THURSDAY ROUNDUP MISCELLANY (IF ONLY WE'D MADE IT TO PENDLETON)

duchess is making us dinner this evening. our meal will be the first and last of this year's fall series, a nostalgic paean to the almost weekly dinners we shared over most of last september, october and november -- although the only thursday of that run was thanksgiving (duchess' first as hostess at that), the remainder of our meals together we shared on tuesdays.

tuesday evening was, of course, taken by the tao lin reading and then visits to ground kontrol and biwa with the author. i still haven't read richard yates, but i can tell you without doubt (doubting though that you'll take me at my word for my breach of professionalism) that tao lin is for real. wherefore my certainty? well, he's working on a long review of one of my favorite books from the japanese literary canon. enough said. the proof is in the pudding. (and the pudding, kids, is just the un-filed gobbledegook of my selfish grey matter.) biwa has a cocktail named after a kenzaburo oe book, but what would really shine on their menu is an almost transparent blue. i shouldn't review a book of tao's anyway, because we're essentially related now after he slept on my couch and i didn't hide the leopard print slanket on the side chair. is it still starfucking if you don't fuck?

that's a question for dinner. although we're never without topics for conversation, a lady does like to be prepared, and i've already today forgotten the purse. it's a shame that the pleasant weather won't give over to cold and rain just for tonight (and only until i have to leave on my crosstown trip home) so that we could reminisce properly over the soothing crackle of a duraflame in the fireplace. a girl can hope, i suppose, but as louisa may alcott put it: "boys will be boys, young men must sow their wild oats, and women must not expect miracles." hopefully i'll get the chance to play both parts tonight. i'm practiced, and duchess has directed the best.

she's also good with the silver and a hammer, and i'm getting that necklace back. rapture! i'll be needing to pull quite a few chers if i want to keep in all my characters.

HOW TO SOFTEN THE FALL

summer is over. or rather, fall is back in full force. i'm not so sure anyone in town would let me get away with calling what happened here over the last few months a summer. (i for one didn't get nearly the reading done i should have.) but whatever it was it passed, and that was abundantly clear two weekends ago during the three days of downpours. those passed though also, and the light is now very certainly autumn light, and i remember that this season can be really pleasant in portland, specifically in late september and early october -- which is to say the time before the rain won't stop again until our next unenthusiastic summer.

so now i'm looking forward to reading aurorarama. true, that's in large part because the marketing campaign succeeded on me. there was that. but as the days get shorter and the layers come on, i'm also excited for the anticipation of reading a literary adventure about ice and long nights and trash collectors dressed like plague doctors and well dressed night lifers trying to take the long-night-life of their arctic utopia back from the stranglehold of authority. of new venice in 1908 i'm imagining something like orhan pamuk's snow meets "steamboy" meets sin city.

in one of the two excerpted sections that i was able to find online there's a scene in which a character is eating at a street-counter swedish smorgasbord (that word is acceptable as english without the diacritics) when he's interrupted by two dapper thugs from the "gentlemen of the night." to flesh out the image i did a little investigation into the smorgasbord, apparently a something unto itself and not just indicative of a bounty. it turns out that there's something called a chinese smorgasbord as well, which originated in vancouver through the intercourse of scandinavian and chinese immigrants. the loggers and the fishermen wanted the restaurateurs to lay out their (already westernized) food the way it was done in scandinavia, and it was by the sustaining power of that union that a great nation was built. crazy kanucks. gosh. where would we be without books?

FANNING THE FLAMES, part 4; or, LEIGH ALEXANDER'S REVIEW OF THE NYT REVIEW OF RICHARD YATES SEEMS ANGRY

***update and correction, 9/29/10: leigh alexander probably uses female pronouns (i guess so after someone used them in reference to her after i asked his opinion of her essay), so i've changed all the potentially contentious/offending words in this post from yesterday. heaps of thanks to everyone who read this post then saw me last night and didn't say anything. or not maybe.***

there's much ado about irony in leigh alexander's response to charles bock's nyt review of richard yates at 'thought catalog.' alexander begins hisher essay by challenging bock's use of "ironic" in the opening paragraph of his review, comparing it to the (as heshe sees it) equally amorphous but media ready term "hipster," which, of course, is often used in close association with the more ironic (read here as "self-consciously mocking/tongue-in-cheek) uses of irony (ref. this blog).

