the literary drunk: a description of both the event and its participants. it's exciting, and it's happening tonight. i'm also excited to get a new stack of translated novels for review and speculation -- but not of the financial sort, because although i'll gladly buy an unedited proof if i find one of interest on the shelves, you won't find me selling mine, literary drunk or not.
then, what luck! i'm led to this guardian article that cites a complaint from nobelist orhan pamuk that, "the majority of human experience is being ignored because the literature that describes it is not written in english." "even other major european languages find it difficult to get an english audience for their work," pamuk was quoted at a literary festival in jaipur. "the english are famously tardy and unreceptive towards other languages, and it is particularly hard to get american publishing houses to take on translations." here, here. we'll toast you tonight. (i don't, however, think i'll have time for the museum of innocence any time soon. from your comments i understand that you'd prefer we work to illuminate more marginalized works.)
but also wait: pamuk, well known and widely read in translation, "also accused literary critics of constantly trying to 'provincialise' his work." an inspiring call to arms but also a caution against carelessness in my speculation. thank you, mr. pamuk. you'll get your name on another round.
thank you also for winning that prize. i bought the black book only a couple of months before the announcement, and now a copy of the same edition(?) i have is behind glass for $75.00 at powell's. an unedited proof. a smart buy. maybe i'll have to reconsider that will to sell. but not for the record.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
HOW TO MAKE A DELICIOUS MEAL FROM WHATEVER YOU FIND LYING AROUND
having been reminded of patrick mccabe's breakfast on pluto in conversation on thursday evening, i went to powell's on friday hoping to find a used copy of winterwood, the only of mccabe's novels that i hadn't read, an economic opportunity cost decision that i made based on sad reviews at the time of the book's initial release. there were none on the shelves, used or otherwise, probably for the same reason that all of the author's other books were available at deep discounts: winterwood was probably just a rehash written at the less creative end of a once pertinent and well esteemed writer's long term publishing contract, and it probably wasn't very good. i remembered, however, that the current issue of the paris review included a new translation of a novella by péter nádas, and having also recently been in discussion about this other author's work after being returned the copy of love that i had lent to a neighbor, i consoled myself with taking the last copy of that magazine to the cafe to read another work of possible interest and justify my trip. whether it was the coffee or the frenzy of the bookstore on a friday evening was another night's distraction, but i was only able to finish about twenty pages of the novella. luckily there were other of nádas' works on the shelves for less than the twelve dollars i needed to buy that copy of the review (i'm an awfully hypocritical advocate of print culture), and, although i should have endeavored to tackle a book of memories for its seeming similarity with a french novel i'd recently appreciated, i left powell's with a lovely tale of photography, a lovely and much shorter book for seven ninety-five. it was short, yes, but just as difficult to read casually as love (which makes me anxious for ever tackling the several hundred pages of a book of memories), and i should now rightly be writing on my ideas on "the novel of perspective" as typified by péter nádas in the two works of his that i've read, but a recent dream about kyoto has me instead diverted to reading 『密閉都市のトリニティー』 by toba shin, a professor at the university of kyoto who taught the friend of mine that recommended me his book. a near future sci-fi about the quarantine of a city in the aftermath of a chemical attack that mars the afflicted with an std that shows itself in transmission as the mark of cain is wonderfully distracting, but it's no lighter than the burden of any other task at hand. but now the task is this one, and i'll abandon the more rigorous writing until another time, although it's true that the original task departed from just as casual a connection as the one that has me reading shin, and, as such, i shouldn't really see it as having been abandoned at all. tonight, for as long as i can stay awake, i'm living in memoriam.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
REMEMBERING THE BOOK; or, HOW TO ENJOY HUMBLE PIE
"remember books? those are the things literary journalists used to write about before they became obsessed with bullshit stories about technology and search engine optimization and 'the long tail.'" literary journalist michael schaub weighs in. (and here we are wasting time smearing vooks.)
as schaub reports at the bookslut blog, microcosm publishing here in portland is exchanging real books and zines for unwanted amazon kindles. i mean, they're history anyway. everyone's waiting for the nook 2.
is it ironic that we led with the statement we did and are now giving you a bullshit story about technology instead of writing about books? no. there's a fine line in that quote, and if you can't see it, you probably need to adjust the brightness on your kindle. also not ironic: wearing a hooded sweatshirt under a plaid wool button-up with elbow patches (and almost everything else you call ironic). if i'd felt comfortable showing up at dinner empty handed i would have thrown my bottle of wine at that guy who yelled at me from out of his subaru. i'm sure he loved "portlandia." i'm glad i stayed calm, i might've soiled my oregon tuxedo running away.
speaking of books, though, "the morning news" selection committee recently announced the contenders in this year's tournament of books (presented by field notes and sponsored by powell's books). as per the official announcement, the list of titles,
so it would seem that we'd be off the hook for not having read any of them, which is hugely relieving considering that whole aimee bender rigmarole of last summer and that her book the particular sadness of lemon cake is at the top of the list of contenders. if you've read one of the books on the list, you can vote for it as part of the "zombie vote" portion of the contest. if you haven't, i suppose you could make an educated guess. just ask yourself what a zombie would do. hopefully we'll see you on the official judges panel next year, because, well, if anything we've proven our ability to remain unbiased. and million dollar babies don't cry shouldn't be ready for publication until at least 2012.
update, 7:14 p.m.: i don't feel so bad spending time harping on the vook after reading a post at "conversational reading" entitled "worst lede ever," which refers to and excerpts an article from the new york times written by a "slavish fan" of the kindle in support of the merging of video and text. the "conversational reading" post also links to a critical response to the times article by chad post at "three percent," the blog of open letter press, the university of rochester's non-profit translation imprint, a not surprising association seeing as scott esposito (who is "conventional reading") specializes in writing reviews of translated literature for publishers weekly. good company.
but, ultimately, this post ends as a bullshit story about technology, despite my sort of efforts to save it. sorry, michael. i promise that it's all in good remembrance of the book.
as schaub reports at the bookslut blog, microcosm publishing here in portland is exchanging real books and zines for unwanted amazon kindles. i mean, they're history anyway. everyone's waiting for the nook 2.
is it ironic that we led with the statement we did and are now giving you a bullshit story about technology instead of writing about books? no. there's a fine line in that quote, and if you can't see it, you probably need to adjust the brightness on your kindle. also not ironic: wearing a hooded sweatshirt under a plaid wool button-up with elbow patches (and almost everything else you call ironic). if i'd felt comfortable showing up at dinner empty handed i would have thrown my bottle of wine at that guy who yelled at me from out of his subaru. i'm sure he loved "portlandia." i'm glad i stayed calm, i might've soiled my oregon tuxedo running away.
speaking of books, though, "the morning news" selection committee recently announced the contenders in this year's tournament of books (presented by field notes and sponsored by powell's books). as per the official announcement, the list of titles,
is not a list of the best novels of 2010. the novel had an incredible year, in our opinion, but this is not even a list of our favorite books from 2010. because compiling such a list would be absurd. even collectively we have read only a tiny fraction of the books published last year. we haven’t even read all the books on the rooster list, at least not yet.
each of these books was chosen because it was hyped. or celebrated. or not celebrated or hyped enough. or because it won an award. or because an individual (or individuals) we admire lobbied passionately for its inclusion.
so it would seem that we'd be off the hook for not having read any of them, which is hugely relieving considering that whole aimee bender rigmarole of last summer and that her book the particular sadness of lemon cake is at the top of the list of contenders. if you've read one of the books on the list, you can vote for it as part of the "zombie vote" portion of the contest. if you haven't, i suppose you could make an educated guess. just ask yourself what a zombie would do. hopefully we'll see you on the official judges panel next year, because, well, if anything we've proven our ability to remain unbiased. and million dollar babies don't cry shouldn't be ready for publication until at least 2012.
update, 7:14 p.m.: i don't feel so bad spending time harping on the vook after reading a post at "conversational reading" entitled "worst lede ever," which refers to and excerpts an article from the new york times written by a "slavish fan" of the kindle in support of the merging of video and text. the "conversational reading" post also links to a critical response to the times article by chad post at "three percent," the blog of open letter press, the university of rochester's non-profit translation imprint, a not surprising association seeing as scott esposito (who is "conventional reading") specializes in writing reviews of translated literature for publishers weekly. good company.
but, ultimately, this post ends as a bullshit story about technology, despite my sort of efforts to save it. sorry, michael. i promise that it's all in good remembrance of the book.
Monday, January 24, 2011
KEEPING PORTLAND SANCTIMONIOUS, part 3
there was lots of talk over "portlandia" this past week, most of it in keeping with the humble taste making expressed here last week. at least one person gave the show (or at least carrie brownstein) credit for taking aim one of her community's very sacred cows (not a local food joke). i also identified a personal connection to the bike that fred armisen rides in the "bicycle rights" promo at ifc.com. all in all, however, i'll suffice it to sum up the chatter by recapitulating a bit of conversation from thursday evening at the secret society on russel.
"that reminds me. there's that show. i haven't watched it yet, but..."
"don't." "no?"
"it isn't that funny. i mean, i'm going to watch them all, but."
