Things I Found on the Subway, Part 1

Here's a new feature on BillyBlog: the Things I Found on the Subway series. Yesterday, my eye was caught by the words "First Editions." As a collector of first editions, I was intrigued. Alas, it was merely a sample square of wallpaper on a subway seat. I was nonetheless intrigued, especially by its name, "Stephanie Texture." Thought I'd share it with you today.

In other news, a 22-year old poet drowned yesterday in the Hudson River after jumping in to retrieve a backpack that contained some of his notebooks. His loss is being mourned as a huge tragedy and a waste but, if you're a poet, that certainly is an honorable way to go, and more memorable as well.

Have a good weekend.

New York Post Cover O' the Week

On occasion, the New York Post (and once in a while, the Daily News), runs a headline that is entertaining, amusing, and/or clever. Here's today's Sports/Back cover headline. Funny.

Am 4 issues of the New Yorker behind, have to decide what to read next: Michael Chabon's The Final Solution (for Bay Ridge Jewish Center book club), Louise Erdrich's The Painted Drum, or Kaui Hart Hemmings' short story collection House of Thieves. Choices, choices.

The Inner Circle

Let's talk about sex.

When last year's film Kinsey was released, starring Liam Neeson, it semi-coincided with the release of T. C. Boyle's novel The Inner Circle, a fictionalized account of the historical figure Alfred Kinsey. So, unfortunately, the movie poster tagline, Let's talk about sex, and Neeson's face pervaded my experience of reading (and just recently, i.e. this morning) Boyle's book.

But in the category of distraction, I have discovered something interesting, at least to me, which is The Inner Circle, elsewhere.

Boyle's books tend to have smartly-designed covers. He's an interesting cat, as one might surmise from his photo in a previous post, which included a photo of me posing with him at a New Yorker festival signing (9/24/05). This book cover is a classic example. In fact, when I heard him read the opening section last year when the book was released, he beamed about the cover, saying it not only captured the spirit of the book, but of the sexual mores of 1940's America as well.

Anyway, thought I'd share some other covers from the same book, but published elsewhere.

So what's in a cover? Well everything and nothing. The cover sells the book, or kills it, ask any bookseller or fan.

Anyway, the book received mixed reviews, but Boyle is a master storyteller and is particularly adept at writing fiction based on the lives of famous people, most notably Kellogg in The Road to Wellville. That film, which was widely panned. is still worth a curiosity viewing, although the only scene I vividly recall is that featuring the actress Bridget Fonda in a milk bath.

Back to the subject at hand, however, is The Inner Circle. Not one of his best books, but still quite enjoyable. Actually, enjoyable is not the correct word. Boyle runs on the dark side, and once we get beyond the titillating experience of John Milk, the fictionalized narrator in the historical Kinsey's inner circle, the reader is accosted with the struggle that tormented so many of Kinsey's contemporaries: sex vs. love.

Milk is married to Iris, who one critic described as the most interesting character of the book. She is not taken in by the cult of Kinsey, the blind adoration that Kinsey's assistants heaped on him. Actually, she resents him and the work he drags her husband into, taking him away from home for weeks on end, all in the name of the research.

For despite the fact that this book appears to be about Kinsey and his groundbreaking studies on human sexuality, the core of the novel is the relationship between John and Iris. Is it considered adultery if John has sex with a prostitute while Kinsey and others observe, with a scientific (if not voyeuristic) perspective? While one may admire Milk's blind allegiance to Kinsey, I was torn between liking him as a character, yet failing to comprehend how he could justify marital infidelities that were written off as "part of the job." It was in this sense that I found the novel so disturbing.

Yet disturbing does not mean bad. I would still recommend this to anyone, although I might offer up another one of Boyle's books in its stead, like The Tortilla Curtain or World's End. In fact, I'd seriously recommend reading Tortilla Curtain before the film release next year. I am almost queasy saying who is starring in it, as it may ruin it for you. But try not to let it, as I can actually see these two in the lead roles. Kevin Costner and Meg Ryan. Read the book, fast.

