My Year In Books

So I read a lot more in 2007 than I have in the past couple of years. Part of this is because I haven't been in school for the calendar year, so I didn't have much requried reading to throw me off. It is also partly because I was more anti-social this year than I have been in awhile. But, as always, I still didn't read enough.

Reading is the ultimate alone-but-still-connected activity. The reader has an intimate and symbiotic relationship with the author. The author has decided the language, the characters, the context, the setting, but only the reader can assign sounds and images and the mental details and judgements which the author left out. In a sense, the author creates a vague set of directions, but it is up to the reader to observe, as she is on the journey and each individual experience will be different and unique. Without the reader, the author wouldn't exist (at least his book contract wouldn't) and without the author, the reader wouldn't get access to such a godly feelings of omniscience that fiction can bring.

A novel may have certain philosophies, the author may assign her characters certain traits and a few clues to the visual appearance of the characters and locations, but it is the reader who takes these fragments and forms them into a cohesive, living world inside their mind. The author may preliminarily set the time frame in which the story begins and ends, but the reader has the last say over the elasticity of the conclusion. If they don't like the book, the reader can smash the cover on the author's world hundreds of pages before the author envisioned his creation's story would end. And even when the book ends, the characters and stories can continue far beyond bounds created by the physicality of a cardboard book cover: I constantly hear Holden Caulfield's caustic cynicism as I journey through the everyday world; Kilgore Trout has been creating fantastical observations and plots in my head, even since Vonnegut has died; Sam Spade has been informing me of how he would react in certain sticky situations.

I'm setting a goal to read 45 books next year, which I can do as long as I manage my time well. I want to include more histories and biographies than I did this year, but fiction is closest to my heart, so I'll see how it goes. I didn't make any goals about reading in 2007, but after compiling the list of what I read (there may be a few I'm not remember just right now), I figured I'd set a number goal for 2008, the ideal is to beat it, but I'll at least meet the mark. I won't be including books assigned by the classes I'll be taking at school.

On the list are a few books I started this year but didn't finish (I usually am reading at least 3 or 4 at a time, sometimes books will escape me and lose them in the shuffle) are Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Crossing To Safety by Wallace Stegner, Jay Anthony Lukas' account of class and turn-of-the-20th Century Western United States, Big Trouble, and David McCullogh's John Adams. Also on the list is: David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Gregory Prince and Robert Wright, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Strong Opinions, a collection of letters, reviews and such by Vladimir Nabokov, In The Arena by Richard M. Nixon, Jonathan Franzen's Strong Motion and Steinbeck's East of Eden, which I started to fall in love with a couple of years back, but was derailed by school a hundred pages into it. Any suggestions for the 2008 list?

Here's the 2007 list of what I read:


Immortality - Milan Kundera

Refuge - Terry Tempest Williams

A Kind of Flying - Ron Carlson

Practical Demon Keeping - Christopher Moore
A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore
The Stupidist Angel - Christopher Moore

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

The Twenty-Seventh City - Jonathan Franzen

The Tie That Binds - Kent Haruf

No Country For Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy

Without Remorse - Tom Clancy

Coronado - Dennis Lehane

The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett

The March - E.L. Doctorow

On Beauty - Zadie Smith
The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith

Letting Loose The Hounds - Brady Udall

Laughter In The Dark - Vladimir Nabokov

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers

The Final Solution - Michael Chabon

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

No One Belongs Here More Than You - Miranda July

Choke - Chuck Palahniuk

Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin - Gordon Wood

Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer

Merry Christmas!

In lieu of writing a long post or digging myself in a deeper theological hole (see previous post) so close to Christmas, I'll give you all the gift of humorist/essayist David Sedaris. "The SantaLand Diaries" put Sedaris on the map after it aired in December, 1992 on NPR's Morning Edition. It is one of my favorite Christmas stories, as it recalls his holiday season as an elf at the SantaLand within the Macy's Department store in New York City. Sedaris is always gold in his writing - very self-deprecating and full of wit and observation - but hearing him perform them in his dry, almost disconnected, subdued manner brings out a magic in his work that just can't be matched when read internally. Hope you all find joy and love this holiday season, that you give as much as you receive. Merry Christmas.