"fucking janet weiss." (you can use that if you want, carrie.)
of course, now the new york times is weighing in, and well ahead of on time for that publication's starry eyed but late to the table coverage of portland culture -- ten days after everyone watched episode one on hulu and two days (three in print) after its ifc premiere. the times article, titled "can a city this self-serious take a joke?", knows exactly where it stands:
"for years, many residents here have reacted with practiced apathy and amusement toward the national fascination with portland. outsiders and media critics have glowed over everything from its restaurants to its ambitious transit system of streetcars and light rail. yet with "portlandia," the flattery has given way to mockery, however gently executed, of this liberal city’s deliberate differentness."
c'mon new york. do we sense perhaps a bit too much self-satisfaction? there's at least enough to rival our self-seriousness. and yeah, we can take a joke -- if only someone will help us out from under the heavy and clumsy hand of gentle execution to find a good one.
now, if you'll excuse me, i have something european to do. and i'm taking the bus.
"that reminds me. there's that show. i haven't watched it yet, but..."
"don't." "no?"
"it isn't that funny. i mean, i'm going to watch them all, but."
"fucking janet weiss." (you can use that if you want, carrie.)
of course, now the new york times is weighing in, and well ahead of on time for that publication's starry eyed but late to the table coverage of portland culture -- ten days after everyone watched episode one on hulu and two days (three in print) after its ifc premiere. the times article, titled "can a city this self-serious take a joke?", knows exactly where it stands:
"for years, many residents here have reacted with practiced apathy and amusement toward the national fascination with portland. outsiders and media critics have glowed over everything from its restaurants to its ambitious transit system of streetcars and light rail. yet with "portlandia," the flattery has given way to mockery, however gently executed, of this liberal city’s deliberate differentness."
c'mon new york. do we sense perhaps a bit too much self-satisfaction? there's at least enough to rival our self-seriousness. and yeah, we can take a joke -- if only someone will help us out from under the heavy and clumsy hand of gentle execution to find a good one.
now, if you'll excuse me, i have something european to do. and i'm taking the bus.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
HOW TO RETROFIT THE FUTURE; or, MILLION DOLLAR BABIES DON'T CRY
remember the vook? the upstart champion of the digital book revolution? it was the future in 2009. who wouldn't want to combine "amazing stories" with "powerful videos" for a cheap and distracting new reading experience?
i had very honestly forgotten about the concept until reading that the vook company had recently secured $5.25 million in new financing, which caused me to remember asking reif larsen, whose 2009 book the selected works of t.s. spivet is as close as you can get to a vook in print, what he thought about the incorporation of sound clips and videos into a text and what he thought those additions would do to writing. he answered something about his brother having different intelligences. (i think maybe he might have been unemployed.) i hesitatingly paid my share of support for larsen's historic $900000 advance and had him sign it. since then i've picked it up once to pack it for a move. i won't have a reader to watch the vook if ever it comes out, but i'd probably watch the trailer.
later in the afternoon, it cheered me up to see a man with a whole pig slung over his shoulder walking from a van to one of the few chinese restaurants left in china town. it's nice to see that some people understand the value of doing things the old way.
also, this post title is copyrighted. i'ma write a vook. does anyone have an in with hilary swank?
i had very honestly forgotten about the concept until reading that the vook company had recently secured $5.25 million in new financing, which caused me to remember asking reif larsen, whose 2009 book the selected works of t.s. spivet is as close as you can get to a vook in print, what he thought about the incorporation of sound clips and videos into a text and what he thought those additions would do to writing. he answered something about his brother having different intelligences. (i think maybe he might have been unemployed.) i hesitatingly paid my share of support for larsen's historic $900000 advance and had him sign it. since then i've picked it up once to pack it for a move. i won't have a reader to watch the vook if ever it comes out, but i'd probably watch the trailer.
later in the afternoon, it cheered me up to see a man with a whole pig slung over his shoulder walking from a van to one of the few chinese restaurants left in china town. it's nice to see that some people understand the value of doing things the old way.
also, this post title is copyrighted. i'ma write a vook. does anyone have an in with hilary swank?
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
KEEPING PORTLAND SANCTIMONIOUS, part 2
all of the promotional material for "portlandia," fred armisen and carrie brownstein's new ifc sketch comedy about portland, advertises the show as beginning its television run this friday, january 21st, but the first full episode has been available at hulu and ifc.com since at least the fourteenth, which was also the day of the premiere party at @large films on ne couch for everyone in town who considered paying ten dollars to watch a twenty minute digital clip the ultimate expression of self-congratulation.
if any of the viewers at @large managed somehow not to be disappointed, i still hope that they were included beverages with their entry fees, because i imagine it would have been difficult to face the scoffing majority sober post-premiere. monique watched "portlandia" episode one, "the farm," on friday afternoon and asked if i had seen it when i saw her that evening. i hadn't. in fact, i didn't watch it until yesterday, after which i told monique that i hadn't thought it all that great, to which she responded that she'd reserved expressing her similar reaction until after i'd had a chance to pass judgment myself.
we have chickens. well, mostly monique has chickens, but they live at our same house. while on friday evening i was getting ready to leave to walk to the (ahem, locally owned) grocery store for a pick me up rotisserie chicken, monique joked that there were more local ones in the backyard. "the farm" uses a similar joke to drive armisen and brownstein's locavore foodie characters to the farm outside the city that produced the chicken they're thinking of ordering at a downtown restaurant for lunch while their waitress holds their table. ok. we get it. the joke is overplayed, but "portlandia" is sketch comedy. i don't, however, have any idea why the farm turns out to be a mennonite polygamy camp. there's a retirement community in albany called mennonite village, but that's all the internet got me.*
i liked that this first episode of "portlandia" featured a couple of locations in ne portland near my neighborhood (the feminist bookstore in other words and pcc cascade, both on killingsworth), and the two funniest bits of dialogue take place there. the non-actor old woman at the pcc library during the adult hide and seek competition was unchallenged for best performance. that woman is probably at the pcc library everyday, and i hope that the florida room offers to give her a special discount so that she can continue her exchanges with the students after they head to the bar.
the spoof of in other words didn't look for laughs anywhere beyond the cliché of the dowdy and grating feminist activist, and i was bored by the time that steve buscemi came into the sketch as a man trying to use the bookstore bathroom without making a purchase. carrie brownstein of all people should know that the feminist activists here don't need any glamour tips. in fact, there don't seem to be attractive young people of any persuasion in the show at all. you can't live the dream of the 90s without an infestation of underemployed twenty-somethings, can you? we may be just as simpering as armisen and brownstein play us in "portlandia," but we certainly don't look like that. to be honest, i'm surprised that steve buscemi got past airport security to make that cameo. before his arrival, though, one beautiful gem for the city that drinks to get through the winter and then drinks to celebrate the sun:
"addiction isn't funny."
"yes it is."
as a whole, "portlandia" could have been much better, and we didn't really like it. but we couldn't really, could we? and that's the paradoxical essence of our city that "portlandia" hasn't been able to capture. of course we'll keep watching. and we'll keep scoffing, but we won't miss an episode. is it too much of ourselves that we see in the show or not enough? either way, it's the our important nuance they're not getting, and people in general probably wouldn't get it anyway --though we don't really have time to worry about it. we've quirky and esoteric things to be doing. someone has to keep living the dream.
*a friend who lived and worked at a farm in cottage grove assured me that he and his farmmates only practiced polygamous abstinence.
if any of the viewers at @large managed somehow not to be disappointed, i still hope that they were included beverages with their entry fees, because i imagine it would have been difficult to face the scoffing majority sober post-premiere. monique watched "portlandia" episode one, "the farm," on friday afternoon and asked if i had seen it when i saw her that evening. i hadn't. in fact, i didn't watch it until yesterday, after which i told monique that i hadn't thought it all that great, to which she responded that she'd reserved expressing her similar reaction until after i'd had a chance to pass judgment myself.
we have chickens. well, mostly monique has chickens, but they live at our same house. while on friday evening i was getting ready to leave to walk to the (ahem, locally owned) grocery store for a pick me up rotisserie chicken, monique joked that there were more local ones in the backyard. "the farm" uses a similar joke to drive armisen and brownstein's locavore foodie characters to the farm outside the city that produced the chicken they're thinking of ordering at a downtown restaurant for lunch while their waitress holds their table. ok. we get it. the joke is overplayed, but "portlandia" is sketch comedy. i don't, however, have any idea why the farm turns out to be a mennonite polygamy camp. there's a retirement community in albany called mennonite village, but that's all the internet got me.*
i liked that this first episode of "portlandia" featured a couple of locations in ne portland near my neighborhood (the feminist bookstore in other words and pcc cascade, both on killingsworth), and the two funniest bits of dialogue take place there. the non-actor old woman at the pcc library during the adult hide and seek competition was unchallenged for best performance. that woman is probably at the pcc library everyday, and i hope that the florida room offers to give her a special discount so that she can continue her exchanges with the students after they head to the bar.
the spoof of in other words didn't look for laughs anywhere beyond the cliché of the dowdy and grating feminist activist, and i was bored by the time that steve buscemi came into the sketch as a man trying to use the bookstore bathroom without making a purchase. carrie brownstein of all people should know that the feminist activists here don't need any glamour tips. in fact, there don't seem to be attractive young people of any persuasion in the show at all. you can't live the dream of the 90s without an infestation of underemployed twenty-somethings, can you? we may be just as simpering as armisen and brownstein play us in "portlandia," but we certainly don't look like that. to be honest, i'm surprised that steve buscemi got past airport security to make that cameo. before his arrival, though, one beautiful gem for the city that drinks to get through the winter and then drinks to celebrate the sun:
"addiction isn't funny."
