a cup of tea & a wheat penny

Fumes : Administration

2010-07-29T17:30:52Z

FUMES

I've just placed my shoes in a drawer in my office. This is apparently an act of containment; the cheap shoes from Penneys in Ireland ("EVERYONE shops there," said my sister when I came back with two paper sacks full) are emitting so many fumes that I've begun to lose my voice from exposure. I'm debating my next line of assault: talcum powder? Febreeze? A plastic bag and a dumpster?

I offer this information as a means of producing a metaphor later on. I'll get there.

I've been writing in airy bursts. I have reams of thoughts on my computer at home, thoughts on Scarlett Thomas's amazing Our Tragic Universe and the roles we play in our own narrative, thoughts on Cincinnati writer C.E. Morgan and the fact that we share the exact same birthday, and how this made me feel even more compelled to read her work ("Twins," published in last month's fiction issue of the New Yorker, was great, and I'm hoping All The Living will be just as good. I've heard good things.).

But these are all incomplete thoughts. I start out writing them, trying to make the thoughts bold and significant, about BOOKS and THOUGHT and METAPHOR and HOME and they become bloated with fumes (there it is), too broad and vainglorious. So I tuck them away in a drawer and ponder my next steps with them.

For now, I find it easier to focus on music and images. I've been listening to the new Sun Kil Moon album on repeat and devouring other people's photographs with deep exhaulted breaths, thinking to myself if I could only do THAT. These are things best not to be tucked into a drawer, but aired out big and beautiful for the rest of the world to see, hung in a row like sheets on a line. My own personal gallery of favorites.

I found Katie Spence's photographs through Sarah's Tumblr, and I've found myself trying to mimic her style on more than one occasion.

Natalie Kucken and Laura Vancane are two young photographers—one from Michigan, the other from Latvia—whose eyes I wouldn't mind borrowing for a week.

I met Jeremy Blakeslee at an art show curated by my cousin and his girlfriend a few years back where he was showing some test Polaroids of his work. Even the tests were impactful.

Cincinnati native portrait photographer Michael Wilson makes me wish I'd spent a little more time capturing Lyle Lovett.

There's been some photographic inspiration of the vintage sort with the Library of Congress collection of photos in color, 1939 - 1943, and there are always my old favorites: Jim Griffioen has added new work to his portfolio, some of his best yet, and Chris Glass's photographs remain a constant tug at my heart and my eye.

If there's a photographer you think I'd enjoy, please leave a note with a link in the comments. I think right now I need to spend less time with a computer on my lap, inhaling the fumes, and a little more time with my camera.

ADMINISTRATION

Two years ago, out of some insatiable desire to be in a room full of people who might have some idea of what it felt like to write your thoughts out loud on the internet, I attended BlogHer. While I don't plan on attending the actual conference this year, it's coming to this coast and bringing with it many of my favorite women I met in San Francisco back in 2008, and we've all decided to meet at a bar next Saturday and invite anyone else who wants to come hang out with us to do so. No badges, no sponsors; just us, a few drinks, our cameras, and probably quite a few tubes of lipstick. Come say hello; details here.

Of Tornadoes and Home

2010-07-28T03:56:00Z

Let me tell you about the weekend. How many other blog posts begin this way? And then proceed to create a list of "and then"s. And then and then and THEN.

But I'll be brief; just a sliver of Friday; just the bit worth telling.

There was a tornado warning, apparently. The sky began to bruise*, trees bent deep and heavy. Soon Union Square was rushing past us, paper scraps, umbrellas, people running heel-to-toe, the rains. We sucked down spicy lime chicken and pad thai and thanked the opening heavens that we were inside.

"I'm going to dance tonight." I sipped at the dregs of my frozen lychee martini through a straw, watching the couple next to us read from a religious tract. "I'm just warning you."

We compared chopstick technique and watched lightning explode above the skyline.

