15 posts tagged “biblio”

I loveloveloved Man on Wire.  Philippe Petit is now among my art heroes, alongside Christo and Jeanne-Claude.  [Common elements of these artists include careful engineering and rigging, temporary installations on famous structures, and doing it for the sheer beauty of it.  Christo and Jeanne-Claude did (and are still doing) their thing legally, going through years and sometimes decades to obtain the appropriate permissions, resulting in large-scale works installed for a few weeks.]  Philippe Petit approached his "installations" as capers, resulting in arrest after risking his life on the high wire.  The documentary was a wonderful telling of his story by those who assisted him in his most famous wire-walk, between the top of the two towers of the former World Trade Center, as well as the man himself, still evidently spry and full of joie de vivre.

For those who don't want to wait for the movie, there is at least one book.

I do not like:

• Getting up at 5:30 a.m. to make a 7:00 physical therapy appointment.
• Wet shoes from the pouring rain.
• Having to interview intercity bus operators (nothing against them, only out of fear of talking to strangers on the phone).
• Most of the selections in the two short film packages I saw on Sunday.  This year’s shorts curators at SIFF have tastes very unlike mine.  Often disturbing tastes.  [The ones I did like were the lushly animated Far from Ural, Night Vision (though I did not “get” it, it has such beautiful imagery), the hilarious The Tourists, and the surprise-ending un certain regard.]  Dear SIFF marketers:  please do not describe a shorts package using the words “road to happily-ever-after” and include stories about children in Ecuador becoming guerilla soldiers who shoot other children, a pedophile violating a little girl while she is feeding calves, or a seal-hunter coming upon a bloody neighbor-on-neighbor murder in the tundra.  I feel scarred from seeing these two days later.
• The absence of crowd in the sculpture park on rainy Saturday, which I believe made small metal objects less effective than it would have been seeing it within a busy train station.
• Feeling so negative about the films and performance I saw this weekend.

I do like:

• My physical therapist, who has started me on the path the pain-free shoulderism and Audrey Hepburn posture.
• Finding a lucky breakfast of the stale peanut butter sandwich I failed to give away yesterday.  (I did give one away, but packed two).
• Remembering to pack a fresh peanut butter sandwich for today (which might not find any takers in all this rain, but there is always breakfast tomorrow).
• Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler and Jonathan Carroll’s From the Teeth of Angels, both of which I finished this weekend.  I started the Carroll book a couple of weeks ago, interrupted it to read the Calvino book, then resumed the Carroll book at a point where there was a coincidental parallel with the Calvino book – a woman exploring the book and music library of a man she loves in his absence.  Both books also contain stories within stories (though they are actually related in the Carroll book).
• The documentary American Teen, which I was fortunate to see during my Saturday SIFF ushering shift.
• Buying some wonderful photos.
• The songs of Juana Molina.

 

One last post related to the removal of the monkey from my back and then I’ll retire the subject for at least two days. 

My backpack felt so unnaturally light and empty last night that by the time I got up on Capitol Hill I decided that, if my dancing and pack mule muscles were going to be allowed to atrophy, I should at least do a bit of spot-toning of the book-shopping muscles, so I popped into both Twice Sold Tales and Half Price Books, replenished some of the weight, and then actually went home and read.  Poetry.  (Thanks, M-----l, for the Billy Collins recommendation.)

Also, I noticed that Twice Sold Tales has dedicated the litterbox in the new store:

 

So Marco now poops in honor of the editor of one of our local free weeklies.

I just finished my first Jonathan Carroll novel, Outside the Dog Museum, and loved it.  Now I feel ready to try that scary-covered Carroll book which I bought a couple of weeks ago.

I think the last time I mentioned completing a book was during my brief period of reading the Brontës last winter: Wuthering Heights (did not like at all), Jane Eyre (liked very much), and Agnes Grey (enjoyed the writing but found the story depressing.  It had a happy ending though).  While I was slowly reading these I was also buying up annotated editions of all of Jane Austen and a few Victorian writers with grand plans for a 19th century English reading fest to fill in some of the gaping holes in my literary experience.  This plan was triggered by Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale and gorging on Jane Austen screen adaptations.

