Daniel Shank Cruz

Books Acquired Recently

Delany, Samuel R. The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965. New York: Arbor, 1988.

I have the revised edition of this book (published by University of Minnesota Press, 2004), but needed a copy of the first edition for an essay I’m writing on the history of public images of Delany’s body (groovy cover, eh?). Also, I’m a Delany addict, and as I’ve written before, I compulsively collect copies of his books. Bought on amazon.com.

Flaubert, Gustave. The Works of Gustave Flaubert: One Volume Edition. Roslyn: Black’s, 1904.

I was walking around downtown Salt Lake City today and noticed that a new bookstore, Eborn Books, had moved into the old Sam Weller’s location (N.B. The new Weller’s location at Trolley Square is quite inferior, alas). Eborn’s is still very disorganized as a lot of their inventory is either not on the shelves yet or is not in alphabetical order, but I am very glad that the location will remain a bookstore, and the more independent bookstores, the better. I found a collection of Flaubert’s works in their caddywhompus classics section for only five dollars (in very good condition, too). I have two other volumes from the series, Robert Louis Stevenson’s and Jonathan Swift’s, which were given to me by my elementary school music teacher because he knew that I liked to read (as it happens, Treasure Island was my favorite book as a boy, and I need to find time to re-read it). I’ve been looking for a copy of Madame Bovary since I read John Irving’s In One Person several weeks ago, in which the main character is advised to read Flaubert’s classic “when your romantic hopes and desires have crashed, and you believe that your future relationships will have disappointing–even devastating–consequences” (277). This is exactly how I have been feeling lately, thus I am interested to see what wisdom I might glean from the novel.

Left Field Cards and Some Thoughts on Obsession

I just read an article by Paul Lukas (http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/fandom/post/_/id/6053/the-coolest-baseball-cards-of-the-year) about Left Field Cards (http://www.leftfieldcards.com/index.html), an art project by Amelie Mancini that consists of quirky sets of baseball card-esque postcards. I love paper culture, and I love baseball, and I love the nostalgia evoked by baseball cards (I collected them avidly as a boy), so I absolutely love these cards! Their retro style is aesthetically pleasing, and I appreciate their hand-made quality. I also like that Mancini has depicted four Mets (Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, Nolan Ryan, and Kevin Mitchell) in only thirty cards.

But what I especially love about Left Field Cards is the inspiration for the project. Mancini’s biographical statement reads in part that

“She moved to New York in 2006 and didn’t know what a curveball was until a couple of friends took her to Shea Stadium one evening of [sic–Mancini’s slight misuses of English make her story even more lovable] 2007. The Mets lost that night to the Phillies, but Amelie fell hard for America’s national pastime, becoming increasingly obsessed with the game and eventually making it one of the center themes of her work. Fascinated by baseball cards, she decided to print her own and started Left Field Cards in 2011.”

I am always drawn to stories of people’s obsessions, and I think that the tale of Mancini’s discovery of baseball is beautiful (Lukas’s article gives further details). For many years as a teenager and younger adult I was jealous of stories like hers, of people who just had a passion grip them completely and let it become Their Thing. I wanted the same kind of experience; I was obsessed with finding an obsession (Sorry! I couldn’t help myself.). It took me way too long to realize that I already had an obsession–books, both reading and collecting them. So now I worry about cultivating my obsession instead of acquiring one, but I still find stories of other people’s obsessions powerful. It feels like we are part of a club, that even if I know nothing about the subject of someone else’s obsession, I know a little something about them and how they feel. There is a sense of community that forms via these stories, and making connections to one another is one of the essential aspects of living a satisfying life.

Giannina Braschi’s Yo-Yo Boing!