unfortunately, alexander's liberal use of single quotation marks makes it difficult to tell where he'sshe's quoting from bock's review from where he'sshe's attempting to imbue certain terms with the significance of a contemporary cultural consensus; to force a general acceptance of a definition, so to speak -- or perhaps just to color the quoted terms with some sort of irony. as a result, though heshe makes a case for the significance of tao lin's novel beyond just its characteristic language (a case that could probably be argued more strongly if that language were treated as a reflection of the significance), alexander blurs hisher audience's focus on richard yates and veers toward diatribe instead.

no, i still haven't read the book; although i'll hear tao lin read from it tonight at reading frenzy (7 p.m., 921 sw oak). but as such (and being familiar with other of lin's works), i'd venture to say that i'm a respectably impartial judge of the efficacy of the different arguments being made around this new book. maybe i'll be inspired after tonight and read the book. we'll have to let the fire die down at some point.

in the meantime, the mediation. alexander's essay does make one solidly cogent point, even if it's only the linguistic one (let's just agree to accept the premise of this, hisher final paragraph, so that we don't have to countenance any possible fallacy of logic):

"Mr. Bock’s review, with its visible resentment, inaccuracies and naked anxiety, might be the largest item of evidence extant speaking to the relevance and efficacy of Richard Yates. And therein, at last, lies the quintessentially most-correct definition of ‘ironic.’"

right on, leigh. although...ironically(?), for an article titled "Charles Bock’s NYT Review Of Richard Yates Seems Angry, Factually Inaccurate," your response seems maybe too, um, angry.

ACTIVISM; or, ON WHAT NOT TO READ

it's banned books week. the powers that be in publishing and bookselling could surely have come up with an even more pointedly foolish term for what is, in fact, a celebration, but "freedom to read" et al. were probably already taken by military campaigns.

this week -- and you HAVE to do this by sunday or else the curse won't stick -- get out to your local library and request something that's been reviewed for removal, if not from your local library's collection then from a library somewhere ostensibly more concerned with the right upbringing of children. or at least get out there and launch a campaign to have a book banned. stephanie meyer is an easy and arguably deserving target, but i'd also suggest working to ban something like spoken from the heart, because there are other creatures of the night more nefarious than in meyer's castrated vampire fantasies. (i'd also ban salinger across the board just so that all the kids around town carrying incredibly conspicuous copies of nine stories can regain some of their credibility. if they had any. but you do just feel sorry sometimes.)

this blog is particularly familiar with certain recent banning efforts since we're also the central nervous system for the so called "homosexual agenda," stopping the spread of which is apparently central to most opponents' objections to good young adult fiction. the animosity of the book banners is though, in fact, pure vendetta -- the result of a crazy party that "h(omosexual)a(genda)!" had in fayetteville, arkansas during one of our organizational conferences. as such (or maybe in spite of it), i'm happy to have made a kind of penance for (or a proud admission of) my part in that debacle by gifting my niece the absolutely true diary of a part time indian last christmas. that book was removed from ninth grade english classes in crook county, oregon in 2008 for a passage discussing masturbation, but was reinstated after review by the crook county school board and its superintendent of schools. the stockton school district in missouri banned the book in april of this year.

if kids don't read about things like masturbation (we're a long way from actually teaching it), how are we going to properly equip them to spend their free time not asking and not telling during operation freedom to read?

ha.

