Kind of excited/scared to do this.....

Gearing up for this....NaNoWriMo

This will be a huge challenge. I'm stoked.

Canzine 2012

I love Canzine. I've been going for a long time, since it was at the old Big Bop at Queen at Bathurst. I like Broken Pencil a lot too, and subscribe. This year was no different, I went with $70 doll hairs and came home with $10. In terms of alt press stuff and regular Toronto events, I like Canzine the best, then Toronto Comics Art Festival (both are amazing, both will empty your wallet), and I also like the OCAD small press book fair and have not yet been to the Toronto Anarchist Book Fair. I like the whole thing, the way you can find total gems and silly perzines that are still engaging somehow. It's sort of a gentle world where the most mundane observational or haphazard writings can share the spotlight with meticulously crafted literary art (like Liz Worth).

So....I picked up a bunch of stuff. And took a terrible picture of it all. Starting at the top left, there are two Detour guides--written accounts by Kelly Dessaint about being tour guide/tourist trade worker in NOLA. Having been to NOLA fairly recently, I am fascinated with these. The tour guides there are amazing, if you're there for a short time it's a great way to see a lot of stuff quickly, or in the case of the 'Ghost Tour' type things, a great way to be entertained for cheap. 

The next thing is an account of how to stop washing your hair, which still fascinates me. I tried it years ago with good results but just kind of missed the ritual of shampoo, or the smell or whatever. I like the idea of DIY health and hygiene products. I already read this and it's nothing new per se, but this woman's goal is to actually only wash her hair with water alone, which I never attempted. Most techniques use baking sode and apple cider vinegar. My issue is that if it wasn't for dirty hair I would stop showering altogether, because, meh, it's a lot of fuss and bother, right? Right? Anyway. 

The next one was an impulse purchase, Small Talk a compilation from a lecture series that the writer conducted. The topics are wide ranging and looked interesting. Next is '7 Sisters of the Storm, and 'Crooked Teeth' which I bought from a nice guy that seemed shocked that someone was buying their shit. Which brings me to the other thing I love/hate about Canzine--the wrenchingly awkward exchanges with writers/artists/zinesters/artstars that are even more socially stunted than me. It's the stuff of a hundred Portlandia-type sketches, the averted eyes, crossed arms, awkward exchanges, uncomfortable fumblings with that dirty money: Eeeeek. 

Every time I have occasion to interact with the producers of my stuff, to look into the eyes of the producers, I always find it excruciating. I have no idea why. I'm uncomfortable to pick someone's stuff up, I imagine they are very invested in how it's absorbed, enjoyed, consumed. Inevitably I am rejecting more stuff than I'm enjoying or consuming, I find that hopelessly awkward too. A friend of a friend today said "yeah, it's one of the few places where you can make someone's day for $10". It's true and funny but I understand the discomfort--the typical artist is not the typical sales(wo)man, de facto. And yet, these types of events thrust the producer and consumer into the same space, to confront each others taste and temperment, for better and worse. And it can be awkward as shit. There was one really nice, outgoing (which is unusual) girl, who explained the humour of her work to me. I was forced to engage, smile and nod, accept a business card, about work that hinges on a type of humour I don't give a fuck about. She explained to me that "It's funny"--clearly I was missing the point, possibly due to a total lack of good humour. And she was nice, adding another layer of painful. 

Terribly photographed below is "Licking the Beaters 2: Vegan Chocolate and Candy" by Siue (please let that be a diminuitive of 'Siouxie') Moffat. She wrote 'Licking the Beaters', a great compilation of low fat vegan desserts. She was super nice and gave me a free pumpkin chocolate truffle for buying her last zine (which seemed backwards to me, but hey). She wrote another great short piece my partner bought about how she left the punk/hardcore scene because of rampant sexism. I can't recall the title. 

'Misfit Matriarch" seems to be a perzine about being a young punk mom. The authors kid was there, and asked repeated if I "had 2 dollars" which was incredibly fucking cute and sold the zine. I love the idea that she was prescreening the browsers, basically if you didn't have the 2 bucks, move on Clyde. 