Pearl Jam at the House of Blues in Chicago with Robert Plant

Happy New Year

Sorry, late post today. Went to services for Rosh Hashanah at the Bay Ridge Jewish Center. We have a new rabbi, Micah Gelber, who is younger than your average Jewish holy man, and is helping turn our synagogue around. It has an aged congregation. I partipated in a cermeony called Birkat Kohanim for the first time in which I, as a Cohanim, had to have my hands washed by a Leviim (Levi). Alas, no Leviim were present (or came forward), so Rabbi Micah did the honors for me and three other Cohanim. We then re-entered the sanctuary after removing our shoes. We went up on the bimah, placed out talit over our heads, raised our hands, and joined in the leadingof prayers while the rest of the congregation averted their eyes. An interesting experience.

L'shanah tovah. May you all have a happy new year!

Top 20 Books, #18

OK, so this is a no-brainer. I don't know anyone...well maybe I do, but I can't think of anyone at the moment who has not read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is a seminal part of anyone's reading experience and, if you haven't read the three (throw in four, if you count The Hobbit) volumes of this essential part of the canon, then you must go out and do so immediately. Don't rent the movies. Not that they're bad. I saw the first one, but not the second two. Read the books. They're one of the few sets I can say I've read multiple times, at least thrice. I must have read them at least twice in high school and then again in college.

I can't say anything about them that hasn't been said already. Sure, The Two Towers drags a bit, but it is nonetheless essential. Personally, I think that any list without at least one of these books on it is deeply flawed. I've grouped them together as one for the purposes of....well, because it's my list, and I can do what I want.

Pearl Jam in Philadelphia

Ragamuffin Parade

The first Saturday of every October is the Bay Ridge Ragamuffin Parade. It is an opportunity for the kids in the neighborhood to dress up and parade down the street. Jolee was a flapper, Shayna was a New York Giants football player, and Nanda, a friend of the girls from Cool School, their after-school program, was a princess.

We had gorgeous weather in Brooklyn this weekend and Shayna had two birthday parties. The Yankees clinched the division title by beating Boston in one of the three games they played. Today we worked at the Bay Ridge Jewish Center table at the Third Avenue Festival. The girls loved passing out balloons and giving apples and honey to passers-by in honor of the upcoming Jewish New Year.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

This post is dedicated to the tree. I can't even tell you what species it is, but this tree is one of our favorite things about where we live. In the Spring, it explodes in a violent neon green, in Fall, it blazes on fire with red and orange leaves. In Winter, it is a haunting skeleton.

So, as I sat here, early this morning, wondering what to say on October 1, I thought I'd share the transaformation of the tree as the season progresses. Right now, it is a green that is about to turn. I can see a spare yellow/red/orange leaf tucked into the expanse.

Have a super weekend.

October, New York, the Yankees and Mötley Crüe

Get used to hearing this today on the radio, TV, whatever...

Summer has come and passed

The innocent can never last

Wake me up when September ends

from our friends at Green Day.

There is a chill in New York City this morning, Autumn is upon us and I am battling the end of Summer by wearing a Cooke Street Aloha shirt for Aloha Friday here in the city. The weekend is upon us and I am actually a bit, well, exhausted thinking about it. Aside from Hebrew School for the girls, there is big happenings in Bay Ridge. The annual Ragamuffin Parade, which features kids in costumes, pre-Halloween, marching down 3rd Avenue, always a family affair, and then on Sunday, the 3rd Avenue Street Fair, the official end of Summer in our neighborhood. The 5th Avenue Street Fair launches Summer in June. Plus, Shayna has two birthday parties to attend, in addition to our regular weekend chores.

Of course what New York is really abuzz about is the baseball season. Three games left in the season and the Yankees have a one-game lead over Boston, with Cleveland still in the Wild Card hunt. And, the Yanks last 3 games are in Boston. What drama! Conceivably, if the Yankees lose more than one game, and Cleveland wins three, the Yankees could go from the driver's seat to the trunk. October is always exciting in this city, at least when the Bronx Bombers are winning. Alas, my Tigers are 25 games out of first place in their division, but still much-improved over last year, frightening as that sounds.

On other fronts, still reading through T.C. Boyle's Inner Circle, expect a report next week, along with Book #18 on my Top 20. However, let me throw a tawdry recommendation out there. Inspired by hearing this morning Motley Crue's recent Hurricane Katrina Relief performance of "Home Sweet Home" accompanied by Linkin Park's Chester Bennington, I'd like to recommend the Crue's biography from several years back, The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band.

