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 15 - 27, 2008

Magic for Beginners

Kelly Link

2005, Paperback

7 cards

Kelly Link, the book's back cover says, lives in Northampton, Massachusetts where I used to live. It would have been wonderful to meet her and talk about wonderful things like Faery Handbags. But then again maybe it's better to read about Faery Handbags, because as she writes, "Meeting writers is usually disappointing at best."

Faery Handbags is the title of the first short story in this captivating book and while it stands out as the shiniest gem in the bunch, the others are enjoyable too in their descriptions and tales told about zombies and the people who wear cat skins. I am always drawn to writers who notice the minor things that make up life, and sometimes the things that make it seem worth living. Link notices Cadbury Creme eggs, Moon Pies and (perhaps invents) squeezeble pork (which, while not something I would enjoy others might), with the best of them (I remember first noticing such slight mentions of everyday things that fill our lives in Douglas Coupland's books). Link arrives at truisms in her stories with moments in thrift stores and with friends and families, truisms that we all need to be reminded of sometimes, and truisms we hope are indeed true.

Some excerpts:

1- "I used to go to thrift stores with my friends. ... Everything is arranged by color, somehow that makes all of the clothes beautiful."

2- "But the point is, if you're looking for a particular thing, you just have to keep looking for it. You have to look hard."

4- Scrabble

-zippery

5- faery handbag

7- "purse big enough to hold all of the village and all of the people..."

8- "Even nightmares have to sleep now and then."

9- "He was still way too smart, but he was finally smart enough to figure out how to fit in."

11- "It's better to cook what I want to eat, and clean up when I decide to clean up."

12- "I also know how to say I love you, but I'm not going to ever say it to anyone again, except Jake, when I find him.

14- Cadbury Creme egg

20- "Remember when you don't know what to do, it never hurts to play Scrabble."

37- squeezable pork, Moon Pies

39- "The customer isn't always right. Sometimes the customer is an asshole."

52- "'Nobody ever really knows what they want,' Charley said. 'Why should that change after you die?'"

65- "Summer is the time of ghosts. In winter, ghosts are easy to spot."

-"There is no word for war or travel."

77- donuts

119- "her mother has painted a little door. It isn't a real door, except when Tilly goes over to look at it, it is real."

129- "The witch vomits up...love letters (mislabeled or sent without the appropriate amount of postage and never read)..."

137- "And when you have children you need houses to put them in."

161- "'Do you like museums?' Will says. She looks like a girl who goes to museums."

166- postcard

168- lemurs

170- "Modern art is a wast of time. When the zombies show up you can't worry about art. Art is for people who aren't worried about zombies."

170-171- things Soap has been thinking about

171- Busby Berkeley

176- "Everyone has a zombie contingency plan."

178- olives

179- "He doesn't belong anywhere."

181- shopleaving

206- orange-juice colored corduroy couch

207- "What kind of television shows the characters in television shows watch."

-"She's an enigma wrapped in a mysterious t-shirt."

208- "When the woman who invented Hello Kitty was asked why Hello Kitty was so popular, she said, 'Because she has no mouth.'"

-pirate-magicians

212- Velveeta-and-pickle sandwich

218- "Can I ask you a question?"

220- Meeting writers...

235- "It would be easier if I had a brother ...Or a sister. I'm tired of being good all the time. If I had a sibling, then we could take turns being good...but it sucks having to figure out everything all by myself."

236- (calls to the phone booth) J. "complains about all the things there are to complain about, and the silent person on the other end listens and listens."

243- (Talis) "Somebody has to be the person who doesn't [talk]. The person who listens."

244- "Except secrets can't have secrets, they just are."

249- maps

-corn mosaic

250- "Bob Dylan is singing about monkeys."

251- "He writes in his blog about what he's reading."

256- "...I didn't get any postcards."

262- "Imaginary houses are sexy. Real houses are work."

274- records

278- "Tell me a story so that I'll remember you."

287- kazoo

292- giraffes

297- "I love you, but it's not about love, Ed, it's about timing."

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.'"

March 19-26, 2008

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
Karen Russell
Hardcover
11 cards

Thank you to Claire for pointing me towards this book, even though the cover of the version I read differed from the one she read even though I forgot to take a picture of the book I read. Beautiful writing with words known and created, beautiful ideas and heartbreaking ones too, close attention paid to the oridinary in an extraordinaryly revealing way.

