paperhaus January 7th, 2009
After being misguided by googlemaps past the gigantic, shift-getting-out Halliburton complex on the outskirts of Lafayette, Louisiana, after circling and circling a dark and lonesome area that lacked the connecting streets the map showed it to have, after steering past a set of signs meant to block traffic and then, finally, reaching my destination only to find it was not a restaurant hiding in a trailer park but really just a trailer park — after that and then, eventually making my way to the elusive proper rendevous, being cheerful and having a cvilized dinner and then crashing in a vastly overpriced hotel room featuring, unfathomably, a really big fat pillar in its center — what I wanted the next morning, what I really really wanted, was a large plate of flabby, room-temperature boiled eggs.
Oh, no wait, it wasn’t.
With vision of Hud dancing in my head, I did my best to beat it out of Lafayette, Louisiana.
It took almost an hour.
paperhaus December 19th, 2008
Picked up a car in Florida and am bringing it back to LA. Will post more soon, but for now, I’ve uploaded a few pictures to Flickr.
Currently in New Orleans, which, as usual, is all kinds of wonderful. Currently sitting on the porch of an affordable B&B in Faubourg Marigny, where I can’t get out of the front gate until someone with a key comes by. The jasmine is scenting, the laptop is charging, the guys across the way are re-roofing. Not bad at all.
Now, if I could just get some espresso before this deadline….
paperhaus November 29th, 2008
That would be Salvatore Scibona’s “The End,” which reviewed last week for the LA Times. It was hard, in a relatively brief review, to describe the book’s complex strucure without getting overly bogged down by it.
paperhaus November 19th, 2008
Sunday night brought another night of Vermin — the Vermin on the Mount reading series at Chinatown’s Mountain Bar. Poet Dan Kaplan, political chronicler Josh Bearman, and novelist Janet Fitch read. Guess who’s in the picture? Yeah, Janet Fitch, not so hard.
Fitch read from her new novel “Paint it Black”; she is also the author of “White Oleander,” which was an Oprah pick and a movie, too.
OK, this is not much of a report. The Mountain Bar was beautiful, as always. Host Jim Ruland was the most as always, the audience was appreciative as always, the company of Mark Sarvas and David Francis was more charming than I deserved.
I did not take notes. The photo will have to do.
Janet Fitch, author of “White Oleander,” reads from her
paperhaus November 18th, 2008
Jerry Yang is out as CEO of Yahoo. In his goodbye e-mail to all of Yahoo, he proves the concerns about the literacy of the dot-com generation are valid. “i” he types, over and over again:
i will be participating in the search for my successor, and i will continue as ceo until the board selects a new ceo. once a successor is named, i will return to my previous role as chief yahoo and continue to serve as a director on the board.
Ow, the lack of caps hurts. This is not an adolescent typing on a cell phone but the head of a multimillion dollar tech company perfectly capable of spouting CEO speak. Later in the memo:
i strongly believe that having transformed our platform and better aligned costs and revenues, we have a unique window for the right ceo to take ownership over the next wave of mission-critical decisions facing the company.
Unfortunately, he’s a lot less capabale of using the shift key. May he find a place where his crazy capz-free-stylz are appreciated.
I always appreciated the style of Rocky Gardiner, the person who wrote the LA Weekly horoscopes. They were lighthearted, popculture-y and short, about as good as you can get for horoscopes. Before today I knew nothing about Gardiner — couldn’t have told you her gender, even — but I am sorry to learn that she died on Halloween at age 70. May she find a welcoming and witty place in the firmament.
paperhaus November 12th, 2008
LA-based poet Douglas Kearney does some pretty cool work. And he just got a Whiting Award, which, at $50,000, is also pretty cool. OK, those are both understatements. I write far more articulately about him in this feature in today’s LA Times.
paperhaus November 10th, 2008
A review of The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford in the 11/9 paper. Here’s how it starts.
The collection “The Drowned Life” raises a banner to salute the power of the imagination. Jeffrey Ford doesn’t just invent one world with its own rules, creatures and imagery — he creates dozens in 16 dreamlike stories, which move between science fiction, fantasy and (mostly) normal backyards.
paperhaus November 7th, 2008
Mainstream media is catching on to the power of blogging in many ways, but one thing they haven’t embraced is prolific profanity. At the LA Times book blog Jacket Copy, I don’t write FUCK or SHIT or any variants thereof.
Which is perhaps why I am inordinately tickled by cursebird. It’s a site that captures all the profanity-laced tweets from twitter and spools them out as fast as they happen. Some tweets are simple, yet obscure — “this shit is taking entirely too long” says what it means, but leaves you wondering exactly what shit — could it be a line at a store, a bus home, a breakup? So many possibilities. Others are far more specific: “thank fucking gawd. sarah palin didn’t know that africa was a continent or who was in the nafta agreement http://tr.im/w9r jesus.”
There is appreciative — “Listening to ‘Death Letter’ from Son House’s Original Delta Blues. Un-bloody-believably utterly bastard brilliant.” There is oversharing: “Can I ever have a phone call w/Brad where I a) don’t have to explain the fucking obvious b) aren’t accused of being a bitch c) don’t cry.” (Does Brad follow her, you think?)
I like these tweets that imply a bigger story. “Spent the afternoon buying shitty old bikes from a city warehouse, to be welded to a giant pineapple.” Was the curseword necessary? Probably not. Do I want to know more about the giant pineapple and its welded broken bikes? I kinda do.
But then there’s this (about manga): “I fucking hate Hidan for killing Asuma but I can’t help but like how foul-mouthed he is.” It’s a loop of profanity — the cursing fan, the foul-mouthed character, the cursebird watching it all.
paperhaus October 28th, 2008
I liked it better when those crazy Klansmen stumbled around in pointy-hatted sheets, so you could easily identify them.
Although I suppose there aren’t that many shaved head, gun-toting racists in white tuxedos with assassination on their minds. Other than these two.
At least, I certainly hope not.
paperhaus September 28th, 2008
My review of “Abortion & Life” by Jennifer Baumgardner, out on Akashic Books, is in today’s LA Times. It opens:
THE COVER is striking: a very pregnant blond with her arm around a dark-haired woman whose T-shirt reads “I had an abortion.” The dark-haired woman’s hand is on the other’s belly; the women look at each other, smiling. With the acrimonious arguments over choice, this photograph, this moment, seems almost impossible. Can two women who’ve made opposite choices about pregnancy really talk to each other?
It is a foggy morning here in LA, but I’m sure the sky will clear by the time the West Hollywood Book Fair gets underway. Mark Sarvas’ panel is at 10:30am; I’m on one at 3pm. And there are many, many in between.