It is by far one of the most depraved looks at a band that was influential in my early transformation from a pimply immature adolescent to a pimply immature adolescent that believed in a genre of music. I thought of myself as a metalhead in those days, but really I was nowhere near such a classification. I just liked the music. The Crue's debut album Too Fast for Love was one of three albums that I bought as a youth that formed the basis of my conversion to Metalhood. Just for the record, the other two were Judas Priest's Screaming for Vengeance and The Scorpions Blackout.

Anyway, The Dirt is your typical rock biography, but juicy juicy juicy with the rock star details. Pick it up at the library, buy it in paperback, it would make even Danielle Steele blush.

Found Art - No, It's Not the New Ten-Dollar Bill

Hasidic Reggae Star

His name is Matisyahu. He achieved some notoriety earlier this year and, as you're sitting there, scratching your heads, dig this:

He's great. Just read a bit from the website eMusic:

In Brooklyn, Hasidic Jews and Rastafarians share a taste for certain things: hats, unusual hairstyles, the Old Testament. You might add to that list Matisyahu, a 27-year-old reggae singer/rapper rooted in New York City's Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic community. The guy is an oddity, to be sure. A formerly dreadlocked Phish fanatic named Matthew Miller, Matisyahu found his calling after a random meeting with a rabbi in Washington Square Park which would be merely a curious story if his music weren't so powerful. Matisyahu has a commanding voice that slides gracefully between Bob Marley-style declamatory singing, the singing/rhyming style of dancehall acts like Sizzla and old-school Brooklyn street raps, spiced with bursts of rabbinical incantations, scatting and beatboxing. The delivery feels authentic and original (if sometimes a bit vague), with lyrics that generally praise God, riff on spiritual seeking and chant down Babylon. What's even more remarkable, in an era when reggae is largely about electronic dancehall burps and pro-forma covers of "Get Up, Stand Up," Matisyahu's band makes shape-shifting, reverb-rich music, colored with melodica, trumpet and bursts of guitar noodling that point to the singer's jazzy, jam-band roots without getting too abstract. It's melting-pot music in the best sense. - Will Hermes, eMusic

The man has talent, and his debut album Shake off the Dust...Arise was followed by a superb concert album, Live at Stubbs. If you're looking for something unusual to listen to, say shalom to Matisyahu. He's a lock for the 2005 Grammy for Best Jewish Reggae Album. You can get information on him here.

On a separate note, when the spirit moves me, I like to share my musical commuting experience. This morning I took the local R train all the way in (at 5:30 AM the express is scarcer). Much to my surprise, with one or two exceptions, the iPod Shuffle gave me a very blues/hardcore/punk/grunge-themed commute:

"Head On" by the Jesus and Mary Chain

"San Francisco" by Scott McKenzie

"London's Burning" by Silverchair - (A phenomenal cover of the song by The Clash)

"Hand in My Pocket" by JD Fortune (former contestant, now lead singer of INXS, covering Alanis Morrisette)

"Dark Was theNight, Cold Was the Ground" by Blind Willie Johnson (from Scorcese's Blues Documentary)

"Waiting" by Green Day (from Warning)

"Death Bell Blues" by R.L. Burnside (great Bluesman who passed recently in Memphis)

"Return of the Rat" by Nirvana

"Family Snapshot" by Peter Gabriel

"Faster than the Speed of Light" by Raven (1980's British Heavy Metal band that was Metallica's unrecognized step-cousin)

"I Hear You Knockin' " by Smiley Lewis (Scorcese's Blues again)

"Why" by Annie Lennox (from Saturday Night Live's great performances album, volume 1)

"Accidents Will Happen" by Elvis Costello & the Attractions

"Until the Next Time" by Peter Case (subject for a future blog, no doubt)

"Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" covered by Limp Bizkit

"P5hing Me A*wy" by Linkin Park, Live in Texas (phenomenal CD)

"Even in His Youth (Demo)" from Nirvana's With the Lights Out Box

"What's That Noise?" by S.O.D. (Stormtroopers of Death)

"Stealing People's Mail" by The Dead Kennedys

"Strangest Tribe" by Pearl Jam from Lost Dogs, their rarities album

Speaking of PJ, my dream of winning the lottery and taking Melanie to the Stones tonight in Pittsburgh, with Pearl Jam opening, did not come true. Oh well.

Technical Difficulties

Many readers have claimed to have had problems with BillyBlog "locking" and only showing a partial post. If you see this, try the "refresh" key. That does the trick for me.

