Glen Hirshberg's Blog, page 9
July 16, 2014
Epistles from the Road: Toronto Ho!
And you will know be by my trail of cheese curds I bought from the Iranian guy's cheese shop, across the street from the Romanian grandmotherly type who took time out from chastising and giggling with a Scandinavian woman who can not possibly have been her daughter to sell me Ontario Empire summer apples, as I wound from the Portuguese district, through Little Italy and Kensington market, paused on the Fiko patio for my coffee fix and sat out back in the trees and listened to the Brazilian Birkenstock-Jewish guy in sandals expounding to the pretty Canadian Jew in better sandals about Kabbalah and possession ("Have you ever been possessed? It's inTENSE..."), and then east toward the AGO, in this city so dizzyingly internationalized, it makes Amsterdam feel like Indianapolis...
Epistles from the Road: Toronto
New favorite Humble Canadians sign (replacing the Ottawa deli menu with the "Try our famous sandwiches; they're quite tall" legend), this one outside a foot massage place at the edge of Toronto's Chinatown: "Recommended by one of the American travel magazines!"
Biblio-Curiosa and the Fangs of Suet Pudding
T.R.U.E., Week of 7/15, Post #4:
Biblio-Curiosa (Unusual Writers/Strange Books) presents...
From way Down Under comes an old-school, straight-up zine--the kind that used to appear in the side-wall racks at hipster newsstands, or get passed from friend to friend, or featured on Distro sites--featuring one Chris Mikul writing with verve and wonder and honesty but no condescension about lost books everyone should read ABOUT (and at least a few everyone should probably read). He's done at least 8 issues in the past three years, I believe (I have the first 6). A sample title, from issue #1:
How about a better-than-fair English thriller, pre-WWII, about the looming German invasion of a tiny French village, told from the point-of-view of a resilient, spiky young narrator named Loreley, who one day looks out her window and sees a man who proclaims himself "a burglar." Loreley likes his face. So she lets him in.
His name? Why, Suet Pudding. Naturally.
There follow cave entrapments, spies, derring-do, a tense and ruthless game of Snakes and Ladders which apparently takes place between Loreley and the vicious Suet under Loreley's bed. Loreley shows her stiff upper lip by singing "Rule Brittania" even as Suet forces her to keep playing.
The name of the book? The Fangs of Suet Pudding. The author? Adams Farr. Information about the intrepid Mrs.--Miss?--Mr??--Farr? Good luck with that.
You may or may not hunt down this book (although I assume it's clear that I will). But at the very least, check out more about this fantastic little labor of love. There's no website, just a blog ABOUT the zine which puts you on Chris Mikul's trail. Go remind yourself what "indie" used to mean, and what it was for. And who it was for. Meaning you. Us.
Biblio-Curiosa (Unusual Writers/Strange Books) presents...
From way Down Under comes an old-school, straight-up zine--the kind that used to appear in the side-wall racks at hipster newsstands, or get passed from friend to friend, or featured on Distro sites--featuring one Chris Mikul writing with verve and wonder and honesty but no condescension about lost books everyone should read ABOUT (and at least a few everyone should probably read). He's done at least 8 issues in the past three years, I believe (I have the first 6). A sample title, from issue #1:
How about a better-than-fair English thriller, pre-WWII, about the looming German invasion of a tiny French village, told from the point-of-view of a resilient, spiky young narrator named Loreley, who one day looks out her window and sees a man who proclaims himself "a burglar." Loreley likes his face. So she lets him in.
His name? Why, Suet Pudding. Naturally.
There follow cave entrapments, spies, derring-do, a tense and ruthless game of Snakes and Ladders which apparently takes place between Loreley and the vicious Suet under Loreley's bed. Loreley shows her stiff upper lip by singing "Rule Brittania" even as Suet forces her to keep playing.
The name of the book? The Fangs of Suet Pudding. The author? Adams Farr. Information about the intrepid Mrs.--Miss?--Mr??--Farr? Good luck with that.
You may or may not hunt down this book (although I assume it's clear that I will). But at the very least, check out more about this fantastic little labor of love. There's no website, just a blog ABOUT the zine which puts you on Chris Mikul's trail. Go remind yourself what "indie" used to mean, and what it was for. And who it was for. Meaning you. Us.
July 15, 2014
The trick still works
T.R.U.E., Week of 7/15, Post #3
Dean Young (again) "Romanticism 101" (another excerpt)
I dedicate this snippet to Reggie Oliver. Seemed apt, given my blather about his excellent work in this week's post #1:
"Then I realized even when you catch the mechanism
the trick still works....
We were all chasing nothing
which left no choice but to intensify the chase..."
He's good. The Dean.
