Books as Art

Last night, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis opened Text/Messages: Books by Artists, an exhibit that demonstrates how some artists have used books as a form of material, medium or subject in their creations. Over the years, the Walker has collected 2,000 pieces that fall into this book-art category, and now some are on display, including, according the press release, "Elegant tomes conceived by artists such as Robert Motherwell and Ellsworth Kelly; conceptual projects by Lawrence Weiner; humorously subversive books by Karen Finley, Mike Kelley, and Paul McCarthy; and rare illustrated editions such as Salvador Dali’s take on Alice in Wonderland."

With this exhibit, and art form, what's on the pages - if there are any pages at all - is not what's significant. It's the shape they take, and the way they present the message, oftentimes political. (For example, again from press release, "Red Book, a work by Chinese artist Xu Bing composed of a row of cigarettes printed with text and housed in a box that resembles Chairman Mao’s so-called Little Red Book.") From a 26-foot, accordion-style book to a large sculpture book-boat (pictured), this exhibit studies a way of art that still thrives and is celebrated in this age of technology and Twitter accounts.

Through April 19. I hope to make a visit.

Walker Art Center
Star Tribune article

(Photo credit: Courtesy of Walker Art Center. Kcho, Obras Escogidas (Selected Works), 1994, books, metal frame, wood table, newspaper, twine Collection Walker Art Center Clinton and Della Walker Acquisition Fund, 1996)

Into Thin Air

I received Into Thin Air about five years ago from one of my bffs. For some reason I lost track of the book for awhile and had yet to read it. The other day, when I was out of books to read and I didn't want to buy more because Christmas - the book-receiving season in my world - is right around the corner, I searched my bookcase for a book I had yet to read. I found Into Thin Air. I've read Jon Krakauer's other books, Under the Banner of Heaven (utterly amazing) and Into the Wild (depressing but worth the read), so I knew I would like this book. And I did. A lot.

In 1996, Outside magazine sent Krakauer to climb Everest and report back in a feature story. But this trip up Everest was a deadly one, and Krakauer had several teammates perish on the side of the mountain. Afterward, he wrote his article for Outside, but then within 6 months extended it into a book - I think mostly for thearpy, but also to provide his version of the truth.

The book reminded me of how talented Krakauer is as a writer. His books are engaging, while at the same time teaching you about something real. It was very interesting to learn about the art of climbing, and the commercialization of Everest. The fact that people with very little climbing experience can pay enough money to have a guide take them to the top is just amazing to me. It sounds unbelievably dangerous. Krakauer even admitted that the "point" of climbing Everest might not even be to reach the summit - it's to endure the utter pain that comes with reaching the summit. The headaches, the stomach bugs, the coughs, the lack of oxygen to the brain, the freakin' cold. Because, a majority of people, once they get to the top, stay for only several minutes, snap a photo and then turn right back around, because they're too tired or they're hallucinating from the hypoxia.

And more often than not, people make it back down. But not in this case, and the tradegy that follows is scary and heartbreaking. You feel for those who died, and you feel for those who survived, who must now live with the guilt that they couldn't help their fellow climbers. A very interesting read. A true adventure story.

A Look Back 2008, The One that Still Has Me Thinking: Middlesex

Since I’ve read Middlesex, I’ve thought about it plenty of times. Several people I know have read it too, and we’ve had discussions about it. I’ve thought about it, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I think Eugenides is a very talented writer. Unlike some other reviewers, I was never bored reading Middlesex. The language and imagery he used was pretty beautiful. However, the story’s subject matter – the young life of a hermaphrodite - is pretty heartbreaking and at times tough to digest. So as with all books that make me sad and hope for better for the characters, I know I liked it, I know I’m glad I read it, I just don’t know if I loved it.

Middlesex
Top Books 2007

The Last Chinese Chef

Last week I finished The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. (Mones also wrote Lost in Translation.) The book is about an American food writer who has to visit China due to a claim on her late husband's estate. While she's there, her boss gives her the assignment of writing a profile on a Chinese-American chef who has been in China for the past several years learning the art of real Chinese cuisine. He's found himself in an Olympic-type chef competition and Maggie, the writer, is observing him and writing about him.

