Have You Read Live Nude Girls?

LIVE NUDE GIRLS

Hope might be a trap. It might be what keeps us all going, but it might destroy you. Or it might just be what gets you on Oprah.

Kevin Postupack wrote this incredible novel ostensibly about a bisexual stripper with an overactive mind and who's maybe too much of an autodidact. She's a voracious reader with ADHD and an extreme imagination. But what the novel's really about is identity.

What's in a name?

Every character in the book has an alias, and you'd think this'd be a little confusing but it isn't. People are able to be two things at once, and rather than make this liminal space off-limits to the reader, Postupack invites you to inhabit it with Daphne and her assassin cat, Noodles. It's easy to do because the narrator is operating under the assumption that we all contain multitudes.

Like Schrödinger's cat, we're alive and dead at the same time, but rather than keep that proverbial box closed, Postupack spends his time ripping the tops off them like Cracker Jack boxes looking for prizes. Sometimes there's a prize, and sometimes you get a dead cat, but the courage to keep opening them is something worth celebrating, and I think Kevin Postupack's novel does that with aplomb.

Live Nude Girls is sexy without being crude, deep without being preachy, and hilarious without being corny. Those are all hard balancing acts.

There's even a Nazi-hunter, a self-declared goddess/restaurateur, and a Cuban strip-club-owner who claims to have prescient visions. The name of the strip club? Pandora's. You can't help but open that one.

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Prometheus could see the future, and Epimetheus could see the past. Epimetheus is often called the "foolish brother" but how could he be? Wouldn't an accurate and crystal clear remembrance of the past endow you with great wisdom? Wouldn't you almost be able to predict the future based on the events of the past? After all, that's how statistics work.

Anyway, the box: It was given to Pandora as a dowry after Hephaestus built her with beauty and cunning. But it was Zeus's plan to unleash plagues onto man via her box to take them down a notch. They'd recently been blessed with agriculture and fire. So out of her jar came disease and famine and hard work and all the other evil fates that befall men. . . but only one is mentioned by name. Elpis, hid under the lid, claiming instead to be the only palliative to assuage the plight of man. Elpis means Hope.

But I think Elpis was simply the most clever of the fates, endeavoring to stay close to us in order to inflict the most constant, enduring pain of all.

The Sheltering Sky

Many years ago, an American friend of mine in Germany handed me a book and told me I had to read it. I promptly ignored him but carried around the book wherever I lived convinced I would one day make good on my promise. 

I'm in this minimalist mode right now. I'm going to read all the books I possess either for the first time or one last time and then cast them unto the world via Goodwill. It was finally time to read The Sheltering Sky.

I understand why my friend wanted me to read this masterpiece by Paul Bowles; I am one of those spirits who explore the world looking for an escape from the cold, a place to be warm, like the one of the three protagonists in this novel, Port. I too have searched and been tortured by the very people who told me they loved me.

This friend of mine also used to always say,"the right book at the right time." Prophetic. How could he have known I would be newly wounded and alone when I finally came to it? An omniscient narrator tells the story of three friends, two of whom are married, who travel into Africa for new experiences. Their American sensibilities become haunting ghosts, and their own selves develop into lupus. They tumble into tragedy and madness to a point that the story almost resembles Lovecraftian tales of horror. 

If you read it, read it in winter when the nights are long, and the cold is oppressive. Read it when the darkness seems interminable, and friends seems sparse.

Gazelles, Baby Steps...

I'm usually not into books like this. . . I still don't think I am, but I found this one at a book event I was volunteering at, and it happened to fall into my lap when I was thinking about debt and finances, so I decided to give it a whorl.

I don't really know who Dave Ramsey is. I won't Google him because I really don't want to read a dozen books about saving money. We all know how to save money. And I've already read about the envelope budget system, so I don't feel like I really have to study that. I don't think it's for me. Dave Ramsey is some kind of financial/debt guru. I've never been a huge fan of gurus. But I like some of his philosophies.

Jon Acuff is a Christian blogger. Had I known that before I read this book, I wouldn't have read it. But you know what? I liked this little book. It made me laugh... about debt. If you can make a reader laugh about crippling student loan debt, you're doing something right. It was a quick read that made finances and attacking debt almost fun. So, I'd recommend it.

While reading this, it reminded me of two other books:


Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. This is a self-improvement book that I thought was lame while I was reading it but ended up thinking about for years. I still find myself going back to it in my mind when I'm faced with challenging situations. I especially like the Time Warp Game essay.





