There are some days full of such disturbing or sad news that an attempt to post about something happy seems like folly, or at the very least, insensitive. News stories from the Middle East, and closer to home, from St. Louis–and then to hear that someone else lost an argument with the lying bastard that is depression and ended his life…
I remind myself that yes, bad things, terrible things happen every day–and so do wondrous things. There’s a line from the musical Rent that always rang true for me: “The opposite of war isn’t peace. It’s creation!”
So today, what made me happy is this. Murder By The Book put together an event for mystery writer Spencer Quinn’s new book Paw and Order, making the rescue I volunteer with the beneficiary of a percentage of the night’s sales. Quinn’s series features PI Bernie Little and his partner, Chet, who happens to be a dog. It’s the dog angle that makes the matchup between Spencer Quinn and the rescue group a good one. And as I talked with some of our volunteers and met new book fans and a new-to-me author, I was reminded that these are ways we affirm ourselves: gathering, sharing, talking, creating, laughing with one another. Turning to community. We’re all in this together, and I’m glad I share the planet with so many people who create–a true act of hope–and who do for and give to others, including our voiceless friends: homeless, neglected, and abused dogs and cats.
Somewhere in my online perusal of young adult fiction, I saw descriptions of The Young World, a post-apocalyptic novel set in Manhattan after an illness has claimed the lives worldwide of adults and young children. Teens have banded into tribes to fight for survival–and maybe to find a cure. The premise sounded interesting (even to someone who doesn’t typically read dystopian fiction–me!), but what I never noticed is that the author is Chris Weitz. I’ve talked about him on my blog before as someone whose work and general all-round attitude I admire.
I was on Murder By The Book’s web site early Sunday trying to choose new titles to order through them for my Nook when I saw that the store had set up a Q&A between Weitz and moderator Mandy Curtis, along with a book signing and a discussion of the influence of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome on Weitz’s work (as well as a screening of the movie, because all of this took place at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema).
Though I’ve been on an extended break from Mel Gibson and his movies, an opportunity to meet and get a book signed by Chris Weitz was irresistible–and a definite source of a happiness on a Sunday evening.
I became aware of the Little Free Library project when a nine-year-old boy in Kansas was ordered to remove his from his front lawn because the city called it an “illegal structure.” Yeah, you don’t want people to encourage reading or to share books–that shit leads to thinking! And thinking…who knows where that might lead?
Check out the link above to learn more about the Little Free Library program. Recently, while driving through one of Houston’s neighborhoods, I spotted my first Little Free Library. I think it’s a wonderful idea, especially in areas with a lot of kids and foot traffic. (Except for those places where someone will run outside brandishing a cane and yelling, “You! Kids! Off my lawn!” Or where five overwrought dogs don’t exactly make the best welcome committee, not that I know anything about that personally.)
Today I managed to get a photo of the LFL with my cell phone, and that made me happy.
Today I read that director/producer/actor Paul Mazursky died, and though that is nothing to be happy about, it did remind me that one of the things I’d planned to share during these days of happiness was whenever I’d finally have time to sit down and rewatch one of my favorite Paul Mazursky-directed movies. Though it was generally panned by the critics, Tempest was a 1982 movie I stumbled on and fell in love with. I think it was the first time I’d seen either Molly Ringwald or Raul Julia in a movie. (In fact, it may have been Ringwald’s debut film appearance.) Also in the cast are John Cassavetes, Gina Rowland, and Susan Sarandon, all favorites of mine. Anyway, this DVD of Tempest is the final thing I bought a couple of weeks ago with the same birthday gift card that brought me the Tom Robbins memoir and the Redneck Poet Magnetic Poetry kit.
Tempest borrows loosely from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, and sadly, this is a play I’ve never read. I always wanted to because it’s so heavily referenced to good effect in a favorite Mary Stewart novel, This Rough Magic. Maybe Shakespeare’s play should be my summer classic this year.
As I said, Tempest wasn’t a favorite of the critics, but except for one unpleasant little goat incident (you’ve been warned), I was thoroughly entertained. One scene in particular never fails to fill me with joy; I’ve made several friends watch the movie with me for that scene alone. Tempest is quite similar in theme and characters to another Mazursky favorite, 1986’s Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Other great Mazursky movies are Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (I’ve always been a Natalie Wood and Dyan Cannon fan), Harry and Tonto, and An Unmarried Woman. Mazursky also had acting credits in tons of TV shows and movies. Quite a legacy.
