emily’s Neighborhood

SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY!
11.12.09

Yes, finally back.
But all I do is work now, so I don't really have time to make myself look presentable.

This explains why I look so furry and frumpy. I probably haven't shaved in a month.
(My facial hair grows slowly.)

SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY! 11.12.09

Good news:

Yesterday Ben and I were asked by our old roommate Talena if we could watch Osa the chihuahua this weekend while there is construction done in her new apartment! =)

To celebrate, I'm including some videos of Ben and I spending time with Osa.

This is Ben making Osa sing:

It's fun to make her howl because she purses her lips.
AND she starts to hack/cough like she's a smoker.

But my NUMBER ONE FAVORITE THING to do is this:

I'm still waiting for the day she leaps up and bites me in the face.
But I think she's too sweet for that.

I think I'm more of a dog person now.
I had a bad cat experience at my last apartment with Gordo. He was too needy. Shed too much.  Ate too much, ate when nervous, ate until he vomited. It all made me not want to leave my room.

Dogs are so much better, I think.

In other good news, Ben J. was featured on Daily Candy yesterday!
It is an AMAZING write-up.
I am v. proud.

P.S.
I might do a self portrait later...

My Abandonment

Peter Rock

Peter Rock's My Abandonment is the first book read in my Book Club by Proxy project.  That's the one where I read other people's book club books for them.  AmyH told me about this book.  I probably wouldn't have bothered except the book was only 225 pages long and the blurb on the back sounded interesting.

My Abandonment is the story of a thirteen year-old girl named Caroline who lives in the woods outside of Portland with her father.  Caroline and her father get by pretty well when you consider that they live in a hobbit hole.  Their lives are shattered when a jogger stumbles upon their home and reports them to the authorities.

I must admit that this book took me by surprise.  I read it as a joke and wasn't expecting much, but My Abandonment was an exciting, well-written story that was a pleasure to read.  It was a damn good book.  It's actually one of the highlights of my literary year.  I would highly recommend this book to you, AmyH, or anyone else with a few hours to spare and an interest in quality reading.

What follows is the portion of the post dealing with cheating at book club.  It starts out with my in-depth synopsis of My Abandonment's eight chapters and then ends with a couple talking points that should convince others that you've read the book.  The thing to remember here is that what follows will absolutely ruin the book for you.  Do not proceed if you have any interest in reading the book for yourself.

The Happy Days in the Forest Park (p. 1 - 48): Caroline and her father live in the woods outside of Portland.  Caroline is thirteen; her father is a veteran who has bad dreams about helicopters.  They've got an underground dwelling full of sleeping bags, a chess board, and Caroline's toy horse, Randy.  They keep to themselves, but once a week they put on their city clothes and go into town.  They go to the library, the Safeway, and stop by the post office for the father's government check.  One day a jogger accidentally stumbles upon their camp while Caroline is lounging in a tree.  The jogger tries to talk to Caroline, but she stays in her tree and hides.  The jogger returns a few days later with the police, a canine unit, and a man named Jim Harris.  Caroline's father is arrested and Mr. Harris takes Caroline.

Getting Caught and Put in the Building (p. 49 - 76): Mr. Harris drives Caroline into the city.  During the drive, she makes reference to a foster family and a younger sister.  Mr. Harris turns Caroline over to a woman named Jean Bauer at some sort of detention center.  This woman cleans the girl up and gives her some new clothes.  Then she subjects Caroline to a series of physical and psychological exams.  She determines that Caroline is is good shape for a girl who has been living in the woods for years.  Miss Bauer eventually returns Randy the Toy Horse and gives Caroline her own room...one that looks out on her forest.

