READING ROUNDUP

I have been reading gluttonously. Most of it is within the pages of magazines or journals. A couple of books have captured my attention, though...


The Believer, Fifty-first Issue: Lagniappe, February 2008
Favorite pieces: "A Cloud in Pants" by Michael Almereryda, a brief examination of the life and work of Russian Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky; Ryan McGinley interviewed by Dana Spiotta, on the art of his photography; and Mary Midgley interviewed by Sheila Heti, on the moral philosophy of evolutionary Darwinism that is treated as a religion in its own right, something absent from Darwin's own thought.

The Believer, Fifty-second Issue: The Film Issue, March/April 2008
Favorite pieces: "The Hollywood Happy Meal" by Erik Lundegaard, which compares the "nutritious value" of the top ten best-selling U.S. films in mid-March of 1958 and 2008; Todd Haynes interviewed by Robert Polito, on the two main types of films that he directs; and Vladimir interviewed by Ross Simonini, on her independent films made for the View-Master.


T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Design Spring 2008
Favorite pieces: "Machines for Living" by Nicolai Ouroussoff, on the work of Spanish architect Enric Ruiz-Geli; "The New Order" by Pilar Viladas, on the paradox of maximalist modernism; and "Whirl of Interiors" by Maura Egan, on female painters and their colorful paintings of architectural interiors.

The New York Times Magazine, Sunday 16 March 2008
Favorite pieces: "When Girls Will Be Boys" by Alissa Quart, a look at "gender nonconformists" at private women's colleges; "Photo Finish" by Rob Walker (his "Consumed" column), about the death of Polaroid instant film due to digital photography; and "Return of Glavin" by Bryan Patrick Miller, this week's "Lives" piece, which is consistently one of my favorite parts of the magazine.


ARCADE, volume 26.02, Winter 2007
Favorite pieces: "From Footwear to FoodBALL: How Camper Designed an Iconic Eatery" by Sarah Rich, a glimpse at social elements of FoodBALL's design aesthetic; "Table Making: Steps 1–8" by Michael Hebberoy, an autobiographical examination of twelve years of living architecture and design in relation to meals and tables; and "Taste and Memory" by Peter Lewis, on truth and beauty in food and wine.

City Arts, March/April 2008
Favorite pieces: "Artful Lodging" by Virginia Bunker, with photography by Aaron Locke, on the remodeled Hotel Murano, the article that inspired the urban spelunking of the child and I; "Eyewitness" portfolio by Walter Gaya, with text by Lisa Kinoshita, a first-hand photographic essay on the war in Iraq from a soldier's perspective; and "Good Vibrations" by Oliver Doriss, on the work of painter Zachary Marvick.


Poetry, December 2007
Favorite pieces: "The Fabric: A Poet's Vesalius" by Heather McHugh, wherein she focuses on a few of the anatomical studies of Vesalius and Titian with a poet's eye; the poems "Victory," "Daniel," "The Train," and "The Sight" by David Orr; and the poem "Little Ache" by Li-Young Lee.

Poetry, February 2008
Favorite pieces: the portfolio of poems by George Szirtes, written to accompany photographs included in the exhibition "In the Face of History: European Photographers in the Twentieth Century; "Leaving Prague: A Notebook" by Alexei Tsvetkov, a poetic essay on the importance of place; and "Full Fathom" by Jorie Graham, a poem printed on a fold-out.


Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman
This is a tale about the life and love of a sixteen-year-old prodigy, who is also somewhat of a slacker. It is sarcastic and funny, à la Vonnegut, laced with plenty of scatological humor, à la a toned-down Burroughs, and filled with a wonderful vocabulary. It also vaguely echoes Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close for me, in a way that I cannot exactly explain. And, at this point, I am really pulling for Judd Breslau. I hope he doesn't end up executed by his former friend, Abby (Abdul) al Sadr, crown prince of Assama, Iraq.

McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, edited by Michael Chabon
I had to return to this collection to reread the short story "Zeroville" by Steve Erickson. I hope to get my hands on a copy of Erickson's novel Zeroville soon, which was written from the initial ideas presented in its eponymous forbear. The short story is everything I hope the novel is—surreal, insular, apocalyptic, referential to the other novels and works of Erickson, and steeped in cinematic history, even while it plays loosely with that history.