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?).
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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.
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