Why I Love My Local Comic Book Store

8th March, 2010 by Christina - 3 Comments

This weekend marked the one year existence of Bergen Street Comics.  On my walk over to the shop this weekend, I started thinking about how Tom and Amy’s vision for the store is just what comics–and really any community–needs. 

Over the past year, I have gone from being a non-comic book reader to someone who is a regular at a local store.  Under slightly different circumstances, my journey could have ended just as quickly as it began.  Just one year ago Stacked was a relative toddler in the book blogging world.  The original idea was that I’d read 100 books in a year.  It was during dinner one night that Rik, Ryan, and Rafi suggested that I just read a bunch of comics in order to make my goal.  Comics in my mind were those floppy little magazine like things with silly superheros and that poor Archie having to decide between Betty and Veronica.  As they all waxed poetic I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to give the genre a try for a book or two.  After all, what few “graphic novels” I’d read to date were really good–any type of literature has it’s exceptions that break the stereotypes.  Right?

I was definitely a snob.  What I’d read I thought to be rare examples of great storytelling despite the fact that they were comics.  But I still viewed comics as a whole as being nothing more than a bunch of WHAM! and POW!  After all, I’d seen Daredevil.  And Ang Lee’s The Hulk.  I knew what I was getting into.  In my mind comics equaled superheros and superheros were like the artistic and literary equivalent to beauty queens.  The “Save the Cheerleader World” concept was the same as Sandra Bullock saying “…and world peace” in the pageant interview during Miss Congeniality.

So, okay, I started with Watchmen and OMG THIS IS LIKE A CRACK ADDICTION.  I just wanted more.  Where on earth was I supposed to start?  Lucky for me, a new comic book shop had opened down the street.  Ryan and Heather walked me around the store pointing out what they liked, what they didn’t, and I wrote it all down in my fancy little phone.

*****

SIDE NOTE:  Months later I was speaking with the store’s owner, Tom, about this first experience.  Turns out, he thought I was going to go home with my list and just order everything off of Amazon.  Sort of like an early warning death knell for the shop.  In actuality, I was just trying to keep track of everything they said since there was no way I was going to remember an hour’s worth of recommendations. 

*****

Seriously, I went into Bergen Street Comics dressed like this.

After a few months of borrowing books, I was finally ready to buy my first comic.  Actually, I was sort of itching to do so after a failed attempt to buy something for a long bus ride at Midtown Comics.  After the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, my friends and I had gathered for drinks and dinner at our regular locale, which happened to be around the corner from Bergen Street Comics.  While waiting for our food, I turned to Ryan and told him I wanted to brave the rain.

Dressed in blue spandex, sequins, glitter, and a wig…I bought not one, but two comic books.  I really needed to find out what happened to Scott Pilgrim in his quest to win the love of Ramona Flowers.

Here’s the thing.  I could have ordered a comic off of Amazon or just picked one up from the few shelves at Barnes & Noble.  I could have gotten my first comics–and subsequent comics–anywhere.  There was even that failed visit to Midtown Comics.  Now, I’m sure that the store is great–they do have multiple large locations and people flock to them and their immense stock.  But here I felt obviously out of place the moment I walked through that door.  Most likely no one noticed me at all; reality and perception do not always match up and my perception was one of being judged and of being lost.  Even their website is scary for the uninitiated.

If you don’t already read comics, if it’s not something you were brought up on, it is not an easy culture to jump into.  For all the fun that is made of comic book nerds, it’s sort of an elitist community.

There’s a home-like feeling to Bergen Street Comics that keeps me going back.  The design feels like being in your local coffee shop rather than some geek haven warehouse.  As a result, the store is welcoming at first glance to those of us who are new, or have never read a comic before.  When I go to the store, there’s no last minute decision to stop by and pick something up.  A trip requires at least an hour because I know that Tom or Amy or Tucker is going to have something to recommend.  If I go in with some vague idea that I want something funny or smart or profound, they’ll still manage to pull out three or four suggestions that bewilder me because, oh, now I have to make a decision.  Their recommendations have changed how I perceive comics.  Even if I go in knowing exactly what I want, I’ll still stand around talking with them because the store isn’t about feeding the need of a few nerds who like comics, it’s about building a community and the comics are just a starting point.