Living on the Farm (p. 77 - 110): After a chapter apart, Caroline and her father are reunited outside the detention center.  The police drive them out to a horse farm owned by a man named Mr. Walters.  He's agreed to employ Caroline's father on his farm.  In addition to the job, Mr. Walters is allowing Caroline and her father to stay in the bunkhouse on his property.  Things are looking up.  Caroline meets some neighbor boys and thinks they might turn out to be friends.  She gets her first bicycle.  She's excited about starting real school in the fall.  Her father isn't doing as well, though.  He starts to get paranoid and begins to imagine people spying on them from behind hay bales.  He tells Caroline to pack her old backpack.  As the chapter ends, the two sneak out to the bus stop in the middle of the night.

Living on the Streets of the City (p. 111 - 134): Caroline and her father head back to the woods, but that turns out to be a bad idea.  They then decide to hide out in public...where they walk on opposite sides of the road and communicate with umbrella signals.  Caroline gets a haircut and dye-job.  She and her father set up camp in an abandoned hotel.  Caroline's father starts doing "deliveries" for a mysterious man named Vincent.  You can tell he's a villain because he has a pointy beard.  Guys with pointy beards are always bad.  Caroline gets recognized by Taffy, a girl she met at the detention center in Part Two.

Escaping Down Through the Snow (p. 135 - 160): Caroline's father is getting even more paranoid, and he decides they need to hop a train out of town.  The only thing is that he's never done it before and he falls off the train as he tries to board.  They opt for a bus.  Caroline's father gets angry at her when she talks with a woman on the bus.  He forces the bus driver to let them off in the middle of nowhere on a snowy night.  They sleep outdoors and try to keep warm at a thermal spring.  The next day they break into a cabin.  Caroline recognizes all the books in one of the rooms.  She used to have the same books when she lived with her foster family.  They spend the night in the cabin and then use snowshoes and a sled to travel to the nearby town of Sisters, a town that Caroline's father seems to know.

Losing Father in the Cave (p. 161 - 192): Caroline and her father hike out of town, but are soon lost in a sudden snowstorm.  They stumble upon a yurt and join a woman and very weird boy inside.  The four of them spend the night in the yurt.  In the morning Caroline and the very weird boy go out for a sled ride and the two adults stay inside to talk things over.  The woman eventually comes out wearing a wig and Caroline's father's backpack.  She gives Caroline's snowshoes to the very weird boy and the two of them head off.  Caroline goes back into the yurt to find out what's going on.  Her father is dead.  It appears that he has been electrocuted or burned by the yurt's heating mechanism.  Not knowing what to do, she puts her father's body on the sled and wanders around in the snow.  She stumbles upon a keg party taking place in a cave.  She hides her father's body and joins the party.  She waits until the party breaks up and then brings her father's body into the cave.  Sitting by the fire, Caroline thinks back and remembers when she first met her father.  She remembers how he took her from her foster parents' backyard in Boise.  She remembers how he handcuffed her in a hole while he joined the search party to look for her.  She remembers how he changed her named to Caroline.  She remembers how she used to see her picture on missing posters.

Boise (p. 193 - 210): Having left the man's body in the cave, Caroline heads for Boise.  She walks around freely, knowing that nobody will recognize her now that's she's grown and looks different.  She walks by her old house and then goes to her former elementary school where she sees her sister Della.  She follows Della for awhile and then goes over to a cemetery.  She can't find the headstones she's looking for.  She takes the bus to the mall where a couple girls follow her into the bathroom and try to talk with her.  They run for their mother when they notice that Caroline's foot is bleeding all over the place from frostbite.  Caroline runs out the emergency exit.

There is Not Much to Say (p. 211 - 225): Time has gone by.  Caroline has left Boise and returned to the town of Sisters.  She gets her GED and studies at the community college.  She becomes a part-time librarian.  She also gets a job as caretaker at a rich man's house.  He's rarely there and doesn't mind that Caroline lives in a yurt on his property.  She compiles her thoughts and journals into eight sections and types them up at the library.  She finds out that Randy the Toy Horse is actually a Chinese acupuncture model.

