Do You Think These Lyrics Are Heartless?

I'm currently about 150 pages into Girlfriend in Coma. Given my love of Coupland, and my love of Morrissey, you'd think I'd have hit this one sooner. I have to say, I'm completely creeped out when I'm reading it. Far more so than when reading Winterwood or any horror genre stuff. I'm not sure if it's because Coupland is hitting some deep-seeded fears in my brain (vegetative states, Armageddon), or because he's just that good. While I haven't loved everything he's written, there are books of his that can completely alter my mood, and tinge everything around me. Eleanor Rigby made me quiet, and small, and vaguely depressed, like I was walking through mist all the time. It didn't get great reviews, but I feel it's one of his finest. All Families are Psychotic, on the other hand, had me thinking "Franzen did it better." And let's not even get into the absurdity of the China sequence in JPod. Far too meta, and you know how I feel about meta^*! But Girlfriend is Coupland at his mood-altering best. I can't put the thing down, till my eyes close by themselves to sleep. At the same time, I'm repelled, knowing something pretty awful is coming. It may not sound like it, given my one-line reviews, but I have a deep, deep respect for Coupland, and a love of his writing, even when it's pissing me off.

I also love Penguin, the publishing house. When used book shopping, I'll always take a look at the orange spines first. It's how I discovered A.S. Byatt. The orange spine has always had such a calming effect on me. So you can imagine how excited I was to learn that Coupland had an exhibit up, using Penguin covers. I went to the Distillery District on Sunday to check it out, and was completely blown away. One of the things I love about Coupland, is his ease with, and reverence for, pop culture, and the sly references to it (Girlfriend has Smiths' lyrics all through it, but if you didn't know The Smiths, you'd have no idea). While it's interesting to look close up at the covers, and the words attached to them, the exhibit works best from ten feet away. I stood in the middle of that room, and turned slowly. A helpful gallery person came up to talk to me, and I asked what the pieces were going for. "$800 for a single, $1550 for the diptych." Most things had been sold, but there was one diptych left, and it read, vertically, "Dazzle Ships." The gallery person didn't know the reference. But I did. And it was still available. I really did wrestle with this. Three things I love, all together. In the end though, I'd have to go into debt to do it, and my miserly Capricorn nature stopped me. But I'll dream about it, and cry here and there. If only, if only, if only.



^*Funny that the review of Girlfriend in a Coma I link to above says: "Mr. Coupland has become the first popular mainstream author in America to publicly declare that postmodernism is dead." Though one wonders how good a review this can be, when they get the author's nationality wrong. C'mon, 99% of his writing is set in Vancouver! This is not difficult.

The Middle Ground and Assorted Media

I once read an issue of US magazine that a had cover shouting "Mary-Kate is too thin!" and an inside article blasting Brittney for being "too fat." I think the two women were within five pounds of each other at the time. I'm reminded of this issue because there's been talk recently, about literature, being either too "fake" or too "real."

Laura Albert, the author formerly known as JT LeRoy, was found guilty of fraud by a Manhattan jury last week. Albert's book Sarah was optioned by a film company, but when Albert was "exposed" as the real author, the work somehow lost merit. Personally, I think it's a load of crap. I haven't read the book, but it seems symptomatic of our sensationalist age the author's personality and back story are more important than the work itself. The author wasn't a young hustler, working the truck stops of Virginia; the author was a mother from Booklyn Heights, and that doesn't sell.
According to the New York Times "[a]fter the revelation, the company took the position that Ms. Albert had used the JT LeRoy “brand” — the same that had attracted them — as a celebrity magnet to draw attention to her books." See? The work isn't important, only the angles that will get media attention are. Sell, sell, sell. That's why movies are so shitty these days. Sensation, not content, is of the upmost importance.

In a drastically different story, an author was assaulted when he returned to his hometown in France, because the book he wrote was a bit too real for the villagers of Lussaud.

[I]n July 2005, when Jourde, whose previous works include unflinching and controversial portrayals of the worlds of literature and academic scholarship, arrived with his family for a summer break, six villagers appeared outside his house shouting insults. Blows were exchanged and stones thrown. A car window was smashed. Jourde's 15-month-old baby was slightly hurt and his mixed-race sons were called 'dirty Arabs'.

You can't win, folks. I'm sitting here trying to think of (popular?) books that just breeze by, and all I keep coming up with is controversy. Not that literature has ever been immune from this sort of thing. Literature has power, huge power, and because of that, there will always be crazies trying to ban Potter for fear of witchcraft, and people making poor King adaptations (and King writing poor novels, but I digress). I just found those two stories an interesting comparison, coming through the grapevine when they did.

In other media, Wil Murray is coming to my town next month, and he's bringing his tight pants with him. Check out the excellent article in Toronto Life and head on down to the Loop Gallery to see what happens when you "let the paint do what it wants.*" Now, someone just has to get Lee Henderson's butt out here, for the full Alberta posse effect.


*Actual quote, circa 1998. Love ya!

Control/Pomo

Hello Blogland. It's been a while; forgive me. I discovered Facebook and all the evils that go along with it.


A.S. Byatt's The Biographer's Tale is a thin book that took me far too long to read. Byatt is not easy reading, by any stretch, and she's very hit and miss with me. However, even when she misses, I can't blame the writing, or the book, because she's just so damn good. Biographer's Tale is somewhere in between for me. I didn't devour and love it, like any of the four books in the Virgin in the Garden series, but I didn't roll my eyes like I did reading Possession. It's an odd book, that makes your brain scream "meta," even as it denounces post-modern theory, which becomes a bit meta in itself! See? Screaming brain. Problem is, I'm really big on narrative and character, and Biographer's Tale lacks both for the first half of the book, and good sized sections afterwards. So, while I deeply admire and appreciate the work itself, it's something that would have been better foisted upon me in an English lecture, rather than something for leisure.
An excellent scholarly review of The Biographer's Tale can be found here.

Speaking of meta, The Guardian's digested read of Don DeLillo's new one, Falling Man, is hilarious.

I don't see a lot of movies, but I can't wait for the North American release of Control, Anton Corbijn's biopic of Ian Curtis. Looks like everyone at Cannes is loving it, but I'd see it if it got terrible reviews, just because everything Corbijn shoots is gold to me. If you're not aware of his name, you're surely aware of his work. He's worked very closely with Depeche Mode for many years on videos, album covers, and promotional photos. He's done my favourite series of Morrissey (shot for Details magazine in... hmmm, 1994?). Perhaps his best known work is the cover of U2's Joshua Tree album (and by "best known" I'm really saying "best selling").

Atmosphere: Joy Division



While googling for one of those Moz images, I came across this quiz from the CBC:
Bigmouth Strikes Again: Test Your Knowledge of Morrissey. Awesome.
I scored 9 of 10, because one of the questions is really about Coupland, and not Morrissey. Also, the quiz is too easy. Heh.