FANNING THE FLAMES, part 3

i haven't read richard yates, and i don't plan to before i go to watch tao lin read from it at reading frenzy on tuesday, but there's no question that lin has made himself a mainstream name with this book. that jonathan franzen parody cover that the stranger ran turned out to be only the opening salvo of lin's fifteen minutes. richard yates has now also been reviewed for the nyt book review.

if, however, the reviewers are representative of popular opinion, it's looking like tao lin might have some trouble keeping the limelight. even the review in the portland mercury, sister paper to the stranger and the "indie-r" of portland's two weeklies, was consistent in its take on richard yates with the opinions expressed in less quaint/more industry minded outlets. lin's new book sounds essentially similar to his efforts in shoplifting from american apparel, which i did enjoy and appreciate, and the new book should resonate with a similar audience.

maybe. while extreme understatement and the language and manners of the chatting classes are undeniably characteristic of tao lin's so far very polarizing prose, an entire oeuvre dedicated to describing a laconic and anesthetized youth in petty revolt probably won't engender any sustained fascination, even for fans. which isn't to say that lin's style isn't careful and brilliantly expressive of his subjects and their mumblecore world. but as a statement, what lin has done in shoplifting from american apparel and richard yates can only be really profound once. should something perhaps start happening? the emotions we're reading are convincing, sure, but why not just get back to chatting ourselves? that's all i can really say, you know, not having read richard yates and all -- though the speculation no doubt helps convey on me the aura of an active and official book writer. no one at the oregonian has cracked a book since making staff, that's for sure. so if nothing else, it's good practice. not that i aspire to the oregonian, unless, that is, they want me.

maybe it's that i entered into my fascination with tao lin before all of this hullaballoo and the scales are starting to drop. being on trend isn't always flattering. (do you know ugg boots?) maybe i should just read the new book. but i'm seeing my copy of shoplifting from american apparel at the bottom of a pretty precarious stack, and it should take most of the spare time around my other reading to get it out. i do want to have it signed. we'll see.

ON GETTING THINGS DONE; or, HOW TO EXPLOIT AN EMPLOYERS' JOB MARKET

we didn't read this apparently "fascinating article" from the boston globe on the fate of authors' libraries after they die, but it's mention in a blog post at 'mobylives' entitled "the endless ephemera" that begins "what's to be made? what's to be saved?" did get us to thinking.

the idea that a library, or any collection of cultural material for that matter (especially a personal one), should might be engaged as a story representative of its curator(s)' artistic, philosophical and philological history is nothing new to modern epistemology, particularly within literary circles. samuel beckett was notably keen on the idea of a book of fiction put together entirely of linked quotations, passages lifted -- not plagarized, mind you, for the consciousness of the effort -- from other works and reassembled as a unique statement. that idea is central to michael kruger's the executor, in which one writer and scholar is appointed the task of locating a deceased (and somewhat estranged) friend's masterwork amid the piles and shelves of his literary and academic estate. the work, it seems -- although the executor leaves his original search to get lost in the back streets of memory and its interpersonal demands -- might be the shelves and the piles themselves, mapped by the deceased in a code of aggregated quotations.

too academic for this blog, you say? fie! the point is that we wonder to what or to whom the 'looking good in pants' library should be devoted once our illustrious blogging career has ended. what does or should it say about us? or, what does and should it say about whom? (read the death of the author by gilbert adair for an impressively intricate, postmodern tail chase of that idea.)

there should at least be a catalog. so! we're accepting applications for an intern. pay is negotiable; but really, we hold all the cards. all are welcome to apply, and application materials will be judged solely on merit. standout candidates will be asked for an interview. it should go without saying, but biting wit and snappy dressing are musts.

update: we did read the article. now probably on to wittgenstein's mistress.

THE ALL CASCADIA KICKBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS

it was raining at overlook park in portland, ore. u.s.a. for the all cascadia kickball championships on saturday afternoon. the vancouver, b.c. contingent had arrived well ahead of anyone else and was camped underneath a large deciduous tree that let only some -- though in larger droplets, it seemed -- of the rain through its leaves and branches. in addition to three coolers filled with who knows what, there were a dozen cases of beer piled near the players' cheering accessories, all of it purchased, incidentally, for the price of a single sixer in canada. beer and kickball, it seemed, were as synonymous as beer and canada, so the show would go on (and well fueled), even for the rain.

