Isadora Duncan became my I-is-for-
Idol when I was ten years old and read a Reader's Digest condensed version of her biography that summer in Anaheim, California. I was staying at my grandmother's house for a month, and we were so close to Disneyland I could see the Matterhorn from the end of her street.
My grandmother also had a swimming pool,
and every day I pretty much followed the same routine: cinnamon toast for breakfast, swim, baloney and mustard sandwiches for lunch, read, swim, dinner (usually tacos or burgers), read, swim, read. I was in heaven! (I also hadn't become a vegetarian yet.) I lived in my bathing suit and read and ate outside next to the pool. I also remember some bad sunburn because my grandmother's favorite suntan lotion was olive oil, LOL! We were cooked to bruschetta on a daily basis.
However, it was Isadora Duncan who really stood out for me in between swimming sessions. I'm sure I didn't understand very much at the time about her complicated love life, or how truly innovative her contribution to the art and dance world was. But I did know she was different and interesting, and I continued my fascination with her life well into adulthood. Which is why my husband surprised me one Christmas with a book so beautiful it's really a piece of art rather than reading material.
Isadora Duncan with Art Deco Sculptures by Chiparus, Preiss, and Others published by Franco Maria Ricci with text by Alberto Savinio is so special that rather than a dust jacket, it rests in its own black silk-covered box. The oversize pale indigo-blue pages are of handmade paper from Milan, and the Art Deco photographs of rare and decorative dance sculptures are first-class. My copy is one of a limited edition, and half the time I don't read it because I'm afraid of ruining it somehow.
And that's a shame because it's a book worth reading whenever possible. Unlike most biographies, the section on Duncan's life history is written in a literary and poetic style. The sections describing the artwork are equally entertaining, making this a very special and unique keeper. Best of all, it inspired one of the characters in my current WIP, The Abyssal Plain. Now to just be able to afford some of those Art Deco sculptures for my living room.
Today’s post should really be titled, "H is for Hello, I'm very, very tired." A-Z blogging is, well, um, challenging! Put that with the staying up all night because I went to the Laini Taylor booksigning/launch for Dreams of Gods and Monsters here in Albuquerque, and when I got home I couldn't sleep. At all. Which may be a good way to describe my love for Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves: it, too, leaves me sleepless.
House of Leaves is a keeper because it’s so darn weird. WEIRD. I mean, how many novels have indexes? Or contain so many footnotes you forget whether you’re reading the core story, or the footnotes to the footnotes' story, or—hey, does it really matter? It's all entertainment.
The book was first recommended to me by a cheerful woman who explained that she was, at that particular moment in her life, mentally ill, and the only book she could read or understand was House of Leaves because, in her words, it was "where her mind was." She thought I would enjoy it too.
Rather than wondering if she had perhaps noticed something about me that I had failed to see, I took her advice and bought a copy. She was right--it's an amazing book no matter where your head is.
Here’s a direct quote and the full text of page 221 of the Remastered Full Color Edition:
“after”
If you thought that was unusual, just wait till you see what's on page 223.
And f you want to know what it all means--plus have the most exciting (and puzzling) reading adventure of your life--you’ll have to read the book. Personally I need a nap. See you tomorrow with the letter “I.”
P.S. The Laini Taylor event was fabulous. Thanks to our local Albuquerque indie store, Bookworks, we had cake and punch, sketchbooks, a giant puppet, games, henna, masks. . . . Laini was a wonderful and gracious speaker, and she signed three books for me! It might not start with the letter "H" but #DOGAM (along with the rest of her books) is definitely going straight to my keeper shelf.
Before I signed up for the April A-Z Blogging Challenge, April was always associated in my mind with National Poetry Month. It still is, just now with a little twist. So in order to honor one of my favorite months and subjects, I’m dedicating the letter G to the next of my keeper books: Gaudete by Ted Hughes.
