The Enclave Reading XVIII Tomorrow 1/31 @ Cake Shop

As featured in Time Out New York and on the official site for all things Enclavian. I will be reading with Micaela Morrissette and Jon McMillan. For some reason I have the longest bio though I am the least creditable of the three.

Come see!

Tough Love from No. 44

En train de regarder (comme le reste du pays) l’investiture d’Obama… quelle honte que ce soit la première fois de ma vie que je fais autant… mais honte personnelle (manque d’intérêt) ou honte nationale (manque de leader intéressant) ? Qu’est-ce que cela fait venir les larmes aux yeux de cet esthète incurable, que d’entendre Arethra chanter “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”—that brassy, generous voice capable of so much pain and defiance—mais aussi dois-je avouer que c’est précisément ce côté théâtral, que dis-je, cinématique, qui m’émeut tant. Il y a quelque chose de faux, de démesuré, de si américain là-dedans, qui dans sa perfection à la guimauve aurait pu sortir d’un film Hollywood, on dirait une comédie banale (qui se voudrait satire) où se passait impensable : un homme noir devient président des Etats-Unis (et encore les ricains, se frayant un chemin, montrent aux autres comment faire). Une bonne vieille chanson me touche plus que tout discours, et une mise-en-scène m’importe plus que toute politique ; je m’y reconnais. Je suis fait comme ça, irrémédiablement superficiel. Soit. Mais un film a-t-il jamais osé plus que la réalité ne l’ose désormais?

Loin de moi l’idée de crâner, mais mieux Arethra que d’entendre chanter Madame Bruni. Chapeau, Madame Franklin! Dans tous les sens.

Cory Booker, Open Office Hours, Tuesday January 13, 2008

What would you have me say from five minutes and a handshake? My meeting with the mayor did not especially deepen my insight into him. His Honor held open office hours in the basement of a church. The affiliated hospital was across the street, its neon cross glowing over a deserted entrance, a gilded portrait of Our Lord between the elevators. I went because the year I’ve lived in Newark has been spent in woeful ignorance of the local political climate, though the latter largely describes my whole life, apart from a brief Nader fling in 2000. I inhabit a 20^th floor studio in a decaying Mies van der Rohe monolith (one of two facing each other across a lawn and reminiscent of Detroit’s Lafayette Park) in what was once Newark’s Little Italy, and from my eyrie survey with sovereign aloofness the downtown skyline. Since I moved in, two neighboring buildings have been demolished—one a Westinghouse factory—with no new construction announced. I took the Light Rail to the main station and crossed into the largely Lusophone Ironbound. The travel agencies, the shops that advertised check cashing, phone cards, and international parcels were closed, the churrascarias slow on a Tuesday night; a few people still sat in clusters in the bakeries. Off the main drag houses with old siding crowded narrow alleys. Snow from two days ago lay banked against the curb, and in a fenced lot moonlight glinted from the cars.

Postcard Remix #5

With apologies to Y: The Last Man.

I’ll Be Reading Again

Saturday 1/31 at 4pm at Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow St, NYC btwn. Stanton & Rivington. I’ll be reading with Jon McMillan (he has a story out now in the New England Review!) and Micaela Morrissette (a senior editor at Conjunctions who won a Pushcart and a best american fantasy award this past year). Scott Geiger was instrumental in setting me up for this reading up with his New School buddies Jim and Jason, who run the Enclave reading series; huge thanks to all three. Apparently, Micaela Morrissette named her hedgehog after Scott’s first published story, “The Pursuit of Artemisia Guile” in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 16 (July 2005). If you watch this site, further info and reader bios should eventually get posted there.

Come one and all!

Obama Card Game!

Charlito, of Indie Spinner Rack fame, and co-publisher of what is to date my only published comics work, has produced a handsome handmade card game from the natural effervescence of his irrepressible creative spirit and sheer infectious joy at our soon-to-be President. I am egregiously late about notifying the masses of it, but when I saw notice posted on my friend GB Tran’s blog, I thought Duh, why not be a copycat. I’m still in time for inauguration. Please go buy it. Feed Charlito.

http://www.obamacardgame.com

Postcard Remix #4: Guest Post

Lou Marchetti, 1959

A guest postcard mysteriously signed “Sport.”

The List

This is probably the fifth year I’ve kept track of all the books I’ve read, though only the first I’ve made it public. It seems this year I averaged about one book every two weeks—half my goal—and some of these are short books. Kinda sad, really. Of course, this doesn’t count books I re-read, books I read ¾ of and abandoned, or essay and story collections I dipped into once, twice, or repeatedly, but failed to finish cover to cover. Nothing’s here unless I read, for better or for worse, every word. That means excluding many fine books I wanted to pore over more closely, and at greater length, prolonging the pleasure so to speak, and collections where, for one reason or another, I left a few stories unread. Similarly, however, if I began reading a story collection the previous year, but didn’t finish it until this year, it appears here. Sort of cheating, I know.

I should make a separate list for stories, but that would involve more bookhandling than I care to deal with for a blog entry, since I kept no running record. Still, when I look back on this list and try to pick out what’ll stay with me… it’s been a year more for stories than novels. This list also excludes all reading done for work, not pleasure, and most graphic novels. In the early part of the year I went through these so quickly that I didn’t keep track.

Titles are listed more or less in chronological order of completion, rather than when I started them, though I omit all dates, which might otherwise go a long way toward explaining sudden long lapses in reading… nothing for February or June, and a big slowdown through summer. I enjoyed myself, and deliberately refrained from any rating system. The most embarrassing titles are those I just read to go to sleep… I’ll let you guess which ones. Enjoy!

Postcard Remix #3

With apologies to Andi Watson, Benjamin Parzybok, and Small Beer Press.

The Future is Inauguration

At Slate, William Saletan says: “In the transition from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, we’re going to see a big shift in the politics of biotechnology. The conservative preoccupation with technological frontiers will be replaced, for the time being, by a progressive preoccupation with distributive justice.” People who know me will be sick of hearing this, but as William Gibson says, “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.”