"yes it is."
as a whole, "portlandia" could have been much better, and we didn't really like it. but we couldn't really, could we? and that's the paradoxical essence of our city that "portlandia" hasn't been able to capture. of course we'll keep watching. and we'll keep scoffing, but we won't miss an episode. is it too much of ourselves that we see in the show or not enough? either way, it's the our important nuance they're not getting, and people in general probably wouldn't get it anyway --though we don't really have time to worry about it. we've quirky and esoteric things to be doing. someone has to keep living the dream.
*a friend who lived and worked at a farm in cottage grove assured me that he and his farmmates only practiced polygamous abstinence.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
ABOUT LAST NIGHT, part 3; or, HOW TO GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO BE PATRONIZING
don't ask me. i was at the lesson last night, but i wasn't at all interested and am happy to have woken up, however late, without learning it.
it would have been a good idea to check if black star would be open on a sunday when i was there on friday, but i was frustrated that the door was locked in spite of the "open" banner flying in the window. my tearing shoulder bag isn't going to last another winter, and i would have given them cash. (i ended up saving the laundry for saturday.)
black star isn't open sundays, and the only reason i went to barista this afternoon was because it's close by and i'd been to random order before stopping at black star on friday. black star was closed, which meant that the rain i'd decided to tolerate for six blocks when i left barista ended up thoroughly soaking my shoes when i wasn't able to get back inside at the bag workshop and set home as my new destination.
but barista was not for naught. the new guy -- i knew because i heard another employee explaining to him where not to put clean glassware to avoid chipping -- was working the register, which faced away from where i was sitting at the back of the coffee bar. and damn. boy looked good in some pants. it wasn't easy to focus on my reading, but saturday's atrocities forgiven, the world was good.
it would have been a good idea to check if black star would be open on a sunday when i was there on friday, but i was frustrated that the door was locked in spite of the "open" banner flying in the window. my tearing shoulder bag isn't going to last another winter, and i would have given them cash. (i ended up saving the laundry for saturday.)
black star isn't open sundays, and the only reason i went to barista this afternoon was because it's close by and i'd been to random order before stopping at black star on friday. black star was closed, which meant that the rain i'd decided to tolerate for six blocks when i left barista ended up thoroughly soaking my shoes when i wasn't able to get back inside at the bag workshop and set home as my new destination.
but barista was not for naught. the new guy -- i knew because i heard another employee explaining to him where not to put clean glassware to avoid chipping -- was working the register, which faced away from where i was sitting at the back of the coffee bar. and damn. boy looked good in some pants. it wasn't easy to focus on my reading, but saturday's atrocities forgiven, the world was good.
Friday, January 14, 2011
DUENDE DE LORCA?
the first time i saw "cabaret" on stage was at the river theater in astoria, oregon in 2005. the production was well cast, and the intimacy of the small theater was fitly evocative of the experience of the kit kat club and the parlor scenes of interwar berlin. sadly, but not surprising for a regional act, the river theater was gone from astoria the next time i visited. even with a schedule of well known or well liked shows, a small theater has its work cut out for it in keeping the show going. small shows still cost money, and the people aren't many who will regularly pay to go to the theater without the guarantee of the grand spectacle that often only larger theaters can provide.
the stated mission of the miracle theater in portland is to present "quality hispanic theater, arts and cultural experiences for the northwest's urban and rural communities." it's teatro milagro tours the country with original bilingual theater productions, one of which, "duende de lorca," a play in one act about its titular character the spanish poet and dramatist federico garcía lorca, began its debut run at the miracle this weekend. although the official world premiere was scheduled for tonight, the company did a preview of the show on thursday, january 13. i'd had lorca on my mind for a few days since reading a mention of his assassination during the spanish civil war in a novel, and so, after finding out that a couple of friends were planning to attend the preview for credit in a spanish class, i decided to give the miracle theater my fifteen dollars.
"duende de lorca" begins in the late 1920s after the production of lorca's first commercially successful play and follows the poet from spain to new york to cuba, ending with lorca's dismissal from that country following his public recital of an incendiary ode to walt whitman. the play focuses keenly on lorca's frustrated homosexuality and evokes his desire for its sincere expression and his passion for the avant garde through the weaving of his verse into the script. lorca was significantly influenced by the culture of andalusia in southern spain, and the spirit of evocation intrinsic to el duende is closely tied to the performing arts of that region, specifically flamenco.
in lorca's own words (included in the playbill): "the duende...is a power, not a work. it is a struggle, not a thought...it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation." surely, then, a play called "duende de lorca" would aspire to affect that struggle and spontaneity? apparently not.
although the "duende de lorca" does an acceptable job of showing the poet as a man, very much moved by the force of his living blood, it is constantly weighed down by traditional theatrical style. even during a scene depicting the conflict between two cockroaches and a butterfly (an allusion to the failure of lorca's first play, "the butterfly's evil spell"), the entire script is obsessively acted. the actors on thursday performed unfeelingly, their movements static between rigid blocking. in addition to lorca, who remains on stage for the entirety of the production, the characters are played by only three other performers, two men and one woman. masks and costume changes are incorporated into different scenes to assist the dialogue in indicating an actor's role changes, but the actors' performances themselves seemed hardly to change. (that was supposed to be dalí?) the bilingual dialogue is impressively written, but its rapid fire delivery doesn't help the confusion. as for lorca himself, he was an ugly caricature of the young, neurotic, homosexual artist. his obsessive limp wristed hand wringing and lip quivering, if not downright offensive, were persistently distracting.
the show also -- as if that weren't enough -- disappoints in its two musical numbers. lorca was a passionate devotee of cante jondo, the powerful "deep song" of flamenco, and was instrumental in the opening of a festival dedicated to it at granada in 1922. the two songs sung in "duende de lorca" could have been an opportunity for the play to showcase that style as it pertained to the life and work of the artist. instead, the male lead sang them effetely under the spotlight in a style that bore no distinction from what you'd hear in a show like, say, "cabaret." the miracle theater has presented flamenco music in the past, surely they could have consulted a local cante artist.
the miracle theater's effort in staging a production like "duende de lorca" is commendable. if nothing else, it demonstrates the important place of small scale theaters in the avante garde and the introduction of new works. but however much the script of "duende de lorca" may be challenging and innovative, its performance by teatro milagro is stale and uninspired. there is no duende in "duende de lorca." my urge is to call the effort herculean, but thursday night's show had more in common with the myth of sisyphus.
so after all of it i was excited to throw up my hands and rejoin my friends for a bit of revelry -- and the miracle theater had one last chance at redemption. technically, thursday's performance was a final dress rehearsal, but it was, also technically (there was an audience, after all), the world premiere. and in the lobby after the show? not a drop of champagne.
the stated mission of the miracle theater in portland is to present "quality hispanic theater, arts and cultural experiences for the northwest's urban and rural communities." it's teatro milagro tours the country with original bilingual theater productions, one of which, "duende de lorca," a play in one act about its titular character the spanish poet and dramatist federico garcía lorca, began its debut run at the miracle this weekend. although the official world premiere was scheduled for tonight, the company did a preview of the show on thursday, january 13. i'd had lorca on my mind for a few days since reading a mention of his assassination during the spanish civil war in a novel, and so, after finding out that a couple of friends were planning to attend the preview for credit in a spanish class, i decided to give the miracle theater my fifteen dollars.
"duende de lorca" begins in the late 1920s after the production of lorca's first commercially successful play and follows the poet from spain to new york to cuba, ending with lorca's dismissal from that country following his public recital of an incendiary ode to walt whitman. the play focuses keenly on lorca's frustrated homosexuality and evokes his desire for its sincere expression and his passion for the avant garde through the weaving of his verse into the script. lorca was significantly influenced by the culture of andalusia in southern spain, and the spirit of evocation intrinsic to el duende is closely tied to the performing arts of that region, specifically flamenco.
in lorca's own words (included in the playbill): "the duende...is a power, not a work. it is a struggle, not a thought...it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation." surely, then, a play called "duende de lorca" would aspire to affect that struggle and spontaneity? apparently not.
although the "duende de lorca" does an acceptable job of showing the poet as a man, very much moved by the force of his living blood, it is constantly weighed down by traditional theatrical style. even during a scene depicting the conflict between two cockroaches and a butterfly (an allusion to the failure of lorca's first play, "the butterfly's evil spell"), the entire script is obsessively acted. the actors on thursday performed unfeelingly, their movements static between rigid blocking. in addition to lorca, who remains on stage for the entirety of the production, the characters are played by only three other performers, two men and one woman. masks and costume changes are incorporated into different scenes to assist the dialogue in indicating an actor's role changes, but the actors' performances themselves seemed hardly to change. (that was supposed to be dalí?) the bilingual dialogue is impressively written, but its rapid fire delivery doesn't help the confusion. as for lorca himself, he was an ugly caricature of the young, neurotic, homosexual artist. his obsessive limp wristed hand wringing and lip quivering, if not downright offensive, were persistently distracting.