Gaudete was another purchase from Foyle’s of London, and to be honest when I bought it all I knew about Hughes was that he had been married to Sylvia Plath. I had no idea what his work would be like, but the cover, a creepy pen-and-ink drawing of a giant screaming head by Leonard Baskin, caught my imagination and wouldn't let go. When I read the back cover, I was fascinated to learn that the text had originally been written as a film scenario, and that may be one of the reasons I ended up reading it over and over.
When I was a child, one of my favorite things to do when no one was looking was to watch English black-and-white horror movies, especially the ones set in sinister villages where it turns out the headmaster of the local school is leading a coven of witches, or the neighbors regularly sacrifice newcomers on Midsummer’s Eve. I loved the way the hoity-toity villagers sped around in open-top sports cars, the gentlemens' ties flying in the wind, or the ladies' silk scarves protecting those beehive hairdos. When they met for afternoon tea to plot their next evil deed, my main thought was not "how awful," but, "Wow--just look at that Royal Doulton. And that Tudor oak wainscoting. I HAVE to go there one day!"
Gaudete is straight out of this traditional very British and very proper horror vein, with plenty of humor directed toward the genre to make it even whackier. A dark and, yes, philosophical, tale of changelings and elementals and overgrown hedgerows, it’s a real page turner, and some of the best and most accessible poetry you’ll ever read. It's a keeper!
Welcome to Week 2 of the A-Z
Blogging Challenge. If you’re a new reader to my site, my theme for the month
is “keeper books,” the books I can’t live without. Today’s selection is
Frommer’s Barcelona, Day by Day, 21 Smart Ways to See the City. It’s one of my
newer books—I haven’t even owned it a full twelve months. The reason it’s a keeper is
that I used it last year on my trip to Barcelona, and I had so much fun I’m
definitely going back!
The book is small but loaded, much
like the handbag I used to schlep the book over every square centimeter of
Barcelona during my two-week summer vacation. And in many ways, that handbag was just as important as the book, maybe more so. Before I tell you why, I first
want to apologize to the Barcelona tourist board for what may be perceived as a
negative report, but it was their very own site that alerted me to the fact that
Barcelona is swarming with pick-pockets. Yuk. At first I didn’t want to believe it—I’ve
been in big cities, thank you, I can look after myself. Then I read the warnings
again on numerous travel blogs, on my chosen hotel’s website, and finally in Frommer’s Barcelona Day by Day. Travelers beware: thieves abound.
I was worried. I’ve never been a
paranoid traveler and I wasn't about to start. All the same, I decided I had
to have the safest bag ever made to foil those pesky purse-snatchers. I wanted it to
be stylish, small-ish, and something that didn’t scream “American tourist on the
loose!”
My solution was to go to a weapons
site. Yes. Pacifist, timid me started scanning websites with names
like “Gun-Toting Mamas” and “Guns-to-Go.” It was an education, mainly because it
drew my attention to the reality that many women are a) armed and b) have good
reason to be. Police officers, security guards, private detectives, women who
live in dangerous American cities—all need to protect themselves and others,
like it or not. And thanks to these resourceful sites, I found the perfect purse: tan leather, lots and lots of zippered pockets for things
like passports and make-up, a slash-proof handle (very important), and a secret
gun compartment (!). Once I removed the Velcro holster from the compartment, it was the exact size to
hold Frommer’s Barcelona along with my travel journal and pencil case.
Talk about turning swords to plowshares.
Best of all, I could wear the bag
cross-body, the recommended way those scary blog warnings insisted I do.
They were right—on my last night in the city, while being seated at a very
fancy and beautiful restaurant, a young woman was robbed. It broke my heart to
see her sobbing helplessly while her family tried to comfort her as they called
banks and embassies to block her credit cards and personal information.
It was an eye-opener to realize
the world isn’t as safe as it was in the past when I’d breezily ride the London
tube home alone at midnight after attending a concert or play. It also got old to constantly clutch my cross-body weaponless-weapon bag like a cherished
infant every minute of the day and night, but that’s the world we live in. It
won’t stop me returning to Barcelona, or anywhere else for that matter.
