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<title>indieworkshop.com | literature</title> 
<link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/</link> 
<description>indieworkshop.com | literature</description><pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2013 11:51:30 -0400</pubDate>
<language>en-us</language>
<copyright>2006</copyright>
<managingEditor>jake@indieworkshop.com</managingEditor><item><title>The Middle of Everything: Memoirs of Motherhood - Michelle Herman</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=56</link><description><![CDATA[    When I received Michelle Herman's latest book "In the Middle of Everything: Memoirs of Motherhood" … I got a little nervous. I had read and reviewed another of Herman's books, "Dog", and really loved it. But not having any kids, what do I know about being a mother and what could I identify with here? On top of that, I am one of those lucky kids who had the "awesome" parents growing up. I had the easy going, understanding parents that had a hands-off attitude and let me be absolutely weird and be myself without seeming to even flinch. Other kids came to my house to relax and be themselves, hiding from their own parents. So I don't have any real thoughts on motherhood other than, would I be able to do what mine did? 

    To my relief, and also to my shock, this book is about so much more than just being a mom, having kids… a few relationship sound bites thrown in, that sort of thing. I have seen the enormous (and ridiculous) sections in bookstores set aside for books about parenting and kids. Every book I've flipped through (and I have looked at a few, since my sister has a toddler), seemed to say the same obvious things. But where I thought I'd be bored or thinking 'guess I'll take your word for it!' I was nodding my head and saying 'holy sh*t of course!'. More than a book about being a mom, this is a book about being someone's daughter, and then having one (and all the things that happen in between). About being a woman and trying to connect with other people, and having friends and how they affect us when they fade into our lives, and sometimes fade back out.  It's a look down the road behind Herman and what got her to the point of motherhood, and what affected her way of mothering. From puppy-dog love and true love to friendships that burn out, through menopause and being a rebellious teenager, it outlines, with brutal honesty what has made Herman the mom she is. 

    What's really beautiful about this book is that, the honesty. These are confessions that could make people flinch just thinking them to themselves. You'll rarely find a person willing to admit these feelings and how they place themselves in front of the gun when things go wrong, never mind write a book about it. But don't get confused, this isn't a dirty-laundry list, it's a bold self-reflection. And let's get something straight before anyone really gets confused: when a woman self-reflects too much, people call her selfish. So Herman does two-fold here, and what very few women would be willing to do: she tells her truth about what she's done and what her life has been like as a woman, a wife, a writer, an artist… a mom, all those things AND she takes the time to write this book about herself and her life, and I'm sure she did this knowing full well that there would be critics out there asking her what right she has to talk so much about herself and her daughter's psychological problems. 

There will be critics that will say this book is self-serving and self-absorbed, that it is too much about Michelle Herman and too little about motherhood. But those people are missing a very important point: that every woman that becomes a mother has a life, maybe not exactly like this, but they have one… full of all the doubts and silliness, the huge mistakes and the strange longings, and they all add up to what makes a woman a human being and then, a mother if they decide to be one. And that is a much more necessary diagram about motherhood than someone telling me a story-book method of giving my future children high self-esteem or whatever. 

Anyway, that hardly matters because whatever critics do exist will not find themselves many friends because Herman has a way of disarming readers with the playful way she recounts and reflects on her various doings. There isn't any expounding on psychoanalytic reasons for the way things turned out, but rather a charming story of a woman's insecurities and amazing achievements. 

Herman looks at her daughter's "nervous breakdown" not as a sign that she's a failure, but as a call to look back at herself and see what happened. It takes such an amazing amount of courage to do something like that, instead of stepping back and putting your hands up in resignation. Not many people can truthfully review their own agendas when it comes to even the most surface of relationships, to see what they might have done to compromise the stability. To do that with your own child takes guts I'm not sure I would have in the same situation. 

So that's what this is: a funny, charming, sometimes devastation and shocking story about how Michelle Herman became a mom, and what that travel has also meant for her friendships and her relationships with other people. Because she has such a way with relating small incidences and making them indicative of a much larger explanation, it's difficult to call this a book about one thing like motherhood, or best-friendship. The best way I can explain Herman's honesty, not the same as a frank list of confessions and definitely not a pity party, is to use a quote from the early part of the book that flows through the entire things like a thread holding the pieces along a line of thinking: 

"Here's what I believe about romantic love. 
I believe it makes you a better person. 
I believe that every time you fall in love, you become a little better than you were before. 
I know how naïve this sounds. I know I should be embarrassed to admit to such beliefs. But it so happens that I am not embarrassed easily." 

This is a real person's story about loving things throughout your life. Loving your parents, your grandparents, loving lovers, and sometimes overloving, even your children. ]]></description><author>the.ats@gmail.com (Amanda Spadaccini)</author><pubDate>08.24.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>Life on Planet Rock - Lonn Friend</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=55</link><description><![CDATA[I'm a sucker for bio books.  I'm not sure what it is, but I find that real life stores are always more interesting that fictional ones.  It helps if I know who the person is, but even that can be dismissed if their life makes for an engaging story.  And know him or not, Lonn Friend has led quite an interesting life.    

You don't edit one of the biggest metal magazines during one of the most extravagant and debauchery-fueled times in rock and roll and not walk away with a few stories to tell.  And while I have a good feeling that Friend, editor of RIP magazine from 1987 to 1994, is keeping a few of his stories under his hat, his book Life on Planet Rock retells a good number of amazing ones.

Holding the helm of one of the most important metal magazines will allow your eyes to see more than most people are privy to… actually, it probably allows you to see things you should never see.  Friend was smack dab in the middle of it all, from the frightening highs of hair metal to the dirty clubs that birthed grunge.  Call it luck or a keen sense of his surroundings, Lonn Friend and his crew at RIP seemed to always be at the right place at the right time when it came to covering mainstream heavy music.  And while his first book is full of stories that will make even the most casual fan of bands like G n' R, Metallica, Aerosmith, and Kiss entertained, Life on Planet Rock is much more than a tell all book on the scene.  It's a tell all book of Friend's life.

Starting with his childhood, retelling a very special night when he first saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, Friend takes us along for the journey that is his life.  Beginning at an early age, Lonn was taken in by music the way I think most music lovers are.  It started with the radio, then moved to buying 45's at a local record store in sunny southern California, then LP's, then listening parties with friends.  As evident by his tenure at RIP magazine, he loves music.  No, he devours it, lives and breaths the stuff.

While the core of the book focuses on the years spent working under the Flint publishing empire, Friend, with a keen sense of timing in tact, flashes back to his younger years with vivid detail.  It's the flashbacks (like his falling in love with prog rock by way of early Genesis albums) that really make these pages endearing to the reader.  He could have easily blown through 400 pages of grade A Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style backstage unveiling, but he didn't.  Instead he paints a realistic picture that, while it does boast a good amount of glitz and glamour, also shows us the sacrifice and pain that comes with a life on the road following bands for that big magazine-selling story.  

This is a book that has its fair share of laugh out loud stories, but it's actually just a book for music lovers by a music lover.  Sure, it might help a little if you have an interest in the genres of music that are covered within its pages (everything from hair metal to rock and roll to grunge), but in the end, it's just a guy who loves music and loves to write about it… even if he seems to have a love affair with the word "iconoclast".   ]]></description><author>jake@indieworkshop.com (Jake Haselman)</author><pubDate>08.18.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>Embroideries - Marjane Satrapi</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=54</link><description><![CDATA[Marjane Satrapi is probably best known for her autobiographical graphic novels &quot;Persepolis&quot; and &quot;Persepolis II,&quot; which focus on her upbringing in Iran. &quot;Embroideries&quot; is her third graphic novel, not including the series of children's books. Here, Satrapi abandons traditional panels for a looser, freer flowing collage of images and words. This stylistic choice really contributes to the flow of the stories that are being told. 

&quot;Embroideries&quot; is a story about a group of Iranian women who, after a meal, participate in a Samovar, essentially, a casual gathering of women where tea is served and they chat with one another about love, sex, marriage, and &quot;the general vagaries of men.&quot; Among the women are Marjane Satrapi herself, along with her mother, grandmother, aunts, cousins, and neighbors. The women take turns sharing the stories from their love lives and relating to one another.

