Books « Black Marks on Wood Pulp / by Corey Vilhauer

Category: Books

Who needs comfort food when you’ve got comfort books?

February 25th, 2010

We repeat foods. We repeat outfits. We watch our favorite movies multiple times, pour over the same season of Arrested Development until we’ve memorized casting cues, listen to albums even after the magic of hearing them for the first time is as distant as a Prohibition Era speakeasy.

We do it because they comfort us. We repeat them because they’re familiar and awesome and part of what makes us, you know, US.

But we rarely do this with books.

Why?

Don’t say length. You can’t say length. Not when a season of Lost or House or whatever can last up to 24 hours straight through. Not when we listen to an album 30 times over a span of a few months, adding up to not hours, but DAYS of time. Not when we’ll wear the same after-work clothes day after day after day until, oh, man, seriously, let’s get those in the washing machine BUT THEN WHAT WOULD I HAVE TO WEAR WHILE I WATCHED SEASON THREE OF HOUSE FOR THE FIFTH TIME?

Length doesn’t work. Perception does, though.

Books seem long. Yet, despite their length, they also seem disposable, like a magazine, or a reality program. They’re commonly ingested and passed along without a second thought. They’re the worst combination for some people: drawn out and forgettable. (Those people, of course, are wrong, if you want my honest and totally unbiased and also totally right opinion.)

I can’t help it, though. I have comfort books. I have comfort books that mean more than any comfort food or comfort album or comfort television program. I have comfort books that are as far from comfortable in subject matter as you could imagine, yet still draw me in, time and time again, despite my need to finish whatever book is in need of finishing.

Though it’s unwieldy and awkward, the seventy billion pound monster that is The Beatles Anthology book is something I return to quarterly. Graphic novels with heady themes – think Jimmy Corrigan and both Maus books – seem to keep ending up in my hands. British travelogues like Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island or Theroux’s The Kingdom by the Sea are on the list, as are short stories like Lorrie Moore’s “People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk” or Dan Chaon’s “The Bees.”

After thinking about, I’d bet you probably have some comfort books too. And for those of you that don’t, why not?

Why not find yours right now? You’ve got time while those pajamas finish drying.

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading

What I’ve Been Reading: The San Francisco Panorama (McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 33)

January 29th, 2010

You know, sometimes McSweeney’s can get a little too cute. Ask the poor souls who subscribed to McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and ended up with the “Pretending It’s a Pile of Mail” issue. Or the “Three Books in One Connected by Magnets” issue. Or the “Who We Should Invade Next Parody” issue. And while I love the Quarterly Concern and would defend it to death, you’d be right if you assumed McSweeney’s focused on the package more than the writing.

What I’ve Read:

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue #33 (The San Francisco Panorama) – Dave Eggers (editor)

Sometimes. You’d be right sometimes.

So, yeah. Of course McSweeney’s would be presenting Issue 33 as a newspaper. A real newspaper, on newsprint, with journalists and newsy things. Of course they would. That’s what they do. See the above paragraph. The one that talks about being too cute.

The San Francisco Panorama To say I was a little skeptical, despite McSweeney’s consistent track record of great writing, is an understatement. This could have failed miserably. This could have been a waste of a Quarterly Concern.

Oops.

Turns out this idea was absolutely fantastic. I stand corrected.

Printed on oversized, thick newsprint, the Panorama is a beautifully designed “new-newspaper” prototype, filled with in-depth reporting and high-dollar contributors. Originally designed to show what newspapers could be, the viability of a 120-page newspaper (not including a 96-page Panorama Book Review and 112-page Panorama Magazine) with 218 contributors seems rather low. The ten-section/two-magazine publication cost $80,000 in editorial costs, with a unit cost of $7.98.

It sells for $16. One issue. $16. A bargain compared to the typical Quarterly Concern hardcover price, but still – seemingly expensive for a newspaper. Even as a weekly publication, its life would be cut short by penny-pinching subscribers and lack of mainstream coverage.

But let’s be honest. This isn’t just a newspaper. Dave Eggers, editor and McSweeney’s chief, understands this. He understands that this is a special edition, that this test is more than just a prototype, but also a tribute to the craft of newspapering.