Continuing with today’s button theme of how reading makes me happy, I’m just about to finish Jeff Ricker’s The Unwanted and thanks to a birthday gift card, begin my recent purchase of Tom Robbins’s memoir Tibetan Peach Pie.
There’s something about reading in summer that’s fun in a unique way. Maybe it’s a holdover from childhood’s summer reading challenges or the memory of visits from the bookmobile that I looked forward to way more than the ice cream truck.
One of the panels I attended at Saints and Sinners was titled “The Devil You Don’t Know: Otherworldly Forces in Fiction.” The description from the program: The force of evil in a work of fiction often appears in an otherworldly guise to distill the author’s intent with his or her terrifying character or object. However, evil obviously exists in more realistic forms in the world around us every day. This panel will focus on how different writers represent ideas of evil or horror and how the supernatural may be used and blended with realistic events in order to create a force which speaks to the power of evil in the world.
Though I’ve considered writing romantic suspense and perhaps something paranormal, I don’t read horror and genuinely don’t plan to write horror. It would be easy to say I attended this panel to support ‘Nathan, who’s not only a friend but a contributor to both Fool For Love and Foolish Hearts. But I’ve found that no matter what genre authors write in, they all have insights and guidance that can benefit any writer. And this was a panel that would reintroduce me to writers whose work I already know, ‘Nathan Burgoine and Christopher Rice, as well as new-to-me authors Christian Baines and Marie Castle. Plus it was moderated by Jean Redmann, who always has interesting observations.
Christopher Rice, Marie Castle, ‘Nathan Burgoine, Christian Baines, Jean Redmann
For people who write about evil, these were some relaxed and humorous panelists with lots of wisdom to offer, including how perhaps growing up feeling like “the other” because of their sexual orientation led them to explore the otherness of monsters or those with magical powers in their writing. ‘Nathan’s current novel Light, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, has as a protagonist a gay superhero with psychokinetic and telepathic powers. Chris Rice’s current title, The Heavens Rise, is a supernatural thriller about the return of an ancient parasite that threatens the future of humankind. Christian Baines’s The Beast Without is the story of a Sydney vampire who has to form an uneasy alliance with other supernatural beings to deal with a rogue werewolf. Marie Castle’s Hell’s Belle, the first in her Darkmirror series and also a Lambda Literary Award finalist, is the story of a witch whose family guards the gates that keep demons and their ilk from leaving the Otherworld and coming into our world.
One of the passages that Marie–a Mississippian–read from her book rings true for anyone who knows Southern storytellers:
In the South, a story never starts where it should. Ask a man why he killed his neighbor, and he might start by saying, “Well, I had Cream of Wheat for breakfast then put on my favorite flannel shirt…” An hour later, he’ll get to the point. This is why you never ask a Southern man why he doesn’t love you. The answer usually starts when he was five and continues on through every previous love.
Christian, who has a delicious accent–if his vampire Reylan sounds like that, it’s easy to hear how he charms his prey–read these first lines from his novel:
On any given night, in any city in the world, somebody will die before sunrise and most of them will die alone.
I found the opening intriguing, and I’ve since read the entire book, and oh, how I loved the below passage from a scene when Reylan–who, by the way, prefers to be called a Blood Shade and abhors the word “vampire”–must go to a club that he can’t stand, full of emo and goth kids costuming themselves like those monsters they think are only fantasy. Because I know how so many of you mock my enjoyment of a certain shiny vampire, this is for you:
A menagerie of every horror cliche you could imagine met my eyes as I scanned the room. Though in fairness, what the costumes lacked in originality, they typically made up for in craftsmanship. No common Halloween trash. These people knew their genre and lavished it with sincere affection… There were a number of imitation Blood Shades, some of whom had even done well enough to leave the Stoker and Rice imagery behind. I allowed myself a satisfied smirk until I saw…Ugh. There had to be one. No more than a teenager. His skin, sparkling as it caught the club’s pulsing lights.
Don’t.Start.Me.
(A comment Greg Herren made on a different panel made me caution him that I had a little vampire traveling with me all the time who hears all. Greg reminded me that he hadn’t said anything negative about my vampire, and then posed with Little Edward to show there were no hard feelings.)
