Counterbalance

T-Minus 100

The wedding is less than two weeks away (specifically, 11 days according the The Knot, The Wedding Channel, Inside Weddings and the Weather Channel reminders that I've been crazy enough to sign up for and now wish to undo) and, well, there you have it.  Eleven days. 11 days. How to count the ways to say e-l-e-v-e-n d-a-y-s?

The good news: Most of the prep is done and so now it is time to relax. Go for another run. Tack on another 20 minutes to morning meditation. Sneak in another yoga class to keep things mellow.

The bad news: I wholeheartedly resent the notion that on this day one must look their best, feel their best, be their best blah, blah, blah.  It's so insanely inauthentic, unreal, unrealistic and, well, plain silly.

Don't get me wrong: I'll look amazing.  :-) And my dress, well, if there was one area in which I capitulated, one area where I spent more than I should have, it is the dress. It isn't a big old bridey-dress. There is no poufiness. No taffeta. It's as "urban" a dress as I could find with it's shredded chiffon. But. It does have lace. And...well...a train of sorts. But a bizarre train. One I've never seen before.  That comes out of the top. Sort of couture/runway-like. That counts in the indie bride category, right?

Here's the thing: I loathe the bridal industry and the ridiculous notions of perfection that are foisted upon brides and grooms, particularly in the US.  There were many points along the way where we thought - what the hell are we doing/we should just elope. We've lived together for six years. This isn't exactly going to signal major change once "the day" is over. Yet there is something - something - in planning a party for your closest friends and family members. In thinking up ways you can all have a hell of a lot of fun together that day. In planning a few small surprises that will hopefully delight them and make their visit more memorable.  I realize what constitutes "a hell of a lot of fun" is different for everyone and I think that's where ideas on weddings differ. And they should. 

One other capitulation necessity: While I've refrained from buying a single bridal magazine during our year-long engagement (although I realize this is not quite the feat I believe it to be, given that everything is online and I only know that because, well, I frequent those sites!), I did break down and buy Altared. But. Well. The writers are so good. Certainly I cannot be faulted for reading the likes of Elizabeth Crane, Meghan Daum, Amy Bloom, Jennifer Armstromg, Gina Zucker, Dani Shapiro and so many others. I couldn't sleep at all the other night (no, not wedding stress...call it three foster dogs plus our own two and a lot of scratching about, shaking their tags late at night and general walking all over the house with their clickety clacking feet whilst I was trying to sleep) and so I got up, grabbed Altared from the shelf (I remembered, of course, the white cover and white spine, aiding in my quick location of the book on my rainbow colored shelves) and crept into the guest bedroom. I read it from cover to cover and felt so much better. Really. Like bridal therapy.  Funny. Bittersweet. Instructive. But mostly - importantly - funny. Just what I needed.

So: Thank you ladies of Altared. Thank you for your wit and wisdom at this crucial hour. Perhaps I should have read this book...say...months ago. Before a few things got out of hand. But instead of beating myself up for my gorgeous dress capitulation (but we're doing our own iTunes! there are no bridesmaids! there is no big fancy cake! we're getting married in a parking lot! i'll be wearing green shoes that i can wear again!), I will take solace in Carina Chocano's words at the end of her piece "There Went the Bride":

"It might rain, as it has on that date for the past three years running. (We forgot to look into the weather before booking the date.) I might, as I get ready to walk down the aisle on my mom's arm, be overcome with embarrassment. I might capitulate to the small-town makeup artist and wind up looking more like Baby Jane than like myself. If it were possible for me to return the silk gown, which it's not, I might do it and start all over again at Level 1, the cocktail dress. Maybe I'd then cycle through five more dresses and wind up with a ten-foot-long train and a veil.

The truth is that, two months before the event, I'm still alternating among excitement, horror, and genuine surprise at how it was exactly that we would up here instead of eloping and taking off for Thailand for a month. But what has changed is that the idea of the wedding itself, has, for me, taken the place that marriage once occupied in my imagination. What I mean is, I now see the wedding, and not the marriage, as the possibly great, possibly regrettable stage in my life. But when it's over, we'll be married, a condition that now looks to me a lot like those pretty rooms that seemed like such a happy reflection of their inhabitants -- a warm, enveloping place where I'll finally get to feel like myself again."