The Puerto Rican-American writer Giannina Braschi’s 1998 novel (this is the best term I can think of for it, though it is only a novel insofar as that term is now so all encompassing, like a giant, shaggy literary beast somewhere between Cookie Monster and Grendel that devours everything in its path) Yo-Yo Boing! (translated into English by Tess O’Dwyer) is a gripping pastiche of a book that is all about voice rather than plot. The bulk of it is a dialogue between unnamed voices, sometimes between two fairly recognizable personas (a woman and man), sometimes between two indestinct personas that are apparently different than the first two (gender unclear), sometimes between at least three personas that are different than all of those which have come before (at least two of them are women). But the rapid-action dialogue is interesting no matter who is speaking. The dialogue meanders from discussions of poetry to discussions of Puerto Rican politics to discussions of academic politics to discussions of bodily excretions, circling back through these topics several times. The last line is “God, who is dead!”, so the book falls firmly into the postmodernist anti-universal narrative camp. The style is like a Puerto Rican Kathy Acker mixed with some James Joyce mixed with some Ernest Hemingway mixed with just a dash of Samuel R. Delany. This hodgepodge might alienate many readers, but I really enjoy it, and look forward to reading more of Braschi’s work.

Books Acquired Recently

Dahl, Roald. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. 1977. New York: Puffin, 2010.

I just received a desk copy of this in my school mail today. I’m teaching it this fall in my Introduction to Literature course as an example of one of the reasons we read literature–for fun. Dahl’s short stories for adults are decent, but “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” is magnificent, it keeps me enraptured every time I read it.

Weinstein, Lawrence. Writing Doesn’t Have to Be Lonely: 14 Ways to Get the Help of Other People When You Write. Cambridge: OneOfaKind, 2012.

I received this as an exam copy from the publisher. It is the kind of handbook that I tend not to assign students because I’d rather have them spending their limited textbook funds on literature instead, but I am interested in reading this book for myself because one of my flaws as a writer is that I have a very difficult time asking for and listening to feedback from others. Learning new strategies for being proactive about this issue will be a big help.

Book Acquired Recently: Frank O’Hara’s Standing Still and Walking in New York

O’Hara, Frank. Standing Still and Walking in New York. Ed. Donald Allen. San Francisco: Grey Fox, 1983.

I am a huge O’Hara fan and collect his books compulsively. However, I am ashamed to admit that I did not know of this book’s existence until I encountered a citation of it in an article several weeks ago. It is a selection of O’Hara’s art and literary criticism as well as occasional prose pieces (e.g., book introductions). I love the zest for aesthetic pleasure that is rampant throughout O’Hara’s poems and plays, and I look forward to experiencing it in this collection.

Bought from Better World Books via amazon.com. The original retail price was $6.95, not bad for a small press paperback even back in 1983.

On Being a Cyborg

My primary computer was infected with a trojan several days ago, so I spent a large chunk of time this weekend working to eradicate it. Aside from feeling annoyed about the process in general–anger at whoever created the malware, trepidation about the damage it caused, frustration at the disruption of my plans in order to deal with the problem–I also found myself, my self feeling unsettled, as though it were actually my body that was infected.

I recognized this dis-ease as a symptom of the state of contemporary life which Donna Haraway describes in her “Cyborg Manifesto,” that is, having one’s selfhood extend outside of one’s physical body into the objects that seem essential to one’s existence (thus creating a cyborg–a being that is part-human, part human-made material), a state that is much more pronounced now than it was when Haraway was writing two decades ago. I have been well-aware for quite some time that my cyborg self extends at least as far as computers (especially as gateways to the internet), my cell phone, and my book collection, but every time I have a fresh reminder it scares me a little bit just how dependent I am on material objects.

The Polymath or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman

The Polymath or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. Delany is my favorite writer, but I’ve never been fortunate enough to hear him speak, so it was wonderful to see this film, which is made up almost exclusively of Delany talking about his life and writing. Although the film itself is rather amateurishly made–there is no sense of narrative, it uses a lot of mediocre stock footage, the production value is very basic overall–I was mesmerized by it; it felt much shorter than its hour and seventeen minutes. It is clearly a labor of love on Taylor’s part, for which he deserves applause. Delany is such a fascinating person!