Brief excerpts and notes of interest:
-3 "...a tin roof that hums with the memory of rain..."
-6 Swamplandia!
-names, palindromes
-10 "Alligators talk to one another, and to the moon..."
-12 "I'm lonely and I want to have a secret with somebody."
-16 library books
-28 bird watching
-35- G-L-O-W-W-O-R-M G-R-O-T-T-O
-"Olivia was a cartographer of imaginary places."
-36- "But I left you a map!"
-40 shooting stars, lemmings
-41- x- map- places where someone is not
-46 "To enter the grotto, you have to slide on your back, like a letter through a mail slot."
-50- "Being unconscious with somebody, that's a big deal."
-53- "sleep is the heat that melts time..."
-"We just want to provide you with a safe place to lie awake together. And maybe even," she beams at the crowd, "to dream."
-55 "My mom says I'm destined to be the sort of man who uses big words but pronounces them incorrectly."
-"our worshipful respect for the hobo."
-"But we are sleep twins...He is the first and only person I have ever met who is also a prophet of the past."
-56- saving
-57 dirigible
-58 Our Storied Past!
-"The table of contents was like an index to my dreams..."
-70- forgetting
-74 tin foil
-76- "In the moonlight, he looks like he's made of liquid silver."
-78 "Do not interfere with the moon!"
-84- "ifs" to "whens"
-85- "1 Mr. Goodbar=187 sick children's wishes"
-97- "...thinks the ocean's actually erasing his foot."
-99- "They seem so old and so young all at once."
-106 "I was startled by this, the speed with which one apocryphal watercolor was transforming our future."
-'...that fiery alchemy, whereby "raw" becomes "food."'
-108- "Our necessities...are now burdensome luxuries."
-116- Acres of lightning!
-120 "Everyone wants to go home, and no one can agree on where that is anymore."
-142 wondercould
-145 "It looked like she caught a bad dream from somebody."
-156 The City of Shells
-157 skitterclatter
-159 pickle sticks
-163 "...it felt like being parenthesized."
-170 (Houdini) "She knows that he was all the time just searching for a box that could hold him."
-176 "The world swells into an apocalyptic howl, as if the world can't keep its secrets any longer."
-180- measuring time
-246 dill pickles

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 14-15, 2008

The Principles of Uncertainty

Maira Kalman

2007 hardcover, library

5 cards

Maira Kalman is fabulous. The word fabulous exists because of people like Maira Kalman. If you've seen the new Elements of Style you know who Maira Kalman is; she painted the wonderful pictures in a fabulous new version of that book. She also wrote/painted/created/thought of this book, The Principles of Uncertainity, a conceptual walk that's also a picture book for those in a reflective and contemplative state of mind. I first saw this book during the holidays but I didn't look at it too much for fear that I would need to have it. The book jacket's inner sleeve confirmed my suspicion but I put the book back before leafing through. Then the library had it. Thank you library! Kalman's paintings are unique undertakings, seemingly simultaneously drawing upon Milton Avery, Francis Alys, Florine Stettheimer and Jenny Holzer's Truisms- completely magical and profound. The index and the appendix are also delights for bibliophiles and collectors, not to mention a map (A MAP!!!) in the back!

It's all fabulous but these pages I found particularly fabulous:

p. 3 dodo

p. 4 Evdaimonia

p. 5 stuffed Pavlov's dog

p.8-9 map her mother drew

p. 20 looking between slurps

p. 26 walking and cities and magnificent chairs

p. 28 "excellent United Pickle tag lying on the sidewalk" (pickles!!)

p. 37 old people and walking (so true)

p. 42 "How are we all so brave as to take step after dtep? Day after day?"

p. 46 we are all going to die

p. 47 fruit platters

p. 50 obituaries "Maybe it is a way of trying to figure out, before the day begins, what is important. And I am curious about the things that make up a life."

p. 52 (fabulous painting of a donut shop)

p. 55 bundt pan

p. 56-57 Tolstoy and Gorky

p. 65 Alzheimer's

p. 83 "The world is coming to an end. What to do Spend the day on the subway."

p. 97 string

p. 99 "How do you know who you are?"
p. 102 collections "...tangible evidence of history, memory. Longing, delight."

p. 111 Abe Lincoln

p. 122-23 candy collection (I had one of these when I was younger)

p. 124 "It is well known how much Goethe loved candy."

p. 162 "The silent sink in the Corbusier house that speaks the truth." (Tim would like this.)

p. 163 "The ottoman on the way to the Proust room."

p. 164-65 Proust notebook

p. 166 museum guard

p. 176 Sabine- "clothes and shoes she made herself." "She tells me to read "Butterball" by Maupassant. I will."

p. 184-85 Louise Bourgeois

p. 186 "I think of her Bed Construction that says, 'Art is the guarantee of sanity.' I really hope that's true."

p. 192 "Washing dishes is the antidote to confusion. I know that for a fact."

p. 194 Alzheimer's, Sweet 'n Low packets

p. 195 Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest "That is a very big poin in the plus column of life."

p. 208-211

p. 236-38

p. 242 "How do you go mad? How do you not go mad?"

p. 245 "The truth is everybody gets on everybody's nerves."

p. 251 Freud and Wittgenstein

p. 252-53

p. 259 "Berlin Childhood around 1900" by Walter Benjamin

p. 261 Helen Levitt

p. 270 "One thing leads to another."

p. 284-85 Cartier-BResson photo

p. 287 "You cannot order a Deluxe grilled cheese sandwich. There are limits to deluxe."

p. 296-97 "Keep calm and carry on"

Fabulous index

Fabulous appendix- especially: things that fall out of books, packets, postcards