Also: I'm kicking myself for not somehow getting into this collection.  Not that I've yet got the, you know, proof of having been published properly elsewhere. If there is one frustration I have about all this weddingness...it is that my writing has come to a rather abrupt halt.  I simply cannot get my mind focused enough to finish up stories that I had long planned to send out. Contests I meant to enter have gone un-entered.

All in good time, I say. All in good time. 

Because James Salter Said So

I've made no secret of my love for James Salter. My overly expressed admiration for him makes the following declaration all the more wonderful, all the more necessary that I follow it to the letter. In September's Vogue (the biggest! issue! ever! - but they say that every year and so what does that mean for September 2017?!) Salter has a lovely piece on passing an hour with Nabokov. (More on this later, so much to say.  It is gob-smacking when two of your writerly idols are contained within the same piece.) 

In every issue, Vogue asks the contributors a question. Their answer precedes the description of what they've contributed to this particular month's issue and on which page their work can be found.  September's question-to-contributors is: What are you most looking forward to for fall?  Now, Vogue is first and foremost a fashion, nay, STYLE, magazine and so there are the usual answers about what one is looking forward to wearing, what one can't wait to cook, what party one is excited about attending and so on. What did my dear James Salter say?

"Spending a couple of weeks in Europe in the quiet that comes with the end of summer."

As I find myself winding down before winding up (wedding), Salter's response perfectly captures what I've been feeling these past two weeks. There is a stillness. A quiet. A desire to take stock of what has transpired all these past months before jumping headlong into fall. Not that there is a fall in LA. Not that next month will be markedly different than this month. Yet there is a distinct feeling of wanting to take things slowly now, before they go all haywire in a few week's time.

I hear you, Mr. Salter. I hear you. Fresh off my own relaxing hiatus to Palm Springs (I can now safely say that 116 degree weather does not agree with me, no matter how dry the air), I'm feeling the need to bask in the quiet that comes at the end of my summer.  I, too, look forward to fall (in which we pretend we must wear sweaters and rain slickers and boots and scarves, sweating our way through 80 degree days) and all that September (wedding) will bring. 

For now though, I'd like to simply sit. Quietly. And enjoy the calm before the...fall.

In Which There is No Love for the Rainbow Books

Who knew there'd be such passion (and downright disdain) for my color-schemed bookshelves. Several emailers wanted to let me know they've lost respect for me as a reader and a writer because I've arranged my books in such a way. Really? Here is where I must cry "too serious."  Are people truly that upset about this to send in less-than-nice emails? I find this very surprising. And silly.

It was a funny thing I did - to save myself time a few months ago when the task of re-shelving all my drywall-covered books seemed daunting and I had to get them off the floor before the construction crew could move on to other projects.  I'm now sharing the not-so-stellar results. 

Alas, it seems, I'm not the only one who has done so: there is an entire "Rainbow of Books" Flickr pool dedicated to the cause.  You get even more results by searching on rainbow + bookshelf.  I might feature some of this rainbow book porn throughout the week.  I. Just. Might.

Now - I hear you.  I, too, have felt that people who use books as props in their home (cretans!) and those who use books as decor (charlatans!) without ever really cracking one open are not to be taken seriously...or even considered.  If you have read this blog for any length of time (or even, I would venture, for a week or so), it should be dead-obvious that I not only love books, but read them in healthy doses. Enough said. I think. We'll see what kind of emails come in today.

If the flack from my arrangement decision simply becomes too much, I can always blame Bud Parr who gave me the idea in the first place. Notice my comment from a year ago. I, too, thought it seemed insane.

