I am fairly caught up in Empire of Illusion this week (see post below) and by caught up, I mean depressed, but in a good way. Chris Hedges is an amazing writer and thinker - he connects the dots from some other books I have read (Culturally Savvy Christian by Dick Staub and Life is a Miracle by Wendell Berry).

What depresses me as a writer is the climbing rates of illiteracy and semi-literacy. As well, he pulls out a stat that 80% of U.S. did not buy or read a book last year. Can that be true??? Oh my, if it is, well... we're screwed. And by "we" I don't mean writers. I mean all of us.

I am very thankful (in the spirit of our past holiday) that I helped to create a family full of readers. It may be my greatest accomplishment.

Under the category of books that tell me just how far we have fallen as a society is Chris Hedges, "Empire of Illusion. Hedges writes about pro wrestling, porn and Jerry Springer - just writing that abbreviated list makes me cringe. I am a reading this book and nodding my head, going, yep, we are really that bad (and I am really that bad - I know way too much about celebrity culture).

I am hoping that by the end of the book he will tell me how we can avoid all this stuff - but he may just confirm that the whole culture is headed to, or already in the crapper.

Yikes.

I learned about this vid from my friend and recording artist (and award winning, awesome all around great guy etc.) Steve Bell.

I also know Mike (I'm good friends with his Brother-in-law).

But that's not why I am promoting this vid. It is amazing! What a player, what an arranger. He takes the golden, and somewhat moldy hymn I Have Decided to Follow Jesus and bends it, molds it and folds it into a beautiful jazz arrangment. Backing him up on bass George Kholler (bass / Holly Cole) and drummer Ben Riley (Bruce Cockburn).

Watch, enjoy, groove.

I am constantly working on lessening the stack of books on my bedside, and of course like any good book addict, I am constantly adding to it.

Just finished Donald Pollack's Knockemstiff - and still unsure whether I liked it or not.

Working on reading Richard Ford's Rock Springs (yes, again and again). Finished Lansdale's Bad Chili a while back and came across his Mad Dog Summer short story collection (haven't started - though the review I linked to doesn't think much of it.).

Reading through the AMAZING BASS (Best Amercian Short Stories) from 1986, edited by Raymond Carver. Full of brilliance.

And lots of craft books as always - including How Fiction Works by James Wood. There is something beautiful in this book, even the way it fits in your hand. I want to savour it.

Adding to the stack is Barry Hannah's Airships - a recent discovery that I can't wait to dive into. And on their way our a few books for this years bookclub - including Atwood's new one, Year of the Flood.

Someday I will catch up to the stack. But probably not.

Can you will your unread books to family members? To read them I mean.

I've been busy preparing for a couple of classes that I am teaching - one has already started and one starts tonight. Of course with the beauty of the internet, and having profs that blog, one does wonder which students will be checking him out - either for nuggets of wisdom (!) or to find out who this guy thinks he is (!!!).

Being a fiction writer, amongst other things, I like the opportunity of crossing the boundaries, or maybe a better word is mash-up: the visual arts with the written arts. I was thinking about this while listening to yet another radio interview with the publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I was telling my wife about this publishing phenom (best-seller, translated into 17 languages etc.) and told her that the material was copyright free. Well, it went something like this:

Wife - Why didn't you think of something like that?

Me - D'oh!

Wife - I mean you're a writer. You could have done that.

Me - D'oh!!!

And the rest was pretty much the same.

But before I digress into my ideas for Robinson Crusoe in District 9, I'll talk about my mash-up. The graphic designer extraordinaire Chip Kidd turns out to also be a fabulous writer. Okay, maybe fabulous is a bit much, but pretty damn good. His novel The Cheese Monkeys is one of the best art school novels I have ever come across. What, you haven't heard of that genre? Okay, it's small. But Kidd's book is smart and very funny. I like reading it to my graphic design students, though to be honest, I am not sure if they get what the book is talking about. An arrogant and self-obsessed prof, Winter Sorbeck, puts a class of design students through a mental hell. Boot camp for designers. I see you readers rolling your eyes. Hey, wait. Art School was hell, life in the trenches, deadlines, exacto knife cuts, late night slurpie runs and buckets of coffee that no longer has any effect.

If you don't get any of this. Read Cheese Monkeys. Then come take my class. I am no Winter Sorbeck - but I do get passionate. And there are no zombies in my class (usually).

Better get working on that Crusoe story.