BOOKS
I wanted to compile a list of books I’ve ever read as closed to in chronological order as I could remember. The newest ones are at the top. The portion lower down is still a mess. I also wrote what I thought of the books but some of what I wrote is too long.
A SWIM IN A POND IN THE RAIN, GEORGE SAUNDERS . SHORT STORY LITERARY CRITICISM.
A college creative writing professor compiles a list of classic Russian short stories, has you read them and then tells you why the Russian writers were good at short story writing. This book is helpful for learning to do any creative art better because you learn the only thing you can do is learn what your own tastes and rules are then seek to honor them. This book was a gift to me from John Bedbrook. Completed June of 2023.
AUTUMN. KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD. BIOGRAPHY + MEMOIR.
Karl Ove did it again. I want to go to where in Norway he saw the frogs in the rain in the night time. I read this before bed during a difficult transition in life and the experience was a good guide. Completed October of 2022.
WINTER. KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD. BIOGRAPHY + MEMOIR.
I purchased the first in the series of these books titled with the seasons at a book store in Ann Arbour, Michigan when I was living near there. These books each have a series of reflections on the plants, animals, past times and phenomena one encounters over the course of a life. My favorite chapter in this book is called The Otter and it illustrates why Karl is my favorite author. He puts into words what the otter does that most people wouldn’t even stop and notice. I love it. Completed July of 2022.
THE ONE BIG THING, THE SURPRISINGLY SIMPLE TRUTH BEHIND EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS. GARY KELLER WITH JAY PAPASAN. SELF IMPROVEMENT.
I got this book while stuck in the LA airport for a while after my grandfather’s funeral. The guy teaches you to discover what is the obstacle you run into over and over again that if you just defeated that obstacle, it would bring you closer to your goal then doing any other task. Also, you have to know what your goal is in the long term. Also you have to protect your time each day to do the work that is most important to your goal. Completed in January of 2022.
DO EVERY THING WRONG! XXXTENTACION AGAINST THE WORLD, JARRETT KOBEK // MUSIC CRITICISM.
The musician this book is about was born in Florida. His father went to jail in Arizona because of the war on drugs which were a hypocritical, evil ploy on the part of the Reagan administration, who were profiteering in guns and cocaine south of the border while scolding citizens at home. This is the opinion of the author, but I agree with him. Ronald Reagan is Mark Twain’s space age Satan. If you like Satan or Ronald Reagan, I’m not trying to offend you. I’m just saying neither figure is as they appear. No one is.
Anyway, Xxxtentacion came of age the same time the internet did, and Jarett Kobek, the author of this biography, uses the twitter timeline of his subject to contextualize a very short life and career. Xxxtentacion got shot to death when he was twenty. Before that he did lots of drugs and had lots of fights and sex on videos which were posted online, which I presume lended intrigue and authenticity to the music he was making, for the people he was making it for, ostensibly a fellowship of children mutually alienated by society.
The music was really extraordinary. It was. I’d like to say that the music was extraordinary regardless of the sad and sensational parts of the biography, because it’s really annoying when people fetishize the tragic victim parts of stories. Sometimes corporeal forms are just gifted at one art or another and they’re going to create something great regardless of their circumstances. Making it about the narrative is an advertising ploy, because it’s proven that a certain variety of narrative sells. Now that we’ve been around the block a few times, and everyone films every minute of their life like everywhere is a piano recital, or a prize fight, or one of those stupid restaurants where they put edible confetti on your plate and you’re supposed to pretend you have slaves and chariots and like it, everyone’s perception has become a feedback loop. The curation of narrative and image has never been more self conscious, nor so individually located, and the assumption that your freedom and societal worth are dependent on the currency of this narrative, has never been more ubiquitous.
The music Xxxtentacion made, from what I’ve listened to so far, isn’t really about the topics that popular hip hop artists seem remote controlled to talk about. The music Xxxtentacion made seems to me like it’s talking about feeling lonely and desperate and wanting to express a vision of beauty that is pure by virtue of its unwillingness or inability to conform to the inevitable influence of a corrosive world. It’s not music that’s trying to flaunt a resume of prolific vampire commodification statistics as its primary concern. And yet, the personality behind this music bragged in an interview about beating up a gay person in jail, and later, he probably kidnapped his girl friend and physically abused her. And in the process of discussing all this publicly and privately, he probably said the words “bitch” and “faggot” a lot.