This book was lovely. Mones lived in China for a long time, running a textile business before becoming an author, so she knows the culture, the landscape and the food very well. A good portion of the book just describes in great detail the cuisine in China: the rules it must follow, how it's not just about taste but texture, how dishes are inspired by poetry or nature, and how even if something tastes wonderful it may not be perfect. Mones writes with beautiful language, too.

Then their street ended at a T intersection, beyond which stretched a dreamy blue mirror of water dotted by islands and double-reflected pagodas. Hills covered with timeless green forest ringed the opposite shore. Small, one-man passenger boats sculled the surface, their black canopies making them seem from a distance to be random, slow-moving water bugs. As far as she could see around the lake, between the boulevard and the shore, there stretched a shady park filled with promenading people. The noises of the city swallowed themselves somehow into silence behind her. She felt a sense of calm spreading inside, blue, like the water. She glanced at him. He was smiling with the same kind of pleasure.

I really liked this book. Besides learning about Chinese food (while we may think it, what we eat as Chinese food here is in fact nowhere near actual Chinese food) and culture, the story of Maggie and Sam (the chef) is also beautiful and tender.

A Look Back 2008, The Most Educational: Infidel and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

I learned a lot about two very different cultures this year. Infidel tells the true story of a young woman who leaves the Muslim religion behind, goes to school and eventually becomes a member of the Dutch parliament. The Spirit Catches You tells the true story of a Hmong family with an epileptic child, and how communicating with doctors was nearly impossible, in addition to the family’s beliefs not necessarily falling in line with Western medicine.

Both books made me realize how little many of us know about other cultures. How just because someone from another culture disagrees with something American doesn’t necessarily mean they’re trying to be difficult, but because something is ingrained in them that they firmly believe. And they may not necessarily be wrong. How when two cultures think so completely differently, there’s really no way to meet in the middle – it takes one side folding more to the other.

While both books were very educational for me, they also raised just as many questions. The books are set out to do the right thing: create awareness. But most of the time awareness isn’t enough. We have to do more, together.

Infidel
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Top Books 2007

Cutting Back: Magazine Subscriptions

I read this short article online at Folio which cited a Forrester Research study that found while 77 percent of people plan to keep their current number of magazines subscriptions for the near future, 18 percent plan to cut back. Those with multiple (more than five) subscriptions - 24 percent anticipate cutting back. And the harder hit type of magazine will be the consumer magazine (not business-to-business). (I was also amazed to read that more than 700 new magazines formed in 2007. How many of those do you think are still around?)

We get a lot of magazines at the house. I pay for Wired ($10/year) and EW ($36/year). I also get Domino, which was a gift. The hubby gets Esquire, Scientific American, Spin, PlayStation, Popular Science, Sports Illustrated and Motor Trend. My EW is my Sunday escape reading, so I'd really miss it. I get Wired primarily for work, but I may not renew when the time comes. And I'm not planning to start any new magazines subscriptions (I used to get several others, but I cut back last year).

I think the hubby also plans to cut back, especially when we find we don't read them all. He loves the PlayStation magazine (reads it cover to cover), most issues of SI (which I actually got on a deal for $2 for a year, so um yeah, can't go wrong there, especially for a weekly) and his car mag. But the rest are up for consideration, I think.

So, what about you? How many magazines do you get? And is this something that you're looking to cut back on in the upcoming year? As a magazine editor, I can't help but be sad at this trend - I love magazines! - but I do understand. :)

A Look Back 2008, The Best Fiction: Unaccustomed Earth

Once again, I'm reviewing the previous year and picking out the most memorable books I read.