the show also -- as if that weren't enough -- disappoints in its two musical numbers. lorca was a passionate devotee of cante jondo, the powerful "deep song" of flamenco, and was instrumental in the opening of a festival dedicated to it at granada in 1922. the two songs sung in "duende de lorca" could have been an opportunity for the play to showcase that style as it pertained to the life and work of the artist. instead, the male lead sang them effetely under the spotlight in a style that bore no distinction from what you'd hear in a show like, say, "cabaret." the miracle theater has presented flamenco music in the past, surely they could have consulted a local cante artist.
the miracle theater's effort in staging a production like "duende de lorca" is commendable. if nothing else, it demonstrates the important place of small scale theaters in the avante garde and the introduction of new works. but however much the script of "duende de lorca" may be challenging and innovative, its performance by teatro milagro is stale and uninspired. there is no duende in "duende de lorca." my urge is to call the effort herculean, but thursday night's show had more in common with the myth of sisyphus.
so after all of it i was excited to throw up my hands and rejoin my friends for a bit of revelry -- and the miracle theater had one last chance at redemption. technically, thursday's performance was a final dress rehearsal, but it was, also technically (there was an audience, after all), the world premiere. and in the lobby after the show? not a drop of champagne.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
LA POETA EN PORTLAND
this morning i read a piece of tuesday's news from the guardian announcing the discovery at the library of congress' music division of an original draft of the poem "office and denunciation" by federico garcía lorca. looking good in pants means being incredibly rich in dumb luck, and so it was that the re-whetting of my curiosity for lorca was also a well timed prelude to the opening of "duende de lorca," an original, bilingual stage production that previews tonight at teatro milagro on se 6th and stark. i want to go home tonight and finish zone, but if i care about the book and its implications then maybe i should take that it mentioned lorca's assassination by the right during the spanish civil war as another sign. even more, i should consider the significance of lorca's passion for cante jondo, the deepest and most serious form of flamenco music, which was very much evocative of my mood after flamenco class last night -- and ironic because i was upset at having floundered through my tientos. the temperature yesterday was twenty degrees higher than it had been on tuesday, and in the evening the rain had given way to a low hanging fog that coated the top of the river to just under the bridges, which was beautiful but eerie and foreboding as i rode through the warm air and across the lower deck of the steel bridge looking left and right to the broadway and the burnside. on the wildness of the city, from "office and denunciation," the poet: "this is not hell. it is the street."
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
POST-HOLIDAYS ON ICE
the temperature had risen to well above freezing by the time i left the house this morning, so the wetness on the front stairs (which was of the standard rainy january variety) didn't pose any slipping hazard, but i was cautious nonetheless. the scrapes on my left ankle have only just healed from the last time, and those same stairs had been decidedly slick when i carried my bike up them early this morning.
the weather forecast had called for tuesday afternoon to evening snow since sunday. i was hopeful until mid-afternoon, and apparently there were actual flakes at slightly higher elevations away from the river and downtown, but by the time i left the indoors to get on riding at 6:45, whatever snow had been falling had turned citywide to the "ice pellets" that the online weather services were broadcasting as the current condition, the reality of which was stung into my face with every pellet that hit it.
having flaked on her on friday, i felt under incontrovertible obligation to visit a friend where she was working at the concordia ale house and headed there after a couple of hours respite from the weather in the kitchen over the stove and next to the oven. not that i needed an excuse for hot chocolate and roasted dinner, but the old gas furnace has to work expensively hard when the outside temperature gets to freezing, and i needed something in me for the three and a half mile push to 33rd and killingsworth.
it wasn't snow, and it didn't warm up by midnight like the weathermen predicted, so when caroline and i left the ale house to ride each other home i found my bicycle completely frozen over. so it wasn't snow, but it had the effect that the snow does to some extent anywhere but especially in cities like portland that don't usually experience it, which is just to say that the ice made things different, and despite the danger it posed for cycling, it was also a detour from the routine, and as such brought with it a feeling of calm at being resigned to the limitations of the weather.
most of the rest of the city had let itself be limited, too, and the streets were all but empty, so caroline and i abandoned walking and braved the roads -- but didn't abandon our plan to stop inside somewhere on the way back to the neighborhood to warm up. forward momentum and no sudden turns. only two cars passed us on alberta between 30th and 11th, and i wished that they'd been more discourteous, or at least more exacting in their judgments and not slowed down when they came up behind us, because despite the calm and our world on hold lightheartedness, still neither of us wanted to be slid into by a braking car.
whiskey seemed warmer, but sticking to beer seemed more advisable, and the bye and bye has a cascadian dark on draft now. they have unique and delicious hot cocktails too, but what's more freezing midnight in the pacific northwest than a roasted malt ipa? but just one; and, yes, we'll be safe, we're professionals.
it didn't seem likely from the state of the roads on the second leg of the return trip that morning driving would be easy if even possible, most of the parked cars having been completely frozen over -- as had been our bikes, again, and down to their chains in the forty-five minutes we spent at our waylay. be careful on the hill, it's probably better to get off alberta before 7th, mlk, williams and vancouver; and be careful going up the front steps. even if we wouldn't get a snow day (which we didn't; though neither did new york, and they got another proper snow), the moment was enough to make me want to find coffee and stay up all night reading. i made it up the steps, carefully, and made it to my book. zone is one of those that demands (or elicits the desire for) unbroken stretches of serious engagement. but there wasn't any coffee. and apparently i fell asleep.
the weather forecast had called for tuesday afternoon to evening snow since sunday. i was hopeful until mid-afternoon, and apparently there were actual flakes at slightly higher elevations away from the river and downtown, but by the time i left the indoors to get on riding at 6:45, whatever snow had been falling had turned citywide to the "ice pellets" that the online weather services were broadcasting as the current condition, the reality of which was stung into my face with every pellet that hit it.
having flaked on her on friday, i felt under incontrovertible obligation to visit a friend where she was working at the concordia ale house and headed there after a couple of hours respite from the weather in the kitchen over the stove and next to the oven. not that i needed an excuse for hot chocolate and roasted dinner, but the old gas furnace has to work expensively hard when the outside temperature gets to freezing, and i needed something in me for the three and a half mile push to 33rd and killingsworth.
it wasn't snow, and it didn't warm up by midnight like the weathermen predicted, so when caroline and i left the ale house to ride each other home i found my bicycle completely frozen over. so it wasn't snow, but it had the effect that the snow does to some extent anywhere but especially in cities like portland that don't usually experience it, which is just to say that the ice made things different, and despite the danger it posed for cycling, it was also a detour from the routine, and as such brought with it a feeling of calm at being resigned to the limitations of the weather.
most of the rest of the city had let itself be limited, too, and the streets were all but empty, so caroline and i abandoned walking and braved the roads -- but didn't abandon our plan to stop inside somewhere on the way back to the neighborhood to warm up. forward momentum and no sudden turns. only two cars passed us on alberta between 30th and 11th, and i wished that they'd been more discourteous, or at least more exacting in their judgments and not slowed down when they came up behind us, because despite the calm and our world on hold lightheartedness, still neither of us wanted to be slid into by a braking car.
whiskey seemed warmer, but sticking to beer seemed more advisable, and the bye and bye has a cascadian dark on draft now. they have unique and delicious hot cocktails too, but what's more freezing midnight in the pacific northwest than a roasted malt ipa? but just one; and, yes, we'll be safe, we're professionals.
it didn't seem likely from the state of the roads on the second leg of the return trip that morning driving would be easy if even possible, most of the parked cars having been completely frozen over -- as had been our bikes, again, and down to their chains in the forty-five minutes we spent at our waylay. be careful on the hill, it's probably better to get off alberta before 7th, mlk, williams and vancouver; and be careful going up the front steps. even if we wouldn't get a snow day (which we didn't; though neither did new york, and they got another proper snow), the moment was enough to make me want to find coffee and stay up all night reading. i made it up the steps, carefully, and made it to my book. zone is one of those that demands (or elicits the desire for) unbroken stretches of serious engagement. but there wasn't any coffee. and apparently i fell asleep.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
ILL LITERACY
a new development in the argument over which city is best suited to be the seat of government for the emerging nation of cascadia emerged yesterday with the publication of central connecticut university's list of "america's most literate cities" (over 250,000 in population) for 2010. not only did seattle outrank portland overall (seattle was pushed down to second from the previous year's rankings by washington d.c., and portland tied with st. louis for ninth), but seattle also bested the rose city in each scored category, which include booksellers, education, internet, libraries, newspapers and periodicals. seattle in fact topped the category rankings in both of the categories into which portland made the top ten, booksellers and education (portland ranked fourth in both categories but shared that rank with cincinnati in the booksellers category).
it's likely that data collectors at central connecticut didn't account for the retail volume of the booksellers they counted, because powell's probably takes care of at least a dozen times the business of the average bookstore, and the study simply counted retail bookstores per 10,000 population. and portland would seem from it's ranking in the internet category to make many fewer online book orders per capita than seattle, so we would seem also to be supporting our local booksellers, in keeping with the cascadian spirit; but neither of those considerations can deny seattle's manifest ascendancy in educational attainment.
after just a moment of broader analysis, however, it seems arguable that seattle might be a little too book smart, whereas a still educated but less stridently institutionalized portland is probably more experienced with the streets, a quality that will undoubtedly be a boon in governing the cultural hinterland that is the pacific northwest. moreover, central connecticut's study really should have factored in numbers of retired young people, because really, we're reading all the time.