I report this in the conditional because, you know, we don’t know. We weren’t there. It might be on the internet but I’m old and I just don’t trust that. Besides, you know what Jesus or whoever said about stones and glass houses. We’ve all been faggots and bitches at one time or another, and said those words out loud too, ironically and literally, because despite having an ego centric multi personality disorder, deep down we know we’re all one, and this blame and division is a demon pissing in the wishing well. Anytime some one makes a comment about how someone else should get a job, know that they are actually calling that person a “faggot,” or a “bitch,” or choose your slur, and that this is societally acceptable, because a drawing of Thomas Jefferson and the word “God” is on money, and nobody seems to remember the fact that the old testament said you’re not supposed to write the word of God down, and having a picture of a ghost on the American permission slip is going to work less and less well the more kids stop being afraid and ashamed of dying.
Kobek does well to point out that timbre is what makes a musician memorable, and Xxxtentacion had extremely distinctive timbre. It’s not what the musician says, it’s how they say it. Xxxtentacion had that timbre, and a genuine curiosity for the art form, and a willingness to make due with whatever limited tools happened to be on hand. He created extraordinary work, a lot of it, and fast, with an unprecedented lack of support from the music industry gate keepers.
I really liked the book. It was a strange format and writing style that self consciously mirrored the chosen milieu of its subject, which is saying out of context what you’re feeling now directly into the gaping nothingness of the internet. I don’t understand how anyone does that correctly. People do though, and this book made that mystery more pleasing to me. The book was written fast and angry, and had a lot of weird typos, which is annoying when it’s the newspaper, but in this case I found it endearing. The author, and the musician the author is talking about, are just out there in the world making a statement, sometimes to expose hypocrisy and delusion, but sometimes just to create. Creating fast, relying just on yourself, not caring about how it appears or resonates vis a vis the status quo, that’s inspiring. You certainly should not say faggot and imprison your girlfriend, yes. Also, a lot of events should have never happened to you. Who’s counting anyway?
This book was suggested by a good friend, who can be caring when necessary, but also challenging when I get lazy or boring. I read it very quickly, over the course of a few nights in September of 2020.
WILL OLDHAM ON BONNIE “PRINCE” BILLY, EDITED BY ALAN LICHT
I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp, Richard Hell // Autobiography, Music.
Richard Hell grew up in Kentucky and ran away from home for the first time as a young boy shortly before his father died of a heart attack. I think it was a heart attack. I’m writing this a few months after I finished the book. Richard starts out remembering his childhood with remarkable detail. He notes the smell of the building where his father worked, the trees that grew around there, his report card grades, and times spent with friends listening to records, and looking for trouble. I used to find it remarkable when a popular music professional with heavy drug habits has a good memory, and an eye for details that better writers may pass over. Keith Richards, in his autobiography, references journal entries that also served as accounting log books for the earnings and expenses of The Rolling Stones’ early shows. I realize now that this shouldn’t be surprising at all that these sorts of people have good memories. Those who have struck a key in the cultural consciousness loud enough for little old me to hear must have had an above average set of faculties. I know more about baseball than I do about music. That is to say, I’m not studiously in search of the esoteric. What comes my way I catch, but I don’t go out of my way. I’ve been around a little bit though, and I’m quite sure it’s difficult to move to New York City as an eighteen year old, and through the tutelage and selectively good graces of a series of savvy girlfriends, low rent living situations, and dubious patrons, learn to make a living. The book ends with Richard walking around his neighborhood in New York as a middle aged, sober, retired artist. Before that he did lots of drugs, played in the band Television in the CBGB punk scene, played in a band with Johnny Thunders after the New York Dolls, published poetry periodicals, and was somewhat rude to Allen Ginsberg. My favorite passage was when he compared the George Bush World Trade Center, flag waving supporters after the September 11, 2001 attacks, to the attendees of a March 1967, Central Park “Human Be-in.” I have it underlined in pencil. That’s the first time I remember doing that. I’m making progress in my student habits. The passage goes: “For Bush’s Americans that dubious idea was the virtue of self-righteous patriotism, and for the hippies it was the practicability of universal kindness and generosity. The people joined together by those unexamined assumptions seemed idiotic. On the other hand, my inability to fit in was involuntary too.” Yeah. I feel that way, and it’s probably why I usually don’t like parties. Richard Hell certainly made a lot of music and artwork. He says that he designed the aesthetic of his bands. By this I mean the clothes, haircuts, and artwork of the flyers. He understood how marketing and image related to understanding the art itself. One must see the utility in being. Even being a junky has utility. Pretty little things like birds with broken wings, and so do wealthy would be uncles, but you have to have the fortitude to sleep with one eye open, for like twenty years or so. This book, like the previous one in this list, was a birthday present from my friend Sterling in May of 2018. Finished in February of 2020.
The History of Rock N’ Roll in Ten Songs, Greil Marcus // Music Criticism.