Rainbow books by chodta via Flickr (which makes my shelves look like child's play)

How NOT to Organize Your Books if You Intend to Find Them In the Future - Part I

I'd done the alpha by author thing. I had even - don't laugh - grouped by "subject" if you can imagine it.  After months of construction, I got the go-ahead to place all my books back on their pretty little shelves. They were covered with drywall dust and each one had to be cleaned by hand. Lovingly. When all the books were cleaned, it occurred to me that it would be easier - faster - to arrange by color. And it was, I tell you, it was.  Easier to arrange them. Easier to get them off the floor and back in their nooks. No need to create tons of little piles by author, then arranging them by height by author and so on. Gather all the orange books and in you go. Finding a book in this rainbow madness, however...

It's easier than you'd think for books that you've had a great while. I've got a photographic memory, I'm a designer-by-day, I remember what every cover looks like so I thought I'd be just fine.  Three kinks in this not-so-well thought-out plan:

Kink #1: Even if you've committed the cover art to memory, there's no guarantee that the spine has any correlation. In many cases, it doesn't.  A brilliant yellow cover may have a black spine. A subtle brownish/beigey cover may have a red spine. It's a crap shoot sometimes.  But at least with this problem you can usually get close, warm and work your way to the book you need from there.

Kink #2: If you happen to buy/get/receive/mooch/borrow large piles of books at a time - particularly new ones that you've not yet had the opportunity to memorize by color, cover art, whathaveyou - it becomes difficult, nearly impossible, to sort out where you might have placed that book.  What the picture above doesn't reveal (it being only a small cross-section of the rainbow madness I've created) is that I've got stacks of books perched atop those that are neatly in their cubes. Yes, I managed to pull them out of fed-ex packages and at least stack them by colour, but without a proper study of cover and spine art, I find myself bending down, squinting at the tiny title text along the spines.  Somewhat unexpectedly, when spines of the same color flock together, the text printed on those spines seems to blur and is more difficult to read as it does not have the benefit of "popping" off the shelf as it would in, say, a bookstore where books are arranged alphabetically and so rarely have to compete with spines of the same hue.

Kink #3: While this may have been obvious to some before setting out on such a ridiculous arrangement scheme, it only became clear to me once all the books were on their shelves. A LOT of books out there have black or white spines. What does this mean? It means that if I need to find a book and it has, say, a white spine, I could stand in front of the white section for a long time. A half hour, even, and still walk away empty handed. In fact, there are two books that I thought I remembered as having white covers (again, white covers do not necessarily equal white spines) and that I'd hoped to re-review for a lengthy post on recent weddingish fiction. Have you seen that post? Nope. Why? Because I still can't find them after hours of looking!  I know they are right in front of my face, but I simply cannot locate them!

There are, however, some odd findings with this arrangement of books by color, some peculiar facts that fascinate me. More on those & additional pics of the rainbow express bookshelves tomorrow & throughout the week...

William Gibson In the House

William Gibson reads from his new novel Spook Country tonight at Vroman's. 7pm. As a follow-up to Ed Park's mouthwatering review in Sunday's LAT, Scott Timberg has a quasi review/quasi profile on Gibson in today's LAT that examines the context not only of this & Gibson's other books but how it relates to what is going on all around us. As I'm not a Gibson aficionado, my LAist nod is, well, merely a nod.

But I'm thrilled he'll be in town tonight and I expect that it will be quite the event. I'd even wager a bet that Vroman's will bust out the tickets. What tickets, you ask? For big readings, Vroman's hands out tickets for those who wish to have their books signed after the reading. You have to queue up in the order of your ticket numbers and everything. It has a distinct boarding an airplane vibe.  I always duck out immediately following the reading, so this is never a concern for me.  More on that later...