but literacy, of course, isn't everything. washington d.c. made the top of the 2010 list, and we all know how well that city has been working for the united states. reading (and reading well) or not (or reading poorly), a government need ultimately be sustained by results and efficacy. so, after every consideration, maybe it's better cascadia's wasn't in portland after all. seattle, though, didn't even show up for kickball. we might just have to cede the capital to the british columbians after all. they made quite the showing on that rainy saturday diamond.
or, in the grand tradition of republican compromise, we could just establish a cascadia city and site it somewhere else, somewhere not inside the boundaries of any of the big three. i don't think anyone's using tacoma.
it's likely that data collectors at central connecticut didn't account for the retail volume of the booksellers they counted, because powell's probably takes care of at least a dozen times the business of the average bookstore, and the study simply counted retail bookstores per 10,000 population. and portland would seem from it's ranking in the internet category to make many fewer online book orders per capita than seattle, so we would seem also to be supporting our local booksellers, in keeping with the cascadian spirit; but neither of those considerations can deny seattle's manifest ascendancy in educational attainment.
after just a moment of broader analysis, however, it seems arguable that seattle might be a little too book smart, whereas a still educated but less stridently institutionalized portland is probably more experienced with the streets, a quality that will undoubtedly be a boon in governing the cultural hinterland that is the pacific northwest. moreover, central connecticut's study really should have factored in numbers of retired young people, because really, we're reading all the time.
but literacy, of course, isn't everything. washington d.c. made the top of the 2010 list, and we all know how well that city has been working for the united states. reading (and reading well) or not (or reading poorly), a government need ultimately be sustained by results and efficacy. so, after every consideration, maybe it's better cascadia's wasn't in portland after all. seattle, though, didn't even show up for kickball. we might just have to cede the capital to the british columbians after all. they made quite the showing on that rainy saturday diamond.
or, in the grand tradition of republican compromise, we could just establish a cascadia city and site it somewhere else, somewhere not inside the boundaries of any of the big three. i don't think anyone's using tacoma.
Monday, January 10, 2011
IMPORT/EXPORT; or, WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONADE, TURN IT INTO VITRIOL
on sunday morning, the bike lanes on barbur were coated in a light layer of not so viscous mud that made its way easily off the road across my still unfendered front wheel and up all over my down tube, cranks, shoes and shins. wet feet weren't an ideal start to the day (i'm reevaluating the unseemliness of those shoe covers), but the air and the roads turned dry after the morning fog in the hills burned off, and from then it was just the cold and the wind that i had to curse as i dragged ass back into town.
in keeping with keeping my attainable resolutions for 2011, i not only cleaned the drivetrain on my commuter but wiped clean my frame and my wheels as well -- although i did suffice it to give the teeth of my cog and chainring the rag instead of the toothbrush. i also finally installed the new buckles for the straps on my shoes and took a minute to reset my cleats. having replaced the ratchet strap on my left shoe with a black one, i'd hoped to find a black buckle replacement for that same shoe to play up the contrast with the white shoe body toward what i hoped would come off as a skywalker-moving-toward-the-dark-side character, but the buckle on the right side had all but failed too, and so not wanting to spend for two pairs just to serve a half-baked novelty idea i wasn't ultimately put out by finding only white ones at the online retailer that issued my gift card. the set that was mailed to me seemed much whiter than anything that was ever on either of my shoes (technically pearl and ivory, i think), but that didn't spoil my near new bike experience during my regular jaunt downtown.
no. that pleasure was spoiled by my remembering a shock i'd received during a visit to powell's on saturday evening. i'd gone to pick up a copy of zone by mathias enard, which had been available for shipment from a local warehouse but not on the shelves. i had about fifteen minutes between picking up my order from the fourth floor and meeting a friend, and i decided to spend them in the japanese section, just five aisles from maps and travel where i was meeting colleen.
i won't say that i wasn't happy to see that the hardcover 1976 second edition of ryu murakami's almost transparent blue hadn't been bought since i first saw it there a month ago. i still didn't buy it, even at just $8.95. what really undervalued that book, however, were the two volumes at the far left side of the same shelf. they were the two books of haruki murakami's 1q84, his newest in japan, hardcovers -- but not in especially nice condition. they were $40.00 each. et tu, powell's?
at an average recent exchange rate, neither of the two volumes would be more than $25 new, and international shipping, even for two hardcovers, surely wouldn't reach $30. i didn't know whether to lament or to go into business. 1q84 will get translated, too, unlike ryu's most recent, the singing whale. and where were the secondhand copies of that? the answer can't be too difficult to imagine. so just don't ask.
i don't know if i have it in me to go back to powell's tonight to see if anyone's taken the $80 plunge in the last 48 hours. maybe i should head back up barbur, get onto beaverton-hillsdale highway and ride to kinokuniya to see what the book is priced there. it hasn't rained all day, so the dirty bike lanes would probably be dry. i could use another good ride, and it would be helpful to know price ranges for the books that i should probably have my friends start shipping me from japan. i'll let those shiny new buckles light the way. and wherever i go, the ride's gonna be smooth. you trust me, right? want to buy a book?
correction, 1/20: 1q84 was published in a total of three volumes in japanese.
in keeping with keeping my attainable resolutions for 2011, i not only cleaned the drivetrain on my commuter but wiped clean my frame and my wheels as well -- although i did suffice it to give the teeth of my cog and chainring the rag instead of the toothbrush. i also finally installed the new buckles for the straps on my shoes and took a minute to reset my cleats. having replaced the ratchet strap on my left shoe with a black one, i'd hoped to find a black buckle replacement for that same shoe to play up the contrast with the white shoe body toward what i hoped would come off as a skywalker-moving-toward-the-dark-side character, but the buckle on the right side had all but failed too, and so not wanting to spend for two pairs just to serve a half-baked novelty idea i wasn't ultimately put out by finding only white ones at the online retailer that issued my gift card. the set that was mailed to me seemed much whiter than anything that was ever on either of my shoes (technically pearl and ivory, i think), but that didn't spoil my near new bike experience during my regular jaunt downtown.
no. that pleasure was spoiled by my remembering a shock i'd received during a visit to powell's on saturday evening. i'd gone to pick up a copy of zone by mathias enard, which had been available for shipment from a local warehouse but not on the shelves. i had about fifteen minutes between picking up my order from the fourth floor and meeting a friend, and i decided to spend them in the japanese section, just five aisles from maps and travel where i was meeting colleen.
i won't say that i wasn't happy to see that the hardcover 1976 second edition of ryu murakami's almost transparent blue hadn't been bought since i first saw it there a month ago. i still didn't buy it, even at just $8.95. what really undervalued that book, however, were the two volumes at the far left side of the same shelf. they were the two books of haruki murakami's 1q84, his newest in japan, hardcovers -- but not in especially nice condition. they were $40.00 each. et tu, powell's?
at an average recent exchange rate, neither of the two volumes would be more than $25 new, and international shipping, even for two hardcovers, surely wouldn't reach $30. i didn't know whether to lament or to go into business. 1q84 will get translated, too, unlike ryu's most recent, the singing whale. and where were the secondhand copies of that? the answer can't be too difficult to imagine. so just don't ask.
i don't know if i have it in me to go back to powell's tonight to see if anyone's taken the $80 plunge in the last 48 hours. maybe i should head back up barbur, get onto beaverton-hillsdale highway and ride to kinokuniya to see what the book is priced there. it hasn't rained all day, so the dirty bike lanes would probably be dry. i could use another good ride, and it would be helpful to know price ranges for the books that i should probably have my friends start shipping me from japan. i'll let those shiny new buckles light the way. and wherever i go, the ride's gonna be smooth. you trust me, right? want to buy a book?
correction, 1/20: 1q84 was published in a total of three volumes in japanese.
Friday, January 7, 2011
ANGELS AND DEMONS; or, NOT ON DAN BROWN
in the fall of 2007, after the announcement of that year's booker prize winner, i went on a daily campaign of visiting powells.com to find a used copy nicola barker's darkmans, which had been shortlisted for the prize and about which i had read in numerous intriguing reviews (though, apparently, and even accounting for my strained economic means at the time, not intriguing enough to make me want to purchase a new copy). that year's winner, anne enright's the gathering, hadn't been difficult to find secondhand -- probably because of the wider american readership it won as a result of garnering the prize -- so i held out hope for a cheap read of darkmans until time and the weight of my reading pile diluted my thrill for the hunt. i had appreciated the gathering, and newly shelved, dusty (and discounted) copies of older enright books were plenty available after her profile had been raised by the booker.
so i gave up on darkmans and, by extension, on barker, whose career i had only known as a result of her appearance on the 2007 shortlist. there's just too much to read and no use crying over it. it happened, however, that on this recently past new year's day i visited a small independent bookstore in hood river, oregon that was open despite the holiday -- probably in large part to entertain the business of tourists like my friend and i -- and came across a used copy of another of barker's books, her 1998 novel wide open. it was crammed spine up on a sale table outside the bookstore's door, and although having singled out the name of an author of interest i did briefly take it in hand before entering the store, i quickly passed on the book to explore inside. the morning was brutally cold.
my friend, i think, bought some vintage postcards. as for me, the store, which advertised "good books and bad art," didn't seem to offer much that wasn't available at the same publisher's list price in portland, and i was feeling the torpor of too much breakfast more than i felt like any concerted digging. i was satisfied to leave the bad art to vie with the shelves for other tourist dollars unmolested until i passed the sale table again on my way out. the dust jacket was grimy, but the author was of interest, and the book was only a dollar. and signed. even if it would just sit in a pile among other grimy dust jackets in portland rather than in hood river, it was worth the trip back to the register.