Sometimes Greil Marcus seems to be writing in stream of consciousness and sometimes he speaks with great conviction on something to him that is apparently obvious, but I have no idea at all what he’s talking about. I read his book about Bob Dylan’s basement tapes as well. I tend to get frustrated when everything isn’t clear and provable, which is a bit hypocritical given the state of my past expressions. I really liked this book though. I find that what makes music interesting to listen to is first and foremost how it recalls the time the song came into your life. Since I’m not a teenager anymore, and there often aren’t fast, dangerous, first time experiences for which I’m in need of a soundtrack, a back door into connecting with music is to have access to all the stories that go into how songs were created, and how they related to the history and culture of the time, and how the musicians who made them have so intricately crossed paths. This book does a great job of providing this door. It was a gift for my birthday from my friend Sterling in May of 2018. My life was chaotic then. I’m really glad to have read the book later. It came, as books often seem to, at the perfect time. Finished in January of 2020.
Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins // Novel.
A king from the middle ages decides to break from tradition and not die. He meets an Indian lady on the road who refused to jump into her husbands funeral fire. Also the ancient god Pan is in it and a lady named Priscilla who is a perfume scientist in much more modern New Orleans. It was fun to bounce so far through history and learn about immortalists. It was a book my friend Indianna gave me a long time ago. I found it in my storage space some time after I returned to San Francisco. Finished it in November 2019.
Life Will Be the Death of Me, Chelsea Handler // Autobiography
A comedian discusses how therapy changed her world view and helped her cope with the death of her brother. It was interesting to read the writing of a successful person who lives in Los Angeles. And I got to learn what it’s like to go see a therapist. My sister Ally mailed me the book because I’m crazy and think I’m smarter than everyone else and don’t need any help. I found the author to be very different from me. For instance, she hates room temperature water and lets her fat dogs sleep in her bed. I don’t care about ice cubes and don’t want any part of a dog in my bed. Also my dog would be physically fit. However, I do share some of the author’s other mental problems and the underlying assumption that I’m the only one that can fix them. Finished September 2019
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy. // Novel.
The story of a family that lives in small town on the banks of a river in India where the uncle has a pickle factory. The kids are twins and the twins have a cousin and she dies and there’s bats in the church. The story jumps back and forth in time. I have no idea how the author kept track of it all. I became curious about her when I read an article about a time she went to jail and intuitively thought she’d make a good role model. The book was haunted and sometimes upsetting. Also, I found the author’s use of similes distracting. It was an impressive work though. I enjoyed it and learned a lot. Finished in August of 2019.
Autumn, Karl Ove Knausgaard. // Essays.
A book Karl Ove wrote to explain the world as he sees it to his children after he is gone? Descriptions of mundane every day objects, animals, body parts, etc. all done with humor and exquisite technical writing skill very, very subtly. I read it before bed with Jessie and enjoyed it thoroughly. The part where his father kills the snake and several others nearly made me cry, or did. Finished in June of 2019.
Shark Drunk, Morten Strøksnes // Memoir. Travel.
A gift from my sister Jennie. Coincidentally it was also recommended to me by my Norwegian friend Torbjørn, but I was unable to find an English translation at the time. Years later Jennie did, and gifted me this book for my birthday. It is the true story of how a journalist goes to visit his artist friend who lives in the Lofoten Islands to try and catch a Greenland Shark. You get a beautiful survey of the way of life in that remote, northern part of the world, and of the wild life in the sea. I read it with Jessie before bed each night and improved our rest. Finished in March of 2019.
This is Memorial Device, David Keenan. // Novel.
A gift from Sleepy Todd. The meta tale of a local in a small town in Scotland compiling interviews for a music zine. My understanding is that he left the unfinished product in stacks behind a trash can on a drunk day in a public park. Each chapter is an interview from one of the scene’s participants. The work centers around the band Memorial Device, whose singer and creative force has no short term memory. The actual writer is really good at creating authentic voices for each chapter. It’s an impressive feat. Todd gave me the book in hopes I’d one day capture our music scene from San Francisco when we were young. I don't know if I have it in me but I’ll keep it on file just in case. I really loved this book. Finished it on a boat in the Caribbean in January of 2019.
The People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn (Historical Fiction)
A long time ago my friend Olive saw this book on my bedside table and suggested I'd never read it due to mysterious reasons. He was right for a long time. For some strange reason when I left home in August of 2015 I took it with me. I dragged it around all the way until the winter of 2017 when I was in Mexico and I started reading it. I must have seemed like an idiot in the small coastal village where I was living going to little bars with sand floors and reading it by lantern light. I'm a slow reader anyway, and that was a hard living time in life. It's a book about American History. I finally finished it Oakland in late April of 2018.
