You may have heard this before, but I have stumbled on to a sure thing. Bona fide. You can count on it. Money in the bank (or credit union). Can't miss.
Let me set the stage. As we approach October, the Greater New Orleans street market guerrilla bookselling season, dominated by Deep South Samizdat Books (proprietor, one M. Parker) will be moving forward great guns, as will the National Football League season (maybe even Garrett Hartley will have figured things out by then), the first NFL season featuring the still-implausible defending Super Bowl Champions the New Orleans Saints. So what if I told you I have a surefire method for predicting the two Super Bowl teams, and that you, as a literate, book-loving Greater New Orleans street market guerrilla bookstall patron, could have a direct influence on your favorite team occupying that exclusive position?
As regular readers of this blog know (thanks, Mom and Dad), I provide my readers the service of periodically publishing the Greater New Orleans Street Market Bestseller List. If you recall, the top two positions in the 2009 year-end poll were held by novelists Kurt Vonnegut and Walker Percy.
Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions) was born in Indianapolis, while Percy, though born in Birmingham and raised in Mississippi, lived most of his adult life in New Orleans and Covington, LA, the settings for most of his novels, which include The Moviegoer, Love in the Ruins and Thanatos Syndrome. And February's Super Bowl featured the Indianapolis Colts and the New...Orleans...Saints. Gasp.
That's right. No matter how much I try to find a logical flaw in my conclusion, I am unable to deny the absolute, objective truth: the NFL teams most closely affiliated with the top two finishers in the year-end Greater New Orleans Street Market Bestseller List are inevitably the two teams who survive the playoff rounds and meet in the Super Bowl.
Even a comprehensive check of the historical record bears out the hypothesis, year after year:
Super Bowl III: New York Jets/Baltimore Colts
Bestsellers: Amidst the turmoil of the late 1960's, New Orleanians snatched up copies of the works of pugnacious New York existentialist hipster Norman Mailer and Baltimore bard Edgar Allan Poe, whose "Nevermore" escapes from the lips of many a hungover tourist in the Cresent City.
Super Bowl IX: Pittsburgh Steelers/Minnesota Vikings
Bestsellers: The malaise of the mid-70's had New Orleanians considering the pros and cons of rural simplicity, and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek provided the template; and Bob Dylan's rumored conversion to Christianity lead to renewed interest in the Blake from Hibbing (I couldn't keep Tarantula in stock that year).
Super Bowl XX: Chicago Bears/New England Patriots
Bestsellers: New Orleanians were too sophisticated to fall for the Ellis/McInerny/Janowitz hype of the mid-80's, opting instead for the gritty Chicago streets of Nelson Algren (The Man With the Golden Arm, A Walk on the Wild Side) and the crumbling New England mansions of H.P. Lovecraft (although the interest in this author was no doubt inspired by the devastation that year of Hurricane Cthulhu, Category 666).
Super Bowl XLI: Colts/Saints
Bestsellers: Vonnegut/Percy
Irrefutable objective evidence to support an airtight scientific hypothesis. If only I had recognized this pattern years before. How much money have I left on the table in Vegas, unable to recognize right before my eyes? Never again, for me or my loyal readers, with whom I am more than willing to (in the words of 1936 bestseller Huey Long) "Share the Wealth."
In that spirit, I offer my most recent update of the Bestseller List, featuring the NFL team equivalents of each author, including some alternate teams for those writers associated with more than one city/state/region (trying to avoid the Louisiana bias):
1.) Kurt Vonnegut (Colts)
2.) Walker Percy (Saints)
As of right now, we are looking at a rematch, not an uncommon speculation before the start of this young season. Each team is 2-1, with some noticeably erratic performances thus far. But their literary counterparts have not missed a beat since the end of last year.
3.) George Orwell (New England Patriots)
Obviously, Orwell was English, so the designation of an NFL team to him has to come down to interpretation and intangibles. The Boston area, stretching into New England, is probably the most Anglophilic region of the country, while the revolutionary fervor of the mascot, with its imagery of Tea Parties, fits well with the socialist, anti-fascist, anti-imperialist stances of the author of Homage to Catalonia, The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London (that's about it for his ouvre, right?)