Top 20 Books, #19

Behold: say what you will about Rob Reiner and Cary Elwes, even if you didn't like the movie, or even if you did, William Goldman's book is priceless and wonderful and warrants spot #19 on my list of top 20 favorite books. I am not saying best, I am saying favorite.

I discovered another list, the Brothers Judd Top 100 of the Twentieth Century, with a whole list of other lists. The Brothers Judd ranks this on their list as #91.

Everything that you can say positive about the film, that it is funny, romantic, exciting, is magnified in the book. I especially love the layering of the novel. We are introduced to modern characters, one of which reads from the book, The Princess Bride. The book becomes a character and the wall between the story and the people in both levels of story blends into one fantastic voyage.

If you haven't read this, do so now. It's a quick read and well worth the time spent journeying with Wesley and Inigo Montoya, in the pursuit of true love.

As you wish.

How's That Again? Department

Look closely. Something's wrong with this picture.

Catching Up

I finished DeLillo's Cosmopolis last Friday. Not his best, but still pretty good. I would definitely recommend it as a good "New York Novel," as it takes place entirely along a crosstown journey in one day. Extremely dark. Spent the good part of Friday at a deposition in the Bronx, more waiting than deposing. Case involves a worker's comp claim and I am a witness. Nonetheless, the extensive waiting allowed me to finish the DeLillo and get through several back issues of The New Yorker. Am on to the next book, T.C. Boyle's The Inner Circle, which is a fictional account of one of Dr. Kinsey's inner circle during his research on human sexuality in the 1940's. The book was published last year prior to the release of Kinsey, the Liam Neeson film, which I am still hoping to see.

In my quest for a balanced reading attack, I am also embarked on Picture Bride, the first book of poetry by Cathy Song, a Hawai'i-born poet. Ms. Song was also named a prestigious "Yale Younger Poet" in the early 1980's. I had the honor, pleasure and privilege of attending a poetry workshop with her at a writer's conference last month in Hawai'i. The poem below is a product of one exercise, in which participants free-associated, tossing out a word apiece while Ms. Song wrote them down on a flip chart. After several passes, the chart was filled and we had a wide range of words to choose from to use in, or as a basis for, a short poem.

FEAR


Fear walks in wet socks over razor rocks.
The dragon smiles, a mystical look, imagining
me in an Ironstone pot, rooster stew,
cabbage bubbling around me, the heat
washing over in waves, the smells
of all my life's meals wafting by,
sauerkraut, lumpia, latkes,
my grandmother waking me from a nightmare.

©William Dickenson Cohen, August 2005

On Silliman's Blogroll

A quick Sunday post, I am proud to announce that I have been added to Ron Silliman's blogroll. Silliman's blog is an inspiration for me. Silliman is an established poet whose blog discusses poetics and other cultural topics. His blog hosts a list of blogs from other poets worldwide, and it's nice to see my name in the company of other, more established writers. Thanks Ron! If the link doesn't work, you can access Ron's blog at www.ronsilliman.blogspot.com.

New Yorker Festival Book Signing

This weekend is The New Yorker Festival . Normally, I like to attend an event or two, but the tickets have become so pricey and hard to get, it is easier to go to the free events, like the book signings, which are held at Barnes & Noble, Union Square, which acts as the Festival Headquarters.

I visited today, opting for three authors: T. Coraghessan Boyle, Mark Strand, and Michael Chabon. T.C.B. has two new mcollections of short stories out. He is one of my favorite authors and he is one of the best practitioners of the short story writing today. Among living writers, I think Lorrie Moore may be the only other name I can come up with who crafts short stories better than "Tom". Wait, throw Alice Munro in there as well.

Anyway, I stood in line and Tom stood, as his style, while signing. He is a bit eccentric, in that he likes to stand in front of the signing table and look at or down at people while talking with them. Since he is taller, it's usually looking down. Anyway, he signed multiple items for me, the new books, a copy of his novel Drop City, a paperback copy of an earlier novel, Budding Prospects, and then I asked him to sign a story of his in an anthology called Getting it On; A Condom Reader. The problem is that Tom does not like to sign uncorrected proofs, on principle, and this copy was a proof. I said, "I know you won't sign proofs, but this is one that's an anthology and I'd love it if you'd inscribe your page to me." He looked at the cover for a second and handed it back to me, saying, "I'm not going to sign this one." I wasn't quite sure if it was because it was a proof, or because of the book itself. But I didn't mind. I asked him if I could take a picture with him, and a B&N employee obliged us by taking the shot. It is the photo accompanying this posting.