Hadley, Lee, Lightcap, Sam Sweet (Music Journalism, Criticism, + History)
Provided by Sleepy Todd while staying with him in Bend, Oregon. Read before bed each night. The story of the band Acetone that got lost in time. Also a poetic accounting of Los Angeles, Orange County and being a troubled musician with your friends in the 1990s. I finished reading this book late at night in early March of 2018.
King of the World, David Remnick (Biography)
Birthday gift from Eric Kuhn. Survey of the life of boxer Muhammad Ali focusing on his two fights with Sonny Liston. A good reference for the political climate of the 1960s set in the context of a remarkable athlete's career. It was interesting to learn detailed accounts of the Liston fights. Ali was a hero of my father, who told me his own versions of these stories when I was a young child and had no context. I read this book while staying in Ypsilanti, Michigan to record music. I finished it in November of 2017.
Tampa, Alissa Nutting (Novel)
Hummingbird, Jude Angelini (Short Stories)
Bhagavad Gita, Hindu Scripture (translated by Stephen Mitchell) (Middle Eastern / Eastern Religion)
The Game, Neil Strauss (Film / Culture)
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, JD Salinger (Short Stories)A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold (Nature)
River Teeth, Stories and Writings, David James Duncan (Short Stories)
Closely Watched Trains, Bohumil Hrabal (Novel)
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds, Paul Zindel (Play)
Hyena, Jude Angelini (Short Stories)
Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill (Healing / Self Improvement)
Healing Myths, Healing Magic, Dr. Donald Epstein (Healing / Self Improvement)
Fifth Avenue, 5am, Sam Wasson (Film / Culture)
USA Trilogy (The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money), John Dos Passos (Novel)
The Tao of Wu, The RZA (Philosophy of Music)
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger (Novel)
Hawaii, James Michener (Historical Fiction)
Another Roadside Attraction, Tom Robbins (Novel)
The Education of Little Tree, Forrest Carter (Novel)
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (Novel)
Comfortable with Uncertainty, Pema Chodrin (Healing / Self Improvement)
Health, Healing and Beyond, T.K.V. Desikachar (Healing / Self Improvement)
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien (Novel)
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (Children's Literature)
33 1/3 Paul's Boutique, Dan LeRoy (Music Journalism, Criticism, + History)
33 1/3 In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Kim Cooper (Music Journalism, Criticism, + History)
The Art of War, Sun Tzu (Martial Arts)
The Book of Five Rings, Myamoto Musashi (translated by Thomas Cleary) (Martial Arts)
Haiku Master Buson, Yosa Buson (Poetry)
Buddha, Karen Armstrong (Historical Fiction)
Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu (translated by David Hinton)
Band of Brothers, Ernest Frankel (Novel)
Tongue of Fire, Ernest Frankel (Novel)
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe (Novel)
The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, Tom Spoonbauer (Novel)
Persian Boy, Mary Renault (Historical Fiction)
Woody Guthrie, A Life; Joe Klein (Biography)
Gift from Ben Sherwyn. A biography of musician Woody Guthrie. My favorite parts were learning about Woody's choices from the public library and a time he made a contraption to save his ship from submarine attack while serving as a Merchant Marine during World War II. I read this book while living in San Francisco. I can't remember when exactly. Probably around 2004.
Naked, David Sedaris (Memoir)
The Invisible Republic, Greil Marcus (Music Journalism, Criticism, + History)
The Conference of the Birds, Farid ud-Din Attar (Middle Eastern / Eastern Religion)
Chronicles: Volume 1, Bob Dylan (Philosophy of Music)
The Tetherballs of Bougainville, Mark Leyner (Novel)
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Novel)
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (Novel)
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (Novel)
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes (Novel)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (Novel)
Bob Dylan, Anthony Scaduto (Biography)
Gift from Todd Prager. A biography of musician Bob Dylan. Todd and I liked to joke about Bob's relationship with his gruff talking manager Albert Grossman. I read this book while living in Santa Cruz during my second year of college there. It was sometime around 1998.
Tristessa, Jack Kerouac (Novella)
On the Road, Jack Kerouac (Novel)
Dharma Bums, Jack Keroac (Novel)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey (Novel)
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe (Novel)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard (Play)
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemmingway (Novel)
The Bear who Wanted to be a Bear, Jörg Steiner (Children's Literature)
Rabbit Island, Jörg Steiner (Children's Literature)
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (Children's Literature)
The Lorax, Dr. Seuss (Children's Literature)
Frog and Toad, Arnold Lobel (Children's Literature)