and so i was redeemed. don't get me wrong: i'd not once felt any pang of lingering guilt over never reading darkmans. i'd let that go. i was, nonetheless, by chance encounter afforded the opportunity to engage barker (and on my own terms of thrift and dumb luck foible), which was no bad introduction to wide open, a novel very much about the strange bittersweetness of redemption.
describing in detail the characters or the scenario of wide open is difficult without disclosing the developments of those characters' relationships and the unfolding of their interwoven stories, the very things that enforce the powerful impact of reading the novel. so in as short as possible: the action converges on shippey, an island in the english channel where ronny, one of a set of two brothers, lives in a "prefab" on the beach. nathan, the other brother, who works at the lost and found at a tube station in london, has had seemingly unrelated interactions with two of the other characters that end up on the island, one of whom, the other ronny, meets ronny the first early in the book and gradually assumes his identity at shippey while ronny becomes "jim."
nathan arrives at the island last and on the heels of connie, the other of the two principal characters that nathan meets at the lost and found, a woman whose family past intersects with his brother's and who lodges at shippey with her distant relations sara and lily, a mother and her fragile (let's call her) hemophiliac daughter. sara and lily raise boar. luke, a photographer trying to escape his vices (women, cigarettes, food and booze, in that order), is staying at the prefab next to nathan's brother's. connie's father is dead. lily's father is gone. and ronny and nathan's father was a pedophile. seemingly more for the worse than the better, it's a riotous group to get together.
the emergence of ties and revelations of interconnectedness between barker's characters is evoked in the composition of her chapters, the earliest of which are limited to the thoughts and movements of a single character and his or her direct interactions. as the action builds, however, and despite a fixed third person perspective, the characters come together in chorus, their spaces and voices brought closer on the page, increasingly juxtaposed in counterpoint with each others'. although two of the secondary characters in wide open, nathan's girlfriend margery and his coworker laura, seem to hover somewhere between aspiring leads and necessary but forgettable devices of plot, the structure of the book is otherwise tight and kinetic. the result is something like a modern combination of shakespeare's "twelfth night" and gide's lafcadio's adventures with ronny and jim doing double duty as both viola and sebastian and lafcadio and fleurissoire. in wide open, mistaken identity and gratuitous violence meet at the nexus of late twentieth century social dysfunction for a synod on the reappraisal of conventional morality, during the course of which barker's characters are laid as completely bare as her title would suggest.
the book is unarguably intense, but it's not all as dark as you might think. or it is. or so barker would have you resign yourself at least, because her only prescription for her characters' salvation is to simply keep moving on, be that by forgetting or letting go, by sacrifice or unto death. there are, in other words, no demons to be exorcised; or, rather, as one character offhandedly remarks to another early in the story, demons were just invented by humanity to explain away the bad. similarly, it's also left to barker's characters to assume responsibility for the angelic. as much as barker forces her characters to confront the evils that plague them, she insists that they find forgiveness and salvation within themselves as well.
at one point, nathan becomes fixated on a reproduction of a pietà by antonello da messina painting that he sees in an italian art book left at the lost and found. in it, a wounded jesus is supported from behind by a desperate angel. jesus' left hand is curled on his thigh as if he'd just finished masturbating. "'it's about forgiveness,' connie said, putting the book down, 'and it's about sex,'" an apt summary of wide open as well. nathan isn't blind to the significance of his fascination with the painting either: "this worldly jesus would not turn away from sin. no. he would embrace it." "this was the jesus who could forgive himself anything, and in so doing, forgive all others of their sinning."
the final chapter of wide open is devastatingly powerful in its descriptions of each character's efforts to move on, its intensity only slightly tempered by the author's defiantly unique take on "forgive and forget." that's some consolation, at least, for the new year. hopefully that worldly jesus can convince ms. barker to forgive my not buying darkmans.
so i gave up on darkmans and, by extension, on barker, whose career i had only known as a result of her appearance on the 2007 shortlist. there's just too much to read and no use crying over it. it happened, however, that on this recently past new year's day i visited a small independent bookstore in hood river, oregon that was open despite the holiday -- probably in large part to entertain the business of tourists like my friend and i -- and came across a used copy of another of barker's books, her 1998 novel wide open. it was crammed spine up on a sale table outside the bookstore's door, and although having singled out the name of an author of interest i did briefly take it in hand before entering the store, i quickly passed on the book to explore inside. the morning was brutally cold.
my friend, i think, bought some vintage postcards. as for me, the store, which advertised "good books and bad art," didn't seem to offer much that wasn't available at the same publisher's list price in portland, and i was feeling the torpor of too much breakfast more than i felt like any concerted digging. i was satisfied to leave the bad art to vie with the shelves for other tourist dollars unmolested until i passed the sale table again on my way out. the dust jacket was grimy, but the author was of interest, and the book was only a dollar. and signed. even if it would just sit in a pile among other grimy dust jackets in portland rather than in hood river, it was worth the trip back to the register.
and so i was redeemed. don't get me wrong: i'd not once felt any pang of lingering guilt over never reading darkmans. i'd let that go. i was, nonetheless, by chance encounter afforded the opportunity to engage barker (and on my own terms of thrift and dumb luck foible), which was no bad introduction to wide open, a novel very much about the strange bittersweetness of redemption.
describing in detail the characters or the scenario of wide open is difficult without disclosing the developments of those characters' relationships and the unfolding of their interwoven stories, the very things that enforce the powerful impact of reading the novel. so in as short as possible: the action converges on shippey, an island in the english channel where ronny, one of a set of two brothers, lives in a "prefab" on the beach. nathan, the other brother, who works at the lost and found at a tube station in london, has had seemingly unrelated interactions with two of the other characters that end up on the island, one of whom, the other ronny, meets ronny the first early in the book and gradually assumes his identity at shippey while ronny becomes "jim."
nathan arrives at the island last and on the heels of connie, the other of the two principal characters that nathan meets at the lost and found, a woman whose family past intersects with his brother's and who lodges at shippey with her distant relations sara and lily, a mother and her fragile (let's call her) hemophiliac daughter. sara and lily raise boar. luke, a photographer trying to escape his vices (women, cigarettes, food and booze, in that order), is staying at the prefab next to nathan's brother's. connie's father is dead. lily's father is gone. and ronny and nathan's father was a pedophile. seemingly more for the worse than the better, it's a riotous group to get together.
the emergence of ties and revelations of interconnectedness between barker's characters is evoked in the composition of her chapters, the earliest of which are limited to the thoughts and movements of a single character and his or her direct interactions. as the action builds, however, and despite a fixed third person perspective, the characters come together in chorus, their spaces and voices brought closer on the page, increasingly juxtaposed in counterpoint with each others'. although two of the secondary characters in wide open, nathan's girlfriend margery and his coworker laura, seem to hover somewhere between aspiring leads and necessary but forgettable devices of plot, the structure of the book is otherwise tight and kinetic. the result is something like a modern combination of shakespeare's "twelfth night" and gide's lafcadio's adventures with ronny and jim doing double duty as both viola and sebastian and lafcadio and fleurissoire. in wide open, mistaken identity and gratuitous violence meet at the nexus of late twentieth century social dysfunction for a synod on the reappraisal of conventional morality, during the course of which barker's characters are laid as completely bare as her title would suggest.
the book is unarguably intense, but it's not all as dark as you might think. or it is. or so barker would have you resign yourself at least, because her only prescription for her characters' salvation is to simply keep moving on, be that by forgetting or letting go, by sacrifice or unto death. there are, in other words, no demons to be exorcised; or, rather, as one character offhandedly remarks to another early in the story, demons were just invented by humanity to explain away the bad. similarly, it's also left to barker's characters to assume responsibility for the angelic. as much as barker forces her characters to confront the evils that plague them, she insists that they find forgiveness and salvation within themselves as well.
at one point, nathan becomes fixated on a reproduction of a pietà by antonello da messina painting that he sees in an italian art book left at the lost and found. in it, a wounded jesus is supported from behind by a desperate angel. jesus' left hand is curled on his thigh as if he'd just finished masturbating. "'it's about forgiveness,' connie said, putting the book down, 'and it's about sex,'" an apt summary of wide open as well. nathan isn't blind to the significance of his fascination with the painting either: "this worldly jesus would not turn away from sin. no. he would embrace it." "this was the jesus who could forgive himself anything, and in so doing, forgive all others of their sinning."
the final chapter of wide open is devastatingly powerful in its descriptions of each character's efforts to move on, its intensity only slightly tempered by the author's defiantly unique take on "forgive and forget." that's some consolation, at least, for the new year. hopefully that worldly jesus can convince ms. barker to forgive my not buying darkmans.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
EPIPHANY!
it's today. the magi finally followed their star to jesus after twelve days of trekking across the desert. that today is the sixth means also that two of last week's posts were mistitled and in fact recounted events from the fourth and sixth days of christmas and not from the third and the fifth. wanting an extra day of christmas is understandable, but why the first day of christmas is after christmas day doesn't so much compute, unless of course caspar, melchior and balthasar arrived the day after day twelve. regardless, they've arrived, and despite having a friend with a late capricorn birthday who insists that the holidays don't have to end until after her party, i'm letting go, accepting my gifts (myrrh is amazing) and getting on.
