An Embarrassment of Riches

Strayed, Lost and Found on the Pacific Crest Trail - by Alison

The world can be an over-whelming mess of a place sometimes. Trying to deal with sorrow, tragedy and anger can push us to confront pain or flee it. Sometimes being in that place can lead us to do something really big, something that will form a personal mythology - a touchstone for the rest of one's life.

Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail starts with an emotionally strained young woman taking her first steps on a path from the Mojave desert to the Bridge of the Gods.
Four years prior, her mother was diagnosed with cancer and died within 7 weeks. As the eldest, she tried without success to keep her family from crumbling under the weight of that loss. A divorce and experimentation with drugs led her further down the rabbit hole.  Not knowing how to cope, Strayed got a big idea. She decided to hike the Pacific Crest trail. She had never backpacked a day in her life.

The Pacific Crest Trail is a 2,663-mile wilderness route stretching from Mexico to the Canada and traversing nine mountain ranges and three states. The first day she sets foot on the trail, Strayed is carrying a backpack the size of a trunk that will open up sores on her body, and wearing boots that will cause her so much discomfort that she will hurl them over a mountain. By the end of the journey she will have found a sense of inner strength that will be a solace to her on other spiritual, psychological and physical journeys. There have been countless re-tellings of this story, but Strayed avoids cliche by presenting the details in such an honest and emotionally compelling way that you feel as though you've earned something just by reading the book.

The story explores many themes: Strayed, a single woman alone in the middle of nowhere, deliberately makes herself vulnerable in order to grow stronger. Those who have taken similar journeys may also recognize that the wilderness of just a decade ago is not the same as today's - when I was young, being in the wild represented both challenge and real danger without the lifelines of technology to come to the rescue. Certainly, there's still danger in undertakings of this kind, but the concept of absolute solitude has gotten that much smaller.

Strayed has been much in the media lately. She made the news when it was announced that she is the author of the Rumpus's online advice column Dear Sugar. You can also listen in on her recent interview on OPB's Think Out Loud. And for the more visual among you, take a peek into Strayed's thoughts about her journey with this slide show.

The Anteroom of Eternity - by Alison

"Remarkable events often have ordinary beginnings. Never was this more true than with my talks with Dean Spanley."
So opens the movie Dean Spanley, a tale of forgiveness, transcendence and reconciliation. Every Thursday, Henslowe Fisk makes his way through the streets of London to visit his ancient, curmudgeonly and nihilistic father. The elder Fiske grumbles that his son's visits are a burden, and that the only thing special about a Thursday is to keep "Wednesday and Friday from colliding."

Fisk begins to wonder whether the time couldn't be spent in more enjoyable pursuits. At his next visit he insists that he and his father attend a lecture on reincarnation, held by a guru on his vast estate. The senior Fisk is skeptical: "Do you think if we had souls, they wouldn't get in touch? Of course they would!"

While at the lecture they meet a local vicar, Dean Spanley. He's an odd character who makes some intriguing comments about the possibility of an afterlife. Henslowe's curiosity is peaked and he invites Spanley to dinner to discuss the topic further. He discovers that, plied with the right amount of wine, the Dean is given to telling fantastic stories of another, half-remembered life. After recounting one such tale, Spanley pauses to reflect, "One moment you are running along, the next you are no more." As time goes by, Henslowe realizes that these stories sound vaguely familiar, and may hold the key to a more enlightened relationship between Henslowe and his father.

The role of the elder Fisk is given Scrooge-like depth by Peter O'Toole, a valid reason on its own to watch this gem. Sam Neill's portrayal of the Dean is by turns hilarious and moving. Add wonderful dialog and the gorgeous Edwardian setting, and you'll find a movie that bears repeated watching. You'll have plenty of time to do so, if, as the guru insists, "You are, my dear sir, in the anteroom of eternity."

12 by 12 in 2012 - Poets, that is - by Alison If you're like me you're always meaning to read more poetry. And not just because of that vague, niggling sense that poetry is good for you, but because the experience of reading a poem is immersive. I find that reading and then re-reading a good poem puts me in a meditative state as I try, on my first read, to skate along the surface, and then on subsequent reads, to find a deeper meaning. I'm not that practiced at it, and I sometimes wish that I had knowledgeable friends with whom to discuss poetry, a poetry club, if you will.

