shiny things in messy little piles

Month: May 2016

The Books of May

Books I read in May:

xo Orpheus — ed. Kate Bernheimer

The edi­tor trans­lates “xo” as Good­bye but I’ve always thought that “xo” means a kiss and a hug. Which I think is actu­al­ly a bet­ter title for the col­lec­tion it being not so much a farewell to the myths, folk­lore and fairy tales as a con­ver­sa­tion with them. 50 “new myths” are arranged alpha­bet­i­cal­ly by top­ic. Start­ing with A … Anthro­po­ge­n­e­sis and Norse Cre­ation and end­ing with Z … Zeus and Europa after the D’Aulaires. By 50 dif­fer­ent authors. An uneven col­lec­tion but a few have stuck out enough to earn hav­ing the author’s name scrib­bled into a note­book for fur­ther investigation.
I dip in anf out of this and it might sev­er­al more months of idle atten­tion to finish.

* Not so much a good­bye as a love letter.

Best American Essays 2014 — ed. John Jeremiah Sullivan

Anoth­er col­lec­tion of essays. These cho­sen by John Jere­mi­ah Sul­li­van, whose intro­duc­tion is a yawn induc­ing recita­tion of the his­to­ry of the “essay”. I like Sul­li­van’s work as an essay­ist. I’m less enam­ored of his work as an edi­tor. More uneven than most of the col­lec­tions both in the high­lights (bet­ter than many years, but no sur­pris­es) and the bore­dom quo­tient. This series is always worth while for those look­ing to study the state of the art in essays and per­haps find a new author or venue for reading.

* mixed qual­i­ty, but what col­lec­tion of bests isn’t?

Manual for Cleaning Women — Lucia Berlin

The sto­ries  in this col­lec­tion need to read slow­ly. Three or four sto­ries in a row is over­whelm­ing. You’ll have to inter­sperse them with some oth­er mate­r­i­al, per­haps non-fiction.
Very close to auto-biography, Berlin’s sto­ries fol­low a series of char­ac­ters who walk through the author’s life begin­ning in the min­ing towns of the west, fol­low­ing her min­ing engi­neer father and broken-hearted, alco­holic moth­er to Chile as a teenag­er, then mov­ing back to the US. Fol­lowed by sev­er­al mar­riages, four sons, and her own bat­tle with alco­holism. With stops as a ward sec­re­tary in a hos­pi­tal, doc­tor’s recep­tion­ist, clean­ing woman, and artist’s muse among them. By turns har­row­ing and joy­ful and always sharply observed. Berlin’s lan­guage describes the every­day world’s par­tic­u­lars in fresh ways. For exam­ple her descrip­tions of peo­ple are dead on and utter­ly orig­i­nal. From the sweaty man­a­tee of a man seen at a bus stop, to the albi­no dinosaur girl, with stops at all con­di­tions and sorts in between. I can’t rec­om­mend this col­lec­tion high­ly enough. For enter­tain­ment and study as an exam­ple for your own stories.

* a styl­ist to emu­late and sto­ries that will make you smile with a wink. 

On the Move: A Life — Oliver Sacks

Straight up auto­bi­og­ra­phy, is not a genre in which I gen­er­al­ly read. If I’m going to spend time with some­one’s real life, I pre­fer biog­ra­phy with its out­sider’s per­spec­tive. How­ev­er, Sacks spent years observ­ing and writ­ing about the lives of oth­ers, and this lends his account of his own life a dis­tance and observer’s per­spec­tive. From his school days in Eng­land to his accounts of his first years in Amer­i­ca and his slow real­iza­tion that as a neu­rol­o­gist his strength lay in the obser­va­tion and syn­the­sis of mate­r­i­al rather than the hard sci­ence research that he ini­tial­ly set out to do.
You get a very real sense of the man him­self and his fas­ci­na­tion with the things that the brain/mind can do. The grownup Sacks is an out­sider to much of the med­ical pro­fes­sion and per­son­al­ly bit of a pill, which he seems to rec­og­nize. But the young Sacks, in his twen­ties, is a fab­u­lous study in intel­lect vs hedo­nism. I loved his Venice Beach, motor­bikes, hitch­hik­ing, and amphet­a­mine and LSD fueled self-exploration.
An espe­cial­ly nice read for any­one who has enjoyed his oth­er books.