David Sedaris - The SantaLand Diaries


Purchase fine works by David Sedaris from Amazon

Drive-By Truckers - The Mike Cooley Files

2007 ain't quite through yet, but 2008 is bringing a triple dose of good news from one of my favorite bands, Drive-By Truckers, as they are releasing a brand spanking new album Brighter Than Creation's Dark and getting their back catalog released on vinyl and happen to be stopping in Salt Lake for a show on February 20th. I have no idea what or where The Paladium is (must be a new venue, but can I maybe cross my fingers that the old Zephyr Club is re-opening under this name?) but that is where I'll be on that cold winter evening. If you haven't experienced DBT live for their Rock Show, you haven't truly experienced Rock 'N Roll. I'm dead serious.

The Truckers are one of the most criminally under-appreciated bands in America - the only band in the country I can think of that has been producing music at or above their level this decade is Wilco. Much like the Jeff Tweedy & Co. Drive-By Truckers are a truly American experience. I think one of the reasons they are discounted by some is because they are often labeled "southern rock", probably because of their 2001 concept album Southern Rock Opera.
If pressed, I would simply call them Americana - but if you like your rock with a pedal steel and some twang in the electric guitars, this band is definitely for you. The band is down one stellar songwriter in Jason Isbell (playing in at Suede on February 2nd), but they still boast two great ones in Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley (plus Shonna Tucker even takes lead vocals on a few of her songs on the new album!).

I'm gonna end up posting more on DBT in the coming while, so I figured I'd start with a killer mix of my favorite band member, Mike Cooley. His songs are detailed enough to feel personal, yet broadly themed to feel universal and he can turn a line better than almost anyone writing in rock today. Oh, and dude freakin' owns on the kind of guitar licks that make you pump your fist in the air.

Some of my favorite Cooley lines:

"Well, my daddy didn’t pull out, but he never apologized / Rock and Roll means well, but it can’t help tellin’ young boys lies." - from "Marry Me"

"And don't ever let them make you feel like saying what you want is unbecoming / If you were supposed to watch you're mouth all the time I doubt your eyes would be above it." - from "Gravity's Gone"

"You say you're tired of me taking you for granted / Waiting' up till the last minute to call you up and see what you want to do / Well you're only fifteen, girl, you ain't got no secretary / And "for granted" is a mighty big word for a country girl like you." - from "Zip City"

"We've been this close to death before, we were just too drunk to know it / Guess the price of being sobers being scared out of your mind ... Living in fear's just another way of dying before your time." -- from "Shut Up and Get on the Plane"

DBT: The Cooley Files
(pay close attention to "Space City" and "Loaded Gun in the Closet" - the lyrics and musical accompaniment are unbelievably beautiful)

A Ghost to Most
Marry Me (live)
Space City
Guitar Man Upstairs
Women Without Whiskey
Where The Devil Don't Stay
Loaded Gun in the Closet
Gravity's Gone
Zip City
Shut Up and Get on the Plane

MLB's day of reckoning?

The day has come that all baseball fans have been fearing, even if they've been trying to deny it: the league has a massive problem with players using performance-enhancing drugs and it's a widespread issue, not just limited to the few sluggers (Barry Bonds, Rafeal Palmero, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco) previously fingered. Indeed, the users ranged the positions, even the pitchers got in on it. It's like Curt Schilling once said, it's not like hitters are the only ones doping, wouldn't steroids help you throw harder too?

I've written about it before, but now that George Mitchell's report has been made public, it is an issue that the sport of baseball and all those involved can no longer ignore or try to pin on a few people. Perhaps the most astounding aspect of Mitchell's investigation, is that his information is culled from so few cooperating (under threat of prosecution) sources, but seems so wide in its inclusiveness of players. This likely tells that anabolic steroid and human growth hormone use in baseball are much more prevalent than this report was able to identify. As the cliche goes, it's just the tip of the iceberg.

From the sources in the New York Yankees and New York Mets organizations and what was found through the Bay Area Laboratories Co-Operative (BALCO) cooperators, clubs and players from around the league were implicated, as were the player's union and commissioner's office and league owners (from what I've read in the report, economics always took precedence in trying to monitor and combat illegal drug use in the majors).

One interesting fact that the Mitchell Report revealed was that players who used didn't necessarily succeed. Sure, there were the big stars like Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Miguel Tejada who were accused, but the majority of the 80 or so players mentioned were essentially non-impact players who spent only a few years in the Major Leagues.

