Naked Came the Manatee

a serial novel with 13 different authors, including Dave Barry and Elmore Leonard, which are basically the two whom I previously knew. Published by GP Putnam's Sons, New York 1995-1996.

A great idea, and I believe that this was the first attempt of its kind, although I can't say for certainty - that of one author writing a chapter, then passing it along to another author, who continues the story. The results are, quite predictably, convoluted (to say the least!)

I actually feel bad for the LAST guy - who's job it was to wrap all this stuff up!

What also made this novel interesting is that it had a distinct and set locale - Miami, FL - which probably helped the book stay together. That, and all the authors are from Florida, obviously helped keep them from straying too far in any given direction.

Occasionally the reader can help but get the idea that one author would deliberately end a chapter with a tiny "zinger" as though they were trying to say to the next, "Ha! Let's see what you can do with THIS!" And occasionally next writer would either ignore the zinger or awkwardly write themselves out of the corner using some clumsy narrative device.

Given all that, I could also state with some confidence that this novel would not work at all unless the reader KNEW that each chapter was penned by a different author. That is never far from your mind, and that's what adds to then enjoyment of the story. To tell the truth - this thing is so clunky and disjointed that if you were under the impression that ONE person wrote it, then you'd be screaming, "Where the hell was this guy's editor!!!!???"

And to throw in a spoiler - the best part of the book was Fidel Castro's absolute disgust with Miami. That was well done.

And, of course, you can't write a review about this book without mentioning Booger, the loveable manatee who meanders throughout these pages in varying degrees. Dave Barry, who wrote the first chapter, obviously meant him to be a nice foil to return to for tenderness or comedic relief, and it's regrettable (actually, let's face it . . . it was ASININE) that some of the later chapters tried to anthropomorphose him into a hulking avenger - which then led the last author to RE-anthropomorphose him into a selfich bugger: ("Every mammal for himself." - last line . . . WTF?!)

All in all, it's an enjoyable read - some nice characters, some you could live without. This is the type of book you'd like to see tried again . . . and again, until you got a good result.

Either that - or just let Elmore Leonard write the whole damn thing himself - he'd come up with a fairly decent product, any time.

Well, TTFN, mis amigos . . . until next time!

VG

Tina Modotti

this is from the Masters of Photography series, Aperture Publications, New York. 1999.

I found this as a sideways book, and I find it incredible how it links to so many other things in my own personal life . . . it's almost . . . eerie.

First of all, this book is a collection of photographs from an Italian artist from the 1920's, who was heavily involved in Frida Kahlo/Diego Rivera's work in the post-Revoltion Mexico. Interestingly enough, her character actually was portrayed in one scene of the movie Frida (starring the incomperable Salma Hayek) - some party scene, which I really should re-view again in order to collect names and see what other writer/artists are portrayed there . . .

OK OK OK back to subject: these pics are incredible, such chiaroscuro! (which is a word that I freaking LOVE using and I wish could be placed into everyday conversation . . . but I am proud to use it here) - yes, her contrast between shadow and light is superlative. This woman was a true artist - in the chosing of her subject matter (at one point she did a series of peasants in a rural Mexican village - in other photos she tries to illustrate the disparity between Mexico's wealthy and Mexico's poor, with incredible alacrity!), in the compositions of the pictures (while poised, they also definitely seem in the middle of motion - for example the one with the workers gathered reading the paper - you can almost see them murmuring, mumbling, grumbling), and the sensitivity of her touch.

I may not know photographic art. But I know what I like. I like these pics. Highly recommend that you Google this woman and check out the pics: one of my personal favourites is Bandolier/Guitar/Corn: the title alone conveys all that a halfway decent revolutionary needs in his personal array!

Plus, she had an extraordinary life . . . Italian, moved to Mexico, involved with artists, had husbands/lovers (and yeah yeah yeah! one of 'em was Frida, of course!) - another lover was shot to death at her side; Mexican authorities used the incident to run her out of town - back into the arms of Stalinist Russia, where she spent the 30's supporting hard-line commies against hard-line fascists. Then in the 40's she's back in Mexico City, where she has one of those terribly convenient heart attacks in the back of a cab.

. . . sounds like the basis for its own movie, eh wot?!

Hmmmm.

Check 'er out!

VG

The Black Order Brigade

Bilal, Enki and Pierre Christin. The Black Order Brigade. Humanoids Publishing, Geneva Switzerland. Original French 1994, English Translation by Justin Kelly 2000.