We were headed to Webster Hall to see Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. Post-"tornado", the outside air hung so thick that walking felt more like swimming. (I want all of New York City, just for a day, to turn into a swimming pool. The fashion: victorian suits, swim caps for hats and goggles for glasses. Streets turned into lanes by lane markers of curbs. Someone blows a whistle, not to catch a cab, but to signal the end of adult swim. A bagel tied to a string thrown into the street to drag out a drowning rat.) By the time we reached the hot bowels of Webster Hall, the band was already on stage, and we were dripping.

We made our way up to the balcony. Balconies at shows are the savior of every short girl, and up there, as if expecting me, was a chair I could stand on to see over the row of people lining the railing. J was getting the beers in, and I was waiting for him to come back.

And then they played "Home."

I used to roll my eyes at people who would cheer on the band's biggest hit. But then they played "Home," and it didn't matter that I was the one cheering on the band's biggest hit. This was the song I was going to dance to. There were other girls dancing too, girls in loose skirts, girls in vintage lace, somewhere an Olsen Twin. And then, suddenly: J was there, smiling big and dancing along with me, sweaty limbs thrown to the ceiling.

Man, oh man, you're my best friend.

Sometimes when I try to turn my New York experiences into stories worth telling, I forget that the periphery - the thick air, the tornado, the dancing girls in vintage lace - none of it makes a lick of a difference to me until my favorite character comes into the scene. And then: I come across the emotion that makes it worth telling.

If none of this makes sense, then just take away this nugget tonight: spend a bit more time with your favorite characters, dancing on balconies.

*Credit to Bruce Robinson for that gem.

Sunday Zen

2010-07-26T00:27:48Z

Three Clerks

2010-07-21T22:09:52Z

One.

Marvin Gaye and His Girls
John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy
Paul & Linda McCartney - Ram
Loudon Wainwright III - Album II
Rick Nelson - The Very Thought Of You
Herman's Hermits - There's A Kind Of Hush All Over The World
Yaz - Upstairs At Eric's
The Best of Burt Bacharach
Burt Bacharach Plays His Hits
Donovan's Greatest Hits
Tim Buckley - happy sad

"I'll throw the Tim Buckley in for a couple of bucks," said the record clerk. "It's my last day. What do I care." He slides the records into a brown plastic bag. "Overworked and underpaid."

"Well, thanks for your help, and good luck with whatever you do next."

"I'm going to the moon."

"To the moon?"

"Yeah, to the moon."

"Well, good luck with that."

* * *

Two.

Tammy Wynette - Stand By Your Man/Bedtime Story
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Punch the Clock
Cat Stevens - Tea for the Tillerman
The Steve Miller Band - Book of Dreams
Dick Hyman at the Lowrey Organ - Electrodynamics
Utopia - Oops! Wrong Planet
Utopia - Adventures in Utopia
Utopia - Utopia

"Do you want to try anything out?" said the girl at the counter. "I've been listening to The Kinks all day."

"I'd love to hear how this side sounds. There's a big scratch."

"Do you come in here often?"

"I try not to. If I do, I'll just spend loads of money on Todd Rundgren albums."

"I know what you mean. That's like me and bookstores."

"Oh, me too." Dick Hyman plays his Lowrey Organ. "I'm definitely getting this one."

"I used to be so into listening to new music. Now I'm just like, whatever." The sound of a cash register. "My boss will be so happy. He called before and said 'did we earn any money?' and I was, like, 'no.' I've been here for seven hours."

And with that, I crossed "record store" off our list of possible storefront ideas.

* * *

Three.

Prince - Purple Rain
Grand Funk - Phoenix
Christopher Cross* - s/t
Bessie Smith - Nobody's Blues But Mine
Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love

"Ah, yes. Kate Bush. I met her once."

"Was she nuts?"

"Well, hold on, hold on. She was signing records as a promotion for her album back in 1993."

"Rubberband Girl?"