Besides, I have a secret weapon of my own: the purse itself. Filled with my
pens, books, journals, camera, wallet, water, the thing weighs a ton. I’m sure
it could knock out a grown man cold. The travel journal really is mightier than
the sword.
P.S. If you'd like to read my post about my wonderful and happy trip to beautiful Barcelona, just click here. Thanks for visiting.
Note to self: Never, ever lose Electric Kiln Ceramics, a Potter’s Guide to Clays and Glazes by Richard Zakin.
This former library book is stamped on the inside back cover with the damning instructions: DISCARD, DISCARD, probably due to the fact it is quite literally falling apart at the seams. All the more reason for me to cherish it these last fifteen years and do my best to give it a good home.
My husband found the book for me when we were at the Carrollton Library’s annual Friends of the Library sale back in Georgia. I had just started working in clay, and I was eager to gather all the information I could on the subject, especially for the grand price of a dollar!
Unlike writing, pottery is something I fell into by accident. I was taking drawing lessons that turned into watercolor experiments that somehow turned into pottery class. My first effort on that first day was a frog that fell apart and never made it into the kiln. C’est la vie. The advice I received that same day was much more valuable than any knick-knack: 1) Pretend you’re making a tortilla. 2) Never make your clay tortilla thicker than ¼ inch. 3) It’s just mud.
That was my teacher talking, but here’s some more great advice, this time from the opening lines of Electric Kiln Ceramics, Chapter Two:
“Clay is a special material with unique properties. It is in itself formless, but can be shaped into many forms. Although it is soft and pliable, it can be hardened by heat into one of the hardest materials known. To understand the nature of ceramics, the potter must understand the nature of clay.”
Kind of sums up the whole of life and creativity, don’t you think?
Electric Kiln Ceramics has remained next to my clay table year and after year, inspiring me with both its words and photographs. More important, though, it is a constant reminder of a little town in Georgia where I learned to make mud pies and how to let go of frogs. Not bad for a dollar.
Dying, in Other Words by British author Maggie Gee has been a keeper since 1984 when I attended a two-week writing seminar in London hosted by Northeastern University. Our instructors included Gary Goshgarian, Stephen King, Tabitha King, P.D. James, Robert B. Parker, William Martin, and the imcomparable Maggie Gee. Dying, in Other Words was Maggie Gee's first published novel, and it is my first signed book: "For Valerie, All best wishes for your own writing. Maggie."
I've read that inscription many times. It's carried me through the worst of rejections, the panic of acceptance, and it's become a sincere wish I've done my best to impart to other writers, especially when I've been asked to sign my own published work.
Some of my strongest memories from that conference include Stephen King jumping out of a dark hallway shouting "Boo!", scaring me and a fellow student out of our wits; Tabitha King breaking the heel off her shoe right before class (yes, famous people have those days too!); and having coffee with Maggie Gee. What an afternoon that was. She was wonderful, patiently answering all my eager and innocent questions about agents and writing schedules and Angela Carter (it turned out they knew each other). But best of all, she encouraged me to write, to never give up, to make my dreams real.
Every day that I sit down to write I can't help but think of that glorious conference, thirty years ago this summer, and how much Maggie's words and style have influenced and inspired me. I'm also reminded how important it is for professional writers and artists to remain generous, to pass on the baton whenever possible: You can do it.
One last thing: Besides being a keeper for the reasons above, Dying in Other Words is a REALLY GOOD BOOK! A surreal and edgy murder mystery, it gets 5 stars from me--read it!
The short story collection, Cliffs of Fall, by Shirley Hazzard is a keeper because a) I'm a Shirley Hazzard fan, and b) I enjoy short stories. In my opinion there are not enough stories published these days, and I don't think we're better off for it.
