We are now eight days away from Christmas (as I am reminded several times a day by my nine-year-old daughter, and those of you in the Greater New Orleans area have one more opportunity to buy directly from Deep South Samizdat Books, at the expanded Elysian Fleas market, at 527 Elysian Fields, on the corner of Chartres St. While Elysian Fleas typically takes place on the third Saturday of the month, you will have two opportunities this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, from 11-5. And, as the Saints will be taking on the Dallas Cowboys (otherwise known as the personification of evil) Saturday night, there will be no Sunday conflict with the game. But what about the weather, you say? It's a lot of trouble building bookshelves into the walls of an ark, you say. I hear you, but the forecast is for sunny skies, with a high of 53 Saturday and a balmy 60 on Sunday.
Just as important as the holiday shopping, this weekend should be the last opportunity to cast your vote in the Greater New Orleans Market Bestseller List. To recap, I have been keeping meticulous records for all of 2009, tabulating sales for all of the markets I have participated in, and periodically publishing the results and providing you, the reader, with a cross-section of the literary preferences of the New Orleans community, arrived at through the democratic act of supporting your favorite local guerrilla bookseller. Here, then, is the expanded list, for your perusal:
1. Walker Percy
2. Kurt Vonnegut
3. (tie) Ray Bradbury
3. (tie) Aldlous Huxley
5. (tie) Hermann Hesse
5. (tie) George Orwell
7. (tie) Albert Camus
7. (tie) Henry Miller
9. (tie) Edgar Rice Burroughs
9. (tie) James Joyce
9. (tie) J.D. Salinger
9. (tie) Star Trek
13. (tie) James Lee Burke
13. (tie) Joseph Campbell
13. (tie) Robert Heinlein
13. (tie) Ayn Rand
I'll leave it for future graduate students to draw conclusions based on that data ("The Marketgoer: Literary Consumption and Identity in post-Katrina New Orleans"). But I can guarantee that multiple volumes by each of the above authors will be available, so there is still room for movement within the list. And, sometime after the first of the year, the final list for 2009 will be published, amid great fanfare.
Until next time, my friends, take care of yourselves and each other. Merry Christmas, war is over if you want it, and all the rest--Parker
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
The High Man in the Rent-Controlled Castle, Part Two
Chase plays the role of the tragic-stricken fiancee at soirees around Manhattan, apparently the only acting gig he's had in quite some time. Unfortunately, he can't actually remember Janice very well, and falls into an awkward relationship with Oona. Abneg, meanwhile, is seemingly at war with the natural world, as a mating pair of eagles nest just outside of his apartment, at the same time as he is the city's point person on eliminating the escaped tiger haunting the streets of the borough.
Ah, yes, the tiger. It's difficult to discuss it too much without revealing key plot twists, but it is my assertion that the tiger represents gentrification, configured as an actual (or at least a perceived) force of nature, unpredictable, undomesticated, irrational, unable to be tamed by Abneg. Obviously, no city administration will embrace gentrification as such, with its racist and classist stigmas, its profane and arbitrary destruction in the name of profit, its synthetic-fibered welcome mat leading the moneychangers into the temple, but if a force of nature comes along, say an earthquake, or tsunami, or perhaps.... a hurricane, if you will, then, and only then, maybe it's just best for all parties if cosmetically-damaged but structurally sound public hospitals or public housing units are demolished to make way for new, more fiscally sound projects. Forces of nature are funny that way, aren't they?
Perkus Tooth, the soul of Chronic City, is among the many Manhattanites affected by the tiger, and Lethem's obvious affection for him warrants further inspection and speculation. He is a representative of a completely different force of nature, a species of which I am particularly fascinated. The pop vernacular would identify him as a cultural critic, operating in the "postmodern" cultural/media environment. I put the adjective in parentheses only because of the loaded term's ubiquity, but I think it's appropriate given my interpretation. I would argue that the era of postmodernism (perhaps even an epoch, to give it a little geological heft) is one in which the most vital artifacts of popular culture project self-conscious artistry without losing authentic populist coarseness, while the most vital creations of fine art project a grounded populist coarseness without sacrificing self-conscious artistry (think Jasper Johns' Flag and Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner"). And while continents of forests have been felled to produce theses and dissertations and academic journals devoted to the sterile, heads-of-pins theorizing of lesser intellects (I can already feel the comments section filling with the words pot, kettle and black), a few first-rate minds - among them Susan Sontag, Greil Marcus, Cornel West, Lawrence Weschler, Greg Tate, Dave Hickey - have reached the status of what I would call cultural alchemists, squeezing and distilling the post-God scriptures of fine art and popular culture into something truly illuminating, and doing so with style, passion and - gasp! - genuine lucidity.
Now, Lethem likes to play with some of the characters in this novel, dropping obvious clues as to who they were based on. The billionaire mayor is an obvious stand-in for Michael Bloomberg, while a city arts bureaucrat has an awful lot of Art Garfunkel in him. Whether fortunately or not, I heard a recent radio interview with Lethem in which he revealed that much of Perkus Tooth's character and idiosyncracies were those of his friend Paul Nelson, a largely-forgotten music writer, editor and (briefly) music business insider whose advocacy was crucial in the careers of Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart and the New York Dolls, among others. That shot my theory out of the water, but I nevertheless feel compelled to share it, given the possibility of the cosmic unconsciousness working in its mysterious ways.
I intentionally used the term cultural alchemist because it so befit one of my favorite characters, and my nomination for one of the unsung American heroes of the 20th century, Harry Smith (Har-ry Smith, Per-kus Tooth, you see?). Smith was born to practicing occultists in Portland, Oregon, in 1923, and his story was that his father gave him a blacksmith's set when he was young and told him to turn lead into gold, the eternal alchemical project. He grew up to become a pioneering experimental filmmaker and musicologist, collecting the records that became the milestone Anthology of American Folk Music, inspiring the folk revivalists of the 1950's and early 60's - Dylan, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Dave Van Ronk, the New Lost City Ramblers and so many others - without either the academic credentials or paternalism of Alan Lomax. Smith's stated goal was to the country through the recognition of the cultural contributions of poor black and white musicians. And, given the prominence and further evolution of such music through the course of the Civil Rights Movement and the revolutions of the 1960's, one could make the argument that such an alchemical transformation was achieved.
Of course, Smith was also known for his raging alcoholism and mercurial personality, alienating numerous friends and associates over the years before his death in 1991 (I had the pleasure of hearing him lecture in 1990 at the Naropa Institute, where the seemingly infinitely patient Allen Ginsberg arranged his appointment as Shaman in Residence). I don't know of any contacts Lethem may have had with Smith, but many of their obsessions would seem to dovetail fairly symmetrically.
Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City is a provocative novel of the highest order, the kind you were always hoping to find in musty old used bookstores in the pre-Amazon days, when such tomes were talked about on land line telephones or maybe written about in letters from friends on the coast, when the gratification of personal discovery might be delayed for months or even years from first notice. It is fiercely, passionately relevant.
Ah, yes, the tiger. It's difficult to discuss it too much without revealing key plot twists, but it is my assertion that the tiger represents gentrification, configured as an actual (or at least a perceived) force of nature, unpredictable, undomesticated, irrational, unable to be tamed by Abneg. Obviously, no city administration will embrace gentrification as such, with its racist and classist stigmas, its profane and arbitrary destruction in the name of profit, its synthetic-fibered welcome mat leading the moneychangers into the temple, but if a force of nature comes along, say an earthquake, or tsunami, or perhaps.... a hurricane, if you will, then, and only then, maybe it's just best for all parties if cosmetically-damaged but structurally sound public hospitals or public housing units are demolished to make way for new, more fiscally sound projects. Forces of nature are funny that way, aren't they?
Perkus Tooth, the soul of Chronic City, is among the many Manhattanites affected by the tiger, and Lethem's obvious affection for him warrants further inspection and speculation. He is a representative of a completely different force of nature, a species of which I am particularly fascinated. The pop vernacular would identify him as a cultural critic, operating in the "postmodern" cultural/media environment. I put the adjective in parentheses only because of the loaded term's ubiquity, but I think it's appropriate given my interpretation. I would argue that the era of postmodernism (perhaps even an epoch, to give it a little geological heft) is one in which the most vital artifacts of popular culture project self-conscious artistry without losing authentic populist coarseness, while the most vital creations of fine art project a grounded populist coarseness without sacrificing self-conscious artistry (think Jasper Johns' Flag and Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner"). And while continents of forests have been felled to produce theses and dissertations and academic journals devoted to the sterile, heads-of-pins theorizing of lesser intellects (I can already feel the comments section filling with the words pot, kettle and black), a few first-rate minds - among them Susan Sontag, Greil Marcus, Cornel West, Lawrence Weschler, Greg Tate, Dave Hickey - have reached the status of what I would call cultural alchemists, squeezing and distilling the post-God scriptures of fine art and popular culture into something truly illuminating, and doing so with style, passion and - gasp! - genuine lucidity.
Now, Lethem likes to play with some of the characters in this novel, dropping obvious clues as to who they were based on. The billionaire mayor is an obvious stand-in for Michael Bloomberg, while a city arts bureaucrat has an awful lot of Art Garfunkel in him. Whether fortunately or not, I heard a recent radio interview with Lethem in which he revealed that much of Perkus Tooth's character and idiosyncracies were those of his friend Paul Nelson, a largely-forgotten music writer, editor and (briefly) music business insider whose advocacy was crucial in the careers of Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart and the New York Dolls, among others. That shot my theory out of the water, but I nevertheless feel compelled to share it, given the possibility of the cosmic unconsciousness working in its mysterious ways.
I intentionally used the term cultural alchemist because it so befit one of my favorite characters, and my nomination for one of the unsung American heroes of the 20th century, Harry Smith (Har-ry Smith, Per-kus Tooth, you see?). Smith was born to practicing occultists in Portland, Oregon, in 1923, and his story was that his father gave him a blacksmith's set when he was young and told him to turn lead into gold, the eternal alchemical project. He grew up to become a pioneering experimental filmmaker and musicologist, collecting the records that became the milestone Anthology of American Folk Music, inspiring the folk revivalists of the 1950's and early 60's - Dylan, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Dave Van Ronk, the New Lost City Ramblers and so many others - without either the academic credentials or paternalism of Alan Lomax. Smith's stated goal was to the country through the recognition of the cultural contributions of poor black and white musicians. And, given the prominence and further evolution of such music through the course of the Civil Rights Movement and the revolutions of the 1960's, one could make the argument that such an alchemical transformation was achieved.
Of course, Smith was also known for his raging alcoholism and mercurial personality, alienating numerous friends and associates over the years before his death in 1991 (I had the pleasure of hearing him lecture in 1990 at the Naropa Institute, where the seemingly infinitely patient Allen Ginsberg arranged his appointment as Shaman in Residence). I don't know of any contacts Lethem may have had with Smith, but many of their obsessions would seem to dovetail fairly symmetrically.
Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City is a provocative novel of the highest order, the kind you were always hoping to find in musty old used bookstores in the pre-Amazon days, when such tomes were talked about on land line telephones or maybe written about in letters from friends on the coast, when the gratification of personal discovery might be delayed for months or even years from first notice. It is fiercely, passionately relevant.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The High Man in the Rent-Controlled Castle, Part One
Note: I have been writing this around the Thanksgiving holiday, so concentrated writing time has been fleeting. Given that, I have decided to publish this review in two parts. Sorry for the abrupt end of Part One, but I will get back to it just as soon as possible--Michael Parker
As a reader, a bookseller and, much more modestly, a writer, I can't imagine a better place to be (given realistic budgetary constraints) than New Orleans at this time. A lively independent bookselling scene, fantastic writers young and old exploring the possibilities of the novel, the poem, the memoir, investigative journalism, cultural history. Engaged universities nurturing young writers, bringing in established names. A recent and ongoing reminder of that good fortune is the book group organized by the inimitable, the ineffable, the indefatigible, the fierely independent bookseller of Tchoupitoulas St., Maggie McKeown, proprietor of the boldly-named McKeown's Books and Difficult Music (mckeownsbooks.com). At our most recent meeting, we discussed The Man in the High Castle, the 1962 classic by Philip K. Dick, whose fevered imagination gave us Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (adapted as the Future Noir Blade Runner), the short story "The Minority Report" (which inspired the 2002 movie of the same name that made household names out of formerly obscure director Stephen Spielberg [previously best known for Duel and 1941] and actor Tom Cruise [Taps and All the Right Moves]), among many, many others.
The Man in the High Castle showcases many of Dick's iconic, recurring themes - the tenuousness of identity, whether individual or collective; the fragility of concensus reality; the malleability of consciousness, with all the attendant epiphanies and pitfalls; the potential commodification of the deepest of emotional and spiritual commitments - within the framework of a highly inventive representative of the alternate-history subgenre of science fiction. Dick's scenario has the Axis Powers winning World War II, with the typically Dickian twist of a writer living in Wyoming (which is part of a vaguely identified autonomous zone between the Japanese-occupied West Coast and the German-ruled eastern United States [I'm getting a mental picture of the Risk board about this time])publishing a novel which posits the absurd notion of the Allies, led by U.S. President Rexford Tugwell (real-life Undersecretary of Agriculture under FDR, if indeed you're comfortable describing our consensus history as "real" life [maybe Joe Biden wasn't committing a gaffe after all when he referred to FDR's t.v. appearances, hmmmm?]).
The discussion flowed as freely as the red wine, with the round table in the front room of Maggie's bookstore providing Algonquinesque inspiration. Quantum theory, a demonstration of the I Ching, the power dynamics of colonial oppression turned inside out through the medium of science fiction and sold at drugstores and bus stations throughout early-1960's America, seeping into minds that wouldn't be exposed to Allen Ginsberg or Frantz Fanon for several years yet, if ever. All were touched on,... except maybe the part about Ginsberg or Fanon, I kinda thought about that later.
There was a palpable sense of personal relief at the end of the book club meeting, as I knew I would finally be able to start Jonathan Lethem's newest novel, Chronic City, when I got home. Outside of some short pieces in the New Yorker, two of which I would discover were excerpts from this book, I had not gotten around to Lethem, a hardback of Fortress of Solitude taunting me along with the other unread books on our shelves (incidentally, I have finally gotten around to reading Michael Chabon and Robert Stone recently, so I'm not slacking completely).
To get back to Philip K. Dick briefly, I would argue that he was a speculative fiction force of nature, defying the s-f geekocracy's obsessive need for categorization (is he a junior partner of the Golden Age, member emeritus of the New Wave, prophetic grandfather of the Cyberpunks?). That said, does he have a natural heir today?
I would propose two. Californian Tim Powers was a friend of Dick's whose novels reflect many of the same passionate ambiguities about personal and historical identity, utilizing real people and historical situations as jumping-off points for simply remarkable imaginative journeys. Declare recasts 20th century Middle East geopolitics as a battle between Great Powers of occultic and mythic might as well as political and military. And Three Days to Never conflates Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, the Mossad and a Dan Brown-style secret society into a story of a father and daughter on the run because they unknowingly possess components to a time machine developed by the scientist and the silent film star (believe me, he keeps all the balls in the air).
Jonathan Lethem is the other writer, one who, like Kurt Vonnegut many years ago, has graduated from his early pigeonholing as a science fiction writer to a place at the table with the literary grownups (forgive any stains from my dripping irony [the working title for my first foray into adult cinema, by the way, look for it on vhs and laser disc soon]), and Chronic City is a masterpiece. The classic Dick themes are all here (the working title for the sequel to Dripping Irony, by the way), and he makes the mature choice to jettison any s-f elements....oh, except for the International Space Station plagued by low-orbiting Chinese mines, the highly unusual meteorological and zoological phenomena plaguing Manhattan, and a mindbending virtual reality subplot worthy of Neal Stephenson, whenever he gets back from the 18th century.
Lethem's novel focusses on four friends/associates/co-conspirators (relationships and alliances shift through the course of the book), with the island of Manhattan and its ongoing survival as a unifying theme throughout. Given Lethem's obvious obsession with American popular culture (sign me up for that support group), it is hard not make associations with Seinfeld, although it doesn't hold up beyond the superficial symmetry of three men and a woman, all self-absorbed Manhattanites.
Cultural critic and onetime Rolling Stone contributor Perkus Tooth is the sun in this particular galaxy, smoking high-grade marijuana and poring over books, cd's and videos in his rabbit warren of an apartment, far removed from his days as the Thomas Paine of the Punk-era New York, plastering philosophical "broadsides" on construction site walls with the aid of Oona Lazlo ("Had Perkus spilled a pot of coffee on his tiles and the coffee sprung to life as a woman an instant before I opened the door, it would have explained her perfectly," [pg. 44]), now a cynical professional ghostwriter. Richard Abneg is a former squatter who now uses his fading street credibility in the service of the billionaire mayor of New York.
Our sometime narrator, and the most recently drawn into Perkus' orbit, is Chase Insteadman, an urbane former child star who is now best known as the fiancee of an astronaut aboard the doomed space station, Janice Turnbull, whose letters to Chase have transfixed the city (perhaps the country and world as well, if there were some indication of such a world beyond Manhattan). This subplot of doomed love and space-age trench warfare is tantalizing, not least because there is never a mention of any terrestrial conflict with China that would lead to the mine field the Americans and Russian cosmonauts face (perhaps a nasty floreclosure fight?).
