Memoriam

Whelp, two of the authors I mentioned in my post on Tuesday died on Wednesday. Howard Zinn, author of the People's History of the United States (among many other works) at age 87, and J. D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye (among many other works) aged 91 years. It is fascinating to me that these two magnificent Americans, each making a huge impact on American culture, and each having made some impact on the other, will be eternally bound in sharing their date of death, despite one being a notorious recluse and the other an outspoken political activist. As a small token (and in keeping with humanity's tendency to appreciate someone's work after they've passed) I'll be moving these two works to the top of my list. The remaining 30 pages of Catcher, which I started two years ago, and the remaining 671 pages of History, which I bought this summer and by which I am terrified.

So watch the Upright Citizens Brigade episode entitled "The Little Donny Foundation" and listen to the song "Down" by Pearl Jam to honor these two great men.

Start with a Bang

In my attempt to work my way through a wall of accumulated books (a small wall. A modest wall) I naturally decide to start with my most recent acquisition: A novel by Bradley T. Platt from the small publishing house Xlibris, entitled Deadstream. It is by far the most poorly-written book I have ever read. Apart from occasionally omitted apostrophes (which is sin enough) the tense changes constantly. The narrative is in past tense, but every scene of dialogue is in present. Either this is a really bizarre and ineffective choice, a casualty of trying to overhaul an entire draft from one tense to another (with grave oversights), or neither author nor editor knows the rules of tense. In certain instances, the tense changes midsentence. "...she says in disbelief as she felt the words blurt out." (56) This is the sort of thing that gets ironed out in a peer workshop for a 100-level creative writing class. I will also point out how poorly that same passage is phrased. How do you feel words blurt out? And do words even blurt? I'd say a person blurts words: words don't blurt themselves. This book is full of irritating errors like this.

It was the low-quality British literature being shipped overseas the the New World that upset James Fenimore Cooper into becoming the first American-born novelist, and look what that made him: famous enough for American couples 200 years later to name their sons Cooper. Perhaps in the year 2200, "Harpe" will be a mildly popular boys name, and all because I spitefully wrote a response to a book I didn't like.

One can hope.

It was my grandmother who lent me this book, which deals with heroin trafficking into Michigan through Canada and a boy whose mother commits suicide. I think it was the fact that the author is Michigan-born and living in Chicago that made my grandma think of me. This is what I take away from reading it: if this can get published, anyone can get anything published if they are persistent.

In Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on their Craft by Mike Sacks, Ben Karlin (writer for the Daily Show and the Colbert Report) writes, "The best advice I ever received was from my first boss at the Onion. He believed you needed three things to be successful in comedy, but I think it applies to almost anything. First, you need natural talent. Second, you need skill development. Third, you need ambition. Everyone's ratio is different, but the most successful people have all of them. It helps to have a fourth thing, too, but I don't know what it is." (147) Maybe it's good grammar.

Gettin Bizay

To my handsome, vivacious, and - above all - faithful readers,

We've walked through the fire together here at TBWCYL, and during its regal 2-month tenure, you've doubtless found yourselves healthier, wealthier, stealthier and no less than 2x more attractive than you've ever been before. It will satisfy you to hear that after 60-days of atrophy and one night of sleepy retooling, this blog will resume changing your life. In the coming months, I hope to enable all of my readers to leap on top of one-story buildings.

My new format is inspired by the 50-some books and plays I've collected over the years and have either never read (Papillon, Live from New York, Leaves of Grass), have started reading and abandoned (Purple Hibiscus, Catcher in the Rye, Cures), or am currently reading (Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kill Your Idols, The People's History of the United States [oof]). As I bushwhack through these volumes on my bookshelf (also including Bob Dylan's Chronicles, the Truth that Leads to Eternal Life, and the Complete Works of Shakespeare) I will regale you with quotes, criticisms, Earth-shattering insight and deep emotional responses, all the while grappling with my own insecurity as I struggle to get my book of dirty crosswords and my Holocaust "memoir" published.

It'll be like Bridget Jones' Diary meets the New York Times Review of Books.

So don your waders and trudge with me through my swamp library. What do you have to lose (other than time wasted reading yet another potentially-worthless blog)?

Latent Photo Essay

This is a parking garage or some similar spiral structure for driving upwards. I saw this from an El stop in Chicago and thought it was about the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

Below are three views from the top of a San Francisco hill. There are so many beautiful views everywhere you look in that city: it wins my Buena Vista Award.


And uh-oh! Here's a big silly thing! Wat's wong wif dis pitsure!


And finally, a few sculptures and installations from the Portland Art Museum.

Structure meets painterly! Roy Lichtenstein!


It's been fun, I'll be home soon.

It's Nice to Go Travelin' - Frank Sinatra

Rock over Chicago, rock on Detroit
Gillette, the best a man can get

The Bennies!

Last night, I saw No Exit at the Imago Theater here in Portland, and realized that it would be the last show (the last of 18) that I would see on my trip. So here today, for you all, I will recount them all and pick favorites in arbitrary fields.

