Gorging on The Skin of a Lion

One of the best things to do on a holiday Monday? Read a novel in one day. I have not had the luxury to do this very often - though, as a kid I did it all the time. But this week, after the obligatory turkey feed, I decided to dig into some good fiction for dessert. I was only about 30 pages into Michael Ondaatje's In The Skin of a Lion but I was already quite intrigued. His books can be difficult; time narratives usually shift and he makes you "work for it", but in a really good way. The writing is dense, rich, poetic and you have to give yourself over to the magic of it, rather than say, "people don't really talk that way". It's the sort of novel that really benefits from reading in one sitting, as the story washes over you, and the resonance of character, time and place remains long after you finish that last page.

If you find yourself with a long stretch of a day, I'd highly recommend doing this - reading a great book lasts a lot longer than the tight pants and sleepiness of the Thanksgiving Feast.

More Ford

I mentioned a Richard Ford interview a few posts ago. I'll admit, I'm really bias because Ford is probably my main influence right now, and I find myself hanging on every word the guy says. Here is the part of the interview where he mentions the place of "talent" in writing. I think he's dead on. But I guess I would think that.

Richard Ford (interviewed by Charlie Rose)

RF: Writing is not a profession, not in America anyway, it's a vocation, in a sense. It's a thing you keep inventing everyday - apropos of the book you are writing

Charlie Rose: It's not a profession?

RF: It doesn't have any rules. It doesn't have any standards of achievements and accomplishments… they don't license it. You can't go to school and get a degree in it and have it mean anything.

CR: But is it more art than craft?

RF: It's a species of vigor.

What NOT to read to your kid... ever.

The Daily Show had a hilarious segment about Conservative themed kids books. I said, man that's funny... but it can't be real. Can it?

Help Mom There's Liberals Under the Bed

I am not sure if the existence of these books makes it even funnier - or scarier.

The BASS King

I have been following the BASS collection (Best American Short Stories) for a few years now. I just picked up the latest edition that has already caused a bit of a stir with the literary elite mucky-muck types. The reason? Stephen King has edited the 2007 collection.

I've said before, maybe even on this blog, that while I don't read much King these days, I admire the guy. I think he is one helluva storyteller and fairly straightshooter. The shooting I am talking about is his book On Writing. It's not Gardner's Art of Fiction, but it doesn't pretend to be. And anyone who has read it will see why King would make an excellent editor for BASS. King writes in his own genre, but he sure doesn't only read in it. He has a list of great books that he has recently read (though I do wonder how recently, since the list is massive) - and the list is enough to make any academic drool. Does that make sense, do academics drool?

But the beauty of the list is that he places J.K Rowling right against DeLillo or Flannery O'Conner. Tolkein is in there with Faulkner and McCarthy.

I've dug into the collection and have been loving the collection of King is calling, "some kick-ass stories".
A breath of fresh air amidst the dusty tomes of literary snooty-ness.

Before We Were Anybody

Here's a story that I always wanted to tell.
So I did.

Before We Were Anybody

In the early days, in Cal's basement, the place we called the grotto, we smoked cigarettes, stared at the painting of the velvet matador and tried to figure it all out.

By all, we meant how were we going to sell our paintings and be able to move into something better. Cal found the grotto through a bar conversation -- the address cost him half a pack of smokes and five beers.

The rent was dirt-cheap. Cal had been there six months before I moved in.

One afternoon, Cal was stretched out on the stained futon, his overalls splattered with every hue Winsor Newton offered.

"I think I got the last one," he said, taking a deep drag on a Players. "Brutal. A pregnant one, spraying little ones all over the hotel -- I just about puked when I looked in." His hair sprouted out of his paisley bandana like a spider plant gone wrong.

Cal had been battling the grotto's roach problem ever since he got there. Roaches in the bed, in the toaster, and the best: the hair dryer. He grabbed it after a sleepy morning shower and a big fat one fired out under a blast of hot air -- nailed him in the head, bounced to the floor and ran like a bastard.

"How do you figure it was the last one?" I asked.

"Gotta be -- I've sealed up everything."

I believed him. He was a farm kid from Alberta. He had learned about vigilance and systematic killing by hunting rats with his father.

"I'll get a couple more hotels -- but I think I got them all." He dropped his butt into his empty beer.

On Cal's easel was a canvas of a girl in front of a fruit stand.

"Great light in that one," I said.

"Mmm." Cal said, not really listening. "You want some soup?"

"Sure."

He put down the beer bottle and went to the tiny kitchen.

"All I got is chicken noodle, that dehydrated crap."

"Fine," I yelled from twenty feet away.

Cal rustled in the cupboard.

"What the fuck? These noodles are moving."

I pulled my head away from the painting. Cal stared into the soup box.

"DAMN."

The box flew out of Cal's hands and hit the floor with a snap. Dry noodles were airborne with too many baby roaches to count. Like a couple of keystone cops, we both ran at the box, knocked into each other and watched every single bug disappear into the baseboards like candle smoke.

We stared at each other. Cal pulled out another Players, lit it and took a deep drag.

"Looks like soup is out."

There was a pregnant second and then we laughed like hell, knowing that one day we'd be telling this story.