As a reader, a bookseller and, much more modestly, a writer, I can't imagine a better place to be (given realistic budgetary constraints) than New Orleans at this time. A lively independent bookselling scene, fantastic writers young and old exploring the possibilities of the novel, the poem, the memoir, investigative journalism, cultural history. Engaged universities nurturing young writers, bringing in established names. A recent and ongoing reminder of that good fortune is the book group organized by the inimitable, the ineffable, the indefatigible, the fierely independent bookseller of Tchoupitoulas St., Maggie McKeown, proprietor of the boldly-named McKeown's Books and Difficult Music (mckeownsbooks.com). At our most recent meeting, we discussed The Man in the High Castle, the 1962 classic by Philip K. Dick, whose fevered imagination gave us Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (adapted as the Future Noir Blade Runner), the short story "The Minority Report" (which inspired the 2002 movie of the same name that made household names out of formerly obscure director Stephen Spielberg [previously best known for Duel and 1941] and actor Tom Cruise [Taps and All the Right Moves]), among many, many others.
The Man in the High Castle showcases many of Dick's iconic, recurring themes - the tenuousness of identity, whether individual or collective; the fragility of concensus reality; the malleability of consciousness, with all the attendant epiphanies and pitfalls; the potential commodification of the deepest of emotional and spiritual commitments - within the framework of a highly inventive representative of the alternate-history subgenre of science fiction. Dick's scenario has the Axis Powers winning World War II, with the typically Dickian twist of a writer living in Wyoming (which is part of a vaguely identified autonomous zone between the Japanese-occupied West Coast and the German-ruled eastern United States [I'm getting a mental picture of the Risk board about this time])publishing a novel which posits the absurd notion of the Allies, led by U.S. President Rexford Tugwell (real-life Undersecretary of Agriculture under FDR, if indeed you're comfortable describing our consensus history as "real" life [maybe Joe Biden wasn't committing a gaffe after all when he referred to FDR's t.v. appearances, hmmmm?]).
The discussion flowed as freely as the red wine, with the round table in the front room of Maggie's bookstore providing Algonquinesque inspiration. Quantum theory, a demonstration of the I Ching, the power dynamics of colonial oppression turned inside out through the medium of science fiction and sold at drugstores and bus stations throughout early-1960's America, seeping into minds that wouldn't be exposed to Allen Ginsberg or Frantz Fanon for several years yet, if ever. All were touched on,... except maybe the part about Ginsberg or Fanon, I kinda thought about that later.
There was a palpable sense of personal relief at the end of the book club meeting, as I knew I would finally be able to start Jonathan Lethem's newest novel, Chronic City, when I got home. Outside of some short pieces in the New Yorker, two of which I would discover were excerpts from this book, I had not gotten around to Lethem, a hardback of Fortress of Solitude taunting me along with the other unread books on our shelves (incidentally, I have finally gotten around to reading Michael Chabon and Robert Stone recently, so I'm not slacking completely).
To get back to Philip K. Dick briefly, I would argue that he was a speculative fiction force of nature, defying the s-f geekocracy's obsessive need for categorization (is he a junior partner of the Golden Age, member emeritus of the New Wave, prophetic grandfather of the Cyberpunks?). That said, does he have a natural heir today?
I would propose two. Californian Tim Powers was a friend of Dick's whose novels reflect many of the same passionate ambiguities about personal and historical identity, utilizing real people and historical situations as jumping-off points for simply remarkable imaginative journeys. Declare recasts 20th century Middle East geopolitics as a battle between Great Powers of occultic and mythic might as well as political and military. And Three Days to Never conflates Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, the Mossad and a Dan Brown-style secret society into a story of a father and daughter on the run because they unknowingly possess components to a time machine developed by the scientist and the silent film star (believe me, he keeps all the balls in the air).
Jonathan Lethem is the other writer, one who, like Kurt Vonnegut many years ago, has graduated from his early pigeonholing as a science fiction writer to a place at the table with the literary grownups (forgive any stains from my dripping irony [the working title for my first foray into adult cinema, by the way, look for it on vhs and laser disc soon]), and Chronic City is a masterpiece. The classic Dick themes are all here (the working title for the sequel to Dripping Irony, by the way), and he makes the mature choice to jettison any s-f elements....oh, except for the International Space Station plagued by low-orbiting Chinese mines, the highly unusual meteorological and zoological phenomena plaguing Manhattan, and a mindbending virtual reality subplot worthy of Neal Stephenson, whenever he gets back from the 18th century.
Lethem's novel focusses on four friends/associates/co-conspirators (relationships and alliances shift through the course of the book), with the island of Manhattan and its ongoing survival as a unifying theme throughout. Given Lethem's obvious obsession with American popular culture (sign me up for that support group), it is hard not make associations with Seinfeld, although it doesn't hold up beyond the superficial symmetry of three men and a woman, all self-absorbed Manhattanites.
Cultural critic and onetime Rolling Stone contributor Perkus Tooth is the sun in this particular galaxy, smoking high-grade marijuana and poring over books, cd's and videos in his rabbit warren of an apartment, far removed from his days as the Thomas Paine of the Punk-era New York, plastering philosophical "broadsides" on construction site walls with the aid of Oona Lazlo ("Had Perkus spilled a pot of coffee on his tiles and the coffee sprung to life as a woman an instant before I opened the door, it would have explained her perfectly," [pg. 44]), now a cynical professional ghostwriter. Richard Abneg is a former squatter who now uses his fading street credibility in the service of the billionaire mayor of New York.
Our sometime narrator, and the most recently drawn into Perkus' orbit, is Chase Insteadman, an urbane former child star who is now best known as the fiancee of an astronaut aboard the doomed space station, Janice Turnbull, whose letters to Chase have transfixed the city (perhaps the country and world as well, if there were some indication of such a world beyond Manhattan). This subplot of doomed love and space-age trench warfare is tantalizing, not least because there is never a mention of any terrestrial conflict with China that would lead to the mine field the Americans and Russian cosmonauts face (perhaps a nasty floreclosure fight?).
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Bookfair wrapup and Broad Flea weekend
As always, the New Orleans Bookfair, held this past Saturday, November 7, was an absolute treat. Unlike some years, I was on my own, so I wasn't really able to experience it beyond my own station in Lazzizza's (the grape leaves are fantastic, pass on the falafel). But I had good ongoing company from fellow bookseller Donald Miller and poet and indpendent publisher Danny Kerwick, among others, and a steady flow of booklovers bound and determined to dispel my occasional dips into the swimming pool of chlorinated cynicism in the face of a world seemingly dominated by attention-span-challenged tweeters and intellectual Kindle-garteners and ignoramuses who haven't purchased a book since the end of the O.J. trial, ready to make a best-seller out of a woman whose mayoral tenure in Alaska included trying to intimidate the town librarian into censoring books. And now she's written... a book... that she wants us to read. Aaaaaahhh!
But I must remind myself that such things happen outside of our alternative universe here in New Orleans, and as soon as our local scientists have the force field ready (oh, shit! Forget I said that! Purely speculative!).... Anyway, as I was saying, the Bookfair was a rousing success on all fronts. Among the meandering autodidacts taking their personal evolution in their own hands were:
a young woman obsessed with Mexican art and murals who never reads nonfiction, and who was absolutely thrilled that I had a copy of Celine's Journey to the End of the Night (incidentally, I acquired that copy from a friend of partial Mexican ancestry);
two Catholic high school English teachers avoiding grading, wandering the Bookfair with a large quantity of affordable red wine, purchasing De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater;
a fascinating woman who attended the funeral Michael Harrington (perhaps this country's most important and effective socialist after Eugene Debs) and was passionate about the history and work of the Catholic Worker movement;
a very cool acquaintance who is writing about the application of Naomi Klein's disaster capitalism theory to post-Katrina New Orleans;
a young woman buying a book of Leonard Cohen's poetry and lyrics, inspired by a recent concert she saw of his in Asheville, eloquently talking about the inner peace he radiates singing songs which obviously originated in great emotional turbulence.
You sustain me, my friends.
Bestsellers for the day included Walker Percy, Leon Trotsky, Albert Camus, Tennessee Williams, Noam Chomsky, Aldous Huxley, Upton Sinclair, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick and John Steinbeck, many of them well-entrenched in the Greater New Orleans Bestseller List. In fact, the list saw the surprising ascendance of New Orleans native Walker Percy into a tie with Kurt Vonnegut at the top. I gotta admit, I didn't see it coming. I thought Vonnegut was a cinch for the title this year, but there are still a lot of sales to go. Here are the current standings, with previous rank in end parentheses:
1. (tie) Walker Percy (2)
1. (tie) Kurt Vonnegut (1)
3. Ray Bradbury (4)
4. Hermann Hesse (2)
5. George Orwell (4)
6. (tie) Albert Camus (8)
6. (tie) Aldous Huxley (unranked)
6. (tie) Star Trek (4)
9. (tie) Joseph Campbell (8)
9. (tie) Robert Heinlein (7)
9. (tie) James Joyce (8)
If anyone should stumble, Henry Miller, George Carlin, Ayn Rand, Anne Rice and Tennessee Williams are among those who could make a surge. Stay tuned to find out, or, for those who want to take a more active role in zeitgeist determination, come on out to Broad Flea this Saturday, November 14, from 11-4. This "affordable shopping adventure" is accompanied this weekend by the first annual Broad Street Brewhaha, "a celebration of the beer and coffee brewing traditions of New Orleans." Check out broadcommunityconnections.org for further details, or contact me at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com and I'll give you the skinny. Until then, keep reading.
But I must remind myself that such things happen outside of our alternative universe here in New Orleans, and as soon as our local scientists have the force field ready (oh, shit! Forget I said that! Purely speculative!).... Anyway, as I was saying, the Bookfair was a rousing success on all fronts. Among the meandering autodidacts taking their personal evolution in their own hands were:
a young woman obsessed with Mexican art and murals who never reads nonfiction, and who was absolutely thrilled that I had a copy of Celine's Journey to the End of the Night (incidentally, I acquired that copy from a friend of partial Mexican ancestry);
two Catholic high school English teachers avoiding grading, wandering the Bookfair with a large quantity of affordable red wine, purchasing De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater;
a fascinating woman who attended the funeral Michael Harrington (perhaps this country's most important and effective socialist after Eugene Debs) and was passionate about the history and work of the Catholic Worker movement;
a very cool acquaintance who is writing about the application of Naomi Klein's disaster capitalism theory to post-Katrina New Orleans;
a young woman buying a book of Leonard Cohen's poetry and lyrics, inspired by a recent concert she saw of his in Asheville, eloquently talking about the inner peace he radiates singing songs which obviously originated in great emotional turbulence.
You sustain me, my friends.
Bestsellers for the day included Walker Percy, Leon Trotsky, Albert Camus, Tennessee Williams, Noam Chomsky, Aldous Huxley, Upton Sinclair, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick and John Steinbeck, many of them well-entrenched in the Greater New Orleans Bestseller List. In fact, the list saw the surprising ascendance of New Orleans native Walker Percy into a tie with Kurt Vonnegut at the top. I gotta admit, I didn't see it coming. I thought Vonnegut was a cinch for the title this year, but there are still a lot of sales to go. Here are the current standings, with previous rank in end parentheses:
1. (tie) Walker Percy (2)
1. (tie) Kurt Vonnegut (1)
3. Ray Bradbury (4)
4. Hermann Hesse (2)
5. George Orwell (4)
6. (tie) Albert Camus (8)
6. (tie) Aldous Huxley (unranked)
6. (tie) Star Trek (4)
9. (tie) Joseph Campbell (8)
9. (tie) Robert Heinlein (7)
9. (tie) James Joyce (8)
If anyone should stumble, Henry Miller, George Carlin, Ayn Rand, Anne Rice and Tennessee Williams are among those who could make a surge. Stay tuned to find out, or, for those who want to take a more active role in zeitgeist determination, come on out to Broad Flea this Saturday, November 14, from 11-4. This "affordable shopping adventure" is accompanied this weekend by the first annual Broad Street Brewhaha, "a celebration of the beer and coffee brewing traditions of New Orleans." Check out broadcommunityconnections.org for further details, or contact me at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com and I'll give you the skinny. Until then, keep reading.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Ah, The Fall. The Bookfairest Time of Year in NOLA.
As I write this, we are four short days away from the 2009 edition of the New Orleans Bookfair, one of the best fests devoted to grassroots, independent writing and publishing that you will find anywhere. Lots of locals, as well as cutting-edge publishers like AK, MIT, Last Gasp. Plenty of readings, although the website (nolabookfair.com) doesn't have a schedule listed at this time. And Deep South Samizdat Books will be in the house. Bookfair venues are located around the 500-600 blocks of Frenchmen St., in the Marigny neighborhood, just outside of the French Quarter, and Deep South Samizdat will be conducting business from inside Lazziza, at 2106 Chartres St., which intersects with Frenchmen.
This will be my sixth Bookfair, having first attended as a vendor in 2004, just a few months after moving back to Louisiana from Oregon. I had worked at Powell's Books in Portland for six years, and was dipping my toes into the waters of guerrilla bookselling, independent of a brick-and-mortar location. The Bookfair has always emphasized its radical political bonafides, and I was just coming out of the political hothouse of Portland, eating and breathing union and homeless and poverty activism on a daily basis. We were in Shreveport, finding our way in a political culture that was a tad less highly charged, shall we say, even in a presidential election season featuring that king of charisma, John Kerry (the man who could make Hubert Humphrey look like Fighting Bob LaFolette [and if you don't get that reference, you need to march yourself over to the Deep South Samizdat book table at 2106 Chartres St. on Saturday]).
This was when the Bookfair was still at Barrister's Gallery, and I immediately found a bookselling home. I have since expanded my guerrilla bookselling empire to various markets in New Orleans and the temporary autonomous entrepreuneurial zone of the internet (at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks), but always plan my fall around the Bookfair.
Of course, it was just one year after my first Bookfair that Katrina struck, with the 2005 set approximately two months after. If my recollection is correct, it was originally cancelled, then reinstated. My wife and I had only been as far as Jefferson Parish since the hurricane, clearing awaying downed branches at my in-law's Metairie home, spared by the worst. It was a sobering experience driving into the city, and even more sobering were the stories by the relatively sparse crowd, subdued numerically and emotionally. Books are, of course, some of the most fragile possessions in the face of any natural disaster, and it was as moving as anything I have done as a bookseller to be able to provide a few replacements of lost treasures. It was also humbling to see the inspiring work that had been done by the volunteers, many of whom had tapped time and energy reserves unknown to most of us. Just two months after.
Anyway, the Bookfair means a lot to me, not least because my local bookselling buddy Donald Miller would tell me every year that we needed to move down here from Shreveport, that the opportunities were plentiful. He was right, of course, as Deep South Samizdat Books can be found at the following markets in the next two months:
Nov. 7 New Orleans Bookfair
Nov. 14 Broad St. Flea Market
Nov. 21 Elysian Fleas
Dec. 5 Freret Market
Dec. 12 Freretstivus Market and Broad St. Flea Market (augghh!)
Dec. 19 Elysian Fleas
And for those of you shopping online, look at the above-posted url for some exciting new additions, including: several volumes by hard-boiled African-American crime fiction master Chester Himes; works by Alain Robbe-Grillet, Primo Levi, Anna Deveare Smith, Blaise Cendrars, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Ayn Rand; and biographical works about Che Guevara, Angela Davis and Akira Kurosawa. Check it out.
This will be my sixth Bookfair, having first attended as a vendor in 2004, just a few months after moving back to Louisiana from Oregon. I had worked at Powell's Books in Portland for six years, and was dipping my toes into the waters of guerrilla bookselling, independent of a brick-and-mortar location. The Bookfair has always emphasized its radical political bonafides, and I was just coming out of the political hothouse of Portland, eating and breathing union and homeless and poverty activism on a daily basis. We were in Shreveport, finding our way in a political culture that was a tad less highly charged, shall we say, even in a presidential election season featuring that king of charisma, John Kerry (the man who could make Hubert Humphrey look like Fighting Bob LaFolette [and if you don't get that reference, you need to march yourself over to the Deep South Samizdat book table at 2106 Chartres St. on Saturday]).
This was when the Bookfair was still at Barrister's Gallery, and I immediately found a bookselling home. I have since expanded my guerrilla bookselling empire to various markets in New Orleans and the temporary autonomous entrepreuneurial zone of the internet (at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks), but always plan my fall around the Bookfair.
Of course, it was just one year after my first Bookfair that Katrina struck, with the 2005 set approximately two months after. If my recollection is correct, it was originally cancelled, then reinstated. My wife and I had only been as far as Jefferson Parish since the hurricane, clearing awaying downed branches at my in-law's Metairie home, spared by the worst. It was a sobering experience driving into the city, and even more sobering were the stories by the relatively sparse crowd, subdued numerically and emotionally. Books are, of course, some of the most fragile possessions in the face of any natural disaster, and it was as moving as anything I have done as a bookseller to be able to provide a few replacements of lost treasures. It was also humbling to see the inspiring work that had been done by the volunteers, many of whom had tapped time and energy reserves unknown to most of us. Just two months after.
