Freaky Friday

Hello, world, I don't even have my head on straight between the new job and moving and the second job and everything, and I'm crotchety from not writing enough.  What to do when the world is upside down?  Well, if you're me, and I am, you have rockstar fantasies when you're dogging it on the treadmill.  So, for your enjoyment, my Current Top 5 Freaky-Friday Rock-Out Choices:

1.  Because I Want (To Be) Her: St. Vincent

2.  Because I Want To Yell Like That: Karen O

3.  Because I Want To Know What It's Like To Have A Voice That Big: Neko Case

4.  Because I Like To Dance: Janelle Monáe

5.  Because Sometimes We Have The Same Vocal Range: Matt Berninger (from The National)

Bonus Round!
Because She Knocks My Song Out Of The Park: Lea Michele

Have you ever read a book called AWE?

I have!

And then I read Black Life, Dorothea Lasky's wonderful second book.  And then I wrote about it.  And now Rain Taxi is going to publish that review.  And now I am smiling pretty big.

Holy Skirts, Batman!

Why did NO ONE TELL ME about René Steinke's 2005 novel, Holy Skirts?

Would I like to read a book about Dada queen, the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven?


Who hung out with Duchamp and made phallic sculptures out of plumbing?


Who wore crazy outfits and recited poems in beer halls?


YES. Yes, I very much would.

God, I hope this is as good as it sounds.

von Freytag-Loringhoven's sculpture God (1917).

The Orange Prize nominations award are is coming up soon, and Jessa Crispin has, of course, written a nice thought piece on what it means to have a prize for female writers:

There are still huge gaps of women's experiences for fiction to fill. That can be inspiring for a writer. Lorraine Adams said to me about her book The Room and the Chair — which is populated with aggressive, batty, slutty, heroic, downtrodden female fighter pilots, reporters, wives, and underage prostitutes — "I feel like so much fictional women are not reflective of the women I know." Virginie Despentes wrote King Kong Theory in part out of frustration that "Even today, when women publish lots of novels, you rarely get female characters that are unattractive or plain, unsuited to loving men or to being loved by them...

Had the book [Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas] been written by a man, I would have tossed it aside halfway through with a roll of the eyes. But having been at one point in my life broke, living with a horrible boyfriend and unable to leave without serious financial (or hell, physical) consequences, and seeing female friends trapped in poverty, bad relationships, bad apartments, it felt like a betrayal of the reality of the situation. Obviously it is not impossible to get yourself unstuck, but it can be devastating. If we're still trying to figure out how to live our lives and get out of the traps we got ourselves into, hearing "You just have to cosmic order some money and a new house, and the universe will totally provide — or wait, probably not because you're not secretly a princess," can make us want to scream. Which is maybe why we discuss the state of women's literature every single year, and take it all so incredibly personally when it comes up short.

I've been reading a lot of fiction written by women lately without really thinking about it--the stories were just ones I've wanted to read, the voices were just ones I've been drawn to (problems of time and scale aside, of the 50 books I wrote down to read this summer--including fiction, poetry, and non-fiction--34 were written by women). Sometimes I think I take for granted that this isn't usual, and it's good to be reminded of that, if only because I'm an over-ambitious and obsessive-compulsive list-maker.  And because Jessa Crispin made me.

You Can Rock, Or You Can Leave

It seems a shame that I only just found out about Janelle Monáe, the fabulous cross between an early Michael Jackson, James Brown, and something really, really sparkly.

Here's her video for "Tightrope." Damn, she can work a pair of oxfords.



Maybe I found my new karaoke song?

Rainy Days and Sundays

The first farm share of the season yielded a ton of salad greens, including arugula; some spicy purple-pink radishes; and a fragrant bundle of herbs (most of which I, sadly, can't identify).  Tonight I made a big salad with the greens and radishes, threw in some mushrooms and cucumbers, dressed it with a healthy helping of olive oil and lemon juice, and topped it off with some sourdough croutons:

Yum.

I've been reading Nancy Milford's biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Savage Beauty, and wish that I had ten ounces of Vincent's confidence--the woman was never afraid to do or say anything, and she pretty much did whatever she wanted, charming everyone who breathed within ten feet of her.  Which only sounds like an exaggeration.

I mean, come on.

In other news, there's nothing like a rainy day and a timely re-read of a Zadie Smith essay to make you realize you were going about everything absolutely wrong in your novel.  So now to try a new tack--starting with too many chili-lime cashews and heading straight for hacking apart the first 20 pages or so of my book and re-making them.  

With any luck, I'll be able to put the bookmark I made for the awesome residency program at Millay's New York home, Steepletop, to good use one day.  Until then, forward!  And some flowers, too.

Finding your way

Many congratulations to my sister Kaitlyn, whose whimsical Wayfinding Instruments were chosen for the 2010 Art of the State exhibit at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg.  The juried exhibit runs from June 27 through September 12 and is open to the public.  If you're in the area, you should check it out!