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I got a callus on my shoulder and my hands are raw
So our first attempt at moving furniture into storage this afternoon was delayed for several hours when the brakes on the truck with the furniture in it failed. Everyone is all right. The truck sat at the end of our street until AAA came and towed it. It was enormously inconvenient. We got another truck. Almost all of our furniture is now in storage, with the exception of some random bits of shelving, chairs, the dresser that is going to my cousins' tomorrow, and the tiny desk I am reserving to type on. The house is a wasteland of boxes and things that need to be in boxes. The cats are wandering around the wreckage with a mix of caution and adventure. The wall-shelves and the couch and all their accustomed nesting places are gone. They have claimed the hell out of the pile of brown cardboard boxes, though. We're sleeping on an air mattress tonight. There is so much kitchen left to pack, it's horrifying.
On the other side of my life: I got this terrific review from Robert Beveridge on Quora. The question was "What is the best book you have read recently? Why did you like it?" His answer:
By "have read", I will take it as "you've finished this" rather than "you're in the middle of it".
The what: Ghost Signs: Sonya Taaffe: 9781619760714: Amazon.com: Books
The why:
a. Sonya Taaffe is one of the best motherpunchin' writers in the universe and everything she writes is guaranteed to make you shiver in your boots at least once with the sheer, unadulterated beauty of it. (If you don't believe me, see if her story "Clay Lies Still", from Singing Innocence and Experience, is reprinted anywhere on the web. Read it. If it does not make you cry, you have no soul.)
b. The first section is poetry. Poetry is pretty much an all-or-nothing exercise for me; either a poet is great or a poet is terrible. (I have often said when discussing my reviewing process that half my all-time top ten books are books of poetry...and ALL of my all-time bottom ten are.) Taaffe, from the first of her poems I read, has been among the greats. She never. misses. a beat. Ever. There are maybe half a dozen American poets working today I would put on the same level. So when I see a new book containing some of her poems, I shiver looking at the title. (This is not an exaggeration.)
c. The second section is "The Boatman's Call", a short story. And I was going along reading it and just being buoyed along by the incredible writing, because Taaffe is just as much a great prose stylist as she is a great poet—and then we got to the climax and she tore my heart out and threw it on the floor and stomped on it with a pair of Docs (vintage 1984 natch, with red laces and the whole fucking works) and I cried my eyes out and I actually took to the intarwebs and wrote her a simple three word message: "god damn you." And I know she will know exactly what I had been doing in the ten minutes before I did so, because she's that good.
I am delighted and honored to provoke three-word messages. Technically the story is titled "The Boatman's Cure," but I don't mind being associated with a Nick Cave soundtrack. Thank you.
(There are songs associated with the characters of "The Boatman's Cure." The most minimal playlist would be: John Roberts, "The Boatman's Cure"; Cordelia's Dad, "Delia"; Buffy Sainte-Marie, "Lyke-Wake Dirge." Someday I'll try to put together a more complete list of writing music, say, whenever I answer those interview questions![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
asakiyume sent me in February. That is the kind of year this has been.)
On the other side of my life: I got this terrific review from Robert Beveridge on Quora. The question was "What is the best book you have read recently? Why did you like it?" His answer:
By "have read", I will take it as "you've finished this" rather than "you're in the middle of it".
The what: Ghost Signs: Sonya Taaffe: 9781619760714: Amazon.com: Books
The why:
a. Sonya Taaffe is one of the best motherpunchin' writers in the universe and everything she writes is guaranteed to make you shiver in your boots at least once with the sheer, unadulterated beauty of it. (If you don't believe me, see if her story "Clay Lies Still", from Singing Innocence and Experience, is reprinted anywhere on the web. Read it. If it does not make you cry, you have no soul.)
b. The first section is poetry. Poetry is pretty much an all-or-nothing exercise for me; either a poet is great or a poet is terrible. (I have often said when discussing my reviewing process that half my all-time top ten books are books of poetry...and ALL of my all-time bottom ten are.) Taaffe, from the first of her poems I read, has been among the greats. She never. misses. a beat. Ever. There are maybe half a dozen American poets working today I would put on the same level. So when I see a new book containing some of her poems, I shiver looking at the title. (This is not an exaggeration.)