Anyway, the Bookfair means a lot to me, not least because my local bookselling buddy Donald Miller would tell me every year that we needed to move down here from Shreveport, that the opportunities were plentiful. He was right, of course, as Deep South Samizdat Books can be found at the following markets in the next two months:
Nov. 7 New Orleans Bookfair
Nov. 14 Broad St. Flea Market
Nov. 21 Elysian Fleas
Dec. 5 Freret Market
Dec. 12 Freretstivus Market and Broad St. Flea Market (augghh!)
Dec. 19 Elysian Fleas
And for those of you shopping online, look at the above-posted url for some exciting new additions, including: several volumes by hard-boiled African-American crime fiction master Chester Himes; works by Alain Robbe-Grillet, Primo Levi, Anna Deveare Smith, Blaise Cendrars, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Ayn Rand; and biographical works about Che Guevara, Angela Davis and Akira Kurosawa. Check it out.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Many of you probably know that, after I compose a new blog post, I get the word out through Facebook, after which there is typically a noticeable uptick in activity, followed by a fraction of a second brownout along the Eastern Seaboard as discerning readers rush to Blogspot in search of the latest nuggets of wisdom and insight. Well, on a recent Facebook post, I posed the hypothetical question of whether I, based on some of my writings, could possibly be the biggest nerd on the blogosphere. Well the response was electric, with responses pouring in from all over the country (or at least three different parishes in Louisiana), as well as the Iberian Peninsula. Plus, my wife informally weighed in when I was explaining the origin and publishing history of the DC Comics character Swamp Thing. Unfortunately, I misinterpreted a couple of the early responses and created some confusion while tabulating the results, and I would like to clarify those results at this time.
On the question of my stature as a blogosphere-inhabiting nerd, there were two (2) votes of a resounding yes, one withholding of judgment until a later date, and one passionate assertion that I should not limit the breadth of my nerdiness merely to the blogosphere. As I am committed to keeping the polls open until a clear consensus has been reached on this important issue, I have decided to remove myself as much as possible from the task of overseeing the counting of votes, and have recruited experience professionals. Owing to their work observing elections internationally and performing heroic diplomatic missions, I contacted the Carter Center in Atlanta, founded by Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. I was told politely that their docket was full, particularly with the impending Afghan runoff, but they directed me to a less prestigious institution, the Billy Carter Center for International Diplomacy and 24-hour Roadside Assistance, operating out of Earl's Bait and Ammo in Dead Yankee Hollow, Alabama since 1993. I have complete confidence in their ability to accomplish this task with all the integrity and vigilance regular readers of this blog have come to appreciate and deserve over the last few months.
After a busy few weeks of markets in New Orleans, I am proud to present the October 20 edition of the Greater New Orleans Market Bestseller List. These are the bestselling authors or series from flea markets, festivals and bazaars throughout the Greater New Orleans area in 2009. Here was the last list, from early October:
1. Kurt Vonnegut
2. Star Trek
3. (tie) Ray Bradbury
3. (tie) Walker Percy
5. Albert Camus
6. (tie) Robert Heinlein
6. (tie) Hermann Hesse
6. (tie) Aldous Huxley
6. (tie) James Joyce
6. (tie) George Orwell
6. (tie) J.D. Salinger
6. (tie) Clifford Simak
As of late October, here is how it stands:
1. Kurt Vonnegut
2. (tie) Hermann Hesse
2. (tie) Walker Percy
4. (tie) Ray Bradbury
4. (tie) George Orwell
4. (tie) Star Trek
7. Robert Heinlein
8. (tie) Joseph Campbell
8. (tie) Albert Camus
8. (tie) James Joyce
8. (tie) Henry Miller
Alright, I want everyone to exhale now, I realize that was pretty exciting. For future reference, a brown paper bag beside your computer might be handy in case of overexcited hyperventilation. As you can see, Huxley, Salinger and Simak all have left the list, while mythologist Joseph Campbell and bawdy raconteur Henry Miller have made their first appearances. Hermann Hesse seems to have made the biggest surge of the past few weeks, but Kurt Vonnegut's lead still looks very secure at this time. The most glaring pattern, of course, is the Anglo/American/ European dominance of the list, with the partial exception of the Algerian/French Camus. Chinua Achebe, Ayn Rand and Anne Rice all could potentially change that dynamic, but that is dependent on the literate consumers coming out to the markets for the rest of 2009.
Speaking of which, don't forget the 2009 New Orleans Bookfair, coming up on Saturday, November 7. Deep South Samizdat Books has been a fixture for five years now, and it is always great fun. See nolabookfair.com for further details.
Finally, we at Deep South Samizdat Books have been busy adding to our online inventory. See exciting and affordable new offerings from the likes of Henry Miller, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Ward Churchill, Edward Said, Howard Zinn, e.e. cummings and others at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks. And email me at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com with any questions, comments, philosophical musings and the like. Peace, y'all.
On the question of my stature as a blogosphere-inhabiting nerd, there were two (2) votes of a resounding yes, one withholding of judgment until a later date, and one passionate assertion that I should not limit the breadth of my nerdiness merely to the blogosphere. As I am committed to keeping the polls open until a clear consensus has been reached on this important issue, I have decided to remove myself as much as possible from the task of overseeing the counting of votes, and have recruited experience professionals. Owing to their work observing elections internationally and performing heroic diplomatic missions, I contacted the Carter Center in Atlanta, founded by Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. I was told politely that their docket was full, particularly with the impending Afghan runoff, but they directed me to a less prestigious institution, the Billy Carter Center for International Diplomacy and 24-hour Roadside Assistance, operating out of Earl's Bait and Ammo in Dead Yankee Hollow, Alabama since 1993. I have complete confidence in their ability to accomplish this task with all the integrity and vigilance regular readers of this blog have come to appreciate and deserve over the last few months.
After a busy few weeks of markets in New Orleans, I am proud to present the October 20 edition of the Greater New Orleans Market Bestseller List. These are the bestselling authors or series from flea markets, festivals and bazaars throughout the Greater New Orleans area in 2009. Here was the last list, from early October:
1. Kurt Vonnegut
2. Star Trek
3. (tie) Ray Bradbury
3. (tie) Walker Percy
5. Albert Camus
6. (tie) Robert Heinlein
6. (tie) Hermann Hesse
6. (tie) Aldous Huxley
6. (tie) James Joyce
6. (tie) George Orwell
6. (tie) J.D. Salinger
6. (tie) Clifford Simak
As of late October, here is how it stands:
1. Kurt Vonnegut
2. (tie) Hermann Hesse
2. (tie) Walker Percy
4. (tie) Ray Bradbury
4. (tie) George Orwell
4. (tie) Star Trek
7. Robert Heinlein
8. (tie) Joseph Campbell
8. (tie) Albert Camus
8. (tie) James Joyce
8. (tie) Henry Miller
Alright, I want everyone to exhale now, I realize that was pretty exciting. For future reference, a brown paper bag beside your computer might be handy in case of overexcited hyperventilation. As you can see, Huxley, Salinger and Simak all have left the list, while mythologist Joseph Campbell and bawdy raconteur Henry Miller have made their first appearances. Hermann Hesse seems to have made the biggest surge of the past few weeks, but Kurt Vonnegut's lead still looks very secure at this time. The most glaring pattern, of course, is the Anglo/American/ European dominance of the list, with the partial exception of the Algerian/French Camus. Chinua Achebe, Ayn Rand and Anne Rice all could potentially change that dynamic, but that is dependent on the literate consumers coming out to the markets for the rest of 2009.
Speaking of which, don't forget the 2009 New Orleans Bookfair, coming up on Saturday, November 7. Deep South Samizdat Books has been a fixture for five years now, and it is always great fun. See nolabookfair.com for further details.
Finally, we at Deep South Samizdat Books have been busy adding to our online inventory. See exciting and affordable new offerings from the likes of Henry Miller, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Ward Churchill, Edward Said, Howard Zinn, e.e. cummings and others at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks. And email me at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com with any questions, comments, philosophical musings and the like. Peace, y'all.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Fall Reading
What looked to be a profitable weekend turned out to be a rain-soaked fiasco. Not even a hard rain either. Just enough drizzle for just long enough each day to make people reconsider their plans. Oh, well, we'll try again next week.
Meanwhile, the finished books have been piling up, and I'm sure many of you have been delaying your own trips to your local library or independent bookstore until you got the good word about some new releases. Well, your fervent requests (other known as the voices in my head) have been heard, and although I refuse to do anything for the voice that keeps demanding I do physical harm to Gerald Ford (or is it Chevy Chase playing Gerald Ford?), I can accommodate the rest of you.
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge
by Josh Neufeld
Pantheon Books
24.95
Believe me, I was very much predisposed to love this book, a graphic novelization of the experiences of five New Orleanians just before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. Artists like Marjane Satrapi and Joe Sacco have produced masterpieces of the genre illuminating the political complexities of revolutionary Iran, beseiged Palestine and war-torn Bosnia through personal stories and compelling visuals. And I think this book would have been more effective, and viscerally jarring, if published sooner after the fact.
Of the five stories, two (those of high schooler Kwame and French Quarter resident "The Doctor") are treated quite superficially and probably could have been edited out. The other three have their riveting moments, but nothing really new is added to the creative/literary discourse. Leo and Michelle are both described as having grown up in the city, and Denise is identified as a sixth-generation New Orleanian, but I never felt their personal or family histories with the city through their dialogue or actions.
I don't think there is any doubt that a great graphic novel can be written about the Katrina experience, whether intensely personal or grander in sweep. But I would argue that it hasn't been written yet.
1959: The Year Everything Changed
by Fred Kaplan
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
27.95
I approached this book with a fair amount of skepticism, hoping the emphasis on the year wouldn't come across as gimmicky. 1968, for instance, has been responsible for the slaughter of how many innocent forests over the last 40-plus years (the fact that it happens to be the year I was born is purely coincidence, I'm sure)? And let's not forget Bernard De Voto's 1846, or the year 1919, or 1989, other years that have had books devoted to them. But I could think of enough intriguing associations with 1959 (the Beats, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, seminal recordings by Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman) to give it a try, and I'm glad I did.
Kaplan, a Slate columnist, skillfully shows the breathtaking volume of cultural, political and technological change within the twelve-month period while resisting the temptation to force connections between them. While the launch of Sputnik looms large in the conventional history of the time, could one make the argument that the development of the microchip and the birth control pill were just as significant in terms of social evolution? What about economic impact? How to quantify such things?
The contributions of the late 1960's are often reduced by the cultural shorthand into the narrow catefgories of politics and music, but Kaplan's accounting of the accomplishments of 1959 are simply remarkable: Martin Luther King and Malcolm X made life-changing trips to India and the Middle East, respectively; Fidel Castro made a triumphant visit to New York; Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come and John Coltrane's Giant Steps were recorded in the same freaking month, for God's sake (just two months after Coleman played on Davis' Kind of Blue; to me, that's like a scenario where Jimi Hendrix played on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and then turned around and recorded Are You Experienced. It just doesn't happen!).
But what about the books, Parker, what about the books? William Burroughs' surreal Beat masterpiece Naked Lunch, Norman Mailer's Advertisements For Myself (not his best work, but a crucial one in Mailer's transition from straightforward novelist to the New Journalism of Armies of the Night and Miami and the Siege of Chicago), and, unmentioned by Kaplan, Kerouac's Subterraneans, an autobiographical account of the author's interracial romance. Speaking of which, Kerouac wrote the introduction to Robert Frank's The Americans, a book of stark black-and-white photographs by the Swiss immigrant with a Guggenhiem Fellowship, pictures in dramatic contrast to the Mad Men-propogated glamor of the era: "He (Frank) saw the way people sat side by side at lunch counters without exchanging a word or even looking at one another. He grasped the sheer oddity of the drive-in theater, where people watched movies--by nature a communal experience--in the isolation of their cars. He took a close look at the massive auto factories, where workers were just another set of cogs in the machinery. And he gazed in horror at segregation in the South and the strange hypocricies it produced," (p. 185).
So read this book. And then read Lady Chatterley's Lover, marveling at the fact that it couldn't be legally brought into this country before 1959. Order Shadows from Netflix, dig out the Dave Brubeck and Lenny Bruce albums (now there's a man who died for his society's sins), and reflect on the last 50 years. Oh, yeah, the first two American soldiers died in Vietnam that year, as the United States government and military embarked on an effort to prop up an illegitimate and unpopular puppet regime by force, to the disastrous detriment of our and their country. I guess maybe not everything changes, after all.
Meanwhile, the finished books have been piling up, and I'm sure many of you have been delaying your own trips to your local library or independent bookstore until you got the good word about some new releases. Well, your fervent requests (other known as the voices in my head) have been heard, and although I refuse to do anything for the voice that keeps demanding I do physical harm to Gerald Ford (or is it Chevy Chase playing Gerald Ford?), I can accommodate the rest of you.
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge
by Josh Neufeld
Pantheon Books
24.95
Believe me, I was very much predisposed to love this book, a graphic novelization of the experiences of five New Orleanians just before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. Artists like Marjane Satrapi and Joe Sacco have produced masterpieces of the genre illuminating the political complexities of revolutionary Iran, beseiged Palestine and war-torn Bosnia through personal stories and compelling visuals. And I think this book would have been more effective, and viscerally jarring, if published sooner after the fact.
Of the five stories, two (those of high schooler Kwame and French Quarter resident "The Doctor") are treated quite superficially and probably could have been edited out. The other three have their riveting moments, but nothing really new is added to the creative/literary discourse. Leo and Michelle are both described as having grown up in the city, and Denise is identified as a sixth-generation New Orleanian, but I never felt their personal or family histories with the city through their dialogue or actions.
I don't think there is any doubt that a great graphic novel can be written about the Katrina experience, whether intensely personal or grander in sweep. But I would argue that it hasn't been written yet.
1959: The Year Everything Changed
by Fred Kaplan
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
27.95
I approached this book with a fair amount of skepticism, hoping the emphasis on the year wouldn't come across as gimmicky. 1968, for instance, has been responsible for the slaughter of how many innocent forests over the last 40-plus years (the fact that it happens to be the year I was born is purely coincidence, I'm sure)? And let's not forget Bernard De Voto's 1846, or the year 1919, or 1989, other years that have had books devoted to them. But I could think of enough intriguing associations with 1959 (the Beats, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, seminal recordings by Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman) to give it a try, and I'm glad I did.
Kaplan, a Slate columnist, skillfully shows the breathtaking volume of cultural, political and technological change within the twelve-month period while resisting the temptation to force connections between them. While the launch of Sputnik looms large in the conventional history of the time, could one make the argument that the development of the microchip and the birth control pill were just as significant in terms of social evolution? What about economic impact? How to quantify such things?
The contributions of the late 1960's are often reduced by the cultural shorthand into the narrow catefgories of politics and music, but Kaplan's accounting of the accomplishments of 1959 are simply remarkable: Martin Luther King and Malcolm X made life-changing trips to India and the Middle East, respectively; Fidel Castro made a triumphant visit to New York; Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come and John Coltrane's Giant Steps were recorded in the same freaking month, for God's sake (just two months after Coleman played on Davis' Kind of Blue; to me, that's like a scenario where Jimi Hendrix played on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and then turned around and recorded Are You Experienced. It just doesn't happen!).
But what about the books, Parker, what about the books? William Burroughs' surreal Beat masterpiece Naked Lunch, Norman Mailer's Advertisements For Myself (not his best work, but a crucial one in Mailer's transition from straightforward novelist to the New Journalism of Armies of the Night and Miami and the Siege of Chicago), and, unmentioned by Kaplan, Kerouac's Subterraneans, an autobiographical account of the author's interracial romance. Speaking of which, Kerouac wrote the introduction to Robert Frank's The Americans, a book of stark black-and-white photographs by the Swiss immigrant with a Guggenhiem Fellowship, pictures in dramatic contrast to the Mad Men-propogated glamor of the era: "He (Frank) saw the way people sat side by side at lunch counters without exchanging a word or even looking at one another. He grasped the sheer oddity of the drive-in theater, where people watched movies--by nature a communal experience--in the isolation of their cars. He took a close look at the massive auto factories, where workers were just another set of cogs in the machinery. And he gazed in horror at segregation in the South and the strange hypocricies it produced," (p. 185).
So read this book. And then read Lady Chatterley's Lover, marveling at the fact that it couldn't be legally brought into this country before 1959. Order Shadows from Netflix, dig out the Dave Brubeck and Lenny Bruce albums (now there's a man who died for his society's sins), and reflect on the last 50 years. Oh, yeah, the first two American soldiers died in Vietnam that year, as the United States government and military embarked on an effort to prop up an illegitimate and unpopular puppet regime by force, to the disastrous detriment of our and their country. I guess maybe not everything changes, after all.
Monday, October 5, 2009
First Love and a New Flame
The stars were in alignment for last Saturday's Freret Market. Heavy rain Friday morning and all day Sunday, but a beautiful day in between, high of about 83-85, overcast clouds fluctuating with bright sunshine, and a good day for Deep South Samizdat Books and all the beautiful people daring to take control of their own personal evolution, refusing to succumb to the temptations of the twittering (I)pod people with their stunted attention spans that would embarass a hummingbird.