The last thing I'm stoked on is the Liz Worth Eleven: Eleven. I had bought her chapbook "Arik's Dream" last year, and it was awesome. I guess she's also a poet, she wrote "Treat Me Like Dirt", and oral history of TOronto punk and hardcore music. But Arik's Dream is sort of a horror story that truly creates a sense of dread, apprehension and fear in the reader. She is super talented. 

The last thing I got was stuff for my partner, the comic about '500 years of resistance', basically colonialism thru the ages, plus a couple of screen printed kerchiefs, a wolf for him and a beaver for me; then the free goat head/baphomet/pentagram/silly satanic mask. 

And that was Canzine. Another amazing year. It was even catered by a vegan company which I didn't realize was vegan until after I'd left. So, yeah. 

you won't have a nervous breakdown, but you just might feel a WHOOLE lot better!

http://www.xojane.com/issues/emotional-stuffing

What it is + Cruddy

Not sure what took me so long to read Cruddy. 

I guess I'd seen it about a million times and finally bought it after reading Lynda Barry's other book about writing called What it is.
(Apropos of nothing I need to also make mention of Crispin Glover's film project called What is it)

Anyway, Cruddy was fantastic. One of the best books I ever read. It has a roadtrip, surreal passages, magical realism, teenagers acting like teenagers, and really great sensitive, smart writing.

I had picked up her other book What it is shortly before. I liked it but I couldn't really understand it as a book about writing. I realized later that what she's getting at is more a meditation on creativity. It got me thinking about how good it is to have a creative outlet and how that can really sustain a person through all manner of discomforts and hardships. She obviously has a real affinity for children and kids, talks about how her own writing and drawing created an alternate headspace to be in.

She articulates well that sort of absent minded absorption you can achieve through doing something creative, and how losing track of time and doing something (i was going to say "productive", but "creative" really is a more appropriate word) can recharge you. It made me think about how sometimes when I surf the web or online window shop or read celebrity gossip, you're supposed to find it relaxing but it can really drain you psychically. Lynda Barry seems to think you should get rid of your TV, or at least recognize it as a narcotic of sorts. You lose time watching TV and surfing the web too, but it doesn't recharge you, it can do the opposite. Don't get me wrong, I love watching certain shows and I love crappy movies. But I definitely have fallen prey to the glazed eyes, prone on the sofa type of watching too.....

She doesn't even really get into the writing exercises until about 1/2-2/3 of the way in. The book is pretty, it's all collages and drawings by her. 

She talks a lot about memories and images. How you can escape into books and drawing and writing etc. I think anyone who loves reading and loves books can relate to many of the things she said. I do remember lying in my bed in my suburban home as a teenager and specifically reading the Edie Sedgewick oral history biography, and just being so completely absorbed and fascinated that this world even existed somewhere. And losing myself in a book is still such a pleasure, the reason I keep reading all the time is for that feeling. 

There's a fantastic quote in it:

 We don't create a fanasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. 

I wasn't a huge Marlys fan, nor did I really like Ernie's Pook Comeek that much. I just loved Cruddy though. Highly recommend. 

"Harvey Pekar's Cleveland" + Derf Backderf's "Trashed"

I picked this up at the Toronto Comic Art Festival yesterday.

And just finished reading it now; it's kind of a Pekar love letter to Cleveland. It's vintage Harvey Pekar. I love him. I love how unassuming he is. He's sort of the perfect mix of nilhism and sentimentality. It's funny how someone who's persona is pure curmudgeon is actually really sensitive. I guess some people are sort of defensively pessimistic. He doesn't seem cynical though; just depressed. 

He also takes a charming pleasure in really simple things. I reminds me of other comic books artists like Chester Brown and Seth, I'm not sure if their work is influenced by Pekar (probably), or if the narrative style is some strange tic of the personality that writes comics. 