Tom and Amy have done an amazing job with the store.  They regularly open the store late to book releases and parties to celebrate art.  I’ve met so many different types of people there and they aren’t Captain Sweatpants.  They are you and me and that hipster girl from down the street and the suit and tie banker guy who goes out of his way from Queens and the Park Slope soccer mom and her brood of rug rats. If it weren’t for this little shop, I most likely would have borrowed books a bit more and then slowly stopped reading comics all together. 

It’s great to see that over the course of the year the store is thriving.  Yesterday a number of people came and went–some searching for something specific, others browsing.  Pretty much everyone bought something.  And it’s been that way consistently each time I visit.  When they have a party the place is packed and they have to kick people out at the end of night–only to have it move down the street to one of the local bars. I’ve even managed to land a few dates with people I’ve met in the store.  The past two years haven’t been the best economically for New York.  Having a local shop open and thrive in the midst of it all is fabulous and encouraging. 

I’m so glad the shop exists.  I’ve been able to explore and experiment with my tastes because I have a welcoming place to go.  Happy anniversary–here’s to many more years to follow!

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Lets Talk About Sex, Baby

3rd March, 2010 by Christina - 1 Comment

“Let’s talk about you and me.  Let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be.  Let’s talk about sex.”

No, really, lets talk about sex and you and me.

Sort of.

Basically, there is so much new and exciting stuff going on at Stacked Headquarters  AND I CAN’T TELL YOU ANYTHING ABOUT ANY OF IT!  I’m just itching to share with you all, but until details are finalized and in place and ready to go–basically once everything is in motion and pretty much already happening–then you’ll know.

HOWEVER!

There is always a “however,” and this is where talking about you and me and sex comes in.  There are some projects that I’m working on that require your help.  Therefore, I need to share.  As regular readers know, I love to talk about how the books I read apply to real life.  So I’m now working on three series.  No, you don’t get to know when they’ll run, only that they are happening.

And I want you to write for me.  My experiences aren’t the only ones out there–I want to share your stories too.  Each series will run over the course of a few weeks, breaking up the regular content here and will also feature guest posts.  You don’t need to be a book blogger, you don’t even need to be a blogger at all.  You just need to leave me a comment telling me you might be interested.  We’ll get into the nitty-gritty over email.

Here are the topics we’re going to be covering:

• SEXXX! (obviously) - Okay, maybe with two less X’s.  Romance novels, erotica, burlesque–anything goes
• FOOD!  the yummy series – Chef bios, cultural studies, cookbooks, foodie memoirs
• Space & Math/Physics – This might be my favorite of the bunch because I cannot wait to share what I’m doing…

So…I’m not just looking for you to review a book.  I want your personal stories–how a book about these subjects changed your life or inspired you, even little anecdotes about that time your lover read about incorporating food into your sex life and you ended up with a strawberry stuck in your ear.  In fact, so long as your story relates to books in some way I’ll be happy (like how in college you got caught making out in the library, or when you drooled all over a cookbook looking at food porn in Barnes & Noble and just put the book back on the shelf without telling anyone, or that physics professor who gave you extra reading which made you a shoe-in for that job at NASA).

Just whisper a sweet nothing via the comments or email to let me know you’re interested and we’ll talk a little more…privately.

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The Art of Eating In by Cathy Erway

2nd March, 2010 by Christina - 1 Comment

As I stated last week, Thursday night I had plans to go to a reading by Cathy Erway at Word in Brooklyn.  If you live in New England, you are well aware that Thursday was dreadful with its wet snow.  Sure it looked pretty when you were indoors looking out.  But when you were walking in the insta-slush that was forming–not so fun.  Despite the snow, I made it to the reading and then was sad that I couldn’t eat any of the crostinis that Erway had brought.  Why do you hate me gluten? 

The reading was great.  I consider it to be a bit free form as the snow meant people were arriving in waves.  Erway would read a section (starting with her adventures in dumpster diving, because who isn’t curious about someone actually pulling food out of a trash bag on the street?), answer a question or two, and then read from another section at the audience’s request.