Something to Discuss in Your Book Club:  Perhaps the book's most important sentence takes place on page 222 when Caroline writes about the book she's writing about her experiences with her father.  She says, "I remember the conversations as best as I can.  If I make up words he says at least they're close or taken from his notebook.  I stitch it together and I only add what I have to.  If I don't remember something I skip over it and leave it out."  Is Caroline a reliable narrator?  Do these sentences change your thoughts on what you've read in the earlier chapters?  What do you think Caroline added to her book?  What do you think she skipped over or left out?

Smart-Sounding Thing to Memorize and Regurgitate at Your Book Club:  Did anyone else here find this book reminiscent of the work of independent film director, Kelly Reichardt?  I certainly did.  Rock's Portland-area setting combined with his protagonist's fascination with canines, brought to mind Reichardt's 2008 film, Wendy & Lucy.  Should a film adaptation of My Abandonment be in the works, I think she should definitely be in the running to direct.  I can already see Will Oldham in the role of "Nameless".  I love the irony of a man with so many nicknames portraying a nameless character.  Hah hah!

Don't you wonder how it ends?

Did you join a book club because you thought it was the cool thing to do?  Now that you've joined, do you have difficulty finding the time to read your club's book selection?  Well, you can stop worrying about it.  I've decided to offer my reading services to those of you who are either too tired, lazy, or busy to read your own book club books.  Just let me know the title and author of your book and then sit back as I read the book for you.  Once I've finished, I will provide you with a detailed synopsis and an in-depth analysis of the book.  If you'd like, I'll even give you some insightful questions and talking points that you can use to impress and amaze your fellow book clubbers.

My first client is AmyH, who was worried about finding time to read Peter Rock's My Abandonment.  This is going to be good for both of us.  She'll be able to enjoy the social aspect of her book club without the additional time commitment of actually reading the book.  What do I get in return?  Well, I get a chance to redeem myself after my miserable showing in the Anna Karenina Book Club of 2002.  I finished that book before the others and blurted out the ending.  I ruined it for everyone, so now I feel I need to do something good for a different book club.

I picked up a copy of My Abandonment at the library a couple days ago.  I'm about halfway through it.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood--Charles Dickens

Don't you wonder how it ends?

Edwin Drood is a young orphan engaged to be married to another young orphan named Rosa Bud (saddled with the unfortunate nickname of "Pussy").  They live in Cloisterham, an ancient English cathedral town littered with tombs, a lime pit, and a series of spooky underground vaults.  Edwin goes missing.  He is last seen with his rival, the hot-headed Neville Landless.  Edwin's watch and shirt pin are soon found in the nearby river and suspicion is thrown upon Neville.  Most boisterous in his accusations against Neville is a man named John Jasper.  In addition to being Edwin's guardian, John Jasper is also Rosa Bud's music teacher and something of secret opium fiend.  Isn't that always the case?

Did Neville kill Edwin Drood or was he set up by John Jasper?  Did Jasper kill his own ward so he could have Pussy all for himself?  Did he toss Edwin's body in the lime pit and then throw his possessions in the river?  And who the heck is Dick Datchery, the mysterious white-haired gentleman with the gigantic head who shows up shortly after Edwin's disappearance?  Dickens hints that Datchery might be one of the other characters in disguise.  Is it Edwin?  Is it Neville?  Is it Neville's cross-dressing twin sister, Helena?  Could it be Bazzard, Tartar, Grewgious, or any of the book's other strangely-named characters who never appear at the same time as Datchery?

We'll never know.  Charles Dickens died before he could finish The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  He didn't leave any notes and he didn't tell anyone how he intended to finish the book.  The story is told that he offered to let Queen Victoria in on the ending (during a private reading), but she turned him down.

This week my sister shop, TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES, is listing some new fall-winter items while working on the TOYC spring-summer collection.

