Author: Biblioklept

Jeff Smith–Bone

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I got Jeff Smith’s Bone: One Volume Edition in the mail today. I love getting mail, maybe that’s why I love Netflix so much.

This book collects every single issue of Smith’s self-published Bone comic book series, which first came out back in the early nineties…I still have the first couple of issues (think they might be worth anything?)

When Bone originally came out, I was very much into Dave Sim’s Cerebus and other black & white indie comics of a “dark” nature–and despite Dave Sim’s recommendations, Bone was too sweet-natured for me. I couldn’t appreciate Smith’s Walt Kelley-esqe art (the Pogo strip had perplexed me as a kid), and Smith’s layered plot moved too slowly–I realize now it started slow because Smith had all 1300 pages of the series plotted out from the first issue.

A few weeks ago, I was searching through some old graphic novels, looking for a particular Asterix book for some reason, when I came across the first graphic novel in the Bone series, Out from Boneville. I started re-reading it to find that it was waaaaaay funnier than I had realized, and that the art was beautiful and logical and spare and clean. Luckily, Smith has made his work easily accessible, in one big (seriously, this book is heavy) edition.

Will post more on this as I read. 

Guns n’ Roses Update

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The perfect gift for someone special: check out The Axl Rose and Sidekick Cat Commemorative Dish, available at The Daily Gut.

A few days back this blog reported that Guns n’ Roses are supposed to play Jacksonville on Tuesday, October 31st–Halloween Night. As of now, the tickets are still on sale. For a mere $77.50 a ticket, you will be able to print your own ticket via an internet purchase. For an extra $10 you can even arrange parking ahead of time. Bonus! Has this event been promoted on local radio? I don’t listen to radio, other than 8 minutes of NPR over the morning drive to work. Are the people of Jax psyched? Is Axl Rose a has-been? Will they even play? Who cares?

The Audioklept Special Edition

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All the big indie records of 2006: One sentence reviews. Part One.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy–The Letting Go: Who knew he had another record this good in him?

Neko Case–Fox Confessor Brings the Flood: “Star Witness” is the best song of 2006.

Destroyer–Destroyer’s Rubies: Dan Bejar is over the top and this record is gorgeous.

Thom Yorke–The Eraser: […] hmmm […] oh sorry, I must’ve dozed off there […] 

The Walkmen–A Hundred Miles Off: I recently heard “The Rat” in the background of an NCAA Football commercial–I enjoyed that more than anything on this record.

The Walkmen–Pussycats: Uhmmm…yeah…uhmmm, okay cool guys, you have your own studio, you can just do whatever you want I guess.

Beck–The Information: Beck’s a fucking scientologist.

Ghostface Killah–Fishscale: I’m supposed to love this, right?

Girl Talk–Night Ripper: This might be the year’s best album…

The Flaming Lips–At War With the Mystics: It seems like they will continue to make these types of records.

The Decemberists–The Crane Wife: This is overrated, boring crap.

The Hold Steady–Boys and Girls in America: …speaking of overrated, boring crap.

The Fiery Furnaces–Bitter Tea: Their prettiest album yet; not as good as Blueberry Boat but better than any record by any other band that came out this year.

Matthew Friedberger–Winter Women: Contains no fewer than four radio gems.

Matthew Friedberger–Holy Ghost Language School: I keep meaning to listen to it again.

Lambchop–Damaged: I’m too busy for this level of subtlety.

Lambchop–The Decline of Country & Western Civilization, Pt. 2: The Woodwind Years: Their title is too long–counts as review.

Mercury Rev–Essential Mercury Rev: Go out and buy the real “essential” Mercury Rev: Yerself is Steam, Bocces, and See You on the Other Side.

Gnarls Barkley–St. Elsewhere: We will all remember this album as fondly as we remember that Chumbawumba album, or possibly our EMF Greatest Hits CD. 

Scary Stories: Scary Books–Part III

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When was the last time you read Poe? Stories like “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” explore the ebb and flow of manic identity and the horror of displacement. These are rich texts. While you’re revisiting Poe, check out the lesser-known but masterful “Descent into the Maelstrom.”