One of the things Christopher Rice mentioned is how these stories, much like the fairy tales of old, are cautionary tales we create to give us an illusion of staying safe and being in control of our lives. ‘Nathan touched on that, too, in that his characters can fight back and use their voices in defiance of the silence and oppression people may experience in real life. There are many reasons why we turn to fantasy, science fiction, horror, and paranormal books–and sometimes the romances contained therein.
Lots to think about…just as I’d expected, and I don’t need to write horror to apply some of their wisdom to the things I do write. I had taken the first of Kimberly Frost’s Southern Witch series with me to New Orleans to reread. I finished it there and began the second one. After I’d finished rereading the first three, I downloaded the novella that comes between Books 3 and 4, “Magical Misfire,” then I was finally ready to read Slightly Spellbound. Now I have to wait a year for the next one! If you click on the link to Kimberly’s blog, she’s got a giveaway going right now, and you can read the details there.
Happy reading! Or–chills and thrills, if you prefer those.
Through the years, my brother has recommended many good books to me. Some of them were tough reads, and what I’ve learned about highly recommended tough reads if I give up on them is that I should revisit them sometime later. A lot of books that I adored as a young adult didn’t have the same luster when I reread them after getting older, so I assumed, correctly, that the opposite could be true. Some books just have to come along at the right time in your life, which is why I continue to reread a lot of the classics that bored me (especially as a teenager). As an adult, I’ve understood how brilliantly they were written and could appreciate them on a level that was beyond me as a youngster.
However, one book David recommended hooked me from the first page, and every time I reread it, I relish it just as much. I can pick it up any time, open to any page, and I’ll start laughing at my favorite anti-hero and one of the most colorful casts of characters ever assembled. It is, as you might surmise from the photo, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. It never stops delighting me.
When the book opens, narrator Ignatius J. Reilly is about to get into a contretemps in front of New Orleans’ D.H. Holmes Department Store.
The store closed in 1989, and later the building became the Chateau Sonesta Hotel, now the Hyatt French Quarter. The hotel entrance is on Iberville Street, but if you walk down the back side, on Canal Street, you’ll see this wonderful statue.
It’s based on a portrayal by actor John McConnell of Ignatius in the book’s opening scene, waiting for his mother under the D.H. Holmes clock and surveying the passing pedestrians with disdain. The statue makes me smile whenever I see it, much like the Lucky Dogs carts I pass–they being the basis for “Paradise Hot Dogs,” one of Ignatius’s several employers during the course of the novel.
I know for many people, New Orleans is about partying, eating, and hearing great music. But I love it most for its literary gems, among whom John Kennedy Toole and his novel are the brightest.
ETA: By the way, they usually put the statue in storage during Mardi Gras, so that’s no time to see it.
Tomorrow will be the seventh annual Readergirlz Operation Teen Book Drop. Anyone who wants to can participate in promoting teen/young adult literature and literacy.
I did this in 2012 and 2013, and can’t wait to do it again tomorrow. In fact, Murder By The Book is holding Jeffrey Ricker’s new novel The Unwanted for me, so while I’m there, I can get a recommendation on other good young adult books to buy for Rock the Drop.
Click the Readergirlz link for more details. If you participate, be sure to share it on social media, especially if you take a photo of your contribution(s) out in the wild.
It always makes me happy to see a young person reading, and it’s not hyperbole when I say that I believe reading can save lives.
Somewhere in my online perusal of young adult fiction, I saw descriptions of The Young World, a post-apocalyptic novel set in Manhattan after an illness has claimed the lives worldwide of adults and young children. Teens have banded into tribes to fight for survival–and maybe to find a cure. The premise sounded interesting (even to someone who doesn’t typically read dystopian fiction–me!), but what I never noticed is that the author is 
(A comment Greg Herren made on a different panel made me caution him that I had a little vampire traveling with me all the time who hears all. Greg reminded me that he hadn’t said anything negative about my vampire, and then posed with Little Edward to show there were no hard feelings.)
Through the years, my brother has recommended many good books to me. Some of them were tough reads, and what I’ve learned about highly recommended tough reads if I give up on them is that I should revisit them sometime later. A lot of books that I adored as a young adult didn’t have the same luster when I reread them after getting older, so I assumed, correctly, that the opposite could be true. Some books just have to come along at the right time in your life, which is why I continue to reread a lot of the classics that bored me (especially as a teenager). As an adult, I’ve understood how brilliantly they were written and could appreciate them on a level that was beyond me as a youngster.
