Notes on supply, demand and the possible benefits of a curator

The Sunday Times book review ran an article on the growing print-on-demand industry. (iUniverse, one of the companies profiled, also has a hella classy full-page ad towards the back of the section.) The phrase "farm team" is used to describe print-on-demand publishers, which got me thinking...

A couple of years ago, Warren Ellis argued that people don't generally look at the publisher when making purchases. He was referring to comics, but the same thing applies to literary fiction, books on history, or music criticism: I can't think that people walk into their local bookstore saying, "I need the latest novel that HarperCollins released!"

That said, it does seem as though more indie publishers have cultivated an image closer to indie record labels than large publishing houses. Akashic specializes in books on politics and crime fiction; McSweeney's and TNI are more eclectic in their catalogs, but those catalogs nonetheless have the same sort of generally shared aesthetic that one gleans when looking through a catalog from Merge or Touch & Go.

The bottom line, for me, is that it seems that it's easier and easier to get published these days -- and there's clearly an audience for books being printed on demand. (Which means their authors are reaching people, which means they're doing something right, and I can't argue with that.) All of which boils down to this: there's going to be a lot more to read out there in the coming years. And I sometimes wonder if the curatorial model -- i.e. that popularized by smaller presses, where you can make an educated guess that if you liked the last release you'll dig as upcoming one as well -- won't grow in popularity in the coming years.

Words on words on music

I've been meaning to write something about Colin Meloy's book on the Replacements' Let it Be for months now. It's part of Continuum's series of books about major rock albums; I've reviewed two others elsewhere. Meloy's one of a few rockers who's contributed an entry to this series: Joe Pernice, Franklin Bruno, and Bill Janovitz have all chimed in on the authorial side of things as well. Meloy's book resonated deeply for me (in the same way that a lot of his songs do) because of its admission of, well, being someone who essentially stumbled into music.

Meloy takes the route here of writing about the album by evoking his life during the time around when he first heard Let It Be -- and thus, this 120-odd-page book is more memoir than anything else. And he captures, remarkably well, the feeling of buying a record when no one else you knew had heard of the bands you dug, of hearing something that sounded so alien, so far removed from anything you were familiar with, that it was positively thrilling. I can relate: I essentially stumbled into underground music, initially baffled by a friend's explanation of hardcore but fascinated by, say, Fugazi's Repeater. Meloy doesn't put on a jaded, seen-it-all persona here; he's charming and awkward and painfully honest. They're the same qualities that make the best songs he's written so memorable, and this book -- while it does evoke the college-rock hereoes of yesteryear -- also helps explain to a large extent the roots of Meloy's own music.

Read "Moneyball", did you?

Readers of Michael Lewis's excellent Moneyball would do well to peruse the cover story of this week's Times magazine cover story. And if you haven't yet read Lewis's book, you should; it made someone like me, who's been to one major league game in the past decade find the game newly fascinating.

The Talented Mr. Hill

I've meant to write for months now on Zach Hill's Destroying Yourself Is Too Accessible. And, so far, I....haven't. It's a confounding work -- not unlike Grant Morrison and Philip Bond's And We're All Policemen, it's a hell of a ride, but I'm still unsure as to what it all means. Nonetheless -- Hill's written a book that seems to be too cerebral for me to understand; he plays drums for one of the most interesting bands out there right now, and has a host of other projects to boot. I'm reviewing the new Hella double album for Earlash one of these days, and I'll more'n likely have more thoughts on Destroying Yourself... at that time.

I was going to strive for some grand unifying theory linking Hill's book with Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red, which I'm about three-quarters of the way through. Pamuk's book is, in part, about illustrated manuscripts, and Hill's book is itself an illustrated work -- I mean, that in and of itself is a launchpad for a crackpot critical theory, right? Well, maybe not.

There's a reading going on...inside my iPod

A thought.

I've had podcasts on the brain lately. The last month or so has been something of a crash course in 'em -- a friend and I now run one, and it seems as though they're very easy and inexpensive to get onto the web. (Thank you, libsyn).