Commissioner Bud Selig (disclosure time: I've never been a fan: he ruined the meaning of the All-Star game) has vowed to punish those active players who have "hurt the integrity of the game." What does that mean? How is that defined? How do you punish players who were named by a couple of people (many without corroboration) which basically come down to heresy? My guess is he will try to push more blame onto Bonds, who is facing legal trouble in a perjury and obstruction of justice case, and brush away the others as not damaging to baseball's integrity. Don't expect a lot to come of this report, it will be hard enough for the Commissioner's Office and Players Association to hammer get together in the same room, let alone hammer out an effective drug-testing policy. As long as the fans keep coming and don't demand it by withholding their Visa cards from merchandise and box offices, not much will happen.

Also, this report doesn't even touch baseball's dirty little secrete: the fact that amphetamines have been widely used in the major leagues since the long bus-trip days of the 1950's and 60's to keep player's stamina and alertness up.


The Morality of Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports

The question that remains is: should the players, the owners and the fans care if players are using steroids or HGH or amphetamines? Obviously, none of us (including myself) has cared very much up until the past few years, if at all. Technically, everybody was winning while they were being used. We the fans got to enjoy dramatic races for home run records and top-notch pitching performances, the players (who used and succeeded) likely got more money through salaries and endorsements, as well as beefing their stats, while owners gained profit through attendance and merchandising revenues gained from the amazing performances of doped-up players.

But what morals are there to be had in sports? Should there be any at all? If the point of sports is to win (sure, playing the game is fun and all, but on a professional level, you win or lose, there is one champion and 20-plus losers every year), then why not gain every conceivable advantage one can to do so? Where do we draw the line in what is performance-enhancing and what is not?
So let's say that using steroids or HGH gives an athlete an unfair advantage over others. What about supplements and vitamins? Or access to trainers and equipment? Or altitude variance? Should the Olympics say that all competing athletes must train on the same equipment, have the same access to trainers in all countries so as not to gain unfair advantage, thus assuring that the very best athletic performance is rewarded, not the most well-funded programs?

I think there's a root problem in trying to lay down morals and ethics in sports, just as there is in war, because they are both about competition and victory. If the mindset is one of winning a gold medal or world championship, then when one has an opportunity to gain advantage in order to have a competitive edge, it must be taken. Why else would one be competing if not to win? Is it unfair to attempt to put athletic competition into a box with morality and ethics? Are they compatible with each other?

I'm honestly not sure. I like the idea of athletes competing and winning based on sheer skill and talent, but I can see why all the cheaters we've seen in sports lately did it, when all that is at stake and the mentality of competition is put into context. Sometimes I wonder if we should just do like the old Saturday Night Live "Drug Olympics" sketch and allow anything and everything to gain a competitive edge. Wouldn't the playing field be more even?

Until this all gets figured out, until testing becomes reliable and all of the parties involved make an honest and concerted effort to combat the drug problem in professional sports, I will still be a fan. I'll love baseball as long as I live, if not for its purity then also for its flaws.

Beautiful Birdsongs in the City of Angels

I return from Los Angeles unscathed, yet somewhat disillusioned by the freeze that has entrenched itself along the Wasatch Front. I always forget someting when I travel, this time it was my toothbrush (which as to be the most-oft forgotten item in traveling) and, sadly, the digital camera. Boo to me.

Some things I noticed: I don't get what a lot of people around Utah (or the U.S.) are doing complaining about Spanish being too prevelant. A common comment I hear is "learn the language or leave". Most of the arguments against immigration in the country I have heard sound couched in racism, now and historically, whether it be against Irish, Italians, the Slavic or Hispanics. Driving around L.A. (and whenever I visit a true metropolitan) reminded me just how much the United States is an immigrant country, that it is essentially hypocritical for us to carry on in such a way that some do, talking about deporting people who have lived here for years working hard and depriving their children (who have done nothing wrong) of basic rights in healthcare and education. Koreatown, Thaitown, Chinatown - these are all unique elements that add to Los Angeles's identity in a positive way. Incidentally, people of Hispanic descent are now the largest ethnic "group" in the city.

The consumerism aspect was great, in a used sort of way. I spent bills quite freely and got two (used) shirts, a new (very slightly used) pair of sneakers, a (used)hoodie and a new hat (as if I don't have enough of those) at Buffalo Exchange and narrowed the dozens of vinyl finds at Ameoba Records to Los Lobos, Sunset Rubdown, George Jones, The National, Randy Newman and Camper Van Beehtoven. (I could literally spend days there. I made a foray over to the hip/hop and electronica sections only to run away - my list was already too large from browsing just the rock.) I also picked up an Andrew Bird vinyl and tee at the concert.