He's a autodidact and has extensive knowledge of history, literature, and jazz music. Despite all this he's totally unpretentious; if he has ambitions pertaining to his art they are separate from his working life. He works as a civil servant and says repeatedly how important it is to him to have a stable well paying gig with benefits; and how inspiring he's found the characters he works with. It's hard to say if this is a function of growing up in the aftermath of the great depression; or having Jewish socialist working class parents, or just living in Cleveland with all the economic hardships of that city. I love that about him though; that he's so totally guileless and unpretentious. Maybe because it's so rare today? 

Makes me want to rewatch the film version of American Splendor. 

He died in July 2010. 

The other cool thing I picked up was this Derf comic "Trashed" about his time working on a garbage truck after high school. It's entertaining. I've wondered about what kinds of BS garbagemen put up with; it's pretty much as you suspect. This book reminded me a little of Pekar in portraying working class life and also the Derf character is a little like Buddy Bradley. It's almost looks similiar to the Peter Bagge HATE books. 

Derf Backderf wrote another AMAZING book called "My Friend Dahmer" about a high school friendship with Jeffrey Dahmer. It's another autobiographical graphic novel, not just about his acquaintance and friendship with a guy who was to later become a notorious serial killer; but also a really effective analysis of a time and place. It basically starts in high school and ends with Derf and his peers realizing what had become of their former classmate Dahmer. He does a really good job of sketching out a portrait of a sociopathic, alcoholic teenage from a very dysfunctional family, and without pointing fingers creates some unease about how easy it is to overlook this kind of stuff in kids. I mean, I went to junior high with a kid who  shot and killed his whole family. He was weird, but really no weirder than a lot of junior/high school weirdoes, to the outsiders eye. 

Derf was at the festival, it was cool to meet him and tell him how much I (and my partner) liked the book. 

I do love the TCAF; I always get good stuff there and hear about things I wouldn't know about otherwise. It has to be said too that the people watching is unparalleled. It is the zenith of anti-fashion sartorial excellence; and the absolute rock bottom. It's a total pink haired high school girl/asymmetrical haircut/horn rimmed glasses/bettie page haired jamboree. 

Amazing Biographies

I love biographies. I especially love biographies of women. I particularly and especially love biographies of women reporting back from the dark side of drugs, sex, rock and roll, hideous abuse and underdog struggle! 
Of course I love these books with the full understanding that there is no such thing as an objective memoir. As Lidia Yuknavitch put it so well in her book you can't take memories out and handle them repeatedly without changing them. I don't confuse a good biography or autobiography with hard fact. That isn't really the point as far as I'm concerned. 


Man enough to be a Woman - Jayne County
This is a great book about a NYC punk legend. Part of its interest is that it straddles a couple of interesting worlds including the underground punk scene in NYC in the 70s; the Warhol underground; and the journey of Wayne County transitioning to Jayne in the public eye. 
The great thing about this book is she writes really frankly; she's not delicate in any way. And she's seen every sleazy joint in the world. I saw her DJ in Toronto in the early 2000s; it was great. She has also suffered poverty for most of her life and is incredibly tough. 
She winds up playing 'every toilet' in England and kind of bottoms out in Berlin in the drag scerne. 


It's basically a cross section of completely fascinating subcultures. There is also the requisite Max's Kansas City gossip including details of Jayne's ongoing feud with Handsome Dick Manitoba from the Dictators who gave her a really hard time about her gender transition. And all kinds of run ins with famous underground types. 