I always read “The Raven” with my students on Halloween, and then we watch The Simpsons version of “The Raven” from one of the first “Treehouse of Horror” episodes.

Check it out!

 

This edition makes a great introduction to Kafka. “In the Penal Colony,” the horrific tale of a machine that kills you by inscribing your sentence on you, is pretty scary.

From Hell: Scary Books–Part II

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 Alan Moore (writer), Eddie Campbell (artist).

Alan Moore’s well-researched, 500+ page graphic novel theorizes that the Jack the Ripper murders were in fact a conspiracy to get rid of a royal’s illegitimate child who posed a threat to the Victorian lineage. I can’t say enough good things about this book. I am a huge fan of graphic novels, and this is one of the best, right up there with Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Dave Sim’s Cerebus and Joe Sacco’s Palestine. The intricate plot involves Masonic conspiracy, Victorian sexual mores, 19th century surgery, insanity, and a blood ritual resulting in transcendental time travel. Eddie Campbell’s art does a wonderful tight-rope act in putting order to chaos. His scratchy inks burst with emotion–I can’t imagine a better artist for this story. I actually wonder if some of Moore’s other work (V for Vendetta, Watchmen) would resonate deeper with me had an artist of Campbell’s caliber (Bill Sienkiewicz or Mike Mignola, possibly) worked on those books. I doubt it though. I always recommend this book to persons who don’t think graphic novels are literary. I won’t loan it out though. I don’t want it to go MIA.

(By the way, the Hughes brothers-directed movie adaptation of this novel, starring Johnny Depp, IS NOT the same story at all. I know, hard to believe that Hollywood could screw up great source material, but nonetheless true).

Scary Books–Part I

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I love Halloween.

Some favorite scary books:

The monster’s point of view.

One of my classes is reading this version of Macbeth right now. I know–the cover sucks (the cauldron look’s like a latte), but I think it makes a fantastic introduction to Shakespeare; great for highschool students.

 We’re also watching Roman Polanski’s 1971 film version.

macbeth1.jpg

 And who can deny this old chestnut?

Fun links, methinks

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Ricotta Park is stealing my gig. Fair enough, considering my gig is stealing. RP does a few mini book reviews today, including a review of The Psychic Soviet by ex-Nation of Uylsses frontman Ian Svenonious. Some consider Ulysses by James Joyce to be the best book ever written in English. Not me though! (It’s Moby Dick, hands down).

Go hit up Troglogyte Mignon to see some art (you need it kid!) Her watercolors are humorous and often affecting. A sample below (reproduced with permission of the artist).

smitten-b.jpg smitten panty lovers unite troglodyte mignon art

 

I found BibliOdyssey when looking for other “biblio” blogs. I was crushed, green to the gills with envy. This blog is fantastic! Go get some knowledge.

Shelfari is MySpace for book nerds. Go set up a shelf and meet some people. Argue about books. Posit Hemmingway as way overrated, or find that certain somebody who also trucked their way through Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night.

If you live in Jacksonville, no doubt you already travel daily to The Urban Core and Urban Jacksonville. What’s that you say? You haven’t visited yet? Go get some awareness (local, son!) Urban Jax has a great post today on artist Dan May. Urban Core was kind enough to include this blog in his write-up of Top 10 Jacksonville Blogs (the ‘klept came in lucky number 7! woo!) Urban Core was voted the best blog in Jacksonville by local indie paper Folio Weekly.

More fun links and hi-jinks next week.

Abominable Fallout by Dan May. Copyright Dan May, 2006.

Graham Greene and Donnie Darko

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The Portable Graham Greene, ed. Philip Stratford. I haven’t read a single story in this beautiful Viking Portable Library edition, save “The Destructors,” (full text here) (sorry, the page is no longer up [3/07]. Ed.) which I only read because it was referenced in one of my favorite movies, Donnie Darko.