Confession #1:  I would much rather watch costumed ladies and gentlemen at a country dance in even a Hollywood-style adaption of a Jane Austen novel than read the actual novel.  Years ago I struggled through three of her novels, and this February I started Persuasion, but quit after the ninth short chapter, just about the time the DVD of the new BBC production was released.  Also, having seen the 1995 Amanda Root/Ciarán Hinds feature film enough times to memorize the script, I felt like I’d absorbed enough for now.  Plus, I got distracted by some other, er, genre fiction (see Confession #2).  However, all of those Broadview editions look impressive gathering dust in a pile on the outer layer of a shelf.

Confession #2:  I am a sucker for packaging.  Early this year it was covers of novels featuring ladies in long dresses with their heads cropped off at the top edge (or their faces masked), often gilded.  This is how I got sucked into a series of what my sister-in-law affectionately refers to as swills.  A couple of 'em inspired the reading of part of a biography of Catherine de Medici, as well as repeated viewings of La Reine Margot (well, at least the first viewing – the second and third were inspired by Vincent Perez), so some nutritional value was gained from their consumption.

Confession #3:  I am a slow reader.  More accurately, I don’t make enough time to read, so it takes me a long time to finish a book.  Because reading feels like an indulgence, I tend to save it until after whatever household business has been attended to and I’m crawling into bed, exhausted, by which time I’m lucky to stay awake for eight pages.  Couple this with a habit of buying books more quickly than reading them, and I've piled up a very optimistic quantity of yet-to-read books.  At this rate, my nest will be well-lined for retirement.  (My reading habit was more robust in the days when I had a rail commute.  These days I still carry a book in my purse or backpack, just in case, but it only comes out when waiting in line or for the movie to start, or sometimes over lunch.) 

Confession #4:  I probably need bifocals now.  If someone were to accuse me of having my nose in a book these days, it is because reading often requires removing or peering over my counter-nearsightedness glasses and holding the page very close to my face.  When choosing what edition of a book to buy, print size is now a consideration.  This sign of aging depresses me, and I am in denial, avoiding visiting the eye doctor until my current pair of glasses falls apart.

Confession #5:  I own as many children’s books as grown-up books.

Confession #6:  I own as many picture books as chapter books, taking into account both children’s books and grown-up books.  The grown-up picture books include illustrated stories, artists' monographs, books of photos of old cities, dancers rehearsing and performing, interior design, funny signage, etc., and a few comics.  By the way, Peter Sís and Maira Kalman are two of my favorite illustrators.

Confession #7:  In addition to their covers, I choose books for the way they feel in my hands.  I generally prefer trade paperbacks; the size and supple cover are comfortable to hold.  The paper, too, is important.  I like pages with loft and heft and tooth.  Paper on which a soft lead pencil would feel so nice pressing against (but I would only do that with a sketch book, mind).  And the scent of the paper … yes, I smell the pages.  Are there words like “hoppy” or “malty” to describe the a book's bouquet?  Typeface is also important.  I look for the typefaces that sing.

Confession #8:  I generally have no problem quitting a book I’m not enjoying.  There are too many other books waiting to have a go.  That said, I will usually give it a sporting chance, and am willing to wait and try again.  Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one book I was and am still hoping to enjoy, based on the reviews of others.  I started it two and a half years ago, but wasn’t hooked even after 150 pages, so I put it aside to revisit later.  Maybe this will be the year.  Another book I just restarted for the third time is Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust: A History of Walking.  I gobbled up her A Field Guide to Getting Lost, but somehow still can’t quite get going on this one.  I bought it back when it was first published in hardcover, attracted by the cover photo.  That was eight years ago.  Perhaps I am just too distracted by the quotations streaming across the bottom of the pages, and if I can ignore them long enough the real book will gain momentum.

Confession #9:   I haven't yet happened upon poetry (other than song lyrics) that I enjoy.  Even on the second reading of A.S. Byatt’s Possession, which I loved, I skipped over almost all of the verse.  (Any recommendations in this direction would be welcome!) 