c. The second section is "The Boatman's Call", a short story. And I was going along reading it and just being buoyed along by the incredible writing, because Taaffe is just as much a great prose stylist as she is a great poet—and then we got to the climax and she tore my heart out and threw it on the floor and stomped on it with a pair of Docs (vintage 1984 natch, with red laces and the whole fucking works) and I cried my eyes out and I actually took to the intarwebs and wrote her a simple three word message: "god damn you." And I know she will know exactly what I had been doing in the ten minutes before I did so, because she's that good.
I am delighted and honored to provoke three-word messages. Technically the story is titled "The Boatman's Cure," but I don't mind being associated with a Nick Cave soundtrack. Thank you.
(There are songs associated with the characters of "The Boatman's Cure." The most minimal playlist would be: John Roberts, "The Boatman's Cure"; Cordelia's Dad, "Delia"; Buffy Sainte-Marie, "Lyke-Wake Dirge." Someday I'll try to put together a more complete list of writing music, say, whenever I answer those interview questions
asakiyume sent me in February. That is the kind of year this has been.)
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It made me really happy. I'm seriously trying to figure out the protocols of asking permission to excerpt it for a blurb in future. "[O]ne of the best motherpunchin' writers in the universe" is definitely something I want on the back of my books!
I hope that the remaining packing and moving go very smoothly!
Thank you! I expect tomorrow to be difficult, but the worst of the logistics will be over after that. Then we just figure out how to live where we are until we can live where we want.
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It definitely made my afternoon! And it was working upstream!
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Kitchens are in my experience the worst to pack up, just logistically, because there's so much and so much of it is breakable or weirdly shaped and you have to leave some of it until the end so you can keep using it before then. Ugh. The truck's brake failure is just the proverbial icing on the cake of moving frustration; what an annoyance to have been stuck dealing with.
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Thank you!
Kitchens are in my experience the worst to pack up, just logistically, because there's so much and so much of it is breakable or weirdly shaped and you have to leave some of it until the end so you can keep using it before then.
Aaaaagh. Yes to all of this. We should have bought many more disposable plates.
The truck's brake failure is just the proverbial icing on the cake of moving frustration; what an annoyance to have been stuck dealing with.
It was seriously unnecessary. I mean, I'm glad we weren't smashed by incoming traffic. That would have been worse. But needing to work several hours later into the night than planned was not an optimal outcome, either.
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And hooray for such a marvelous review!
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Much appreciated. We're down to electronics and sundries and AAAAH GOD THE BATHROOM WHERE DOES THE SHAMPOO GO. We will be out of here on time.
And hooray for such a marvelous review!
Thank you!
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And deeply deserved.
If that's my tiny desk you've kept to type on, I am honored to uphold the arts.
*hugs* warily (because ouch!)
Nine
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And deeply deserved.
Thank you. I hope the site maintains some kind of pingback, so that he can see I've seen it. If I get a second edition of Ghost Signs, I want to excerpt it as a blurb.
If that's my tiny desk you've kept to type on, I am honored to uphold the arts.
It is. Thank you for it.
(because ouch!)
Fortunately, I'm quoting the song: I am in much better shape than the narrator. All the physical therapy I did for my back last spring actually seems to have helped—I'm in pain, but I'm not disabled from all the packing and moving of the last three or four days. I've been carrying furniture and it seems to be working out. Knock on wood.
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Nine
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Thank you! Especially right now, it makes me very happy. It is very easy to feel that my life is completely futile and disconnected from my art and here's proof it's not. Which I really appreciate. I don't think the reviewer could have known how much the timing would matter, but it does.
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I was thrilled!
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Seriously, if "Sonya Taaffe is one of the best motherpunchin' writers in the universe and everything she writes is guaranteed to make you shiver in your boots at least once with the sheer, unadulterated beauty of it" is not a pull quote, I do not know what one looks like.
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(Let me know if you want more help packing.)
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The win is still making me happy.
(Let me know if you want more help packing.)
Will do!
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Thank you! It was really good to read.