Yes, it's a graphic novel. After the flack at DPL (as noted in my other non-award-winning blog, ingléspañol) (and yes, that's another shameless plug . . . I do that quite frequently, I've noticed) I became interested in the "graphic novel" as a genre. I tried to look up fotonovelas at my local library, but there are damned few Spanish literary anything up here in the Outer Hebrides, so I had to settle for The Black Order Brigade.

However, it turned out to be a completely engaging story - a group of far-left terrorists from the Spanish Civil War/World War II days are called back into action 40 years later to fight a group of far-right terrorists from the same era, who have regrouped in order to cause havoc in Europe. The trip leads them across Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain.

It's a rollicking little story, replete with these octogenarians complaining about rheumatism, arthritis, cramps, and various aches and pains. It's about growing old, it's about fighting for a cause, even when the cause has been forgotten, it's about feeling young again, it's all about what it means to be alive. All this, wrapped in a spy novel in a double historical setting (late 70's Europe recalling late-'30's Europe.)

I understand that many of my American readers will probably wonder about how graphic this graphic novel is, and if it should be in plain view for the tender-eyed younger readers (who, by the way, have grown up on a healthy diet of Mortal Kombat and all its various offspring) and I must say that, yes, it IS graphic - there are colourful depictions of bullet wounds to heads and chests, and one scene of an old man groping a naked Rubenesque chambermaid. But in all honesty, I found that the overall story superceded any questionable moral choices of the format.

Let's face it: I would rather have a teenager read this graphic novel and possibly become interested in researching more on WW2 or Franco's Spain than have the same teenager simply plugged into his GameBoy idly blowing away zombies in games like House of the Dead.

So, with that, I open my arms to any and all comments, and if you wish to start a discussion on morals/ethics/what we should "let" our kids read/etc. then by all means, please do.

But go to your local libary and check out the Black Order Brigade first. Trust me, you'll like it!

VG

i six nonlectures

Once upon a time many many moons ago a friend of a friend of a sometimes friend had an unlabelled casette tape of e.e. cummings reading his poetry and talking to a roomful of students. This tape had been duplicated numerous times, passed 'round campus like a guilty secret, and had a voice that was beautifully monotonous, fresh and clear like muddy rain, and exuberantly moribund.

One of my favourite things I ever heard. Since this was decades ago, I never would have realized that I had memorized all the things on that cassette, but I must have, because they were brought back in this book.

i six nonlectures. e.e. cummings. (c) 1953 by the author, (c) renewed 1981 E.E. Cummings Trust. Harvard U Press, Cambridge Mass.

First let me start by saying that if anybody had as good a childhood as he describes then we would all be living in paradise. I mean, the man described a childhood that had no, and I repeat, NO stress. Perfect parents, who taught and encouraged, wealthy yet intelligent friends, (he even claims to have been baptized by a family friend, "Stubby" Child - the selfsame Child who was the pre-eminent man who collected and organized and categorized the English and Scottish ballads - one of the first books I ever nicked from a library, so in love I was with the pages that I must needs have it - and I checked and it quite probably was true, because e.e. was born in 1894 and Child died in 1896 . . . so 'tis possible).

OK, so we already have the young e.e. growing up in a wonderful literary culture with absolutely no - I repeat - NO - problems. Maybe this is why he was able to write so much about love, so unabashedly, and why he could take apart the English language and put it together again, like a child with an unlimited supply of legos. I mean, other authors not only want to play with language, but they also need to work out their personal demons. (Er . . . do I hear "Dickens" anyone!?) My theory after reading this nonlecture is this: since e.e. had no problems, he could concentrate solely on pure art, and in addition to that, could send a positive message through the purity of this art.

Or maybe I'm full of crap. Maybe he was - maybe the whole thing was for show - in a way, you rather get the sense that this childhood was too good, too perfect, as though maybe he was re-creating a perfect childhood. Who knows? Certainly not me, because I've never really liked his poetry that much.

Which was all the more interesting reason why I loved that underground cassette: because he wasn't reading poetry, he was giving aphorisms on the nature of life, love, art - cumming's entire theory is that you should fully devote yourself to art - just give yourself to it, and keep fighting and struggling and rending of teethand gnashingofhair until you finally get something, some product that you might be satisfied with.

Again, these "nonlectures" are, in short, incredible. I'm serious: go out and steal that book (but not from my library, thankyouverymuch!) and read it, take it to heart, enjoy it. If this book does not make you want to touch pen to paper or finger to keyboard then you are truly dead from the neck up.

