Monkey Business

Day 160 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and Gus is reading one of the volumes of The Diaries of Anais Nin, because he was charmed by the interior notation of the previous owner, down to notes all over the bookmark!

Tony will, I hope, eventually be reading Outcasts United, the soccer/refugee book by Warren St. John that I won as a door prize at St. John's reading, because today is his birthday (Tony's), and I will be giving it to him, a signed copy! Right now, he's still reading the library copy of Last Call, the Prohibition book.

I am reading, among other things, The Never-Ending, by Andrew Hudgins, winner of the 1988 Poets' Prize, because of my poetry addiction. Very pertinent: "Heat Lightning in a Time of Drought, " which opens, "My neighbor, drunk, stood on his lawn and yelled, / Want some! Want some!" Not that any of my neighbors would do this, but it is very hot here, and it just won't rain.

I have heard Hudgins read some poems aloud. Gosh, he grips me on the page and in person. A wow poet.

A woman in the store today will be reading Caps for Sale to kids, I hope. She found the one copy I've ever seen come into the shop during my time there, a favorite of mine since the days of Captain Kangaroo, where I first encountered this picture book by Esphyr Slobodkina. It's A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business.

Have you ever fallen asleep in or under a tree?!

When I'm 64: A Study in Red High-Tops

Day 64 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project. Today I am tying up some loose ends, because if I don't, I might forget, trip over them, and fall over.

Tony is still reading In Cold Blood and is not very far into the book as life keeps him pretty busy. He is in fact on page 19, if we are to respect the evidence of the bookmark, a former grocery list.

The loose end I am tying up here is that, yes, he is reading it because he recently viewed the film Capote, not the film In Cold Blood, which he has never seen. I fear that Robert Blake, who played murderer Perry Smith in that film, is still a loose end, or a loose cannon. Life has creepy little ironies, in that Blake was tried and acquitted for the murder of his wife, in real life, in still mysterious circumstances, and called "a miserable human being" by the district attorney. Blake certainly played Perry Smith as a miserable human being, one inspiring pity as well as revulsion, in In Cold Blood.

Speaking of bookmarks, Andrew Hudgins recommends their use in a funny little essay, "Dummies Book for Dummies," in the current issue of River Styx, the 35th anniversary issue. It also has "killer" poems in it by Loren Graham, Jennifer Perrine, and Mather Schneider, to list just the first 3 writers. Mather Schneider is my favorite taxi driver/poet ever, and I was in Tucson once, waiting for a van at the airport, half wishing he'd come along and I'd get to meet him, half scared to get into the cab, but that isn't what happened, anyway. Every poem I read by him punches me in the heart.

Speaking of Tony, I have acquired his birthday present! It is a signed copy of Outcasts United, about the Fugees soccer team and resettling refugees in a small southern community, by Warren St. John, briefly discussed twice before in this blog, as the Tale for Two Cities in this area, and also being read by several communities across the country in the "big read" and "one book, one city" programs going on to encourage reading, thinking, and conversation.

I got to hear the author speak on Monday night, and my blue ticket won me a door prize! I shouted "Yay!" (much to the author's delight) as I had returned my copy to the library but really, really wanted Tony to read it, as he is both a coach and a refugee! (Don't worry. Tony, though my husband, does not read my blog, not even, I trust, if I post it at Facebook, so his birthday present is still a surprise! It is hidden in my closet. I am telling you where I have put it, so you can tell me when I forget this little loose end....)

Now to the high-tops. My daughter has outgrown her everyday shoes (retired volleyball shoes, as she has a new pair of those, only for the gym floor), and needed some new ones: Converse All Stars, gray. I needed some new ones, too, as I walk a lot, and had worn holes through the soles of all my tennis shoes. She was horrified that I might choose the same style and color as hers, so I said, "What about red high-tops?" which I have always wanted.

There was eye-rolling and dismay. I was viewed lovingly as a miserable human being.

But now I have some.

Outcasts United Again

Day 50 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project.

First, a short knotted string of coincidences: Sarah Jane reports in a comment that she is reading a collection of essays, edited by Harold Bloom, on Jude the Obscure, the last novel by Thomas Hardy. After that, and the reception of scandalized critics, he wrote only poetry and drama, much of which I just riffled through when a Library of America edition of his works passed through my hands at Babbitt's Books.

Co-worker Jo, a Hardy scholar, and a reader of mysteries, just finished "a police procedural" (a term I wasn't aware of till she spoke it, apparently a kind of mystery focused on what the police do to solve it) by Peter Turnbull and is taking up The Man from Beijing, by Henning Mankell, a mystery set in Sweden and Beijing, among other places.