I was at a reading tonight that, I'd say, around forty to fifty people attended. (That's a good thing, in my book -- the room itself was packed.) And it's now very likely that I will purchase a book from at least one, if not both of the authors who read. So here's something that I wonder: given that nearly everything I've read recently observing the world of book publishing mentions that book sales are down, that culturally, we're less literary than we once were, etcetera etcetera, there's a part of me that wonders if podcasting couldn't be utilized here to some extent.

(I realize that my newfound enthusiasm for podcasting may be reminiscent of, um, the irrational exuberance that led to the late-90s tech boom....but hear me out.)

Recording live audio wouldn't, I'd imagine, be all that hard -- I assume a laptop with some basic audio-recording software could do a decent enough job recording the human voice. You set your laptop up, you record, you upload. The authors end up with something that's going to promote what they do to more than the fifty or one hundred people at the reading itself; the venue ends up with something that'll draw more people, in theory, to their site; the publisher, in theory, sells more -- seems relatively win-win. The only thing that I'd think might be problematic is copyright issues -- but given that WNYC, among others, has embraced podcasting, I don't know how much of an issue this would be.

Obviously, this isn't workable for everyone -- and authors who may not be the most charismatic readers might not fare too well. But I can't think that it wouldn't be fairly easy to get something like this off the ground, if it hasn't happened already.

Good readings with beer are even better readings

Earlier tonight, I made my way over to Pete's Candy Store to hear readings from Jonathan Dee and Sam Lipsyte. It was my first time going to a reading there, despite the fact that this biweekly series has been taking place for the last five years, and I've lived the same distance from Pete's for all five of them. The space itself -- generally host to lower-key, often acoustic shows -- is pretty ideal for readings: the acoustics are good, and there's a generally warm feel throughout. I arrived early, unsure of what size crowd to expect, and bought a Yuengling at the bar. After I'd been there for about fifteen minutes, people began filing from the bar area to the performance space, and I followed. Found myself a seat; waited for things to start.

I'd read a lot about both of the authors, but have yet to read any of their books. (I did spend the better part of a year fascinated by the cover of Lipsyte's The Subject Steve on the shelves at St. Marks Books, though.) Having gotten a better sense of both of their work, I daresay that's going to change, and soon. (Though probably not too soon -- my current read, Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red, is fascinating but slow going). Dee offered up a brief excerpt from a novel in progress, while Lipsyte read a short story. I'd say that they shared the quality of being comic, but that wouldn't be entirely accurate: Dee's piece had a slow-building, emotional fragile edge to it, while Lipsyte's was more satiric in tone and grimmer in its humor.

***

I'll have some more thoughts on this reading -- and readings in general -- later on tonight or tomorrow. The next one at Pete's is on the 28th, with Ben Greenman and Dika Lam. And, more'n likely, I'll be there.

Comics about comics

Films about filmmaking practically constitute a genre unto themselves -- except, of course, that the stories told in these films range from the comedic to the emotionally wrenching. Hell, even within the subgenre of satirical films about filmmaking, you've got work as stylistically diverse as State and Main and The Player. Novels about novelists are, I daresay, even more common. I can't think of nearly as many graphic novels about the art of making comics; I'm not sure if that's because of an uncertainty in the form itself, or because the form itself hasn't been around long enough, or something else entirely.

Nonetheless, the topic for discussion here is precisely that. Specifically: Neil Kleid's Ninety Candles. It's a short work -- described on the cover as a "graphic novella" -- with the life of a cartoonist at its center. There's a rigid structure to it: each year in the life of its protagonist is shown in one panel, with some accompanying dialogue. It's not the sort of structure one would guess would suit a biography, and yet Kleid makes it work. My previous exposure to Kleid's work came via Stable Rods, a minicomic in which a father and son discuss -- I'll quote Kleid's Rant Comics site here -- "rules, society and the Jewish Defense League.". There, the story was told entirely through dialogue, with accompanying images that enhanced, rather than depicted, the events.

The obvious comparison here -- and one I'm about to make -- would be to Daniel Clowes's Pussey!, also a graphic novel telling the life story of a man involved in comics. And yet -- while Kleid's Kevin Hall does endure some wrenching moments in his story, Kleid is less concerned with making his protagonist suffer and more with exploring the idea of an art passed down across generations. Which is not to say that Ninety Candles will leave you grinning throughout: even when he's found success, Hall never quite looks happy; there's always a plaintive look on his face. (Kleid achieves a lot with a relatively minimal style). And while the ending's a positive one, it's a hardwon, bittersweet positivity.

