Saturday, December 15
The moose toppled. Off the roof. I was startled to notice when I scampered off McCabeward to scan the cover of the Fall River! CD before handing it in to Dorsey's inbox (with Jess's green paper.) The wind must have been pretty intense last night. Somebody had at least set her upright when I returned. We'll see what we can do about restoring her to her place. Funny, I had a funk need this morning before I even knew. I always forget that there are more than a few funky tunes on Sly's greatest hits. I'm going to pick up the thread now, rather than continuing it from the end of that old entry that nobody will go back to re-read. Can you imagine if a novel were written with this kind of chronological flexibility in the narrative? Diary-novels never seem to have this problem. Even if the recounter has spent his entire day clearly too busy to have to time write about it, there will still be an entry for that day; and an especially long one at that. I guess that's why it's fiction.
you can make it if you try
~
Scarcely had we finished the recording when Blair suggested we head over to Kohlberg (since when has that become the meeting spot for all things involving cars?) Instead, Daniel Sproul called, and I convinced him to pick us up here. So soon (this is 5 o'clock on Thursday the 13th, for those keeping track) we (Daniel, Blair, myself, Tiffany Lennon, and Melanie Maxmin [i don't know if that's how her last name is spelled, but it's funny]) were in (Melanie Hirsch's) car, listening to Pynched/Promised (I got a little self-conscious when Cookie Monster came on a minute into the ride; Pop Goes the Weasel inspired a nostalgia I never knew existed), and even though we agreed to find some food first, Dan headed straight for our eventual destination, the Philadelphia Free Library (once, most weren't), which is in the heart of the museum district. So no food. Trying to get to nearby Chinatown, we were "sucked into the awfulness" of downtown traffic and kitschy snowflakes on the streetlights, and the prevailing currents swept us south to Walnut and a Wawa, where I resigned myself to a turkey sub. More adventures trying to park. But we made it. The event was the McSweeney's Holiday Extravaganza, a reading/speaking/signing affair featuring "four authors." I'm vaguely aware of McSweeneys thanks to Alyssa and They Might Be Giants, but I still don't really get it. Some combination of a webzine, a publishing company, and a literary society, I guess. I was just there for David Byrne, but I actually enjoyed more some of the other performers (that's what they were.)
First, the emcee was hilarious John Hodgman, who manages to make boasting sound like self-depracation. He opened the evening with an account of the "first extravanganza ever," which was held "on this very site, or somewhere else in Philadelphia" in 1841, on which occasion Poe (dressed in a Santa suit, and with his child bride on his lap) invented the modern mystery genre live on stage with only a chessboard, a map of Paris, a knife, a bit of (newly-invented) twine, and a bunch of orangutans, and was subsequently run out of town by the police. Later, he offered advice on how to win a fight (he is unbeatable in any sort of contest, physical, intellectual or psychic): use eye contact, use henchman, and run a smear campaign. He provided examples of attack ads that he had successfully run against his enemies (a negligent cat-sitter, a falsely advertised hotel, and a masturbating subletter), with brilliant parody of political spots. The first writer was Amy Fusselman, who read several (non-fiction?) anecdotes based on her life - sitting in the front row of an AC/DC concert after buying a ticket off a scalper, calling up an ultrasound machine's manufacturer after jotting down its serial number before the doctor arrived, purchasing a locket too small to fit a lock her deceased father's hair - very natural and engaging. Then she treated us to her "quiet and girly" version of "Hell's Bells," intently playing a simple accompaniment of mostly single notes on her red-yellow-green guitar to her Chan Marshall-esque voice. Nice. Then came Lydia Davis, who appealed very much to me. Her pieces were all quite short; most less than a page, and many no more than a title and one or two lines (my favorite maybe, titled "They take turns saying a word they like":
"It's extraordinary," says one woman.
"It is extraordinary" says the other.)