About the concert: Andrew Bird was amazing, spectacular. I never realized what a presence he is on stage - a true showman. The music that he creates live is overwhelmingly beautiful - I've listened to and loved his records, but seeing him pull it off live gives such depth to his talent and adds an extra dimension to the musical textures he creates. Decked out in a three-piece suit, he played a few songs solo, just him, his violin and his loop pedal, before bringing out Martin Dosh (his great solo work can be found on one of my favorite labels, anticon) and Jeremy Ylvisaker to join him for the remainder of the show. He covered a lot of territory from his two most recent albums - Armchair Apocrypha and The Mysterious Production of Eggs, threw in a few older tunes and played a new one - about "if humans were to evolve into something else in the space of their own lifetime" called, I believe, "Anom-A." It was the best live show I have seen in a long time, certainly the most moving I've seen this year. There points when the beauty of it all nearly brought me to tears. It was so intimate that I felt throughout the show that he wasn't playing for a crowd of a couple thousand, but rather for me a dozen people in a small room (and the Orpheum's architecture and atmosphere were a boon to the music).

I've a good bit of Bird lately. Oh well, here's more, along with some Dosh. "Simple X" is one that Andrew Bird put lyrics to a Dosh song, "Simple Exercises." Listen for Bird's violin samples on "Um, Circles and Squares". It's hard to miss.

Andrew Bird - Measuring Cups (Live) (from Fingerlings 3)
Andrew Bird - Simple X (from Armchair Apocrypha)
Dosh - Simple Exercises (from Pure Trash)
Dosh - Um, Circles and Squares (from The Lost Take)
Dosh - I Think I'm Getting Married (from Pure Trash)

A parting post - Rothko, Radiohead and a poem

Tomorrow, I head to Los Angeles for a weekend of Andrew Bird at the The Orpheum Theatre, Amoeba Music (then I'll have visited all three locations), Buffalo Exchange, good food, and most importantly, solid time away from work and landlock. Hopefully there will be reportage from the battle front, some good vinyl and wardrobe finds, and as always, intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. Or at least some good laughs.

Upon departing, I leave you with a poem I wrote several years ago, the painting which inspired the poem, by one of my favorite artists, Mark Rothko, and two songs from the bonus b-sides disc of Radiohead's recent release, In Rainbows. "Last Flowers" and "4 Minute Warning" are the two most simply constructed songs on the disc and they show how easy it is for Radiohead to write straightforward, beautiful tunes, even if it is their complicated compisitions that give them their most praise. What amazes me about the band is just how great even their b-sides are. Rothko and Radiohead share a cozy place near my soul. Last time I checked, you could find the Rothko original at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Mark Rothko, No. 14, 1960

No. 14, 1960

The docent asked how it made us feel,
A pallette of red, darkness.
"Violence."
"Rage."
"Hate."
Heads bobbed in unison.
Their assumptions soon validated
By the guide's eager gossip,
Your late-life suicide.

As the group's feet echoed
Unenthusiastically into another atrium
I stood, transfixed with warmth,
Alone in the pure passion -
Your painting.

Emotion framed on canvas.
A scraggly, fading rectangle surrounded
By a deep crimson darkness.

Life is simple and messy and pure.

-J.D. Nielsen

Last Flowers
4 Minute Warning

Respite from weather and politics

After the politics and the snow, here's a few tunes. Once again, they include Philip Glass from his Solo Piano and Godspeed You! Black Emporer, this time from the live from their John Peel Session. Concluding the music is another post-rock song from Explosions In The Sky's The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place.


"Obsolescence is the leading product of our national infatuation with technology, and I now believe that obsolescence is not a darkness but a beauty: not perdition but salvation. The more headlong the progress of technological development, the greater the volume of obsolete detritus. And the detritus isn't simply material. It's angry religion, resurgent countercultural ideologies, the newly unemployed, the eternally unemployable. These are the fiction writer's gurantee that he or she will never be alone. Obsolescence is our legacy."

-- Jonathan Franzen from the essay "Scavenging" (which can be found in How To Be Alone)

Godspeed You! Black Emporer - Hungover As The Queen in Maida Vale

Philip Glass - Wichita Sutra Vortex

Explosions In The Sky - First Breath After Coma