Whipping Girl - Julia Serano
I'm always interested in gender issues. This book has aspects of memoir but the author is also a scientist, biology researcher and an academic and basically deconstructs gender. Serano is a transwoman and as such has a lot of insight into the experience of living as a man and also as a woman. She talks a lot about cultural expectations and prejudice she experienced during transition. A couple of things stuck with me about this book; namely she gets into the issue of compounded sexism she experienced as a transwoman. Basically she found that in becoming female and giving up male privilege she was subject to a unique brand of scorn; in the case of transmen they are basically 'trading up' in society's eyes. She makes a convincing arguement that transwomen deal with another level of scorn and are trivialized for their desire to join the 'weaker' sex. There is also a part where she kind of takes heterosexual women to task for rewarding chauvinism; she observes both as a male and a female that men who posture in typical macho ways are rewarded with sex and attention by women. Her point is that if we purport to want men who are more egalitarian and more sensitized to gender issues; we should actually date those men and have sex with those men. I found that interesting. In many ways it's difficult or impossible to rejig what you find attractive in the opposite sex; I just thought she made a good point on this one.
A similiar book came out a few years ago. Written by Norah Vincent, Self Made Man  is sort of the reverse; this female journalist lives as a man for a year and writes about her experiences. It was also really interesting but I liked Serano's better I think because of her analysis. Vincent didn't transition to male either, it was basically an experiment. She does discuss the privileges she experienced as a man but I don't recall her actually dating.

Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary - Lydia Lunch
I love Lydia Lunch. She started out at age 15 in NYCs No Wave moment of the late 70s/early 80s singing in Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. She really is a one of a kind. She writes, performs spoken word and does some music too. I had the good fortune to see her a couple of times in the past few years, first at Pop Montreal with Teenage Jesus who had regrouped for the occasion. She's always amazing, totally charismatic, I'll never forget her literally kicking some emo kid off the stage with her boot. If you're not familiar with her work, I envy you actually because you can run out and experience it now! Her writing/spoken word are really aggressive, violent, sexual, visceral--she kind of presents herself as a Kali* type woman--just searing, destructive, relentless, pitiless and fucking angry. Even better she writes really well! 


*Kali: Goddess of destruction and dissolution in Hinduism; known for destroying ignorance

Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha - Dr. Ben Reitman
This is a great account of female 'hobo' during the depression, basically doing what she has to to survive.Evidently it's an actual biography transcribed by a doctor. It's the story of Bertha Thompson who became known as 'Boxcar Bertha' because of riding the rails. She gets involved in the sex trade, free love movement in radicalized NYC in the labour movement. I loved this book because it seems like you don't see many first person accounts of women living in poverty especially from the early part of the 1900s; those stories don't get told much. Bertha is also highly intelligent despite her lack of formal schooling. It's a great read. 

Edie: An American Biography - Jean Stein
This is a total classic in biographies. It's in a league of it's own, it's such an amazing account of Edie Sedgwick; the Warhol 'it' girl from the mid 1960s. It's an oral history meaning it's written from interviews with hundreds of people who knew her. She was a socialite who became an integral part of the Warhol factory in New York. As Warhol's muse she was at his side all the time, modelled and acted in his films and took absurd quantities of uppers. She sort of epitomized the best and worst of that creative scene, blowing the doors of artistic convention and being part of this merger of visual art, film and music (the Velvet Underground got their start here too). But because she's a socialite there is another element of the disapproval and extreme eccentricity of her wealthy family. It's just a great read. I remember reading it as a teenager and just being obsessed with this lens on New York as being so decadent, creative, exciting and dangerous. Edie wound up leaving the factory scene and moving to California and sort of becoming a hippie. Eventually she died of a abarbiturate/alcohol overdose. It's a very sad story. I  have to read this book again, it's that good. She was also incredibly stylish and still inspires the fashion world today. 

Candy Girl: A Year in the LIfe of an Unlikely Stripper - Diablo Cody
I read this book in an evening in the bathtub; it's that type of book. Cody is really relatable, you kind of relate to her and she's identifiable enough that you can see yourself looking at this world with the same perspective as her in a way. She was a bit of a fish out of water in the stripping world, as a midwestern woman with a natural body. She kind of fell into it on a whim. She's a great writer, and I say that with previous reservations because I really didn't like Juno, or Jennifer's Body. (I did love Young Adult however.....) She worked in a few clubs for a year in Minneapolis. She doesn't pretend she was a super successful stripper but she does give a great credible insider view into that world. I like reading memoirs by sex workers, I just find it fascinating. The nice thing about this book as I said is that the writer is relatable. I've read dozens of books by sex workers and sometimes the POV isn't anything you can relate to; sometimes the writer is so busy trying to convince the reader that sex work is real work, or that the workers are all law students or whatever. This one doesn't make those assumptions that the reader is prejudiced against the work. Maybe becaue Diablo herself was such an 'unlikely' stripper, I'm not sure. Anyway warm up the bathtub for this one! 