By the time I had made it home, the rain portion of the weather was getting more flake-like and I went to bed with a food craving that I’ll discuss in a moment.  Come morning the “snow” was blowing sideways and I happily returned to bed when my boss called to tell me she was closing the office.  Hurray for a three day weekend!  Most of my morning was spent diving into Erway’s book The Art of Eating In. 

Quick rundown of the book–Erway decided to stop eating out.  In New York.  Which is a huge feat when you realize how many people in this city have NEVER.  USED.  THEIR.  STOVE.  (Seriously.  I know so many people who have a pristine kitchen because they eat out or order take-out for every meal.  At most they have some yogurt and beer in the fridge.  Maybe a pint of ice cream in the freezer, but more likely vodka.)  Two years later she was an Internet sensation having blogged her project and having gotten involved in local supper club, slow food, and cook-off groups, as well as checking out subcultures such as the previously mentioned dumpster divers and foraging groups.  And she got a gig writing on the Huffington Post and a show on Heritage Radio Network.

Then she got a book deal.  Bitch.

I jest.  At the end of the reading I got to speak with Erway a little and she comes across in person as really sweet and adorable.  And she comes across that way in her book.  Out of all the foodie memoirs by New Yorkers going around these days (Julie and Julia by Julie Powell and I Loved, I Lost, I Ate Spaghettiby Giulia Melucci), The Art of Eating In might just officially have become far and away my favorite.  This isn’t some life crisis saved by food, it’s simply a girl who by saving money and eating healthier manages to learn more about the social and cultural roles of food as they apply to her.

Back to my story.  A little after noon I got it into my head that I was going to make cupcakes.  A friend was celebrating her birthday with a big night out and all the girls were coming over to my place before heading down the street to this underground event a block away.  What’s great about this group of girls is that I wasn’t the only one with food issues–there was a vegan, another Celiac, and one with a nut allergy.  These sounded like the most disgusting cupcakes ever because I was going to make ones that EVERYONE could eat. Vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free, soy-free, nut-free cupcakes.  They can’t possibly be good.

Except the recipe is award-winning–like Best Cupcake in New York award-winning.  I really wish I had invented it, but alas Erin McKenna, owner of Baby Cakes, beat me to it.  Thank god she wrote a cookbook so I can make these suckers at home. 

I was so inspired by Erway’s chapter on bread making that I trucked off into the snow to the grocery store, where they only had three ingredients.  To make matters worse, one of those three ingredients was potato starch.  And I am not eating nightshades.  There was almost a temper tantrum of terrible-two proportions right there in the aisle.  I haven’t been deprived of cupcakes all this time (case in point:  Star Trek-a-Thon), but they are crumbly* and sugary and DAMMIT I WANT THESE CUPCAKES NOW!

Cupcakes aside, I threw a pretty darn good party with homemade hummus.  Not as exciting, but whatever.  There was also champagne, which made up for things.

Loved the book.  Like I said, it’s the best of the foodie memoirs I’ve read–you actually learn about food and cooking.  Erway states early on that a professor in college once put her class on a week long media fast.  He had at one point done a longer term media fast living within communities that actively shun modern media and technology (Amish) and ones that simply don’t have access.  The self removal from what is essentially an overload and glut of noise left him (and the class) with a better understanding of media.  Removing one’s self from restaurant culture while actively cooking (rather than just popping something into the microwave) means learning more about food and community that comes with eating. 

Colin and Salvatore, on Five Borough Book Review, recently readJonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals and quoted from the book:

‘We are made of stories,’ Foer writes; ‘We are not only the tellers of our stories, we are the stories themselves.  If my wife and I raise our son as a vegetarian, he will not eat his great-grandmother’s singular dish, will never receive that unique and most direct expression of her love, will perhaps never think of her as the Greatest Chef Who Ever Lived.  Her primal story, our family’s primal story, will have to change.’

Erway makes a similar point, how we cook at home connects us to our family and friends in ways that eating in a restaurant won’t and makes us more aware of our food and sense of self:

I was at a dinner party one night, and my neighbor in the next seat told me about how, during a phone conversation with his mother, he’d expressed a little frustration with paying for restaurant food.  She followed up by mailing him a stack of recipes written by his Dominican grandmother.  Not only were they greatly helpful in allowing him to re-create some of the dishes he’d always loved, but he said it was almost like receiving a diary from his grandmother.