And it’s beautiful. It’s easily one of the coolest things I’ve ever read. I can’t recommend it enough – especially for those who have grown tired of their local paper (those not lucky enough to get a real one like the New York Times or Washington Post or even Minneapolis Star Tribune) but still miss the feel of those oversized pages, those hyper-timely articles, those “can’t miss” moments and random-yet-brilliant Style pages.

So all I can say is this: get this, if you have a chance. It’s pretty great.

And now, A list of the best things in the San Francisco Panorama (not including the Panorama Magazine or the entire Panorama Book Review, both of which I haven’t even finished reading.)

• “The Tragedy of Mendocino” by Jesse Nathan, about California’s Emerald Triangle and its hidden and environmentally dangerous marijuana trade.

• “Golden State: Transition Basketball” by Free Darko

• “On the World Series” by Stephen King (including a fantastic retro Converse ad on the back page)

• “Living With a Yellow Dwarf” monster two-page infographic on the unusually quiet solar cycle

• The Death Cab for Cutie infographic

• Let’s face it: EVERY infographic

• “Can a Paper Mill Save a Forest?” by Nicholson Baker, about the possibility that digital information may be harder on the environment than paper

• “KPOO,” by Chinaka Hodge, on San Francisco’s long running independent radio station, KPOO

• The Comics (which, on their own, retail for $10) including Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman and Erik Larsen

• “The End, The End, The End, Etcetera,” by China Mieville, about the overabundance of movies about the apocalypse

• “The Desperate Art of DVD Covers,” by Moze Halperin, on the difference between marketing and art as it relates to film posters and their respective DVD covers

• “I Participate in TV Studio Audiences,” by Kevin Collier, a mini-memoir about jumping from studio audience to studio audience, from Maury to Paula Deen.

• The Food Section, which includes stories like “Water: A Road Trip” by Lisa M. Hamilton, about once-fertile California farmland now rendered useless thanks to a drougt-imposed restriction on aquaduct water; “Lambchetta in 58 Steps” by Ryan Farr, on knowing, slaughtering and cooking a lamb from beginning to end; and “Roadkill Stew” by L. E. Leone, on hitting a deer – and then cooking it.

What I’ve Been Reading – Furthering Education

January 25th, 2010

Self-improvement is a multi-billion dollar industry.

Okay. Just kidding. I don’t actually know how much money the industry makes. One thing’s for sure: it’s got a monopoly on annoyance and self-importance, and if you could put a price on those two traits I’m sure the industry would be somewhere in the multi-billions. AMIRITE?

What I’ve Read:

On Writing – Stephen King

Content Strategy for the Web – Kristina Halvorson

The Elements of User Experience – Jesse James Garrett

I prefer my self-improvement to be self-driven. And for me, it often is.

It’s driven by a nagging feeling that I’m quickly being driven in to obsolescence by content mills and marketing directors who feel they can cut corners by writing their own copy. Driven by the knowledge that getting published requires an insane amount of collaboration between luck and circumstance, not to mention an actual amount of talent. Driven by the demons of self-doubt. By a writer’s constant sense of impending failure. By whatever it is that drives writers to write whatever it is they write.

On Writing So sometimes I read books about writing. And, because I like the Web and writing for the Web and learning about the Web and adding skills and adding to the multi-billion dollar self-improvement industry, I read books about things that aren’t writing.

In terms of those books about writing (and I’ve read a few – see: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and Elements of Style Illustrated by Strunk and White), Stephen King’s On Writing is easily the best. For real.

It’s easy to pass Stephen King off as mass-market pulp purveyor – the type of tripe you find on the stands at the airport – but, come on. The dude’s a very good writer.

How can you tell? Easy: he wrote an entertaining book on writing. As in, I’d recommend it to people who aren’t writers. I’d recommend it to writers who feel they’re too cool for Stephen King.

Elements of User Experience The book actually splits itself into two parts: one part life story, one part “how to write.” The two play off of each other rather well – the “how to write” part driving his life story, the life story giving a human quality to his “how to write” part. Some things you’ll learn: how to edit, how to drink a lot and recover, how to forget a large part of your career thanks to alcoholism, how to stop over-explaining, how to hole up and just write, how to have a near death experience, how to start your own newspaper as a grade-schooler, how to submit stories and expect nothing, how to be humble, how to understand that writing fiction is about as scientific as Intelligent Design.

