How About Just a List of Books

I'm at work. It's a slow day so I've been singing bits of favorite songs and thinking about books I love but never include on Lists of Books I Love. You know how sometimes someone says to you "What're your top five favorite books?" And maybe you have some go to favorites, or maybe you list the last five books you read. Well, I've mentioned it before, but I just finished reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, and if you've read it too then you know there's a lively discussion of The Great Gatsby in the early chapters. I've read Gatsby several times, out of great love and devotion for the work, but I'll be damned if I fail to mention it every time favorite books come up. Another book that comes to mind is Spartina by John Casey. I had strong memories of scenes in that novel throughout my reading of RLiT, especially during the Gatsby discussion. The setting of Spartina has much to do with this I'm sure, as much of the action takes place near an old summer home not unlike Gatsby's place. But the issue of morality in Gatsby brought Spartina to mind too, as the main character has a scandalous affair. Honestly it made me angry to read. Add to this list Ethan Frome. Assigned in high school, and duly read, I didn't realize what a great book it was until I reread it two summers ago. I also love The Light in the Forest, My Side of the Mountain, The Moon is Down, and Tracks. Within the last two years I've read The Secret Garden, The Chocolate War, and The Outsiders for the first time. All stand out stories, worthy of their longevity. I can go on and on, and I will. But this became way more than a list and I'm still at work, after all.

Books, Some Old Thoughts, A List

The blog that follows was actually written in February while I was alone with my son watching the Super Bowl. I guess his mom must have been at work, and his big sister at her dad's house. But first, I've been reading Reading Lolita in Tehran for the past few weeks, and it reminded me of all the wonderful books I loved reading, and several still on my to-read list. I love to read. I love to talk about books, read about books, share books with others, stack them, collect them, browse them in the library, and just hold them in my hands. There's something soothing, and even reassuring, about the weight of a paperback in hand or pocket. 

I guess I'll consider this blog entry a prologue to a few longer ruminations about books and reading. 

The Issue of Equal Rights. I guess that's all.

So...let me get this straight. You're a parent. You've worked extra hours to buy bikes, varsity jackets, the best Christmas presents, to pay for summer camp, music lessons, elaborate birthday parties and exotic pets. You've read the same bedtime story 35 times in a row, and when your sweet, sleepless child said "Again", you read it 36 times in spite of your drooping eyes, and the dishes in the sink, homework to check, your own bed calling out to you. You've bandaged and kissed every injury, soothed every anguish and supported every decision, like the wrong friends, the dangerous sports, the pursuit of the arts as a career. How many nights did you stay up late with worry or wonder? How many mornings did you rise early, barely rested, to make a special breakfast or pack a favorite lunch for this very child, this animal of wonder you and your beloved spouse made together?

You're a parent. You've contradicted yourself before, to teach a lesson.

Some of Us Write it Down: The Nicol Kostic Interview

I don’t remember when I first met Nicol Kostic. I saw her occasionally at the Sam ‘n Andy’s reading I hosted in the late nineties, and I liked her poems but got the very wrong impression that she wasn’t interested in talking to a young kid, and she liked to keep to herself. Once I moved into the Collingwood Arts Center, I learned how wrong about her I was. The CAC is a communal living situation where working artists combine residential space with studio space for a modest rent. There was one kitchen for all of us, in the basement, and one restroom per floor, shared by all the tenants. It was a creepy, lovely, inspiring and at times debauched place, but it was home, and it was cool.

Nicol had lived there for a long time, doing her many arts, and one evening, while doing my dinner dishes, she and her husband and I started a conversation about the value of art, of taking chances, believing in your creative goals, and giving precedence to the creative impulse. It was a wonderful hour. It turns out that not only was Nicol interested in talking to a young kid, she was really enthusiastic about all the arts, and willing to share her enthusiasm.

A Poem, September in the Midwest, The Little Creatures of Nature.

It's Sunday afternoon in the Universe, it's September, and lately the days are giving June, my most favorite month, a run for her money. Purple and yellow asters crowd the drainage ditches, along with chicory still flowering, thistles, golden rod, sumac, and heath asters. A lot of people around these parts have let roses go sort of feral in their ditches, or in underbrush near the road, and those leaves and thorns are red and sinister looking against the impossibly green lawns and tall grass growing in fallow fields. God, there are so many flowers I can't name or describe them all. I'm telling you the world outside your door is a quilt, it's a coat of many colors, it's the most magical thing going right now, unless your children happen to be outside playing in it, and then that is the most magical thing going.

Back to Jack, A Poem, Drawing Challenge Blog

We're so busy around these parts lately, I've hardly been able to make time for this enterprise. Our annual Jack Kerouac memorial reading is coming up, on October 21, so we're full steam ahead on rehearsals, locking down the script, getting a venue lined up, and chasing down performers. Back to Jack is a literary tradition in Toledo, going back to 1984. The original 'Jacks', five poets and musicians who performed and caroused together, took Back to Jack to Lowell, MA, and Ontario, I believe, and even performed in front of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady's widow. They also performed all over town, in bars, sandwich shops, and the Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Toledo.

Fairy Tales, Wandering in the Woods, Writing a Novel

I've been thinking a lot about fairy tales lately, mostly because I'm trying to write one, a fairy tale, something modern and ancient at the same time, inspired by Robert Graves and Neil Gaiman, John Crowley and C.J. Cherryh. There are rules, you know. Games and Riddles, balances struck, a tally of your misdeeds, a record of your mortal ignorance. An example of mortal ignorance: there are a million ways to write the word 'fairy', and all of them mean the realm of Fairy, and the individual creatures which are known as fairies, who live in the realm of Fairy. Oy. And in the first draft writing of this blog I've used many versions of the word. Which, you know, may be the right way to do it, since the realm and its citizens have been described as eternally changing and nearly impossible to catalog and comprehend. I'll do my best here to maintain the use of one version, the one spelled like this: F A I R Y.