With that idea in mind, we're launching a Facebook program this year. It's called 12 by 12 in 2012. Each month we'll post a poem online and Special Collections Librarian, Jim Carmin, will hang out with the poet and you, entertaining your questions and having a lively discussion. Our first event will take place on Monday, January 23rd from 2-3pm with Matthew Dickman. We wanted to give you a head start on Matthew's poem, and so we are posting it here. Enjoy, and please join us on Monday to chat with Matthew and Jim, if you have a chance. (Please note that you will have to 'like' Multnomah County Library's Facebook page to participate in the chat.)

BOUGAINVILLEA

I like the inner lives of the silverware; the fork,

the spoon, the knife. I appreciate

how they each have a different reference toward

god, how the fork is Muslim,

the spoon, like a stone, is Buddhist, how the knife

is Roman Catholic—

always worried, always having

a hard time forgiving people, the knife kneeling

down in Ireland and Africa. In San Francisco

my lamp has become a temple.

Every time I turn it on the light moves out across

the room like a meditation,

like a bell or a robe

the way it covers everything and doesn’t want to

kill. Light is the husband

and everything it touches is its bride, the floor,

the wall, my body,

the bronze installation in Hayes Valley

its bride. The lamp chants

and my clothes, my hat thrown in the corner of the room

chants back: nothing, nothing. In my next life

I’ll have no fingers, no toes. In my next life I’ll be

a bougainvillea. A Buddhist monk

will wake up early on Sunday morning and not be a fork

and not be a knife, he will look down at the girl

sleeping in his bed like a body of water,

he will think about how

he lifted her up like a spoon to his mouth all night, and walk

into the courtyard and pick up the shears

and cut a little part of me, and lie me down next to her mouth

which is breathing heavily and changing all the dark in the room to light.

On warding off the living dead this Hallowe'en - by Alison

Not once a year, but every day,
to keep those nasty brain-eaters at bay;
Fill your greedy little mind
with candy of a different kind:
books on science, works of fiction
vampire films and books on diction.

And where would you get this stuff, primarily?
Find it all at your local librarirly.

Because walking-dead, gray-matter-feeders
turn up their noses at avid readers!

(And here's a little music to go with that.)

You're welcome.

All Hallow's Reads - by Alison

There's nothing more enjoyable then tucking in to a lovely gothic suspense story on a crisp fall day. Neil Gaiman, author of a long list of beloved books, including Anansi Boys, Coraline and Sandman, agrees. Recently, he suggested a new Hallowe'en tradition - rather than candy, give a scary read this year. The treat this season is that several authors have released creepy books that you'll be hard pressed to put down when the trick-or-treaters ring your bell.
Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman is a fine choice for those who like a good old-fashioned scare, along the lines of Peter Straub. Frank Nichols returns from World War I, somewhat the worse for wear, bearing both physical and psychological scars. But things look brighter when he falls hopelessly in love with Eudora, a beautiful and intelligent woman who is equally infatuated with Frank. Together they pack up and move to a small town in Georgia. Frank's recently deceased aunt has left her house to Frank, with the express wish that he sell it. But Frank is anxious to start on his book, a history of the life of his powerful and eccentric great grandfather, a local plantation owner reviled for his cruelty to his slaves. Frank and Dora are welcomed by the villagers, but become uneasy when they hear stories about a mysterious group of people living across the river. The advice to the couple? "Don't go there". You can guess whether Frank heeds it or not.

Charles Frazier's Nightwoods combines gothic elements and a growing sense of menace. The story is set in a small town populated by eccentric and sometimes disturbed characters. Luce is the daughter of a hard-hearted mother and a drug addicted father who is also the town's lawman. After she is raped, Luce gives up on socializing with the town's sorry mix of misfits and on humanity in general. She sets up a hermitage across the lake in an abandoned lodge. She is enjoying her own company just fine until a social worker from the state shows up with two feral children, her niece and nephew. Their mother has been murdered by their sociopathic father, Bud. Luce doesn't love the children, who seem damaged beyond repair, but she knows she has an obligation to her sister. She tries to create a sanctuary for the kids. Unfortunately, their father is not done with them, and the situation intensifies when Luce realizes that Bud has tracked the children to the lodge.