The stories here, which flow perfectly into one another, range from hilarious to tragic. There is the story of a woman who gets plastic surgery to have excess fat from her rear end removed and put into her breasts. Now her husband gives her the attention that she has desired all along and states that &quot;Whenever he's kissing my breasts, it's actually my ass he's kissing!&quot; Another story is about a woman who agreed to an arranged marriage with a particularly charming man, only to have him run off with all of her money and jewelry that she received as wedding gifts (because in Iran, all of the wedding gifts go directly to the wife). 

These stories go back and forth, and overall, the book keeps a rather lighthearted tone. It was a quick, engrossing read. It's just really pleasant and refreshing! Here, we see the pitfalls of a male dominated society and the effects it has had on women. All of the men in the stories are cheaters, liars, and all of them are thoroughly shallow. When Marjane's grandfather stumbles into the women's Samovar at the end of the book, Marjane's grandmother snaps at him and tells him to go back to his room. It really shows the solidarity of these women and that regardless of an oppressive society, they manage to be independent. While this book would probably be more enjoyable if I was a woman, it's not &quot;girly.&quot; The women in this story aren't afraid to curse like sailors and some of their stories are just wonderfully profane and disgusting. For me, as a man, I saw it as a sort of peephole into the mysterious world of women, and it was fascinating.

The art, like I said, is much looser than Satrapi's work in &quot;Persepolis.&quot; With lots of free flowing lines, limited or crudely drawn backgrounds, the art seems like it was really hastily drawn, but not in a bad way! I actually find it more accessible than &quot;Persepolis.&quot; The embroideries that the title refers to, well, I don't want to say much. It would give away the enjoyment of discovery that comes with this book it's something that, no pun intended, sews this story together (ok, that pun was intended). 

Overall, this is a really quick read that is as entertaining as it is poignant. Pantheon has just released the book in paperback with a gorgeous pink and black cover design. Check it out!  ]]></description><author>ihrabe@mail.ku.edu (Ian Hrabe)</author><pubDate>08.07.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>The Tao of Willie - Willie Nelson and Turk Pipkin</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=53</link><description><![CDATA[                Only Willie can get away with writing a Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart.  Let's be honest, Willie Nelson could write a book on proper care of chinchillas and it would at least merit some serious consideration. Willie Nelson is an institution, from Nashville songwriter, to outlaw, to American Icon. Chances are if Willie has not lived it, sang about it, or smoked it than it is probably not worth much of your time. Contained in this brief guide you get a sense of homespun humor and a life of trial and error.  

                Nelson makes it clear in the beginning that you don't need to be familiar with the Tao to get behind this book, after all, like Willie says, "You don't have to know the Tao for the Tao to know you."  Willie likens it to The Bard's timeless phrase "to thine own self be true".  To live in the Tao, according to Willie, is to be true to your nature.  Sounds pretty easy, huh?

	In the same vein as Willie's last foray into literature (the smartly titled, The Facts of Life and Other Dirty Jokes), Willie's Tao has its share of common sense and good jokes, such as:  Drink more water, wisdom ain't in whiskey and smoke, and farmers are the hardest working men on the planet (hookers get honorable mention).  Chew on those truths for a while and you may just get a little closer to understanding "What Would Willie Do?" Other chapters include Willie's take on taxes, specifically making sure that you pay them.  He talks about his addiction to the game of golf, and essentially reels off line after line of quotable passages.

	Overall this book is a quick and fun read.  Nothing earth shaking, but worth your time. If anything, this book adds to the already towering American character that is Willie Nelson.  Somehow Willie means something to all of us.  Young and old, pop or country, he is the grandfather we wish we all had (mostly because we know he is always "holding"). Willie has a lot to offer. He's a phenomenal songwriter, a stellar guitar player, a voice for the American farmer, and even a decent actor (he plays Willie Nelson better than anyone). I suppose 72 years does not necessarily make you a sage, but it definitely brings you up to speed on a lot of important things.]]></description><author>travishutzell@mchsi.com (Travis Hutzell)</author><pubDate>07.12.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>Laurel Canyon - Michael Walker</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=52</link><description><![CDATA[There are many different neighborhoods that have defined various facets of the music world throughout time. There are neighborhoods known for being places where creativity would thrive. There are those that introduced musicians to one another, became known for their venues, their parties, and their nightlife. There are neighborhoods that inspired their inhabitants get out and do better. And, generally, those are all neighborhoods where various countercultures have thrived. LA's Laurel Canyon is probably among the most famous of them. 

Having taken over where San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury left off, Laurel Canyon became home to some of the top musicians of the 1970's such as The Byrds, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and The Mamas and the Papas. Current resident Michael Walker explores its history, its residents, and its importance in his book Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock n' Roll's Legendary Neighborhood. It features many first hand accounts from several of Laurel Canyon's most famous neighbors as well as various lesser-known hangers-on. But, what begins as a testament to a very famous neighborhood becomes a history lesson on the city itself, the music industry of the 60's and 70's and its very diverse cast of characters. 

There's so much in these pages that make for a fascinating read. Interesting facts about the personal lives of Cass Elliot, Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Jim Morrison and many others who colored the scene make this book more than worth picking up. But the inside look at the workings of the music industry during it's biggest transformation is an intriguing perspective as well. Walker doesn't, however, leave a stone unturned. He more than touches on the area's intense drug culture, the history of its bars and live music venues and the past of many of the homes in the neighborhood as well. There's a lot here. 

It is, as he explains in the books' preface, not in chronological order. In fact, it kind of bounces around but that does not mean it becomes unfocused or hard to follow. Walker somehow always found his way back to the neighborhood at the book's center (although I sometimes wondered how he was going to do it). 

At times, his writing becomes greatly embellished and, in turn, Walker romanticizes the neighborhood to a fantastical degree. There are moments in the book where he compares Laurel Canyon to Sodom and Gomorrah (referring to the fire of 1979) and even Fitzgerald's Jazz Age. The amount of flair at times becomes so indulgent that I wasn't sure I was still reading non-fiction. 

There are also several minor characters that Walker spent unusual amounts of time giving voice to. Because of that, there would be a number of consecutive pages that just felt unnecessary and…kind of weird. "Well-connected" groupie Morgana Welch (just 16 when she started cavorting with Led Zeppelin) is given an outrageous amount of space to recount her memories and encounters, accentuating her position in the groupie food chain of the time. It just becomes nearly nauseating. 

Minor flaws do not, however, constitute a failure. There are so many interesting facts and stories that make Walker's book worth picking up. Laurel Canyon itself is a topic interesting enough to create a basis for a music history lesson. From the Canyon's whimsical days of free love and experimentation to its "dark ages" of the Wonderland Murders and raging fires, Walker presents a portrait of a neighborhood that deserves a place in rock history alongside The Beatles, Haight-Ashbury, and CBGB's heyday. Good read, most of the time.]]></description><author>steph@indieworkshop.com (Stephanie Haselman)</author><pubDate>07.06.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>The Five Fists of Science - Matt Fraction and Steven Sanders</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=51</link><description><![CDATA[	Graphic novels and comics.  Two things that I enjoy on a somewhat limited basis.  That's not to say that I don't like them, it's just that I don't get around to reading as many as I would like.  I've got a few favorite stories, authors, illustrators, and so forth, but my knowledge doesn't stray much outside that meager little handful.  I go more for the graphic novel than the comic, mainly because of size and length of reading, so I'm usually behind the crowd when the compendiums come out and even then, I don't go for the standard super hero-type comics, I go for the off-color tales of human gracelessness and the sobering memoir.  

	Though it appeared to swim in the norm end of the comic pool, I was immediately interested the first time I heard of The Five Fists of Science.  Written by Matt Fraction (Punisher: War Journal, Casanova) and illustrated by Steven Sanders, the story follows Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla as they try to bring an end to War in the beginning of the 20th century.  Alongside Twain and Tesla are Bertha Von Suttner and Tesla's young assistant Timothy Boone, one of the only completely fictional characters in the story.  Standing in their way is the diabolical genius of Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Guglielmo Marconi, and JP Morgan who all appear first to be wealthy, power-hungry industrialists building what is to be the world's tallest building, but are revealed to take part in an unholy cult that wishes to (what else) take over the world.  

