SciFi & Beyond!

Honestly, it was fantasy novels that I devoured as a kid. I didn't always like the real world so much, so taking refuge among albino sorcerers, wayward talking cats, and elder gods was vital then and still has impact today. Since then, I've taken many English classes, have taught English, and have read a lot of writing which eschews the realms of the weird and unreal. But science-fiction, fantasy, and the weird are incredibly important. These genres often allow our culture to have a dialogue around things that otherwise may go ignored or are felt in the culture but have yet to be defined.

Early (first-wave) Gothic literature was a direct reflection of those in positions of power (read land-owners / nobility) nervous about losing their place in the social structure. Thus we have stories like Walpole's Castle of Otranto re-affirming, through haunted armor, ghostly wails, etc., the rightful heir to some property and sticking it to the upstart usurper. Today we have television shows like Supernatural, which after a few seasons devolved into various powerful, and often times corporate, camps vying for power through deception, intimidation, resource-control, genetic tinkering, and sometimes force--sound familiar?

That said, there are a lot of poorly written, but very popular, scifi, fantasy, and slipstream books out there just as there are a lot of well-written, but sometimes less known, books of the same genres. As a librarian directly involved in collection development, sometimes this can be a challenge--what to purchase for a collection and how to recommend it? Luckily, an intrepid few, myself included, have started a blog, SciFi & Beyond, which provides reviews and essays on science-fiction, horror, fantasy, and the weird. It's a fun work-in-progress and is a great place to visit in the internets if you are looking for some great reviews and insights. 

Take a look here, and let us know what you think! 

Next Big Thing

Questions:

What is the working title of the book?


So far it’s In the heart is a forest. There have been much shorter versions (Forest everywhere) and a longer inverted version (In the center of the forest is a heart), but the current title has stuck around the longest.

Where did the idea come from for the book?


It started with a book called Grimoire by Own Davies which is an academic history of spell-books. Around the same time, I had gone on a hike with this ecology-minded long-distance runner, who made the point that in some sense there is no more “natural” landscape as airborne manufactured-particles have touched everything. So that got me thinking about cities. Not in the sense of cities bad, forest good, which I think is kind of a played-out binary and anyway not very accurate, but rather as grown systems with underlying, sometimes hidden, patterns—which is kind of how a lot of magical systems theoretically work. There’s a structure there, but at the same time, these structures have grown organically from specific cultures. Egyptian magic looks a lot different than Hoodoo from the American South even though everybody at the time was borrowing from Egyptian iconography to lend authenticity. Anyhow, I live in Oakland, so in a way every city is Oakland to me. So I started thinking about Oakland, and cities in general, as mythological landscapes, and went from there.

looking at Lake Merritt

What genre does your book fall under?


Lyric pastoral maybe? Slipstream poetry is what came to mind, but then I began to suspect that all poetry is really slipstream, and that that label only works for fiction where borders are perhaps a little more stable.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?


Well, there’s a lot of animals in the poems (foxes and wolves recur) and there’s sort of an us, so maybe it could be filmed sort of shaky cam first person-plural, and there could be some talking animals (but it would be really brief, and they wouldn’t say much). There’s also a series in the book called The North gives flesh to wind which is about power structures, insistence, and mythologies surrounding the North wind where there’s a cast of characters including the North wind (kind of an abstract sovereign), a boy, geese, fur, secret agents, whistling, girls, a Queen with a math-skirt, wolves again. So I think that James Coburn could voice the North wind. He was great in Affliction. That also took place in sort of a mythological cold north.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?


"It’s in the trees, it’s coming."


How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?


The first draft took about two years—I write slowly and non-methodically, which is, like, a one-two punch if your goal is to not put out coherent book-length manuscripts. Which, sadly, is not my goal, but maybe rather a gaol. Actually, that’s too strong a word, it’s just how I write (a lot of unconnected stuff between pieces that work together). Which is okay as a lot of that writing never meets anyone but me, but sort of acts as the dream-life for the poems that I actually send out.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?


Well the book starts with two epigraphs—one from Kate Bush and one from Wallace Stevens. I don’t think those two would get along, but there it is. Some other poets that have a lot of influence are: Jack Spicer, Elizabeth Willis (one of my teachers at Mills), and Lisa Jarnot (whose Night Scenes is one of my favorite books of all time).

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?


Well, you know, some of the poems have been picked up by magazines but I haven’t really started sending it around as a book. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Thanks to Eric Baus for tagging me for this.

I tag: Sara Mumolo, Nik De Dominic, David Harrison Horton, Reb Livingston

Happy Halloween!

I grew up reading Lovecraft. I mean there were certainly a lot of others, but Lovecraft's--and by extension, Cthulu's--impact on my young imagination was like krakatoa. Today, over twenty years later, the landscape still bears the crater. I think this is where Nyarlothotep, Yog Soggoth, Dagon, and ol' Cthulu itself have taken up residence. Little did I know that so many of the pictorial representations were created by this fella: John Coulthart. He's made a lucky (20)13 calendar, which is pretty terrific.