A few others: Colson Whitehead's Zone One, an exploration of existential crisis brought on by zombies, and the graphic novel version of the hit series, The Walking Dead. What's your favorite read for a Hallowe'een night? Leave your suggestions in the comments.

Move Over Zombies - the Robots are Coming - by Alison and Rachael

You know it’s only a matter of time - already your computer corrects you when you make a typo or reminds you to take your vitamins. Pretty soon they’ll be sentient, and when they wise up and start taking a look at the mess mankind has made of the planet they might come up with a highly organized plan to fix it - a plan includes getting rid of the species that mucked everything up in the first place. That’s the premise behind Daniel H.Wilson’s Robopocalypse.

In a not so future world, just about every manufactured thing includes a computer chip. Your car has a computer, your vacuum cleaner has a computer, the building you live in has a computer that regulates the light and the heat. Companion robots help with all aspects of your life. It's a wonderful world until a master computer surpasses its maker and becomes sentient. It determines that mankind is a species that has become an infestation. Linking itself to all the computers in the world, large and small, it begins to direct a plan of human annihilation. Suddenly crossing the street or walking through an automatic door becomes a life and death matter.Wilson's familiarity with robots comes from his work as a robotics engineer. The book is slated to be made into a film in 2013, with Stephen Spielberg directing.

Wilson's work is thrilling stuff, comfortably on the side of fiction. A more optimistic view of the rise of our robot overlords is found in the nonfiction work The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil. His view is that soon (yes, soon) the ever-doubling power of computer chips will lead to computers solving problems that are beyond humanity's grasp. And humanity will cross into a new reality.

So is it the fight of our lives, or nanobot-enabled immortality? Either way, I'm not ready.

The Night Circus - a Delectable Treat - by Alison

The Night Circus arrives without warning. What was an empty field by day becomes transformed by night. A city of tents appears as if by magic, drawing people through the dusk to the soft-twinkling lights and the smell of warm caramel in the air. When the guests arrive, they hardly know where to go first. One tent contains a frozen world of ice and snow all in shades of white and silver, making the visitor feel as though he has been transported into his own personal snow globe. In another a mysterious woman reads the future in her cards. In another, guests climb to the top of the tent by way of  a maze of soft clouds and, reaching the top, gently float back down to the ground.

Le Cirque des Reves showcases the purely fantastical next to the usual entertainments one might expect - the contortionists, the jugglers and of course, the magicians. What the guests don't realize is that the night circus exists only incidentally as a place to while away an evening: the circus is really a giant game-board. At its center are two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who are destined to compete in a battle to out-magic one another, a battle that will lead to the death of one.

Though Erin Morgenstern's book is already in high demand, it is well worth the wait. The Night Circus is a delectable treat of a novel, a fantastical, almost architectural dessert that is almost too beautiful to eat, but you won't be able to resist.

The Library of Forgotten Books - by Alison

If there's an afterlife for people, how about entertaining the thought of an afterlife for books? Just imagine all of those mournful leather-bound volumes, all the titles that didn't move off the shelves because of lackluster covers, all the sorry stories that languished in the shadows because they were published at the same time as Stephen King's latest. Imagine them all at their best, crisp unmarked pages, yet to have been taken into anyone's bathroom, sitting plumply on the shelves of the Afterlife Library, full of promise. What titles would you find there?

I, for one, would look for Peter S. Beagle's A Fine and Private Place. It's the story of Rebeck, an eccentric recluse who has chosen the ultimate home for a misanthrope - he lives in a cemetery. His only living companionship comes in the form of a raven who brings him stolen sandwiches. But Rebeck does enjoy another form of friendship -  he can see and talk with the ghosts of the dead, who are tied for a while to their resting places until their memories begin to fail them and they slowly fade away. His latest friends are Laura, the ghost of a bookstore clerk who wasn't watching when she crossed a street and Michael, a man who was either poisoned by his wife or committed suicide - his memory is beginning to fail.
Into this cast of characters comes the very much alive Mrs. Klapper, who is ostensibly coming to tend her husband's grave but who seems to be more and more interested in Rebeck with each visit.