For anybody who ever wanted to write/was-is a writer/or who simply loves the written word: this book is a must for your personal (and by personal, I mean your INTERNAL) library.

VG

Daughter of Art History

Photographs by Yasumasa Morimura.

I found this as a sideways book while I was rummaging through the library, looking for the fotonovelas that CAIR wanted to use to whip Mexicans with. Couldn't find any fotonovelas, because a bunch of teenage boys had already absconded with them and were using them to learn Spanish.

But I found this book lying on its side, looking rather forlorn. Nice edition, though, it's almost the size of a coffee-table book but not quite.

These photographs are both fascinating and disturbing - which I feel that good art should be, always. What Morimura does is recreate famous paintings, with his own face and body in the center. The Mona Lisa (in various stages of pregnancy) with this man's face. Rembrandt's self-portraits in Morimura-ture. He also takes on Van Gogh's bandages and becomes Manet's Olympia.

The most startling photograph, and for me my favourite, was Brothers (Late Autumn Prayer). I have never seen the original (if indeed this one was one of his "copies" and not an original Masimura - the text never revealed); however, the photograph is dark, brooding - there is a mushroom cloud in the distance which throws and eerie orange pallor across two brothers standing slightly facing each other in a field, each with guns. They looks as though they are about to commit a double-suicide, in the face of earthly destruction - but one looking at his pistol almost as if he's forgotten what it's for/ the other, bowing to his brother as a show of respect. Other guns are stuck in the ground behind them, a gas mask at their feet, a cannon behind one of them in a terribly "phallic" imagery (trust me, with the placement, you don't have to be any sort of Freudian to understand the impetus).

Then, after that, the book rather begins to lose it: Particularly because he recreates his image in most of Frida Kahlo's self-portraits (by the way, which of Kahlo's paintings weren't self-portraits - I can only think of about two.) This series he calls "Inner Dialogues with Frida Kahlo" - and the test in the back of the book cement what the portraitures already reveal: this is one narcissists chasing after others. He states he "only likes Rembrandt's self-portraits" and he absolutely worships Kahlo. I tell you, this man is not only reshaping these paintings, but he actually becomes these great artists as well - he's taking himself through history and remaking art in his own image.

Talented, sure - but the egomanical rantings . . . whoa! Kinda leaves you scratching your head.

Oh well, I s'pose artists are just like that.

VG

PS the version I found is published by Aperture, Hong Kong. 2003.

PPS if you want a better description of "Sideways Books," read the post in my other blog LocuaCity.

PPPS - have a mah-velous day!!!

Green Dreams

Steven Benz

At first this thing threw me, because it's written in the Queen's English, but the narrative voice was distinctly American. All that - and the book is set completely in South and Central America.

Imagine.

Actually, as far as a travel memoir goes, it's not half-bad. Mostly he's very respectful of the lands and communities that he writes about - probably because he's not an adventurer, tourist, or thrill-seeker, as much as a person who was simply looking for something. Something simple. That's the impression I got. And although the majority of the book explains his theories on eco-tourism, it still seemed to me that he was more of a wandering Zen seeker rather than a staunch tree-hugger.

Therefore, some might find the book boring. Who cares about insights anyway? We want to hear about jaguars ripping off people's limbs - caves filled with human skulls, the tension of roadside barricades and buying off lowly goverment officials - that's what we want from our latinamerican tourism books, right?!

Well, you won't get that with this guy. To be honest, I was only disappointed because mainly I was wanting to read about volcanic activity in El Salvador, and that seems to be the one country he totally bypassed! Oh well.

So, yes, while I will admit I skipped over several chapters - actually I flipped back and forth throughout the book - the parts that I landed upon were often engaging, insightful, and compassionate. A true distinct eye for the human character. He also mentioned quite a bit the movie Mosquito Coast, which was supposedly about part of the lands that he lived in for a time, and he talks about the discrepancies between reality and the movie.

He also ends the book by showing how the popularity of eco-tourism actually destroys the very jungle that it purports to preserve. Basically - how the almighty American dollar just mucks up all that is pristine and natural.

I'd say it's a fairly decent read, but you must have no preconceived expectations - probably best read on a rainy afternoon, when all your life's chores are done and you've nothing at all whatsoever else to do!

VG

PS - The reason why an American was using the Queen's English is because the publisher was Australian. Those crazy Aussies - they certainly love to travel!