Knowing the value of a vintage book

Kort and I went walking in downtown Plano to check out the historical festival going on. Nothing much going on there except for actors in vintage pioneer costumes. So we headed over to one of the antique stores which we'd never been in before. Ever since living in New Hampshire where amazing books, postcards and photos are to be found in Peterborough-area shops, I make it a point to slow down when browsing the bookshelves of antique stores. Well Nooks & Grannies had some great finds - an old Tuttle edition on Japanese flower arranging in a cloth case with bone closures, hand-bound (Japanese stitch) for $12.00 and a hard-to-find Peter Pauper hardback of Japanese haiku for $4.00. Someone who unloaded their old books at the antique shop definitely had an Orientalist thing going. I happened upon a vintage hardcover shell of Japanese fairytales that had been completely gutted. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed. But a half hour later, as I was browsing thru the postcard and prints section, I found 11 full-color, watercolor plates that had been ripped out of that same book, individually plastic sheeted with a price sticker that indicated that the person pricing the inventory knew precisely what book those images came out of. So I assembled the shell with the individual pages and marched up to the guy in the shop who had tried to unload a vintage camera one me for a discount price for which film is no longer made (check the internet he said). The lady behind the counter tells me "the book came in that way." The man attempts to call the shopowner who has neither a cell phone or call waiting. He finally gets thru and asks her for a price for the collection. The book is damaged, missing pages and would need to be rebound. Each full-color page on its own was priced at $9.95. She said she'd give me the hardcover for free and give 20% off all of the pages which still came out to about $90. The man pushes the owner to drop the price, and she lowers it to 25%. I say no way, take my Peter Pauper and Tuttle and walk. When I got home and checked the internet for the price of this little 1913 edition, on the low end it came out to $35 and on the high end it came out to about $65. Uh-huh. The whole transaction annoyed me because of the lack of care for the original book and its integrity - pimping out each individual page for a wildly inflated price. This was a specialty book with Japanese artists providing the artwork, not a rare William Blake edition - but still - I was against the breaking up of the Blake edition that auctioned last year. While at the shop, I heard one of the senior volunteers working the cash desk say, "Call Sotheby's." Obnoxious.

What I love in old books are the embossed covers and the beautiful end pages, the simplicity of imagery, the low-tech production and the lack of slickness and the emphasis on craft. All things I love in a good modern-day chapbook.

While I love frequenting antique shops in small towns, it was creepy going thru the black and white photos of people's family portraits - babies and old ladies, ranch-style homes, happy memories, all sold off to modern day collectors at ridiculous prices. I believe in the karma of objects and while I pick up the occasional used book or item, postcard, of clothing for a deal, sometimes walking into these repositories of frozen memories has a strange effect.

Edinburgh or New Castle on Tyne?

Recent books consumed:

Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Self-Made Man - Norah Vincent
Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albon
Taipei Mutt - Eric Mader-Lin
The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World - Paul Guest
Poker Face - Katy Lederer
One Tribe - Evenlina Galang
Why is the Edge Always Windy? - Mong Lan

Currently Reading:
Berlitz Guide to Learning French
Barron's GRE Prep Book

Editing the auto pages....

"Wheel disintegration while driving a commercial-grade truck is something I personally avoid whenever possible."

I have been following the developments in the Kaavya Viswanathan upset with some interest - she's the 19-year-old Harvard student who has been called out for plagiarizing close to 40 passages in her new book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life from Megan McCafferty's Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. A co-worker says that publishers today need to do "better fact checking" and suggested that they should get themselves a software program which universities use to check for plagiarism in term papers. But a program like the one described would have done nothing to prevent the James Frey scandal from going down. Writing seems more and more a dangerous craft.

