If you pre-order the book before midnight EST April 1, my friends at Workman will send you a free 8″ x 10″ print of my blackout poem, “Overheard on the Titanic.” (“I mean yes we’re sinking / but the music is exceptional.”) Details here. Pre-order sale is now over! (If you want a mini 6″ x 6″ print, tear out the page in Keep Going.)
Here’s a closer look at the print:
One of my favorite little art books to show the kids is photographer Inge Morath’s Saul Steinberg Masquerade, a collection of portraits of people wearing Steinberg’s paper-bag masks. (More from the book here.)
Here’s a mask Owen and I made when he was pretty small out of a Trader Joe’s bag:
Steinberg also made these funny little single sheet masks with just a spot for your nose. I’ll make one sometimes if we’re goofing around:
My pal Wendy is a big Steinberg geek, too — here she is entertaining Jules with a napkin a year ago in San Francisco:
The other day I reminded Owen of the book’s existence, and the next morning he surprised me in the bathroom:
Never gets old.
Why wait until the end of the year? Here are 5 really good books I’ve read so far this winter:
The Labyrinth
Saul Steinberg
First published in 1960. Out of print for years. Now beautifully reissued by NYRB. (Are they my favorite imprint? Maybe.) Incredible, 59-year-old drawings that look absolutely fresh. An American classic.
Bowlaway
Elizabeth McCracken
I don’t read as many novels as I probably should, and this is a novel novel. McCracken goes for it, doing in the book what, I think, only a novel can do. And damn, can she write a sentence. So many underlines. (Related post: “The religion of walking.”)
Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back)
Jeff Tweedy
I don’t really listen to audiobooks (they don’t fit into my commute-less life), but I got my hands on this one, and used it for company while shoveling snow. Except for the “aw shucks, can’t believe I’m writin’ a book” intro (come on, man), I found it really warm and smart. A bunch of good stuff about the creative process and parenting. (Related post: “On solitude and being who you are”)
Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book
Walker Percy
Seems like a love-it-or-hate-it book, but I tore through it. One of those books that came at just the right place and just the right time for me. (Related reading: “Walker Percy’s problems of re-entry”)
Werner Herzog: A Guide for the Perplexed
Werner Herzog with Paul Cronin
A 500-page interview arranged to cover Herzog’s career in chronological order. This book took me forever to get through, not because it was a slog, but because it’s so dense with insane stories and poetic insights, I was constantly stopping to underline. (Related reading: “Werner Herzog on writing and reading”)
Okay, back to reading. Get more reading recommendations in my weekly newsletter, or browse the past decade of my favorite books.
On the red carpet, Spike Lee busted out a good “it wasn’t for me” variant when asked by some BBC commentators what he thought about Green Book: “Are you British? Are you British? Well, let me give you a very British answer: ‘It’s not my cup of tea!’”
“The winter sun shows how soon the light fades from the ash, how soon night enfolds us.” —W.B. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
In Herzog’s Nosferatu, Count Dracula says, “I don’t attach importance to sunshine anymore.” That’s me now. The sun up here in The North, if it comes out at all, it lights up your eyeballs, maybe, gives your spirit a moment of novelty, but it doesn’t warm you in your core. I ask the locals some more polite version of, “How do you people live like this?” and they answer, “Large doses of Vitamin D.” (And plane tickets to sunny places like the one I left behind.)
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