Swamplandia!

Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! might be one of the best books I’ve ever read. Two things:

I bought this for my Nook but think I’ll go get a paper version, so I can lend it out to every reader I know.

At some point, I’ll read it again and highlight all the bits of language that made me go, “wow.” There were too many to count. Nothing ever felt forced. When I wasn’t reading the book, I was wondering if Karen Russell has just wandered around life writing down every simile that has ever occurred to her, and filing them away for a time when she might need them. I simply can’t imagine the skill (or discipline) required to sit down and write an exciting, plot-driven story while also creating insightful and new descriptive connections on nearly every page. An example I remember, from the beginning of the book:

Mom fell through the last stages of her cancer at a frightening speed. She no longer resembled our mother. Her head got soft and bald like a baby’s head. We had to watch her sink into her own face.

The idea of sinking into your own face is so startling and frank and accurate. Then sometimes she gets lyrical and makes the walls move, like in this li’l sentence from the end of the book:

The wallpaper nudged its quiet spirals upward toward the ceiling fan.

How do you learn to do that? I’d love to know. I have never looked at wallpaper and thought about it as nudging anything anywhere, but now I always will. There were many other examples, but the ones from the beginning and the end were easiest to find.

At some point, I think I’ll come back here and write something less swoony about this book. I think the pacing was uneven and I’m not sure how I felt about the end; I’d love to think more about the debts Russell owes to Katherine Dunn and George Saunders; and I’m sure there are other critical things I will want to say after a little more thought. But, for now, just…awesome.

Who Is a Funhouse Mirror, Exactly?

I’m reading Inferno: A Poet’s Novel, by Eileen Myles, which I got because I went to this art thing at PS1 and Eileen was reading when we walked in and she was really, really good. I’ve been to a couple readings lately where, even though the author killed it and the audience had a great time, no one bought books. I think it’s a DC thing, maybe, where people treat readings like lectures instead of commercials. So Eileen was good and I was feeling grumpy about people who go to readings but don’t buy the books of the authors they enjoy and now I’m reading Inferno.

I felt weirdly exposed at this art show. It wasn’t a normal reading, with a Q&A and a signing, and then everyone leaves. It was part of a long performance thing, so one reader finished and then the next reader or performer was up and the previous reader was milling around, getting water, watching the performance, whatever. I’d just listened to Eileen Myles reading, and then bought her book, but she was still in the room, watching people, and being part of the crowd. That was weirdly disconcerting, or exhilarating, and the more I read of Inferno, the more I understand, maybe, why.

Being in a room with a poet, or with any writer I guess, is like being a room with a giant funhouse mirror. But a funhouse mirror that may or may not show you your reflection, and that definitely won’t show you anything right away. Or maybe I mean a black hole, because it’s taking light in but not reflecting it back? This is not a good analogy. But I think hanging out with writers is a narcissistic experience. You know writers are paying attention to their surroundings in a way other people aren’t, and if you’re part of those surroundings, you’re at least potentially material. I spend a huge amount of time with writers or doing writerly things, and the mirror thing never really hit me because they’re my friends and they know me and are voluntarily in my presence and we talk about ourselves with each other all the time, so I mostly know what they think about me and they mostly know what I think about them. But being at an art show with a poet, and then reading that poet’s book and realizing that she writes these insightful, brutal things about the experiences she’s had makes me feel self-conscious and exposed. And then also vain, because as much as I’m hardwired to believe everyone is looking at me all the time (I mean, I am me, what else is there to think?) I don’t honestly believe that most people take much notice of me. Particularly when I’m in a room full of art people at PS1.

This is a really roundabout way of saying the show/reading was really successful, because it made me uncomfortable in exactly the way I think contemporary art tries to make the participant/audience uncomfortable, and Inferno is keeping me feel disconcerted and self-aware. I wonder what the experience of reading it would be like if I hadn’t been to the show, and I wonder what the show would have been like if I hadn’t bought the book, but mostly I’m really loving the way they work together.

Crafty II + Pix

I’m actually really steamed about this Forty Beads book, but I also want to go to sleep sometime in the next day and the energy that comes from getting my feminist on is counterproductive to that goal, so…tomorrow! In the meantime, I will fill up this space with pictures of the paper business card holders I’ve been folding. Here’s the deal: At work last week, I wound up with a few extra copies of the interior pages of a picture book I just worked on. They’re real-deal, folded, trimmed, glossy, on nice stock, with cute illustrations. We were going to trash them, but I took them home instead and have been using these instructions to make them into little wallets. There are a lot of extra pages, and I’ve already made about 30 of these. I still have a giant stack of pages, too, as well as the entirety of Battlestar Galactica minus the first 8 episodes, and really I’m just doing this to feel better about watching an entire television series in super-quick time.

Crafty

I just made a bunch of origami business-card holders. That’s really all there is to say about today.