There's something else taking place here, and I didn't honestly notice it until a few weeks after I'd finished reading. This is a story that, by its very nature, spans nearly a century. Protagonist Hall is, as far as I can tell, born into a post-Jack Kirby world -- and thus, Kleid is very subtly arguing for his conviction that comics, as an institution, will be with us for a very long time.

Damn, Akashic

A second volume of Brooklyn Noir? I still need to check out the first... Though I am somewhat confused about the "masters of yore" tag applied to Colson Whitehead and Jonathan Lethem. Amazing writers? No question -- hell, if nothing else, the promise of short fiction from both of them will get me to fork over $16. But..."yore"? Huh. Lovecraft and Westlake, sure...

But it's late, and I'm easily baffled at this hour.

(Disclaimer: At one point, back in the days of my first blog in 2000/2001, Brooklyn Noir editor Tim McLoughlin was a reader thereof. There was something kind of amazing about being able to write about having just read or listened to something and subsequently being emailed by its author or maker; that may very well have been one of the factors that's kept me blogging in one form or another for nearly -- (glances at calendar) -- five years.)

Everything old, and so on

"New Adventures in Censorship" says the alternet headline, but it's hardly a new adventure for Judy Blume's Forever to be on somebody's shit list. But last year Blume won the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which she well deserves. And book challenges are still madly popular among the narrow-minded, no matter the popularity of the book. Harry Potter is satanic; Francesca Lia Block, the recipient of this year's Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement, is still getting attacked by groups like Parents Against Bad Books in Schools; Chris Crutcher's Whale Talk is riling people up all over the place. And on top of all the challenges and outright bannings, there are the neverending debates about whether books for teens are too depressing or too lightweight, too dark or too fluffy. Does it matter? Frankly, I don't think so. Teens love the Gossip Girl series, of which I read the first, rolled my eyes, and put down for good, and they love Laurie Halse Anderson, whose Speak is told in the voice of one of the truest, most believable teen narrators I can think of.

Laurie's most recent book, Prom, just debuted on the New York Times "chapter books" bestseller list at #8, which makes me want to jump up and down and cheer. I read it in a night, ignoring the Curb Your Enthusiasm DVD my roommates were cackling at, and I'm still marveling at just how well Laurie succeeded at what she set out to do: write a novel for the normal kids. Huzzah to that.

I had something else to talk about, but I forget it now. I get wrapped up in the YA stuff, y'know.

Oh! It was this! (Via Bookslut.) I, well, I love that place. I miss it like I suspect I'll miss no other job, ever. But still, all the way on the other side of the country, I somehow missed the announcement that Roger Straus died last year (this story, while not an obit, is a good one). TMFTML said it best, if snarkily: "You can probably get a table today at Union Square Cafe: Former CIA covert operative Roger Straus has died."

I'm going to get back to work now, and count myself lucky I ever had him pat me on the shoulder as he passed me in the hall.

Feed me.

Hello, world. At long last, Blogger has deigned to let me join my own (and Toby's) blog. Don't mind the drywall and unfinished countertops; we're still getting this thing off the ground. But, in the spirit of this whole idea, I couldn't wait to post. Why? I bought Kitchen Confidential yesterday. It was on a tragic whim: The Book Mark, a downtown bookstore I adore for its spare shelves, semi-friendly staff and impressive magazine section, is having a "Retirement Sale." For now, it's just 20% off; I assume the prices will shrink along with the selection as the end draws near.

But the point is the book. The damn book. I read 100 pages last night. Engrossing, obscene, endlessly fascinating (to borrow a NYT quote about the play Copenhagen, though I might be a little off) and almost enough to put me off some of my beloved fish. Elaine Brown, I salute you; If you hadn't been reading A Cook's Tour in Melbourne two years ago, if I hadn't been dating a Scot and thus picked it up and thumbed through, stopping at the haggis section, I would never have known to pick this one up. More, please, now. And as soon as we get through the first episode of the fifth season of Angel, I'll curl up in bed and get more. Which is not at all like it sounds.