art is the new religion

Speaking of Astor Piazzolla

Yesterday I posted about Unboxing Indiespensable Volume 5, and showed you some of the cool stuff that came in the package. 

Here's a detail of one of the information cards that comes with each book release.  There's always an interview with the author, in this case Miriam Toews, which gives you some fun facts and interesting details about the writer and the book.

The bottom card is a quote from Nick Hornby, where he tells the story of how Powell's turned him on to Toews' first book.  The top card in this photo shares some info about Toews herself.  What stood out to me was that she listed Astor Piazzolla as her favorite relaxant.

Astor Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer who played the bandoneón, which looks and sounds somewhat like an accordion.  The bandoneón, according to Wikipedia, "has buttons on both sides. Additionally the notes produced on push and pull are different (bisonoric). This means that each keyboard has actually two layouts - one for the opening notes, and one for the closing notes. Since the right and left hand layouts are also different, this adds up to four different keyboard layouts that must be learned in order to play the instrument."  To even imagine trying to play this instrument makes my mind reel a bit.

Piazzolla was keen to throw some jazz elements into traditional tango, and he's lauded for taking the genre to a totally new place (nuevo tango, if you will).  Here's a not-particularly-relaxing clip of a live performance of "Chin Chin" from the 1984 Montreal International Jazz Festival:

I own Piazzolla's Tango: Zero Hour, recommended to me several years back by the incomparable Craig Wedren.  It's a lovely record.  Highly recommended.

 

Unboxing Indiespensable - Volume 5

It's that time again!

Volume 5 of Indiespensable, Powell's Books' most awesome subscription club, arrived at my office.

I opened the box to find many exciting things: a hardcover book in a special box, a giant pamphlet, a pocket atlas, a Powell's sticker and the colorful information cards they include with each volume.

I haven't yet spent much time with the giant pamphlet titled More Information Than You Require.  A preliminary perusal reveals that in the categories of Raison/Theology/Monotheistic Concepts, I am considered "bacon-shunning".  Or something.

I like the little pocket atlas.  Here, the chicken keychain (with simulated egg-laying action) from Volume 4 points its beak in the vicinity of my house.

The main selection, The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews, is gorgeous in chocolate brown, sky blue and silver.

As always, my book is autographed by the author.

Miriam's hand must have been cramping, her eyes a bit blurred and her spine a bit stiff, by the time she lifted her pen to my book.  Thanks Miriam, and thanks Powell's, for taking care to make being an Indiespensable subscriber such a fun experience.

Related:

• Unboxing Indiespensable Volume 4
• Follow Powell's on Twitter

you are a conductor

" 'Why'd you bring me here?' I asked the Conductor as we were leaving the water. 'You don't even know me.'

'I took one look at you, and I knew this was your kind of thing,' he said.

'How could you tell?'

'Nobody chases a conductor down the platform to ask him why he's happy,' the Conductor said. 'People chase a conductor to chew his ass. So, girl, you surprised me. I owed you something special. Simple.'

If I'd delivered something special to everyone I probably owed it to, I'd be busy for a long time. Maybe, though, I could try to deliver a little more from here on out."

-- from 'The Year of Yes' by Maria Dahvana Headley

I'd rather be...

Winter's Tale @ Momi Tobys w/soy latte

Powell's Books, For Life

This is a tale about Powell's Books, and how I went from a curious supporter to a lifelong fan of a terrific independent book store in Portland, Oregon.

I've heard about Powell's for many years.  In almost every conversation I have with a friend or acquaintance about Portland, they say, "Have you been to Powell's?!?" before describing the store's grandeur.  Many of my touring musician friends tell me it's a required stop for them any time they roll through Portland.  Being a book lover myself, I've always wanted to go to see what the fuss is about.

Knowing I don't have any trips to Portland planned any time soon, I figured I could satisfy my curiosity in the meantime by joining Powell's subscription club a few months ago through Powells.com.  I got my second shipment last week and wrote a blog post about it, complete with photos of each item that came in the subscription box.

Among the comments to that post was a note from Beth, offering to send me some "thank you swag".   Firstly, all bloggers love to get comments, especially positive comments.  But to be contacted by the person/company you're writing about is pretty incredible.  This has happened to me a few times over the years I've been blogging, and it's always a great feeling.

In our email conversation, Beth referred to parts of my post (proving she actually read it!) and asked me specifically what goodies I might want from the Powell's souvenir shop.  I even saw that Brockman over at the Powell's blog had linked to my post. 

And today I got my Powell's swag in the mail!

I can't wait to fill up this travel mug with Blue Bottle coffee.

My phone insists on making the back of the shirt look purple, which it is not.  It's brown and yellow, actually, like the photo above.

