Category: Reading and Books

I heard this poem today on The Writer’s Almanac which I think makes brilliant use of famous sayings:

Blessings

occur.
Some days I find myself
putting my foot in
the same stream twice;
leading a horse to water
and making him drink.
I have a clue.
I can see the forest
for the trees.

Some days misery
no longer loves company;
it puts itself out of its.
There’s rest for the weary.
There’s turning back.
There are guarantees.
I can be serious.
I can mean that.
You can quite
put your finger on it.

—Ronald Wallace

Title: “Honor Thy Father”

Author: Gay Talese.

Synopsis: Talese spent several years in the late 1960s with Bill Bonanno, heir to New York’s Bonanno crime family. Staggering level of observational detail ensues.

Backstory: Picked up at the San Francisco Library Book Sale after my friend Rodes mentioned I should look into Talese.

Notes: Talese is the only author in this book that straddles generations of New Journalism. I’ve been trying to bone up on my new journalists because I’d like to be one someday.

Verdict: This book leaves nothing out. It’d give you Bonanno’s blood type if you asked. Talese’s reporting is beyond thorough which is great if the mafia if your kind of subject and a little tiresome if it’s not. He doesn’t waste time with a lot of analysis or pondering of the social siginificance of it all. Instead he captures a historical moment, a moment where the old familial structure of the mafia was giving way modern corporatism and the sons of family chieftains wished to be college graduates instead of following in their father’s footsteps.

Talese paints Bill Bonanno as a tragic figure, a man with more than enough natural gifts to be succesful, comfortable and happy, if he were only born into a different family. And if that sounds like The Godfather, think again. Mafia life seems largely made up of endless cycles of fear, hiding, bad food, and unending bordemn, signifying nothing.

Talese is from the old school. He sees his job as a journalist to report, not philosophize nor stand in his own way. That can read a little dry, even when you admire his depth.

My friend Heath Row recently outlined a subscription model for books. The Book of the Month Club still exists I think and is an example of this as is McSweeney’s Book Release Club and Re/Search Publications’ system where you lay down a chunk of money and they send you books until your “tab” runs out. if you’re still into it then, you re-up.

Business models like this work on a couple of conditions. 1) The publisher most roll books out slowly enough so the reader doesn’t become overwhelmed and 2) The publisher have a strong brand since the system is all about trusting what they’re sending you. It’s why The Subscribtion Model works so well in the music world where you can atomize content (a song instead of a whole album) and build a recognizable brand through careful selection (nobody expects to get their polka fill from SubPop).

Sadly, large publishers are terrible at both of these. They have to roll out books quickly to recuperate the advance they’ve already paid the author. Editorial judgement is diffuse, spread across several imprints and staff members, each with their own tastes. “Branding” to many old timers is a still a dirty word, smacking of advertising so it barely exists. Knopf and Vintage paperback might sorta mean “quality” but just what are you getting when you buy a book published by Harper Collins?

Smaller houses have the upper hand here just like, in the age of mass customization and individual delivery of culture, smaller producers are simply more fleetfooted and able to create an identity quicker. They wont have the reach of the giants but perhaps they don’t need or want it.

If I were a betting man or a billionaire (I am neither), I would guess that, within a decade, two things will happen. We will see a mini-conglomerate of independent content providers acting in loose confederation to share advertising dollars (John Battelle’s Federated Media in the online space for example) but remain autonomous editorially (will they acknowledge federation membership? Not sure yet). Second, a wave of high-end media customization services will come along, a Platinum Membership book/music/movie club if you will. In platinumland, you’ll pay a high fee not just for media customized to your taste but a personal relationship with your media curator. Like a personal trainer, he/she will have an individual relationship withb you and your tastes and make suggestions accordingly.

With the glut of culture offered to us everyday, services that allow us to turn off the noise and focus(Tivos, rss, podcasts) are both where we’re at and where we are headed. The challenge will be how to break in on an audiences already predefined menu of choices and how to catch them when they are looking for new media and culture. I hope, as cultural producers, we’re ready for this brave new world, because we just woke up in it.

I recently subscried to the NPR Book Podcast which I enjoyed enormously while waiting in line at the Whole Foods.

This week’s episode had an interview with the poet Edward Hirsch, who had two fabulous things to say about poetry. One was a quote from Robert Frost about the value of carrying a notebook.

“How many times must something happen to you before it occurs to you?”

The second was the Four Subjects of Poetry as developed by the poet William Matthews.

1. I went out into the woods today, and it made me feel, you know, sort of religious.

2. We’re not getting any younger.

3. It sure is cold and lonely (a) without you, honey, or (b) with you, honey.

4. Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness, and vice versa, and in any case the coin is too soon spent, and on what we know not what.

I love that.

Title: Whores on the Hill

Author: Colleen Curran

Backstory: Purchased from A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books after reading an article about “Prep Fiction.”

Notes: Like my father before me, I love entertainment about teenagers and high school. Having enjoyed the heck out of Prep, I figured this might be a darker, racier take on similar subject matter. I was right.

Verdict: Whores on the Hill meets your expectations then races past then. The plot is unapologetically trashy. Three girls in a Catholic school stay out late, drink too much and have lots of sex. There’s enough “my school skirt flited up” to satisfy several manners of pervert (including me). But Curran doesn’t stop there. She hurls in scorn, violence and tragedy yet never apologies. Her characters don’t ask for our pity or sympathy. They don’t learn from their mistakes and they certainly don’t grow up. Much like Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, Curran’s novel indirectly argues that being fucked up holds more lifeforce than being healthy. She doesn’t accuse “normal” people of fraud the way Welsh does but she doesn’t deny her heroines the joy or liberation recognizing their sexual power. In an ending as hardened as it is melodramic, Curran argues that if we think young female sexuality is inherently denegrating and dangerous to its pracitioners, well then maybe that’s more about us than it is them.

I appreciated her for it.

My latest book review for the San Francisco Chronicle. I loved this book.

Title: Letters to a Young Artist

Author: Anna Deavere Smith

Backstory: A stop-in at A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books. Couldn’t resist.

Notes: I’ve been a fan of Anna Deavere Smith since reading about Fires in the Mirror more than 10 years ago and have followed her career closely. I failed to get her last book Talk to Me. And despite hating the author of Letters to a Young Activist and the substance of Letters to a Young Novelist, I figured this one would have a heartier mix of wisdom and practicality.

Verdict: It almost does. While Smith doesn’t touch on how to get the press to come to your art opening or how make music while holding down a day job (probably less the concerns of high school and college-age “young artists”), her insights about avoiding to curse of “cool” and empty rebellions against “the man” are dead on. At times, she’s a bit slight, more treacly than wise. But these times are far outweighed by the majority of the essays: careful, astute and necessary.

If you’re not interested in creativity, you won’t be interested in this book. Me? I found it inspirational.