Dean Young (again) "Romanticism 101" (another excerpt)
I dedicate this snippet to Reggie Oliver. Seemed apt, given my blather about his excellent work in this week's post #1:
"Then I realized even when you catch the mechanism
the trick still works....
We were all chasing nothing
which left no choice but to intensify the chase..."
He's good. The Dean.
"Romanticism 101"
T.R.U.E., Week of 7/15, Post #2:
Dean Young "Romanticism 101" (excerpt)
A benediction, of sorts, for all my Readercon friends new and not-new.
And also a manifesto. Another one. I do seem to collect them. I'm that sort of Man. Fest o'Man(i). This ones comes from the jittery, skittering, leaping pen of
Dean Young, one of my very favorite contemporary poets. I found it on the first page of the most recent issue of Poetry:
"If I had to pick between shadows
and essences, I'd pick shadows.
They're better dancers.
They always sing their telegrams.
Their old gods do not die."
Dean Young "Romanticism 101" (excerpt)
A benediction, of sorts, for all my Readercon friends new and not-new.
And also a manifesto. Another one. I do seem to collect them. I'm that sort of Man. Fest o'Man(i). This ones comes from the jittery, skittering, leaping pen of
Dean Young, one of my very favorite contemporary poets. I found it on the first page of the most recent issue of Poetry:
"If I had to pick between shadows
and essences, I'd pick shadows.
They're better dancers.
They always sing their telegrams.
Their old gods do not die."
Reggie Oliver's "The Man in the Grey Bedroom"
T.R.U.E. (Tuesday Round-up of Everything), Week of 7/15, Post #1:
(note--been traveling all week, so any posts I put up today are likely to relate to reading I've snatched along the way; a return to more diversified posts next week)
Reggie Oliver "The Man in the Grey Bedroom" (from Masques of Satan: Twelve Tales and a Novella)
I’d heard that Reggie Oliver is perhaps the best Jamesian writer of this era. I think he’s better than that. It is absolutely true that the trappings of “The Man in the Grey Bedroom,” the first story I’ve had the pleasure of reading from him, are classical: the manor house operated by the National Trust, toured by the family of a scholar, Jack, who thinks he knows and understands just a little more about the place’s murky history than he does, the room that no one is supposed to go into, the designated docent—or perhaps, caretaker—or occupant?--of that room. And the door in the back of that room, which leads to the Black Room. Where you’re REALLY not supposed to go…
It’s also true that the best elements of the story are the classical ones: the echoing halls; the odd moments of suppressed conflict with strangers that crop up out of nothing, seem to lead nowhere, but prickle with unspecified menace (very Ramsey Campbell, that); the bits of disturbing—and perhaps not completely verified—historical lore; the grey bedroom, which is a little too aptly named; and the Black Bedroom behind the door, which we don’t get to see, but Jack does…
Reggie Oliver isn’t an imitator, though; he’s a craftsman. He understands how these machines work so well that he’s able to build brand new ones. And if the things his very contemporary machines ultimately do are the same things we know (and have loved), and the flavors and aromas they give off and the shivers they create are the same ones classical ghost story lovers know (and love)…aren’t those the smells and sensations we go and have always gone to these stories for?
(note--been traveling all week, so any posts I put up today are likely to relate to reading I've snatched along the way; a return to more diversified posts next week)
Reggie Oliver "The Man in the Grey Bedroom" (from Masques of Satan: Twelve Tales and a Novella)
I’d heard that Reggie Oliver is perhaps the best Jamesian writer of this era. I think he’s better than that. It is absolutely true that the trappings of “The Man in the Grey Bedroom,” the first story I’ve had the pleasure of reading from him, are classical: the manor house operated by the National Trust, toured by the family of a scholar, Jack, who thinks he knows and understands just a little more about the place’s murky history than he does, the room that no one is supposed to go into, the designated docent—or perhaps, caretaker—or occupant?--of that room. And the door in the back of that room, which leads to the Black Room. Where you’re REALLY not supposed to go…
It’s also true that the best elements of the story are the classical ones: the echoing halls; the odd moments of suppressed conflict with strangers that crop up out of nothing, seem to lead nowhere, but prickle with unspecified menace (very Ramsey Campbell, that); the bits of disturbing—and perhaps not completely verified—historical lore; the grey bedroom, which is a little too aptly named; and the Black Bedroom behind the door, which we don’t get to see, but Jack does…
Reggie Oliver isn’t an imitator, though; he’s a craftsman. He understands how these machines work so well that he’s able to build brand new ones. And if the things his very contemporary machines ultimately do are the same things we know (and have loved), and the flavors and aromas they give off and the shivers they create are the same ones classical ghost story lovers know (and love)…aren’t those the smells and sensations we go and have always gone to these stories for?