Restaurant eating changes one’s food philosophy drastically.  When your food arrives, made by a stranger in a different neutral setting each night, we actually disconnect from the food.  Food is about more than just taste–food is social,** economics, geography, history, and more.  Erway points out a common problem among those raised in the city when she encounters two teenagers while berry picking in Prospect Park–they do not know where their food comes from. 

Erway eventually ended her two years of not eating out in New York and called it the end of an era.  Reading the chapter could not have come at a more fortuitous time.  I too ended an era the same night as I reached this point in the book.  After twenty years as a vegetarian, I ate meat.  This changes my food lifestyle and opens up new avenues of thinking as I redevelop what I believe about how I eat.  With Erway, there were so many grey areas as to what constituted eating out or not  as well as limited social interactions.  For me, choices in food open up and I have to reevaluate why I chose to stop eating meat in the first place and all my own grey areas which included eating eggs or a beef based broth.  My decision had been weighing on my mind for quite some time.  On my way home from the reading all I could think about was how much I wanted a pork chop.  A pork chop!  It’s not easy to finally change to a long time habit, but it can result in some interesting changing and a reawakening desire for foods not eaten in a long long time.

*Lesson time:  Gluten-free cupcakes mean no traditional flour.  Gluten is a protein in wheat that is full of sticky power.  It’s used as thickener in sauces and dressings.  Without it, bread made from rice or quinoa flower is dry and crumbly.  Most of the time it tastes bad too.  McKenna’s recipe uses Xanthan Gum to recreate the hold Gluten has.  I wouldn’t know if it actually works because I didn’t get to make the cupcakes.

**I can’t for the life of me remember where I read this, but an author explained a trip to Germany and arriving late at night.  On a health kick, s/he had a salad and went to bed to recover while his/her companions stayed up drinking and eating bratwurst with the locals.  Come morning, the author was still jet lagged and out of sorts while the socialized and communal eating and drinking had revived everyone who had stayed up.

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She (Who Must Be Obeyed) by H. Rider Haggard

1st March, 2010 by Christina - No Comments

Hmmm, She Who Must Be Obeyed.  What an honorific.  Surprisingly, this book is not about my mother.  Color me shocked.

Years ago I dated a guy with terrible taste in movies.  Ang Lee’s Hulk…Daredevil…and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.*  I’ve stated numerous times previously that despite being an absolutely horrible movie, I for some reason decided to read the comic version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and loved it so much that I went back for more. 

In the process I also managed to start hunting down some of the Victorian era novels referenced in the comics that I hadn’t already read.  One of them, King Solomon’s Mines, ended up becoming far and away my favorite of the bunch.  After reading The Lost City of Z this past autumn, I felt the need to return to Haggard’s work since Colonel Fawcett was a template inspiration for many of popular literary daredevil explorers–including Haggard’s Allan Quartermain. 

Haggard returns to Africa in She (Who Must Be Obeyed)–more commonly known as just SHE–with a well built scholarly man (Holly), his adopted hottie son (Leo), and their loyal servant (Job).  The three are on a “hunting trip” which is more or less (mostly less) an attempt to uncover the truth about some mysterious artifacts detailing the fate of some of Leo’s ancestors.  Instead of shooting rhino, the men discover an immortal woman who is more attractive than any other woman by tenfold.  And she happens to believe that Leo is the reincarnated soul of her dead lover.  I might start using that as a pick-up line.

Along the way there are natural disasters, violent tribes, frightful landscapes to traverse, and the knowledge that SHE also killed her lover who turned out not to be her lover because he already had a wife (pregnant) and rejected the advances of SHE.  Opps.  What’s that old saying about a woman scorned?

Maybe at the time of publication it was more riveting as the “Lost World” genre was taking hold with knock-offs of Haggard’s previous King Solomon’s Mines (which went on to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones).  Colonialism was a bug caught by the populace of “civilized” countries and there were plenty of undiscovered lands remaining.  These lands had natives with customs and habits unique and unusual, or that had simply been lost over time by the evolving Western societies. 

