The Arrival
By some guy named Tan (who's fucking brilliant).
Arthur R. Levine, November
A graphic novel without words, and the most sophisticated I've seen. A refugee flees to a New York-like city. Only it's a city with strange servant-creatures and transportation systems resembling late-19th c. fantasy. He meets other immigrants, many who've fled ridiculous ideological wars.
The most pro-immigration book of the season has no words at all.
The Squandering of America
Robert Kuttner
Knopf, October
The Editor-in-Chief of American Prospect has another diatribe. He talks about how hedge funds and derivatives are probably ruining the American economy, perhaps irrevocably. Makes a good case, and unlike a lot of people who discuss free-markets, his words make sense.
Look Me In The Eye: My Life with Asperger's
John Elder Robison
Crown, September
Memoir - rather eloquent - of living with Asperger's Syndrome. Reading it, it came to me that Aspies, like ADDers, don't need manuals to understand how we work. We know how our insides work. We have to, because it's so damn hard for us to get what we need from a world not set up for our minds.
What's needed, actually, is a handbook for how normal people's minds work. Perhaps it needs to be different for each culture, who knows. Here's why:
A) Most normal people don't know how they work.
B) Because of this, normal people tend not to realize when their unconscious actions are cruel (not just to Aspies, ADDers, and other people with disabilities, but to people of other races and shapes).
C) Because most cruel actions are unconscious, confronting someone about their unconscious action either boggles their mind (it's like talking about the purple Snufalufagus, because they didn't see that, either) Orit angers them, because you've suddenly pulled them out of the flow of their life. And pulling a person out of the flow of his life to force introspection - that will make most people really mad.
Books by ADDers, Aspies, and high-functioning Autistics often touch on how normal people work - usually with a mind-boggling jolt at the illogic of NTs (neurological typicals) - and therefore are the best thing we've got to manuals for the normal mind.
You see, we're on the outside (I'm an ADDer), so we know how screwy you all are.
Love and the Americans with Disabilities Act,
The Red Pooka!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Book publicists don't get it...
Current t-shirt: punk skull with heart-eyes
Current music: Elvis Costello, "Spike." (Okay, everybody who's wondering why it's not "Blood and Chocolate," get with it. Yes, that's a punk classic, but it's not his only good album.)
Ok, a lot of publicists get it, but a significant subset don't...
Last night, I found a 3+ minute message on my cell phone from a publicist, wondering if I'd received the galley (generally the question is a pretext for asking if I plan to review it), and elaborating on what, according to her, were the extraordinary merits of the book.
My Dad is going in for major surgery on Oct. 15. My mom recently hurt her back badly. Yet they've decided that, despite health issues, they're going to renovate the house. Meanwhile, I'm playing phone tag with one of my editors (read someone who may eventually send me a check).
The last thing I need is some damned publicist clogging my cell phone in-box with messages - messages that, quite possibly, might fill up the space so that I can't hear the latest message from my Dad.
My Dad is one of the people I love most on this earth.
So I left a firm message telling her never to do this again.
I don't know of a reviewer who wants unsolicited messages from publicists on their cell phone. And actually, we aren't supposed to talk about reviews before they run. This is standard practice. Editors don't like it, and a reviewer who pisses off her editors is a reviewer who doesn't get a paycheck.
And I resent anyone who gets between me and my paycheck. (Wouldn't you?) Therefore, I get kinda mad when publicists call, asking if I'm going to review something.
Furthermore, reviewers aren't really supposed to have much contact with the people putting out the book. When we're pitching reviews on our own, we have to, but we're supposed to limit it. This barrier is to avoid conflict-of-interest issues, and as such, is a deeply sensible wall.
Good walls make good neighbors.
Love and stones,
The Red Pooka!
Current music: Elvis Costello, "Spike." (Okay, everybody who's wondering why it's not "Blood and Chocolate," get with it. Yes, that's a punk classic, but it's not his only good album.)
Ok, a lot of publicists get it, but a significant subset don't...