They were fiction or non-fiction, it doesn't matter, mostly just droll little observations and musings like that on life ("We have four boring friends.") One pondered whether having a position at the university made her the sort of person who has a position at the university. (Surely, she remarked to us, playing the Messiah at Christmastime didn't make her family the sort of family that plays the Messiah at Christmastime.) Another one that resonated was on why we read philosophy - one reason being to read thoughts that we would have liked to think, or would have thought of much later, if we hadn't just read them then. Anyway, she was intellectual and personable and seemed like someone I could have a good discussion with. Neal Pollack, whose book Blair bought for her brother, didn't agree with me quite so much. I was kind of put off by his schtick of arrogance and egotism (his dust-jacket and introducer refer to him as the greatest American writer), which seems a bit too genuine to be ironically funny. And his work ranged from bizarrely self-important (a diary entry which first expounded on his deep connection to the common working man and then related a confrontation he orchestrated in a New York bar between a couple of iron workers conflicted by their loves for Jonathan Franzen and Oprah Winfrey, and "J-Franz" himself) to inane (a "hannukah poem" proclaiming "Jewish men have big cocks" and endlessly repeating "big Jew cock" amid wordplay and elaborations of same) to simply offensive on all fronts (a mocking parody of slam-style poetry written by young black women about their (shared) experience, which he introduced as the work of "his teenage pregnant runaway students from Upper Kensington.") Definitely not a fan. The headliner, and the reason I was there was none other than David Byrne, who's most recent literary effort is a ecumenicalesque book called "The New Sins." His portion of the show was styled as a sales presentation, complete with PowerPoint, atmospheric music, and pens in the shirt pocket. He read about the philosophy of the New Sins, accompanied with titles and mostly unrelated images. It was typical Byrne stuff - irony/social commentary/absurdity - which is fine but not my favorite thing he does. After that, a truly unique treat. A fellow name of Rufus, introduced as the world's only jazz bagpiper (although I couldn't detect much jazz in his playing) stepped out on stage in full red-white-and-blue regalia; kilt, jacket and tam, with a "J Paris" pin and color-coordinated athletic shoes. He gave an enthusiastic but incomprehensible sermon, and present Hodgman with three miniature flags (old glory, new glory, and racing checker.) Then he led us out with "America the Beautiful," "Hava Nagila," "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and "Auld Lang Syne."
We waited in line for the signing. I bought Lydia Davis' book, and then pondered who should recieve it. Alyssa would enjoy it but I had already gotten her three presents (the third of which had arrived that day, something wonderful that I once had and then lost and excited to have again briefly), my mother would enjoy but not get around to it forever, my father would appreciate it, but in a somewhat patronizing way. At first I was just going to ask Lydia to write something not person-specific, but then the right decision dawned on me. Her inscription was "For the bathroom of the Barn, apartment 3S, Rebecca, Joel, Ester, Nori, Ross (whew!)…Lydia Davis, Free Library." She asked about the bathroom; I said it was the nicest room in the house, and that her predecessors included the Onion, Tom Tomorrow, Barth, and Panati, and she seemed relieved. Oh, and I talked to David Byrne. I thanked him for Jim White and Joe Henry, and he said that's nice. Now all two of my two favorite albums of the year have been signed!
you can walk on the water
but you can't stop falling in
you can make it if you try
~
Scarcely had we finished the recording when Blair suggested we head over to Kohlberg (since when has that become the meeting spot for all things involving cars?) Instead, Daniel Sproul called, and I convinced him to pick us up here. So soon (this is 5 o'clock on Thursday the 13th, for those keeping track) we (Daniel, Blair, myself, Tiffany Lennon, and Melanie Maxmin [i don't know if that's how her last name is spelled, but it's funny]) were in (Melanie Hirsch's) car, listening to Pynched/Promised (I got a little self-conscious when Cookie Monster came on a minute into the ride; Pop Goes the Weasel inspired a nostalgia I never knew existed), and even though we agreed to find some food first, Dan headed straight for our eventual destination, the Philadelphia Free Library (once, most weren't), which is in the heart of the museum district. So no food. Trying to get to nearby Chinatown, we were "sucked into the awfulness" of downtown traffic and kitschy snowflakes on the streetlights, and the prevailing currents swept us south to Walnut and a Wawa, where I resigned myself to a turkey sub. More adventures trying to park. But we made it. The event was the McSweeney's Holiday Extravaganza, a reading/speaking/signing affair featuring "four authors." I'm vaguely aware of McSweeneys thanks to Alyssa and They Might Be Giants, but I still don't really get it. Some combination of a webzine, a publishing company, and a literary society, I guess. I was just there for David Byrne, but I actually enjoyed more some of the other performers (that's what they were.)
