September 16 - 29, 2008

Kafka on the Shore

Haruki Murakami

2005, hardcover

27 cards

I've been meaning to read one of Haruki Murakami's books for a few years now. A couple of years ago a co-worker recommended The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles and, more recently, his memoir that overlaps with running sounds interesting. But it was when Jen recommended Kafka on the Shore and sent me the New Yorker review of the book (Jen reads New Yorkers cover to cover in order, I think she may be up to June right now but I could be wrong) that I decided this was the one to start with.

A meditation on life, Chances are you the reader has not become involved in a murder like part of the storyline, there are moments that may reflect your own grappling with a life lived, or at least that's what this book offered me. Thoughtful insights abound resulting from ordinary life moments as well as a few of the extraordinary variety. And Chip Kidd designed the cover.

Selections:

4- "Distance might not solve anything."

11- map

15- "You know how it is. When kids start playing together and get completely absorbed by whatever they're doing, they don't care about things like that anymore."

18- clouds- angle

21- "In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion."

-"'I think it means,' I say, 'that chance encounters are what keep us going."

30- map

31- diner

31- "Like the clouds floating across the sky, I'm all by myself, totally free."

32- libraries

36- odor of books

-"This is exactly the place I've been looking for forever."

37- "people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing other half."

-"my point is that it's really hard for people to live their lives alone."

-diner

44- cat and name- "I had one, I know I did, but somewhere along the line I didn't need it anymore. So it slipped my mind."

46- cats- creatures of habit

54- (Kafka) "I think what Kafka does is give a purely mechanical explanation of that complex machines in the story...that's his own device for explaining the kind of lives we lead. Not by talking about our situation, but by talking about the details of the machine."

68- (apartment) "Seedy, all right, but at least it had the feel of real people living real lives."

83- (no kids) "But it's not a good ideas to make decisions so soon. There's no such thing as absolutes."

94- "Was the sound of birds I was hearing real?"

99- clinging to something- Goethe- "Everything's a metaphor"

102-103- (Schubert) "...works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason- or at least they appeal to certain types of people....You discover something about that work that tugs at your heart- or maybe we should say the work discovers you."

104- "...People soon get tired of things that aren't boring, but not of what is boring."

105- "But solitude comes in different varieties..."

122- (pencilled note, Eichmann bio)- "It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It's just like Yeats said: IN dreams begin responsibilities. Flip this around and you could say that when there's no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise. Just like we see with Eichmann."

127- "...silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear."

141- "...whatever is it you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting."

174- "People who look normal and live a normal life- they're the ones you have to watch out for."

175- "The more connections, the deeper the meaning."

-"What matters is that you see things with your own eyes."

-"If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you."

176- "Boundaries between things are disappearing all the time."

182- labyrinth

189- "A theory is a battlefield in your head."

191- diner

203- record player and record- "If possible I'd like to listen to the record to hear how it originally sounded."

-"All like the ruins of some not-so-distant past."

210- (song) "One by one the words find a home in my heart."

225- pirate

-"Artists are those who can evade the verbose."

-"If the words can't create a prophetic tunnel connecting them to the reader, then the whole thing no longer functions as a poem."

232- Bob Dylan

235- "My grandpa always said asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime."

236- pickles

238- diner

240- Colonel Sanders

248- bird- branch- wind- "vision shifts"

253- Bergson- "The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory."

255- "A revelation leaps over the borders of the everyday. A life without revelation is no life at all. What you need is to move from reason that observes to reason that acts."

265- "God only exists in people's minds."

-"If you think God's there, He is. If you don't, he isn't."

276- "Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover."

276- painting

278- "All of us are dreaming."

284- "Nakata's like a library without a single book."

292- "People actually prefer not being free."

-Australian Aborigines, fenceless civilization until 17th century

294- "Or maybe I just wanted to keep myself busy, so I set a goal that kept me running around and my mind occupied."

-"If it wasn't for that project, I probably would've withdrawn even further from reality and ended up completely isolated."

299- "the post rain scent in the air"

302- "The world would be a real mess if everybody was a genius. Somebody's got to keep watch, take care of business..."

326- "So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you're stepping into the labyrinth inside."

327- "The longer people live, the more they learn to distinguish what's important from what's not."

-"You're in the middle of something wonderful, something so tremendous you may never experience it again. But you can't really understand how wonderful it is. That makes you impatient. And that, in turn, leads you to despair."