Last night, I found a 3+ minute message on my cell phone from a publicist, wondering if I'd received the galley (generally the question is a pretext for asking if I plan to review it), and elaborating on what, according to her, were the extraordinary merits of the book.
My Dad is going in for major surgery on Oct. 15. My mom recently hurt her back badly. Yet they've decided that, despite health issues, they're going to renovate the house. Meanwhile, I'm playing phone tag with one of my editors (read someone who may eventually send me a check).
The last thing I need is some damned publicist clogging my cell phone in-box with messages - messages that, quite possibly, might fill up the space so that I can't hear the latest message from my Dad.
My Dad is one of the people I love most on this earth.
So I left a firm message telling her never to do this again.
I don't know of a reviewer who wants unsolicited messages from publicists on their cell phone. And actually, we aren't supposed to talk about reviews before they run. This is standard practice. Editors don't like it, and a reviewer who pisses off her editors is a reviewer who doesn't get a paycheck.
And I resent anyone who gets between me and my paycheck. (Wouldn't you?) Therefore, I get kinda mad when publicists call, asking if I'm going to review something.
Furthermore, reviewers aren't really supposed to have much contact with the people putting out the book. When we're pitching reviews on our own, we have to, but we're supposed to limit it. This barrier is to avoid conflict-of-interest issues, and as such, is a deeply sensible wall.
Good walls make good neighbors.
Love and stones,
The Red Pooka!
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Life's been strange
Current t-shirt: Happy Sushi Family.
Current music: Joan Osborne, "Crazy Baby" (concert version). Ok, it's really '90s, but then so am I.
Some things that only happen to me:
I sit in a hot plate of soup and burn my ass.
I had my husband take pictures of my poor burned butt to send to my sister (she's a doctor, and we were deciding whether or not I should go to the emergency room - we decided not to).
While I was interviewing a chinese herbalist and he was getting to the part about using wingless cockroaches on ankle injuries, I look over, and my husband, who's working as my photographer, has the pictures of my burned ass up on the digital camera - frantically scrolling to get to the end or something. (David's technologically disinclined.)
Almost get to interview Bill Clinton, but then don't get the interview, possibly because that particular boss is a crook, and certainly because the Clinton people are difficult, to say the least.
Learned campsongs about Wehrner Von Braun and dropping nuclear bombs as a child.
All true. All me. Latest is that I was hanging out with this theater group called Vampire Cowboys, and went out later with the entourage of one of their actresses, Melissa Roth. (She's a good actress.) Turns out ths group won some contest on MySpace and are now shooting a feature film produced by Spike Lee. The director, Mitch Gettleman, and two other actors, Joe Pacillo and Keenan Moynahan where also there. Keenan feels like someone who might be going places.
Love and extended warranties,
The Red Pooka!
Current music: Joan Osborne, "Crazy Baby" (concert version). Ok, it's really '90s, but then so am I.
Some things that only happen to me:
I sit in a hot plate of soup and burn my ass.
I had my husband take pictures of my poor burned butt to send to my sister (she's a doctor, and we were deciding whether or not I should go to the emergency room - we decided not to).
While I was interviewing a chinese herbalist and he was getting to the part about using wingless cockroaches on ankle injuries, I look over, and my husband, who's working as my photographer, has the pictures of my burned ass up on the digital camera - frantically scrolling to get to the end or something. (David's technologically disinclined.)
Almost get to interview Bill Clinton, but then don't get the interview, possibly because that particular boss is a crook, and certainly because the Clinton people are difficult, to say the least.
Learned campsongs about Wehrner Von Braun and dropping nuclear bombs as a child.
All true. All me. Latest is that I was hanging out with this theater group called Vampire Cowboys, and went out later with the entourage of one of their actresses, Melissa Roth. (She's a good actress.) Turns out ths group won some contest on MySpace and are now shooting a feature film produced by Spike Lee. The director, Mitch Gettleman, and two other actors, Joe Pacillo and Keenan Moynahan where also there. Keenan feels like someone who might be going places.
Love and extended warranties,
The Red Pooka!
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