A Fine and Private Place is both a mournful story of lost opportunity, and a redemptive one, of friendship and last chances. And fortunately, you won't have to visit the Afterlife Library to find a copy. What forgotten book do you wish more people knew about?

Seeing through Someone Else's Eyes - by Alison

I'm not much into mysteries, especially when the puzzle is the main draw and the characters play second fiddle. But when the mystery is part of what makes a character tick, that's compelling reading. I'm reminded of one of the players in The Usual Suspects (name withheld to protect those of you who haven't seen this brilliant film - place a hold here!) and how the secret of his identity is revealed only in the final scenes.

Often when a story is narrated by a child, the tension comes from what is called the 'unreliable' or 'naive' narrator. The child gets to tell the story, but doesn't know everything or even understand all that he sees. The trick for the reader then becomes to read between the lines, and infer the part of the story the narrator can't tell you.

Emma Donoghue uses this technique to good effect in Room, the story of a boy and his mother who have lived all of his short life confined in an 11 by 11 foot room. The reason for their captivity is only slowly revealed as 5 year old Jack gains the intellectual capacity to start asking questions.

Peter Carey creates a sense of tension in His Illegal Self by telling the story through a narrator alternately known as 'the boy', Che and Jay. Jay lived a comfortable life with his grandmother in an apartment overlooking Central Park; When he is spirited away by a woman he supposes to be his mother, Che lives in a van, or a trailer, or anywhere else they can find to lay down, somewhere in Australia.

Nine-year-old Lawrence struggles to recount the story of his road trip from England to Rome with his mother and pesky little sister in Matthew Kneale's When We Were Romans. But why did they leave home so abruptly? And why does his mother believe they are being followed by Lawrence's father? The bewildered Lawrence tries to make sense of the strange adult behavior around him but prefers to read about science and history - the only bits of information that seem true to him.

A narrator can also be unreliable because of a mental illness or a disorder. In Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Christopher, an autistic 15-year-old, sets out to solve the mystery of the murder of a poodle who is found on a front lawn with a garden fork through it. Christopher admires Sherlock Holmes and sets out to prove his favorite detective's methods by using them in the investigation of the death. Christopher has amazing powers of focus, but can't see the social clues between people that might lead him to understand the incident.

In a recent Portland Literary Arts lecture, author Elizabeth Strout talked about how fiction provides one of the few ways to really understand what it's like to be someone else. Even when seeing through a character's eyes is like looking through a hole in a wall and trying to figure out what's on the other side, the mystery is worth exploring.

The Truth about True Grit - by Alison

I've been thinking lately about the nature of true grit. Like many others I made a point of seeing the movie, having been a huge fan of Charles Portis's original book. In the late 60s and early 70s, books about young women with gumption were sometimes hard to come by. Oh yes, there was Nancy Drew, but she so often relied on 'the boys' to help her out when the going got rough; There was also Pippi Longstocking, but she was for a younger readership.  I was glad to see that the Coen brothers were true to the original Mattie and her enterprising spirit. Truly, she was the hero of the story, and not Rooster Cogburn, as the 1969 John Wayne film version would have you believe.

Ree Dolly, the tenacious teenager from the movie Winter's Bone is cut from the same cloth as Mattie Ross, though the story is darker. The movie follows follows the mostly falling fortunes of 17 year old Ree as she discovers that her meth-cooking father is on the lam, having put the family house up for bond. If he doesn't show up in court, the family - 2 kids and a mentally absent mother - will lose everything. She sets out to find him among all the hard luck people living in her corner of the Ozarks and gains some unwanted attention from those who wish her father to stay hidden. The book is based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, an author whose works have been called "country noir".

