banned books week 2010

Banned Books Week is coming up at the end of the month. Powell's always recognizes this with displays around the store, and this year a creative member of my merchandising team, Christopher Johnson, suggested the theme for the window display. He made me three sock monkeys, positioned in see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil stance. Look at these guys!



Obviously, I created a backdrop to look like a zoo or jail cell, and we used the monkeys graphically in the shelf talkers in the rooms (that's what's pictured above) and physically in the window. Here's a window shot...



I love having cool, creative minds on the team!

*Christopher Johnson has worked over twelve years in independent bookstores, including a colorful month-long stint at New York’s famed Strand. You can currently find him at Powell’s Books on Burnside in the Blue Room, sweating over the letter S.

dw army - huzzah

Frozen Moment submission is off and away. This has been a very particular experience - a very nice experience. Having the whole writing group submitting for the same project, you'd think there could have been some tension. The difficulty of getting published out there in the modern publishing world, the very strong want... need... that I think every writer has inside. But I sensed no tension these last few months. In fact, it's been just the opposite, and even though, in a way, I would expect that out of this group, I'm also very impressed.

Stories have leapfrogged across the e-mail universe for comments and critiques between us. And then there was Kevin opening his home up for special Frozen Moment workshops. All of us around the table helping each other work toward the same goal, knowing that in essence we are competing against each other. Not caring about that at all. An experience like this is quite a gift.

preparedness month

Found out that September is National Preparedness Month and thought I'd have some fun with that at Powell's. With the recent rash of books on how to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse, the alien invasion, the robot uprising, along with a whole section of books for surviving in the wild, I figured it was a good time to take being prepared to the next level.

Here's the top panel I put together...



I was able to reuse an image I'd created for my First Contact display a while back...



There on the left side is my version of the letter-to-the-editor that Billy Pilgrim wrote in Slaughterhouse Five--one of the number of alien-related books I was displaying along with First Contact. Here's a blog post on that display which shows the original use of the letter. And here's an earlier blog post about the display in which I explain how to create an alien out of a cat and George W. Bush.

Then I found some blueprints and played around a bit with them to simulate some sort of plans for hiding and evacuation during the zombie / robot / vampire / alien apocalypse. Made quick work of it because part of that area of the display was going to be blocked by books. Here's a picture of the final display--including the annoying shine from the window glass and excluding the book that someone removed at the request of a customer that day. The customer bought the book, which is good, but I always have mixed feelings when I see those empty book holders. Yay - the display is effective... boo - now I have to go get another copy to put in the window. I've had a lot of that with this display, actually, and I've heard there are a lot of people asking questions about the books. I wonder what it is that people are getting more prepared for... survival in the wilderness or the undead.

call to [ancient] arms

Alright, what singers out there in Portland want to indulge in the chance to be souls trapped in your bodies?

Be a part of a megachorus and gain a very particular intimacy with an amazing piece of medieval music. Ordo Virtutum, written circa 1151 by Hildegard of Bingen, is the oldest known morality play in history. It's full of excellent archetypal tropes* (the soul, the virtues, and the big guy himself, the Devil) and a music so different and quite fascinating--more fascinating the more you get to know it. Stephen and I were part of the chorus when this was produced in February, and it was a really great experience. Local arts impresario Stephen Marc Beaudoin is mounting the show again this month, and here is his call for singers. Check it out...

here

*is that redundant? are all tropes archetypal?

norma night

Listening to Norma as I worked on a project this evening and Stephen painted across the way in the studio. I told Stephen after: supering for Norma was one of the closest things I have to Christmas as an adult. A magic like the magic that attached itself to colored lights when I was a kid. Always takes me a bit to "come down" after the last amazing piece of music in that opera. Bellini was a master of tension. Gadzooks am I glad I got to get burned at the stake to that music.

ne'er-do-well working class stories

The #3 issue of the Ne'er-Do-Well Literary Magazine is out. Just. It hasn't quite reached Powell's but is on its way. I'm looking forward to getting my contributor's copy and reading all the "working class stories" in this special edition whose proceeds benefit the strike fund of the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union. The magazine is edited by Sheila Ashdown and includes writing by, among others, Willy Vlautin (Motel Life, Lean on Pete) and Kevin Sampsell (A Common Pornography). Check out this cool wrap-around graphic created for the cover by artist Christina Mackin.



Here's a quick excerpt from my story "Sylvester." I cut out a bit of a middle part to keep it short...

*

I never knew who I’d get from week to week. Town to town. In Wichita, it might be four guys who never said a thing and the only way I knew they were listening was by watching the spotlights sweep, on my cue, from juggler to high wire. In Omaha, it might be four guys who talked nonstop through the performance, their voices loud through the earphones of my headset, making bets on whether the trapezist would make the triple somersault and cracking lewd jokes about the thirteen-year-old girl riding the elephant. Our circus didn’t have a regular team of spotlight operators. We only had a lighting director—me—and we picked up a new crew of spot ops from the stagehand’s union in each city.

There were generally four spotlights in each arena we played, so there were generally four spotlight operators to man them. They were way up there, stationed along the catwalk at just about the ceiling. Meanwhile, I sat at my light board, down on the arena floor, sidled up to center ring where I was in constant danger of being trampled by elephants or peed on by tigers. But to me, it was those guys up there on the catwalk who were brave. I couldn’t even see them. Glance up in the middle of the show, through the arena darkness, and at each corner of the building all I saw were the white glows of their spotlights, like nickels flashing in a glint of moon.

I controlled the spotlights by speaking commands into the headset.

“Stand by to hit Bulgarian acrobats in Ring Three — flood and cover… and… go.”

Even with all the hoopla — jugglers tossing fire torches right in front of me, the ringmaster calling theatrical strings of alliteration into his microphone, the thud of elephant feet resonating through the floor and vibrating up through my shoes — it was easy to detach and feel like nothing but a voice, floating through that wide space, bouncing from one corner of the arena to another.

And spot op voices bouncing back. Telling secrets in our parallel universe...

josé

He would have been nineteen this month.

Happy birthmonth.

I miss you, little boy.