The Five Fists of Science pretty much embodies all that is the steampunk subgenre in comics: real characters, fantasy stories, shades of newer technology appearing in historical form, and the wit and character abrasiveness of  gen-x characters.  Fraction's story finds Twain and Tesla butting heads with their antagonists with Tesla's invention of a giant mechanical man that mimics the movements of its controller who is wearing a suit that runs through an &quot;osmotic integrator&quot; (think Gundam/assorted animes with the huge human-controlled cyborgs, it's like that.  Now, if you know what I'm talking about, go out and get a girlfriend…I'll do the same). With Twain's charm and gift of gab, they pitch their idea to a league of nations that wished to seek and end to war, but confused by the science talk and concern of the instrument falling into the wrong hands, the proposition fizzles.  With the help on another invention of Tesla's, a holographic monster, they convince the delegates that their machine is useful, and in the process, bunch up the collective panties of the Edison crowd.

Soon enough, the giant tower being built by the antagonists is revealed to be a giant shell that grows pods that produce demon-like monsters that are poised wreak havoc on the city of New York (and yes, eventually the world).  What happens?  I've already told you enough, so you'll have to check it out yourself.

Though a fairly quick read, Fraction's story-telling and Sanders' art do the trick and do it well.  Fraction captures Twain's personality (at least by reputation) to a tee.  He pits Tesla as the awkward genius that he was known as, and the villains carry out their evil deeds with the best of them.  Sanders drenches every cell with thick color and exceptional attention to detail.  The only time these two clash is when Fraction's fast-paced storytelling urges you to move on while Sanders' art makes you want to stay and take in his coloring and character sketches.  I've always found the pairings of writers and illustrators to be either extremely good or awkwardly mismatched, these two make a good pair and this book could go down as their best work both as individuals and as a duo and it's all in the name of science!!!]]></description><author>burlyphil@yahoo.com (Philip Del Costello)</author><pubDate>06.28.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>The Areas of My Expertise - John Hodgman</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=50</link><description><![CDATA[	John Hodgman's, The Areas of My Expertise, comes recommended by such literary hipsters as Dave Eggers, Sarah Vowell, and, uh, the High Priest of the Church of Satan (at least according to the dust jacket).  Despite its deserved and lofty praise, it is important to note that nothing in this book can be taken as truth.  As a matter of fact, the whole book is one lie after another, one giant, hilarious lie.

	Written as an almanac of sorts, Hodgman illuminates some of the more obscure facts about America, Presidents who have had hooks for hands, and, most importantly, hobo matters.  If you have come looking for a list of 700 fictional hobo names, than you have come to the right place.  

John Hodgman has been popping up a lot lately around media-land.  He has appeared on the Daily Show as a guest and contributor.  He also happens to play the role of a Windows PC in the recent Apple ads that tout the young hip aesthetic of Macs while poking fun at the stodgy nerds who still hang with Windows machines.  He reminds one of Bob Newhart, a little, but with jokes about Morlocks. The Areas of My Expertise is a great little find.  It is ridiculous, but clever. Dry, but not biting.  If you don't think a diagram depicting Dungeons & Dragons greatest match-ups is funny, than maybe you will enjoy learning about how to run political attack ads on normal people, or how to pull off a confidence game that involves a guild of ninjas.  This book really has something for everyone. Sure, you may have to take the walk of shame and go to the humor section of a bookstore, and you may have to search through the seemingly endless volumes of Dave Barry, Garrison Keillor or Jimmy Buffet (he wrote a book?), but do not be dismayed.  The recent surge of clever writers, like David Sedaris, knows to keep it brief and succinct.  Hodgman follows in this style by producing a book that steers clear of any observational pabulum that litters bookshelves and comedy clubs.  It is a book that can be read in brief portions over a coffee break or while waiting to see the judge.

	One of the many perks of this silly little book is that it just as enjoyable as a reference tool as it is a straight read.  Place it next to your dictionary/thesaurus/Bartlett's combo that your single bookish uncle got you before you went off to college, chances are it will get more use.]]></description><author>travishutzell@mchsi.com (Travis Hutzell)</author><pubDate>06.21.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>Cry Yourself To Sleep - Jeremy Tinder</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=49</link><description><![CDATA[The world of graphic novels is a huge and diverse place.  You can find anything from on-going superhero epics, to short, personal stories about everyday life.  Some are fantasy, some are a slice of realism. Some are for the super nerds and some are hipster and some are for your average everyday reader.  There is always something out there to discover that will warm your heart, tickle your funny bone, or grab your imagination.  Jeremy Tinder has managed to wrap all three into one on this short little story titled Cry Yourself To Sleep.

In this, his debut book Tinder follows three unfortunate souls through a few days in their life.  Jim the rabbit is first fired from his minimum wage food service job for getting too many complaints about hair in the food.  Jim tries to plead his case that he doesn't wear the gloves provided... well, because he is a rabbit and doesn't have thumbs.  The slightly higher than minimum wage manager still has no choice but to fire him.

Then we meet Jim's roommate Andy.  Andy works at the local video rental store, but he has bigger dreams (as, I think, EVERY video store clerk does).  See, Andy is going to be a novelist some day.  In fact, he has a manuscript out to a publisher that he is dying to hear back from.  Andy gets a rejection letter this same fateful day.

And then the person to complete this trifecta of sorrow isn't really a person at all.  The Robot just wants to be free.  Free from his mechanical mind, his cold and unfeeling soul.  In is search, The Robot follows a random bird around in search of a freer life.  He struggles to understand the birds routines and lifestyle while still envying his freedom.

The three fellows cross paths more than a few times, but no one ever really discusses his problems or feelings with his pals.  More just a passing "hey" and "see ya later".  It's not until the end of the book (and another unfortunate incident) that the three are actually brought together in one place, and despite their given predicaments, together they seem happy.

Tinder avoids the trappings of being heavy handed with this book.  It's not overly serious, nor is it full of slap-schtick jokes and pranks.  Cry Yourself To Sleep is a nice balance of comedy and melodrama.  And all in all, it's a pretty damn near spot on story about guys in their early twenties (at least, that's what I imagine them to be).  Full of sorrow and angst at the things they haven't yet accomplished, but when brought together with their friends, everything seems to slip away.

It's a great book, and a great start to Tinder's career.  It's nothing mind-blowing or life changing, but it's a solid little book that will have me waiting for the next release with Tinder's name on it. ]]></description><author>jake@indieworkshop.com (Jake Haselman)</author><pubDate>05.18.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>Paul's Boutique 33 1/3 - Dan LeRoy</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=48</link><description><![CDATA[Who would have thought that the creation of one of Hip-Hop's masterpieces would be a drug fueled, party soaked, apartment recorded album that took the better part of a year to finish?  Well, it was.  And who would have thought that three white kids from Brooklyn would be the ones to drop it?  But they were.  While the Beasties were flying high off the success of their debut album, License to Ill, they were still on the outside looking in to the core of the Hip Hop elite.  And while it's not really tackled a whole lot in this book, I don't really think the Beastie Boys had a whole lot of fans inside the Hip Hop world.  I don't think anyone took that first album seriously, I mean, it was an anthem to the MTV crowd.  

But everything changed.

After the world tour for License to Ill ended, the Beasties were in shambles.  Their fight with Russell Simmons and Def Jam were just about to start, the relationships within the band were strained… they were emotionally and physically exhausted.  So looking for some R and R, and a fresh start, the B Boy's packed up and headed out west to LA.  While reenergizing and blowing off steam, the guys meet up with Matt Dike and the Dust Brothers (before they were even the Dust Brothers) and before you know it, all night meetings were taking place in Dike's apartment.  

The story of the actual construction of the album is amazing.  With what would now be considered primitive means, these mad scientists were creating fantastically complex beats.  Looping drum beats and guitar lines from all over the music world all with little more than a record player, a reel to reel, and their hands.  It's really quiet astounding to think that they didn't even have a mixing board with automation, this really was done by hand.

Dan LeRoy paints a picture of three young men discovering their talent.  He also sheds light on the lesser-known players in this momentous album.  People like Matt Dike hardly get the praise when people start talking about the Beasties.  But after reading this book, and knowing how the Beasties turned out (sound wise), I'd say that Dike and the Dust Brothers had more influence on these three than Rick Rubin.  