Post-Empiricism

Does post-truth come after postmodernism? Post-science? Post-empiricism? Incredible as it seems, I’m noticing a distinct post-empirical trend in writing lately.

Things we think are true are sometimes not true. Things we label facts are sometimes not facts. There’s a cool article in Scientific American about how this works in the medical field, and that basic premise is a big part of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn’s groundbreaking (paradigmatic, even) (that’s an elitist Thomas Kuhn joke) study of scientific history and scientific truth.

Truth gets less true over time. So says the New Yorker, in this article about the scientific method and psychological and psychiatric studies.

We don’t really care about what’s true anyway, and belief is resilient. According to this Mother Jones article about  denial, a strong conviction will find a way to stay strong, even in the face of contradictory facts. Gail Collins’s column in today’s New York Times explicitly addresses the challenge of conviction as it relates to anti-woman, anti-contraception, anti-choice politics.

How do you hold on to belief in a post-empirical world? How are you supposed to act? This quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, sums it up, for me:

There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.

Living in DC Really Messes With Your Flight-or-Flight Responses

This morning’s thoughts, after getting off the bus at Union Station.
“Huh. Biohazard suits. That’s disconcerting. I should tweet about that.”
“Oh look, a cluster of cops. Wonder what’s up.”
“Guess I’ll just keep walking toward the biohazard suits and the cluster of cops, given that they’re between here and my office.”
“Oh the suits are handing out stickers. I see. Environmentalists. Earth Day. Right.”
At no point did, “Go the other way,” or “It’s a nice day out, maybe time to go to the park and read,” enter my head. Nor did, “We’re awfully close to the Capitol, I hope the government of the free world isn’t in any kind biological peril.”
I love DC.

OK, Fine, Memoirs

After a weeks-long sci-fi binge, I’m reading two maybe-memoirs: Inferno (a poet’s novel), by Eileen Myles (at home), and Bossypants, by Tina Fey (duh) (on the bus) (as an e-book) (because I hate the cover and don’t want to see it all the time).

Inferno I got because I went to a reading/show/bizarro-concert thing at PS1 the last time I was in New York, and Eileen did a reading, and it was SO GOOD that I bought the book. Bossypants I got because, as previously mentioned, duh.

So, way back before the entire internet was getting up in arms about memoir, or probably during it but before I started spending time on the internet reading things by people who get up in arms about memoir, I went to the beach with my family and made my mom mad. She had lent me a book, it was a memoir, I read it and then told her I didn’t like it. I hadn’t liked it because it felt too easy, like the author hadn’t had to work for what he/she was writing. (I cannot remember what book this was. I thought it was Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld, but it turns out that’s a novel.)

Things I Am Enjoying Exactly As Much As I Was Expecting To Enjoy Them

1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I just finished the third book (although I’m reading from the omnibus, so it doesn’t feel like I’ve finished anything much) after having heard about the series for ages, and after having seen the movie. It is exactly what I expected it to be. I am enjoying it. It is not surprising me, and it is precisely what I expected.
2. Battlestar Galactica. I’m only a few episodes in, but good, smart sci-fi is frequently predictable, if delightful. That said, I think one of the reasons I loved District 9 so much is that it managed to completely take me by surprise. Also, back to BSG: So much teal and orange. This blog post has ruined a tiny bit of my life, including, apparently, the enjoyment of BSG’s color grading.
3. Gum surgery. Just ouch. Please bring sorbet.

Writin’ About My Cat

I came home just now, and the lady who works the front desk of my apartment at nights was all “is that your cat we hear meowing?” I live on the first floor, right next to the lobby and the mailboxes, so when my cat meows, yes, everyone in those common spaces, all the way out to the front door and probably across the hall to the elevators, can hear him. And he meows constantly. When I’m gone, when I’m home, when I’m sleeping, when I’m trying to sleep and can’t because the cat is too loud. Always. This cat, he loves to talk.

Go to Call + Response on Saturday

I have this desire to write about Obama’s budget speech, and say that I’m happy he’s wearing his Campaign Pants again, and wonder a little bit about what it would mean for him to be wearing his Campaign Pants and his President Pants at the same time (I’m wearing leggings under trousers right now, just so you know), and suggest that maybe an Obama who is both being president and campaigning at the same time is exactly what the progressive base wants. But then I start reading about the actual budget plan from smarter, leftier people (see The Nation, or Anne Lowry in Slate, for example) and I realized that I’m not comfortable trying to write about substance or policy, and the pundits have the campaign-speech/progressive-appeal thing well covered.

I do feel comfortable encouraging everyone to go to the Call + Response: Textures opening on Saturday. In this nifty art show, four writers contribute one original short piece each. Then four artists each respond to one of those pieces of writing by creating an original installation piece. Last year’s show, which featured more writers and did not emphasize installations, was terrific, and the after-party was the single best party I’ve ever been to in my life. Ever. Info about the opening is here. See you there?