Life After God. I went through a Douglas Coupland phase a long time ago. I think about his books a lot still. I hadn't thought of this one in a while. Something about the language and style of Jon Acuff's ode to Dave Ramsey brought back the magic of Life After God. Douglas Coupland will always have a place in my heart because of this book. I think it's an unsung masterpiece.



Anyway, I'm thinking about debt again. I'm thinking about how I've lived as an artist and allowed women and wives and friends and bosses take advantage of my capricious approach to my own financial health. I'm thinking about how when I put student loan behind me I'll be less worried about the future. I'm thinking about how I've never worried about the future. I didn't think I'd make it to the future. I didn't think I'd have to worry about the things normal people worry about. I certainly didn't think I'd be reading a book about finance by a guy whose claim to fame is a blog called Stuff Christians Like.

Proof

I read a book called Proof: The Science of Booze. I happen to love science and drinks, so when I found out about it, I couldn't resist a trip to the library.

The book goes from yeast to fermentation, to distillation, to tasting and smelling, and ends with a hangover. Although, for some reason Adam Rogers refuses to use an article when writing "hangover," which made me wonder what the proper way of using that word really is.

It's a cleverly constructed project that somehow manages to spice up some pretty dry material with some pretty witty fun. It's like a conversation with your favorite nerd about everyone's favorite drug. Plus, there are Star Trek references.

Rogers travels the world with microbe hunters and yeast cultivators and booze hounds, which is one of my favorite things about the power of beverage: its ability to connect with people and places across time and space with the simplest of gestures. And I've said for some time that we are in the scientific era of beverage in which we'll eventually develop the ability to crack the magical codes of aging and the effects of every congener. So I loved this book.

The adventures of a scientific reporter are enviable, and I wish I knew Adam so that I could have a drink with him and nerd out about Single Malt Scotch and Romulan Ale.

Dean and Me Is Awesome

Dean and Me by Jerry Lewis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I loved this book. It reveals a lot about Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in a way that is often self-effacing and sad. Its tragic end is heart-breaking, and the story is fraught with incredible characters we all feel like we know.

It's a first-hand look at a golden era of American culture from one of its major players.


View all my reviews

Kendra Malone's Book

I haven't read this book. I want to read this book. Here is a really great review of the book to get you excited about reading it, too. Kendra Malone is pretty fantastic.

Chester Brown's The Little Man is BIG!

The Little Man
Chester Brown
Drawn and Quarterly:2006
$14.95

You know how Chekov wrote several less-famous one-acts that scholars and other people who care cherish as masterpieces? Imagine if Chekov was Canadian and instead of a playwright, he was a graphic novelist. That person would be called Chester Brown, and his new book, Little Man would be the collection of masterpieces his fans, and the world, even if they don’t know it, have been waiting for.

The Little Man self-consciously takes you through the artistic and emotional development of a frame-sequence story-teller that doesn’t only make you Chester Brown’s most intimate friend but also floods you with a sudden familiarity with the world of graphic novels and maybe a peek into the future of literary arts.

For an American reader, thinking about toilet paper taking over the world, walrus sandwiches, and naked MP’s discussing how to suppress pornography is as odd as seeing what it’s like for a poor artist in Montreal whose biggest dream is to draw super heroes. These are Chester Brown’s “short strips;” they inspire guffaws, WTF’s, and raised eyebrows as often as a-hah’s, ZOMG’s and the occasional wet tear duct. And just like Chekov’s one-acts, they all go together, playing off one another, achieving a symphonic effect that only the best books of poetry can. And while the whole world seems to have gone Batman crazy, you’re presented with the charm and embarrassment of childhood, adolescence, and poverty, and the tragedy of Bunny and Gerbil, which manages to ferry you to a place much more real than Gotham city or anything Hollywood is asking us to buy lately. It might be why Hollywood’s doing so badly right now, and it might be why graphic novels are doing so well.

The new edition of The Little Man contains several pages of notes that include apologies, explanations, and the first strip Brown was ever paid for. You don’t have to read the notes to enjoy the book, but they are refreshing reminders of our humanity and the plight of an artist working in a marginalized genre. Luckily that genre has grown up with the people who were on the fringes with it. The Little Man is a testament to the graphic novel’s keen ability to tackle and introduce themes that any person with half a soul can relate to while being entertained. Hopefully, if people like Chester Brown stick around, graphic novels will change mainstream media more than mainstream media changes graphic novels. That would be nice.