332- pickles

334- map- diner

334- "'But what the heck are you looking for?' Hoshino asked after they'd eaten. 'I don't know. But I think-' 'that you'll know it when you see it. And until you see it, you won't know what it is.'"

349- "Believing that art itself, and the proper expression of emotions, was the most sublimed thing in the world, he though political power and wealth only served one purpose: to make art possible."

359-360- "War breeds war."

365- "The process of writing was important. Even though the finished product is completely meaningless."

365- painting

370- letter- secret

373- "Why does loving somebody mean you have to hurt them just as much? I mean, if that's the way it goes, what's the point of loving someone? Why the hell does it have to be like that?"

377- "Can nothingness increase?"

379- "You changed my life...things look different to me now. ... I've started to see the world through your eyes."

382- pickles

390- Truffant- 400 Blows

392- names- "There's no need to call me, she says. If you need me, I'll be here."

405- hold a book

427 (quiet, power) "People that don't get it never will."

432- "Every one of us is losing something precious to us...Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads- at least that's where I imagine it- there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in the library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while..."

-"People need a place they can belong."

435- time

July 17 - 20, 2008

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

David Sedaris

2008, hardcover

9 cards

You might think the painting on the cover of David Seadaris's new book is intriguing. (The jacket was designed by the fabulous Chip Kidd.) Perhaps you even looked to see who it was by. That Vincent van Gogh might have painted it as a joke in art school is great. When I've mentioned I was reading this book to people lately, they've mentioned they heard it isn't as good as some of his other books. While maybe the crazy tales of his childhood have been told and stack up differently in terms of a life lived when middle aged, Sedaris's stories still entertain and make note of the minor things in life with acute precision. Living now where I do, references to Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham ring true in new ways. Many of these stories have been published in The New Yorker, but even those still entertain with second reads.

A few selections

3- germs

4- cocktail at a supermarket

9- "every year 5,000 children are startled to death"

10- "No surprises, no practical jokes, nothing unexpected, but a parent can't control everything and there's still the outside world to contend with, a world of backfiring cars and their human equivalents."

15- "I also didn't want to go alone, and this was where our problem started."

21- "...what was a vacation but a chance to be someone different?"

36 Chapel Hill

39- "The idea was that we were different, not like the rest of America..."

40- old-timey, malarkey

46- sweat angel

-"it was hard to live in a college town and not go to college."

48- "Given enough time, I guess anything can look good. All it has to do is survive."

49- "velveteen for everybody"

-"It was only at Halloween that we were allowed to choose our own outfits."

-pirate

-hobo- "It's a word you don't often hear anymore."

50- "the hobo roughed it by choice"

51- (sweater) "Having been destroyed, it is now indestructible, meaning I can wear it without worry."

-"...if I have one fashion rule, it's this: never change."

52- "What looks good now is guaranteed to embarrass you twenty years down the line, which is, of course, the whole problem with fashion."

61- "It's a pretty sorry world when wearing a bow tie amounts to being 'out there.' I'm just not sure which is worse, the people who consider it out there that someone's wearing a bow tie, or the person who thinks he's out there for wearing it."

62- "Grown or not. I still feel best- more true to myself- when dressed like a hobo."

89- (Chicago) "Never again would I have so many friends, and such good ones, thought I'm not exactly sure why."

107- "her hair, like her face, was the color of old cement."

113- "Never live alone"

135- North Carolina Museum of Art

136- postcards

141- "The idea of matching artwork to decor was, to me, an abomination..."

148- doughnut

152- "the sorts of things that are not for everyone"

153- "It's the things you don't buy that stay with you the longest."

154- (washer and dryer) "they remind me that I'm doing fairly well"

-(skeleton) "You are going to die."

159- "What they do at 6:00 a.m. is anyone's guess."

176- Kate Bush

182- "magpies are constantly searching for a way out"

196- "a single flaming mouse"

213- "Why is it you never see a baby squirrel?"
234- "At a nearby table there's always a couple in their late seventies, holding their menus with trembling, spotted hands..."

243- 4th grade field trip- American Tobacco plant- Durham

244- "My room was clean and orderly, and if I'd had my way it would have smelled like an album jacket the moment you removed the plastic. That is to say, it would have smelled like anticipation."

263- index cards

289- "Japanese is a listener's language. 'What's not being mentioned is usually more important that what is.'"

290- the mass-produced mistakes

293- "But nobody's afraid of moths." "I am."

301- "...and you're not going anywhere until you finish your pickles."

303-(sheet of rules written in Japanese, symbols) "either 'not eating candy hearts' or 'no falling in love.'"