July 14, 2014
Epistles from the Tour
In-between day today, so I slipped off with an old friend and his family, who ferried me down the Rhode Island coast to see an even older friend and his family, and then we wandered together in a gaggle from their house through the overcast to a dune-colored beach strewn with saltgrass,
and from there into the green-gray ocean, which isn't as warm as I remembered the Atlantic being, where we bobbed and bodysurfed and watched the mist roll in, only it turned out to be rain, which didn't so much fall as rill down the daylight, soak us where we swam, poke holes in the water, turning it grayer shades of green, greener shades of gray. Wet walk back afterward, past a house that called itself Butterworth, where my old(er) friend said a much older lady lived alone, but where fireworks went off in barrages for the rest of the long, dripping evening, which we mostly spent on the porch, eating well, conversing better, raking through the years we were together and the years we weren't and won't be for stories to retell, tell, reframe, fall into. (With the families of Russell Day and Gabe Burnstein)
and from there into the green-gray ocean, which isn't as warm as I remembered the Atlantic being, where we bobbed and bodysurfed and watched the mist roll in, only it turned out to be rain, which didn't so much fall as rill down the daylight, soak us where we swam, poke holes in the water, turning it grayer shades of green, greener shades of gray. Wet walk back afterward, past a house that called itself Butterworth, where my old(er) friend said a much older lady lived alone, but where fireworks went off in barrages for the rest of the long, dripping evening, which we mostly spent on the porch, eating well, conversing better, raking through the years we were together and the years we weren't and won't be for stories to retell, tell, reframe, fall into. (With the families of Russell Day and Gabe Burnstein)
Glittering Atop the Kudzu
Dew on the Kudzu certainly has picked up on one of the central themes of Motherless Child , and expressed it with eloquence:
"Don't piss off the mothers..."
Read it here--->
July 13, 2014
Epistles from Readercon 2014: Heading Out
Having escaped Paul Tremblay's trunk when he was busy snapping illicit photos of the writers in the car that had pulled up alongside us,
I crept back to my room, scraped the bits of...no, I don't even want to know who else Paul Tremblay keeps in his trunk, or what happened to them...anyway, I changed, steeled myself, and reemerged for one last glorious day at Readercon: Peter Straub
waxing eloquent and magnanimous over a long, quiet breakfast conversation,
Mary Rickert delivering a deceptively gentle excerpt from The Memory Garden (and then passing out Forget-Me-Not seeds), John Langan surprising us all with a deft and disturbing action sequence from a new story. Then standing up, as the night's last reader, and letting Good Girls rip for the first time.
Getting a response from a readinged-out crowd that felt absurdly generous and tremendously reassuring. Then bad mousse
and great conversation with Langan, a light-hearted and laughing Ellen Datlow (full of good projects, as ever), Daryl Gregory (whose work I have recently discovered, and think is most decidedly worth YOUR discovering), and the charming Liza Trombi of Locus, before stumbling upstairs into the sauna--wait, that was someone's ROOM??--where maybe 80 writers, editors, conversationalists, friends, saw the CON out the way it came in: with clever chatter, whiskey way too strong for little hobbit Hirshbergs to touch, book recs, movie recs, genuine mutual admiration, and friendship. Sean Moreland, great last chat, looking forward to more next week. So good seeing everyone. More, please...
I crept back to my room, scraped the bits of...no, I don't even want to know who else Paul Tremblay keeps in his trunk, or what happened to them...anyway, I changed, steeled myself, and reemerged for one last glorious day at Readercon: Peter Straub
waxing eloquent and magnanimous over a long, quiet breakfast conversation,
Mary Rickert delivering a deceptively gentle excerpt from The Memory Garden (and then passing out Forget-Me-Not seeds), John Langan surprising us all with a deft and disturbing action sequence from a new story. Then standing up, as the night's last reader, and letting Good Girls rip for the first time.
Getting a response from a readinged-out crowd that felt absurdly generous and tremendously reassuring. Then bad mousse
and great conversation with Langan, a light-hearted and laughing Ellen Datlow (full of good projects, as ever), Daryl Gregory (whose work I have recently discovered, and think is most decidedly worth YOUR discovering), and the charming Liza Trombi of Locus, before stumbling upstairs into the sauna--wait, that was someone's ROOM??--where maybe 80 writers, editors, conversationalists, friends, saw the CON out the way it came in: with clever chatter, whiskey way too strong for little hobbit Hirshbergs to touch, book recs, movie recs, genuine mutual admiration, and friendship. Sean Moreland, great last chat, looking forward to more next week. So good seeing everyone. More, please...
July 12, 2014
Epistles from Readercon 2014
The writing life always, always finds a way to make it clear exactly where one stands (or, in this case, rates as far as rides back to the hotel in Paul Tremblay's car)...
