Saturday, January 30, 2010
My Birthday Wish
OK, so I've got a birthday coming up next week. And it's a milestone -- the big 4-0 -- so people tend to buy you stuff for those birthdays. But I've already got plenty of stuff, so if you or someone you love is tempted to buy me something to celebrate the fact that I'm still among the living, give some money to your favorite nonprofit instead.
Or give some money to MY favorite nonprofit, The Neo-Futurists. Because times are tough for the arts, especially the arts that are determined to keep themselves affordable and accessible to us normal people.
I first saw Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind shortly after I moved to Chicago in 1994 and immediately saw it again the next weekend because I was so utterly gobsmacked by it. I've probably seen Too Much Light about 100 times since, not to mention their Prime Time shows, the summer Film Fest (staged readings of really bad movies scripts), and loads of other special events over the years. Something about their work just clicked with me. It's funny and frantic, but also thoroughly honest. Their performances continually challenge not only the way I think about "things" (politics, religion, sex, relationships, clowns), but the way I think about art. I've laughed until my lungs ached, I've been thoroughly confused, I've been moved to tears and pushed to fury. But I've rarely left that theater unmoved. All that, and it's only 10-15 bucks a show!
So send a little scratch to the Neos. Or better yet, see a show! Experience Chicago's coolest theater company for yourself. Their latest Prime Time show opens next week. Or if you haven't seen Too Much Light in a while, see it again -- you know what they say: if you've seen the show once, you've seen the show once! (If you haven't even seen the show once, I just don't even know how to respond. Except to say: Go see it! What are you waiting for?)
You'll thank me later.
06:40 PM CST [Link] [Confess]
Friday, January 29, 2010
2010 book list #3
Ellington Boulevard: A Novel in A-Flat by Adam Langer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Another winding tale of people and their city from Adam Langer. The loose-limbed narrative about gentrification and love is engaging, funny, and frequently insightful, but the book just didn't hang together for me as well as Crossing California. Langer packs in a few too many characters and a few too many coincidences, although I laughed out loud at the unexpected Rovner! callback. Also, the Broadway musical motif just didn't resonate for me. But there's a great dog named Herbie Mann!
Langer has this thing in all three of his books that drives me nuts: The man either can't or won't write dialogue. Instead, we get whole paragraphs of the narrator describing what the characters are saying to each other. It's distracting. Perhaps he should start hanging out with Richard Russo and learn how to write a conversation.
06:42 AM CST [Link] [Confess]
Monday, January 18, 2010
2010 book list #2
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009 by Dave Eggers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A mostly solid collection of fiction, nonfiction, lists, comics, and ephemera, not unlike a really good issue of McSweeney's (not surprising, really). My favorite bits were: Jonathan Franzen's eulogy for his lost friend, David Foster Wallace; investigative journalism pieces by Denis Johnson, J. Malcolm Garcia, and David Grann; the story of a post-Katrina bar in New Orleans trying to stay in business after the owner's death; Nathan Englander on family and memory; and the kids' letters to Obama. There's also a lovely Gorey-esque comic in the back about wanting to be a manta ray.
08:07 PM CST [Link] [Confess]
Friday, January 1, 2010
2010 book list #1
I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President by Josh Lieb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
To the idiots who surround him at Gale Sayers Middle School, Oliver Watson is just a dumb little fat kid who puts strawberry jam on his baloney sandwiches. But in reality, Oliver is a malevolent supergenius with an underground lair, a love for Captain Beefheart, and the ability to overthrow foreign regimes on a whim. He's also a boy after my own evil heart:
The fact is, when I ascend to my throne -- and I will ascend to my throne -- life for the average person won't be much worse than it is now. In some respects, it will probably be better. For instance, I will outlaw the song "Jingle Bell Rock," which all scientists agree is the worst song ever created. With that one law, I will improve Christmas by two hundred percent!
This book has it all: Political intrigue. Oedipal issues. Astounding technology. Fart jokes. In short, a classic of modern Western literature. Or at the very least, a pleasant way to spend a frigid afternoon, especially with some Earl Grey and a bowl of clementines by your side.
View all my reviews >>
04:01 PM CST [Link] [Confess]
New Year's Resolution: No new books for 2010
My goal this year is to buy no new books. I did this once before, during my last year of grad school, when I had no time to read for pleasure. But now I'm going to try it again just on principle -- I have more books than I need, including dozens I haven't read.
So step 1 is to read those books. Here's the list. Some were for school, some are Jim's, and some I just never got around to cracking. It's a good list. I'm looking forward to this.
Step 2 is to get anything else I want to read from the library or borrow from friends.
I'll admit, I'm torn about this resolution. I love my local independent bookstores and desperately want them to survive. But I've reached the point where "supporting the local shops" has evolved into "making myself crazy with stuff" and "running out of shelf space for no good reason" (not to mention "sighing in disappointment when I open the Visa statement").
But, hey, if you're still buying books in 2010, buy them from Women & Children First and Unabridged and Book Cellar! Fuck Amazon and the chains, man. They will not save your neighborhood.
03:58 PM CST [Link] [2 Confessions]
Sunday, December 13, 2009
my happy place, interrupted
OK, so maybe planning to post something new every single day during the busiest six weeks of the year was overly ambitious of me. One day last week, I honestly just forgot to post something, and then for several days afterward, I just couldn't. Last week was tough -- long days at work and lots of activity, compounded by some mysterious back trauma that made even fun stuff like go-go class difficult to endure happily.
Not that the week was devoid of goodness! Here are some highlights:
--cookies
--seeing a bunch of my favorite local theater types in Verbatim Verboten
--an open house and studio sale at WomanCraft, a program you should totally love and support because they are crafty-minded and socially responsible and tremendous on so many levels
--the El Vez/Los Straitjackets show at the Double Door last Friday night. El Vez is the hardest-working man in showbiz, and he looks fabulous in a sparkly jumpsuit. And he seems like a really nice guy.
--Birthday party for a friend, involving both a sushi boat and a cupcake tree.
--Movie day with some crafty friends, watching silly things and eating snacks.
So, some good stuff, but not enough time to write about how much I liked it. This week will probably entail more of the same: I have at least five work events to attend and several year-end deadlines to meet, plus some personal obligations, and a go-go performance, and somewhere in there I need to bake cookies for one of the aforementioned work thingies and get my friggin' holiday cards mailed.
My blogging experiment may be running off the rails here, but I've still been trying to concentrate on the good things in my life and not get mired in stress-muck. And, oh, there will be stress this week! Here's to making it through to Saturday without getting a migraine or punching a caroler in the neck.
08:53 PM CST [Link] [Confess]
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
my happy place, day 13: afternoon El rides
My job has changed quite a bit in the last six months. I work for a big nonprofit, and where before I spent almost all my time in our "corporate" office downtown, now I travel to our program sites all over town several times a month for meetings and stuff. Which means taking the CTA at non-rush hours.
I love this. I mean, I'm still on the clock and I spend my train time proofreading or doing other worky things. But something about riding the El in the middle of a work day is thrilling. I feel like I'm getting away with something. Here I am gliding above the city while the other working stiffs are plopped in front of their desks, getting carpal tunnel syndrome and eating vending machine food with only the buzz of the fluorescent lights and the voices in their heads to keep them company! But not me! I'm free to look at trees and shop windows and dogs frolicking in parks! And there's always a seat!
As the CTA's magic voice man used to say, "This is grand."
08:32 PM CST [Link] [Confess]
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