Today is Aldous Huxley’s birthday. I will celebrate not by reading Brave New World, but by reading his first novel and one of my guilty pleasures: Crome Yellow.
Weekend Reading – Conceptual Writing, Jesus… You Know, The Usual Suspects
Thursday Staff Meeting – Canons
The Dark Room Collective
There was a sort of reunion of members of the Dark Room Collective on Monday night, put on by the Folger Shakespeare Library but actually held at the church across the street (which has considerably more seating – and the place was still pretty full).
The Dark Room Collective (and I had not been familiar with them before attending this reading) was a sort of group house for African-American artist-activists in Cambridge that (when the house was sold off) evolved into a sort all purpose artistic clearinghouse for writers, painters, sculptors, dancers, and musicians. But always, it appears, poets, poetry, and poetry readings held a central place in its history and the role it saw for itself.
Present this particular were eight poets of, admittedly, varying quality and charisma (none were poor, but several would be considered among the country’s leading poets, so naturally stood out). The poets present were: Tisa Bryant,Thomas Sayers Ellis, Major Jackson, John Keene, Tracy K. Smith, Sharan Strange, Natasha Trethewey, and Kevin Young. Among that group, you might have picked out the names of Smith (who just won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection, Life on Mars), Trethewey (who won a Pulitzer in 2007 for Native Guard), and Young (who wrote The Gray Album, a book which is very du jour right now).
I enjoyed listening to about two thirds of the poetry read, but loved all the descriptions of the early days of the Collective and was intensely jealous of their participation in that history.
I bought one book, of course – Smith’s Life on Mars – and got it signed.
Midweek Staff Meeting – The Most Stylish Critic
Tuesday Morning Staff Meeting – The Book Of The Future
Final Day Of National Poetry Month – What Now?
It’s also the last day of Jazz Month, but as much as I love jazz, I love poetry more. Though it’s sad that it was set up to create a sort of competition.
But hopefully, some of those handful of people who read my blog (so much time spent writing for so few readers… rather like being a poet, n’est pas?) will actually read some poetry in May, as well.
And go ahead and buy that snotty, over intellectualized and under employed recent college grad in your life a copy of e e cummings (for some reason, that always seems like the traditional poetry present for that character), the moody teenage girl some Plath or Sexton (when they get to college, you can give them a copy of something by Sharon Olds, but not until you’ve accepted the likelihood of that person being sexually active). And for the more old fashioned reader who claims to only like poetry that rhymes, go beyond Frost and give them some W.D. Snodgrass or, if you’re feeling particularly subversive, some Frederick Seidel.
And check with your local indie bookstores and college type coffeehouses and find out when the next poetry reading or poet friendly open mic is taking place. And when you go to that poetry reading, but one of the poet’s books. The poet will feel good, you will feel good, and poetry as a contemporary and living art will have been supported. Seriously, it will cost around $15 and you’ll a freaking book. It won’t spoil and lasts longer in the system than $15 worth of beer. And, you know, it’s just good form. Don’t be one of those people. And for God’s sake, don’t leave the poet hanging, wondering if anyone will ever buy and read his or her poetry.
When you bring a book to read, bring a book of poetry sometimes, instead of that thumping big novel.
Memorize some pithy lines and drop into conversation, casually mentioning who wrote it. You will appear smarter (if you do it right) and maybe the people you are conversing with, in the hopes of appearing smarter themselves, will go home and commit to memory some poetry themselves in order to drop it into conversation.
Monday Morning Staff Meeting – It’s Amazon’s Fault
Sunday Book Review: Vatta’s War
So. I bought this book called Victory Conditions during my last stop the Borders Books & Music near the Jo-Ann’s Fabrics in Columbia, Maryland. I would browse the books while my better half browsed fabrics for her business. Of course, during this visit, the shelves had become nearly barren (and everything hopelessly out of order, but you can hardly expect the inmates on death row to take a huge interest in keeping their cell neat with their execution day coming hard upon).
I had thought Elizabeth Moon’s Victory Conditions to be a likely space opera type of book. A quick glance did not necessarily prove it to be later book in a series – it could have been a stand alone novel beginning en media res.
Alas, it was not. In fact, Victory Conditions is the fifth (and final) book in Moon’s Vatta’s War series.
But should I really say ‘alas?’ After all, anything the encourages anyone in America (or the world) to read some more is surely a good thing? Even me, who believes himself to be a pretty prolific reader.
So not ‘alas.’ Merely ‘is the fifth (and final) book in Moon’s Vatta’s War series.’ As comics who make fun of Martha Stewart say, ‘it’s a good thing.’
Being obstinate and a sucker for diving into sci fi and fantasy series that will take me too long to finish by half, I did not resist to urge to finish this thing that, in all honesty, I hadn’t really started. It was more like an urge to turn a $3.00 investment into something closer to $35.00 (once I’d bought the first four books).
It’s finally over. I finished.
Was it worth it? Well, I won’t be reading them again, who reads a series of more than two or three books again? Except for Lewis’ beloved (by me, at least) The Chronicles of Narnia and the first four books of Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice (I was preparing for the long awaited fifth book, not realizing that it’s actually release would still be some two years then), not many (I would, of course, include the much read by me Lord of the Rings, if you add The Hobbit to make it a quartet – though I’ve only read The Silmarillion once). I’ll be taking them down to my neighborhood used bookstore (Capitol Hill Books) and exchanging them for store credit that I will use to buy more sci fi and fantasy.
But this was a solid series. Solid writing. The arc was unimaginative, in terms of the narrative structure within each book (the location of various set pieces within each book was pretty standard), though the twists and challenges Moon placed in front of her heroine and her assembled heroes was often surprising. The world building is well done and thorough, though also more workmanlike to truly original or inventive. The final book was disappointing in that the big finale – the epic last space battle against the pirates – was neither very tense nor vividly depicted. The earlier space battles in previous books were typically both, so this was a bit of an unfortunate aberration, especially unfortunate because it was the author’s last chance to reward her dedicated readers of this series.
I would recommend it to someone who enjoy old school science fiction with cool space battles, though I would not suggest it as an entry point into the genre (that would have to be either a short story by Asimov or Bradbury or a novel by LeGuin).
the coffee philosopher 