Instead of being riveted and curious about the possibility of such a tribe as the Amahaggar or the abandoned city and catacombs of Kor, I was bored to tears as we plodded along from one flash of adventure to the next.  Plod Plod Plod HURRICANE!  Plod Plod Plod CANIBALISM!  Plod Plod Plod CORPSE TORCHES!  Even worse is that there is a build up to the power SHE possesses over the tribe, however, punishment is meted out by her servants.  Only in private, and briefly at that, is her true (and unnatural) power showcased when one person will not obey her.  Granted, SHE has built up fear and power among these people over a few thousand years mostly based on manipulation of their superstition and limited knowledge. 

I do wonder if our fast-paced life made me impatient as I read along or if there was something I was missing in the drawn-out plot.  For being such a classic novel, I don’t know of anyone else whose read the book.  If you have, please let me know what you think. 
*BTW, I have nothing against superhero or comic book-based film adaptations in general.  These three just happened to suck and were what was out in theaters at the time.  Seriously, I don’t know anyone who can say that Ang Lee’s Hulk was any good.

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Reading Rainbow: Now With Unicorns & Glitter*

25th February, 2010 by Christina - 3 Comments

Yesterday, Levar Burton pointed out on Twitter that Funny or Die had finally gotten around to spoofing Reading Rainbow.

I don’t recall being a huge fan of the show as a child, but I do know I watched it fairly regularly.  These three videos are pretty funny to watch; they blend clips of Burton as he introduces the children’s recommendation portion of the show with a special “banned books” series featuring more “adult” recommendations.  The newly shot portion blends perfectly with the original and the jokes pretty much write themselves, particularly for the 1st and 2nd reviews. 

I’m sure someone out there will find the reviews completely inappropriate, but I think the writers were rather clever in their approach to the books and the likely resulting child’s view of them.

*Watch Review 1 for the reference.

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Panda Cookies, Ayurveda, and Getting Personal

24th February, 2010 by Christina - 4 Comments

Normally I avoid getting personal here on Stacked and have been walking this fine line trying to write a post in which I share a few food-related books with you.   Bear with me.

Now, Veronicais in Taiwan right now, and she posted this photo of panda cookies.  And OMG!  I want to eat a panda cookie right now!  I believe the appropriate Internet speak for this is “nom.”

About ten years ago, my mother and I went to Taiwan and they have these absolutely incredible red bean and sesame seed things–little fried up balls that are seriously the BEST THING IN THE WORLD!  Veronica offered to bring me back something, and I was all “balls, bring me back balls.”  Then I realized how inappropriate that sounded and gave her this really long winded explanation of what these things were because I have no real name for them.  Apparently they’re best when warm and probably won’t travel well on her flight back.  But you can get them here in Chinatown or Flushing.  Yay!

Over the years various food related health issues have come up for me and the list of what I’m able to eat has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller.  Suddenly it’s no more panda cookies and “Hey, Veronica, can you read this list of ingredients in Mandarin for me?”  Some people react as though I’m being melodramatic about what I can and cannot eat.  Maybe I am.  But I’ve found that playing it safe makes me mentally healthy because I’m not always nervous that I might get sick again. 

The hardest part hasn’t been changing my eating habits and choices.  Yes, it’s still a learning process–what food is okay, what is not–but I’ve learned an incredible amount, discovered foods I’d never have thought of eating, and have made some stunning meals.  I still make mistakes but hey, lesson learned.  The hardest part is getting other people to understand when foodie culture is currently so popular.

Tomorrow night I’m attending a reading by Cathy Erway at Word Brooklyn.  Cathy’s book, The Art of Eating In, came about after she decided to stop eating at restaurants and instead learned to cook all her meals for the course of two years.  She blogs at  Not Eating Out In New York, and New York is filled with a wide variety of amazing food that people want to go out and try.  She too found difficulties in getting other people to understand what she was doing, even losing a boyfriend in the process.  I’m hoping her book talks a bit about how she got her friends and family to accept and support what she was doing.