The Rock Bottom Remainders

My co-worker won free tickets to The Rock Bottom Remainders at the Gypsy Tea Room in Deep Ellum and gave the tickets to me. The Rock Bottom Remainders are a literary band made up of prose writers Scott Turow, Mitch Albon, Amy Tan, Stephen King, Dave Barry and the occasional musically inclined guest artist such as Monty Montgomery. The show seemed exciting in theory. It started on time at 8:30 p.m. and Dave Barry took the stage, introducing the band members one by one. The audience for this performance were largely middle-aged to elderly literary lovers by the looks of it plus a few people in their late 20s/early 30s. Amy Tan came out in a long, layered blond wig. Scott Turow was dressed in a sports jersey and sporting a blond Slash wig. I can't remember what they opened with, but the set included covers like "Mustang Sally", "Leader of the Pack" (sung by Tan with Turow dramatically portraying the object of devotion), "Rebel Rebel" (sung by Turow sporting yet another wig) and songs that this group surely grew up listening to it. Those who have known me for a very long time will know that I am a music snob. If I don't connect to it, it might as well be nails on a chalkboard, kids crying or some other irritating noise. Call it my years studying voice and jazz standards or my deep love for a well-written lyric and original melody. If there was any value in the event tonight, it was that anybody can get up on stage and have fun, regardless of musical talent. The group was proficient in their instrumentation, but couldn't sing worth a dime. The show benefitted a national group called SCORE which does outreach work with kids using soccer and poetry (not sure how the two work together in combination). I picked up a copy of Tuesdays with Morrie for my co-worker and started reading it during the set. It looks like a great read. I regret having blown out my hearing for it.

"When I think about my father, I think about Bob Seger's 'Like a Rock'"

In "The Weather Man", Dave Spritz (played by Nicholas Cage) is at a pretend wake for his father who has developed an incurable cancer. Several people in attendance have already gotten up to give speeches in honor of Robert Spritzel. When Dave gets up to the podium, he starts his commemorative speech with "When I think about my father, I think about Bob Seger's 'Like a Rock'" at which point a power outage cuts the lights and microphone. It takes another several hours for the power to come back on-line and at that point, the restless guests all stream out the door headed for home - Dave never given the opportunity to complete his speech to his father.

At my best friend's wedding on Friday night, the best man and matron of honor toasted. At which point, the DJ brought down the houselights for the picture slide show that Kort and I made for my friend and her husband. I had thought that I would give a toast after the slide show, and than it was switched to before, and than apparently it was switched to after again. But I wrote the toast to be a specific intro to the show, so I scrambled for the mic to the front of the room to rattle off my speech. How do you relate 17 years in 3 minutes, I don't know. And then the technology failed. After about 10 minutes of fussing, the staff realized that the show should go on and the bride and groom had their first dance, succeeded by the bride and her father, groom and his mother, etc. etc. About two hours later, the community center staff and wedding planner decided to go for Plan B and cobbled together a borrowed laptop, cables and an LCD projector. Kort and I suspected that the bulb had burned out on the first projector, even though it had withstood several tests earlier that afternoon, but our guess was that the equipment hadn't been powered down correctly or that the lamp had overheated (temperamental technology!) because we could clearly hear the music from the DVD playing signifying that it was not a problem with the disc itself. And we were right - they shone a flashlight on the projector and read the error message. Then it was discovered that the group didn't have the necessary cables to amplify sound from the computer. So I was pulled aside by the DJ who had been provided with the soundtrack for the slideshow several weeks back. I had a "what do you want me to do about it" moment before saying - why don't you hold a microphone up to the speaker in the computer? So that's what they did. I had to tell the tech guy to press "play" on the computer to start the damn show.. So there was about a 2 hour gap in between when I gave my intro and the viewing of the show. But everyone seemed delighted by the show and there were many smiles and laughter and the father of the bride was pleased as was the bride. Thank god!

Sprockets Day

Everyone in my immediate group dressed up for Sprockets Day at the newly corporate-branded "The Agency." However, many people outside of the copywriters group wore there usual everyday garb. It was also supposed to be a high of 101 degrees today.

We had dinner at Kalachandji's and then caught up with a old friend in Boston (Hi, Chris!) on the phone. Chris and I went to BU together and Chris wrote for years for the Daily Free Press and is now a public school teacher. Needless to say, I respect Chris a lot. As we were about to get off the phone, he said something unexpected about my writing, particularly the blogging. Sometimes I forget that people actually read these posts, but it felt tremendously encouraging. I've been reading a lot of prose - David Sedaris, Eric Mader, and Katy Lederer in recent days and getting a stronger feel for prose and am getting some concrete ideas for prose work. But at the same time, since returning to Dallas, I'd been thinking about ending the blog in order to spend more time in pursuit of creative projects. I always knew that it would come to an end at some point, but maybe it doesn't have to.