Sure, it was inspiring. So inspiring that I took all of the lessons and jumped headfirst into another field: User Experience. And, once I had finished that, I jumped headfirst into yet another field: Content Strategy. (Which, I now realize, takes the craft of writing (featured in King’s On Writing) and applies it to the Web by way of User Experience. So, really, everything came full circle and this trio of books made perfect sense without making perfect sense at all.)

A bunch of other people can discuss Elements of User Experience better than I am able to. And I’ve already touched on Content Strategy for the Web – or, at least, my newfound interest in the field. The books themselves don’t matter that much when it comes to a “What I’ve Been Reading” post; in fact, the three books featured serve as one entry, one stage in my life when I understood that I needed to become better at something and I accepted all available resources to make it happen.

Kerrie bought me On Writing for my birthday. Knowing that I’m always three days away from finally starting a short story, she may have figured it would serve as a kick start. Instead, it made me more introspective, pushing me toward redefining what I want my writing career to be.

It may not have made me a better writer – just as the other books may not have made me a better Web person – but it did help me focus on simply being a writer, for better or worse.

Comments: 3

Issues Considered: Books, Content Strategy, Education, Literature, Technology, What I've Been Reading, Writing

Five reasons McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama is a thing of beauty

January 4th, 2010

Five reasons McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama is a thing of beauty:

1. Stephen King on the World Series
2. The comics page
3. The Panorama Magazine and the Panorama Book Review could stand on their own
4. In a time when more newspapers are trying to look more like CNN.com, McSweeney’s chose to design the Panorama like a classy magazine
5. A pull-out Stephan Curry poster

I’ll obviously post a full review of the “newspaper” when I’ve finished its 300+ pages. But until then, go read it – AND LOVE IT – for yourself.

What I’ve Been Reading: The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy

November 17th, 2009

It might be a little hypocritical to slag on someone for being self-referential. As a blogger who writes primarily about his life and thoughts, most of my Internet persona is defined by self-reference.

What I’ve read:

The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy – Bill Simmons

Then again, I don’t purport to any other notion. You don’t come to Black Marks on Wood Pulp and expect non-personal writing.

However, when you read a book called The Book of Basketball, you expect it to be, for the most part, about basketball.

Let’s get this out of the way. I loved this book. As a basketball fan with a fleeting knowledge of history pre-1980s, it was a wonderful way to fill in the blanks. Was Wilt better than Russell? Was David Thompson as good as people say? Should I hate Karl Malone more than I already do? (The answers, respectively: no, yes, probably.)

I grew up watching Michael Jordan and Reggie Miller, so it’s good to have a reference point from which to compare. And if you’re looking for a more objective tome, there are probably better choices. However, if you’re looking for a down-to-earth synopsis of the NBA’s past 60 years, you can’t do much better.

The concept: Bill Simmons, who is sort of a pioneer when it comes to crafting Internet sports columns (in that he helped usher in the more relaxed, more opinionated and, ultimately, more enjoyable sports writing that we all take for granted today) uses his extreme fanhood to explain his take on the NBA, past and present.

A 96-player, pyramid based Hall of Fame that separates different classes of player based on accomplishments? Done. A listing of the top 10 teams of all time? Done. An incredibly insightful look at why Oscar Robertson’s numbers might be skewed, or a entire section devoted to what could have happened had certain moves not been made? Done. It’s like sitting down with a good friend – who also happens to be a huge NBA fan – and hashing out every great basketball argument ever made.

Yeah. It’s awesome. So let’s start picking it apart.

Seriously, Bill – your name is on the book – there’s no reason to keep reminding us that this is your opinion we’re taking on. I don’t care about who you know. I don’t need every argument to be unceremoniously finished with a reference to Teen Wolf, or a backhanded Shawshank Redemption quote.

He tackles race in an awkward way – he’s understanding, though at the same time strangely defensive and apologetic. He drops names whenever he can. He peppers his footnotes with the same kind of lame humor you’d expect to see in lesser blog comments on Deadspin. He makes no mistake that this is his book, and that we should expect more and more lame pop culture references and stories about his buddy House.

That being said, the self-referential nature only begins to grate around page 500. Did I mention the book is nearly 700 pages long? Surprisingly, it’s a fast read, though I can’t help but think it would be about 200 pages shorter if he took himself out of the story (an unfunny point he makes several times as you get closer to the end.)