Cliffs of Fall was Hazzard's first book; some of the stories originally appeared in magazines--the kind that used to publish fiction by new writers, but no more. The title is from a Gerard Manly Hopkins poem, and what I particularly love is that I can see in the poem and the stories the themes and character motivation Hazzard worked into her novels.
I don't write short stories for publication (yet), but I have a pretty big collection of freewriting drafts I've produced every two weeks or so with my writer's group. One of the things I love about my group is that we don't critique. Instead, we meet and write from a prompt; sometimes it's an evocative photo, other days we'll use a line from a magazine or a book of writing exercises, often it's a combination of the two. Over the years we've written flash fiction, poetry, personal essay, and even sections of our novels this way.
Here's an example of a flash fiction piece I wrote one afternoon when we were still meeting at the now-defunct Borders Books and Music cafe (more loss!). It's a raw, "first thoughts" piece transcribed straight from my journal, run-on sentences and all. The prompt line was "It was Sunday when it happened" and it was matched with a black-and-white photo of a sunny office stairwell looking over a grassy field.
For as long as I can remember I have loved the hidden backrooms and stairwells of office buildings. The places where you can pause, even hide, from the relentless assembly line of paperwork and ringing telephones. There is a certain feeling of stoppage—the heat pulses warm from the tinted glass and radiators; the place is so quiet. It is where you can gather your thoughts, put your head in order, believe for a moment that you might actually have a real life somewhere outside of the office.
These quiet spaces are even more appealing on the weekends, those rare occurrences when I agree to go into work alone and for extra pay plus expenses to catch up on overflowing filing trays, or to complete the bookwork that was neglected in favor of some other more important deadline. On those weekends I am given a check for lunch, but I always bring one of my own. I’d rather eat my own food anyway, and the money they give me is enough for new shoes if they’re on sale, or simply to store up in my bank account for the proverbial rainy day when I may want to bolt and quit this dull place filled with people who would rather die than smile.
So there I was, eating my cheese and apricots, a flask of latte, and a book to read after I was finished eating, all snug in my favorite back hallway, the one where the windows face the sloping lawn and the lake below. No one ever walks on this lawn or swims in the lake. Instead, it is designed for privacy and a show of power. Acres and acres of grass for no one but the executives to maintain through the largesse of the company’s enormous profits.
I had brought in a comfortable chair and a pillow. My lunch allowance gives me an hour and a half on Sundays, and I was determined to take it. I know some people try to rush through their weekend work so they can get home and forget about it, but I love the solitude and relaxation of having the building all to myself. The security guards don’t check in until five, and even the maintenance staff are gone for the day. The entire block is mine. I could eat my lunch in the boardroom if I wanted and no one would be the wiser.
So there I was, alone, happy, ready to snooze when I saw them down at the edge of the water, obviously having forgotten, or perhaps never been told, that today was my turn to spend the better part of the weekend in their employ. There was only the two of them: Mr. Channing and Miss Hellman. The thing that caught my eye was not so much the surprise of seeing them, but what they were wearing. Usually I passed them once or twice a day and had never seen them dressed like this: in white and like people going to some bizarre party where all the guests were angels or high school graduates.
For a second I wondered if they were wearing choir robes, but there was something too creative and secular about their outfits. “Organdy” was the word that went through my mind. Maybe “prom dress” or “shroud” would have been appropriate, too. I saw them open a bag--the sort you see these days in grocery stores when people want to make some kind of self-conscious snooty statement about global warming or landfills, when what they’re really doing is spreading mites and bacteria. From the bag, a deep egg yolk yellow with a sunflower on its side, they removed something large and unwieldy and threw it into the middle of the lake. Whatever it was, it hit the water like a sack of potatoes and did not resurface as I imagined it might do, if only for a second. They then left as silently as they had appeared, their white gowns floating behind them.
They sold the company the following week, and we were all paid handsomely to leave and find work elsewhere. Perhaps I will investigate diving or pond cleaning for the new owners. Somehow I will make sure I can return to my spot by the window, if only for the chance to sit and stare in quiet, as if the world was made only for me.