so today -- and somewhat dolefully, though less so than had i done it on, say, the more appropriate monday (which is why i didn't) -- i retread the links at the blogroll to get you all back in the know after the midwinter information lull. and? whatever timeliness might have been sacrificed by not following and reporting from the beginning of the business week was compensated for by all the good news that had waited just to be posted today.
this morning, nathan ihara launched the mobylives great "young" critic hunt, a search intended to shift the focus of critical appreciation to "the hustling freelancers and eager bloggers and moonlighting critics who exist at the periphery." he explains: "we have awards, retreats, and fellowships for young novelists, but the young critic is [a] less glamorous profession, and only rarely finds name recognition." in other words, even if mr. ihara isn't reading this blog, we can gather that he would probably like to. like, a lot. thanks, nathan. the encouragement helps. better essays, more frequent full reviews. how old do you want me?
from there, i didn't even have to make my own way to salon.com, because the 'mobylives' day in review included an item entitled "wonderful advice from laura miller at salon," which linked to this piece on taking on a reading challenge for the year. miller suggests that her readers do their best to make their 2011 book selections out of their comfort zones and then goes on to list more than a dozen possible yearlong reading challenges. one of the challenges that miller set herself for last year was to read at least one contemporary french novel. she chose the elegance of the hedgehog, which we haven't read but might like to given that miller describes her difficulty with the book as stemming from it being, "so...french." we'll be happy to pick up millers slack on that front in 2011, but we'll also happily leave the haruki murakami reading challenge to someone else.
but enough, now, with "the intellectual grandiosity and phony pose-striking" (miller's words for what had her gritting her teeth through the last page of the elegance of the hedgehog). we like the gossip, too! today's linkalicious at 'ohlalamag' took us to a short piece about james franco on playing gay characters. franco says some stuff about identity politics, decries the predominant dichotomy that orients gay and straight into discreet groups based only on "object[s] of affection," and then describes his interest in learning how "people who were living anti-normative lifestyles contended with opposition." it's quite a bit of yada yada -- and then the point: "or, you know what, maybe i'm just gay."
we'll take it. it puts a dream from last night into perfect perspective. he was skinnier than he seems on screen, but what a kisser. later, central park at night. i didn't think that the lights of manhattan allowed for much star gazing, but they were clear and bright last night. to be honest, i'd forgotten the whole thing until i did my reading. an epiphany. lead me back to that apartment. show me the light and the way.
so today -- and somewhat dolefully, though less so than had i done it on, say, the more appropriate monday (which is why i didn't) -- i retread the links at the blogroll to get you all back in the know after the midwinter information lull. and? whatever timeliness might have been sacrificed by not following and reporting from the beginning of the business week was compensated for by all the good news that had waited just to be posted today.
this morning, nathan ihara launched the mobylives great "young" critic hunt, a search intended to shift the focus of critical appreciation to "the hustling freelancers and eager bloggers and moonlighting critics who exist at the periphery." he explains: "we have awards, retreats, and fellowships for young novelists, but the young critic is [a] less glamorous profession, and only rarely finds name recognition." in other words, even if mr. ihara isn't reading this blog, we can gather that he would probably like to. like, a lot. thanks, nathan. the encouragement helps. better essays, more frequent full reviews. how old do you want me?
from there, i didn't even have to make my own way to salon.com, because the 'mobylives' day in review included an item entitled "wonderful advice from laura miller at salon," which linked to this piece on taking on a reading challenge for the year. miller suggests that her readers do their best to make their 2011 book selections out of their comfort zones and then goes on to list more than a dozen possible yearlong reading challenges. one of the challenges that miller set herself for last year was to read at least one contemporary french novel. she chose the elegance of the hedgehog, which we haven't read but might like to given that miller describes her difficulty with the book as stemming from it being, "so...french." we'll be happy to pick up millers slack on that front in 2011, but we'll also happily leave the haruki murakami reading challenge to someone else.
but enough, now, with "the intellectual grandiosity and phony pose-striking" (miller's words for what had her gritting her teeth through the last page of the elegance of the hedgehog). we like the gossip, too! today's linkalicious at 'ohlalamag' took us to a short piece about james franco on playing gay characters. franco says some stuff about identity politics, decries the predominant dichotomy that orients gay and straight into discreet groups based only on "object[s] of affection," and then describes his interest in learning how "people who were living anti-normative lifestyles contended with opposition." it's quite a bit of yada yada -- and then the point: "or, you know what, maybe i'm just gay."
we'll take it. it puts a dream from last night into perfect perspective. he was skinnier than he seems on screen, but what a kisser. later, central park at night. i didn't think that the lights of manhattan allowed for much star gazing, but they were clear and bright last night. to be honest, i'd forgotten the whole thing until i did my reading. an epiphany. lead me back to that apartment. show me the light and the way.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
HOW TO SECEDE IN PORTLAND WITHOUT REALLY TRYING
seen from above (which of course is speaking figuratively, because no one really looks down on us), 'looking good in pants' could easily be seen as having questionably patriotic political leanings. we'll make no direct comment and let the opinions draw themselves, but the question of secession always looms large for any citizen of cascadia, and with the democrats in the senate geared up to attack the procedural rules for the filibuster, national political discourse has again come to question senatorial power as it's written into the u.s. constituion, which comes with it always the fringe proposition that if each state is necessarily to have two delegates to the senate then shouldn't we think of redrawing state boundaries to ensure that the senate is more closely representative of populations and a legitimate majority rule. after all, the largest state by population now dwarfs the smallest by a factor of seventy, whereas that factor was only of twelve when the constitution was written.
to be true, however, to the spirit of a bicameral legislature that was incepted to guarantee the strong representation and legislative power of each state based on the exigencies of its native culture and resources, regardless of whether the demands of its situation might put it in a national minority, any new state borders would have to be drawn so as to preserve current regional identities and the needs of local economies. the maps look pretty funny when you try to draw them, and it's horror to imagine the problems -- both administrative and cultural -- that would probably arise from the subsuming of states with smaller populations into others, even if breaking up the larger states might seem to solve the same problems at the other side of the spectrum. so why no just avoid all the infighting? it's time to secede.
the pacific northwest has always had a solid sense of itself, and a sense of itself being different. endless rain and evergreen forests, which have traditionally meant logging and a mystical frontier spirit, are enough in themselves to assign the northwest a unique geographical identity, and as a recent editorial in the willamette week points out, the idea of the northwest as a distinct and foreign political entity is as old as thomas jefferson, who in 1803, "envisioned the pacific northwest as a 'great, free and independent empire.'" today, that oregon, washington and british columbia should unite and insulate, "to preserve and localize use of natural and industrial resources, from timber and fish to software and biotechnology," shouldn't be an idea too far from the casual mindset of any of those territories' residents. (add to that indie rock, bicycles, coffee and craft beer and you'll have won the allegiance of the entire population.)
but, that the basic will to secede is an all but given for every cascadian (most of us have done it in spirit already) doesn't preclude certain administrative complications for our new state. for example: where's the capital? oregon had enough of its own problems trying to seat its government with its founders establishing oregon city to get the government out of the commercial center at portland, which wasn't the oldest settlement, that was in astoria, but ultimately deciding to put the governor and the assembly in the middle of nothing at salem. as far as cascadia goes, vacnouver is sure to demure. canadians are nice, and there's just too much money there. victoria, while picaresque, stinks too much of the queen. seattle? i'll leave that case for a native to argue. seattle based writer claire dederer had this to say in a recent guest blog for powells.com:
i've said it better myself, but i won't send you trolling the archives. plus, we don't want to indicate bias where bias isn't due. (ms. dederer wrote a book on yoga, which will undoubtedly be the law of cascadia -- a law that i'll uncivilly disobey.) let's just agree on the obvious and save our righteousness for better picked fights...like olympic hockey. cascadia is going to rule. look. out. sweden.
to be true, however, to the spirit of a bicameral legislature that was incepted to guarantee the strong representation and legislative power of each state based on the exigencies of its native culture and resources, regardless of whether the demands of its situation might put it in a national minority, any new state borders would have to be drawn so as to preserve current regional identities and the needs of local economies. the maps look pretty funny when you try to draw them, and it's horror to imagine the problems -- both administrative and cultural -- that would probably arise from the subsuming of states with smaller populations into others, even if breaking up the larger states might seem to solve the same problems at the other side of the spectrum. so why no just avoid all the infighting? it's time to secede.
the pacific northwest has always had a solid sense of itself, and a sense of itself being different. endless rain and evergreen forests, which have traditionally meant logging and a mystical frontier spirit, are enough in themselves to assign the northwest a unique geographical identity, and as a recent editorial in the willamette week points out, the idea of the northwest as a distinct and foreign political entity is as old as thomas jefferson, who in 1803, "envisioned the pacific northwest as a 'great, free and independent empire.'" today, that oregon, washington and british columbia should unite and insulate, "to preserve and localize use of natural and industrial resources, from timber and fish to software and biotechnology," shouldn't be an idea too far from the casual mindset of any of those territories' residents. (add to that indie rock, bicycles, coffee and craft beer and you'll have won the allegiance of the entire population.)