I found this one in another teacher’s classroom. My uncle Lee had just given me a copy of Greene’s The Quiet American, which I finished in a weekend; it’s a slim, spare novel, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, despite the fact that Brendan Fraser was on the cover (the book was re-released to coincide with a film adaptation that I never saw). Anyway, I’d just read TQA, and I saw this beautiful Viking Portable Library edition (I’m a big fan of VPL), so I surreptitiously absconded with it only to never read it. A meaningless theft?

Anyway, last year a new director’s cut of Donnie Darko came out; the wife and I saw it at the San Marco Theater, I was reminded of the book, and read “The Destructors.” “The Destructors” is a simple story about a teenage gang that destroys a beautiful old house from the inside to the outside. “The Destructors” functions as an abyss structure or reading rule that informs the text-proper of Donnie Darko (it’s assigned reading from an English teacher). If you’re a fan of this movie (and if you’re not, why not?!) check out this story; it’s short and to the point. Flipping through it again, I realize that I should probably put The Portable Graham Greene back on the “To Read” stack.

If you haven’t seen Donnie Darko, enjoy the following review courtesy The Comic Critic.

Microserfs

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Microserfs, Douglas Coupland; loaned out, never to be returned. I remember this book as being relatively entertaining. I mostly recall the design of the book–very cool, playful, and ahead of its time. This book will be more interesting in twenty or twenty-five years. Coupland’s site: beautiful. 

http://www.coupland.com/

The Unknown

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The Unknown is a sprawling hypertext novel. It’s basically a postmodern choose your own adventure written in a ludic, recursive style. It’s a jumble of ideas, authors (their faves–The Unknown are a collective of sorts–include Thomas Pynchon, Wm Burroughs and Michel Foucault), and half-cooked philosophies. 

Choose Your Own Adventure

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I loved these things growing up. Images lead to fun links (or grisly death!)

 

The Crucible/Bohemian Grove

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My 11th graders just finished The Crucible. Here are a few images that we looked at in class.

sabbath-12.jpg

sabbath-16.jpg

sabbath-11.jpg

These images remind me of a video I saw a couple of years ago, Inside the Bohemian Grove. This video claims to expose the bizarre rituals of the Bohemian Club, a secret society of world leaders, industrialists, and so on. The important people. To get a relatively mainstream take on the Bohemian Grove meetings go here; of course the internet hordes an abundance of (mis?)information on the BG. Just google it. File under Illuminati/conspiracy/paranoia.

 Here’s an image of a Bohemian Grove ritual from a 1915 issue of National Geographic.

 

Philip K. Dick Cover Art Gallery

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Via an excellent and fun blog, robertmonroe.org, a gallery of PKD covers. Check out the gallery here.

Guns and Roses to Play Jacksonville Florida on Halloween Night

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Absolutely nothing to do with books, but hey whatever. Guns and Roses have rescheduled their October 20th concert in sweet home Jacksonville FL for Halloween Night. Will Axl show? Will mayhem ensue? Will there be disappointment? Apathy?

And the Gators lost?! And that brawl in Miami?!

Console yourself with this Axl Rose fan art:

 

Bob Dylan

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Anthony Scaduto’s Bob Dylan:A Biography (1972?); another one from my cousin’s closet, part of the same cache that included Fear and Loathing. This would have been in the very early 1990s. I had always loved Bob Dylan, always–one of the earliest songs I remember taping off of the radio was “Like a Rolling Stone.” I had to call in to request it. I recorded it at the end of my first (and only, at the time) cassette tape–a copy of Dire Strait’s Brothers in Arms that my dad had taped from his vinyl for me. By the time I got a hold of Anthony Scaduto’s fantastic bio, I knew a bit about Dylan. I already had a couple of Dylan albums, including one of the first CDs I ever bought, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (still my favorite). Like Fear and Loathing, this book was a door-opener to me. Interestingly, I was mostly enchanted by Dylan’s voice and wordplay before I read this book; that is to say his cult of personality hadn’t really effected me yet. This book changed that.