Their excessive partying and delay after delay with the album stretched their relationship with Capitol to its breaking point.  Once the album failed to do well upon release, the Boy's were left to practically start over from square one.  They couldn't tour, places they had demolished on the first tour wouldn't have them back.  And the sluggish sales forced them to slink back into the club circuit.  The world wasn't ready for Paul's Boutique.

But older and wiser, the rest of the world has come around to see what the critics were talking about.  The Beastie Boys had shed their party boy, frat-house fan base.  It wasn't easy, and it wasn't a painless process, but the initial failure of this album in the public was probably the best thing to happen to these guys.  Real Hip Hop fans started to pay attention to them, and not just for their antics.  Slowly but surly, people started to realize the powerful record that was created.  People started to respect what these cats were up to.  People started to become real fans.  This is when everything changed, not just for The Beastie Boys, but for music as a whole.     

LeRoy has crafted a short, fun read out of a highly overlooked period in this band's life.  From the late night brainstorming sessions to the egg tossing to the finished product, it's all in here.  This is a great book about an amazing record.]]></description><author>jake@indieworkshop.com (Jake Haselman)</author><pubDate>05.10.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>Doolittle 33 1/3 - Ben Sisario</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=46</link><description><![CDATA[&quot;You can cry you can mope, but can you hang from a good rope?&quot;  Black Francis (Frank Black, Charles Thompson) stated that near the ending of the Doolittle track ‘Mr. Grieves', one of the many songs on the album that deal with death, sex, love, and little else.  Doolittle is an album deserving of a deeper look.  It was the album that caught the Pixies at their stride and easily the most popular of all the Pixies albums.  For an album produced in the 80's it was a great deal different than the pop of Rick Astley or even the strange ethereal music of the Cocteau Twins that shared the 4AD label with them.  Doolittle may very well have invented the slow-fast-slow songwriting technique that Nirvana later adapted for its grunge-birthing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit'.

Sisario's book takes a deep dive, track by track, into the making and the background of the Pixies that is both purposely contradictory and confusing, but at the same time simple and clear as loud as hell and a ringing bell.  In interviews with Thompson (Frank Black) it is repeatedly stated that the songs on Doolittle are meant to be a ‘puzzles&quot; and that no clear meaning is inferred.  The songs are films; they conjure images and challenge the listener to fill in all the holes that the songs leave.  One of the joys of Doolittle is noticing the blank spots, those spots that are not mentioned.  The narratives in each are sparse, but allow for a series of images that can only be tied together by one's own imagination and persistent thought.

Where this book succeeds is its detailed analysis of what was going on at the time of recording.  Revealing its original title ‘Whore' was deemed to harsh, and considering the man as animal theme of songs like ‘Monkey's Gone to Heaven' and the aforementioned ‘Mr. Grieves' it makes perfect sense that this album be called Doolittle; The man in the middle, the one who intervenes between the spiritual realm and the animals that live on this planet, human and all others.  Despite the lack of contribution of Kim Deal, the rest of the band lends their thoughts and anecdotes.  It is fascinating to hear Joey Santiago's detail of his blistering guitar parts and that most of these songs are autobiographical to images that Thompson had witnessed in his travels as a young man.

For a band that seemed to be created on the fly, without any purpose other than the goal of defying any traditional song standards, the Pixies managed to create something equally abrasive and pop centric at the same time.  Consider the track ‘Here Comes Your Man&quot;, which this writer always considered a response to the Velvet Undergrounds ‘Waiting for My Man', it bounces along simply and without the bellowing screams of Thompson.  It was destined for cross-over status and even today when you hear the Pixies on the radio; it is mostly likely this track.  As opposed to all the biblical sex and death of the other tracks this song paints a story of hobo's living in a boxcar.  It is a Woody Guthrie type tale that conjures images of families huddling around cooking pots and waiting for something to redeem them, to free them from the prison of poverty that they know all too well.

For those looking to get a deeper understanding of Doolittle, this book offers one writer's interpretation, but it is by no means the definitive guide to the album.  Doolittle is a mystery and is meant to be considered that way.  The listener gets to decide what a Wave of Mutilation is and what it means to want to grow up to be a Debaser.  Frank Black and crew will debase with this album, it will simultaneously raise awareness and confuse you into dismissing everything.  Read the book, but don't consider it the whole story.  Study the album and draw your own conclusions.]]></description><author>travishutzell@mchsi.com (Travis Hutzell)</author><pubDate>04.11.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>Siberia - Nikolai Maslov</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=45</link><description><![CDATA[Nikolai Maslov, the artist, author, and subject of Siberia worked as a night watchman in Moscow when he pitched this book to a French editor/salesman in 2000.  Dude gave him three cells and he was sold.  For the next three years, Maslov worked on the rest of his story while living off of the dollar of his new financier.  This, minimal, yet extremely well-drawn and disheartening story is the end result, a story of Maslov's long, hard-fought life and a rare look into the life of an alternatively-thinking young man growing up in 1950's Siberia.

I've had a special place in my heart for graphic novels for as long as I can remember, I found a brief Batman off-shoot book in my grandmother's house around the time I was eight and I've been hooked ever since.  The works of Daniel Clowes, Craig Thompson, Adrian Tomine, and Marjane Satrapi are amongst my favorites and now, most unexpectedly, Nikolai Maslov is on that worthy list and with a swift, marked stroke of sobering wisdom and genius.
  
Maslov primarily uses soft pencil in this novel and he keeps things relatively basic and sometimes crude and thusly amplifying his rough and tumble upbringing and his scarcely optimistic experiences in the bare and striking cold of Siberia's blinding expanse.  Beginning just after his eleventh birthday, Maslov tells the story of his childhood, growing up in a small village and teaching himself how to draw and interpret landscapes and the shapes of his family members, his landscapes bear a multitude of grey shades and somehow give life to otherwise bland views of the Siberian countryside, while his unforgiving portraits of people keenly reflect their personalities and seem to revolve around unmentionable flaws and motivations.  Maslov would soon become infatuated with Paris and the Parisian lifestyle, which did not fit well with the droll of the Siberian lifestyle and considering his penchant for art and drawing, he quickly felt like a social recluse amongst the live-and-die cogs in the Siberian wheel. 
  
Soon enough, conscription in the military came along with the seemingly endless and massive love/hate relationship with vodka and all other things alcoholic. People wander in and out of pubs, fights break out, work gets done, work gets lost, life goes on.  While in the military, Maslov's life, as well as everyone else's, is dismal and its meaning questionable.  Backbreaking labor is done among a backdrop of heavy equipment and propaganda posters and after a hard day's work, more trips to the bar where more music and even more fighting takes place before everyone wearily turns in only to do it all again the next day.  

Maslov makes it through his conscription and moves onto applying to art school, where he's constantly rejected and misunderstood.  All artists at his prospective schools were trained only to perpetuate the steadfast determination and will of propaganda posters and murals, while Maslov just wanted to draw what he saw.  While on his charge for art school admission, disappointment and heartbreak only fueled into depression and alcoholism.  Maslov was almost instantly arrested when he attempted to lay out his art on a Moscow city block, and the loss of his brother sent his straight to the bottle from which he almost didn't return alive.  

There's much, much more that I'm not cluing you into with this review, it's mainly because the tale of Nikolai Maslov's life is a stark and troubling one and it should only be told through his voice and pencil.  Let's hope he has more to tell us in the years to come.  ]]></description><author>burlyphil@yahoo.com (Philip Del Costello)</author><pubDate>03.22.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>Anne Arden McDonald - Anne Arden McDonald</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=44</link><description><![CDATA[Anne Arden McDonald's Installations and Self-Portraits is a collection of the artists' staged self-portraits spanning fifteen years of her life and work. 

The photographs themselves may be the first things to grab you but the artist's process is perhaps even more intriguing. McDonald works alone in abandoned spaces that are dark and decaying. Upon finding and choosing a place wherein to work she then spends an adequate amount of time there clearing the space of garbage and debris, rearranging it and connecting with it. Often, she will set up installations and bring in props to manipulate the space. She has used shoes, candles, ropes, and even a straight jacket in her settings. The locations are often transformed into metaphors by the time she begins shooting. 