DC

• Picture of Dorian Gray
• Black Pearl Sings
• Ferdinand the Bull
• Measure for Measure

New York

• Next to Normal
• The 39 Steps
• Eye of God

Boston

• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• The Long and Winding Road
• 2.5 Minute Ride

Chicago

• Heroes
• Death of a Salesman
• The Man who was Thursday

San Francisco

• Tommy
• November

Portland

• Orphee
• Fiction
• No Exit

Best Actor: George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Best Actress: Linda in Fiction
Best Supporting Actor: The valet in No Exit
Best Supporting Actress: The little person in Measure for Measure
Best Production: Heroes (chalk this one up to Stoppard's script and two great performers)
Worst Everything Else: Measure for Measure was unpolished, Eye of God was a mess, The Long and Winding Road was meandering (relish the pun), Death of a Salesman was a devastating disappointment, Tommy was lifeless, November was two-dimensional, and Orphee was in French

Trend of mortality in theater

Plays in which a major character dies: 5/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, Eye of God, Death of a Salesman, Orphee, Fiction)
Plays in which a major character kills someone: 5/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, The 39 Steps, Eye of God, Tommy, Orphee)
Plays in which a major character struggles with mortality: 14/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, Ferdinand the Bull, Measure for Measure, Next to Normal, The 39 Steps, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Long and Winding Road, 2.5 Minute Ride, Heroes, Death of a Salesman, The Man who was Thursday, Orphee, Fiction, No Exit)
Plays in which a minor character dies: 6/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, Measure for Measure, The 39 Steps, Eye of God, Tommy, Orphee)
Plays in which an unseen character dies: 5/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, Black Pearl Sings, Measure for Measure, The Long and Winding Road, Heroes)
Plays featuring suicide: 6/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, Next to Normal, Eye of God, Death of a Salesman, Orphee, No Exit)

The number of plays not appearing in any of the previous categories: 1. November by David Mamet, which does feature two dead turkeys, a stereotype of an American Indian threatening to kill the president, and a woman with a very bad cold.


Some shows with unique takes on mortality

• Ferdinand the Bull: Yes, even in children's theatre we see bull fighters who just want to dance and bulls who just want to plant flowers struggle with death and murder.
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: George and Martha's imaginary boy-child gets "killed" coming home from school at the age of twenty. Apparently a stand-in for the real child they could never have.
  
• Next to Normal: Manic-depressive mother cannot accept that her (now 18-year-old) son has been dead since he was an infant. Not totally unlike George and Martha's case, in fact...
  
• The Long and Winding Road: 60-year-old Maureen McGovern struggles with being 60, including detailing the deaths of her father, and various friends who contracted AIDS.
  
• Orphee: Features movement back and forth through life and the afterlife. All one needs are special gloves and a mirror.
• No Exit: Everyone's already dead.

Listen to: Bishop Allen. You can visit their website, here, and download a handful of their songs for free. Yesterday, as I left the Imago theater where I saw No Exit, I stumbled across a venue where they were performing so I saw them on a whim. Fun fun band.

Click Click Click Click - Bishop Allen
Corazon - Bishop Allen
Like Castanets - Bishop Allen

Rock over Portland, rock on Seattle
MasterCard - There are some things money can't buy: for everything else, there's MasterCard

Merry Christmas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXW9b9O9S6A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUCPC63zSdk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yon2YuXssvo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dV8P9u-EV8&feature=fvsr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQQnpTwaPyQ&feature=fvsr

http://www.hulu.com/watch/4267/saturday-night-live-its-a-wonderful-life-lost-ending

http://www.veoh.com/search/videos/q/christmas#watch%3Dv500970hjFaKBGn

http://www.uprightcitizens.org/19/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QnO3s7xJCc

http://www.joost.com/180000a/t/Santa-Claus-Conquers-The-Martians#id=180000a

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3423420646593881609#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVNHX9QZlYs&feature=related

http://www.guba.com/watch/3000024620/Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD7BeutpkS4

I'm in Portland, but this is unrelated

On Monday, October 26th, the Writer's Almanac (a daily e-newsletter from Garrison Keillor) reported the following:

Today is the 50th birthday of medical doctor and anthropologist Paul Farmer — born in North Adams, Massachusetts (1959) — the subject of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tracy Kidder's (books by this author) recent book: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World (2003). He specializes in infectious diseases, and sets up hospitals and community health centers to provide free health care to the world's poor.

He got started 26 years ago by treating patients in Haiti when still a student. There, he gave HIV-positive pregnant women antiretroviral drugs so that HIV would not be transmitted to their unborn babies. He also set up community-based treatment programs in Peru for virulent tuberculosis; the TB strain was once considered a death sentence, but his treatment method cured 80 percent of infected patients. He set up a program for treating the sick in Russian prisons, and other programs in Lesotho and Malawi. Paul Farmer now resides much of the year in Rwanda, where he and the organization he co-founded, Partners in Health, are working with the Rwandan government and the Clinton Foundation to set up an ambitious national health program.

Paul Farmer has written more than 100 scholarly publications; among his books are AIDS and Accusation (1992), Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues (1998), and Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor (2003), in which he wrote, "In an age of explosive development in the realm of medical technology, it is unnerving to find that the discoveries of Salk, Sabin, and even Pasteur remain irrelevant to much of humanity."

On November 1 -- six days later -- I found a copy of the book on the sidewalk in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, amidst a pile of garbage. If you know me well enough, you know I picked up that book. The synchronicity was too much to bypass, and I am eager to start reading it, as soon as I find some way to disinfect it.

Subscribe to the Writer's Almanac here.

On the Bus Mall - the Decemberists

Rock over Portland, rock on Port-au-Prince
Maxwell House - good to the last drop