4.) Ray Bradbury (Chicago Bears)
The Grand Master was born in small-town Illinois, so the surprisingly undefeated Bears have themselves a champion. Something Ditka This Way Comes.
5.) (tie) Walter Moseley (San Diego Chargers)
The hard-boiled crime fiction writer is obviously identified with postwar Los Angeles, but our nation's second-largest city does not currently have an NFL franchise. As such, the current Southern California team will have to substitute. Devil in a Blue Dress (with yellow lightning bolts!).
5.) (tie) David Sedaris (Carolina Panthers)
The laugh-out-loud literary humorist grew up in suburban North Carolina, so he gets the unenviable job of representing the Panthers, who should be crushed next Sunday by Walker Percy's Saints (me play pretty one day: the Jimmy Clausen story)!
Expect updates throughout the Fall, as other writers and teams make their moves. Better yet, take an active role in your favorite team's destiny and buy the books associated with said team. You may not be able to sack the opposing team's quarterback or hit the last-second field goal, but you can come out to, say, the Freret Market on Saturday, Oct. 1, and support your tumultuous, Glass family-esque J-E-T-S, Jets! Jets! Jets!, with the purchase of a J.D. Salinger paperback. It's just that easy. I'll see you there.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
One of Us: John Waters as Freak, Friend and Fan
Book reviewed:
Role Models, by John Waters. 2010, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 301 pages.
I have always appreciated maverick film director John Waters, his audacity, his obvious love for the home-grown freaks who populate his adored subterranean Baltimore and render the place cinematically as vividly as Joyce's Dublin, William Kennedy's Albany or Wendell Berry's Kentucky. I admittedly haven't felt the need to keep up with his more recent output the past few years, but Pecker and Hairspray were both quite entertaining and deliciously subversive, if in a more subtle manner compared to in-your-face predecessors like Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble.
Thus I approached Waters' new book Role Models with something more than idle curiousity, something less than intense interest, when I saw it on the New Arrivals shelf at the library (a place I probably have no business entering in the first place, considering all the still-unread William Kennedy and Wendell Berry novels on my shelves). Even after bringing it home, it had to compete with a couple of more involved reading commitments, my long-overdue cracking of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (125 pages in) and Robin D.G. Kelley's comprehensive biography of Thelonious Monk. So there was more than half an expectation that, like many New Arrival impulse borrowings (thanks to that bewitching enabler, the Public Library), I would skim a few chapters during the three weeks it would belong to me, and then I would return it, marveling at Waters' outrageousness and moving on to the next temptress like the literary Lothario the library encourages me to be (I feel so dirty afterwards, but I can't help myself).
But a funny thing happened. I guess you could say I forged a deep emotional connection with this book, maybe even something approaching "love'? I must confess, I found Role Models a work of great depth and compassion, extremely moving at points, and always entertaining.
Rather surprisingly, the author's identity as John Waters, filmmaker, is subdued. There are passing references to specific movies, but the personae that take center stage are those of John Waters, friend, fan, proud Baltmorean, titillated voyeur and passionate reader and art collector.
The emotional center of the book is the third chapter, which details Waters' years-long friendship with Leslie Van Houten, one of the "Manson Girls" convicted for the Tate/La Bianca murders (surely I don't have to explain further, even in this attention span-challenged age of ours). Anyone familiar with Waters' early work knows of his obsession with Charles Manson and his cult following, an obsession he now admits to "...using... in a joking, smart-ass way in my earlier films without the slightest feeling for the victims' families or the lives of the brainwashed Manson killer kids who were also victims in this sad and terrible case," (p. 45). While acknowledging (and conveying van Houten's acknowledgment of) the inhuman brutality and heinousness of her crimes, Waters makes a compelling case for her rehabilitation, decades removed from Manson's influence. Van Houten comes across as utterly sane and determined to make a meaningful contribution, regardless of her circumstances. Her initial reluctance to engage with Waters is testament to her levelheadedness even in severe isolation, and Waters thoughtfully applauds her resistance of conversion to jailhouse Christianity, with its easy and immediate forgiveness and network of ready-made, media-savvy allies. Waters' empathy and affection are palpable, particularly as he has to weigh his willingness to do all he can for a friend in need against the fear that his notoriety undercuts his effectiveness as her advocate.