Sorry about that tirade, I must be channeling the still very much alive Harlan Ellison, the subject of the great documentary Dreams With Sharp Teeth, directed by Erik Nelson. For those who don't know, Ellison is a writer and editor who works primarily in science fiction, his favored forms being short stories, essays and teleplays, all of which he has won numerous awards for. His short stories include the unarguable modern classics "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," and "Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman," and his novella "A Boy and His Dog" was made into a cult classic movie starring a very young Don Johnson and the dog from the Brady Bunch.
I discovered Ellison, like oh so many, as a teenager, and I would identify him as my first favorite writer. Much of his work was still in print in mass market and trade paperback editions, and I would pick them up at B. Dalton in the mall (there's a blast from the past for you, huh?). Before I read Vonnegut or Kerouac or Ginsberg or Hesse or even Philip K. Dick, I read Ellison, and my mind was twisted and molded in so many formative ways by his themes and his passion. "I Have No Mouth" depicts a technologically distopian future in which the victorious machines are even more sadistic than Terminator and more godlike than the Matrix, while "Repent" is a brilliant broadside against the tyranny of punctuality. But just as important to this reader were the introductions, in which Ellison settled scores, expressed his political opinions, praised mentors and lamented the intellectual deterioration of the times. They were often eruditely vulgar, like the best of Lenny Bruce or George Carlin, and they took no prisoners. Ellison marched from Selma to Montgomery for civil rights, opposed the Vietnam War, campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment, and evidently came very close to a physical confrontation with Frank Sinatra in the mid-60's. The man is unapologetically left liberal, and would make a great talk radio host (for at least a few hours, until he had a heart attack [not his first, I might add]).
Friends and colleagues, including Neil Gaiman and Robin Williams, are featured in the documentary, which is pretty straightforward in its construction (talking heads, archival footage, biographical info, contextual analysis), with some great readings from the author's work and some choice rants. If I can actually let go of it and release it back to Netflix, you can even get it from them soon.
And now to my new flame. Musician and author Ned Sublette has released two remarkable books about New Orleans in as many years, both absolute jewels of both monk-like meticulousness of research and heart-on-the sleeve personal engagement. Both were the direct result of a research fellowship at Tulane, an investment the university should be profoundly proud of.
The World That Made New Orleans (Lawrence Hill Books) was released in 2008, and is a densely comprehensive history of the city's first century. Sublette has been affiliated with the radio program Afropop Worldwide for many years, and has written extensively about Cuban music and culture, and emphasizes the connections between that island nation, Haiti and New Orleans as provocatively as he does the more obvious complexities of the relationships with Spain, France and finally the United States. The subtleties of the different cultures' conceptions of slavery are sublime, and expressed with a masterful balance between scholarly objectivity and appropriate moral outrage, particularly the explanation of the utter centrality of slave trading to the antebellum Southern economy. Not as a mere component of the agrarian system, mind you, but the buying and selling, and particularly breeding, of human laborers, as the linchpin itself.
Sublette also considers the importance of New Orleans as a historical crossroads of the crucial revolutions of the 18th century: American, French, and... if you said Haitian, you win the prize. The author's description of the events of the Haitian Revolution are an incredibly concise history lesson, rendering that country's more recent tortured history that much more tragic.
The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans (Lawrence Hill Books, 2009) is the more personal of the two books, combining personal memoir with an account of the time that Sublette and his wife spent in the city during his fellowship year, framed by the festivals, celebrations and funerals which he argues frame the time of the city in its unique way.
Sublette spent some years of his childhood in Nachitoches, and describes Jim Crow north Louisiana in vivid anecdotal detail. He says at one point that he learned at an early age that movies would lie to him and music would tell the truth, and he deftly analyzes the effect of both mediums on him. He also provides a great overview of the unique Shreveport music scene of the 1950's, centered around the all-white Louisiana Hayride, the black blues and r'n'b scenes, and the gambling dens and strip clubs in Bossier City where the two would clandestinely mix.
There is no question that Sublette brings great affection and appreciation to his portrait of New Orleans, but I would argue that it's strength is magnified by the reticence that is ever-present, as well. Much is made of the contrasts between New Orleans and Sublette's home city of New York, where it seems as if more of his life is centered around walking and around the night, both of which seem potentially perilous in his temporary Irish Channel neighborhood. That discussion, as well, is handled with grace and appropriately-directed anger at the dynamics responsible.
Finally, there are several fascinating asides to this memoir, where a particular New Orleans institution is put under a microscope and dissected respectfully by this guerrilla anthropologist. I learned a great deal about the history of WWOZ and the development of the unique New Orleans rap scene and its contributions, for example, and Sublette's experience of Mardi Gras melds the personal, political and historical humorously and exhaustingly enough that it will bring back memories (mine included drinking High Life on the couch outside the Maple Leaf at the end of Mardi Gras Day, bikes propped against the wall, mission accomplished).
Alright, enough already. No one's paying me for this yet, and I should get to bed, so I'll be fresh for my phone call from the New York Review of Books tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. The next post will include the updated Great New Orleans Market Bestsellers List. I know, I know, it's overdue, but you'll just have to be patient. Peace, y'all.
Sorry about that tirade, I must be channeling the still very much alive Harlan Ellison, the subject of the great documentary Dreams With Sharp Teeth, directed by Erik Nelson. For those who don't know, Ellison is a writer and editor who works primarily in science fiction, his favored forms being short stories, essays and teleplays, all of which he has won numerous awards for. His short stories include the unarguable modern classics "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," and "Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman," and his novella "A Boy and His Dog" was made into a cult classic movie starring a very young Don Johnson and the dog from the Brady Bunch.
I discovered Ellison, like oh so many, as a teenager, and I would identify him as my first favorite writer. Much of his work was still in print in mass market and trade paperback editions, and I would pick them up at B. Dalton in the mall (there's a blast from the past for you, huh?). Before I read Vonnegut or Kerouac or Ginsberg or Hesse or even Philip K. Dick, I read Ellison, and my mind was twisted and molded in so many formative ways by his themes and his passion. "I Have No Mouth" depicts a technologically distopian future in which the victorious machines are even more sadistic than Terminator and more godlike than the Matrix, while "Repent" is a brilliant broadside against the tyranny of punctuality. But just as important to this reader were the introductions, in which Ellison settled scores, expressed his political opinions, praised mentors and lamented the intellectual deterioration of the times. They were often eruditely vulgar, like the best of Lenny Bruce or George Carlin, and they took no prisoners. Ellison marched from Selma to Montgomery for civil rights, opposed the Vietnam War, campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment, and evidently came very close to a physical confrontation with Frank Sinatra in the mid-60's. The man is unapologetically left liberal, and would make a great talk radio host (for at least a few hours, until he had a heart attack [not his first, I might add]).
Friends and colleagues, including Neil Gaiman and Robin Williams, are featured in the documentary, which is pretty straightforward in its construction (talking heads, archival footage, biographical info, contextual analysis), with some great readings from the author's work and some choice rants. If I can actually let go of it and release it back to Netflix, you can even get it from them soon.
And now to my new flame. Musician and author Ned Sublette has released two remarkable books about New Orleans in as many years, both absolute jewels of both monk-like meticulousness of research and heart-on-the sleeve personal engagement. Both were the direct result of a research fellowship at Tulane, an investment the university should be profoundly proud of.
The World That Made New Orleans (Lawrence Hill Books) was released in 2008, and is a densely comprehensive history of the city's first century. Sublette has been affiliated with the radio program Afropop Worldwide for many years, and has written extensively about Cuban music and culture, and emphasizes the connections between that island nation, Haiti and New Orleans as provocatively as he does the more obvious complexities of the relationships with Spain, France and finally the United States. The subtleties of the different cultures' conceptions of slavery are sublime, and expressed with a masterful balance between scholarly objectivity and appropriate moral outrage, particularly the explanation of the utter centrality of slave trading to the antebellum Southern economy. Not as a mere component of the agrarian system, mind you, but the buying and selling, and particularly breeding, of human laborers, as the linchpin itself.
Sublette also considers the importance of New Orleans as a historical crossroads of the crucial revolutions of the 18th century: American, French, and... if you said Haitian, you win the prize. The author's description of the events of the Haitian Revolution are an incredibly concise history lesson, rendering that country's more recent tortured history that much more tragic.
The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans (Lawrence Hill Books, 2009) is the more personal of the two books, combining personal memoir with an account of the time that Sublette and his wife spent in the city during his fellowship year, framed by the festivals, celebrations and funerals which he argues frame the time of the city in its unique way.
Sublette spent some years of his childhood in Nachitoches, and describes Jim Crow north Louisiana in vivid anecdotal detail. He says at one point that he learned at an early age that movies would lie to him and music would tell the truth, and he deftly analyzes the effect of both mediums on him. He also provides a great overview of the unique Shreveport music scene of the 1950's, centered around the all-white Louisiana Hayride, the black blues and r'n'b scenes, and the gambling dens and strip clubs in Bossier City where the two would clandestinely mix.
There is no question that Sublette brings great affection and appreciation to his portrait of New Orleans, but I would argue that it's strength is magnified by the reticence that is ever-present, as well. Much is made of the contrasts between New Orleans and Sublette's home city of New York, where it seems as if more of his life is centered around walking and around the night, both of which seem potentially perilous in his temporary Irish Channel neighborhood. That discussion, as well, is handled with grace and appropriately-directed anger at the dynamics responsible.
Finally, there are several fascinating asides to this memoir, where a particular New Orleans institution is put under a microscope and dissected respectfully by this guerrilla anthropologist. I learned a great deal about the history of WWOZ and the development of the unique New Orleans rap scene and its contributions, for example, and Sublette's experience of Mardi Gras melds the personal, political and historical humorously and exhaustingly enough that it will bring back memories (mine included drinking High Life on the couch outside the Maple Leaf at the end of Mardi Gras Day, bikes propped against the wall, mission accomplished).
Alright, enough already. No one's paying me for this yet, and I should get to bed, so I'll be fresh for my phone call from the New York Review of Books tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. The next post will include the updated Great New Orleans Market Bestsellers List. I know, I know, it's overdue, but you'll just have to be patient. Peace, y'all.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Twain Notes and New Arrivals
I had a very unusual 21st-century experience yesterday. My wife, the beautiful and talented Sheila, had to be in Baton Rouge for the day, which meant she needed to take the one car and the one laptop computer. So Zora, our homeschooled nine-year-old daughter, and I, were facing a day without those two resources we so take for granted. We would be unable to complete usual around-town chores (grocery store, post office, any kind of homeschooling-related outing). I would be unable to check e-mail, Amazon.com book sales, regularly-browsed websites. This was for a grand total of about eight hours, mind you. Not exactly emotional deprivation, but it was still a bit disorienting. So I mowed the lawn, cooked turnip greens for the first time (they do cook down, don't they?), took care of household chores, helped Zora with her Huck Finn project.
Zora and I recently finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, on the heels of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I honestly cannot remember if I read them in early school years, definitely not in college, so it's all as fresh to these 41-year-old ears as it was to Zora's. Both novels, but Huck Finn especially, are remarkable snapshots of the antebellum United States, with Huck and Jim's archetypal journey down the Mississippi providing this homeschooling father ample opportunity to explore history, geography, sociology, psychology (particularly with Huck's continual agonizing over his role in helping Jim escape slavery, his assumption that what he is doing not only violates the social and legal mores of his day, but is immoral in the very eyes of God). Besides slavery, explanations were required for temperance, mesmerism, tent revivals, tarring and feathering and other mid-19th-century cultural artifacts.
The casual literacy of Huck and Tom also made an impression. Neither would be mistaken for a model scholar, and yet both are accomplished readers, with Tom especially having a thorough grounding in Western literature and mythology, from the Bible to tales of pirates, legendary outlaws and fallen nobles. The details are often a bit muddled, to comic effect, but the basic appreciation is there. I can't speak for pedagogical accomplishments in Middle America at this time, but I have a feeling that Twain would drop some hints if he were exaggerating what would be the typical mastery of boys their age.
Now, I can't say much about the project Zora is working on, because we're keeping it a secret from her mama until we're finished, and there is always a slight chance, miniscule if you will, a chance so microscopically insignificant that it would require the most cutting-edge electron microscopic nanotechnology, but a chance nonetheless.... that my wife would actually read this before the project is complete. But we came to a point where research was required. Sans laptop, we packed up what we needed and walked a few blocks to the Rosedale Branch of the Jefferson Parish Library. Small neighborhood library, great staff, always being utilized by members of the local community. As almost always, all of their computers were occupied, as well, so we explored the reference shelves, where Zora was exposed to the exotic volumes of World Book and Britannica. That's right, can you say it with me..... En-cy-clo-frickin'-pedias.
Memory lane, my friends. We had three different volumes out, cross-referencing with the dictionary, piecing together our arcane puzzle, turning pages without the help of google or yahoo or goohoo or yoohoo or any of the rest of them, intoxicated by the purity of the hand/eye/brain coordination, pitying those whose retinas were undoubtedly being scanned by eavesdropping 33rd-degree Freemason Rosicrucian NSA agents guarding the last surviving members of the Warren Commission in some underground silo underneath the Library of Congress ("They think they're harassing the real Arlen Specter at that town meeting! The real Arlen Specter is in this cell right behind me! Magic bullet, my ass! Mwaaah ha ha ha!").
Oh, God, where was I, now, and why are all of these empty wine cooler bottles at my feet? Anyway, as I said in my previous post, I acquired many new books on my recent trip to Shreveport, and the virtual shelves of Deep South Samizdat Books (accessible anytime at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks) are bursting with new arrivals. Most came from the Centenary College Book Bazaar, while several dozen came from the catacombs of North Louisiana bookseller Chris Fowler-Sandlin, whose attractively-maintained DeVere Books site can be found on Ebay at stores.shop.ebay.com/DeVere-Books. Check it out.
Among the Deep South Samizdat arrivals, look for highly affordable volumes by Philip K. Dick, Henry Miller and Kurt Vonnegut; a rich vein of poetry by Billy Collins, Denise Levertov, James Merrill and Grace Paley, among others; great pulp tales of Conan and Gor; and some of the more obscure gems by Robert Heinlein and Hunter Thompson. And for those of you in the Greater New Orleans area this fall, come see me at the Freret Market and Broad St. Flea Market for some classic New Orleans and Louisiana titles that I'm keeping out of Amazon.com for the time being. Think Saxon, Hearn, Keyes, Chase. More details as we get closer to the Freret Festival on October 3.
As always, comments, critiques, "Mike, you ignorant slut!" are always welcome at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com. Peace, y'all.
Zora and I recently finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, on the heels of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I honestly cannot remember if I read them in early school years, definitely not in college, so it's all as fresh to these 41-year-old ears as it was to Zora's. Both novels, but Huck Finn especially, are remarkable snapshots of the antebellum United States, with Huck and Jim's archetypal journey down the Mississippi providing this homeschooling father ample opportunity to explore history, geography, sociology, psychology (particularly with Huck's continual agonizing over his role in helping Jim escape slavery, his assumption that what he is doing not only violates the social and legal mores of his day, but is immoral in the very eyes of God). Besides slavery, explanations were required for temperance, mesmerism, tent revivals, tarring and feathering and other mid-19th-century cultural artifacts.
The casual literacy of Huck and Tom also made an impression. Neither would be mistaken for a model scholar, and yet both are accomplished readers, with Tom especially having a thorough grounding in Western literature and mythology, from the Bible to tales of pirates, legendary outlaws and fallen nobles. The details are often a bit muddled, to comic effect, but the basic appreciation is there. I can't speak for pedagogical accomplishments in Middle America at this time, but I have a feeling that Twain would drop some hints if he were exaggerating what would be the typical mastery of boys their age.
Now, I can't say much about the project Zora is working on, because we're keeping it a secret from her mama until we're finished, and there is always a slight chance, miniscule if you will, a chance so microscopically insignificant that it would require the most cutting-edge electron microscopic nanotechnology, but a chance nonetheless.... that my wife would actually read this before the project is complete. But we came to a point where research was required. Sans laptop, we packed up what we needed and walked a few blocks to the Rosedale Branch of the Jefferson Parish Library. Small neighborhood library, great staff, always being utilized by members of the local community. As almost always, all of their computers were occupied, as well, so we explored the reference shelves, where Zora was exposed to the exotic volumes of World Book and Britannica. That's right, can you say it with me..... En-cy-clo-frickin'-pedias.
Memory lane, my friends. We had three different volumes out, cross-referencing with the dictionary, piecing together our arcane puzzle, turning pages without the help of google or yahoo or goohoo or yoohoo or any of the rest of them, intoxicated by the purity of the hand/eye/brain coordination, pitying those whose retinas were undoubtedly being scanned by eavesdropping 33rd-degree Freemason Rosicrucian NSA agents guarding the last surviving members of the Warren Commission in some underground silo underneath the Library of Congress ("They think they're harassing the real Arlen Specter at that town meeting! The real Arlen Specter is in this cell right behind me! Magic bullet, my ass! Mwaaah ha ha ha!").