First, the double t-shirt dress is now offered in navy:

double t-shirt dress - navy 002 (by TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES)

And charcoal:

double t-shirt dress - charcoal 002 (by TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES)

Also, appropriate for fall/winter, the v. popular dress is now available in a long-sleeve version:

Long-Sleeve Double T-Shirt Dress - Black 005 (by TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES)

Long-Sleeve Double T-Shirt Dress - Black 002 (by TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES)

And finally there is the GHOST JACKET:

Ghost Jacket - Black 005 (by TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES)

Ghost Jacket - Black 003 (by TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES)

Ok, i know, it´s still some time to christmas but as stores have christmasdecorations, christmas chocolates and santa clauses on sale already since the beginning of october.... i just jumped on the waggon ,)

Want your Petits get dressed up properly for christmas season too?
I made two adorable little dresses for the smallest family members.

*petit jingle bells

*petit jingle bells

now available at my etsy store:  It´s a Tafetta Day*

love,
*Tea

music: Coeur de Pirate - Comme des enfants (There are many pretty christmas songs out there, but i didn´t want to push it too far )

Coeur de pirate || Comme des enfants

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies--Jane Austen
The problem I had with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies isn't the fact that some hack added zombies into a classic; my problem is one of logic and storytelling.  According to the book, the zombie uprising began over 50 years ago.  And yet, hordes of fresh zombies are still rising from their graves on a daily basis.  The description of these zombies leads me to believe these aren't old corpses who have just now come back to life after years beneath the ground.  These are people who died and were recently buried.  Which poses the question: why the hell are the people of zombie-infested England still burying their dead?  Why don't they chop off their heads and burn the bodies like any halfway-decent zombie fighter would do?  Fifty years have gone by.  Shouldn't they have figured that one out by now?

On the positive side, P&P&Z was a fun book and piqued my interest in the real Pride and Prejudice.  I'm currently in the middle of the BBC miniseries starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.  I've also acquired a non-zombie edition of the book which I intend to read sometime soon.

The Professional--Robert B. Parker
Chasing the Bear--Robert B. Parker
The Professional is Robert B. Parker's 37th Spenser novel.  I've read them all and always look forward to the next release.  This one was decent, but Spenser is turning into a bit of a wuss in his old age.  He catches his perp about halfway through The Professional, but instead of beating him up or having Hawk shoot him like he used to do, Spenser takes the guy out for drinks.  Then Spenser gets together with his always annoying psychologist girlfriend, Susan Silverman.  The two of them try to figure out why the perp behaves the way he does.  Who cares?  Just break his arm and be done with it.

I somehow missed the release of Chasing the Bear earlier this year.  It's the first "Young Spenser" novel.  It sounds like a horrible idea, but it actually made for a much better read than The Professional.  A fourteen-year old Spenser is still under the heavy influence of his father and two uncles and hasn't yet been wussified by Susan Silverman and her Harvard PhD.  Surprisingly good stuff.

The Fugitive--Marcel Proust
Finding Time Again--Marcel Proust
These are the sixth and seventh volumes in Proust's In Search of Lost Time.  The seven books have all blurred together in my mind, and I honestly can't remember what happens in The Fugitive.  I think it has something to do with Marcel's reaction to Albertine's death.  I remember the final volume, though.  In Finding Time Again, Marcel goes to a party and notices that all his friends have grown old.  This causes him to realize that he must be aging, too.  He comes to the conclusion that if he's ever going to write a really, really long novel about his life, he'd better hurry up and start now or else he'll end up dying before he has a chance to finish.

It Feels So Good When I Stop--Joe Pernice
I still don't know what to make of Joe Pernice's novel.  I'm glad I read the book, but there were large portions of it that I didn't enjoy reading.  There was far too much Gen-X blathering for my tastes, particularly in the flashback portions dealing with the unnamed narrator's roommate and ex-wife.  And some of the writing was just bad.  I never would've imagined that Joe Pernice could write a sentence that would rub me as wrong as this one did:

As she shifted her weight, I could see the musculature of her peasant calves at work beneath her animated skin.