* a charm­ing young man grows up to one of the great observers of the human condition

What is Not Yours Is Not Yours — Helen Oyeyemi

Short sto­ries by the author of Boy, Snow, Bird. I know that I enjoyed these sto­ries but some­how none of them stuck with me. I think this is a reflec­tion of my state of mind this month rather than any short com­ings of the sto­ries. I will reread the book in June and pro­vide a bet­ter report.

* some­times I suck as a review­er — ask again next month

Listened to:

Murder on the Orient Express — Agatha Christie

Clas­sic Agatha Christie. These audio books are nice­ly done ren­di­tions of the sto­ries with a good nar­ra­tor. But they are too expen­sive for me to want to lis­ten to too many of them. Besides if you want a Poirot fix you can watch the David Suchet/PBS ver­sions on Netflix.

* clas­sic mate­r­i­al, nice­ly conveyed

Harry Potter and the Everything — JK Rowling

All of Har­ry Pot­ter. Seri­ous­ly 120 hours of JK Rowl­ing. I seem to have need­ed a big chunk of the month to just go away. So I lis­tened to HP and his friends bat­tle the forces of evil and pre­vail. I also pieced three quilt tops.
I learned a good deal about the use of expo­si­tion in nar­ra­tive and the dif­fi­cul­ties and ben­e­fits of using a close, sin­gle per­son POV. You nev­er leave Har­ry’s side and that adds to the imme­di­a­cy of the books but makes some of the world build­ing dif­fi­cult. Rowl­ing com­mon­ly employs two tac­tics to deliv­er the infor­ma­tion that Har­ry does­n’t know. Sev­er­al of the books end with a chap­ter or two of expo­si­tion that explains the antecedents of the events in the sto­ry, gen­er­al­ly deliv­ered as friend­ly chats between Har­ry and Dum­b­le­dore. The oth­er dodge being the use of a mag­i­cal item called the “Pen­sive,” a mem­o­ry view­er that pro­vides a way to present sto­ry ele­ments that are not direct­ly avail­able to Har­ry. The sev­en book series pro­vid­ed a cou­ple of weeks of immer­sion in unre­al­i­ty and easy story.

* because who does­n’t love being read a story

A Ball of String

I think I was a cat for Hal­loween one year. I have a pic­ture of me in a leo­tard and tights with a con­struc­tion paper ears and a tail and my face paint­ed white with black whiskers.  It’s not much of a tail and I remem­ber being a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ed that I did­n’t have a cloth one with wire in it so that I could make it twitch or at least curl it inter­est­ing­ly. I don’t remem­ber any­thing else about that Hal­loween, or that cos­tume. But I do have the picture.

I’m try­ing to work with the notion of fam­i­ly sto­ries in some essays that I am writ­ing. The need for those sto­ries and the vari­abil­i­ty of those sto­ries and how they orga­nize and glue togeth­er fam­i­lies. The prob­lem is that I need exam­ples and at any giv­en moment in time I can’t just call up sto­ries. My mem­o­ry is entire­ly asso­cia­tive. It’s as if my mem­o­ry is a very tan­gled ball of twine — the only way to find my mem­o­ries is to be offered an end of the string made up of some oth­er mem­o­ry or some remark from some­one. Or a picture.

I have a small album of pic­tures that my moth­er gave to me when I got mar­ried. In it are pic­tures of me as a child and a few of me and my sib­lings.  I love those pictures.

Some of those pic­tures of me are from before I mak­ing con­scious mem­o­ries. There are pic­tures of me being held by my grand­par­ents. One of me as a one year-old proud­ly wear­ing my father’s watch. And oh the hair, bright white and all over the place — fright-wig and looks like Ein­stein were fre­quent remarks.

