Will write for food.
The writing life is seen as a romantic one, at least by some—usually people who don’t write, or merely dabble at the craft.
Since 2003, I’ve been a writer who works a job. By that I mean that I’m not fully supporting my lifestyle from writing. I have an outside job (or jobs); those purer than the driven snow might look askance at that. Continue reading
February has been a good month for reading books. My goal is set for reading a minimum of 30 books every year–I’ve read nine during the year’s snowiest month, after completing Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. I blazed through it in all of four days. Can I keep up that pace? Only time will tell.
Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad”
Egan’s book has been on my list of must-read titles for awhile. The book generated a buzz when it first came out. Also, I read her novel, Look at Me, after seeing her in person at the 2011 Boston Book Festival, and it was a terrific read. Of course with me, fiction is often shunted aside,while other nonfiction titles cut the line.
After finally reading it, I can see why critics loved it, yet I was somewhat disappointed; I found Goon Squad to be less entertaining and affecting than my first Egan experience. That is to say that critics, who love to levitate above the hoi polloi, lap up writing and novelists that pander and play to trends, especially if there’s a nod to technology, and an offer of a few new literary tricks. I’m not saying that Egan’s intent was to pander, as some of the interviews I’ve read related to the book indicate that her tack for Goon Squad was likely aligned with her desire to write a “more ambitious” novel, which often means changing things up a bit. Continue reading
The JBE loves music. Aspects of the JBE brand are embedded with and influenced by many DIY aspects inherent in music from both the punk and post-punk eras of rock music history.
I still listen to “what’s new” via streaming audio, most often, KEXP, based in Seattle, WMBR (based at MIT), especially Saturday’s James Dean Death Car Experience, and WFMU, one of America’s last free-form radio stations, what’s become an oddity in this age of corporate media consolidation. Continue reading
You probably didn’t know that there was a band called Baumer. Now you do. They’re no longer together. Continue reading
Readers of my other blog, Digital Doorway, know that I love books and reading. Last year, I read more than 30 books.
My mother is the one who taught me that books matter, and that reading is important, walking me down to Lisbon Falls Community Library in June, 1970. School was out for the summer and she wanted to enroll me in the library’s summer reading program. I read a book a week for 10 weeks. I’ve been in love with reading ever since.
In addition to books and reading, libraries are also places forever associated for me with quiet spaces, a place of escape—and if I may say this without sounding overly dramatic—libraries offer an oasis from the barrage and busyness that has become everyday life in America. Of course, not all libraries are created equal. While researching my first book, When Towns Had Teams, my winter mornings at Portland Public Library might find me sitting next to a homeless man, coughing like he had TB, while alternately farting, never thinking twice that others around him might be trying to get some work done. I did find this annoying at times, but it was another reminder of libraries’ uniquely democratic qualities as public spaces. Continue reading