I fell in love with Jhumpa Lahiri after reading Interpreter of Maladies. The Namesake was also good, but Interpreter felt like magic to me. So, I was incredibly excited when Unaccustomed Earth came out this past year. And it didn’t disappoint. It was even more magical than I expected. Lahiri writes of her culture (second- and third-generation Indian Americans) with such honesty and grace. She’s not afraid to tackle the big issues – health-failing parents, racial issues, language barriers and so much more – and she does so with great story telling. While a majority of the stories were on the sadder side, they also felt very true. I loved how her last three stories related to each other, a technique you don't find too often. Lahiri has made me appreciate the reading of short stories, but she’s also put herself so far out of everyone else’s league, that other authors’ compilations tend to disappoint.

Interpreter of Maladies & The Namesake
Unaccustomed Earth
Top Books in 2007

NaNoWriMo: WINNER!

A-woo hoo! I did it. A complete novel at 50,074 words. With a day to spare! Colletively, the whole NaNo community wrote nearly 1.5 billion words so far. Really, really cool.

I'm very glad I took on this challenge. It was fun, hard, frustrating and easy at all different times, and now I can actually say I wrote a several-chapter novel, with an epilogue, from start to finish. Thanks to everyone for their support!

Twilight: The Movie

Last night I saw Twilight with one of my best girls. And we loved, loved, loved it. It actually surpassed my expectations. Sure there were some cheesy lines, but I expected that since the first book is full of them. Sure the special effects weren't stellar, but they had something to prove with this movie and its small budget, and New Moon will be done even better (bring on the werewolves!).

But, looking past those little things, the movie was like a dream I didn't want to end. The actors were brilliant. Robert Pattinson was nearly flawless, making even this 28-year-old married gal swoon just a bit. Kristen Stewart had down pat the combination of angst and head-over-heels in love. The whole movie - as did the book, but the movie even more so - brought me back to high school, to what it felt like to be so crazy about someone that's all you thought about, that's the only person you wanted to be with. You wanted that person in your bedroom at night, and here Bella gets that with one sexy vampire.

And the Cullens. Sigh. I love that family. They too were beautiful. My girlfriend and I audibly gasped when Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) entered the movie for the first time. Esme was just as I pictured her in my head. Emmett was handsome and silly, Alice cute as a button, and Rosalie beautiful yet seemingly unattainable like a super model. Jasper was a little Edward Scissorhands-like to me, but I can understand his vacant stare since he's new to this "vegetarian" thing. I also thought one of the best characters, and the actor who did one of the best jobs, was Billy Burke as Bella's father Charlie. He played the perfect version of a father who doesn't quite know what to do with a teenage daughter, but he tries really hard. And he's supportive and protective and sarcastic. Loved him. The supporting cast was great, too. Bella's friends Mike, Jessica and Eric were hilarious and very real, and I'm excited to see more from Jacob in the second movie.

But in the end, it came down to Bella and Edward for me. They had great chemistry on screen and I felt they were true to their characters. Very true.

All in all, hands down, great movie. It made me rediscover my love for the series. I don't know how they make teenage girls feel (I can only imagine all the Robert Pattinson posters lining bedroom walls all over the world), but for me the stories are nostalgic and sweet and a wonderful escape.

A Look Back to 2008: Quick Survey

I'm working on my "Best Books I read in 2008" blog for sometime in December (see last year's list here), but I was curious, if you had to create a similar post, what would you include? Think back - What were the best books you read in 2008?

NaNoWriMo, Day 19: 30,000 words

The most recent goal set by NaNoWriMo is to have 30,000 words total by midnight tonight. I'm only some 150 words from that goal, which I should easily be able to complete this evening - and hopefully more. NaNo founder Chris Baty's pep talk for the week made me laugh: "Use all of your sprinting skills and word-count-bolstering tricks you've learned in the last two weeks to get to 30K. If you need to have your characters sing "American Pie" in its entirety or recite some of their favorite passages from telephone books, so be it." While I'm proud to say I've concluded nearly 30,000 words without such techniques - and hope to make it to 50,000 without doing so - it's nice to know it's not frowned upon. :)

Anyway, I know you can all do the math, but 10 days left to write 20,000 words (ugh, I know I've done that 1.5 times over already, but it still sounds insurmountable) means 2,000 words/day. With a girlfriend's birthday bash tomorrow and a pre Thanksgiving dinner on Friday, those two nights are shot. That means 4,000 words/day on the weekend. But I've done it before the past three weekends (another lucky turn of events in that this November had FIVE weekends - bonus!).