"Well, no, let's see, it was… hmmm. It was called The Red Shoes."

"Uh-huh."

"This was in the days before the internet, but somehow word got out, and by the time I got there the line stretched six blocks. She ended up signing for six hours."

"Wow." (…ow, wow, wow, wow, wow; unbelievable.)

"I actually handed her something to sign that she'd never seen before."

"Cool. Do you still have it?"

"Of course." He flips back to the beginning of the stack and starts counting the prices all over again.

He never did tell me if she was crazy or not.

*Purchased because I confused "Sailing" with "Come Sail Away" by Styx. Oh well. At least I have something to listen to now when I take bubble baths.

Sunday Zen

2010-07-19T03:08:58Z

The Thousand Autumns of My Great Big Author Crush

2010-07-16T17:21:02Z

A fan in the corner of the packed Three Lives David Mitchell* reading last night said out loud what we were all thinking: "I don't know anyone who has read your work who isn't in love with you."

It's okay to talk about him openly here, guys and gals. Last night he admitted that he doesn't Google himself because he's heard it can make you go blind. (Cheeky.) But we know we all love David Mitchell. I've had a crush on the author ever since I pulled Ghostwritten off the shelves because its cover looked like a My Bloody Valentine album cover. As soon as I cracked the spine and saw that first line —

Who was blowing on the nape of my neck?

— it was all over. I've read everything ever since. My fellow bloggers are especially enamored: Jessica Stockton Bagnulo is a long-time fan, and Ed Champion even named his literary podcast, The Bat Segundo Show, after the shock jock in Ghostwritten.

I've never known an author with such a devoted, gooey-eyed following.

Back in 2004 when I went to see Mitchell read for the first time from Cloud Atlas at Three Lives (which Mitchell last night referred to as his "American living room," or "to use the acronym, u sofa"), I met a woman from England named Sam. We sat in the corner, just next to the stool where Mitchell would soon be perched, his forehead tapping against the lamp overhead as he cooed out Sloosha's dialect. Sam and I got to talking while we waited, and I soon discovered that she felt exactly the same way I did about Mr. Mitchell. The two of us giggled and blushed in the corner over how excited we were. She said "I've never been to a reading before. Not just anyone can get me out of bed."

It's hard to explain this to people who haven't read his fiction. What he writes is both charming and mystically complex. Each word seems to be more carefully chosen than the next. Seeing him read in person just heightens the reverence: his voice is soothing, but he sounds genuinely excited to be in your presence. He truly wants to connect to every single person in the crowd, and let them in on the beauty of what words sound like. And they are crowds. I can't remember another reading so packed.

Good book readings are intimate, funny, short but sweet. When you leave, you feel like you know the author better, and it adds something to the reading of their work. Sometimes there is alcohol involved. The best can even make it humorous. Sherman Alexie can do this. Gary Shteyngart can do this. David Mitchell, you bet, can do this.

There's little point to this post, really, other than to get you to join our club. David Mitchell writes good books, and gives good readings. He'll be reading tonight at 7pm from his latest, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, at Bookcourt in Brooklyn, and tomorrow night the fantastic Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene is throwing him a party.

Go. Read. Crush out with the rest of us. Just remember this: I saw him first.

*Not to be confused with the comedian, who is also British, and also lovely.

(Solipsistic, rambling addendum: Is it possible that in spite of not Googling himself, he's read this blog? At the end of last night's reading, all of us sweaty and numb-legged from being crushed into the tiny, perfect space together, Mitchell decided to wrap things up, saying it was so hot he must have "a Rorschach print" on his back. I'm on to you, Mitchell.)

Hot Town

2010-07-13T17:52:25Z

This summer city heat. Enough.

In the cool catacombs of my memory, summer is different. Farmstands of peaches shaded by oak trees. June bugs losing their way. The swimming pool concessions stand with its licorice ropes and Sweet Tarts. Corn-on-the-cob turned in butter. The hum of insects surrounding dusky porches. Thunderstorms approaching with a warning rumble over the hills. The desparation of a hand-cranked window to pull the heat from the back seat of a parking lot car, even as our teeth chatter, our hair still wet from swim practice.