Another novel featuring a woman who finds herself in an untenable situation is the award-winning Outlander by Gil Adamson. In the winter of 1903, Mary has lost her baby son to sickness and is frequently beaten by her abusive husband. She takes desperate measures to escape her situation, killing her husband and fleeing west. She is pursued by the vengeful twin brothers of her husband, a pair of single-minded, 'Terminator' type characters who turn out to be excellent trackers. Along the way she falls into the company of a group of eccentrics in a hard-scrabble mining town at the bottom of a mountain. 

Though these stories aren't science fiction, all of them share an apocalyptic feel - an unforgiving landscape, a sense of lawlessness, and a determined underdog on a quest. And there are more of these than you might think: Molly Gloss's story of eastern Oregon, The Hearts of Horses, the somewhat obscure and spoofy Caprice by George Bowering, and Away by Amy Bloom. All of these stories feature strong female characters who move the action along. If that's your cup of tea, then happy reading and watching.

But if You Hum a Few Bars, I'll Fake It - by Alison At this time of year many people are tempted to pull out the tarnished sax hiding under their beds or dust off the old ivories to see if their after-school piano lessons can be resurrected. But what to play? "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" can get a little tired after the second or third time through.

Never fear - Multnomah County Library has one of the best collections of sheet music anywhere around.

For instance, maybe you'd like to know what the kids were singing in the 90's - the 1890's, that is. Take a look at Songs of the Gilded Age, which includes such great tunes as "Elsie from Chelsea" and that old favorite "She is More to be Pitied, than Censured", not to mention "Where Did you Get that Hat?".

Perhaps your instrument is your voice. Then maybe you'll want to check out the American Idol Presents series - complete with sheet music and CD accompaniment. You're sure to be a star in your own living room.

Or maybe you'd like to rock out and take it up to eleven. The Zen of Screaming might come in handy. It's a training program for rock singers "to preserve their vocal cords without compromising their passion."

You say you and your friends would like to present a musical tribute to Lady Gaga? Here's the place to start.

According to Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers: The Story of Success, it will only take you 10,000 hours of practice to become just as good a guitarist as Etta Baker was. This instructional DVD might even cut it down to 9,500 hours.

For more detailed information on how to search this fantastic collection, take a look at our Music Guide page.

After all, as the writer, Alexander McCall Smith asked, in a recent New York Times article, "why should real musicians — the ones who can actually play their instruments — have all the fun?"

The Alternative to Running Away - by Alison

When you're a kid you can entertain the thought of running away when the going gets rough - "and then they'll be sorry!" But what outlet do adults have?
Luckily for those of us past twenty a good TV series can still fill the need for escapism, without interfering with work the next day. All the better if the characters have little regard for the law and social convention.

Enter The Sons of Anarchy. Beneath the pleasant exterior of the fictional Charming, California lies a society tainted by corruption, murder and mayhem. The Sons of Anarchy or SAMCRO is a motorcycle gang with a stranglehold over the town. They have a thriving trade in gun-running and the protection racket. The police chief is in cahoots with the club, partly because of the threat of a nastier gang taking control of the town and also because the hush money is good. The morally reprehensible characters are compelling, and the series includes enough allusions to Hamlet to make you think that your liberal arts degree was really worth it.

For charming con-artists who clean up nicely, try The Riches. Wayne and Dahlia Malloy and their three children are part of a clan of Travelers. They make their living by moving from town to town pulling small-time cons. The story begins when a feud between the Malloys and another family in the clan results in the deaths of two innocent bystanders, Mr. and Mrs. Rich. Wayne Malloy, the charismatic father (deftly played by the comic Eddie Izzard) hatches a plan to impersonate the Riches by moving into their brand new house in an affluent, gated community in Baton Rouge. Wayne is quickly seduced by life as a 'buffer' or non-Traveler and thrives on the adrenaline of passing as a high-powered lawyer. Dahlia (played by Minnie Driver) is conflicted, believing that they will soon be caught in the lie. Watching the Malloys negotiate this alien world allows the viewer the vicarious experience of being both an insider and an outsider at the same time. A word of warning though - the series was canceled before it came to a satisfying conclusion. Still it's fun to watch the Malloy family as they struggle to reconcile their new-found wealth with loyalty to their roots.