Also, I have to give a shout out to my hubby who has been super supportive this month, almost to the point of scolding when I'm not writing. Also, to my two very best girls who surprised me with a card of support that came in the mail yesterday. Their "you can do it!" sing-song phrases made me tear up and remember, yet again, how so thankful I am for them. And that yes, I can do this.

On Beauty

First, NaNoWriMo update: Halfway through the month (Nov. 15), halfway through the novel (25,054 words). Week two was a killer, and I'm not sure the final 15 days will be much easier, but I'm proud of where I am.

Now, I've been a bit consumed by my own novel lately, but that doesn't mean I'm not still reading on the bus or at lunch. I've been reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I haven't read any of her novels before (I heard White Teeth was good - anyone?), but I bought her book on the sale table at B&N a while back. It's an interesting story, a bit boring in places, long-winded passages that I'm sometimes tempted to skim, but some good characters. Not necessarily good in their actions, but good as in characters with depth. Here's the book's synopsis:

Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness, Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody, and Jerome struggles to be a believer in a family of strict atheists. Faced with the oppressive enthusiasms of his children, Howard feels that the first two acts of his life are over and he has no clear plans for the finale. Or the encore.

Then Jerome, Howard's older son, falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of the right-wing icon Monty Kipps, and the two families find themselves thrown together in a beautiful corner of America, enacting a cultural and personal war against the background of real wars that they barely register. An infidelity, a death, and a legacy set in motion a chain of events that sees all parties forced to examine the unarticulated assumptions which underpin their lives. How do you choose the work on which to spend your life? Why do you love the people you love? Do you really believe what you claim to? And what is the beautiful thing, and how far will you go to get it?

Set on both sides of the Atlantic, Zadie Smith's third novel is a brilliant analysis of family life, the institution of marriage, intersections of the personal and political, and an honest look at people's deceptions. It is also, as you might expect, very funny indeed.

I can tell Smith is a talented writer. Certain methods of her writing or turns of phrase remind me of Charles Dickens even. She sometimes acts like a narrator, telling the reader directly that we'll be jumping through time or letting us in on an unknown fact/secret about a character. However, the book is just OK for me. Some of the characters are just despicable, and others don't even seem like they could be real. I'm almost done, and I will finish it, but because I'm not completely enthralled, that might be why it's taking me so long to finish.

NaNoWriMo, Day 10

Everything I’ve read on the NaNoWriMo site has said that week two is killer. To quote Chris Baty, NaNo founder, “Week Two tends to be when the novelty of NaNoWriMo wears off, and the difficulties of making so many tough decisions in such a short time period add up. Enthusiasm dwindles, fatigue rises, and we begin squinting at our manuscripts, thinking, ‘This derivative pile of crap is my literary statement to the world?’”

In his latest pep talk, he encourages us to use week two to work on the plot of our story. Supposedly week one was all about character development and we need to now move those characters forward.

That’s not quite my problem, sitting right below 20,000 words. I am feeling more fatigued than my week one “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m going to do it” high, and the decisions I’m making for my characters are definitely getting harder to make. My mind goes blank.

However, it’s not for a lack of plot. In my day job, and the past four-and-a-half years of it, I’ve mastered the art of tight, condensed writing. I can tell you about any Twin Cities attraction in less than 15 words, and you’ll leave feeling satisfied. So, here I sit at just under 20,000 words with a plot. Things have happened. Lots of things. There’s been a break in, a beating, a love story and a whole bunch of other stuff. So, in my learned practice of writing quick and to the point, my fear remains: I’ll finish it before 50,000 words.