Oh, God, where was I, now, and why are all of these empty wine cooler bottles at my feet? Anyway, as I said in my previous post, I acquired many new books on my recent trip to Shreveport, and the virtual shelves of Deep South Samizdat Books (accessible anytime at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks) are bursting with new arrivals. Most came from the Centenary College Book Bazaar, while several dozen came from the catacombs of North Louisiana bookseller Chris Fowler-Sandlin, whose attractively-maintained DeVere Books site can be found on Ebay at stores.shop.ebay.com/DeVere-Books. Check it out.
Among the Deep South Samizdat arrivals, look for highly affordable volumes by Philip K. Dick, Henry Miller and Kurt Vonnegut; a rich vein of poetry by Billy Collins, Denise Levertov, James Merrill and Grace Paley, among others; great pulp tales of Conan and Gor; and some of the more obscure gems by Robert Heinlein and Hunter Thompson. And for those of you in the Greater New Orleans area this fall, come see me at the Freret Market and Broad St. Flea Market for some classic New Orleans and Louisiana titles that I'm keeping out of Amazon.com for the time being. Think Saxon, Hearn, Keyes, Chase. More details as we get closer to the Freret Festival on October 3.
As always, comments, critiques, "Mike, you ignorant slut!" are always welcome at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com. Peace, y'all.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Fanboy Night at Octavia Books
I realize it has been much too long since my last post, but my excuse is that I have been working on processing the hundreds of great books I purchased last weekend in Shreveport, mostly at the Centenary College Book Bazaar. In my never-ending quest to bring the sophisticated consumer the best in used books, I travel to all corners of the great state of Louisiana, and the folks at Centenary put on as good a sale as anybody. But more on that shortly.
Despite my absorption in the literary treasures I came home with, I did manage to get to an event at Octavia Books this past Tuesday, September 15. Octavia is, of course, one of those glorious anachronisms nurtured in New Orleans like in few places. I speak, of course of the coelocanth of contemporary commerce, Bookstorious Independentus. In addition to a mindblowing/expanding selection of new books, the folks at Octavia are very active in showcasing local and touring writers. This night, the spotlight was on not one, not even two, but four writers, all of whom are involved in the upcoming HBO series Treme, which will highlight the historic New Orleans neighborhood through the prism of the local musical and restaurant culture.
Two of those attending, David Simon and George Pelecanos, collaborated on the previous series The Wire, which for me and thousands of others did nothing less than redefine what the medium of television drama was capable of at its best, as the deindustrialization of a major American city (Baltimore) was documented over the course of five seasons, with emphasis given to different classes and institutions (cops and criminals, teachers, journalists, politicians, dock workers). It was co-created by Simon, a former Baltimore Sun reporter, and Ed Burns, a former Baltimore cop, with Pelecanos and other prominent novelists (Dennis Lehane and Richard Price) contributing scripts. They will be joined on Treme by locals Lolis Eric Elie and Tom Piazza.
Elie was until recently a columnist for the Times-Picayune, a great newspaper that is more slightly diminished by his absence. When we moved here about 14 months ago, my wife and I immediately got a subscription to the paper, because that is the kind of weirdos we are. Cell phones and Facebook accounts and cable can wait, but we've got to have our paper in the morning. And the passion and intelligence and sense of history and love for the city exhibited by Mr. Elie provided a doorway for me to walk through as I began to navigate a city that had ceased to be merely exotic, several-times-a-year intoxicating nourishment, and was now home. Just one example: it was through one of Elie's columns that I learned of the life and career of Robert Tannen, whose work I viewed at the Ogden and have explored further since. Then, when I inevitable met Mr. Tannen at the Broad Street Bazaar, I was able to engage him in conversation without sounding like a total jackass.
Tom Piazza is the author of several books, including the novel City of Refuge (which he was gracious enough to sign for me, although I admitted I haven't read it yet) and Why New Orleans Matter, written shortly after Katrina. But I have read his great, short book True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass, about the late Jimmy Martin, and we talked about that for a while. Oh, for the New Orleans natives reading this, I should explain that Bluegrass is an indigenous American musical form that has the curious distinction of not originating in New Orleans. I know it's impossible to believe, but, as far as I know, they cannot trace it back to Congo Square, unlike jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock and roll, funk and so many other contributions. That's true, it does incorporate the banjo, just like early jazz, and, yeah, you're right, Jimmie Rodgers did record those sides with Louis Armstrong, but I still think it's a bit of a stretch (it's hard to reason with these people sometimes).
By the way, if you didn't see Piazza's opinion piece in the Times-Picayune a couple of weeks ago, you should check it out here: blog.nola.com/guesteditorials/2009/09/house_thieves_on_a_grandscale.html#more
It is a passionate, plainspoken analysis of the attempted demolition of Charity Hospital and building of a flashy medical complex in its place. It is simply startling in its directness of language regarding an issue that is typically cloaked in obfuscating expert jargon.
I believe the televisual treatment of New Orleans is in very good hands. But I still can't justify paying for HBO. Is there anyone out there who would be willing to host me whenever Treme makes it debut? Anyone at all? Hello? Hello?.......
Despite my absorption in the literary treasures I came home with, I did manage to get to an event at Octavia Books this past Tuesday, September 15. Octavia is, of course, one of those glorious anachronisms nurtured in New Orleans like in few places. I speak, of course of the coelocanth of contemporary commerce, Bookstorious Independentus. In addition to a mindblowing/expanding selection of new books, the folks at Octavia are very active in showcasing local and touring writers. This night, the spotlight was on not one, not even two, but four writers, all of whom are involved in the upcoming HBO series Treme, which will highlight the historic New Orleans neighborhood through the prism of the local musical and restaurant culture.
Two of those attending, David Simon and George Pelecanos, collaborated on the previous series The Wire, which for me and thousands of others did nothing less than redefine what the medium of television drama was capable of at its best, as the deindustrialization of a major American city (Baltimore) was documented over the course of five seasons, with emphasis given to different classes and institutions (cops and criminals, teachers, journalists, politicians, dock workers). It was co-created by Simon, a former Baltimore Sun reporter, and Ed Burns, a former Baltimore cop, with Pelecanos and other prominent novelists (Dennis Lehane and Richard Price) contributing scripts. They will be joined on Treme by locals Lolis Eric Elie and Tom Piazza.
Elie was until recently a columnist for the Times-Picayune, a great newspaper that is more slightly diminished by his absence. When we moved here about 14 months ago, my wife and I immediately got a subscription to the paper, because that is the kind of weirdos we are. Cell phones and Facebook accounts and cable can wait, but we've got to have our paper in the morning. And the passion and intelligence and sense of history and love for the city exhibited by Mr. Elie provided a doorway for me to walk through as I began to navigate a city that had ceased to be merely exotic, several-times-a-year intoxicating nourishment, and was now home. Just one example: it was through one of Elie's columns that I learned of the life and career of Robert Tannen, whose work I viewed at the Ogden and have explored further since. Then, when I inevitable met Mr. Tannen at the Broad Street Bazaar, I was able to engage him in conversation without sounding like a total jackass.
Tom Piazza is the author of several books, including the novel City of Refuge (which he was gracious enough to sign for me, although I admitted I haven't read it yet) and Why New Orleans Matter, written shortly after Katrina. But I have read his great, short book True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass, about the late Jimmy Martin, and we talked about that for a while. Oh, for the New Orleans natives reading this, I should explain that Bluegrass is an indigenous American musical form that has the curious distinction of not originating in New Orleans. I know it's impossible to believe, but, as far as I know, they cannot trace it back to Congo Square, unlike jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock and roll, funk and so many other contributions. That's true, it does incorporate the banjo, just like early jazz, and, yeah, you're right, Jimmie Rodgers did record those sides with Louis Armstrong, but I still think it's a bit of a stretch (it's hard to reason with these people sometimes).
By the way, if you didn't see Piazza's opinion piece in the Times-Picayune a couple of weeks ago, you should check it out here: blog.nola.com/guesteditorials/2009/09/house_thieves_on_a_grandscale.html#more
It is a passionate, plainspoken analysis of the attempted demolition of Charity Hospital and building of a flashy medical complex in its place. It is simply startling in its directness of language regarding an issue that is typically cloaked in obfuscating expert jargon.
I believe the televisual treatment of New Orleans is in very good hands. But I still can't justify paying for HBO. Is there anyone out there who would be willing to host me whenever Treme makes it debut? Anyone at all? Hello? Hello?.......
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Welcome Back, Freret Market! and Market Bestseller Bestsellers Update!
Here we are, on the other side of Labor Day, looking forward to the eventual end of summer, hopefully by Thanksgiving this year. My wife and I kept busy painting the kitchen in our new house, but only after Saturday's return of the Freret Market here in New Orleans. Unfortunately, we lost the first hour to a much-needed deluge, but the organizers altruistically provided free beer to the vendors until the sun came out a little after 1:00. Other folks were obviously as anxious for the return as I was, because they came out in force for the rest of the afternoon. I also received good news from vendor organizer Cree McRee that the Broad St. Bazaar will return on October 10. Reminders will be posted as the date gets closer.
As promised, I am updating the Greater New Orleans market bestseller list for 2009, side by side with the previous list:
pre-Labor Day current
1. Kurt Vonnegut 1. Kurt Vonnegut
2. Star Trek 2. Star Trek
3. (tie) Ray Bradbury 3. (tie) Ray Bradbury
3. (tie) Walker Percy 3. (tie) Walker Percy
5. (tie) Robert Heinlein 5. Albert Camus
5. (tie) Hermann Hesse 6. (tie) Robert Heinlein
5. (tie) James Joyce 6. (tie) Hermann Hesse
5. (tie) J.D. Salinger 6. (tie) Aldous Huxley
6. (tie) James Joyce
6. (tie) George Orwell
6. (tie) J.D. Salinger
6. (tie) Clifford Simak
As you can see, several classic writers managed to earn their way onto the list, with Algerian existentialist Albert Camus leading the way after two copies of The Stranger sold on Saturday. The most surprising entry has to be Golden Age science fiction writer Clifford Simak, vaulted onto the list by the efforts of one obsessive fan. I've alluded to this before, but let me remind you that all of you are the ones who decide. Are you outraged that that pinko pacifist Vonnegut is at the top, and the dean of military s-f Heinlein is stuck in sixth place? Come on out to the market and put the world right. Camus, Simak, Harlan Ellison and John Kennedy Toole fans did just that this past Saturday, and all showed substantial gains. Not enough diversity? Chinua Achebe, Joan Didion, Ernest Gaines, Sylvia Plath and Anne Rice are all on the verge of greatness. Will you be the one to give them the push they need?
Before I mentally leave the market, one more observation, to be filed in the The Kids are Alright file:
A kid I see at the Freret Market every time, must be about 11, was looking at a paperback copy of Hell House, by Richard Matheson. It has a pretty scary looking skeleton in what appear to be monk's robes on the cover, and I'm thinking that is what is attracting the kid. So I ask him if he has seen episodes of the original Twilight Zone, since Matheson wrote several episodes, second in volume only to Rod Serling himself. So the kid politely lets me know he's aware of that, and he recently read I Am Legend, the novel also written by Matheson and made into two movies, starring Charlton Heston and Will Smith, respectively. I play it cool, but immediately show my respect.
Now let that sink in. Again, I say he can't be more than 11, and this kid is savvy enough to be reading one of the modern masters of dark fantasy and science fiction, someone legitimately placed in the company of Lovecraft and Bradbury. In an age when he is bombarded with gory computer games and Saw 8 and Crescent Wrench 4: The Revenge of the Plumber, and young adult vampire stories and Marilyn Manson, this kid is choosing Richard Matheson. How cool is that?
As promised, I am updating the Greater New Orleans market bestseller list for 2009, side by side with the previous list:
pre-Labor Day current
1. Kurt Vonnegut 1. Kurt Vonnegut
2. Star Trek 2. Star Trek
3. (tie) Ray Bradbury 3. (tie) Ray Bradbury
3. (tie) Walker Percy 3. (tie) Walker Percy
5. (tie) Robert Heinlein 5. Albert Camus
5. (tie) Hermann Hesse 6. (tie) Robert Heinlein
5. (tie) James Joyce 6. (tie) Hermann Hesse
5. (tie) J.D. Salinger 6. (tie) Aldous Huxley
6. (tie) James Joyce
6. (tie) George Orwell
6. (tie) J.D. Salinger
6. (tie) Clifford Simak
As you can see, several classic writers managed to earn their way onto the list, with Algerian existentialist Albert Camus leading the way after two copies of The Stranger sold on Saturday. The most surprising entry has to be Golden Age science fiction writer Clifford Simak, vaulted onto the list by the efforts of one obsessive fan. I've alluded to this before, but let me remind you that all of you are the ones who decide. Are you outraged that that pinko pacifist Vonnegut is at the top, and the dean of military s-f Heinlein is stuck in sixth place? Come on out to the market and put the world right. Camus, Simak, Harlan Ellison and John Kennedy Toole fans did just that this past Saturday, and all showed substantial gains. Not enough diversity? Chinua Achebe, Joan Didion, Ernest Gaines, Sylvia Plath and Anne Rice are all on the verge of greatness. Will you be the one to give them the push they need?
Before I mentally leave the market, one more observation, to be filed in the The Kids are Alright file:
A kid I see at the Freret Market every time, must be about 11, was looking at a paperback copy of Hell House, by Richard Matheson. It has a pretty scary looking skeleton in what appear to be monk's robes on the cover, and I'm thinking that is what is attracting the kid. So I ask him if he has seen episodes of the original Twilight Zone, since Matheson wrote several episodes, second in volume only to Rod Serling himself. So the kid politely lets me know he's aware of that, and he recently read I Am Legend, the novel also written by Matheson and made into two movies, starring Charlton Heston and Will Smith, respectively. I play it cool, but immediately show my respect.
Now let that sink in. Again, I say he can't be more than 11, and this kid is savvy enough to be reading one of the modern masters of dark fantasy and science fiction, someone legitimately placed in the company of Lovecraft and Bradbury. In an age when he is bombarded with gory computer games and Saw 8 and Crescent Wrench 4: The Revenge of the Plumber, and young adult vampire stories and Marilyn Manson, this kid is choosing Richard Matheson. How cool is that?
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Drunk on Books: One Man's Civilized Weekend
Last weekend was a good one for the literary-inclined, as there were events at both of my favorite local used bookstores, McKeown's Books and Difficult Music and Blue Cypress Books. And, miracle of miracles, I managed to fit both into a typically busy weekend.
McKeown's, located at 4737 Tchoupitoulas St., has been around for a few years, under the proprietorship of Maggie McKeown, with capable assistance from Jason Moore. Very strong in fiction, philosophy, science, poetry, all things Louisiana, with a few carefully-chosen new books blended in, as well. Maggie, like me, also loves the thrill of the hunt, always willing to pick up and follow the migratory book sales in search of profitable game. Her other passion, as evidenced by the name of her store, is experimental, hard-to-categorize music (think John Cage or John Zorn, later John Coltrane, some Yoko-era John Lennon, definitely not Jon Bon Jovi), and I have been stymied in my previous attempts to make it to her Evenings of Difficult Music, which occur on periodic Saturday evenings. To find out about the next one, as well as other McKeown's info, go to mckeownsbooks.com.
Saturday evening, August 29, happened to the be the anniversary of the Thing, and the difficult music of guitarist and composer Donald Miller accompanied the poetry of Brett Evans, who touched on the anniversary without making it the central theme of the evening. In addition to his musical activities, which include decades-long participation in the legendary experimental group Borbetomagus, Donald is a local market bookseller, who has been encouraging me to move down here for four or five years, when we would run into each other at the New Orleans Bookfair (coming up Saturday, November 7). Our personal and professional literary passions tend to complement each other well, and it was wonderful to be able to hear him play in such an intimate setting.
Brett Evans read two long poems, accompanied by Miller on what I would describe as the "prepared" guitar, in honor of the prepared piano devised by John Cage in the 1940's (incidentally, a photo of Cage bending over the piano strings he was "preparing" adorned Donald's t-shirt: I want that shirt). The poet and the guitarist sat on opposite sides of the room, creating an interesting visual as well as acoustic experience. The first poem featured the recitation of dozens of porn movie titles, alternately banal and amusing, broken up by bursts of emotion. The overall effect was rather like watching porn, actually, with the rather mundane attempts at narrative finally yielding the voyeuristic thrill. And the low-volume controlled dissonance of Miller's guitar, enhanced by several objects (small bowls, a whirring barbecue grill cleaner) placed onto the strings, was a welcome alternative to the typical synthesizer-heavy wocka-wocka porn soundtrack.
The second poem read by Evans was based on the book Leftover Life to Kill, by Caitlin Thomas, widow of Dylan. Miller's accompaniment included an echo of Evans' words emanating from a female voice over a cell phone. I'm not sure how the effect was achieved, but it was haunting and very effective.