Lives of Desperation Paved over with Kitchen Linoleum - by Alison

Often as I am driving through the countryside passing small villages and towns I wonder, 'who lives here? What do they do for work? What do they do with their time?' You might think that my reaction sounds like the snobbishness of a city dweller, but I actually spent the first 20 years of my life in a very small place - one that didn't even merit the title of village, the sign at the edge reading "hamlet with a heart."

Many authors have made their dinner out of small, seemingly sleepy places where, under the surface, the inhabitants are living lives of turmoil, tragedy and passion. Alice Munro is a master of this genre. In Lives of Girls and Women she writes of people who seem to be living upright and staid lives, all the while hiding "deep caves paved over with kitchen linoleum." Other authors place their characters in barren and hard-scrabble places, an ideal stage for pathos and emotional intrigue. Kent Haruf's novels take place in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado and focus on the emotional lives of people struggling to find meaning in their lives. A recent Pulitzer Prize winner, Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout recounts the story of a woman living in small-town Maine through a series of short vignettes, each examining a period in her life.

Lately I'm very much intrigued by the people of Words, Wisconsin, as described by David Rhodes in his novel Driftless. Olivia is a strong adherent to the principles of her church and knows the bible backwards and forwards as a result of being wheel-chair bound. She tyrannizes her sister Violet who spends her days in good works and in taking care of her sister. Their pastor, Winnifred, has spent her life trying to overcome the loss of her mother by looking for grace within the church. Graham and Cora Shotwell are in the fight of their lives with a corrupt dairy co-op. And July Montgomery is the glue that holds the community together, though one would never think it from his taciturn and understated manner.

For me, the joy of reading fiction is to indulge my curiosity, or some might say, nosiness.These stories of intersecting lives give us the pleasure of snooping into people's affairs without offending anyone. And the next time I drive through a small town, I'll be looking with fresh eyes.

Haiku Review - The New Yorkers - by Alison

Looking for true love?

Get yourself a sweet puppy -

Parade down the street

In The New Yorkers by Cathleen Schine, a cute dog can make anyone seem more lovable.

Are You Ready for the Zombie Apocalypse? - by Alison

I've always liked a good ghost story, but zombies leave me cold. I mean, how can anything with rapidly decomposing brain cells moving at the speed of a sloth possibly be scary? Why don't the living in these movies stick out their tongues and dance circles around them? It's because zombies are relentless, say some; they never tire. Yeah, but I could just pull a Will Smith on them and create a Manhattan penthouse fortress, the way he does in I am Legend, based on the book by the same name.

It seems as though writers and directors have finally figured out that slow-as-molasses zombies aren't all that frightening. The director of Dead Snow has certainly turned up the horror. A group of medical students spends the weekend at a remote skiing cabin in Norway. Throw in a strange old codger with stories about evil lurking in the hills, and the problem of having to go to the outhouse in the dark, a horror in itself, and you've got a pretty good start. But then add...wait for it...Nazi zombies!  Yes, it's a great concept but it's a bit over the top when legions of them start popping out of the snow to eat our protagonists' vital organs. The problem is that, as with many zombie movies, when you try to escalate the fear it seems inevitable that you stray into caricature or satire. Or maybe that's the point - the appeal is knowing the whole conceit will eventually dissolve into the absurd.

One movie that embraces the absurd from the outset is Zombieland - sure to become a cult classic. An obsessive-compulsive, agoraphobe hooks up with a pugnacious, zombie hating Twinkie-loving cowboy, played by Woody Harrelson. They make their way across the wasteland that is America after the zombie apocalypse. It's great laugh out loud fun, and personal thanks to the director who realizes that we only need to see the undead munching on a body part once or twice to get the point. Our imaginations will fill in the blanks. This and another low-comedy zombie flick, Shaun of the Dead would make for a great movie night, providing vegetarian food is served.

A recent interest in all things zombie means that there's plenty of fodder for fans. The book World War Z by Max Brooks recounts the story of the zombie wars that almost put an end to life as we know it. If only all zombies would heed David Murphy's Zombies for Zombies: Advice and Etiquette for the Living Dead. Find more zombie related material with the keywords "zombies" and "fiction", "zombies" and "humor". Oh, and be careful out there.