And Bill, poetry editor for The Hardy Review, and Jo's former professor, just emailed to have me update my bio to publish with 4 poems in the spring issue. The poems touch on Hardy themes of tragic accident, erotic love, intense weather, and biography.

Jude was a social outcast with thwarted dreams of being a scholar,working as a mason instead. (I am tempted to mention the tomes of "secret" Masonic literature we continue to receive at Babbitt's. Which reminds me, inevitably, of Peggy Sue Got Married, immediately lifting the mood to silliness.) And very soon, I will embark on another close reading of The Scarlet Letter, and spend some time Hester the seamstress, another social outcast.

But for now, I'll say that I have finished the "Tale for Two Cities" selection for my twin cities: Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference, by Warren St. John, and look forward to hearing the author speak on April 12 at the fabulous new hotel and conference center in our little town. (This hotel will allow more academic conferences to take place here, where we have two universities.)

The young soccer players in this book are "social outcasts" in America only because they are outwardly different from their neighbors in small-town Georgia, having been cast out from various homelands for various reasons, often experiencing terrible trauma and violence. But soccer gives them a home and a team and a way to bond with others and, eventually, with the larger community.

This is more than a "feel good" story, even if the eventual movie might make it into that, and one certainly does not feel good reading about what has happened to these families before they got to Georgia, nor what they often encountered here. It is a fine and balanced account, resulting from "immersion" journalism (like the "participant observer" journalism of Truman Capote for In Cold Blood, but producing true non-fiction, not Capote's hybrid novel, which my husband is reading right now.)

Having mentioned Rick Bragg and his plagiarism woes earlier in this blog, I was struck by St. John's meticulous and abundant acknowledgements at the back of this paperback edition of the book, and this sentence in particular: "Times bylines usually carry only one or two names, a convention that hardly does justice to the true tally of people who contribute to each story." St. John's true tally is impressive, and he credits all those who helped with articles on The Fugees soccer team published in the New York Times as well as all those who helped with the book emerging from his immersion reporting.

"Reporters, it might be said, scour for facts in the hope of uncovering truths, and while the former may make the page, the latter take root in the mind and heart." St. John then deeply and sweetly thanks the players and families who have clearly taken root in his mind and heart. I was also thinking here of how his objective reporting of the facts allowed me uncover possible truths between the lines, and also to accept a number of complexities and ambiguities that simply can't be easily reported or resolved. They exist.

A Tale of Two Cities

Day 36 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project.

Candace is reading a book about corn.

And I think I know why. There is a permanent Agriculture exhibit at the museum where she works, and a new exhibit on food & music in the planning, and the Farmers Market will be coming in the summer, and, eventually, lots of corn. And local poets will read poems about corn and farming and food and folk music at the museum sometime this summer. I will announce it here, no doubt. And I have corn earrings.

Late in the summer we have the annual Corn Festival, which used to be in one of our twin cities and is now in the other. A corny transition....

...to a Tale for Two Cities, a local event like The Big Read in towns and cities all over the USA, in which people in our particular twin cities read the same book, and the two public libraries offer multiple copies of it and a series of book-related events.

This year's mutual read in our two cities is: Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference by Warren St. John. We will meet the author, hear experts speak on a variety of topics, meet some Lost Boys of Sudan, and see the movies Bend It Like Beckham, The Cup, God Grew Tired of Us, Kicking It, and War Dance.

Yes, this is a book about soccer! And people! And the world! Ongoing wars and conflicts, the plight of refugees. And small-town America. I started loving it from the introduction, which contrasts the coaching styles of a silent coach who respects her players and lets them play and a "screamer," and I hope my husband will read it, too, as he's a coach and not a screamer.

Meanwhile, Chicago is reading Brooklyn by Colm Toibin for the One Book, One Chicago program, and this is something I'll hope to read in the future. I enjoyed his novel The Master, in the style of Henry James. (But whenever I hear "the Master," I think of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, one of my favorite books ever, but one my mom could not finish....She gets impatient with fantasy, so she was probably annoyed when the Devil came to Moscow.)

So now I have mentioned more than two cities: Chicago, Moscow, and our twin cities of Bloomington-Normal (via the library & museum links).

And lest Charles Dickens feel neglected for no real reference to A Tale of Two Cities, I will link for him here to Amazon, add an image because I like the lilies of the valley on this particular cover, and remind us that this whole daily book blog thing began with everybody reading Dickens. And, hey, young man came into Babbitt's yesterday in search of Dickens and found some, leaving happy! And if you too are addicted to books, you will be happy to greet spring at the Normal Public Library book sale this weekend!