The SAIC event was less of an alumni event and more of an admissions event for prospective students with two local alumni, Rebecca Carter and Elaine Polewicz, presenting on their work. Murray from admissions got up and did his thing on the merits of SAIC, including comments on its interdisciplinary nature and the community of artists. It's notable that when I enrolled in SAIC, I did not have a sense of what the school would be like at all. I decided to go to SAIC purely on the merits of a Naropa classmate who suggested the school. Writing program in an art school setting? Sounded good to me. It was a very young program then. So it was interesting to hear Murray speak on the mission and strengths of the school and to have that followed by two amazing examples of professional artists who have gone on to make unique conceptually-driven work. Rebecca did her MFA in the textiles department but was for a time making sewn drawings out of paper and thread. She designed a drawing machine which was controlled by air blowing into the window of her studio space. There were a series of interesting little videos. Elaine makes still life and landscape paintings with a fairy tale quality. Her early work was inspired by her experiences of growing up in Dallas. Each of these artists expressed their gratitude for an SAIC education and spoke of community and the feeling of being able to do anything - which to me, resonated of Naropa, and the sort of skills that students are imbued with during their education. The DIY, problem-solving, visionary attitude that believes that all things are possible. As I have been considering going back to school for a PhD, for the sole reason to have a real shot at teaching jobs, I reconsider, as what makes me really happy more than anything is making time to write and create art. Artists practice art. To be a scholar is something else. So write goddamit!

I'm looking into astrocartography as a form of divination to divine where Kort and I should move to for optimal career choices suitable for both of our needs and a happy, healthy lifestyle. My top geographical preferences include Taichung, Portland (OR), Nova Scotia, London, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Japan, and New Mexico. I'm sure the outcome will surprise the both of us.

Sprockets

Tomorrow is "Sprockets" day at the newspaper offices. Everyone who works in the basement (production, graphic arts, advertising, and copywriting) has been asked to wear black from head to toe as the office opens its doors to a few VIP guests who will tour our working "galleries."

"Sprockets" was a great skit on SNL during the Mike Myers' era of the show - he played a German intellectual named Dieter with a live pet monkey. Everybody wore black, looked sallow, and acted insufferably pretentious. It was fabulous.

After the work day tomorrow, I have to go to an alumni reception for SAIC at the Dallas Contemporary. I will be outfitted from head to toe in black. Perhaps I should pack a change of clothing. I am not not completely looking forward to the event, but I can think of at least a few locals that I would like to avoid who will no doubt show up to check out the scene and scorn the local competition.

Last Ink

I am no closer to writing a wedding toast to the bride and groom who marry a week from today in San Diego. But after reading hundreds upon hundreds of poems on love, friendship, birth, death, anniversaries, companionship, tripe, etc. and trolling the databases of the Poetry Foundation and the American Academy of Poets (which duplicate many poems by too many of the same ho-hum poets), I arrived at the feeling that the poem to be read at my friend's wedding would not be found within any of those "resources." I turned this morning to my newly assembled and organized bookshelves which need reorganizing since it took me a good 20 minutes to find the Japanese poetry anthology I was looking for. Nothing found in that tome, but my eye fell on Michael Ondaatje's HANDWRITING. I've had Ondaatje on my mind, having just watched The English Patient for the first time this week and thinking about Minghella's film in comparison to the richness of the novel. HANDWRITING holds one of my favorite Ondaatje poems, "Last Ink" which I saw and heard him read in Chicago at the Art Institute in 1999. Well, actually, I probably heard and saw it earlier than that, before it was part of a published collection, when Ondaatje  read it on a Robin Blaser panel on a hot sweaty summer day under the big white tent on the Naropa lawn. It is the kind of poem that stops the heart's beating. A poem of love and friendship  that encompasses wide expanses of history, art, death, and memory.

An effective way to drop pounds, while far from healthy or practical is to contract stomach flu twice in one month. Sigh.