The next signing was at 1:00 PM and it was 11:30, so I ran uptown a bit to my office and dropped all the T.C. Boyle books to lighten the load. Next came Mark Strand, and it was a beautiful day, so I walked back to 17th Street for the next event, as opposed to taking the train.

When I arrived back at B&N, there was a huge line. Lucky for me, the line was for Ian McEwan, whose novel Saturday has grabbed rave reviews, and whose star has risen significantly since I first saw him in NYC seven years ago at another, smaller B&N. The line for Mark Strand, who has a new anthology out (100 Great Poems of the Twentieth Century), consisted of three people. I made 4, and shortly thereafter, a guy named Tony made 5. Strand was my big attraction, as a collector of poetry, and I came loaded with stuff for him to sign. And a mixed bag it was indeed. I had him sign the new anthology, a copy of his book Chicken, Shadow, Moon & More, Rembrandt Takes a Walk (a children's book he co-wrote with the New York painter Red Grooms), the anthology he co-edited with Charles Simic (Another Republic), his contribution pages in America's Favorite Poems (ed. Robert Pinsky), The Best American Poetry 1994, Preferences (ed. Richard Howard), an old 92nd Street Y anthology, and a Paris Review in which he was interviewed on "The Art of Poetry." Also, I had him sign the dustjacket he illustrated for Charles Wright's Appalachia. When I approached Strand with the stack of books, he seemed tickled by the teetering pile and remarked "It looks like you have my whole life story there."

The guy behind me, named Tony, was chatty, as we waited before Strand showed up. We talked poetry and collecting. He told me how, just last year, in an undisclosed bookstore he picked up four different first editions by the poet Elizabeth Bishop. Each one was marked "1st edition, signed, $8." Nice haul, stupid bookstore. The cheapest signed Bishop anywhere on the web begins at $450.00.

Afterwards, I struck up a conversation with a couple from Princeton who owns a bookbinding business. Not only do they bind books, especially Princeton theses, but they are avid collectors (two rooms worth!). We chatted about numerous things, including the Princeton Creative Writing Faculty. Many of whom they see in town. "We just ran into Paul Muldoon at the local deli the other day. He's so down to earth!"

They joined me in line to see Michael Chabon, whose The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, is phenomenal and another of my Top 20 books. Chabon signed only three things for me, his latest The Final Solution: A Story Of Detection, a paperback uncorrected proof of his young adult book Summerland, and his contribution in Nothing But You : Love Stories From The New Yorker. The line for Chabon was long, but nothing compared to this year's media circus for Stephen King. Papparazzi, rabid horror-genre fans, general mayhem. B&N only gave out 150 wristbands for 150 people to get items signed. One guy, according to a B&N employee, arrived at 4:00 PM on Friday to get in line.

All in all, a successful day of meeting the authors and having books signed. No sign of Doppelgänger, but I did see people with more books than me, so I'm not the craziest collector out there.

Top 20 Books, #20

I will be spending some time over the next couple of months counting down my top 20 books of all time. I was just going to list them, but thought this would be more fun.
Here's numero 20, which actually garnered a recent mention in BillyBlog.




First of all, the cover is amazingly frightening, especially since this book came out pre-9/11.

Secondly, I can understand if, at 832 pages, people aren't going to want to read this. However, if you do ANYTHING with this book, you must read the prologue, which has been universally praised as an opening tour de force of little equal. So good is the prologue, which describes the final game in the Giants-Dodgers series in 1951 and Bobby Thompson's "shot heard 'round the world," that it was re-published as Pafko at the Wall: A Novella.

The ball that Bobby Thompson hits is painstakingly tailed by DeLillo into the modern age, as we are treated to a host of characters that are all intertwined by the fabric of 1990s American culture.

One can read fuller editorial reviews of Underworld at amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0684848155/ref=dp_proddesc_0/002-9019149-2754422?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155

Have a great weekend!

Photo of the Week - September 22, 2005

Here's a new feature on Billyblog: the photo of the week. This week's photo is a close-up of a New York City subway map at the 23rd Street station in Manhattan. A fellow straphanger has doctored the map to include an additional stop on the E & F lines in Queens.