Catch Up
No real great excuse for this long radio silence here at Corduroy. Part of it — lots of it — has to do with reviews elsewhere (coming soon in the Star Tribune, coming soon elsewhere, this one recently for the Rumpus), but part of it’s just living. This little page is now more than 5 years old, and in that time I’ve reviewed well over 400 books here and elsewhere, meaning 80 books/year just for reviewing purposes…all of which is I guess a way of saying: I got tired recently, and have been trying to figure out how to get less tired. As you are likely aware, Corduroy’s just for fun, and the reviews for elsewhere are, with rare exception, done simply for free books and maybe karma or something (meaning: not $). Honestly, books have seemed a bit crappier of late. Maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’ve been picking bad books to read/review. I think lots of it’s that I picked bad books, but who knows. I’m not even sure why I’m writing this now. Basically I guess: thanks for reading. And: if you’re like me, and you’re aware of the younger crop of writers who also review and teach, please just be grateful—the work to do this stuff, at any level, is staggering—and send them thanks (I’m thinking of folks like Joe Salvatore, Roxane Gay, Ander Monson, Megan Mayhew Bergman). Enough bellyaching. The following are 2012 books I meant to get to and didn’t. Go figure.
The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax by Tom Piazza
If you’re at all like me, there are things you simply take too much for granted. Doritos, for instance, and Irma Thomas, and Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folks Music, and all sorts of other things. High on this list of taken-for-granted, for me, is Alan Lomax, a guy whose field recordings have, I’d imagine, done more to shape the work of folks I ultimately love than anyone other than Dylan (but then: could there be a Dylan without Alan Lomax? According to Wikipedia: Davis’s glorious Sketches of Spain had its seeds in the tree of Lomax’s earlier work in Spain). I don’t know what you know. There was Moby’s Play, which sampled old Lomax field recordings, but that’s pretty dated now. Here’s the basics: Lomax, born in 1915, collected field recordings of folks that’d never been put to acetate before. Ever. He’s one of those quietly heroic folks who pay almost saint-levels of devoted attention to things, and offer us plebes entry to things we might not otherwise ever get. This book seemed like a breeze to note and I find myself now fairly terrified of not honoring it the way it should be. Regardless: Lomax’s story’s fascinating, dude Established himself with Library of Congress work, left the US in 1950, returned in ’59 and departed on his Southern Journey, another set of field recordings (this time, unlike his work from the 30s+40s, a matter of recording a disappearing world)(of note: dude started in Salem, VA, which is a stone’s-throw from good old Blacksburg). Among the results: the included CD with this book. Among the results: this glorious book which has at its center Tom Piazza’s amazing consideration of Lomax and how crucial his Southern Journey was and is. The book may seem ho-hum, or stuffy, or a matter of should—respecting cultural elders—but this book and the CD will be among 2012′s most lasting additions. Have this in your life. I don’t know when you’ll need it, but I’m 100% sure you will.
Through nothing but kismet and timing, Burns’s The Hive, the second part of his X’ed Out trilogy, was released the same year as Chris Ware’s best-of-everything Building Stories, which is too bad simply due to the fact that in mainstream bookreviewing there’s little notice paid to graphic work anyway, and, during a year like 2012, in which everyone focused on One Big One, this got missed. So, The Hive: I actually don’t know X’ed Out, yet I hung with this fine. In fact, I think I liked it more for that aspect, the same as, say, someone might like Radio City by Big Star more for not having to appreciate it in the follow-up to #1 Record and the predecessor to Third/Sister Lover. I don’t know how you need your info about graphic novels: Ware’s was a big playpen of infinite depth; The Hive feels like a mash-up of creepy rock and roll (storywise) and glorious clarity (graphics). Here’s how I think of this stuff: I read books, and then they go somewhere else in the house immediately after, so I’m not surrounded by what I just took in, but then, often months later, I go find where I put a recent book and bring it back, needing it close for whatever reason. I did that maybe a month after finishing The Hive. I’m excited to see what the third book brings.
Our Andromeda by Brenda Shaughnessy
This has been loved and praised everywhere, which is great. I found the NYTimes review particularly useful, ditto this one at The Aviary, and this conversation about it very very good as well. I find this a very very hard book for the bio aspects, and the way those bio aspects are rendered (BShaughnessy and her husband had a baby, Cal, who was born with disabilities; my wife and I were waiting for our daughter’s birth as I read Our Andromeda, and I finally just had to set it aside for a bit, because I’m crazy and fearful and couldn’t stand that close to sort of pain as we were on the cusp of our own welcoming). Anyway, that’s one thing. There’s a strange glory in this book: if you know Shaughnessy’s stuff, you know she’s as linguistically glorious as they come (I dare anyone to find something better sounding than her “I’m Over the Moon” from Human Dark with Sugar). The linguistic propulsion’s still evident, but it’s now in service to domesticity—specifically, the domesticity of compromise. How do we do this is over and over the chorus. The book’s stuffed with riches, but they’re incredibly hard riches—hard to wade through and readerly earn, I think. That said: I imagine this is a book I’ll be coming back to soon.