Micro review of Scared Text

Thoughts on ScaredText by Eric Baus

I love this book. I’ve read it twice, and have thought about how to talk to others about it. Really, I’ve thought about how to assure other people that they in fact should absolutely read it. This is a little difficult because Eric’s book is somewhat like a unicorn: you have to approach it with an open heart, and it will certainly reward you.  I should mention here that while there are plenty of creatures in Scared Text (bees, snails, doves, beetles, eels, elephants, and others) there are no unicorns. Anyway, here is the best way I can describe why you should go out and read this collection:

There’s a syndetic structure to Scared Text—a cross-referential of not only phrase, but of tone and ideation.  Baus chooses to begin his text with “Glass Ear” which itself begins, “Approach the smallest ghost after he has turned his back. A buzz of definition surrounds him” and concludes with “There is no such thing as ‘there is no ghost.’” In a way, this describes the book: there is indeed a “buzz of definition” which surrounds it. Yet like some weird poem-fractal, this buzz surrounds nothing—it scales all the way down to the sentence and unfolds with equivalent coherence to the entire book.

Scared Text as a plastic whole reads almost tactilely. Because there’s no narrative or symbolism or allusion it must be read exactly as itself.  And it pulses. Words and phrases don’t so much as echo each other, as they pneumatically pull on one another; perhaps another way to imagine this is to see the entire text as a network with certain characters (and I use this term loosely) like “Minus” and “Iris” along with some others as well simultaneously occupying multiple locations. Scared Text does a really neat thing for me: it somehow points to a way of non-local non-sequential cognition, as if the entire text should be read simultaneously if only our minds could become so elastic. 

Reanimation Library

Wow--this independent library in Brooklyn is soooooo cool. Check out the interview:



Poor Stephen Hayes's Mystic Arts of the Ninja--relegated to obsolescence...I loved that book as a kid! (I might even still have it around somewhere.) And OH MY GOD can someone with skillz please make me a pair of those "Master Librarian" knuckle dusters--I'll find a way to make it worth your while. Really.

Books, Content, Form and Formlessness -- Craig Mod Explores the Book as Object and Metaphor

Thanks to a tip from Saudade about a NYT article, I just read a great article on the nature and future of books, printing, and reading. Check out book designer, writer, and publisher Craig Mod's thoughts here: http://craigmod.com/journal/ipad_and_books/. And as a book lover, a book seller, and a librarian, I must admit I agree with his points, especially that "disposable books" should be swept out from print and into solely digital formats.

My only concern here is that he seems to ignore the digital divide. What of those who cannot afford one of Steve Jobs very expensive-but-beautiful products--do they not deserve to take a bit of summer reading to the beach? I don't think many public libraries will be loaning out iPads anytime soon, so perhaps the disposable mass market should be left around, despite its inherent negative effects until everyone can have some sort of e-reader. Any thoughts?

Awful library books...

Can be seen here: http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/.

This site is awesome--from crazy old Satanist scare books from the 80s and 90s to how to jump start excitement with Tape Recording. Really, it's worth checking out!



See why weeding really can be fun!

Books stabilize culture

I read a terrific essay today by Stephen L. Carter over at The Daily Beast. Carter begins with the following:

Like a lot of writers, I am wondering when Congress and the administration will propose a bailout for the publishing industry. Carnage is everywhere. Advances slashed, editors fired, publicity at subsistence levels, entire imprints vanished into thin air. Moreover, unlike some of the industries that the government, in its wisdom, has decided to subsidize, the publishing of books is crucial to the American way of life

Ironically I read this online, but I very much agree with Carter when he asserts that the book itself is quite different from information, and that both are necessary. We so often tend to blindly adopt new media and throw out the old without taking the time to critically analyze not just the benefits and costs of each, but the deeper nature of different media types. I'll take a book any day over a kindle, and I don't trust those who wouldn't do the same.

And in tangential but ever-so related news, Ama.zon (may it be crushed by its own weight) has decided to define its LGBT titles as "Adult." WTF? Read more here: http://i.gizmodo.com/5209149/amazon-deems-lgbt-books-too-adult-for-search-best-seller-lists

Consumption, Books, and Reproduction

So this week I discovered two things:

1. ABE.com has been purchased by Amazon.com. Read more here.

and

2. Isabella Rossellini is into insect sex and is wonderful and mad.

The first piece of news distresses me. I have worked in an independent bookstore, Diesel, A Bookstore, for a few years now, and have sadly watched other incredible independents go out of business around me. Most people don't really realize the great benefit independent bookstores bring to their community--indies are so often the places, like public libraries, where public discourse occurs, and where new ideas are introduced and disseminated. I very much hold online book-sellers like Amazon responsible for irrevocably damaging independents.

The second discovery delights me. I have known for quite some time that Isabella Rossellini is a wonderful actress who makes interesting choices. These videos on the Sundance channel have cemented this knowledge and, indeed, have lead me to the new understanding that she is, in actuality, a genius.

You can watch her episodes of insect-on-insect interaction here. One must give respect to any artist who creates life-size paper replicas of bugs, and then does what she does. The Bee episode is probably my favorite.

Perhaps there is a relationship between the often cannibalistic sex of life of insects and the uber-capitalist society in which we now live. Perhaps not, but the discovery of both the above topics nevertheless leads to intriguing juxtapositions.