I can see where the problem started. I had this idea for a young adult novel in my head and I just typed and typed to get it out of my head and down on paper as fast as possible. In doing so, I’m afraid I spent too little time on my main characters: what they look like, what drives them in the end, what they think about (at least more of what they think about). So what do I do now? The goal of NaNo is to just write. You aren’t supposed to go back and reread stuff - just get it out. Editing is for December. However, if I could go back and flesh out these kids a little better, maybe my story, and my word count, would benefit? I know in the end, how I go about getting to 50,000 words – honestly – is up to me. But those are my week two struggles.

For me to stay on track, I need to hit 25,000 words by Saturday. Here’s hoping!

NaNoWriMo: Day 7

Well, I'm about a little more than a 1/4 of the way done with the month, and I've written 1/5 of my novel so far. A little more than 10,000 words. I've developed a system - if I can write 1,000 words a weeknight and some 7-8,000 words a weekend, I can finish this thing. I also realized that without distraction, give me an hour, and I can write 1,000 words. Sure, that's only in the first week and I'm sure my motivation will decrease, my ideas will stop flowing or my story will come to an abrupt halt at some point, but so far, I'm pretty pleased.

The folks at NaNoWriMo send pep talks from famous writers to our inbox every week. This week we heard from Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass and other stories. I loved all he had to say; his words were very encouraging. He says the hardest page to write is page 70:

All the initial excitement has drained away; you've begun to see all the hideous problems you've set yourself; you are horribly aware of the minute size of your own talent compared to the colossal proportions of the task you've undertaken. That's when you'll want to give up.

That made me laugh, and as someone who is on page 20, I'm not looking forward to page 70. However, maybe remembering what he said about it - power through! - it won't be so bad. The other thing that he said, which I've heard before as well, but is so true, is that you can't write a novel if you're not a reader:

Every novelist I know—every novelist I've ever heard of—is, or was, a passionate reader. I don't doubt that someone with determination and energy, but who didn't read for pleasure, who only read for information, could actually write a whole novel if they set their mind to it and followed a few rules and guidelines; but would it be worth reading? Would it give any pleasure beyond a mechanically calculated sort? I doubt it. Novels that last and please readers are written because the novelist is intoxicated by the delight and the endlessly renewable joy that comes from engaging with imaginary characters—with story; and that engagement always begins with reading; and if it catches you, it never lets go. Write a novel if you want to win a competition, or impress your friends, or possibly make some money—do so by all means. But if you're not a lover of stories, a passionate and devoted reader, don't expect your novel to please many readers.

On the other hand, if you do love reading, if you cannot imagine going on a journey without a book in your pocket or your bag, if you fret and fidget and become uncomfortable if you're kept away from your reading for too long, if your worst nightmare is to be marooned on a desert island without a book—then take heart: there are plenty of us like you. And if you tell a story that really engages you, we are all potential readers.

I don't know if being on a desert island without a book is my worst nightmare, but it's up there. Here's to the next 10,000 words.

National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo)

I'm doing something crazy this month. I'm attempting to write a novel. In 30 days. For those of you who are unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo started in 1999 with 21 people trying to write 50,000-word novels in the course of 30 days. Last year, more than 100,000 people around the world signed up for the challenge and some 15,000 actually completed the task.

I've thought about joining the fray the past two Novembers, but finally decided to take the leap this year. Why? I have no idea. But, I have a supportive husband, and it just came down to: Why not? You can see my NaNoWriMo official word counter to the right, and can keep track of my progress with me.

I don't want to get into the official rules and regulations of the program, so I encourage you to read the Web site if you're interested. Bascially, it just comes down to self-satisfaction at the end of the month. Hopefully I'll wind up with less-than-perfect prose in the form of a novel, and if I like it, I'll use the following months to edit it into something worth sharing (or not). Or, if I can't make it to 50,000 words, well, at least I tried.

And now that I've told the lot of you, I'm really on the hook, huh? :)