but, that the basic will to secede is an all but given for every cascadian (most of us have done it in spirit already) doesn't preclude certain administrative complications for our new state. for example: where's the capital? oregon had enough of its own problems trying to seat its government with its founders establishing oregon city to get the government out of the commercial center at portland, which wasn't the oldest settlement, that was in astoria, but ultimately deciding to put the governor and the assembly in the middle of nothing at salem. as far as cascadia goes, vacnouver is sure to demure. canadians are nice, and there's just too much money there. victoria, while picaresque, stinks too much of the queen. seattle? i'll leave that case for a native to argue. seattle based writer claire dederer had this to say in a recent guest blog for powells.com:
Good morning, Portland! Up here in Seattle, we... well, we hate you. We hate you for being cooler than us, and for having better restaurants. We hate you because, while we were getting all overexcited during the tech boom and building terrible, terrible buildings, you were passing ordinances that basically turned your city into Sweden. Convenient transit. Nice-looking young folk in dun-colored clothing.
i've said it better myself, but i won't send you trolling the archives. plus, we don't want to indicate bias where bias isn't due. (ms. dederer wrote a book on yoga, which will undoubtedly be the law of cascadia -- a law that i'll uncivilly disobey.) let's just agree on the obvious and save our righteousness for better picked fights...like olympic hockey. cascadia is going to rule. look. out. sweden.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
HOW TO BLOOM LATE; or, ON FLOURISHING
the ratchet strap replacement buckles came today.
apparently, the ups man was quite strapping.
someone's nana helped her make strawberry chocolate tamales over christmas. they're like a mexican black forest. no one wants to put the mississippi st. tamale lady out of business, but she should know that she might have to start running for her money, which is five dollars for two if i remember correctly. and wow, there are walnuts, too.
it's almost january five, but, well, bring it again, portland (the rain starts again tomorrow, but that means, at least, no frosty steps). the glassware is newly cleaned, and our wool smells like the fire. gas bill be damned.
dinner's at eight. wear your best.
apparently, the ups man was quite strapping.
someone's nana helped her make strawberry chocolate tamales over christmas. they're like a mexican black forest. no one wants to put the mississippi st. tamale lady out of business, but she should know that she might have to start running for her money, which is five dollars for two if i remember correctly. and wow, there are walnuts, too.
it's almost january five, but, well, bring it again, portland (the rain starts again tomorrow, but that means, at least, no frosty steps). the glassware is newly cleaned, and our wool smells like the fire. gas bill be damned.
dinner's at eight. wear your best.
Monday, January 3, 2011
ON WEANING; or, I THINK YOU LEFT YOUR 2010 AT MY APARTMENT
ultimately, yesterday couldn't have turned out to be that bad of a day -- regardless of the late start and then the early bending of my willpower to a mimosa with breakfast -- because the sun was out again and i had a lead on a free sunday times at the end of a longish bike ride.
i got my paper and read a book that i didn't particularly like. probably i should have sat at a table instead of in that easy chair so that i could have written some letters and felt like a good, productive person starting a good and productive new year, especially since i'd started on it later than i'd planned. what's more, my aunt and uncle really came through with the gift card to biketiresdirect.com, where i quickly bought a replacement for the shoe buckle i broke in the fall that took me down from the insolent hubris of too much fun in 2010. they deserve a well penned thank you.
so probably it wouldn't have been better had i sat at a table, because i doubt i could have penned something especially well in my increasingly desolate mood. the party at 2010 was fun, and my "attainable" resolutions for 2011 were seeming more and more like lowered expectations. i still plan on keeping the chain on my commuter cleaner -- and that might in fact spur me on to greatness (it's good for morale, at any rate) -- but that resolve wasn't at all immediately inspiring. it seemed damning to toast negative capability with decaf, so i took my paper to the pub.
the beer no doubt helped, but the times seemed conceived that week to lift my spirits. mine, specifically, that is, in that not only was the theme of the puzzle "works in translation," but the cover of the book review showed a graphic that read "words about words about words" which led into a headline of "why criticism matters." i haven't yet read any of the essay excerpts included in that feature (full versions are available online), but i maintain hope that they advocate the belief that criticism should be encouraged and appreciated of its own right, the art of critics and not of dabbling fiction writers, as was so eloquently described in this post at maîtresse. maybe this year is going to build on the best parts of last one, after all. grasping and solipsistic? well, beer can't do everything, and after two full weeks of looking exceptionally good in pants only to find myself back in ordinary time i needed something. it happens every year, and it's all the sadder for its commonness. we're sorry.
beer can't do everything, but it tries sometimes too hard to make things better, so i thought it best not to linger at the pub and to ride home to take the decorations down from the tree. it wouldn't take even one-tenth of the duration of an average feature length film, but i thought i should have some distraction anyway to keep from fixating on the dismantling of the holidays and so went to the rental shop to find something sympathetically moody. the cover of "angel" gave me no reason to think that it would suit me on that front, but i rented it because i love françois ozon. (sorry joss whedon fans, it wasn't that "angel.")
the tree was bare before the previews were over, but, stripped though it was, i had nothing more to do with it until i could get it to the boy scout troop that's "recycling" them this coming weekend at 102nd and glisan so i let it stay in the living room. i had a movie to watch -- and the epiphany isn't until next sunday anyway.
"angel" opens in wintertime in early twentieth century england, which meant for me a dickensonian charm that kept me afloat in cheeriness until angel, a young woman writer alive primarily in her imagination, could find fame and success and marry esmé, a gambler, drinker, expressionist painter and lothario played by michael fassbender (yes, he takes it off), who is the contrast by which we're given to see the paucity of angel's romanticism (and of our own a christmas carol fantasies). she has such a nice house, though, and so many dresses! i probably wouldn't read her books, but she certainly makes the dream of the fallen aristocrat (actual or imagined) come true. esmé's side of the story is necessarily bleaker, but both characters raise important questions about knowledge and art, even if the realities they lived were never the same.
grasping and solipsistic? whatever. that's what got me to sleep (and ozon isn't anything to kick out of bed), which i realized was the solution from the beginning. had i just continued sleeping, i wouldn't have had to regret oversleeping my agenda. so i'll resolve to keep at that. come find me in bed. i'll deal with 2011 on another morning.
i got my paper and read a book that i didn't particularly like. probably i should have sat at a table instead of in that easy chair so that i could have written some letters and felt like a good, productive person starting a good and productive new year, especially since i'd started on it later than i'd planned. what's more, my aunt and uncle really came through with the gift card to biketiresdirect.com, where i quickly bought a replacement for the shoe buckle i broke in the fall that took me down from the insolent hubris of too much fun in 2010. they deserve a well penned thank you.
so probably it wouldn't have been better had i sat at a table, because i doubt i could have penned something especially well in my increasingly desolate mood. the party at 2010 was fun, and my "attainable" resolutions for 2011 were seeming more and more like lowered expectations. i still plan on keeping the chain on my commuter cleaner -- and that might in fact spur me on to greatness (it's good for morale, at any rate) -- but that resolve wasn't at all immediately inspiring. it seemed damning to toast negative capability with decaf, so i took my paper to the pub.
the beer no doubt helped, but the times seemed conceived that week to lift my spirits. mine, specifically, that is, in that not only was the theme of the puzzle "works in translation," but the cover of the book review showed a graphic that read "words about words about words" which led into a headline of "why criticism matters." i haven't yet read any of the essay excerpts included in that feature (full versions are available online), but i maintain hope that they advocate the belief that criticism should be encouraged and appreciated of its own right, the art of critics and not of dabbling fiction writers, as was so eloquently described in this post at maîtresse. maybe this year is going to build on the best parts of last one, after all. grasping and solipsistic? well, beer can't do everything, and after two full weeks of looking exceptionally good in pants only to find myself back in ordinary time i needed something. it happens every year, and it's all the sadder for its commonness. we're sorry.
beer can't do everything, but it tries sometimes too hard to make things better, so i thought it best not to linger at the pub and to ride home to take the decorations down from the tree. it wouldn't take even one-tenth of the duration of an average feature length film, but i thought i should have some distraction anyway to keep from fixating on the dismantling of the holidays and so went to the rental shop to find something sympathetically moody. the cover of "angel" gave me no reason to think that it would suit me on that front, but i rented it because i love françois ozon. (sorry joss whedon fans, it wasn't that "angel.")
the tree was bare before the previews were over, but, stripped though it was, i had nothing more to do with it until i could get it to the boy scout troop that's "recycling" them this coming weekend at 102nd and glisan so i let it stay in the living room. i had a movie to watch -- and the epiphany isn't until next sunday anyway.
"angel" opens in wintertime in early twentieth century england, which meant for me a dickensonian charm that kept me afloat in cheeriness until angel, a young woman writer alive primarily in her imagination, could find fame and success and marry esmé, a gambler, drinker, expressionist painter and lothario played by michael fassbender (yes, he takes it off), who is the contrast by which we're given to see the paucity of angel's romanticism (and of our own a christmas carol fantasies). she has such a nice house, though, and so many dresses! i probably wouldn't read her books, but she certainly makes the dream of the fallen aristocrat (actual or imagined) come true. esmé's side of the story is necessarily bleaker, but both characters raise important questions about knowledge and art, even if the realities they lived were never the same.
grasping and solipsistic? whatever. that's what got me to sleep (and ozon isn't anything to kick out of bed), which i realized was the solution from the beginning. had i just continued sleeping, i wouldn't have had to regret oversleeping my agenda. so i'll resolve to keep at that. come find me in bed. i'll deal with 2011 on another morning.
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