not that the rain is anything that should phase anyone who'd call herself a cascadian, but this was the first weekend that the weather had confirmed the passing of summer, and there was palpable regret at overlook park over the lack of sun for the event. if kickballers are going to get wet, they'd prefer to do it head first into home base on the slip and slide. the weather did, however, keep seattle from showing. at three o'clock, an hour past the scheduled beginning of the championships, portland's team of select competitors (apparently there are close to two hundred teams here) had arrived to meet the canadians, but it was clear that no one would be coming to represent washington. not that anyone was surprised. once more with feeling!: seattle, well, i'm sorry.

thank god, portland! you brought a tent. it may be a rose city taboo to open an umbrella, but portland knows that fall sports heckling is best done from the easy comfort of shelter, and that tree wasn't really coming through. what's more, now there'd be dry spectating from a vantage nearer the diamond. the spectating was fine, too, since team moon wolf mandates short shorts on each of its players. the flea market outside chinatown got credit for most of team vancouver's jerseys -- but who knows where that one girl got that wolf head merkin. as time and game moved on, her team members weren't wearing much more below the waists. what had probably started the morning in seattle as proper jeans were cut further and further up the moon wolves' thighs, sometimes to the marked chagrin of their teammates more eager to get on with the game. "you two, stop scissoring. we need another dick in the field."

vancouver went up early. and big. there was a scoreboard behind home that passing players turned every time they came through, and it showed ten to zero in favor of the canadians before the end of the first inning. perhaps portland hadn't expected their rag tag opponents to be any competition and hadn't yet put their heads in the game. after all, the canadians are known for their lassitude when it comes to procedure, and it wouldn't have been unexpected had portland not expected vancouver to perform under the rules (strictly enforced except for the length of the game) of america's national pastime. but the moon wolves shined under the pressure that grey afternoon -- if not under any big lights to mark the scale of the match-up. by the fifth of seven innings, portland hadn't managed to answer a single point to vancouver's fifteen. the moon wolves howled.

it was a different kind of howl, though, that echoed through the tent when a report from the camp at the tree came to inform the managers that the stock of beer had almost been depleted. america must have been poaching from the north, an incisive metaphor for something, no doubt, and it seemed to have worked to their advantage. while it's possible that the moon wolves had merely drank too much and passed their booze to performance acme, portland's rally in the final innings was just as likely a result of americans' not-so-secret pinch kicking advantage: they can do everything better drunk. when the final out of the final inning was made (a one handed catch, probably; a suitable close to a game in which the choice between saving a beer and making a play is the measure of dedication in both directions), portland had narrowed its point deficit to under ten. under five, even? besides portland's creepily fastidious manager, no one seemed to be counting at that point.

and that was it. with no team from seattle, vancouver had won itself the all cascadia championships with its one victory. there was a to-do over a trophy (like the merkin, who can guess the origin of the jumping dolphins?), but more commotion over the beer run, which was obviously going to be an imperative precursor to the friendly game to be played next, this one with canadian rules, which is to say there'd be hardly any, or at least to say aim for the head. cheers. and then whatever they say in canada.

one-hundred and forty-one dollars and twenty-two cents bought one-hundred and seventy-four beers that made it back to overlook park just in time for the rain to pick up and for teams to be picked. and for the teams to shotgun one of whatever they could find in a can from the new pile. it was hard to say how things went in game number two with no one keeping score, although someone must have been counting outs, because the teams kept switching sides; but there was really no being sure of that either. after twenty? thirty? minutes, the sheets of rain that were battering the diamond had, all of a sudden it seemed, chased most of the portland players off of the field -- but not under the tent, so they must have just gone. a shame, or a deferential tribute maybe, that they didn't leave with their share of the one-hundred seventy-four. an admission of defeat at any rate. vancouver, the all cascadia kickball dolphins jump for thee.

really, though, rain? it's only september. but the crowd cheered, most of it still on the field. "take of your shirts!" it was the man himself yelled it, and the crowd obliged, still cheering. pants would surely have come next were the wet post-scissor shorties not a point of vancouver pride. "this is my place and my time," their smiles seemed to sing in unison, and the jewel of the west shone down brilliantly from the true north. ironically, this was a foreign place, but it was as unanimous as the elation (remember how many beers?) that this couldn't have happened anywhere else. portland does, after all, know irony.