               

(I took the edition on the left. The one on the right you can buy online or in your favorite bookstore)

Any true Dylan fan has probably already read this book, but if you consider yourself one (a true fan, that is), and you haven’t read it, make amends. You won’t be disappointed. The book is particularly good if you bookend it with viewings of DA Pennebaker’s extraordinary documentary Don’t Look Back.

 Dylan in his later years (i.e. nowadays) is as perplexing as ever. He’s made three of the best albums of his post-60s career, making up for some questionable output. He’s slowed down on the touring quite a bit (saw him about 10 years ago and he blew my mind — who knew what an accomplished guitar player he was?), and made those weird Victoria’s Secret commercials a few years ago. Recently, he made a ruckus when he attacked modern recording techniques in a Rolling Stone interview with one of my favorite authors, Jonathan Lethem. 

One of the best things Dylan has done lately is his “Theme Time Radio Hour” on XM satellite radio. The show is thematic; Dylan riffs on the bible, coffee, the weather, all sorts of stuff. His musical taste is fantastic (saying Bob Dylan has good musical taste is sort of like saying water is wet), but it’s really his voice that mesmerizes. It’s a gleeful mix of the sinister with the playful. He actually kind of sounds like the late comedian Mitch Hedberg, especially in a comment from a recent show on the bible: “Nine out of ten Americans have at least one bible in their home. What’s up with the other guy?” Doesn’t look funny in print, but his delivery is unexpectedly hilarious.

If, like me, you can’t afford to subscribe to fancy satellite stations but still want to hear the word of Dylan, never fear! Check out White Man Stew for free downloadable mp3s of complete Dylan shows. You can get the shows as  zip files full of divided mp3s, or as one long mp3.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

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I procured this from my cousin’s closet. My cousin Tripp is ten years older than me; he was in college at the time and I was staying with my aunt and uncle over the summer, in his old bedroom. I’m pretty sure both he and my uncle recommended that I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The edition (not pictured above–I couldn’t find the one I snagged, but it had a similar cover–more on the cover below) could have belonged to Tripp, but it may have belonged to my uncle.  

Reading Fear and Loathing was an initiation into some kind of new literature for me. It opened the way to authors like Vonnegut, Wm Burroughs, Herman Hesse, JD Salinger (admittedly, I read some Tom Robbins in this period as well. Ugh). Before HST I was reading lots and lots of science fiction and fantasy books, both classic and trash. I had also read lots of the “adventure classics,” stuff like Robinson Crusoe and Dracula and Great Expectations and the Tarzan novels. And comic books. Always comic books. But Fear and Loathing was something new for me; it combined the fantasy and adventure and weirdness I’d been reading with a political ethos and a sense of social-reality-via-unreality. Surreality. Fear and Loathing contained a whole new set of reading rules for me, chief among them: irony and paradox. All of a sudden, the verity of all past narrators was cast into doubt. I was savvy now. I was ironized. I was, y’know, hip to what may be under a text now, whereas before I was just scanning the text. Or at least it seemed that way. Looking back, I don’t know for sure. 

Of course I lent this book out to anyone who seemed vaguely interested. I did this for years, and amazingly, the book kept coming back to me. Must be some mystical sign when I think about it. Who returns books? I loaned it out all the way through college before it finally escaped me for ever. I’m not sure who has it now. At the point this particular edition left me forever, it had a duck-tape cover with title and author in Sharpie-font, courtesy of one innovative reader. I like to think others were initiated by it, but I know that most of the readers I lent it to had already read their revelation-text, whether it was that Kerouac book or Slaughterhouse Five or Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. And I haven’t read this book in years, although I’m a big fan of Terry Gilliam’s movie. Still, it’ll always have a special place in my trunk full of drugs–er, heart.

Moby Dick

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Another one courtesy of the Andrew Jackson High School Library. Not really a straight up theft; it was a remainder that the librarian gave to me.

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read, right up there with Infinite Jest, King Lear, and The Fortress of Solitude. Everyone should read this book before they die.

Blue (Moby Dick), Jackson Pollock. 1943.