Propeller No. 12, Summer 2012: Food
"At my core, I resent being told what to think or do, dislike the reductive dualities right/wrong, good/bad, and perhaps most especially, dislike my own impulse to appear better than I really am, i.e. buying provisions from Whole Foods or New Seasons Market when I am having wealthier or more 'food conscious' friends over for dinner, and otherwise shopping at the local supermarket." By Mary Rechner.
"I didn't write the book in sequence; I cobbled it together, jumping from one time-frame or thematic strand to another without worrying about the bigger picture. This piece-by-piece assemblage felt true to the novel's logic--its particular way of imagining the world--but it made me a little crazy when it came time to decide where everything should go." A Q&A with author Leni Zumas.
"I ended up conceiving of Rain Dragon, the farm that initially draws them to Oregon, as a kind of hippie Enron: a place of organic, sustainable values, yes, but also of great entrepreneurial energy, risk, internecine competition, and ideological chicanery--a place that combines the bromides of the 'green' or 'creative' economy with the exploitive drives we've come to associate with speculative capitalism." A Q&A with the author.Table
Crawdad Death Adventures
"The camp wants the kids to taste meat in an almost pure form. Or kill slugs out of curiosity, watching them shrivel on the fire. Parents believe this will connect their children to a forgotten primal existence. Then they drop their kids at swim class and check their iPhones." By Alex Behr.
"There's a crime, there's an investigation, there's a solution. That rigid structure gives stylists a lot of latitude, so that the greats in the genre, from Poe to Doyle to Christie to Hammett, each sound so different. And it's stylists that invite pastiche in any genre. Faulkner, Hemingway, Pynchon--these are authors that are fun to do, because they excite us with their language." A Q&A with author Ariel S. Winter.
"I kept going out to the trails for the next new few years--splashing through puddles, logging miles, staying lean--but never really got any faster. Ian Dobson, on the other hand, got a scholarship to Stanford, a sizable shoe contract, made the World Championships straight out of college, and then swung wide coming off the final turn of the 5000 meters, passed two guys on the homestretch, and made the United States Olympic Team." By Michael Heald.
"And then, one morning last year--and here, the camera pans down and lingers on her shins, her spiked feet dancing off the red track--one morning last year she went out for a run, just to see how her body would feel, and there was no pain. And no pain the next day, or the next, and here she is, ten meters ahead of American record-holder Molly Huddle." By Michael Heald.
"Nobody knows what to say in that moment. I don’t think anybody knew how to handle it. What do you say? Oh, hey, 'Go, Ian?'" By Michael Heald.Library
A Dog's Life
"In the spring of 1931, Virginia Woolf was exhausted. She had just completed The Waves, her boldest experiment in form and style yet, and the sustained intensity of the work had worn her out. She wanted a 'swifter, slighter adventure,' a subject she could 'fling off.' She decided to write a book about a cocker spaniel." By Alexis Nelson.
"In an interview, Barry expressed her frustration that people think she can't draw, and when I really studied her career I could understand why. She's done some amazing painting and collage work that proves her comic art style is intentional. She shows us the flaws and disappointments of childhood, and as the textual narration is from various children's points of view, so, too, does the artistic representation reflect the perspective of children." A Q&A with author Susan Kirtley.
"I have, of course, never been successful at recreating these scenes from literature. What makes them magical is context and what the text itself amplifies, but I nevertheless find myself wanting to recreate something I can only imagine, tasting what the characters might have tasted." By Sarah Kruse.
"Teatro Tapas is located in Haidhausen, a fairly well-preserved neighborhood, considering eighty percent of Munich was destroyed by air raids during the war. Some traditional Bavarians still say "Merci," a holdover from the time when Napoleon put up his boots here, but the accent is taken off the ending, so that it sounds a bit like 'mercy.'" By Elizabeth Lopeman.
"And it is immense, said to the youth, to
"Nina wanted the incident with the kiss to go away on its own, but she also felt relief that her sister had come to her senses, and couldn't now let Boots be brought back to Sara stuffed like some sort of hunting trophy." By Lee Ware.
"It can be assumed that John Hodgman (American author, humorist, television personality, and former personal computer spokesperson, b. 1971, Brookline, MA) wrote the entireties of his best-selling books The Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require at his usual creekside table." By Bryan Beck.
"It seemed awful to me to live in a neighborhood without a coffee shop. I couldn’t imagine living beyond walking distance from one--there are four within a mile of my current home.'" By Tiah Keever.Maxim
"Celebrity Chefs"
The latest in a series of maxims on food and eating from John Vignaux Smyth.
"Remember before last season, when Philadelphia started talking about how it was, like, a superteam, totally loaded, and people better watch out, because when they got it all figured out and started firing on all cylinders they were going to be tough to stop? Yeah. I’ve known people like that. I used to look at one in the mirror every morning." Expert NFL analysis from Pete Tothero.
"Last week, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sent his plane filled with Cowboy bobblehead dolls to the game in Seattle, and the plane filled with his actual players to the bobblehead doll convention in Des Moines. What a zaaaaany screw up! The Seahawks gleefully trounced the bobbleheads, while the convention attendees didn’t even notice a difference." Expert NFL analysis from Pete Tothero.
"Claiming an outcome in Week 1 of an NFL season is revealing of anything, however, seems close to claiming that the first thing I say upon waking up in the morning is revealing of anything. And how can that be, when the first thing I say upon waking up is almost always, 'Unh. What time is it?'" Predictions and analysis from Pete Tothero.
"Locked-in first lines, snowballing conflicts, just enough brushstrokes of character: you can compare him to Hemingway without being glib. Especially if you compare McGregor’s first story collection to Hemingway’s In Our Time." Review by Patrick McGinty.
"Reflecting the way a technology infests the world as much as it is invented, developed, and adapted--the approach has its merits. Anecdotes about growing up a fan of vocoder music, chasing down sources for the book, and thinking through unexpected connections between disparate characters and themes help situate the reader between leaps." Review by Lucas Bernhardt.
"Manrique appropriates from Cervantes' written work throughout the novel, and his paraphrased interpretations of scenes and characters (such as the bumbling Sancho Panza) are indistinguishable to the unfamiliar eye, yet rich with the sensory detail and comic musings of Cervantes' own language." Review by Holly Laycock.
"The 312 pages of Hot Art are chock full of anecdotes of thefts gone awry, insider commentary from art theft investigators, cultural lawyers, and Paul, a.k.a. Turbo Paul, a.k.a. Turbocharger, a.k.a. Art Hostage, a.k.a. the meat of the book." Review by Holly Laycock.
Late Night Library rounds out their summer of excellent podcasts with a conversation between Cai Emmons and Dorianne Laux, who read several favorite poems from Kuipers’ debut collection, concentrating on the poet’s contrasting sense of place as well as her deft use of language and haunting imagery.