I will wear/sip from my Powell's swag with pride, and will always have my little story to tell about them.  I applaud Powell's for speaking to me, just one of their many customers, in a friendly, personable way and taking the extra steps to do something nice for me.  Plus, any company or person who treats bloggers well is one of the good guys in my book.  They have a new fan for life.

Even if you don't live in Portland, Oregon, Powells.com will take care of all your bookish needs!

Let's get meta:

• My post about Powell's Indiespensable book subscription club.
• Powell's blog post about my blog post.
• And now, today I post about the whole story and Twitter it.
• You can follow Powell's on Twitter.
• Finally, anyone who knows what I do for a living will understand just how meta this all is.

Unboxing Indiespensable

Several months ago I joined the Indiespensable program from Portland's famous Powell's Books.  Here's how they describe it:

"Powell's subscription club delivers the best new books, with special attention to leading independent publishers. Signed first editions. Inventive, original sets. Exclusive printings.... Every six weeks, another installment to read and admire."

Indiespensable's Volume 4 just arrived today, the second package I've received since I joined the program.  Here's what I got:

Clown Girl, a little comic and a keychain

Limited edition + author info cards

Autographed, plus a squooshy chicken keychain with simulated egg-laying action

I gotta say, this is a much more rewarding experience than walking in to a bookstore or the library.  I worked in the music industry for years and you would have thought entire careers could have been made with just the right free, themed schwag to celebrate a new record release, so even though this keychain is kind of horrifying in person, I applaud how perfect it is for the book cover. 

For those of you who love books, love getting packages in the mail and have some disposable income, I highly recommend signing up for Indiespensable.

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly

Until I heard about Julian Schnabel's film adaptation of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I'd never heard Jean-Dominique Bauby's story.  In case you're not familiar with it, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the Editor of French Elle, a successful man with kids and a full life, until one day at the age of 43 he suffered a stroke and lived the rest of his short life with "locked-in" syndrome.  His entire body was paralyzed except for one eye, but his spirit and intellect remained whole.

Think about that for a minute.

We have no way to fathom what we might do in that situation, how we might have felt.  But Bauby lived to tell us how he felt, what he did, what it was like, by writing a memoir.  His speech therapist devised a tablet with the letters of the alphabet listed in order of the frequency of their use (in the French language) and he dictated his entire memoir to her, letter by letter.

The memoir is short; I finished it in less than two hours yesterday. The writing is rich, moving from simple to lyrical, from angry to ebullient.  Each chapter is no more than three pages or so, but he captures full emotions, truths and experiences in those short swatches of prose.

''One day when attempting to ask for my glasses (lunettes), I was asked what I wanted to do with the moon (lune).'' 

At one point I stopped myself mid-page and thought about how long it might have taken Bauby to craft one sentence: first forming it in his head, editing it in his mind until it was ready, then holding it there and dictating it to his transcriber, one letter at a time.  How long would it take to create one sentence as short as this one? 

Bauby died two days after the French publication of his book.

I know there are a lot of aspiring writers in the world, and we give ourselves all kinds of excuses why we can't write.  But reading this book will make you laugh at your own excuses.  It will transmute many of the hardships and problems we think we endure every day.  In fact, it might be the perfect book to start off the new year and remind ourselves how very much we all take for granted and how we should appreciate life in the moment.  Just what are we determined to be or do or finish, and through what circumstances will we persevere?

If you have any interest in this story or Schnabel's film, please take the few hours of your time to read Bauby's book.  It's a triumph and a legacy that deserves to be shared and celebrated.

• Buy The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death from Amazon.

Reading for the Long Weekend

I usually don't post about a book until after I've read it, because it's a big risk that I'll never pick it up or finish it, and what if I tell you about a book that ends up being terrible?  I'm just going to tell you about this one anyway. The other night I was strolling around Book People here in Austin, looking for a different kind of book, something I hadn't heard about before.  I read through probably 25 different staff recommendations before I settled on this book:

Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts    

Synopsis from the back of the book:  "Gregory David Roberts was born in Melbourne, Australia. Sentenced to nineteen years in prison for a series of armed robberies, he escaped and spent ten of his fugitive years in Bombay -- where he established a free medical clinic for slum-dwellers, and worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner, and street soldier for a branch of the Bombay mafia.  Recaptured, he served out his sentence, and established a successful multimedia company upon his release."

Anyone who knows me will recognize that this isn't my typical reading fodder.  No matter what type of book I'm looking to read, I subject them all to the first-page test.  If it doesn't grab me on the first page, I move on.

This book had one of the best first pages I've read in a long while.  In fact, I was sold on the first paragraph:    

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.  I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them.  It doesn't sound like much, I know.  But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility.  And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life."