I'm a Believer

I hunkered down with the August issue of The Believer for a bit last night and found it full of the usual antics - and by antics I mean: great stuff that's intelligent & funny. (I realize that at some point you'll tire of my endless need for funny but...well...I still don't see anything wrong with it.)  A few quick highlights before I bury myself in yesterday's treasure trove of "forthcoming books" catalogues:

• Tom Barbash interviews Michael Ondaatje (full sub req) and it is lovely. I'm particularly fascinated with Ondaatje's need to find a house where part of his novel will take place. In several cases, it seems that the novel simply cannot proceed without the house. Fascinating. I think I'll need to move Tahiti poste haste -- for the novel, man, it's all for my novel. Ondaatje also talks a bit more about his intense, multi-year revision process. It is here that I realize I would have scooped The Believer had I written up my Ondaatje post anytime in the past two months because he discussed this at length after his LA reading. I hate it when that happens. In honor of having had the scoop and then losing it, I will hasten my posting of the Ondaatje reading. Really. I just got my notebook back and everything. Plus I like saying Divisadero. Divisadero, Divisadero, Divisadero. And I've just stopped confusing it with Mallarme's Divagations.
• John Sellers has a brief little ditty "The Wedding Present" (full sub req) in which he details a trip to a family wedding with his father, who is notorious for bringing bizarre gifts and acting the fool at such events.  With my own nuptials now only four weeks away (we've reached the zen "if it isn't already done, it isn't going to get done" stage which is far better than the "holy fu@!, people are really flying from the other side of the world to attend this thing" stage), it was a nice diversion, so interested am I in other people's wedding-related (however tangential) concerns.
• Matthew Sharpe's Jamestown gets love from Alex Michod who seems to lower the esteem of the book by stating that Jamestown could not exist without Blood Meridian and Beckett. I'm not sure I entirely agree, but any love for this book that delighted me to no end is, well, more love. For those without the full subscription required to read it, Michod concludes his review with:

"Of course, no book exists entirely in a vacuum, and Sharpe's naughty, no-holds-barred, language-crazed roller coaster ride would never have been written had it not been for Blood Meridian or Beckett, but Jamestown is a big book, large in scope and ambition, and built, like the country it skewers, to contain multitudes."

• Nick Hornby's sometimes annoying Stuff I've Been Reading column is much longer this time (is it me? or is it longer?) and he does something right at the beginning that charmed me. His beginning lists of books bought/books read include Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder and Across the Great Divide: The Band and America by Barney Hoskyns.  He begins the column with:

"On the face of it, the Stasi and the Band had very little in common. Closer examination, however, reveals the East German secret police force and the brilliant genre-fusing Canadian rock group to be surprisingly...Oh, forget it. I don't have to do that stuff in this column---or at least, if I do, nobody has ever told me."

This brand of cutesy would normally bug me, but it's as if Hornby is giving the nod to all those naysaysers (and there are increasingly more if book party banter is to be believed) who want more from his column than a mere list of what was bought and what was read and what he liked and didn't. I've heard people say that this should be a more hard-hitting column, more analytical, grander in scope. I've never quite understood this because while he rarely reads books that fascinate me, I'm always eager to see what was bought and how what was read never matches up exactly. That is so me. That is so everyone.  His column also offers a nice escape from the Woodsian take-downs (which I think are fabulous, I'm just saying we could use a break from serious now and again) and always provides an interesting look at how what we read is connected, how one book leads to the next even if, on the face of it, the connections are tenuous at best.  And so I super-dig that he kicked off the column as he did. It seemed to say "yes, I hear you, but that is not what this column is about thank you very much."  Now, if only I liked his novels.  That's the eternal rub.

• Finally, the pièce de résistance in this issue is Andy Selsberg's "The Official Guide to Official Handbooks" (full text online) which covers the rise and fall of some cult guides to decoding the behavior of others unlike/like you, The Official Preppy Handbook acting as the springboard for all other, lesser, comparisons. Very funny. A gem of a quote from the piece:

"Any group, even one whose members are ostensibly equal, will develop codes that structure a cultural hierarchy. Our need for categories persists to the end. If we were sent back to Eden, we would quickly come up with a ranking system based on the types of leaves we used to cover our genitals. People who use fig leaves, the Figgies, are like this, and those who use tobacco leaves, the Baccos, are like that. And based on these loose observations, someone would carve into a rock The Official Leaf-Wearers Handbook. Some would try to switch categories. Some would have their shallow assumptions about other reinforced, and some would learn to see themselves more clearly, and realize that many of their own thoughts and actions are conventions. Then, erosion would do its part and take the Leaf-Wearers Handbook out of print."