My best friend is getting married next week in San Diego. Because I was in Taipei for much of the heavy planning period, I was let off the hook in terms of planning support. I volunteered to make the slide show for the big event which has been an interesting experience and a labor of love. We started with bulding the thing in Photoshop. Scanning photos and editing and cropping and doing clean-up on photos that needed restoration. The clone function of Photoshop is a million times better than sitting and hand-toning a one-of-a-kind photograph I must say. From there, imported to i-Photo to build the sequence and group images into categories. Then back to Photoshop to make collages of theme images vs. standalone pics. Then imported all to i-Movie (this is where Kort's help came in) where sound files were added from a requested play list. These songs are pure '80s - Bel Biv Devoe's "Poison", The Cure's "Just Like Heaven", Young MC's "Bust a Move", and some other more recent picks by Damien Rice and MJ. I am not so good on learning the new technology without a manual under pressure and problem-solving under deadline so Kort helped with the transitions and sound editing. I found that I really loved editing for sound, finding the natural breaks in a song, cutting on the downbeat, fading a phrase in or out and the fact that the whole process is very mathematical and time-based. Working with time in a whole different way, as in being able to control time and treat time as sections of experience, edit time, there was something wholly enlightening about that.

Kort balked at certain edits and cuts to songs I was making, referencing my friend GP in saying "they took my music and cut it up like a dead fish." Hmmm. The main dispute came over a song that I had never heard before called "Feel Good" by the Gorillaz. From the sound of it, a more recent song that would fit in the slideshow with the sequence of couple's photos vs. growing up photos, though it also has an '80s sound to it. But the slide show is eight minutes long and we already had it loaded up with seven songs. But we wanted at first to find a way to make it all fit and work but when it wasn't happening and when neither of us was willing to compromise on the 10 second intro which sounded like a series of scat sounds to me, Kort finally made his argument. It went like this:

Kort: You know what a milkdud is, right?

Me: Yeah.

Kort: What is it?

Me: A chocolate malted milk ball.

Kort: And what else is it?

Me: What the hell does this have to do with a song by the Gorillaz?

Kort: It's brown and white. Don't you hear it?

Me: Hear what?

Kort: Listen to what they're singing. "Cho-co-late cho-co-late cho-co-late milkdud."

Me: Um, I think you're pulling a Jimi Hendrix "excuse me 'while I kiss some guy." That's a little too Ebony & Ivory.

So we googled, and the song lyrics say that what's being sung is "shake it shake it shake it feel good", though the "shake it" would still work with the "milkdud theme."

Proofreading real estate faux pas

"2 blacks from Urban Market" (2 blocks)

"fagpole hill" (aka Flagpole Hill)

"380 degree views"

Residents vs. Eastside Village

Dear Greg LaMaster,
I am opposed to the elimination of the Phase 1 Fitness Center at the Eastside Village apartment complex. We selected our unit in Phase I, for its amenities - the proximity to the DART tracks and the presence of the fitness room in this phase - which make apartment living more convenient.

The fitness center in Phase II is a walk from Phase I and not as convenient to 24-hour access. The center itself is not much larger than the Phase I Center and when I have gone over to work out in Phase II in recent weeks, it has been necessary to wait to use the equipment due to number of people working out on the machines at one time. One of the elliptical machines was also non-functional/broken on the day that I went over to use the facility. Considering the number of residents (500+?)at Eastside Village in both Phases who will be sharing this space, it would seem important to evaluate how this space will be shared by residents.

If Eastside Village is in need of a space to hold its Monthly Care Meetings, why not use the main conference room space that was used for the Plano Book Festival at the end of March? The room is sizable and already set up for meetings. If the club house is being thought of as "a room that could be rented out for functions for our residents", it is not an amenity - it is a revenue-generating opportunity for East Village available to residents for a fee. As such, it is problematic and misleading to refer to it as an "amenity." How often would meetings or special events actually happen? Would the space be fully utilized or would it sit unused most of the time? Wouldn't more residents take advantage on a regular, ongoing basis of a fitness facility? Is there no other space available at the complex that could be converted for a club house?

Many of the amenities at East Side Village are presently at Phase II - the bicycle storage room, a larger swimming pool, a larger fitness center with free weights and weight machines - rather than taking away amenities from Phase I, I would encourage the company to work towards balancing this inequality and adding amenities to Phase I that residents would actually utilize.

Currently, the Fitness Center in Phase I is in a state of disarray. Half the room is filled with chairs and tables, the television sets have been removed and only 2 machines are actually usable due to the equipment having been shoved back in the corner. It has been in this state for at least 3 weeks. It is not physically possible for one person to move the equipment back into place. If the decision has not yet been made regarding the transition of the space, residents would appreciate restoring this room to its former condition so that it could still be used effectively in this interim period until an informed decision has been made.