The problem with going out to eat or even over to a friend’s is that you just don’t know what has been put in the food.  Even if you tell them you can’t eat X, Y, or Z (and in some cases, all three!) they just aren’t going to read labels as carefully as you are or realize what a spice mix is actually made of.  Did you know that if you’re lactose intolerant (no milk for you!) you have to be careful about what bread you eat because some brands use whey which is a milk byproduct?  Or that soy sauce has wheat in it to act as thickener?  It’s not to say people aren’t supportive or accommodating, just that they aren’t as diligent or aware as the person with the problem.

But it doesn’t have to be a problem.  Not unless I make it one.  I have a friend who very gladly brings her own food to dinner parties, another who eats before going out.  For all the things I can’t eat, I don’t feel at all deprived.  Sure, occasionally something like panda cookies beckon to me, or a whiff of pizza makes me a little wistful that I can’t just grab a slice on a jam-packed evening.  I don’t feel deprived because it’s really not about what I can’t eat.  This isn’t a diet to loose weight where I have to be restrictive.  It’s about choosing to be healthy and making that a lifelong process–building good habits and finding joy and creativity in what I can eat.

Recently a friend stated that, “People get insecure about others’ healthy habits.”  It’s not about me, it’s about them.  Suddenly my choices in how to be healthy become crazy, weird, or fads–not because they really are, but because others can’t imagine changing what they eat so drastically.  They’re not comfortable when faced with different choices that they don’t fully understand. 

Yesterday, I made a request on Twitter for book suggestions about Ayurveda.  Ayurveda is a lifestyle despite it often being categorized as something more akin to “Chinese Medicine” or “that weird new age holistic crap,” as one friend put it.  It’s one of those weird trends when viewed from the outside.  From what I know about Ayurveda, it’s more about learning the personal quirks to your own body and finding a balance to how you live–what you eat included–to make you a healthier person.  And that’s healthier in all ways–mentally and physically.  For me, it’s another avenue to explore in getting to be my healthiest self and where my choices are not based on fear of becoming ill again.

With my Ayurveda request, Stephanie (manager of Word) suggested that Susan and Jen at Breath Books in Baltimore might be able to help me.  Within seconds, Susan, who has been on her own Ayurvedic journey (again, someone willing to get personal on the Internet) replied with the suggestion of starting with Ayurveda:  The Science of Self Healingby Vasant D. Lad. It would have taken so much trial and error finding books on my own that are filled with information I can trust.

It’s difficult learning who you can trust.  After practicing tai chi in college, I moved to New York and found that most classes were taught by someone with two or three years class experience of their own.  That is something I find in swing dancing and yoga as well–people who are relatively good at something that other people know nothing about choosing to teach.  And this is really dangerous–in all three activities a person can get hurt very badly when the teacher doesn’t know better.  Rather than try out class after class, I went to my multi-decades trained, kung-fu teaching uncle and asked if he had any connections or advice for my finding a knowledgeable tai chi teacher in the city.

Learning to break bad habits, to eat better and wisely, it’s all a long process and probably never ending.  Not knowing where to start can be scary, especially when the changes we choose to make affect us in such big ways.  Changing my eating habits isn’t about hopefully tacking on a few years at the end of my life, it’s about making the quality of my life NOW better.  Part of that comes with finding out who I can trust–who is knowledgeable enough to guide me without imposing their own bias or fears on my choices.  It means wading through overwhelming amounts of books to figure out which author is a good teacher.  So many times I’ve read a book thinking I learned great new things only to find people in that field think the the author was misleading and misinformed. 

When we are new to something, it’s easy to see how we can be led astray and why our friends think our new choices are ridiculous.  Changing their thinking to be more in line with mine isn’t going to happen, all I can do is plod along asking for advice, read a book where I can, try things out, and hopefully continue to feel better.  And maybe our friends will decide we’re weird, that they love us anyway, and then figure out how to make panda cookies we (i.e., me) can actually eat.

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Detour

23rd February, 2010 by Christina - No Comments

Nothing bookish today folks.  Sorry. 

I wanted to share with you a projects of sorts that a coworker of mine is doing.  Project isn’t even the right word for it.  Raymond was infected with polio as an infant and is now mobile through the use of crutches.  This April, he will be one of the few disabled participants to ever “run” the 250-kilometer Marathon des Sablesthrough the Sahara Desert, and possibly the first ever polio patient to attempt it on crutches.  His friend Vladimir will be walking along to provide encouragement and company. 