Blue Cypress Books is a more recent fixture at 8126 Oak St., but owner Elizabeth Ahlquist has created a wonderful space amongst the Maple Leaf, sushi and barbecue joints and coffee shops. Great selection of kids' books, fantastic oddball offerings in graphic novels and visual art, and a poetry section that has burst out of its shelves and now occupies part of the floor. Elizabeth also hosts a book discussion group once a month, with this past Sunday's featuring Italo Calvino's The Baron in the Trees. The wine and conversation flows freely, but the discussion tends to stay focused on the book, which group members usually read and complete beforehand (the consensus on the Calvino seemed to be that everyone liked it, but it wasn't transcendent in the way his reputation would seem to suggest).
Personally, the emphasis on fiction has been great for this reader, who tends to obsess on politics and then escape to books about sports. Previous offerings have included Toni Morrison, Katherine Dunn, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Robert Olen Butler, with Cormac McCarthy and Truman Capote still to come.
Next up is Cormac McCarthy's The Road, with the discussion to take place Sunday, Sept. 27, at 4:00 p.m. This will be a rare novelistic reread for me (the last one being Man in the High Castle), and an emotionally wrenching, yet rewarding, one it will be. For reminders about the book group meetings or word about other Blue Cypress happenings, go to bluecypressbooks.blogspot.com.
Also, don't forget the Freret Market this Saturday, Sept. 5, from noon to 5:00 p.m. Look for me close to the music stage (but not too close). Mention this blog, and get 25% off any purchase!
Finally, your literary trivia question for the week: What is the common thread linking the lives of writers Aldous Huxley, Randolph Churchill and Dominick Dunne? Send your answers to mpbookfreak@hotmail.com, or tell me at the Freret Market.
McKeown's, located at 4737 Tchoupitoulas St., has been around for a few years, under the proprietorship of Maggie McKeown, with capable assistance from Jason Moore. Very strong in fiction, philosophy, science, poetry, all things Louisiana, with a few carefully-chosen new books blended in, as well. Maggie, like me, also loves the thrill of the hunt, always willing to pick up and follow the migratory book sales in search of profitable game. Her other passion, as evidenced by the name of her store, is experimental, hard-to-categorize music (think John Cage or John Zorn, later John Coltrane, some Yoko-era John Lennon, definitely not Jon Bon Jovi), and I have been stymied in my previous attempts to make it to her Evenings of Difficult Music, which occur on periodic Saturday evenings. To find out about the next one, as well as other McKeown's info, go to mckeownsbooks.com.
Saturday evening, August 29, happened to the be the anniversary of the Thing, and the difficult music of guitarist and composer Donald Miller accompanied the poetry of Brett Evans, who touched on the anniversary without making it the central theme of the evening. In addition to his musical activities, which include decades-long participation in the legendary experimental group Borbetomagus, Donald is a local market bookseller, who has been encouraging me to move down here for four or five years, when we would run into each other at the New Orleans Bookfair (coming up Saturday, November 7). Our personal and professional literary passions tend to complement each other well, and it was wonderful to be able to hear him play in such an intimate setting.
Brett Evans read two long poems, accompanied by Miller on what I would describe as the "prepared" guitar, in honor of the prepared piano devised by John Cage in the 1940's (incidentally, a photo of Cage bending over the piano strings he was "preparing" adorned Donald's t-shirt: I want that shirt). The poet and the guitarist sat on opposite sides of the room, creating an interesting visual as well as acoustic experience. The first poem featured the recitation of dozens of porn movie titles, alternately banal and amusing, broken up by bursts of emotion. The overall effect was rather like watching porn, actually, with the rather mundane attempts at narrative finally yielding the voyeuristic thrill. And the low-volume controlled dissonance of Miller's guitar, enhanced by several objects (small bowls, a whirring barbecue grill cleaner) placed onto the strings, was a welcome alternative to the typical synthesizer-heavy wocka-wocka porn soundtrack.
The second poem read by Evans was based on the book Leftover Life to Kill, by Caitlin Thomas, widow of Dylan. Miller's accompaniment included an echo of Evans' words emanating from a female voice over a cell phone. I'm not sure how the effect was achieved, but it was haunting and very effective.
Blue Cypress Books is a more recent fixture at 8126 Oak St., but owner Elizabeth Ahlquist has created a wonderful space amongst the Maple Leaf, sushi and barbecue joints and coffee shops. Great selection of kids' books, fantastic oddball offerings in graphic novels and visual art, and a poetry section that has burst out of its shelves and now occupies part of the floor. Elizabeth also hosts a book discussion group once a month, with this past Sunday's featuring Italo Calvino's The Baron in the Trees. The wine and conversation flows freely, but the discussion tends to stay focused on the book, which group members usually read and complete beforehand (the consensus on the Calvino seemed to be that everyone liked it, but it wasn't transcendent in the way his reputation would seem to suggest).
Personally, the emphasis on fiction has been great for this reader, who tends to obsess on politics and then escape to books about sports. Previous offerings have included Toni Morrison, Katherine Dunn, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Robert Olen Butler, with Cormac McCarthy and Truman Capote still to come.
Next up is Cormac McCarthy's The Road, with the discussion to take place Sunday, Sept. 27, at 4:00 p.m. This will be a rare novelistic reread for me (the last one being Man in the High Castle), and an emotionally wrenching, yet rewarding, one it will be. For reminders about the book group meetings or word about other Blue Cypress happenings, go to bluecypressbooks.blogspot.com.
Also, don't forget the Freret Market this Saturday, Sept. 5, from noon to 5:00 p.m. Look for me close to the music stage (but not too close). Mention this blog, and get 25% off any purchase!
Finally, your literary trivia question for the week: What is the common thread linking the lives of writers Aldous Huxley, Randolph Churchill and Dominick Dunne? Send your answers to mpbookfreak@hotmail.com, or tell me at the Freret Market.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Intellectual Border Wars: Two Reviews
A couple of more reviews, of similarly-themed books, for your perusal. The second one will be returned late to the library tomorrow. Not only am I providing this public service free of charge to you, gentle readers, I'm actually paying out-of-pocket for the privilege. There's commitment, huh? As always, email me at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com with any comments, and come see me at the Freret Market on Saturday, September 5th, if you're in New Orleans.
Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization Fleeced Working People
by Jon Jeter
W.W. Norton and Company, 2009
Life, Inc.: How The World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back
by Douglas Rushkoff
Random House, 2009
When NAFTA was passed in 1993 (with Vice President Al Gore casting the deciding vote) (thanks, Al) (I still don't regret voting for Nader), the dot com boom may have insulated the U.S. economy from the worst of the predicted results for a few years. Still, despite the mainstream media's annointment of Ross Perot as the official voice of the opposition, commentators, activists and pundits from across the ideological spectrum warned of the disasters to come. Meanwhile, the Zapatista Army took matters into their own hands on January 1, 1994, launching military assaults against the Mexican army in their home state of Chiapas as the first salvo of a campaign that continues to inspire. In November of 1999, an international grassroots alliance took the fight to the Masters of the Universe, disrupting the WTO meeting in Seattle and dealing it a public blow from it has arguably never recovered (by which I don't claim that they have been rendered ineffective, just that they are much less public about their activities).
Unfortunately, as deindustrialization and the outsourcing of work has continued apace, the intellectual component of the opposition has been largely outsourced as well. While the home of Thomas Paine, Frederick Douglass, Thoreau, Ida Tarbell, Izzy Stone and George Seldes has been hammered by the tsunami of corporate globalization, I would argue that the most rigorous, lively and readable analyses have come from the likes of Kalle Lasn (Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America, 1999), Joel Bakan (The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, 2004), and Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, 2007). What is the common thread? That's right, they're all.... Canadian.
But Americans can take heart in the publication of two recent books that take on corporate globalization without any of the, shall we say, baggage of works by the likes of Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanan. Both complement each other well, as John Jeter's approach is more journalistic muckraker, his comprehensive reporting allowing the most blatant victims of corporate globalization their say. Douglas Rushkoff is more cerebral and scholarly, offering a centuries-spanning big picture context for our current predicament.
Jon Jeter’s Flat Broke is a powerful indictment of the gospel of free-market globalization fundamentalism, written by an unlikely source. Jeter was a the former Washington Post bureau chief for southern Africa (1999-2003) and South America (2003-2004), and this passionate jeremiad draws heavily from reporting in South Africa and Zambia, Brazil and Argentina, Chicago and Washington, D.C., as the lives and daily struggles of cab drivers, prostitutes and vegetable peddlers vividly illustrate the homicidal dynamics of increasingly abstract financial machinations beyond the control of most individuals and even governments, including those of long-established “democracies.”
Jeter’s perceptions and analysis are worlds away from the established orthodoxy of Thomas Friedman’s New York Times and Fareed Zakaria’s Newsweek, whose confidence in neoliberal globalization’s historical inevitability rival Lenin’s faith in “scientific socialism.” He sees once-functioning economies and societies like Argentina’s, with historically high rates of public infrastructure investment, domestic manufacturing, literacy, employment, union membership and relative social mobility, devastated in a very short time by irrational adherence to the mantra of the International Monetary Fund: the slashing of public investment, the acquisition of enormous national debt, privatization of common resources, the shrinking of manufacturing and agricultural sectors to a handful of exportable commodities. The reader then sees the human devastation through Jeter’s sensitive and passionate reporting, as social pathologies appear in short order and play themselves out in the lives of individuals, couples and families.
Parallels are drawn between these international examples and the deindustrialized American city, with the complicity of corporate-friendly African-American political leaders, their rise facilitated by the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, coming under particular scrutiny. Unfortunately, New Orleans is not part of Jeter’s focus (I would recommend Naomi Klein’s aforementioned Shock Doctrine for an analysis of post-Katrina shenanigans in a global context), but the nation’s capital and President Obama’s most recent hometown are, with numerous examples of the co-optation of the power structure for the benefit of the few. This is a remarkable work, complementing recent works like Shock Doctrine and John Perkins’ insider expose’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Jeter’s unique strength is a Studs Terkel-like empathy with his subjects, combined with an Izzy Stonesque doggedness and eye for the numbers and statistics that illustrate their plight.
Douglas Rushkoff's Life Inc. is an intellectual feast, providing a scope and context for the development of the corporation and its unprecedented power and influence that rivals Bakan's earlier work. Like that commentator and many others, including Thom Hartmann, Rushkoff identifies the fraudulent 1886 Supreme Court decision that established "corporate personhood" and 14th Amendment (the one that guarantees Constitutional rights to former slaves) as a crucial watershed. However, he sees that designation as merely building on economic and political dynamics stretching back to the Renaissance, as aristocrats married their political leverage to a merchant class whose global reach and ambitions was rendering landlocked nobles and their authority increasingly irrelevant.
The 20th century sees the introduction of modern psychology and sophisticated propoganda techniques, which gradually make their way into the new disciplines of marketing and public relations, all at the beck and call of the corporations whose reach becomes ever more insidious. Rushkoff's discussion of local vs. centralized currency, historically and modern-day, is also utterly fascinating, connecting a lot of dots for those of us, like myself, without a deep understanding of such issues.
I must admit to one peeve about Rushkoff's style, however. He has a tendency to overgeneralize about classes of people and the level of their complicity and entanglement in the corporatist system. In just one of many, many examples, Rushkoff discusses the enormous complexity of the interlocking corporate interests controlling so much of energy, agriculture, health care and governmental policies and the quixotic efforts to combat and control them: "Those who do get the full picture--intellectuals reading all about it in The New York Review of Books as they sun with their Dalton-educated teens on the beaches of East Hampton--can't help but shrug. The problem is just too big," (p. 212). While John Jeter gives his reader portraits of working-class people from South America and Africa who "get it," Rushkoff appears at times tone-deaf to the nuances of both acceptance of and opposition to the corporatism he so brilliantly analyzes historically. Very few can live a life of pure rejection of the corporate system, but I have known at least dozens, if not hundreds, in the communities I've lived in as an adult(New Orleans, Shreveport, Portland, small-town New Hampshire and Vermont), who choose their battles and live the parts of their lives that they can without the mediation of corporate entities. And I would argue that New Orleans has as large a concentration of people trying to do just that as anywhere, motivated by a kind of existential stubbornness (I hereby declare a personal moratorium on the word "resilience") I am in absolute awe of.
Rushkoff's overgeneralization tendencies are doubly disconcerting when a search of his personal webiste reveals his participation with the MaybeLogic Academy, a project of the late novelist and quantum philosopher Robert Anton Wilson, who was hypervigilant about rooting out such lazy thinking. However, despite my obvious preoccupation with the matter, Life Inc. is a true tour de force of original analysis and synthesis.
Better yet, we're back, baby! Come on, Lou Dobbs and Stephen Colbert, let's show these books some love. USA! USA! USA! USA!
Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization Fleeced Working People
by Jon Jeter
W.W. Norton and Company, 2009
Life, Inc.: How The World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back
by Douglas Rushkoff
Random House, 2009
When NAFTA was passed in 1993 (with Vice President Al Gore casting the deciding vote) (thanks, Al) (I still don't regret voting for Nader), the dot com boom may have insulated the U.S. economy from the worst of the predicted results for a few years. Still, despite the mainstream media's annointment of Ross Perot as the official voice of the opposition, commentators, activists and pundits from across the ideological spectrum warned of the disasters to come. Meanwhile, the Zapatista Army took matters into their own hands on January 1, 1994, launching military assaults against the Mexican army in their home state of Chiapas as the first salvo of a campaign that continues to inspire. In November of 1999, an international grassroots alliance took the fight to the Masters of the Universe, disrupting the WTO meeting in Seattle and dealing it a public blow from it has arguably never recovered (by which I don't claim that they have been rendered ineffective, just that they are much less public about their activities).
Unfortunately, as deindustrialization and the outsourcing of work has continued apace, the intellectual component of the opposition has been largely outsourced as well. While the home of Thomas Paine, Frederick Douglass, Thoreau, Ida Tarbell, Izzy Stone and George Seldes has been hammered by the tsunami of corporate globalization, I would argue that the most rigorous, lively and readable analyses have come from the likes of Kalle Lasn (Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America, 1999), Joel Bakan (The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, 2004), and Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, 2007). What is the common thread? That's right, they're all.... Canadian.
But Americans can take heart in the publication of two recent books that take on corporate globalization without any of the, shall we say, baggage of works by the likes of Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanan. Both complement each other well, as John Jeter's approach is more journalistic muckraker, his comprehensive reporting allowing the most blatant victims of corporate globalization their say. Douglas Rushkoff is more cerebral and scholarly, offering a centuries-spanning big picture context for our current predicament.
Jon Jeter’s Flat Broke is a powerful indictment of the gospel of free-market globalization fundamentalism, written by an unlikely source. Jeter was a the former Washington Post bureau chief for southern Africa (1999-2003) and South America (2003-2004), and this passionate jeremiad draws heavily from reporting in South Africa and Zambia, Brazil and Argentina, Chicago and Washington, D.C., as the lives and daily struggles of cab drivers, prostitutes and vegetable peddlers vividly illustrate the homicidal dynamics of increasingly abstract financial machinations beyond the control of most individuals and even governments, including those of long-established “democracies.”
Jeter’s perceptions and analysis are worlds away from the established orthodoxy of Thomas Friedman’s New York Times and Fareed Zakaria’s Newsweek, whose confidence in neoliberal globalization’s historical inevitability rival Lenin’s faith in “scientific socialism.” He sees once-functioning economies and societies like Argentina’s, with historically high rates of public infrastructure investment, domestic manufacturing, literacy, employment, union membership and relative social mobility, devastated in a very short time by irrational adherence to the mantra of the International Monetary Fund: the slashing of public investment, the acquisition of enormous national debt, privatization of common resources, the shrinking of manufacturing and agricultural sectors to a handful of exportable commodities. The reader then sees the human devastation through Jeter’s sensitive and passionate reporting, as social pathologies appear in short order and play themselves out in the lives of individuals, couples and families.
Parallels are drawn between these international examples and the deindustrialized American city, with the complicity of corporate-friendly African-American political leaders, their rise facilitated by the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, coming under particular scrutiny. Unfortunately, New Orleans is not part of Jeter’s focus (I would recommend Naomi Klein’s aforementioned Shock Doctrine for an analysis of post-Katrina shenanigans in a global context), but the nation’s capital and President Obama’s most recent hometown are, with numerous examples of the co-optation of the power structure for the benefit of the few. This is a remarkable work, complementing recent works like Shock Doctrine and John Perkins’ insider expose’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Jeter’s unique strength is a Studs Terkel-like empathy with his subjects, combined with an Izzy Stonesque doggedness and eye for the numbers and statistics that illustrate their plight.
Douglas Rushkoff's Life Inc. is an intellectual feast, providing a scope and context for the development of the corporation and its unprecedented power and influence that rivals Bakan's earlier work. Like that commentator and many others, including Thom Hartmann, Rushkoff identifies the fraudulent 1886 Supreme Court decision that established "corporate personhood" and 14th Amendment (the one that guarantees Constitutional rights to former slaves) as a crucial watershed. However, he sees that designation as merely building on economic and political dynamics stretching back to the Renaissance, as aristocrats married their political leverage to a merchant class whose global reach and ambitions was rendering landlocked nobles and their authority increasingly irrelevant.
