Smarties are Hotties

I think you'll like this video of smart (and sexy) people talking about art and culture:

Vampire Weekend & Kwame Dawes

And you can download Vampire Weekend's newest single

(it's named after my favorite beverage of all time!)

Just Kids

Just Kids

by Patti Smith

(3 scoops)

Blue stars and lambs and the moon and Genet and poetry and huaraches and magic.

These are just a few of the words used time and time again in this memoir to make sure the reader understands that this is a book about an artist talking about the life of an artist and the sacrifices one must make for art and the art of Art.

It is not a wonderful book, nor is it a terrible book; it exists somewhere in the space carved out by a constant motion between these two extremes. Take, for example, these two sentences from a three paragraph description of the famed Chelsea Hotel, the first, a wonderfully evocative and succinct sentence, begins the passage, while the second, a tragic mess of half-images, concludes it- 1. The Chelsea was like a doll's house in the Twilight Zone, with a hundred rooms, each a small universe. 2. I sniffed out their spirits as I silently scurried from floor to floor, longing for discourse with a gone procession of smoking caterpillars.

As an artist working and living in New York City for 15 years now, I was inspired by her descriptions of how influential people moved in and out of her life. And throughout the book there are interesting tidbits of information mixed in with an endearing portrait of young love and the wistful, romantic remembrances of a time gone by. Reading this book was like reading a love letter- to Robert Maplethorpe, to New York, and the artistic process. And, in the end, who doesn't like a good love letter?

Don't Judge a Book...

Yes, we all know how that adage ends... but come on,

who hasn't grabbed a book off the shelf because of the cover?

Something about it entices you- perhaps it is a color, a font, a texture, an image, the title, an author's name- so you look at the front, decide if you want to read the back, read the back, then decide if you want to invest your time and energy reading the contents of the book. Happens all the time. But as far as I can remember

I have never read a book strictly because of the cover.

Until now.

Meet exit here.

This is the book I bought yesterday based solely on the design.

I haven't read it yet.

I hardly want to open it for fear of cracking the spine.

It is gorgeous.

* I've been looking at this post for a few days now and I gotta tell you the cover just doesn't look good online. In person it is stunning. The matte finish, the white edging, the muted colors, the precisely placed text- it is really sophisticated and evocative. You'll just have to trust me...or go to a bookstore and find it yourself. It will look like something pulled from a Chelsea gallery sitting amongst hundreds of children's Paint by Numbers.

Saunders Saunders Saunders

Pastoralia: Stories and a Novella

by George Saunders

(5 scoops)

Thought provoking. Amusing. Haunting.

Simply brilliant.

Whitewashing Follow Up

Thanks to blogger Jacket Whys for continuing to put Bloomsbury on blast. Check out his post and the link to Bookshelves of Doom for more examples of Bloomsbury's bad decision making.

Book Review

The Story of Forgetting

by Stefan Merrill Block

(3 scoops)

I really wanted to like this book more than I did... but something about it just didn't land with me. There was great suspense in the beginning and an interesting intersection of voices, but as I read on the plot became too obvious and the multiple voices inauthentic. Also, the metaphoric quality of the Isidora story line felt forced. Too bad. It had so much potential. And yet it is winning awards out the wazoo. Check it out.

Encouragement

The agent Nathan Bransford maintains an amazing blog. You should definitely add it to the list of those that you follow.

Today's post was actually written by a guest blogger, Bryan Russell of Alchemy of Writing. So many of us have a 1.2.3.4.5 like Russell, but so rarely does life follow the order we try and impose upon it. His post is a very moving reminder of how those things that we think interrupt our writing ultimately strengthen it.