• I'm off to scour forthcoming book catalogues, finish just-purchased periodicals, hunt down Issue #4 of A Public Space and prep for an upcoming post on books that play with text. And maybe, just maybe, I'll get together that damned Ondaatje post.

You Had Me at New Barthelme

Richard Nash has written the most exciting post I've read in a long time. Buried within it are these words: "a new Donald Barthelme collection Flying to America..." 

This brilliance, among other tasty news about forthcoming books from Counterpoint/Soft Skull/Shoemaker & Hoard, is worthy of many look-sees. I've bookmarked all catalogues and will return with my "oh my goodness I can't wait to get my hands on these" books list in short order.

Proust may be kicked to the curb after all.

Redhill's Man Booker Consolation

The longlist for the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is out and I'm uber-uber, extra-thrilled to find that Michael Redhill's Consolation is on the list. You may recall I have a deep, deep crush on the man and his work.  I've been trying to place a review of it for awhile now and had not mentioned it here because, well, I was trying to mention it elsewhere.  A solid eight months after having read it, it still repeats on me (in the best way), it still haunts me. The layers. The way memory works vs. how we wish memory worked. And so much more.  A fine achievement and I'm thrilled that he's on the list. 

True to form for me, however, there are several books on the list (okay, most) that I've not even picked up. Some aren't even in the pile:

• Darkmans by Nicola Barker
• Self Help by Edward Docx
• The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
• The Gathering by Anne Enright
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid
• The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
• Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
• What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
• Animal's People by Indra Sinha
• Winnie & Wolf by A.N. Wilson

Per my previous entreaties about creating a new set of rules to reward the unread, which book are you rooting for and/or will you secretly flog yourself for not having read once the winner is announced?

Proustian Petulance

I was pleased to see Chris Power at The Guardian find that despite all the hoo-hah, and all the "aren't we so brilliant we read Proust" puffery, there really is something to reading Proust after all. Power also agrees that just as many said it would be, so it is: reading Proust is addictive. 

While I cannot bear those who discuss their reading of Proust as if they've mastered some trying athletic exercise that only the best could hope to begin let alone finish, I do love to read about those who've experienced that delicious pleasure of summer afternoon reading filled with Proust and his wry humor and carefully observed ruminations on, well, everything. I think it takes a book or two to really get into the spirit of things (do not let the whole madeline nonsense trip you up, there is much more he offers than the taste of a cookie that brings back his entire childhood). I think so fondly of that time in my life, of that heady summer, fall and winter where everything - everything - I touched, saw, smelled, experienced, seemed somehow infused with Proustian charm, pain, beauty. Never mind that I had to read him all in French and so the pain part was particularly...plentiful.  Somewhere into book three I broke down and bought the English version to read alongside it because my massive French to English dictionary was too heavy to lug around the grassy knolls of my undergraduate quads.  I distinctly remember that both my lit-friends and non-lit friends had reached their limit with me and my Proustian observations. The word "show-off" was bandied about. I'm sure I was obnoxious as an undergrad lit major (who wasn't?) and my desire to share my newly found knowledge outweighed my sense of how much Proust anyone could bear over the course of a year.

It has been so hip as of late to read Proust and there are so many books devoted to doing just that, that I've been officially "off" Proust for years.  Someone who has only just discovered Proust and wishes to share with you all the things you've already found to be true, can grate on the nerves. Worse still, I've recently been cornered at dinner parties while guests expound at length upon this great writer they've discovered and I might do well to get on the bandwagon too. Ugh, kills me.  So there's that. I know, it's not enough is it? But it bugs me. I should celebrate each reader who finds such a wonderful writer to be worth their time.