See, there’s my problem. It’s easier to complain than it is to praise. Though the last three paragraphs sound like criticism, this shouldn’t frame my opinion of the book. They are minor blips on an ambitious project, one that doesn’t just present basketball history, but puts in context and in a way you can easily understand. This isn’t a book for stat hounds or nitpickers – this is a book for true fans, for those who long to have hour-long discussions about who was better: Bird of Magic.

(My answer: Bird. Bill’s surprising answer: Magic. Even as a Boston homer, Bill still couldn’t bring himself to be biased.)

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Basketball, Books, Boston Celtics, Sports, What I've Been Reading, Writers, Writing

What I’ve Been Reading – McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31

October 22nd, 2009

Vikings, Monks, Philosophers, Whores: Old forms, unearthed.

The title page of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31, promises a lot. Don’t worry. It delivers. Offering a peek into the past, and serving as both a historical overview and a retelling through parody and mimicry, Issue 31 takes long lost literary styles – the Socratic Dialogue, the Whore Dialogue, the Pantoum, the Biji, etc. – and compiles both a classic example and a modern retelling.

What I’ve read:

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31 – Dave Eggers (editor)

It’s this pairing of old and new – and, in turn, the differences and similarities therein – that makes Issue 31 so wonderful. I wouldn’t know a Socratic dialogue from a Shakespeare play if it wasn’t for the example (in this case, THE example: Plato’s Republic). The red text in the margins shows historical references while being unobtrusive enough to ignore in cases of rapt attention.

That so many authors (the list includes McSweeney’s regulars like Douglas Coupland, Dan Liebert and Joel Brouwer, and newcomers like Okkervil River’s Will Sheff) can tackle so many lost texts – and do it in a way that’s both true to the form while still holding strong to the McSweeney’s style – is a testament to the writers the series brings in.

But let’s face it: that anyone could spend time mastering the art of these lost texts (Douglas Coupland’s biji of a videographer’s disastrous work trip shooting for Survivor is fantastic, as is David Thomson’s Socratic dialogue on the #1 movie of all time between Charlie Chaplin, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Susan Sontag and Ernest Hemingway) while I struggle to master the more banal acts of language is both inspiring and a little dispiriting.

Maybe that’s just it. Maybe I’m supposed to be writing in haiku, and I never realized it.

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading, Writers, Writing

16-Page Read: Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?

September 23rd, 2009

At some point in the process of learning to read, kids begin to memorize their favorite books.

16-Page Read:

Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? by Dr. Seuss

They know exactly what happens on every page, and while they may not technically read a book cover to cover, they offer the illusion that they’re reading every word.

The first time I was aware of this with Sierra was with Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?

It wasn’t just the easy animals. She already knew that cows mooed and birds chirped and she could make the sounds, even if they were a little off. She tried to snort for a pig and instead just spit all over the place. She was sure horses said “geigh,” and sheep always uttered “ba ba black sheep.”

It was the tougher stuff, too. Lightning goes splat? Well of course it does, and now, she’s able to anticipate that page with lightning-like quickness. Butterflies whisper whisper. Horns blurp. Big cats slurp.

Every noise was a new experience, soaked up as only a toddler can. And from there, the noises were no longer new, but standard, as if our child came complete with a full set of onomatopoeias at her instant disposal, rattling off a cock-a-doodle-doo at simply the mention of a rooster, or a sizzle sizzle when seeing a frying pan.

Mr. Brown was Sierra’s favorite book for about a month, which in her mind is nearly an eternity. And though it’s a longer book – I’ll take an 8-page Sandra Boynton book at bedtime any day – it was never difficult to get through.

I suspect it has a lot to do with her understanding – her ability to match picture to sound to real life experience. The synapses are firing, now, and before long she’ll be surprising us with things we never knew existed.

It’s what makes me laugh at 3 in the morning when Sierra, awake and ready for the day despite my bleary eyes and unkempt disposition, relays to me with excitement usually reserved for Christmas.

There’s thunder outside.

It’s going BOOM BOOM BOOM!

There isn’t. And it’s not. But her relaying of sound from Mr. Brown shows how much her imagination has grown in the past year.

And despite the time, and the darkness, and the fact that I’ll now spend the next 15 minutes in a trance, attempting to get her back to sleep, I understand that this curiosity and imagination might be one of the most beautiful things in the world.