February 19-21, 2008

The Learners
Chip Kidd
2008
7 cards



The Learners was all you can ever hope a sequel to be. Chip Kidd continues to educate the masses about graphic design but in a rich way that informs while also changing your perception of the world. He also taps into life's rich simplicity. I could imagine myself in the New Haven Utrecht store like Happy, riding on the train to New Haven- the stops as they are called out- and best of yet know the very experiment by Stanley Milgram that is a constant in the story. Perhaps a Communication major is exactly where one needs to start in this world.

Highlights that will not give (too much) of the story away.
p. xii "Shoes are our friends."
p. 4- "Who am I? I am Happy." (this resonates with my recent encounter of Bob Dylan's statement about being happy, that anyone can be happy and his rather so what attitude to that)
-as a graphic designer seeing the world as a problem to solve "one typeface, one drawing, one image at a time."
-"Life is a lifelong assignment that must be constantly analyzed, clarified, figures out, and responded to appropriately."
p. 5- sports comment
p. 12 machine age couch (Tim's class!)
p. 15- Mr. Speer going on inspirational walks (I'm reading Wanderlust a history of walking right now)
p. 17- associations and artificial constructs
p. 19- sign
p. 21- description of the air
p. 22- Baby Laveen!
p. 53- "to draw was to breathe, so the air became lead."
p. 40- drawing a straight line
p. 41- records as distraction
p. 51- the diary of billing hours "recorded evidence of my life on Earth that I otherwise wouldn't have created."
p. 52- a diner booth!
p. 54- good clients (back to my own advertising days)
p. 58- typography
p. 59- "It's not just about what you're saying anymore, it's how your're saying it."
p. 62-63 ad
p. 64- Himillsy!
p. 65 "For Himillsy, living dangerously was the only way to live."
-"...rescuing her from something she didn't want to be saved from."
p. 67- "My whole body was smiling."
p. 68- New Haven's claim for pizza (and hamburgers which Elizabeth supports- I love food history claims and debates.)
p. 68- "but not me"
p. 69- brains..."I'm crazy for them....It's not fair to be actually informed on the subject."
p. 74- "...You have no idea. I listen to you all the time. I always did."
p. 76 "...jumpstarted my heart..."
p. 77- Mom
p. 79- "Time stopped."
p. 80- making the whole page black
p. 81- map
p. 83- Noah's Diner
p. 84 "People are awful."
p. 85 and 86
p. 88-89- quote about Time magazine
p. 90- piece of me- best parts
p. 116- memory and learning
p. 117 "Because, you must know by now: You already test my memory."
p. 118
p. 128- Waltham, MA, Helvetica
p. 141
p. 143- Stanley Milgram
p. 145 "Me: State U- the identity of my life."
p. 146- form
p. 105-06
p. 107 Rheingold ale (like Torpor!)
p. 111- looking inside you
p. 112 "...I became one sock."
p. 115 "I was trying to start a conversation."
p. 159- "Not. Fun."
p. 160- 2 kinds of people
p. 163- "If you intend to die you can do anything."
p. 165- Underwood typewriter (Duchamp!)
p. 166 "a legacy of heralded mediocrity."
p. 173- "What people really want, no matter who they are, is someone to listen to them."
p. 175- Antisappointment
-"wide-wale caramel, duck-patterned corduroys" (also mentioned on p. 178
p. 184 "Christ on a cracker." (Joel!)
p. 187- "...changing the records on the turntable. I loved anticipating what he would play next."
p. 191
p. 199- marcel permanent (Duchamp and Ray!)
p. 203- pickle
p. 205- "Humanity deserved to see itself explained."
p. 206- "Something always means something else."
p. 207- fate
p. 209- "Knobs. Switches. Levers. Buttons...."
p. 211
-"What does Evil look like?"
p. 249- "I am in control of my own undoing."
- Winter and Milgram
-"I. Hate.You."
p. 250-51
p. 253 "I will be twenty-two again, instead of a hundred."
-the solution
p. 254
-intent
p. 257
p. 258- last line

February 19, 2008

The Learners

Chip Kidd

Hardcover, 2008

I can't remember the last time I bought a book on the day it came out (ok except for those two Miranda July books)- this is almost like buying R.E.M.'s Monster at midnight when I was in high school! I love Chip Kidd's The Cheese Monkeys and I am starting this right now. Genius.

http://www.goodisdead.com/

http://channel.walkerart.org/detail.wac?id=2729

or in person if you live in New York or Michigan and some other places.