She says that it all begins with a feeling or mood and then acts out her own self-exploration and turns it into art. But, as Wanda Strukus points out, the process and end product are "both autobiographical and performative". Studying these photographs, I am moved not only by the end product but also by the idea of what the preparation and performance might have been like. McDonald will often go through two to five rolls of film per shoot as she enacts her emotional state and performs for her camera.

This coffee table book begins with two essays, the first of which is titled "Points of Departure: Anne McDonald's Staged Self-Portraits" and is written by Leslie Findlen. Findlen speaks a lot about the "drama of the moment" that McDonald aims to capture and describes her photographs as "ghosts, spirits, angels, and doubles". 

The second is written by Strukus and is called "Limitless: The Autobiographical Performance of Anne Arden McDonald". She delves deep into the discussion of performance in photography and the relationship between the two. Both essays offer invaluable insight into the following photographs as well as the photographer and her unique methods. I found myself studying the pages of this book more intently, more intimately, after having read them. The insight was totally appreciated and, often, needed. 

She deals with a variety of themes in her work such as tension, body limitations, and freedom. McDonald has said that she often struggles with such conflicts as "living in a body with a mind that dreams" and "frustrations with the limits of the human body". These issues are all represented in her photographs. She often depicts herself, as Strukus says, as being "alternately bound and freed." 

Her photography is often dark with subtle streams of light, done in black and white. In several she is a tiny, solitary figure, part of the scenery. In others she is the focal point. In one she is floating above a garden of dead plants and flowers in an abandoned Massachusetts greenhouse. In another she is seemingly taking flight off of a Connecticut hillside. She dances in abandoned factories and captures herself pushing against a stone wall, lying beneath a saw blade, and reflected in the mirrors in an abandoned Austrian farmhouse. All of her work remains untitled to leave it open to interpretation. 

McDonald herself has written the Afterward and through it she offers further insight on the books' photography. She explains that she is often exploring questions of identity in her art, something that she has struggled with throughout her life. She calls her photographs "part self discovery and therapy, part performance and escapism, and partially a response to the spaces". These are not simple disguises but rather a variety of "selves" that she is able to conjure up. Perhaps the most interesting thing she says is that she actually hates being photographed and, as she points out, she rarely uses her face but prefers body gestures for their subtlety. 

Knowing the process behind their creation, it's impossible to view her work simply as a series of photographs. For me, personally, I see them as I would, for example, a Plath poem: intimate, dramatic, and often provocative. There is mystery here that gives you the space to connect with it. It is, as McDonald calls it, "journal-keeping". This is a woman that wants to connect with others on an emotional, relational level. Through her art she opens herself up to it. I can look at these photographs and actually think that I have felt that pain, that disconnect, or that longing she is representing. 

This is a great, powerful book but don't expect to throw it on your coffee table, breeze through it and fully appreciate it. Different pages often require different states of mind and therein lies its power. It's when you make that connection that you really recognize what McDonald has created. It is a journal but it's not only hers, it's open to becoming something many women (and men) can identify with. I felt myself claiming many of the pages as my own.]]></description><author>steph@indieworkshop.com (Stephanie Haselman)</author><pubDate>03.12.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>The Best Cure for a Broken Heart - V / A</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=43</link><description><![CDATA[Rochester's Snore & Guzzle Press have published a collection of stories written by the broken hearted called The Best Cure for a Broken Heart. The book features over twenty stories of love turned sour for folks to read while they wallow in their misery. It runs with the "hair of the dog that bit you" theory and it's no joke. Sometimes misery really does love company. 

Some funny, some just painfully depressing (dead neighbor anyone?), these stories are short, sweet and to the point. While a few are a tad over the top melodramatic, they all work in this context. In one tale of a first (and only) date, Jason Olshefsky admits to crying at the end of a "dark and sexless night" and asking if he could "at least" see his date naked just this once so he can masturbate on the thought later. At least he admits to being "graceless". But I think my favorite quote in the collection comes from contributor Abby McCarthy. After being dumped, she was told, "I always thought I'd end up with someone cooler". Her brilliant response was, "Who says, 'This is my wife, we have been married for 50 years, she is sooo cool,'? They are supposed to say, 'This is my wife, and I love her so much.'" It's such words of wisdom as that that make this book worth purchasing. 

The collection includes original illustrations from Barbara Wilkinson and Shawn Creeden scattered throughout. The illustrations are sparse and often rudimentary but a very nice touch just the same. It also features recipes for hearty soups throughout. Using the old adage "the best cure for a broken heart is a good bowl of soup" the book offers additional therapy in the form of Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup, Kara's Tomato Dill Soup (which sounds awesome), Hungarian Goulash and more. 

But just in case the soup doesn't cure what ails you, editor Michael Neault has included a mix CD to accompany the writings. And I mean it when I say that this is the best mix CD I have ever heard. Featuring songs by Bessie Smith, Daniel Johnston, Louis Armstrong, Roger Miller, Nina Simone, Sam Cooke and more (there's 26 tracks in all) this collection of songs follows the broken hearted theme and just begs for a glass of wine doused with tears on a lonely Saturday night. 

The first pressing is limited to only 200 copies so, please, get yourself one while you can. I don't know what my favorite part is: the CD, the recipes, or the writings. All around, it's a brilliant idea.]]></description><author>steph@indieworkshop.com (Stephanie Haselman)</author><pubDate>03.05.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>The Push Man and Other Stories - Yoshihiro Tatsumi</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=42</link><description><![CDATA[	Thanks to Adrian Tomine and Drawn & Quarterly, Yoshihiro Tatsumi's work is finally being published in English. Now for a quick background on Tatsumi from what I've garnered from this book's introduction. Tatsumi has been drawing and writing comics since the 1950's and is considered the &quot;grandfather of Japanese alternative comics.&quot; While manga was immensely popular at the time, what Tatsumi was doing was something completely different (something he called &quot;gekiga&quot; to break away from manga). Drawn & Quarterly is planning on releasing all of Tatsumi's work through year by year anthologies, &quot;The Push Man and other stories&quot; being his work from 1969.
	
This collection is absolutely astonishing, not only because it is a wholly solid and overwhelming set of short, short stories from a single year in the artist's life, but because he was doing these comics a good fifteen to twenty years before the concept of &quot;literary&quot; or &quot;adult&quot; comics caught on in America. The stories are dark, perverse, desperate, and, a lot of the time, heartbreaking in the same vein as artists like Tomine and Daniel Clowes. Keep in mind, all of this about fifteen years before Clowes started up his Eightball publication and twenty years before Tomine started putting out Optic Nerve. Tomine also pens the book's introduction and credits Tatsumi with exposing him to alternative comics. It's not surprising that Tatsumi's influence can be seen all throughout Tomine's work from his slice-of-life storytelling style to his sense of pacing to the oddball characters he chooses to inhabit his stories.
	
This collection features 16 of Tatsumi's stories from 1969, varying in length with the majority being about eight pages long. However, in these compact little narratives Tatsumi seems to have found one of the most effective ways of explaining the human condition that I have ever seen. Each story is told through the eyes of a working class male protagonist, each with their own wife or female counterpart and a particularly grueling job. The Push Man's job in the story of the same name is to cram people into overcrowded subway cars. Although the people cry out in pain, once his job is done he is satisfied and goes to sleep at night with a smile on his face until one day, when a woman's shirt is torn by a loose umbrella handle, he decides to help her. His act of kindness leads to a brief relationship with the woman and, ultimately, a profound moment of self-realization as he is accidentally crammed into a subway car himself. &quot;Let Me out! I'm a push man!&quot; he yells before the train starts moving and he resigns himself to a state of understanding. 
	
&quot;The Push Man&quot; is rather light compared to the much darker subject matter of the rest of the collection. One theme that seems to carry throughout the book is that of fertility, pregnancy, and, in particular, abortion. There's the story &quot;Black Smoke&quot; where the protagonist has the job of shoveling garbage into a furnace. One day he is assigned to go to the women's clinic where he inadvertently receives his wife's aborted child (from a pregnancy with another man). One man works in a sewer where aborted babies float by and his co-worker confiscates whatever cross or medallion the parents left as a &quot;last blessing&quot; before letting the fetus float on down the sewer. In the final story &quot;My Hitler,&quot; one of the finest in the collection, pregnant rat watches an aborted fetus float by in the sewer before climbing up through the drain into a man and woman's household. As much as they shoo the rat away, it keeps coming back. In a moment of sheer beauty, the huge rat sits on a cushion at their table like a statue and the man eventually sympathizes more with the rat than he does his own wife. 
	