The 20th century sees the introduction of modern psychology and sophisticated propoganda techniques, which gradually make their way into the new disciplines of marketing and public relations, all at the beck and call of the corporations whose reach becomes ever more insidious. Rushkoff's discussion of local vs. centralized currency, historically and modern-day, is also utterly fascinating, connecting a lot of dots for those of us, like myself, without a deep understanding of such issues.
I must admit to one peeve about Rushkoff's style, however. He has a tendency to overgeneralize about classes of people and the level of their complicity and entanglement in the corporatist system. In just one of many, many examples, Rushkoff discusses the enormous complexity of the interlocking corporate interests controlling so much of energy, agriculture, health care and governmental policies and the quixotic efforts to combat and control them: "Those who do get the full picture--intellectuals reading all about it in The New York Review of Books as they sun with their Dalton-educated teens on the beaches of East Hampton--can't help but shrug. The problem is just too big," (p. 212). While John Jeter gives his reader portraits of working-class people from South America and Africa who "get it," Rushkoff appears at times tone-deaf to the nuances of both acceptance of and opposition to the corporatism he so brilliantly analyzes historically. Very few can live a life of pure rejection of the corporate system, but I have known at least dozens, if not hundreds, in the communities I've lived in as an adult(New Orleans, Shreveport, Portland, small-town New Hampshire and Vermont), who choose their battles and live the parts of their lives that they can without the mediation of corporate entities. And I would argue that New Orleans has as large a concentration of people trying to do just that as anywhere, motivated by a kind of existential stubbornness (I hereby declare a personal moratorium on the word "resilience") I am in absolute awe of.
Rushkoff's overgeneralization tendencies are doubly disconcerting when a search of his personal webiste reveals his participation with the MaybeLogic Academy, a project of the late novelist and quantum philosopher Robert Anton Wilson, who was hypervigilant about rooting out such lazy thinking. However, despite my obvious preoccupation with the matter, Life Inc. is a true tour de force of original analysis and synthesis.
Better yet, we're back, baby! Come on, Lou Dobbs and Stephen Colbert, let's show these books some love. USA! USA! USA! USA!
Monday, August 17, 2009
Actual Reviews
Well, I'm sitting here in our new house, surrounded by boxes in various states of unpackededness (?), putting aside everything to bring new nuggets of insight to you, dear readers. I am now on my fourth blog post, and, given the presence of the word "review" in the title, I was thinking there might be a reasonable expectation of literary analysis on your part. I have actually written a handful in recent months, after some communication with Antigravity editor Leo McGovern regarding the writing of reviews for that publication. But Mr. McGovern has proven completely unreliable in returning emails and phone calls, so I have no clue as to whether anything I submitted will be published. Is that a New Orleans thing, or what? The New Orleans Levee, the Colton Studio School and NOMA are among the other institutions that just don't seem to feel an obligation to return basic inquiries. No matter, they will eventually rue the day they crossed the Abomunistic Review of Books! I will crush them like overripe grapes! (note to self: edit last two sentences)
Oh, well, God bless them, one and all. On with the review--
The Posthuman Dada Guide
by Andrei Codrescu
Princeton University Press, 2009
16.95
The jumping-off point for this ambitious work of literary criticism/cultural analysis/historical revisionism is the photographically-documented chess match between Romanian Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara and Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in Zurich in October 1916. Switzerland’s neutral status during World War I made it a haven for artistic and political radicals of all stripes, and many of the movements midwifed there would resonate, and often compete, over the course of the century.
Codrescu argues that Dada, founded in Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire by a polyglot crew of European writers, dancers, musicians and visual artists as a conscious repudiation of the entire culture that spawned the war, Shakespeare and Beethoven as well as the Kaiser and the Czar, has retained its vitality because it has never become “historical”: while Andre Breton and Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, tried to force the square pegs of Surrealism and Existentialism into doctrinaire Communist round holes, “The stem cell of Dada (‘the virgin microbe’) contains every possibility of revolt, destruction, and self-destruction;… Dada has causes, all of them, and is against them all, including itself,” (p.46).
The tone, format and even physical design of the book are all playful and intellectually rich. Discussions of Surrealism, Modernism, Kabbalah as a tool of Jewish emancipation (including seamless Battlestar Galactica references), the early Romanian avant-garde and café culture are exhilarating, relevant and completely free from academic jargon, despite Codrescu’s frequent forays into academia and the blessing of an Ivy League university press. Incidentally, it was rather surprising to find some editing lapses from dear old Princeton (misspelling of Charles Henri Ford’s middle name, incorrect copyright dates for The Name of the Rose and The Da Vinci Code [note: since the original writing, I have come to the conclusion that the dates refer to the movie adaptations, although that is not specified in the text]). But perhaps they were simply feeling liberated from such linear concepts as correct spelling and chronological accuracy. It’s easy to imagine while reading this tour de force.
In bookselling news, be sure to look for Deep South Samizdat at the Freret Market in New Orleans on Saturday, Sept. 5. Check out freretmarket.org for further details. And you can always shop online at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks.
The Abomunistic Review of Books is always interested in hearing from you, at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com. If you don't want your email published on the blog, just let me know. Take care.
Oh, well, God bless them, one and all. On with the review--
The Posthuman Dada Guide
by Andrei Codrescu
Princeton University Press, 2009
16.95
The jumping-off point for this ambitious work of literary criticism/cultural analysis/historical revisionism is the photographically-documented chess match between Romanian Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara and Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in Zurich in October 1916. Switzerland’s neutral status during World War I made it a haven for artistic and political radicals of all stripes, and many of the movements midwifed there would resonate, and often compete, over the course of the century.
Codrescu argues that Dada, founded in Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire by a polyglot crew of European writers, dancers, musicians and visual artists as a conscious repudiation of the entire culture that spawned the war, Shakespeare and Beethoven as well as the Kaiser and the Czar, has retained its vitality because it has never become “historical”: while Andre Breton and Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, tried to force the square pegs of Surrealism and Existentialism into doctrinaire Communist round holes, “The stem cell of Dada (‘the virgin microbe’) contains every possibility of revolt, destruction, and self-destruction;… Dada has causes, all of them, and is against them all, including itself,” (p.46).
The tone, format and even physical design of the book are all playful and intellectually rich. Discussions of Surrealism, Modernism, Kabbalah as a tool of Jewish emancipation (including seamless Battlestar Galactica references), the early Romanian avant-garde and café culture are exhilarating, relevant and completely free from academic jargon, despite Codrescu’s frequent forays into academia and the blessing of an Ivy League university press. Incidentally, it was rather surprising to find some editing lapses from dear old Princeton (misspelling of Charles Henri Ford’s middle name, incorrect copyright dates for The Name of the Rose and The Da Vinci Code [note: since the original writing, I have come to the conclusion that the dates refer to the movie adaptations, although that is not specified in the text]). But perhaps they were simply feeling liberated from such linear concepts as correct spelling and chronological accuracy. It’s easy to imagine while reading this tour de force.
In bookselling news, be sure to look for Deep South Samizdat at the Freret Market in New Orleans on Saturday, Sept. 5. Check out freretmarket.org for further details. And you can always shop online at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks.
The Abomunistic Review of Books is always interested in hearing from you, at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com. If you don't want your email published on the blog, just let me know. Take care.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Greater New Orleans Market Bestseller List Debuts Today!
Hello, all, I am writing to you from the position of homeowner, a status my wife and I have attained for the first time in our lives. It's a heady proposition, and my muscles are rather sore from books over there, but I am nevertheless taking some time out to communicate a few nuggets of wit and wisdom.
As I write, the Freret Market is four weeks away, which, for this bookseller, means the kickoff of market season. I know a few brave souls hawk their wares even in the depths of the New Orleans summer, but early June was my cutoff, and I am anxious to get back to it, especially given that 2009 will be my first full calendar year selling in this area, and I am getting better at it as the months go by.
Those of you who know me well know that my mind tends toward statistical analysis and categorization, and market bookselling in greater New Orleans is no different. I keep meticulous records of what books I sell, and those records guide me in ongoing book acquisition and preparation. Given the eclectic nature of my stock, I take pride in having something for everyone whose literary tastes reflect even a modicum of intelligence and sophistication, i.e. I don't sell romances, self-help, or anything that would possibly be marketed as "inspirational" and sold in one of those stand-alone spinner racks at Rouse's. I am far from a snob, as my sports-heavy personal reading will attest, but for Christ's sake, we are the only species capable of self-conscious evolution, and the tools we choose for our intellectual exercise should reflect that responsibility, right?
In that spirit, I present a list of the top-selling authors chosen by some of you, a cross-section of the local commerce-supporting greater New Orleans used book-buying public, as we head into the late, late summer, with appropriate commentary. This list is drawn from market sales since the beginning of 2009, with the limitations being those of my own stock. For example, I'm sure I could sell multiple copies of Confederacy of Dunces every time I sell at a market, but the used copies just aren't there, compared to say, Fahrenheit 451. Also, authors and subjects of books are combined into one category. Bob Dylan, for example, gets credit for sales of books he has written (Chronicles, Volume I and Tarantula), as well as any of the voluminous biographies, critical studies, etc. written by other authors. Finally, this list will be updated throughout the rest of the year, so the list should be quite fluid:
1.) Kurt Vonnegut: No surprises here, right? I think I read my first Vonnegut novel (Dead-Eye Dick) at about 15, maybe 16, and I vividly remember pulling it down from the shelf at the Bossier Parish Library and being transported to a very different place than the science fiction that comprised much of my independent reading at the time. I was probably passionately hooked for about five years, with waning but never fully-diminished enthusiasm since. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
2.) Star Trek books: I have to admit, this one has surprised me, but even New Orleans has its share of nerds, right? This listing is probably skewed by a particular type of book, the photonovel. This was a paperback format in which episodes of the original series were recreated through a sequence of still photographs with word balloons. I have never seen it used with any other t.v. show or movie, and I had the good fortune to buy a cache of several of them about three years ago. I believe I am sold out now, and I do not expect the more conventional Star Trek book sales to be able to sustain this ranking.
3.) (tie) Ray Bradbury: I have to admit I finally read Fahrenheit 451 about six years ago. I knew I would be sympathetic with the subject matter, but I truly did not anticipate the emotional power of the writing. I have since devoured several of Bradbury's short stories, and find him a true poet, particularly of a kind of nostalgic melancholy, much in contrast to the technological optimism many associate with science fiction.
3.) (tie) Walker Percy: Finally, a hometowner, the Kierkegaard of Covington, the chronicler of the existential angst afflicting the bourgeoisie, despite their best attempts to lose themselves in moviegoing and sloe gin fizzes.
5.) (tie) Robert Heinlein: Science fiction makes a big splash, with three of the top eight, including the dean of Golden Age military SF and author of Stranger in a Strange Land, one of the more unusual works of the 1960's, written by the most unlikely of suspects.
5.) (tie) Hermann Hesse: Question: Who is the only Nobel Prize winner on our list, as well as the only one whose book titles have inspired both a 60's rock band and a Keanu Reeves movie? William Burroughs? No. Philip K. Dick? No. Aldous Huxley? No. It would be the author of Steppenwolf and Siddhartha, the man whose work has probably fueled more dorm room acid-fueled inner journeys than any other Nobel winner save, I don't know, Pearl S. Buck?
5.) (tie) James Joyce: Now this one is a pleasant surprise. I know New Orleans has historically seen a lot of Irish immigration and influence, but who knew that one of the most challenging writers of the previous century would be so embraced. I haven't actually sold a copy of Finnegan's Wake yet, but the other major works of the Joyce ouvre have all been represented.
5.) (tie) J.D. Salinger: As with Joyce, all of the major works are represented in the sales totals, including the collections of those pristine, Steuben crystal short stories that launched a thousand New Yorker subscriptions.
I will spare you the ever-expanding tie that follows, but I will let you know a few of the writers/subjects who seem poised to make big splashes in the coming weeks: James Lee Burke, Albert Camus, Bob Dylan, Ernest Gaines, Aldous Huxley, Henry Miller, George Orwell, Anne Rice. I will post new rankings every week as the markets move along, and you can follow your favorites, not to mention helping them out. If you find it appalling that a hack like Vonnegut sits smugly at the top of the greater New Orleans market bestseller list, while Faulkner languishes in relative obscurity, cast your vote by stepping up and purchasing that copy of The Reivers, and make your voice count! Additionally, if you would like where your favorite author rates on the list, send an inquiry to mpbookfreak@hotmail.com. If you would not like your email published, please specify.
While we're on the subject, let's turn to the digital mailbag. Jason in New Orleans writes:
after reading your blog, my brain exploded from sheer intellectual satisfaction. damn you, mike. you owe me at least a cerebral cortex.
Thank you for your, um, kind words, Jason. It is exactly such feedback that keeps me going until the Macarthur Fellowship comes in. As for the cerebral cortex, let me talk to a couple of New Jersey rabbis I know who may be able to facilitate that. And I'll throw in the instantaneous Hebrew fluency for free!
As I write, the Freret Market is four weeks away, which, for this bookseller, means the kickoff of market season. I know a few brave souls hawk their wares even in the depths of the New Orleans summer, but early June was my cutoff, and I am anxious to get back to it, especially given that 2009 will be my first full calendar year selling in this area, and I am getting better at it as the months go by.
Those of you who know me well know that my mind tends toward statistical analysis and categorization, and market bookselling in greater New Orleans is no different. I keep meticulous records of what books I sell, and those records guide me in ongoing book acquisition and preparation. Given the eclectic nature of my stock, I take pride in having something for everyone whose literary tastes reflect even a modicum of intelligence and sophistication, i.e. I don't sell romances, self-help, or anything that would possibly be marketed as "inspirational" and sold in one of those stand-alone spinner racks at Rouse's. I am far from a snob, as my sports-heavy personal reading will attest, but for Christ's sake, we are the only species capable of self-conscious evolution, and the tools we choose for our intellectual exercise should reflect that responsibility, right?
In that spirit, I present a list of the top-selling authors chosen by some of you, a cross-section of the local commerce-supporting greater New Orleans used book-buying public, as we head into the late, late summer, with appropriate commentary. This list is drawn from market sales since the beginning of 2009, with the limitations being those of my own stock. For example, I'm sure I could sell multiple copies of Confederacy of Dunces every time I sell at a market, but the used copies just aren't there, compared to say, Fahrenheit 451. Also, authors and subjects of books are combined into one category. Bob Dylan, for example, gets credit for sales of books he has written (Chronicles, Volume I and Tarantula), as well as any of the voluminous biographies, critical studies, etc. written by other authors. Finally, this list will be updated throughout the rest of the year, so the list should be quite fluid:
1.) Kurt Vonnegut: No surprises here, right? I think I read my first Vonnegut novel (Dead-Eye Dick) at about 15, maybe 16, and I vividly remember pulling it down from the shelf at the Bossier Parish Library and being transported to a very different place than the science fiction that comprised much of my independent reading at the time. I was probably passionately hooked for about five years, with waning but never fully-diminished enthusiasm since. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
2.) Star Trek books: I have to admit, this one has surprised me, but even New Orleans has its share of nerds, right? This listing is probably skewed by a particular type of book, the photonovel. This was a paperback format in which episodes of the original series were recreated through a sequence of still photographs with word balloons. I have never seen it used with any other t.v. show or movie, and I had the good fortune to buy a cache of several of them about three years ago. I believe I am sold out now, and I do not expect the more conventional Star Trek book sales to be able to sustain this ranking.
3.) (tie) Ray Bradbury: I have to admit I finally read Fahrenheit 451 about six years ago. I knew I would be sympathetic with the subject matter, but I truly did not anticipate the emotional power of the writing. I have since devoured several of Bradbury's short stories, and find him a true poet, particularly of a kind of nostalgic melancholy, much in contrast to the technological optimism many associate with science fiction.
3.) (tie) Walker Percy: Finally, a hometowner, the Kierkegaard of Covington, the chronicler of the existential angst afflicting the bourgeoisie, despite their best attempts to lose themselves in moviegoing and sloe gin fizzes.
5.) (tie) Robert Heinlein: Science fiction makes a big splash, with three of the top eight, including the dean of Golden Age military SF and author of Stranger in a Strange Land, one of the more unusual works of the 1960's, written by the most unlikely of suspects.
5.) (tie) Hermann Hesse: Question: Who is the only Nobel Prize winner on our list, as well as the only one whose book titles have inspired both a 60's rock band and a Keanu Reeves movie? William Burroughs? No. Philip K. Dick? No. Aldous Huxley? No. It would be the author of Steppenwolf and Siddhartha, the man whose work has probably fueled more dorm room acid-fueled inner journeys than any other Nobel winner save, I don't know, Pearl S. Buck?
5.) (tie) James Joyce: Now this one is a pleasant surprise. I know New Orleans has historically seen a lot of Irish immigration and influence, but who knew that one of the most challenging writers of the previous century would be so embraced. I haven't actually sold a copy of Finnegan's Wake yet, but the other major works of the Joyce ouvre have all been represented.
5.) (tie) J.D. Salinger: As with Joyce, all of the major works are represented in the sales totals, including the collections of those pristine, Steuben crystal short stories that launched a thousand New Yorker subscriptions.