A lot of what Delany says in the film he has also said in his nonfiction, but I still learned some things about him/heard him express some of his ideas in exciting new ways. Here are some of my favorite examples:

Early on in the film there is a shot of Delany sitting in his apartment, and it is almost completely covered in bookshelves (there seems to be hardly any space for walking) that are all stuffed with books.

In his 20s, Delany would have 12-15 sexual encounters (as Delany makes clear in his writing, virtually all of this activity consisted of giving and sometimes receiving oral sex) per day while still getting at least eight hours of writing done, and he explains how it was easy for any gay man to do the same at the time if they just knew where to look.

Delany says that he’s “always been drawn to the kinkier side of life,” which is easy to guess judging from his writing, but I wish he had said more about this. “Kinky” as in he enjoys BDSM? Or what?

He believes that heterosexual monogamy is “vicious” because of how close-minded it is, though he respects people’s freedom to make this choice.

Books Acquired Recently

Acker, Kathy. Pussy, King of the Pirates. New York: Grove, 1996.

I really enjoy Acker’s work because of its combination of postmodern form and explicit sexuality. I was wanting to read more of her fiction this summer and saw that Hume’s book has a section on Pussy, King of the Pirates, so I decided to acquire it and read it before beginning Hume.

Hume, Kathryn. Aggressive Fictions: Reading the Contemporary American Novel. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2012.

I bought this book because, aside from sounding fascinating in general (it discusses numerous writers/texts that I like: Acker, Philip Roth, Alice Walker, Chuck Palahniuk, American Psycho…) it has a section on Samuel R. Delany’s novel Hogg, which is generally ignored by critics. It always surprises me a) how often people write about Delany (they just tend not to write about his sex books), and b) how many literary critics have not heard of him at all, as he is a major voice in numerous fields. These two facts seem to contradict one another, but my guess is that most literary critics who have heard of Delany feel compelled to write about him as I do. He is becoming more and more canonical, and deserves to be so.

Both books bought on amazon.com.

In Praise of Street Food

Today there was an annual Independence Day street fair in my neighborhood. I love street fairs even though they are often hot and overcrowded because they always involve delicious street food! I grew up with high street food standards as a result of living in New York City, where the hot dogs are the best in the world and you could often get a lovely potato knish from the same vendor that sold you the hot dog, or maybe a smoky soft pretzel. Living in the midwest for much of the past decade, I grew used to its heavier, often deep-fried street food: foot-long Italian sausages, corn on the cob, pork chop sandwiches, funnel cakes.

I did not know what to expect today at my first Utah street fair, but I was not disappointed. There was a refreshingly cosmopolitan array of choices (hurray for cities!), including Greek food, Indian food, several panini stands, two taco trucks, a Belgian waffle cart, a sushi truck, and American standbys like barbecued chicken, pulled pork, and hamburgers. There were so many tantalizing options that I found myself sampling from three vendors, beginning my lunch with a samosa, moving on to a grass-fed burger that was probably the best hamburger I’ve had in Utah, and finishing with a pork taco and part of a chicken quesadilla. All of this fantastic food only cost $14.50 total. I’m often cynical about America, but street food is something that we get right!

Books Acquired Recently

Rivers, Larry, with Arnold Weinstein. What Did I Do? The Unauthorized Autobiography. New York: Harper, 1992.

I am interested in Larry Rivers because of his close friendship/relationship with my favorite poet Frank O’Hara, but I don’t know much about his work. I recently read an essay on O’Hara in the Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association that cited this book, and I thought to myself “I bet I can get a copy of this for next-to-nothing on amazon.com,” which was the case. Less that five dollars for a brand new hardcover–how could a book-buying addict like me resist?

Shepard, Judy. The Meaning of Matthew: My Son’s Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed. 2009. New York: Plume, 201o.

I just received this as a belated birthday gift from a friend. I hadn’t heard of it before, but I am interested in the Matthew Shepard story as a part of my interest in all things queer, so I look forward to reading it.