These are stories of obsession, like the autoworker who is assigned to fix the car of the TV idol that he is infatuated with and, when he sees her with another man, tampers with the car's breaks. These are stories of desperation, like the student who becomes obsessed with the woman who his donated sperm is going to and men who are driven to murder or let others die to achieve a sense of justification. These are stories about human beings, profoundly moving stories that I dare you not to be affected by.]]></description><author>ihrabe@mail.ku.edu (Ian Hrabe)</author><pubDate>02.23.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>33 1/3:   In The Aeroplane over the Sea - Kim Cooper</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=41</link><description><![CDATA[	Being late to the game is the story of my life.  I have notoriously discovered new music or art only to find that at the moment it flourished I was too busy with my nose in some comic book or dreamily thinking about the girl across from me with the most beautiful face I had ever seen.  I am almost 8 years late to Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over the Sea.  I borrowed it from a friend only two months ago at his suggestion.  Of course, like many, I was completely in love with the album after only a few listens and began to discuss it with friends who are much more cutting edge than me.  I met with slight derision, but it was well tolerated because even if you are late to something, there is a joy in knowing that at least you finally made it and can maybe still enjoy a strong piece of what it was like to be there in the beginning.  That is what makes records, paintings, and books so enjoyable.  Even if you do not get them on the day they come out, the ones you need, the ones that will make a difference, will find you at the right time.
	
In Continuum's series of books about seminal albums, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea has recently gone onto a second printing.  Considering some of the other albums covered (Pet Sounds, Let it Be, Exile on Mainstreet) there is obviously a strong cult following for this album and for its main visionary Jeff Mangum.  These types of books certainly have a very specific appeal.  It is an unlikely read for anyone who has never heard of Neutral Milk Hotel and quite frankly a very boring one, if you are not even slightly interested in the lives of those who created the album and the recording process.  These style of books are for the obsessive, those who must know everything.  Those who feel that if they find the one magic line or the one small anecdote about a song topic it will shed new light on an already bright moment in their listening history.  That is not meant as a slight to the obsessive, for too long music geeks have been stereotyped with moppy hair and the less than marketable ability to draw connections from one obscure band to another.  Some fall into this kind of obsession because it creates an identity for them, where they could not create one on their own.  Others simply just take joy in embracing all the things that spark the flame of introspection.  There are those who talk about the opinions on the latest LP as it is a badge of honor and then there are those who are just so excited to hear something new that they have to share their passion.   Kim Cooper's book is for the good kind of obsessive.  I suppose the snobs will read it as well, but books like this should not be seen as further study.  They are not the secondary text to a primary work for which you will need to deliver an intensive paper on.   Cooper's book is about the joy of creating something unique and wonderful.  It is about catching the consummation, gestation, and birth of something truly inspired.  If you don't like this album, pull another book off the shelf, the important part is to enjoy.  It is fruitless for me to detail in this review the context for the actual album.  At this point if you are reading a book about the thing, you probably have a familiar grasp with the subject matter.  For posterity I will say Aeroplane is a strange mix of acoustic carnival music that seems to circle around the story of Anne Frank and a re-occurring two-headed boy (for which there may or may not be any connection in terms of the songs).  Beyond a previous album and a handful of bootlegs this is all we have of Neutral Milk Hotel.  Shortly after the albums success, front man Jeff Mangum left the band and went into a forced isolation.
	
The story behind Aeroplane and Jeff Mangum has left mixed emotions for all who have come across the songs.  There is anger that there is no continuation, no follow-up.  Was it a happy accident?  Some, who believe in legend, say that Mangum went the way of a Syd Barrett and became overwhelmed with the whirlwind.  The truth lies with the creator. Mangum has not lost his sanity, he has withdrawn to his own devices, certainly, but music is still made and the mind still moves.  Is Aeroplane the pinnacle of the Elefant 6 collaboration?  I have been told by some the answer is no, that there are better things out there and better things still being done and that may well be true, I can't say.  I do know that Aeroplane is a shattering work that holds an echo.  It will linger like Anne Frank's ghost upon the psyche of those fortunate enough to hear it from its opening note to its completion.  Those things that touch us deeply, those works of art, the paintings, the books, the music, all those places where we find imaginary brothers and sisters, they are  the mediums we claim as our kindred.  At the end of the day, though, they are not flesh and blood.  They are pages on shelves, they are ink and pen, and they are slabs of vinyl or a series of organized 1's and 0's.  Adore every last moment that you have with your kindred, but don't hate them when they get up to leave.]]></description><author>travishutzell@mchsi.com (Travis Hutzell)</author><pubDate>02.08.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>Gone to New York: Adventures in the City - Ian Frazier</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=40</link><description><![CDATA[Ian Frazier is very prolific. He's written many books other than the above, including Great Plains and Family. He was born in Ohio, lived in Montana, and eventually moved to New York City and worked for the New Yorker writing humorous articles. This book particularly is about Frazier's perspective and view of New York City throughout his career. You follow him from his bathroom-less loft on Canal Street to his Brownstone in Park Slope Brooklyn. 

This is a collection of short essays and/or stories about New York City, if you haven't been to New York City, you should definitely read this book. If you live in New York city, whether for a week or 25 years, you should DEFINITELY read this book. Living here, working here, making and having friends here, and just being around New York City is what Frazier writes about, but in a humorous and detailed, minutiae focused way that makes you feel New York City in a way I have never been able to describe it to anyone who asks "So what's it like to live in New York?". Frazier finds really funny and interesting ways to purvey to someone not accustomed to living in New York City or spending a long period of time here what it's really like. He talks about his attempts to cut the plague of plastic bags stuck in trees all over the 5 boroughs, the shop owners he's met, landlords, the entire story of the Holland Tunnel, and the most accurate description of the chaos of Canal Street in Manhattan that I've ever seen. He doesn't give a map and a list of places to visit and a few photographs, instead he conveys this great tone of voice, so you can really feel and sense what New York must feel like to him. Ian Frazier is, basically, an amazing writer. 

One of the reasons I really love this book is that Frazier expounds many times in his writing that he is not a native New Yorker and is proud of his small town beginnings. I myself live in Brooklyn now (have for only 5 years), and when people ask me where I live I say "Massachusetts", like I just jumped on a train for the day to check out New York. I have never adjusted to New York City and probably never will. I'm definitely not a New Yorker according to seemingly all the other New Yorkers I meet, and that's cool with me… unlike many people I meet that want to be New Yorkers something fierce. The way Frazier writes is an almost outsider perspective, buried deep on the inside. I feel like he is seeing New York City in the indescribable way I keep seeing it every day on my way to work, on my way to meet a friend, or just walking around spaced out, but he can actually pick out the most useful details in the maelstrom of sensory overload to talk about. His first loft reminds me of my first apartment in Bed Stuy with the rats in the walls and the hot water going out for 10 days at a time. However, my description of New York is usually "it's loud", or "there are like 6 bejillion people everywhere and they're all talking at once.". I'd suggest going to Ian Frazier for a really awesome picture of New York, in wonderful little snapshots that are sometimes only 2 pages, rather than me or anyone else for that matter. This book is a quick read and is really absolutely worth it.

My one issue with this book, and I am hesitant to even bring it up because normally I really love Jamaica Kincaid's writing… But her foreword to this book is really difficult to read and seems pretty pretentious and awkward. Apparently Frazier and Kincaid are great friends and have known one another for many years, and in the foreword we just keep hearing about how they are like brother and sister. I just felt like I was wincing my way through it.
]]></description><author>the.ats@gmail.com (Amanda Spadaccini)</author><pubDate>01.30.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published... - Pat Walsh</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=39</link><description><![CDATA[78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published & 14 Reasons Why it Just Might

	Right from the start this book tells you that, at best, you have a 15% chance of ever getting your finished book published.  That is not good odds for something you have, hopefully, just spent several years of your life's work on.  If you are one of those genius types, who maybe polished off your first draft in 6 months and spent the rest of the year with cleaning the thing up, than that is still a solid year spent.  If you spent less than a year to write a manuscript that you think is publishable you are either a genius with a big ego or you are lazy and sloppy, with a big ego.