I will spare you the ever-expanding tie that follows, but I will let you know a few of the writers/subjects who seem poised to make big splashes in the coming weeks: James Lee Burke, Albert Camus, Bob Dylan, Ernest Gaines, Aldous Huxley, Henry Miller, George Orwell, Anne Rice. I will post new rankings every week as the markets move along, and you can follow your favorites, not to mention helping them out. If you find it appalling that a hack like Vonnegut sits smugly at the top of the greater New Orleans market bestseller list, while Faulkner languishes in relative obscurity, cast your vote by stepping up and purchasing that copy of The Reivers, and make your voice count! Additionally, if you would like where your favorite author rates on the list, send an inquiry to mpbookfreak@hotmail.com. If you would not like your email published, please specify.
While we're on the subject, let's turn to the digital mailbag. Jason in New Orleans writes:
after reading your blog, my brain exploded from sheer intellectual satisfaction. damn you, mike. you owe me at least a cerebral cortex.
Thank you for your, um, kind words, Jason. It is exactly such feedback that keeps me going until the Macarthur Fellowship comes in. As for the cerebral cortex, let me talk to a couple of New Jersey rabbis I know who may be able to facilitate that. And I'll throw in the instantaneous Hebrew fluency for free!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Odds and Ends
Well, yours truly and Mrs. truly are soon to be homeowners for the first time, which means the book packing has begun. If you don't hear from me for a while, it probably just means that my newly muscular arms destroyed the keyboard in a display of unforeseen strength. Until then, I will do my best to keep you apprised of noteworthy events, books published, and the like.
I did manage to attend the reading at New Orleans' historic Latter Library this past Saturday, August 1. Laura Mattingly, Danny Kerwick, Martha McFerrin and Chris Champagne were the participants, all very good in their very different ways.
Mattingly, introduced by emcee and occasional participant Gina Ferrara as someone who rafted the Mississippi (particularly impressive to this reader, presently working on Huck Finn and Life on the Mississippi), seems to write from a perspective of youthful discovery, including handwritten poems seemingly random pieces of paper. The highlight was her last poem, about a tattooed street youth named Cisco, lingering near death after being stabbed. Compassionate and powerful, it reminded me of Jim Carroll's "People Who Died," alchemically bestowing dignity on someone who superficially seemed to live his life in rejection of it.
Danny Kerwick read from his new book You Stand Alongside Death, a book-length poem released by Foothills Publishing, and illustrated with a gorgeous painting by Patricia Kaschalk. I will try to have a review of the book posted soon, but the excerpts read by Danny had a crystalline beauty to them, each image a carefully and starkly crafted moment of consciousness that has unsuccessfully eluded capture.
Martha McFerrin was the member of the group with the most high-falutin' academic credentials, and she did make generous use of references to Yeats and Knossos and Orpheus. But a keen wit was wedded to the esotericism (I might have made up that word), and she wrote wistfully of her roots in northeast Texas, a piney-wooded region that has produced its share of unique individuals (think Bill Moyers, George Foreman, Bubba Ho-Tep writer and cult novelist Joe Lansdale, and Albert Parsons, the former teenage Confederate soldier who married a former slave and ended up at the end of a noose, executed for his agitation in Chicago on behalf of the campaign for the eight-hour working day).
Chris Champagne, known for his one-man theatrical performances lampooning New Orleans public figures, finished up with some surreal wordplay, including a remarkable Hemingway parody that transcended mere imitation. We've all heard a few sentences or even paragraphs from the competition in Key West every year, exploiting the obvious cliched bread crumbs that Hemingway graciously left on his way out, but Champagne took it to a whole new level, channeling, I don't know, Alfred Jarry or Antonin Artaud or someone within that whole Paris orbit.
Unfortunately, I believe that the Latter Library's readings fall on the first Saturday of the month, which conflicts with the Freret Market, where Deep South Samizdat Books has an ongoing presence, providing greater New Orleanians with quality literature in a wonderful outdoor setting (when the fires of Hades are not upon us in the summer).
For those of you outside of the city, you can always shop online at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks. Recent additions to the online inventory include A Thomas Merton Reader, Wallace Stegner's Joe Hill, a biography of Jane's Addiction, studies of African-American religion, some writings on economics that are probably helpful for those of you still trying to make sense of the real world, and books by Kinky Friedman, Doris Lessing and Primo Levi.
And finally, from the digital mailbag, Joe in Brooklyn writes:
Anyway, GREAT first post. I was not familiar with Kaufman's manifesto. Love how you weaved it in. I've booked marked it and will be checking it daily (okay, weekly) and am already trying to come up with something worthwhile to contribute.
However... I will do none of the above unless you CHANGE THE COLOR. Black is devastating to read on, especially since once you click off it and go to a more neutral (esp. white) backgrounded page, you feel like you are going blind.
Joe
RESPONSE:
Ask (or in this case, demand in all caps), and you shall receive, my friend. As you can see, my crack technical support team worked overtime and did in fact change the color of the background from black to white (when will we get beyond this?), thereby eliminating any shortcuts to edginess I previously enjoyed. It's just up to the writing, now, I suppose.
But on to Bob Kaufman. How could you not know the Abomunist Manifesto, Joe? What did they teach you in that Yankee MFA school, how to sit around on the floor with wine and cheese and mispronounce "allegorical" and "didacticism" (Woody Allen, Manhattan)? Get your head out of that Don Delillo novel, put down the bagel, and march down to the Strand and get some Bob Kaufman. And while you're at it, grab a copy of the Times-Picayune and read in pure, unadulterated fear the Saints and LSU previews as they both prepare for utter domination. Talk to you soon, my friend--Parker
I did manage to attend the reading at New Orleans' historic Latter Library this past Saturday, August 1. Laura Mattingly, Danny Kerwick, Martha McFerrin and Chris Champagne were the participants, all very good in their very different ways.
Mattingly, introduced by emcee and occasional participant Gina Ferrara as someone who rafted the Mississippi (particularly impressive to this reader, presently working on Huck Finn and Life on the Mississippi), seems to write from a perspective of youthful discovery, including handwritten poems seemingly random pieces of paper. The highlight was her last poem, about a tattooed street youth named Cisco, lingering near death after being stabbed. Compassionate and powerful, it reminded me of Jim Carroll's "People Who Died," alchemically bestowing dignity on someone who superficially seemed to live his life in rejection of it.
Danny Kerwick read from his new book You Stand Alongside Death, a book-length poem released by Foothills Publishing, and illustrated with a gorgeous painting by Patricia Kaschalk. I will try to have a review of the book posted soon, but the excerpts read by Danny had a crystalline beauty to them, each image a carefully and starkly crafted moment of consciousness that has unsuccessfully eluded capture.
Martha McFerrin was the member of the group with the most high-falutin' academic credentials, and she did make generous use of references to Yeats and Knossos and Orpheus. But a keen wit was wedded to the esotericism (I might have made up that word), and she wrote wistfully of her roots in northeast Texas, a piney-wooded region that has produced its share of unique individuals (think Bill Moyers, George Foreman, Bubba Ho-Tep writer and cult novelist Joe Lansdale, and Albert Parsons, the former teenage Confederate soldier who married a former slave and ended up at the end of a noose, executed for his agitation in Chicago on behalf of the campaign for the eight-hour working day).
Chris Champagne, known for his one-man theatrical performances lampooning New Orleans public figures, finished up with some surreal wordplay, including a remarkable Hemingway parody that transcended mere imitation. We've all heard a few sentences or even paragraphs from the competition in Key West every year, exploiting the obvious cliched bread crumbs that Hemingway graciously left on his way out, but Champagne took it to a whole new level, channeling, I don't know, Alfred Jarry or Antonin Artaud or someone within that whole Paris orbit.
Unfortunately, I believe that the Latter Library's readings fall on the first Saturday of the month, which conflicts with the Freret Market, where Deep South Samizdat Books has an ongoing presence, providing greater New Orleanians with quality literature in a wonderful outdoor setting (when the fires of Hades are not upon us in the summer).
For those of you outside of the city, you can always shop online at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks. Recent additions to the online inventory include A Thomas Merton Reader, Wallace Stegner's Joe Hill, a biography of Jane's Addiction, studies of African-American religion, some writings on economics that are probably helpful for those of you still trying to make sense of the real world, and books by Kinky Friedman, Doris Lessing and Primo Levi.
And finally, from the digital mailbag, Joe in Brooklyn writes:
I'm seeing spots over here, man!
Joe
RESPONSE:
Ask (or in this case, demand in all caps), and you shall receive, my friend. As you can see, my crack technical support team worked overtime and did in fact change the color of the background from black to white (when will we get beyond this?), thereby eliminating any shortcuts to edginess I previously enjoyed. It's just up to the writing, now, I suppose.
But on to Bob Kaufman. How could you not know the Abomunist Manifesto, Joe? What did they teach you in that Yankee MFA school, how to sit around on the floor with wine and cheese and mispronounce "allegorical" and "didacticism" (Woody Allen, Manhattan)? Get your head out of that Don Delillo novel, put down the bagel, and march down to the Strand and get some Bob Kaufman. And while you're at it, grab a copy of the Times-Picayune and read in pure, unadulterated fear the Saints and LSU previews as they both prepare for utter domination. Talk to you soon, my friend--Parker
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Let There Be Abom
Welcome to the launch of a new (ad)venture, the Abomunistic Review of Books, a holy-owned and completely emancipated subsidiary of Deep South Samizdat Books, providing quality subversive literature to the Greater New Orleans community at various street markets and festivals, and to the world through the magick of the internet.
ABOUMISTS BELIEVE WHAT THEY DREAM ONLY
AFTER IT COMES TRUE.
I am Michael Parker, underpaid and overeducated writer, editor and carnival barker of this intellectual funhouse. I agonized over an appropriate title, with which I hope to accomplish several objectives: 1), crass self-promotion of my bookselling business (accessible online at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks), which is not exactly drowning me in filthy lucre just yet; 2) exploration of the local, regional and global literary scene, through reviews, commentary, interviews, announcements and promotion of events, on-the-spot reporting from the barricades of the never-ending struggle against the bland conformity and emotional numbness of the larger reality-tv-show, manufactured-consent Moloch society, and 3) an ongoing outlet for my personal passions and preoccupations, so I don't have to inflict them on my daughter during our homeschooling lessons ("Don't you see, Zora, the Federal Reserve has no formal connection to the U.S. government, much less a constitutional mandate! There's absolutely no accountability!" "Daddy, you're scaring me again. Can we do math instead?" "This is your math lesson!"
ABOMUNIST CHILDREN MUST BE REARED ABOMUNIBLY.
Given all of those considerations, and my desire to ground the review firmly in the shifting soil of New Orleans without resorting to obvious literary cliches (no references to confederacies of dunces, kindness of strangers, interviewing of vampires, confederacies of vampires, kindness of dunces, etc.), I decided to reference the brilliant, eccentric African-American surrealist Bob Kaufman. Born in New Orleans, one of thirteen children of a teacher and a Pullman porter. Lived most of his adult life in San Francisco after a stint in the Merchant Marine. A very underrated poet of the Beat Generation/Black Mountain/San Francisco Poetry Renaissance Axis of Enlightenment the revolutionized post-World War II literature. Like many of those writers, Kaufman wrote quite self-consciously about the life and role of the poet within society, in his case a society and a counterculture forged from the fires of Depression and War, Jim Crow and Civil Rights, political radicalism (notably as an activist with the militantly leftist Seaman's International Union) and McCarthyism, Abstract Expressionism and Bebop (I was serendipitously reminded while researching Kaufman that his son was named Parker, after sax sorcerer Charlie).
IN TIMES OF NATIONAL PERIL, ABOMUNISTS, AS REALITY
AMERICANS, STAND READY TO DRINK THEMSELVES
TO DEATH FOR THEIR COUNTRY.
Like the European Dadaists and Surrealists, many of the Beats and their peers were drawn to the manifesto as a form, and I would argue that Kaufman's "Abomunist Manifesto" is one of the best, its imagery and rhythm seeming to emanate from some utopian after-hours jam session populated by Tristan Tzara, Charles Mingus and Lenny Bruce. It can be found in Kaufman's first book, Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness (1965), long out of print, or in the outstanding anthology The Outlaw Bible of american poetry. That book contains a biographical essay by Maria Damun, from which I have gleaned some of the details I share with you. Basically, Kaufman's work and life represent a synthesis that has done so much to energize American culture over the last 65 years or so: New Orleans, west coast, mysticism, radical politics, African America, surrealism, jazz... His spirit inspires these posts, and I will try to live up to that inspiration.
ABOMUNIST POETS, CONFIDENT THAT THE NEW LITERARY
FORM "FOOT-PRINTISM" HAS FREED THE ARTIST
OF OUTMODED RESTRICTIONS, SUCH AS: THE ABILITY TO
READ AND WRITE, OR THE DESIRE TO COMMUNICATE,
MUST BE PREPARED TO READ THEIR WORK AT DENTAL
COLLEGES, EMBALMING SCHOOLS, HOMES FOR UNWED
MOTHERS, HOMES FOR WED MOTHERS, INSANE ASYLUMS,
USO CANTEENS, KINDERGARTENS, AND COUNTY JAILS.
ABOMUNISTS NEVER COMPROMISE THEIR REJECTIONARY
PHILOSOPHY.
Thanks for coming aboard. Hope you can stay a while.
ABOUMISTS BELIEVE WHAT THEY DREAM ONLY
AFTER IT COMES TRUE.
I am Michael Parker, underpaid and overeducated writer, editor and carnival barker of this intellectual funhouse. I agonized over an appropriate title, with which I hope to accomplish several objectives: 1), crass self-promotion of my bookselling business (accessible online at amazon.com/shops/deepsouthsamizdatbooks), which is not exactly drowning me in filthy lucre just yet; 2) exploration of the local, regional and global literary scene, through reviews, commentary, interviews, announcements and promotion of events, on-the-spot reporting from the barricades of the never-ending struggle against the bland conformity and emotional numbness of the larger reality-tv-show, manufactured-consent Moloch society, and 3) an ongoing outlet for my personal passions and preoccupations, so I don't have to inflict them on my daughter during our homeschooling lessons ("Don't you see, Zora, the Federal Reserve has no formal connection to the U.S. government, much less a constitutional mandate! There's absolutely no accountability!" "Daddy, you're scaring me again. Can we do math instead?" "This is your math lesson!"
ABOMUNIST CHILDREN MUST BE REARED ABOMUNIBLY.
Given all of those considerations, and my desire to ground the review firmly in the shifting soil of New Orleans without resorting to obvious literary cliches (no references to confederacies of dunces, kindness of strangers, interviewing of vampires, confederacies of vampires, kindness of dunces, etc.), I decided to reference the brilliant, eccentric African-American surrealist Bob Kaufman. Born in New Orleans, one of thirteen children of a teacher and a Pullman porter. Lived most of his adult life in San Francisco after a stint in the Merchant Marine. A very underrated poet of the Beat Generation/Black Mountain/San Francisco Poetry Renaissance Axis of Enlightenment the revolutionized post-World War II literature. Like many of those writers, Kaufman wrote quite self-consciously about the life and role of the poet within society, in his case a society and a counterculture forged from the fires of Depression and War, Jim Crow and Civil Rights, political radicalism (notably as an activist with the militantly leftist Seaman's International Union) and McCarthyism, Abstract Expressionism and Bebop (I was serendipitously reminded while researching Kaufman that his son was named Parker, after sax sorcerer Charlie).
IN TIMES OF NATIONAL PERIL, ABOMUNISTS, AS REALITY
AMERICANS, STAND READY TO DRINK THEMSELVES
TO DEATH FOR THEIR COUNTRY.
Like the European Dadaists and Surrealists, many of the Beats and their peers were drawn to the manifesto as a form, and I would argue that Kaufman's "Abomunist Manifesto" is one of the best, its imagery and rhythm seeming to emanate from some utopian after-hours jam session populated by Tristan Tzara, Charles Mingus and Lenny Bruce. It can be found in Kaufman's first book, Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness (1965), long out of print, or in the outstanding anthology The Outlaw Bible of american poetry. That book contains a biographical essay by Maria Damun, from which I have gleaned some of the details I share with you. Basically, Kaufman's work and life represent a synthesis that has done so much to energize American culture over the last 65 years or so: New Orleans, west coast, mysticism, radical politics, African America, surrealism, jazz... His spirit inspires these posts, and I will try to live up to that inspiration.
ABOMUNIST POETS, CONFIDENT THAT THE NEW LITERARY
FORM "FOOT-PRINTISM" HAS FREED THE ARTIST
OF OUTMODED RESTRICTIONS, SUCH AS: THE ABILITY TO
READ AND WRITE, OR THE DESIRE TO COMMUNICATE,
MUST BE PREPARED TO READ THEIR WORK AT DENTAL
COLLEGES, EMBALMING SCHOOLS, HOMES FOR UNWED
MOTHERS, HOMES FOR WED MOTHERS, INSANE ASYLUMS,
USO CANTEENS, KINDERGARTENS, AND COUNTY JAILS.
ABOMUNISTS NEVER COMPROMISE THEIR REJECTIONARY
PHILOSOPHY.
Thanks for coming aboard. Hope you can stay a while.
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