In Joe's defense, it wasn't all bad.  I particularly enjoyed the portions of the book that dealt with the narrator's relationships with his young nephew and the filmmaker from down the street.  I'm also happy to say that there were occasional glimpses at the skill with words that has made Joe Pernice one of the best songwriters of the last decade.  I specifically liked the part where the narrator realizes he'll have to ride his sister's childhood bicycle into town:

On the far side of the clothes-dryer vent, against the toolshed, leaned the forlorn Huffy Sweet Thunder bicycle Pamela had gotten for her tenth birthday.  I sized it up, encouraged by the legend of the great George Jones piloting a ride-on mower miles into town to score booze.  George Jones is a genius, and I am not.  It was only fitting that I should have to pedal a child's dilapidated toy.

As far as I'm concerned, that right there is good stuff.  Sure, the novel as a whole was hit or miss, but there were enough good parts to make it worth my time.  There are a lot of books that I would recommend to people before this one, but I would highly recommend the all-covers soundtrack album Joe recorded to accompany his novel.  It's far better than the book itself.  

Skeleton Crew--Stephen King
I find that Stephen King's stories are scary until he shows his monsters.  Take the first story in this collection, for instance.  "The Mist" is downright spooky as a terrific storm knocks out the power in a small Maine community.  A man and his son find themselves trapped in the supermarket as a strange mist rolls into town.  But then a bunch of pterodactyls start flying around and the whole story falls apart.

Despite the occasional unnecessary glimpses behind the curtain, a lot of the stories in Skeleton Crew were up there with King's best short work.  My personal favorites were "Word Processor of the Gods", "Survivor Type", and "The Reach".

Manhood for Amateurs--M-----l Chabon
The full title of this essay collection is Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son.  I think this book was designed to be given to men for Christmas and Father's Day.  I'm not usually into essays, but I bought this anyway because Joseph-Beth Booksellers had a signed copy for 30% off.  Now that I've read it, I'm probably going to give it (yes, the same copy) to my dad for Christmas.  I was very careful to avoid banging it up or crinkling the pages.  I'm going to remove the 30% off sticker, though.  He'll never know.  Hah hah!

Where the Wild Things Are--Maurice Sendak
The Wild Things--Dave Eggers
According to the inscription written inside the cover, I got my copy of Where the Wild Things Are for my third birthday.  It was one of my favorites as a kid.  My copy smells a bit of mold from living in the basement for too many years, but it's still a great story.  I dug it out and gave it a quick read before diving into the recent furry novelization by Dave Eggers.

The original book consisted of a mere 338 words (yes, I counted) and Dave Eggers expanded that source material into 285 pages.  He keeps with the spirit of the original, but expands on everything and adds entirely new characters and settings.  The wild things themselves each have individual names and personalities.  The one I always liked as a kid is now named Carol.  He's pretty cool, but like the rest of the wild things in the novel, he appears to have some major mental issues.  It's kind of weird.  It's a good book, though.  I read it on my front porch on a surprise one-day Indian summer.  It was one of my most pleasant reading experiences of the year.  And the book was covered in fur!  Did I mention that?

CURRENTLY READING:
The Mystery of Edwin Drood--Charles Dickens

Carol lived in a plant pot, but I took him out and cleaned him up for this photo shoot.

As a result of a recent security breach, I have decided to sever ties with my Yahoo e-mail account.  A Yahoo e-mail address is a requirement for a Flickr account, so I have decided to shut that down, too.  It's not a great loss, though.  I never did anything arty over there.  All I ever did was post pictures of my latest music acquisitions all laid out on the floor.  Sound familiar?  That's pretty much what I do here, too.

But anyway, here are all the music pictures I posted over there that I never bothered to do anything with over here.  These cover the time period from January 26th to August 4th, 2009.

And here are some CDs I picked up for my brother's birthday a few days ago (left).  I didn't give them to him, of course.  I bought them for myself because I am shallow and greedy and don't like it when other people get stuff and I don't.  I've also included a couple records I picked up at Everybody's today.  I bought a New Wave comp that looks like a pizza and a strange Joe Strummer 7" (center & right).

new music (10/29)

a-sides

b-sides

Please make sure you get plenty of sleep every evening.