	If Penguin Books had a good head on their shoulders they could make a whole series of books like this to utterly destroy your self-esteem with the cold hard truth.  How about &quot;100 Reasons Why She is Not Coming Back and 5 Reasons Why She Just Might&quot; (one of the five reasons involves kidnapping). They could even have a children's line, &quot;20 Reasons Why Your Rabbit Died and 1 Way He May Come Back" (the one reason involves voodoo).

	The fact of the matter is, author Pat Walsh knows of what he speaks.  He is a self- admitted failed novelist.  He is a publisher and champion of the writer.  Again and again he mentions that he has the utmost respect for anyone who can even finish a manuscript, much less, get it published.  Why do you think I am writing for Indieworkshop and not basking in Stephen King-size money?  Let's be honest, if you have even gotten this far you can tell, I suck!  I mean I am terrible.  I am not even sure why Indieworkshop lets me write for them (god, I hope they don't read this).  My point is that being a writer is a really tough thing to do and reading Walsh's book is not going to discourage you, if you are serious, but it will deliver a cold reality to how the publishing industry works. If you can master the antithesis of some of the reasons why you won't get published, and hit all 14 reasons why you may, then your well on your way to Oprah's couch.  Walsh states the main reason why manuscripts do not get published is, get this, THE WRITER NEVER WRITES THE DAMN THING!  To the non-writer that seems like common sense but if you have ever even toyed with the idea of writing a novel you will know that a greater truth has rarely been spoken.  How many of your hipster friends are still working on their novels?  Damn, I am still working on my novel (I am just taking time off, you know, research and such).  
	
This book truly has inspired me to go back and begin anew on my novel.  I am going to finish that thing.  Right after I finish this drink, ah, there you are bourbon, my old friend…]]></description><author>travishutzell@mchsi.com (Travis Hutzell)</author><pubDate>01.18.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>Dog: A Short Novel - Michelle Herman</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=38</link><description><![CDATA[You know, I've got to be honest about two things (a) I wrote a great review of this book and then LOST it in a terrifying computer meltdown and (b) I assumed I was going to hate the book "DOG: A Short Novel" and both of these things were pretty stupid. I apologize. Sure, this is a book about… you guessed it, a woman and her dog. Even the first line of the novel is: "the dog, the dog, the dog- the dog had taken over her life".  But that's ok. Don't let that get to you. Instead, let the way the words are written out tell you a little about what's to come… This novel is very lyrical and intense in places, cold in others. This isn't your Disney/Hollywood woman meets dog storyline where we see a bitter, bitchy woman meet a happy go lucky dog and it changes her life entirely in a perfectly good way and suddenly she's in love and is ten times hotter than when the movie started. That doesn't happen here. What does happen here is at times tedious and then at times really beautiful. 

What makes this novel interesting and worth reading is the character development and what is actually left out of the story, rather than left in. There's a very pleasant break from the black or white characterization of single women that we usually see: She's either a saint who is suffering alone, or she's trying desperately to hook a man. Instead, Jill is neither great nor awful. You get to see her downsides. She doesn't have much of a sense of humor. You don't pity her for this or for her being single, there are only a few reflections back on her past love life, which is painted like a storybook kept in a stainless steel box. She isn't pining away for any love lost, only reviewing what's happened from a distance. What I mean is, she's a person and you probably know someone like her (but you don't know them well.)

See, Jill is a poetry professor, and honestly this already gives some people a reason to dislike her, the pretentiousness of poetry of course often supercede even knowing the poet, because it seems like such a dramatic and outlandish form of dialogue or expression. So right there, she is not exactly what we'd expect from a woman meets dog scenario. Instead, Jill is painted as a multi-dimensional woman that we would probably never get that close to because she's a private person and seems to be one of those people that gets her energy from being alone rather than getting it from being with others. She's not a single martyred woman. She might be lonely, we're never quite sure, but if she is, you can surmise that it's partly her fault and it's not really that big of a deal anyway, because she could fix that if she wanted to. Jill knows what's going on and sometimes chooses to hide out in her house with her books.

When Jill meets this dog she adopts, she names him Phil. Admittedly I adore this name for a dog and all pet names that are human. And Phil isn't a slobbering cutesy puppy licking her face. He's almost as standoffish and 'so what-ish' as her (but don't get me wrong, this book isn't a cliché in the least). this is what makes the story so cute, it's like two icicle mammals hanging out together, sharing a sort of space but never quite sharing anything entirely. It's a way of saying you can like and even love something or someone without having to give up whatever seemingly negative traits you may have. 

The way that Phil's story is outlined in this book doesn't in any way anthropomorphize him; it just makes him seem like a real dog. You will have a clear and exacting mental picture of what he looks and acts like by the end of the book. You'll be thinking you definitely have met a dog like that (especially if you're a dog person). And I think this is my favorite part of this novel, that the dog is characterized as an actual dog, not as some means to an end for us understanding a human being, or as an end for a human being to reach ultimate storybook happiness, but instead he's another character in a book. He's also not over generalized or made into a weird unbelievable type of dog that goes rescuing people from fires or being affection and doting 24 hours a day.

There is no wrapped up nice ending here, but it's a very soft quiet and beautiful little book about a person who decides that she likes dogs enough to take care of one and let it have part of her daily routine. It's a really cute story, mostly about loneliness, self-reflection, aging, being single, and learning to accept differences and change in your life. It's realistic enough that you can hear the quietness of Jill's house and smell the books in there, and you can feel the intensity of her students in her poetry classes. 

Do I recommend it? YES. It's small, and I managed to read it in a short train ride home for the holidays, and there's value enough in it to warrant taking the time out.
]]></description><author>the.ats@gmail.com (Amanda Spadaccini)</author><pubDate>01.08.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>The Singularity Is Near - Ray Kurzweil</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=37</link><description><![CDATA[What is the singularity? If you're not a technological nerd/geek you might not know. Or if you're a mathematician you may just think it's a # with a value past any limit, ie, infinity. But if you're Ray Kurzweil, this singularity isn't quite to infinity. Rather it's a point when machine knowledge outdoes human knowledge, in a sense that our memory and abilities to compute things will have reached near infinite levels of strength because of the enhancement of our own minds or the existence of machines that can surpass us. The majority of science enthusiasts/fanatics I know take this leap of faith: there will be a singularity. We might argue about when it will happen, when technology will actually become our successors in evolution, but we really think it's coming, and fast. Not all of us are Ray Kurzweil though, who seems to have basically figured the entire timeline out. 

What gives Kurzweil credibility isn't just his sort of cult following of science geeks ( Kurweil is a character, a person who takes 250 supplements a day and does daily blood tests and IV supplements etc, for longevity.) but his past predictions which have creepily come true (in my opinion) in his previous books such as "The Age of Intelligent Machines", "The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence", and now this, "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend  Biology". Admittedly, I don't disagree with Kurzweil on much of his factual time line predictions. It's difficult to argue especially when he has enormous amounts of data, provocative thought, and concrete scientific advancements following right along with the law of accelerating returns* to make you listen to what he thinks is going to go down. In his opinion, the singularity is inevitable regardless of political climates and reflection on past achievements or failures in science. And what Kurzweil believes will be the three major factors in this final push over the barrier are genetic engineering, nanotechnology and, robotics (Which he refers to, and I will as well, as GNR). These are the basis of his book and much of the information you see packed in the many pages are examples and breakdowns of these advancements NOW and where Kurzweil predicts they will go in the future, and at what rate. 

Some interesting predictions Kurzweil makes that I'd like to share specifically (and I can't include them all or I'd be rewriting the book here) are:

- A nanorobot era will begin around 2020. What is a nanorobot? It's a tiny cell sized machine that can potentially self replicate and do thousands of things like enter the brain and reverse engineer it, enter the bloodstream and destroy viruses and cancer, or turn our environments into various shapes and forms we previously thought impossible. This era will overlap with genetic revolutions and ultimately robotic revolutions where we will have machines and robots based on Nan technology and/or genetic design.

- Machines will pass the original Turing test by 2029. This means we will not be able to tell the difference between talking to a compute and talking to a human being via written word. In fact Kurzweil believes functioning brain emulations will exist within the next decade, by 2020 we will be able to buy a PC that does this.