Respectfully,
X

Haven't been able to find any reviews of the Paterson Museum show but here is an article from the Daily Record which interviewed the curator, Maria Mazzotti Gillan. Since we can't all be in lovely Paterson, New Jersey to see this exhibition, here is the image that I put in the show:


                The Floating World, 2003 (silver gelatin print)

Some misguided soul said to me yesterday meaning to flatter me or to inspire camaraderie that "Taiwan is the Mexico of Asia, compared to Japan and Hong Kong."

Renting

In fairness it should be said that I have always had contempt for all of my big real estate landlords, with the exception of Mr. Koufas, the private homeowner who leased us his childhood home in Watertown. I hated Landmark Realty in Chicago and got hustled into signing a lease before I was ready and Micozzi Management in Brookline was a nightmare too. Though we lived on Beacon Street near B.U., in a fairly decent neighborhood, when we moved in, Kort found a dead and dessicated rat on our fire escape. Southside on Lamar had its problems, renting out the artist's quarters for monthly gala events bringing in traffic, noise, and drunken revelers. My conversation with the current management at Eastside Village last week went something like this:

Me: Someone put a bunch of tables in the fitness center, unplugged the machines and shoved them into a corner. The space is unusable.

Brandi: Yes, we're closing that fitness center and turning it into a party room for residents.

Me: Were residents informed? Because I didn't get a memo and I don't remember getting notified.

Brandi: There is a beautiful fitness center over at the Phase II complex? Have you seen it?

Me: Sure, when I toured the facilities. But I've been renting a unit in Phase I, and I chose to live at Phase I because it's next to the DART tracks and it also had a fitness center which is convenient to the building.

Brandi: So you have to walk to work out, that's part of the work out for god's sake. There's a perfectly good fitness center at Phase II with weights and machines and everything you need.

Me: So did residents vote on the changeover, or who's idea was that to eliminate this amenity?

Brandi: The community room we're putting in is another amenity that some of the residents have asked for, so that when friends and family come from out of town they can rent out the space.

Me: So can I put together a petition and have residents sign to reinstate the fitness room?

Brandi: Well, we haven't actually made the decision. God! The decision hasn't even happened yet and the change hasn't occurred. Why can't you just use the fitness room in Phase II?

Apparently the muffin man lives on Drury Lane.

Other work-related funnies:

"Slogo" - a sales logo

"That's Easter Bunny with a capital 'B'. Second usage Mr. Bunny."

Overheard at work

"Yes, I know the muffin man!"

"Cult-a-sacs" and "hardwood dicks"

First day on the job copyediting for the advertising department. Working mostly on real estate ads from high-end brokers and getting to know the culture of Dallas' luxury homes and real estate. These are homes that I will never be able to afford - palatial estates in gated communities complete with wine cellars, game rooms, grand entries, sculpted owls, wainscoting, etc. Our department also handles the special supplements on health, weddings, automobiles and a few other areas. Should be interesting. One of my co-workers will be interviewing AA actor George Takei who is embarking on a speaking tour in the coming months.

This weekend, I went to the Writer's Garret Writes of Spring Festival hosted at my old home, Southside on Lamar. Sadly, it was difficult to make it to every program I was interested in attending. The panel on "unknown writers" in the main building overlapped with the WordSpace reading. I walked in to hear one of the panelists talking about John Ashbery - he is perhaps underappreciated, but unknown? Come on - the dude's won the Pulitzer! Before I left the panel to run back to Poor David's, I spied Lorna Dee Cervantes but had to leave before I could say hello. Took a workshop at the SWP with Lorna back in 1997, my first summer at Naropa at the urging of a former roommate Virginia Evans. Lorna's an amazing writer and teacher and her new book is out with a Texas press called Wings, run by Bryce Milligan. Lorna also has some illuminating things to say in her recent post on applying for teaching jobs, NEA and Fulbright grants, etc. Speaking of which, I'm not holding my breath on teaching in Dallas. The local uni has invited 2 candidates to campus to interview. Some interesting things about the candidates: both women, both have recent PhDs, both studied at UT Austin, both have limited publishing experience, both are fairly young, both have the name Susan.

Simone, Martha, Tim, Lisa and Robert read poems at Poor David's. Robert read from a new manuscript called "Glance." There was some great fiction too - Ben Fountain, the fiction editor for the Southwest Review, read some historical fiction about a piano player with 11 fingers. David Searcy read some funky sci-fi on horizontal vs. vertical space travel.