This race is not about us, but about helping our fellow citizens of the world who, for whatever reason, are challenged by a physical disability.  We are committed to making this a successful fundraiser and see this event as a unique opportunity to help make the lives of many people with disabilities a little better.

Raymond and Vladimir are partnering with the following organizations:  Challenged Athletes Foundation (grants to help people with physical disabilities be active in fitness and competitive athletic activities), Shriners Hospitals International (where Raymond was a patient), and Handicap International (assists people with disabilities in over sixty developing countries to learn how to become more independent and help themselves).

During the marathon, they’ll be updating their blog–saharaoncrutches.blogspot.com–with their progress and thoughts as they trek through the desert.

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The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

19th February, 2010 by Christina - No Comments

There is no such thing as immortality.  At least not as we know it.  We die, plants die, eventually planets die and so do stars.  I guess if you were to break things down to the atomic level, you could theoretically say we don’t die and that we just get reshaped. 

As humans, the closest thing to immortality is to be written down in a book.  It helps if the book goes on to be wildly successful and becomes a classic read by successive generations.  Readers become so attached to characters that it becomes impossible for authors to kill them off.  Can you imagine the uproar if J.K. Rowling had killed Harry Potter in the end?  For good, not for that half/fake/temporary death thing she did there.  Hell, killing Dumbledore was enough to almost get her lynched. 

Sometimes, despite killing a character off, an author is forced to revive them in some way.  Case in point, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Case of the Detective’s Resurrection.  Okay, there’s no actual story by that title, but after throwing Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty off a cliff, readers were so angry that Holmes ended up miraculously surviving before eventually returning to London.  Doyle killed him off in the first place because he was so sick of pandering to readers.  Ironic, huh?

Sherlock Holmes has gone on to be one of the most recognizable characters in literary history (thanks in no small part to the film industry and a certain deerstalker cap), and numerous sequels and adaptations have been written about him by other authors, including The Final Solution, an early book by literary superstar Michael Chabon.

More often than not, books about the famous detective focus on the logic behind uncovering “whodunnit” as it relates to a specific mystery.  Despite two mysteries being presented in The Final Solution, Chabon’s story provides a subtle focus on Sherlock Holmes’s mortality.  While he may live on through stories, as a man, Holmes is bound to die one day.  Here he is not youthful or even sprightly middle-aged.  Rather, he is an old man–one who is heavily alluded to but never named, 90-some-odd years old, ever closer to having one foot in the grave.  The old man is well aware of his mortality and his encroaching end of days.  He worries about having his body discovered in an undignified manner, a thought that dwells in his mind as his body–and mind–slowly falter a little more each day.

As pointed out elsewhere, Holmes only manages to solve one of the intertwined mysteries.  It’s been such a long time since I’ve read any of his adventures, that I too missed the subtly suggested solution to the second.  It’s somewhat easy to come to a general conclusion, having a solid background in Holmesian knowledge helps to see where Chabon makes references for the reader to draw upon. 

I’m looking forward to return to my collection for a few re-reads and to compare notes on what Chabon hints at with what Doyle wrote.  It’s exciting to see an author actively draw on the original mysteries rather than just on characterization when creating new mysteries for the detective whose death just never seems to come.

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Totally. Stacked.

18th February, 2010 by Christina - 2 Comments

While scrolling around etsy looking for a gift, I stumbled upon this:

The burlesque and book-loving side of me thinks it’s delightful and brilliant.  Boobs!  Books!  Talk about stacked!  And check out the book titles:  The Naked Truth and The Bare Facts (can anyone make out the title of the last book?).

I already use a cigarette case for my wallet, otherwise I’d buy this in a heartbeat.  Actually, I wonder if you can get the print in poster form…

This item is sold by tofunkytown for a whole $10.  Ten Dollars!  Okay, $9.99, same difference.  They sell a variety of cigarette cases, including some others with a literary bent such as:  Alice in Wonderland, Dune, Plup Fiction (this one is not the movie, although they have that too), Batman comics, 1984, and A Clockwork Orange.

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