The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright - Jean Nathan
This is a really sad story of mother-daughter pathos; plus a nice portrait of New York in the 40s-50s and the life of an introverted artist. Dare Wright (this must be the most glamourous name ever?) wrote a classic kids book called "The Lonely Doll"  which is an ok children's book but became notorious because of some vaguely S+M type doll + stuffed bear scenes. There is a scene in the book where a stuffed bear gives a doll a bare bottom spanking. In writing it doesn't sound that scandalous but it does read a bit strange in the book. Needless to say it's a must buy for any friends who have little kids. But her biography is really sad; she couldn't really individuate from her mother and basically just devolved into a life of destitute alcoholism. At the end she's almost homeless and really ill. I find this type of book really fascinating, love reading about creative types going off the deep end. 

The Last LIving Slut - Roxana Shirazi
This one is published by Neil Strauss who I have come to love for his amazing music bios (he wrote "The Dirt" about Motley Crue--one of the best books EVER, plus "The Long Hard Road out of Hell" about Marilyn Manson--another eye popper; AND another good book of essays called "Everyone loves you when You're Dead" which compiles a whole bunch of music interviews and is excellent). But this book by Shirazi is completely insane. In the best way. This woman started out in Iran, raised Muslim and then flees to 
London during the Iranian revolution. She describes herself as being really sexually precocious and flirtatious basically her whole life; as a teenager she gets into exotic dancing and from there immerses herself in the life of a rock groupie. At the same time she earns a Master's degree in English, and has sex with every third string roadie in the Western hemisphere. It's a strange story because although she drops a few names of huge bands like G'n'R, Motley Crue and Velvet Revolver, it becomes clear that she has a LOT of sex with either roadies or other people peripheral to these bands or with other musicians in metal bands I had no knowledge of. I'm not a metal aficianado but clearly this is not the groupie big time. I found it fascinating only in that she seemed really compulsive about her sexual behaviour and I sort of felt like she was using the 'groupie' thing to just act out sexually in response to some psychological problem. It's true that the book makes Pamela DesBarres sound chaste. I'm sure Pamela would be appalled by this. I love seeing the rare interview with DesBarres where she's all 'We were MUSES!'---or trying to distance herself from the newer generations of rock tramps. HA! Anyway, This book is entertaining. 

How to Make Love Like a Porn Star - Jenna Jameson
This is a Neil Strauss joint, and another completely insane book. Aside from the basic interest in how Jameson came to superstardom as a porn actress, producer and mega product; there is something fascinating about how un-self aware she comes across. She describes being happy and well adjusted and then two pages later she's wasted down to like 80lbs due to a crystal meth addiction. Later after her recovery she goes on an exotic dancing club tour and seems to have come completely off the rails again on drugs. It's almost like she can't decide whether to focus on how successful and happy/heatlhy she is or to focus on the more fucked up aspects of her business. The porn world has clearly changed so much since she started her career and she obviously was in the right place at the right time, and is a hard worker/great performer etc. (I say this mostly from reading the book and understanding her place in the cultural zeitgeist, I'm not that familiar with her porn work) This is a huge book and it is well edited. Jameson comes across as a real chameleon. There are lots of photographs in the book and I was struck by how different her face looks in each one, and not from plastic surgery. I think she just has a really mutable face that looks different. Probably an asset in her field. The book is interesting if you are curious about her but also if you're interested in the world of porn/sex work in general. There is lots of gossip and drug use and general insanity.

