worker driven by ambition to become a manipulative mentalist. A gripping ride of a circus novel with many sidetracks into murder, addiction, lust and madness. Features several memorable scenes of geeks reduced by poverty and alcohol to a subhuman existence. Disquieting.

Nada by Carmen LaForet. A sad and beautiful coming-of-age novel from 1945 in which a girl, orphaned by the Spanish Civil War, travels from the country to live with her relatives in Barcelona. The luxurious house she remembers from her childhood has been reduced to a dark and dusty prison populated by her odd and unpredictable family, physically and psychologically devasted by the war. It would read like a gothic horror story if the details weren't so beautifully observed and historically accurate. "Cities, my child, are hell. And in all of Spain no city resembles hell more than Barcelona . . . A young girl in Barcelona must be like a fortress. Do you understand?"

The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. An absolutely stunning collection of short stories, nearly every one of which can take your breath away. All the more notable for the fact that many of them are as short as a single page or even shorter. Sharp observations of moments of deep resonance in ordinary lives. I often found myself reading single stories again and again to understand what made the austere descriptions of friends and family relationships so powerfully affecting. I came up with no easy answers, I think it must be dark magic.

Sidetracked by Henning Mankell. I began reading this celebrated series in 2007 or so and have been going through them in order. This one, the 5th, is my favorite so far and while I have enjoyed them all, this is the first which really thrilled me. The compelling narrative is told from the points of view of both our trusty detective, Kurt Wallender, and from the deranged and methodical killer. The killer himself is an inspired creation, truly awful yet powerfully sympathetic.

Narradores Jovenes

Granta literary journal, and its Spanish language spinoff Granta en Español, just released their magazines' respective November issues which feature short work by the 22 "best" young Spanish-language novelists. In a first for Granta, the magazine has been published simultaneously in English and Spanish.

Each of the writers selected was born since 1975, the year that the dictatorship in Spain finally came to an end and the tradition of exiled South American writers living and working in Paris shifted toward a new generation of émigrés seeking publication in post-Franco Spain.

It's a vibrant and diverse portrayal of a generation of talented writers from across the planet, as selected by Granta's editors along with the Argentinian writer and film-maker Edgardo Cozarinsky, British journalist Isabel Hilton, novelist Francisco Goldman, and writer and literary critic Mercedes Monmany. The fiction is also profoundly diverse, ranging from political tales to moral fables to deeply unsentimental love stories.

The magazine is available in English at most good bookstores, and available in Spanish right here. Pick it up.

Ericailcane

Leonardo Ericailcane is best known for his large scale street art, but his small works on paper are also very beautiful and absorbing. Ericailcane has a truly weird and wonderful new book out, called Potente Di Fuoco, in which he revisits drawings from his childhood and redraws them 20 to 25 years later. It’s a very clever idea, and the images are truly beautiful, especially when seen side by side.

Ericailcane currently has a show running at Upper Playground in San Francisco. He painted a sweet new mural for the occasion. The show runs through December 19th.

What to Read in the Rain

826 Seattle is a nonprofit organization focused on teaching young people how to improve their writing, and helping teachers inspire their students to write. The organization has just released a new anthology titled What to Read in the Rain (written by "famous and not-yet-famous adult and young writers.") which they are selling as a fundraiser. The collection is a kind of love letter to Seattle, with over 300 pages of Northwest-centered stories, poems, essays and recipes from some well-known authors (including Tom Robbins, Michael Chabon, and Seattle-based scribes Lauren Weedman and Megan Kelso) as well as many young participants in the 826 program.

The book is being placed in hotel rooms throughout Seattle, where visitors will find What to Read in the Rain greeting them from their bedside table and will be able to credit their room accounts for the cost of the book at check-out time. For those of us who actually live here, the book is available now through 826 Seattle's retail front, the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co.