Slow­ly as a I page through the pic­tures some things become clear­er. I remem­ber a house we lived in when I was  4 and my grand­par­en­t’s back yard. There’s the one of my in a tutu and those blue cat eye glass­es with my friend from kinder­garten — whose name was… oh yeah Lin­da! And how I want­ed to be a bal­le­ri­na — but I don’t think I ever took dance lessons. (If I’m wrong my mom will tell me.)

There are pic­tures of me and my sib­lings. One spe­cial one of the five of us just after my youngest broth­er was born. I don’t remem­ber the pic­ture being tak­en but I do remem­ber the warm Sep­tem­ber day that he was born. The neigh­bor was look­ing after us and told us in the mid­dle of the after­noon that we had a broth­er. And remem­ber­ing that after­noon reminds me of the fam­i­ly sto­ry that’s told about my broth­er’s birth. You see, it’s said that my dad and the doc­tor watched the first game of a Pirates double-header while wait­ing for my broth­er to be born. It con­tin­ues that after Joe’s birth with my dad, the doc­tor, and my new baby broth­er watch­ing the sec­ond game. True? Most like­ly not. But it’s been told over and over again and it does explain Joe’s grade-school obses­sion with baseball.

Once I start down that road — grab that bit of string of mem­o­ry I can find anoth­er sto­ry and anoth­er sto­ry and yet anoth­er. Sto­ries about my broth­ers and their odd­ly bal­anced rela­tion­ship (5 years and a good­ly num­ber of pounds sep­a­rat­ed them but they put up a unit­ed front when­ev­er chal­lenged.) Sto­ries about my sis­ters and their pas­sions, one for music, the oth­er for hors­es. All the things that make my fam­i­ly unique­ly my family.

But with­out the first pic­ture I get no where.

So I keep in my stu­dio a small brown, now quite beat­en up, pho­to album. With a hand­ful of pic­tures. That can send me back in time and unrav­el my mem­o­ry knots. Every time I open it I’m grate­ful that my mom made it for me.

I'm smiling!

 

 

The Books of April

Things I Read:



Mir­ror, Mir­ror, on the Wall: Women Writ­ers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales
— Kate Bern­heimer, ed.
These essays about per­son­al rela­tion­ships to the genre of fairy tales might be okay as one-offs, but an entire col­lec­tion of rem­i­nisces about the role that fairy tale played in story-teller and aca­d­e­m­ic lives is cloy­ing and dead­en­ing. There’re only so many tales of moth­ers good and cru­el, and sex­u­al awak­en­ing, and preda­to­ry males that you can read before they all run togeth­er into one sad, homog­e­nized lump. Seek out the writ­ings of your favorite authors on all sorts of sto­ry telling and leave this col­lec­tion on the shelf.
* too many sim­i­lar essays *

The Fairy Tale Review — Ochre issue (2016)
A new to me annu­al pub­li­ca­tion that focus­es on new fairy tales, retelling of old fairy tales and fairy tale schol­ar­ship. This issue con­tains sev­er­al fab­u­lous pieces. The prize-winning Court­ney Bird’s The Dia­mond Girl, a retelling of the clas­sic Dia­monds and Toads tale, sings with orig­i­nal­i­ty and class. Also fairy tale poet­ry does­n’t have to suck.
* enter­tain­ing enough to order back issues *

Mr and Mrs Dog — Don­ald McCaig
McCain tells the  sto­ry of attempt­ing to get to the World Sheep­dog Tri­als in Wales with his two dogs June and Luke. McCaig knows his dogs well and his descrip­tions of them work­ing are lyri­cal.  Sto­ries about tri­als, and train­ing, and dogs he has known, alter­nate with some inter­est­ing insights into the var­i­ous dog train­ing “camps” (I say inter­est­ing because I do not always agree with him but he argues well.) He’s a lit­tle too fond of Kohler and too dis­mis­sive of the more recent pos­i­tive meth­ods. Though he, like I, find that the best train­ing method depends on the dog, the train­er, and the task. I just come down a lit­tle fur­ther away from the old­er Kohler school than he does.
The tales of sheep­dogs and sheep and the small world of sheep dog tri­al­ing are fun to read and his thoughts on dog train­ing will chal­lenge you no mat­ter what your philosophy
* if you like dogs or James Herriot *