Waters' fanboy passions are given full indulgence in profiles of Johnny Mathis and Little Richard, both pieces skillful alloys of journalistic inquiry and personal exploration. Speculation about Mathis' ambiguous sexuality leads to a meditation on the author's obsession with the psychotic child character in The Bad Seed, while the memory of playing his freshly-shoplifted 45 of "Lucille" during a family gathering leads to the profound realization that, "In one magical moment, every fear of my white family had been laid bare: an uninvited, screaming, flamboyant black man was in the living room. Even Dr. Spock hadn't warned them about this, (p. 183).
Finally, the intellectual highlight of the book is Waters' discussion of Cy Twombley's work in the chapter "Roommates," in which he rhapsodizes about his personal art collection. I remember seeing an exhibition of Twombley's work at the Menil in Houston many years back, and loving it. Why I loved it, I would have been hard-pressed to articulate at the time, but there is a minimalist, anti-monumental audacity to his work that is truly exhilarating. Waters, who admits to owning 81 volumes on Twombley's work among his (at the time of writing) 8,245 total books (music to the ears of this guerrilla bookseller), delivers the critical goods in language which expands the reader's understanding of the artwork while creating an individualistic (but decidedly not self-indulgent) and decidedly populist work of art as criticism (think Dave Hickey or Lawrence Wechsler):
"You see, Cy Twombley is, quite simply, better than you and me and has the right to feel superior to all collectors. He should (author's italics) judge us because he makes perfect mistakes and laughs at the concerns of the moneyed class, who deserve the problems of abstraction. For me, his thoroughbred so-called scribbles celebrate an ecstacy that only a dyslexic child prodigy could feel over his secret code words and alternative alphabets. This exclusive, violent, erotic handwriting that may seem illegible to others can (ditto, I mean ibid or something) be read if you just give it a chance," (pp. 246-247).
In slightly less abstract terms, this could serve as an apt description of Waters' work, and this book, as well, as appreciations of Baltimore dive bars and raw "outsider porn" bump up against those of Tennessee Williams and Jane Bowles. There is a great generosity of spirit in these pages, and you should grab hold. You might need to wipe some kind of bodily fluid off of your hand afterward, but it will be worth it. Trust him.
Role Models, by John Waters. 2010, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 301 pages.
I have always appreciated maverick film director John Waters, his audacity, his obvious love for the home-grown freaks who populate his adored subterranean Baltimore and render the place cinematically as vividly as Joyce's Dublin, William Kennedy's Albany or Wendell Berry's Kentucky. I admittedly haven't felt the need to keep up with his more recent output the past few years, but Pecker and Hairspray were both quite entertaining and deliciously subversive, if in a more subtle manner compared to in-your-face predecessors like Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble.
Thus I approached Waters' new book Role Models with something more than idle curiousity, something less than intense interest, when I saw it on the New Arrivals shelf at the library (a place I probably have no business entering in the first place, considering all the still-unread William Kennedy and Wendell Berry novels on my shelves). Even after bringing it home, it had to compete with a couple of more involved reading commitments, my long-overdue cracking of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (125 pages in) and Robin D.G. Kelley's comprehensive biography of Thelonious Monk. So there was more than half an expectation that, like many New Arrival impulse borrowings (thanks to that bewitching enabler, the Public Library), I would skim a few chapters during the three weeks it would belong to me, and then I would return it, marveling at Waters' outrageousness and moving on to the next temptress like the literary Lothario the library encourages me to be (I feel so dirty afterwards, but I can't help myself).