A Piece of Cake - Cupcake Brown
This is an amazing story about someone who started life with the decks completely stacked against them. Brown basically suffered every nightmare that a childhood could from her mom dying; her dad giving her away; and every kind of abuse in the foster care system. She winds up as a gangbanger in her early teens, then later gets introduced to crack cocaine and completely bottoms out. Eventually she gets some work in a law firm and balances her drug use with a straight life. Finally she gets help from her boss who assists and encourages her to clean up her life; go back to school...and become a lawyer. She writes really well, it's pretty amazing to read about this kind of total transition. The horror story of her early life is fascinating, and it really is inspirational to think she came so far from so little. Girl gangbanger makes good--what else do you want in an autobiography? 

Tiny Furniture, HBOs 'Girls' and SATC plus reading!

Great quote from this film. Incidentally I liked it a lot.
'Relationships aren't rocket science; if you find yourself having to really think about it a lot, analysing it, it's over. It's kaput'
So true.
After I saw the movie I realized this writer/film maker Lena Dunham was featured in the new Bust magazine. She has a new show for HBO called "Girls" which is supposed to be amazing. I read something recently in an interview with one of the actresses (I have no clue who) where she was asked to comment about comparisons to Sex and the City. She responded that comparisons are erroneous because this show is for a new generation and basically totally different---which kind of bummed me out. I feel like SATC doesn't get the credit it deserves for being as fucking amazing as it was. Somehow the last crappy film has just turned the tide against the show; which was truly new, refreshing, amazingly well written, and even new in its use of fashion and integretion of modern sexual politics. I like SATC a lot. Anyway then I read something from Lena Dunham getting asked the same question, and she responded that without SATC, her show couldn't and wouldn't exist. Which is totally cool of her to say.
AND I was SO EXCITED to see this feature in the NYT about what Lena Dunham reads. All I want to know about anyone is what they read; and if they are female, what makeup and skincare they use. I am shallow.

Here is episode one posted on HBO:
http://www.hbocanada.com/girls/episodeone.php

The Chronology of Water

 I read a review of this book in Bitch magazine an issue ago and had requested it from the library. In the interim I read two Game of Thrones books....which were great. This book was totally worth the wait though. I'm probably going to buy a copy just because I can't believe how well written it is. It's kind of reawakened my interest in biography. I love biographies. If the person's life is interesting it doesn't even matter if it's poorly written, if it's well written it's just even better. I can't even really compare her writing to anyone else's, there is a poetic and non-linear quality to it, it's really visceral and just rings really true emotionally.
She doesn't even detail too much what kind of trauma her childhood left her with; there was some alienation of affection from her parents, her mom was an alcoholic and her father sounds at least emotionally/verbally abusive. She sort of cannonballs out of her life with her family into one messed up situation after another and tries her best to sabotage every good thing that starts to happen to her.
In the course of becoming a writer she goes to grad school, gets a PhD, exorcises demons with S+M and finds her voice. She mentions gravitating toward the 'deviants' in her English studes: Kathy Acker, Dennis Cooper, Marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille and William Burroughs.
I read my first Dennis Cooper book a short while ago, I realized I'd had a graphic novel of his a long time ago and never knew who or what he was. The book I read was Try; it was again unlike anything I'd read before. Except maybe Hubert Selby or William Burroughs, just incredibly disturbing. It's kind of like the feeling a really good horror movie gives you, like a free fall into something totally sickening where you have to surrender to the story because you couldn't come up with this kind of stuff if you tried. Or maybe you could, but don't want to acknowledge it.
Anyway I'm super excited about this book, excited to read more of Yuknavitch's stuff, plus happy to be reminded of Dennis Cooper and Kathy Acker (I went out and bought 2 books by each of them).

Couldn't help but think again as I've thought as million times before reading a memoir, that the idea that a memoir has any real basis in reality is probably totally crazy. That the concept of an objective reality is crazy, because people are crazy and once they filter information through their crazy minds, there cannot be any objectivity left. I pretty much never believe anything I read in an autobiography; but I think the point of an a-b is to read what the writer WANTS you to think is reality. Or what was their reality. I can't remember what happened last week, never mind convesations about contentious issues that happened months, years, decades ago. I like this though, I like the idea that we create our own realities. To read an autobiography is to hand over control to the author, go with them on the ride and don't question too much how they got there or how 'truthy' the whole thing is.