A Plague of Doves — Louise Erdrich
Anoth­er tale of those who live on and near the reser­va­tions in North Dako­ta. Once again she uses mul­ti­ple nar­ra­tors — all them relat­ed in some way by either blood, mar­riage, or sto­ry. Each brings a par­tic­u­lar per­spec­tive on the cru­cial start­ing point of the sto­ry: the mur­der of a set­tler fam­i­ly and the sub­se­quent ret­ri­bu­tion hang­ing of the wrong Indi­an men many years ago. Which sounds ghast­ly when laid out so bare and bald but the sto­ries area typ­i­cal Erdrich, full of per­son­al­i­ty and ele­gant language.
* some of the most effec­tive braid­ed nar­ra­tive you will ever read *

Rose Met­al Press Field Guide to Flash Non-Fiction — Din­ty W. Moore ed.
Third of a tril­o­gy of books of craft essays address­ing very short forms of writ­ing. (Flash Fic­tion, Prose Poet­ry, and Flash Non-Fiction) Flash non-fiction is more actu­al­ly what we should call the very short essay. Things that man­age to express them­selves in less than 750 words. (Or so — oth­er venues con­sid­er the short essay to be any­thing less than 2000 words.) I found the dis­cus­sions of tech­ni­cal aspects — POV, tense, you vs I, fram­ing — to be the most use­ful. It’s a good resource. It will also point you to Brevi­ty mag­a­zine and it’s many excel­lent blog posts. The exer­cis­es are occa­sion­al­ly useful.
* bet­ter writ­ing man­u­al than most *

Things I listened to:

Zero His­to­ry — William Gibson
Last of the most recent tril­o­gy often referred to as the Blue Ant tril­o­gy — once again about brand­ing and mer­chan­diz­ing and secret mar­kets. Not my favorite of the three but always a good sto­ry from Gibson.
* more than you ever want­ed to know about secret mar­ket denim *

 

Hat Full of Sky — Ter­ry Pratchett
In the sec­ond book of Pratch­et­t’s series for younger read­ers, Tiffany, now age 11, is grow­ing into her role as the witch of the chalk. She leaves home to appren­tice with anoth­er witch and is men­aced by a being called a hive. Once again the Nac Mac Fee­gles help and hin­der in equal amounts. The sto­ry is sim­ple and a lit­tle didac­tic but many of us will rec­og­nize the world of pre­teen girls and enjoy the com­pa­ny of many of Pratch­et­t’s reg­u­lar cast of witch­es includ­ing Granny Weatherwax.
* who does­n’t occa­sion­al­ly feel beset by the Nac Mac Feegles? *

Har­ry Pot­ter Book and the Sor­cer­er’s Stone

 

 

 

Har­ry Pot­ter and the Cham­ber of SecretsJK Rowling.
I’ve actu­al­ly only read the first Har­ry Pot­ter. But I’ve seen all the movies. These great big (and get­ting big­ger books) pro­vide light enter­tain­ment to lis­ten to while I’m doing house work, etc. They are sim­ple enough that you can miss a few sen­tences when your atten­tion is drawn to some­thing else (How did the soy sauce get in the fridge?) with­out los­ing the plot.
I have to say that I now under­stand some of the crit­i­cisms of the movies — par­tic­u­lar­ly the flat­ten­ing of the char­ac­ters of Ron and Hermione.  So yes, this is pri­mar­i­ly enter­tain­ment but you can also learn a lot about how vast sprawl­ing fan­ta­sy sto­ries work by listening.
* yeah, it’s a lit­tle late for me to be get­ting around to these. *