But a funny thing happened. I guess you could say I forged a deep emotional connection with this book, maybe even something approaching "love'? I must confess, I found Role Models a work of great depth and compassion, extremely moving at points, and always entertaining.
Rather surprisingly, the author's identity as John Waters, filmmaker, is subdued. There are passing references to specific movies, but the personae that take center stage are those of John Waters, friend, fan, proud Baltmorean, titillated voyeur and passionate reader and art collector.
The emotional center of the book is the third chapter, which details Waters' years-long friendship with Leslie Van Houten, one of the "Manson Girls" convicted for the Tate/La Bianca murders (surely I don't have to explain further, even in this attention span-challenged age of ours). Anyone familiar with Waters' early work knows of his obsession with Charles Manson and his cult following, an obsession he now admits to "...using... in a joking, smart-ass way in my earlier films without the slightest feeling for the victims' families or the lives of the brainwashed Manson killer kids who were also victims in this sad and terrible case," (p. 45). While acknowledging (and conveying van Houten's acknowledgment of) the inhuman brutality and heinousness of her crimes, Waters makes a compelling case for her rehabilitation, decades removed from Manson's influence. Van Houten comes across as utterly sane and determined to make a meaningful contribution, regardless of her circumstances. Her initial reluctance to engage with Waters is testament to her levelheadedness even in severe isolation, and Waters thoughtfully applauds her resistance of conversion to jailhouse Christianity, with its easy and immediate forgiveness and network of ready-made, media-savvy allies. Waters' empathy and affection are palpable, particularly as he has to weigh his willingness to do all he can for a friend in need against the fear that his notoriety undercuts his effectiveness as her advocate.
Waters' fanboy passions are given full indulgence in profiles of Johnny Mathis and Little Richard, both pieces skillful alloys of journalistic inquiry and personal exploration. Speculation about Mathis' ambiguous sexuality leads to a meditation on the author's obsession with the psychotic child character in The Bad Seed, while the memory of playing his freshly-shoplifted 45 of "Lucille" during a family gathering leads to the profound realization that, "In one magical moment, every fear of my white family had been laid bare: an uninvited, screaming, flamboyant black man was in the living room. Even Dr. Spock hadn't warned them about this, (p. 183).
Finally, the intellectual highlight of the book is Waters' discussion of Cy Twombley's work in the chapter "Roommates," in which he rhapsodizes about his personal art collection. I remember seeing an exhibition of Twombley's work at the Menil in Houston many years back, and loving it. Why I loved it, I would have been hard-pressed to articulate at the time, but there is a minimalist, anti-monumental audacity to his work that is truly exhilarating. Waters, who admits to owning 81 volumes on Twombley's work among his (at the time of writing) 8,245 total books (music to the ears of this guerrilla bookseller), delivers the critical goods in language which expands the reader's understanding of the artwork while creating an individualistic (but decidedly not self-indulgent) and decidedly populist work of art as criticism (think Dave Hickey or Lawrence Wechsler):
"You see, Cy Twombley is, quite simply, better than you and me and has the right to feel superior to all collectors. He should (author's italics) judge us because he makes perfect mistakes and laughs at the concerns of the moneyed class, who deserve the problems of abstraction. For me, his thoroughbred so-called scribbles celebrate an ecstacy that only a dyslexic child prodigy could feel over his secret code words and alternative alphabets. This exclusive, violent, erotic handwriting that may seem illegible to others can (ditto, I mean ibid or something) be read if you just give it a chance," (pp. 246-247).
In slightly less abstract terms, this could serve as an apt description of Waters' work, and this book, as well, as appreciations of Baltimore dive bars and raw "outsider porn" bump up against those of Tennessee Williams and Jane Bowles. There is a great generosity of spirit in these pages, and you should grab hold. You might need to wipe some kind of bodily fluid off of your hand afterward, but it will be worth it. Trust him.
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