Confession #10:  Sadly, on any given list of the most important books of the last century (or any other century for that matter), I bet I can count those I have read on only one hand.

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So what do I enjoy reading?  Here are some books I loved within the past 12 months or so, in addition to three of the books mentioned above:

• Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore
• Stephen Kuusisto’s Planet of the Blind and Eavesdropping
• Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation and Take the Cannoli
• Jordan Crane’s The Clouds Above

Yes, that's a very short list.  Hmm ... wanna see photos of most of my all-time favorite writers?  They are posted here. 

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Confession #11: I stayed up half the night writing this post, when I could have been reading, or sleeping.

I wonder if the sign art people leave clues and secret messages for each other. 

Walking home up Olive today, I saw several Poo In Your Shoe stickers along the way:

 

The dog on this sign is painted on a piece of cloth with a stitched border.  I was tempted to rip it down and take it home, but that would have been as wrong as picking that tulip (which was still there this morning, delightfully).

 

 This one, along 11th next to Cal Anderson Park, is a floppy disk.

 

Teeny has a close neighbor:

 

 I walked along Denny between Olive and 11th, to see if Marco had made the move yet.  He had:

 

He was lounging in the new children's room:

 

I bought this book, and hope it's not too scary:

The new store is larger and more labyrinthine than the old store, and doesn't reek of litterbox - yet.  As soon as the new carpeting finishes outgassing, it will be a fine place for getting lost.  I hope the carpet doesn't poison the cats and the employees in the meantime.

 

Show us your favorite writer.

I have been sucked in by two wonderful things at the beginning of this week:

1) I finally bought an iPod.  What took me so frickin' long?  Possibly something to do with a general mistrust of new technology, an enduring and unhealthy tendency to swallow whole my audiophile older brother's opinions on what constitutes a good recorded music experience, and a fondness for cover art and the vinyl 7-inch format and overflowing shelves.  At any rate, I love it.  Now I get it.  I never want to be separated from it.  The fact that this acquisition comes on the heels of returning a very fine though oft-repaired and yet still half-functioning hi-fi system (generously gifted upon me three years ago by my well-meaning brother and sister-in-law) which carried unhappy associations with a certain hi-fi shop-dude, in favor of a $119 used receiver/amplifier from the same hi-fi shop, oddly adds to a feeling of personal victory.  For me, this exchange makes so much sense.  Hurray! 

2) After a very slow start, I finally got sucked into the last Harry Potter book.  What took me so frickin' long? (oh yeah, I moved!)  When books 5 and 6 were released, I attended midnight bookstore parties and devoured each within two days.  Both times, coincidentally, my cat Muki had just had surgery and was confined to the bedroom wearing an Elizabethan collar to prevent incision licking, and it was rather comforting to hang out with him on the mattress upon the floor, reading and reading.  For this book, I haven't yet made time to read except just before going to sleep, which always seems to win out.

So tonight, I am skipping dance class to snuggle down with Muki on the mattress upon the boxes and my 80-gigapet daemon, playing the Moonbabies over and over and waiting out Kreacher's return with the locket before turning out the light.

 

Who is your favorite wizard of all time?

Hmm... this will take a skim through the books once they are unpacked to narrow down the candidates.  I'm definitely fond of Howl.

The bill for my first mortgage payment arrived.  I will not be buying records again for a long, long time.

These were my (sigh) final acquisitions (Thursday last):

I love everything Colleen has recorded.  Here is a song from this latest release:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ditto for matt pond PA:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also scored on this last shopping trip was "All Tomorrow's Dance Parties," a 7-inch single of very early Lou Reed recordings, (re)issued on the Norton label.  Lewis Reed recorded the two songs on the A-side in 1962, and the two on the B-side were recorded in 1958 by his high school band, Jade.

and having finally finished Salt, am now ripping through the deliciously written:

 

but now I must truly buckle down and pack -- in just two weeks (eek!) the movers will carry what remains of my life's baggage to the small room on the big hill to the south.

Book: Show us a great comic book.