Not this heat, this stifling, ever-present, concrete-bound heat.

Two nights in a row last week I slept on my camping mattress in the front room, trying to imagine away the sweat tracing a sleepy path down my neck. The skins of peaches pucker on the kitchen counter, cold water runs warm and the lights flicker, threatening 2003 all over again. Outdoor tables at restaurants sit empty, challenging. Everyone walks more slowly, moisture forming Rorschach images on the backs of their shirts.

I'm hot. I'm unbearably hot.

In a booth at Prime Meats, sitting behind a cucumber garnished cocktail and a tray of oysters on ice, I whip out a fan, trying to pass it off as a sartorial eccentricity until I'm offered an ice-cold wet towel from the freezer by one of the waiters. "You look like you could do with this."

Never let them see you sweat, we were told. I pretend we're in a Fitzgerald novel, languishing on couches and holding condensating glasses to our foreheads. The air conditioner is doing its best, but even its best is not enough. When a cold towel is offered to my booth neighbors, I advise them to hold it against the crook of their elbows. The woman declines, even as sweat begins to collect at the nape of her neck.

We hope for rain. It comes, and for a moment, the oppression is lifted. And then the sidewalk sizzles the droplets away, traffic whizzes again down the streets, slowing wipers and scattering the moisture in the wake of hot, puffing tailpipes. The whole city is wrung dry like a wet towel, and then left carelessly on a radiator.

The trees are shedding their leaves. We are shedding our layers. Bare shoulders trying not to touch each other on buses. Shirts desparately unbuttoned, hair lifted high off the neck. Toes peeking out from every shoe. How much more can we take off?

How much more can we take?

Sunday Zen

2010-07-11T21:12:01Z

Why You Should Care About LeBron James

2010-07-09T16:03:54Z

As soon as LeBron James opened his mouth on ESPN and told the world he was going to South Beach, my Twitter feed lit up. Two people who had lived in Cleveland were particularly vitriolic, and I felt their pain. Then I see a tweet from a childhood friend: I do not care about LeBron James.

I knew this guy wasn't a sports fan, but I wanted to respond to his reaction, because, in my opinion, he should care. He should care a lot.

This is not something I would typically ever write about. I don't like to get involved in controversy. I don't care about basketball; I couldn't tell you who won the title the past few years. I don't know if the Cavaliers could have done anything different to keep LeBron James on their roster, and I don't know enough about basketball recruiting to know why this even happened in the first place, but I know that we should all care, because this is bigger than basketball. This is about the choice of the individual to pick profit over community. This is about the commodification of self. This is about the death of a city. This is about an American narrative that has been unfolding for years, that is still unfolding. This is the myth of hero manifested in a sports star's body, and the story of what happens when heroes turn their back on a city.

LeBron was the hero in Cleveland. He brought a spirit to a city with a strong sense of pride that needed a little boost, a little air in their sails to keep them moving when things got bad in the economy. Someone who would bring people to Cleveland. As Tracie said in her post: "He's the only reason people go downtown anymore." LeBron James acknowledges it himself: "I know what I've done for the city of Cleveland, for that area."

His decision to pick up and move south was a direct affront to the already hurting city of Cleveland. There is no getting around that. The city's economy is in tatters, and the one shining Son of Cleveland (technically Akron) decides he needs to do what's best for himself. You could see it on the faces of the ESPN commentators who grew up in the midwest: this announcement was the death knoll for their towns.

This is happening everywhere. Too many people jumping ship. Forbes recently published an interactive feature analyzing migration data from various counties around the United States, and the way the lines poured in or out from various counties is a brutal visual reminder of how our middle cities are bleeding resources. (Austin Kleon, who originally pointed me in the direction of the map, calls the migration out of Cleveland an explosion, but I think that's far too kind. And to be fair, Miami looks like it's exploding/bleeding too.)