- Computers based on Quantum theory will be able to test 2^1,000 potential solutions to a problem at once.

- We will probably be able to upload our entire brain by 2030. 

So the above are some things we have to look forward to before the singularity happens. But what will the world be like once it does? what's the big deal? Well, it will be the end of the world as any of us can really physically or mentally fathom in any real tactile sense. The world will be full of non-biologically based intelligences and information processing (what drives almost everything we do today already) will be pushed thousands of times past it's developments and revolutions than it is now. Intelligence that is made per year will be 1 billion times stronger and more powerful than all human intelligence combined. And Kurzweil thinks this will happen around… 2045. So most of us reading this will probably be alive then, and that's why it's important to consider the possibility that it really could be starting and growing closer already. According to Kurzweil, we will have to reconsider every idea we have about human life and remake all of our institutions. Our bodies will be redesigned from stomach to brain to be enhanced for longevity and strength, and then, our intelligence will spread over the entire universe. 

Interesting right?

Naysayers of this theory of singularity argue that cultural rebellions and movements will slow down the process. Or that humans will never be smart enough to entirely understand what "MIND" really is, and understand their own brains and minds. Others argue that once we hear about the singularity, we'll just sit back and wait for it to happen and therefore, it won't. All of these things are possibilities of course, but I think Kurzweil gives compelling arguments as to why things will be running smoothly regardless of wars, religious fanatics, laziness, or supposed human stupidity. I'm not entirely convinced that there couldn't be interference but I do not in any way think there are things/people/entities/occurrences that will greatly change the motion of things as they are now.

Many people hate the idea of a singularity, or at least find it really unpleasant for reasons that can be quite obvious, like.. Will it be OK to not really be human like we are now? Will we still have our own identities? (because people hang onto their body identities so strongly and their individualism so much, this is a terrifying thought to people, like excess conformity or cloning). Will people believe in God or be spiritual after a singularity? And even scarier, what if people access dangerous knowledge sometime during this timeline and use it against the entire world or parts of it? What if the entire world is "uploaded" and someone pulls the plug? What if nanorobots self replicate out of control and cover the world? Will only rich people have access to all this cool stuff? Will poor people be left behind or turned into drone-like slaves? These are all valid questions to ask about a singularity and Kurzweil tries to address them as much as possible. 

As a scientist I can hear and trust most of his arguments because it's a style of thinking that I am used to: that STRONG AI** will be able to defend itself and us as we know ourselves then against any threats that may come along. Or that the scientific community will be able to monitor itself closely enough to make rules about what nanotechnology should be engineered to do and not do.  However I can see a real reason for unease that people might have not only because we can't really fathom what this will all feel like, but also because frankly, we can't trust all humans now so why should we be able to in 10 years, or 40 years when humans are machines and machines are sort of human, and machines may not even be like us down to the supposed 'soul'?? 

This is where I sort of diverge from Kurzweil. Don't mistake my enthusiasm about this book and the interesting idea of a singularity with a complete agreement with Kurzweil on this subject. I don't really trust people as much as he seems to, and I do not have faith that a society of intelligent machines will really care at all about existing humans, about enhancing / helping us, or even acknowledging us when they are designing their physical worlds. They may look at us as their evolutionary predecessors and their elders or they may just want us out of the way because we're messy and whiny and annoying. I'm just not 100% sure what the moral level of a singularity will be, if it will be some all wonderful, peaceful entity that everyone is all huggy in, or if it will be more morally bankrupt than we can predict. Will it contain any humanistic traits of compassion and love and empathy? Or will it be more cold and calculating with no room for humans, and rather than enhancing us and helping us along like Kurzweil predicts, these 'spiritual' machines eventually just snub us and leave us behind like the annoying little brother that never gets it. And in the meantime, I'm not sure us regular humans or near totally biological humans will handle the upcoming technology smartly or with a compassionate mind.

Will all this processing of information, the supposed basis of what we're doing here anyway, reach some limit for the environment that exists for it? Kurzweil says yes, and I agree. But he thinks the outcome will be a non-biological intelligence that will continue on for us and help us along. I think maybe it will just leave us behind.

Since I obviously can't break down this entire book (I'm not smart enough and I'm too lazy to reiterate everything anyway), I really recommend you read it.  This isn't a smarty-pants book that pretentious people will sit and talk about and other people won't understand. Trust me. it's important and really beautiful in its method of breaking down these three enormous and seemingly impenetrable scientific realms of GNR in a way that almost anyone can understand with a little bit of patience and time. Whether or not you even care if a singularity happens, this book outlines all the awesome new things going on in every area of science, and explains them in a way that will let you go forward and understand more. It's really cool to read about things going on now that you may not have even realized in AI and so on. Philosophers, computer nerds, neuroscientists, biologists, geneticists, theologians, AI proponents and all sorts of people will love this book. You might even become a Singularitarian, which is ok because Kurzweil helps you figure out how to do that also.  Now we just have to do the right thing.

I strongly recommend checking out Kurzweil's other books and his website www.kurzweilAI.net because he is just such a non-stop machine of new, cool, fun ideas, even if you don't necessarily agree with what he is saying. There are a lot of books on this same subject, and on the separate areas of GNR. If you want some recommendations, reach me through this site and I will be glad to provide you with some ideas of where to go.

________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes:

. * the law of accelerating returns is essentially a law that will (in my opinion) eventually get rid of Moore's law. A rate change in paradigm shifts that will make advancements in technology occur closer and closer together versus over long periods of time. If you look at past technological breakthroughs over time you will notice they are already happening more closely together than they were say, 100 years ago.
for more specifics, see Kurzweil's site article on this law: http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0134.html 

** artificial intelligence (AI) exists now, in military pattern recognitions, space software, and things like ECG's that diagnose heart problems without human help and even machines that can diagnose a PAP smear. HOWEVER, strong AI is different than regular AI in that Strong AI is a machine capable of human thought entirely, not just one capable of bits of human behavioral emulations and mathematical proof computations etc.
]]></description><author>the.ats@gmail.com (Amanda Spadaccini)</author><pubDate>01.01.2006</pubDate></item><item><title>The King - Richard Koslowski</title><link>http://www.indieworkshop.com/books.php?id=36</link><description><![CDATA[Paul Erfurt has got himself into a very weird situation.  Richard Koslowski's graphic novel The King tells the offbeat tale of a down on his luck tabloid reporter, the aforementioned Paul Erfurt, who has been sent by Time magazine to investigate the appearance of an Elvis impersonator who just may not be an impersonator after all.  It is a ridiculous proposition, right?
	
Despite the comic nature (no pun intended) this graphic novel really does try to take itself seriously.  It reminds me of the wonderful Bruce Campbell film Bubba Ho-Tep, also about an impersonator, who may just be the real thing.  As the story unfolds, the answer becomes more elusive as to the identity of The King.  After several strange interviews with the impersonator who wears a gold mask and asks only to be called &quot;King&quot;, Erfurt believes that there may be a larger story here.  His trip takes him to strip clubs, tent churches in the Las Vegas desert, and even a trip back to his own questioning faith in the god of music.  Erfurt, coupled with an old friend that helps to investigate, finds a renewed interest in the tabloid days of his youth and even starts enjoying Elvis tunes again.  The trip is the thing; the reality of the story is inconsequential, really.
	
The artistry of The King is equally entertaining.  Drawn in black and white, the writer straddles the line between realism and cartoon depiction.  The characters are sinister or depressing, but have a comic slant to them that make them appear surreal.  The style of drawing compliments the story well as its sincerity is uncertain. Is Koslowski really trying to convince us that this is a true story, or at least could be a true story?  Is Elvis really alive?  It would be wrong to give away the ending to this mystery.  I will tell you that, although it is not the most surprising ending, it is a realistic one that may just leave a small shadow of doubt as to what is going on.
	
One of my mother's last requests before she died two years ago was to have Elvis music playing at her viewing.  My father, of course, complied.  To my parent's generation Elvis is the last great American myth.  He stands next to Jesus as the person most admired.  I grew up with Elvis, how could I not considering my mother?  Sometimes it is nice to believe in something that just makes you feel good.  Sometimes it is nice to just believe in music.]]></description><author>travishutzell@mchsi.com (Travis Hutzell)</author><pubDate>12.18.2005</pubDate></item></channel>
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