Yet as much as I feign irritation (nay, petulance) at the whole Proustian affair, a quick peek at my bookshelves would reveal otherwise:

• How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton (who, I must say, is quite, quite funny and you know how I feel about funny; have you read him? anything of his? get thee a copy of anything and start reading at once...)
• Marcel Proust by Edmund White and Corinne Durin
• Marcel Proust on Art and Literature by ahem, Marcel Proust
• The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust (a good place to start!)
• On Reading Ruskin by Marcel Proust
• The Letters of Marcel Proust
• Swann's Way through to Finding Time Again in English
• Du côté de chez Swann through to Le Temps retrouvé en Francais

There are many other books (and so many others not listed here) that I've managed to avoid either through sheer will or laziness or both but that have remained on the periphery of my "eventually I'll break down and buy these" list:

• The Year of Reading Proust: A Memoir in Real Time by Phyllis Rose
• Proust Among the Stars: How to Read Him; Why Read Him? by Malcolm Bowie
• Reading Proust: In Search of the Wolf-Fish by Maria Paganini
• The Mottled Screen: Reading Proust Visually by Mieke Bal
• Madame Proust: A Biography by Evelyne Bloch-dano
• Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf
• The Proust Project by Andre Acimen (which, I must say, looks quite good - Colm Toibin & Lydia Davis on Proust? That sounds delicious...)

I'll add that the forthcoming Proust Was a Neuroscientist has peaked my interest - although the cover art with the now-ubiquitous madeline has irritated me enough to hold off on my request for an ARC.

What I hate even more (I can't even believe I'm saying it, but he is that good): I find myself drawn to reading him again. All of him. In order. But. Then. Well. There is everything else I'll never get to if I let Proust take over.  I've already lost (devoted?) a year (plus) of my life to the man and, well, there are so many other things to read. Yet, I find the drum beat getting ever-stronger, demanding my attention despite my embarrassment in not only following the trend, but adopting it well after it was newish again. It's quite like declaring that I'll be spending the next year cooking through Julia Child's recipes with a view to writing a little book about my experiences...as if that idea were new, not already done, not already covered with aplomb.

And so. Here we are. At a crossroads. Do I really want to take up this task? Again?

I'll say this: if I do, it damn well won't be in French this time.

Lit Bits & A Bit About Aloud

• The week in bookish events is up at LAist...my, my things are moving so slowly in these summer months.
• BUT, what is easily the most anticipated reading of the week (month? year?): William Gibson at Vroman's on Friday night. Seriously. Must make it out there if I do nothing else productive with my literary mind this week.  His Spook Country is reviewed by Ed Park in Sunday's LAT.
• I'm wading through many books, none of which I'm loving (none of which are listed at top left) and so I'll refrain from discussion until I've either found something I love or hate it so much I can't sit quietly on my hands.  I'm looking forward to many books though, does that count?
• Despite the wedding madness (we are closing in on the home stretch, approx. one month to go), I've got some good stuff planned for the old CB blog in the next few weeks and months. It may delight and surprise. It may shock and offend. But I can assure you it will be like fireworks in the shape of cowboy hats (yes I'm doing some terribly late iTunes catching up on 30 Rock)...utterly unexpected but oh so good.
• The book events world has gone quiet this month and I can't quite sort it out. I suspect it has to do with summer and people who go "summering" (who are those people?) in various parts of the world where it is less hot and miserable than downtown Los Angeles. Or more so. To each his own. Everyone is on hiatus. Everyone is taking a break. Everyone is on vay-cay, if you will. The good news about all this "we don't have time for book stuff in the month of August" business is that everyone seems to be lining up their ducks for September. For October. For fall and beyond. And things are looking mighty good for us in LA! The ALOUD series at the Central Library (who have given us top notch readings for a very long time) has just posted their calendar for Sept/Oct and some yummy stuff will ensue:
  • Monday - September 10th - Nell Freudenberger & Jennifer Gilmore
  • Monday - October 22nd - Edmund White (@!?@?#?#@)
  • Tuesday - October 23rd - Oliver Sacks
• May this be the beginning of a beautiful, surprising, maddening, delicious season of author readings, book signings and overall bookish tomfoolery. Anything less will disappoint in spades.