You can't blame Cleveland for reacting the way they did. The Plain Dealer said it best: "Gone." LeBron left them to bleed to death.

Again, LeBron James, reacting to the news of people burning his jersey in Cleveland: "I mean, I can't get involved in that. You know, one thing that I didn't want to do was make an emotional decision. And I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James and what LeBron James is going to do to make him happy."

Why not make a decision for yourself? This Ayn Randian notion of self-preservation and self-enhancement is part of the American Dream, is it not? At New York Magazine, Will Leitch writes of how stupid it feels to be a sports fan now that there's no shame in admitting freely that it's all about the self, about the commodification of narrative: "It felt like a break, the moment when the tide crested, when we looked at the games, and their players, and ourselves, and wondered: Why in the world are we watching these awful people?"

Certainly this pressure should never have been put on one man to begin with. Cleveland never should have got to the point where one man will decide the fate of a city. Unfortunately, the state of this country is now such that one man does have the power to decide the fate of a city. It's happening all over.

We should care.

I would love for someone to prove me wrong. Tell me that Cleveland will be okay without LeBron James, and that everyone's making a big deal over nothing. Tell me that all of our cities will be okay. That the Dying City is a myth made up by media outlets to sell ads next to features bookended by photographs of empty factories and people pushing shopping carts. (I should know; sometimes you just have to see the life to believe it.) Tell me that these lines bleeding from these flyover cities will reverse, that people will flow back into the heartland, that people still care about where they've come from. If you can tell me that, then I'm happy to let my childhood friend go about his sports-oblivious existence, not caring about LeBron James.

Somebody please prove me wrong.

(I'm fully aware of the irony that I'm writing this from New York, when I really belong in a city that's bleeding too. But you already know my feelings on that.)

There Goes The Fear

2010-07-05T13:38:44Z

There is a trend in the field right now — started by the Mighty Maggie Mason — of creating life lists, lists of things you want to do before you die (cf: Karen, Kelly, Melissa). In spite of the fact that anything with the words "before you die" in it gives me palpitations, I've attempted to create my own life list several times (Learn To Surf, Visit the Norwegian Fjords), but tended to get stuck on things that I should be doing during the time I was spending creating my life list (Translate a Novel, Clean Out Closet). And what don't I want to do in life? It's far easier to come up with that list, a list of things I've sworn I'll never do:

Skydive
Go cave swimming
Drive in the UK/Ireland

These are things that terrify me. The thought of dropping from a plane with all your hopes of living stuffed into a tiny nylon sack. Or finding yourself not just underwater, but under layers of rock deep inside the earth, trapped on the inside of the inside of the inside. (I read the entire Journey To The Center Of The Earth while holding my breath.) And driving on the left side of the road, on those tiny streets with room for little more than a bicycle? Every time I tried picturing myself driving a right-side drive, I turned into Christopher Walken's character in Annie Hall, terrified of swerving into oncoming traffic out of some sort of irresistible urge. Or the opposite: hugging the left so closely that I'd pick off car mirrors like dandelion heads.

But then I went to visit my sister in Ireland. Her friend with the car had broken his ankle, and so we were left with two options: stay around Cork for the entire trip and rely on buses, or suck it up and drive.

And so I drove.

And so we got to see this. And this. And this.

And, apart from getting stuck in third gear while trying to pass a car with a tractor headed straight for us, I did great. It gives me hope for all of the things I've told myself I'll never do. The things that are terrifying up to the moment you actually put the thing in gear and pull out ("WIDE right, WIDE right...") and realize that the fear was just something locking you away inside your head.

Only don't push me out of a plane just yet; I'm still not ready to stuff my life away in a nylon sack.

Doves - There Goes The Fear (this video could not be more fitting)