Memoirs

I'm not one for memoirs. I've read very few, though I have just cracked open Patti Smith's new one, Just Kids, which, so far, is an exquisitely written book. That said, I enjoyed Mary Karr's interview in the latest issue of the Paris Review. It marks the first installment of the journal's "The Art of Memoir," a complement to their long-running "The Art of Fiction" interviews.

On why she doesn't pray everyday, despite knowing it would make her a happier person:

I think it's because my big smart mind likes the idea that it's running the show, and any conscious contact with God plugs me into my own radical powerlessness.

And on the recent rise in memoir-writing:

In the forties, the memoir was akin to history, which was absolute. One reason for a surge in memoir is the gradual erosion of objective truth, which makes stuff like assembled dialogue seem more acceptable. We mistrust the old forms of authority—the church and politicians, even science. The subjective has power now.

Poe Toaster

I love the story that's been making the rounds since last Wednesday, the day after the Edgar Allen Poe's 201st birthday, about the mystery fan who failed to show at the poet's Baltimore gravesite, after having left roses and cognac there for the past sixty years. The numerous "nevermore" puns are hard to take, but the fact that dozens of people from all over the country flock to his grave in the middle of the night to pay tribute is awfully nice.

Ilf & Petrov

My LA Times review of The Golden Calf by Ilf & Petrov, published by Open Letter.

Frank O'Hara

The New Republic's book blog features a video of Frank O'Hara, one of my favorite poets, reading "Having a Coke with You," one of my favorite poems. The film is from 1966. He died later that year.

The Samsonadzes

The Georgian version of The Simpsons. Eek. The full story here.

Umida Akhmedova

Some terrific images by Uzbek documentary photographer Umida Akhmedova, who is facing prosecution for insulting the Uzbek people. (Via)

RZA makes (art) history

The RZA makes his visual art debut with Victory or Death. I'm all for ninja oarsmen, but I think the website trumps the painting. Can't go wrong with Carmina Burana. Each version contains a number of hidden Wu-Tang elements, and if you stare at it long enough, you can see Shaolin.

RIP Gumby

Art Clokey, creator of Gumby, died Friday. I remember watching his other show, Davey and Goliath, as a kid, because it was the only animated show that aired on Sunday mornings. It was often tough to decide whether the need for television entertainment outweighed the Godly lessons. So hard to be a nonreligious Jewish kid in Texas.

The kingdom of the abstract

I've just begun reading an advance galley of Juliet Koss's Modernism After Wagner, which the always-excellent University of Minnesota is publishing, and came across a passage in the introduction about abstraction's early aspirations toward a universal language. She later ties this idea to theories of spectatorship (and, interestingly, cinema), but she starts with a terrific quote from Kandinsky, taken from his 1911 book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art.

The more abstract form is, the more clear and direct its appeal. The more an artist uses these abstract forms, the deeper and more confidently will he advance into the kingdom of the abstract. And after him will follow the viewer . . . who will also have gradually acquired a greater familiarity with the language of that kingdom.

Fine Print

The Etcht Miniature Monthly Magazine. Tiniest books ever.

Tiny Houses

The LA Times has a slideshow of homes that are 1,000-square feet or less, photographed for Mimi Zeigler's book, Tiny Houses. The Walden, an homage to Thoreau, looks like a Joseph Cornell box.

Does the spareness of this design make you contemplate how much stuff you really need? Me, I like my stuff.