First, the emcee was hilarious John Hodgman, who manages to make boasting sound like self-depracation. He opened the evening with an account of the "first extravanganza ever," which was held "on this very site, or somewhere else in Philadelphia" in 1841, on which occasion Poe (dressed in a Santa suit, and with his child bride on his lap) invented the modern mystery genre live on stage with only a chessboard, a map of Paris, a knife, a bit of (newly-invented) twine, and a bunch of orangutans, and was subsequently run out of town by the police. Later, he offered advice on how to win a fight (he is unbeatable in any sort of contest, physical, intellectual or psychic): use eye contact, use henchman, and run a smear campaign. He provided examples of attack ads that he had successfully run against his enemies (a negligent cat-sitter, a falsely advertised hotel, and a masturbating subletter), with brilliant parody of political spots. The first writer was Amy Fusselman, who read several (non-fiction?) anecdotes based on her life - sitting in the front row of an AC/DC concert after buying a ticket off a scalper, calling up an ultrasound machine's manufacturer after jotting down its serial number before the doctor arrived, purchasing a locket too small to fit a lock her deceased father's hair - very natural and engaging. Then she treated us to her "quiet and girly" version of "Hell's Bells," intently playing a simple accompaniment of mostly single notes on her red-yellow-green guitar to her Chan Marshall-esque voice. Nice. Then came Lydia Davis, who appealed very much to me. Her pieces were all quite short; most less than a page, and many no more than a title and one or two lines (my favorite maybe, titled "They take turns saying a word they like":
"It's extraordinary," says one woman.
"It is extraordinary" says the other.)
They were fiction or non-fiction, it doesn't matter, mostly just droll little observations and musings like that on life ("We have four boring friends.") One pondered whether having a position at the university made her the sort of person who has a position at the university. (Surely, she remarked to us, playing the Messiah at Christmastime didn't make her family the sort of family that plays the Messiah at Christmastime.) Another one that resonated was on why we read philosophy - one reason being to read thoughts that we would have liked to think, or would have thought of much later, if we hadn't just read them then. Anyway, she was intellectual and personable and seemed like someone I could have a good discussion with. Neal Pollack, whose book Blair bought for her brother, didn't agree with me quite so much. I was kind of put off by his schtick of arrogance and egotism (his dust-jacket and introducer refer to him as the greatest American writer), which seems a bit too genuine to be ironically funny. And his work ranged from bizarrely self-important (a diary entry which first expounded on his deep connection to the common working man and then related a confrontation he orchestrated in a New York bar between a couple of iron workers conflicted by their loves for Jonathan Franzen and Oprah Winfrey, and "J-Franz" himself) to inane (a "hannukah poem" proclaiming "Jewish men have big cocks" and endlessly repeating "big Jew cock" amid wordplay and elaborations of same) to simply offensive on all fronts (a mocking parody of slam-style poetry written by young black women about their (shared) experience, which he introduced as the work of "his teenage pregnant runaway students from Upper Kensington.") Definitely not a fan. The headliner, and the reason I was there was none other than David Byrne, who's most recent literary effort is a ecumenicalesque book called "The New Sins." His portion of the show was styled as a sales presentation, complete with PowerPoint, atmospheric music, and pens in the shirt pocket. He read about the philosophy of the New Sins, accompanied with titles and mostly unrelated images. It was typical Byrne stuff - irony/social commentary/absurdity - which is fine but not my favorite thing he does. After that, a truly unique treat. A fellow name of Rufus, introduced as the world's only jazz bagpiper (although I couldn't detect much jazz in his playing) stepped out on stage in full red-white-and-blue regalia; kilt, jacket and tam, with a "J
We waited in line for the signing. I bought Lydia Davis' book, and then pondered who should recieve it. Alyssa would enjoy it but I had already gotten her three presents (the third of which had arrived that day, something wonderful that I once had and then lost and excited to have again briefly), my mother would enjoy but not get around to it forever, my father would appreciate it, but in a somewhat patronizing way. At first I was just going to ask Lydia to write something not person-specific, but then the right decision dawned on me. Her inscription was "For the bathroom of the Barn, apartment 3S, Rebecca, Joel, Ester, Nori, Ross (whew!)…Lydia Davis, Free Library." She asked about the bathroom; I said it was the nicest room in the house, and that her predecessors included the Onion, Tom Tomorrow, Barth, and Panati, and she seemed relieved. Oh, and I talked to David Byrne. I thanked him for Jim White and Joe Henry, and he said that's nice. Now all two of my two favorite albums of the year have been signed!
you can walk on the water
but you can't stop falling in
