Happy Endings

Noah's post reminded me that I've been meaning to direct readers to an amazing project being undertaken by Chicago-based photographer Jason Lazarus. "The Nirvana Project" asks participants to document, in words and images, the people who turned them on to Nirvana. A gallery of the responses Jason has received so far can be viewed at www.jasonlazarus.com. (click on "images," then "Nirvana.")Jason is contributing a photo to a book I'm doing, and asked me if I wanted to contribute something to "The Nirvana Project" in return. Here's what I came up with: The person who introduced me to the band Nirvana was a kid named Jeff Smith, who had a mullet and a habit of peeling skin from his palms and fingers and eating it during class. He wrote, "here we are now, entertain us" on the blackboard of my 7th Grade math classroom. We were the kids who got to math class early, if that says anything about the Nirvana audience.It even has the virtue of being true. Unfortunately, I have yet to come up with a picture of Jeff Smith to go along with the text. But if you've got a photo of your Nirvana sherpa, check out Jason's project statement and participate.

For some reason, the CBC never made their interview with Ryszard Kapuscinski available online after it originally aired. Luckily, Millions contributor Andrew Saikali listened to the show live and sent me a quick recap:- It was a half-hour interview which actually was recorded by the CBC at his home in Warsaw.- he's a very thoughtful, eloquent man- Much of it was devoted to growing up during the war, in Pinsk in the Poland/Belarus border area - I gather it sort of pingponged back and forth between the two jurisdictions throughout history- childhood poor - the war hit on what would have been his first day of school. - grew up with War being the norm. Peace, when it came, felt transitional, tentative- Pinsk was multi-ethnic then - Poles, Belarussians, Jews, Ukrainians maybe, and probably others that I forget. - Pre-war it was functional, the various ethnicities mixed and worked together in order to get by.- his parents were both teachers- hunger during the war caused him and others to ask the Russian soldiers for food, but all they could get were cigarettes.- often went barefoot (as children, during the war) - because shoes were in short supply - still sees people in their fancy shoes and flashes back to when he thought of them as "luxuries"- as a young reporter he was sent to both China and India (on two separate occasions) - and in each case the following happened: he was so overwhelmed by the culture, and got so immersed, that he felt as if he could spend the rest of his life reporting from there and writing about there - and so he asked to be transferred from there quickly - because as absorbed and fascinated as he was by it, he knew that first and foremost he was a man of the world and wanted so see and experience everything, everywhere - which, I think, shows remarkable self-awareness, especially in a young reporter, to know that one's worldly-tendencies were in danger of being trumped by a specific-regional fascination - to know enough about your own strengths and weaknesses to leave, and follow your "true path" before getting (permanently) drawn in to something specific (no matter how great it may be)

I've been a little out of loop lately, but today I picked up a copy the Chicago Reader, having noticed that it was their "Spring Books Special." Among the many reviews and briefs is an entertaining article called "So This is the Blog Revolution" by Laura Demanski AKA OGIC. It's a short history of the litblog phenomenon and an attempt to gauge its importance (unfortunately the article is not available online). As both a reviewer and blogger, Demanski understands that part of the draw of such blogs is to watch as non-professionals turn book criticism into a conversation and review the reviewers. The tendency of litblogs to critique mainstream book coverage directly (eg. the Brownie watch, The LATBR Thumbnail, etc.) has no doubt raised their visibility. What better way to get noticed by journalists and reviewers than to repeat their names incessantly? Everyone gets a thrill out of Googling themselves. In terms of elbowing its way into mainstream book coverage, it may be that the LBC will represent the pinnacle of the litblog movement.I love my fellow litblogs dearly, and I have enjoyed watching the community grow. But I also think that one can keep a blog about books that does not exist to be the David to the New York Times' Goliath, and, no, I'm not going to deliver The Believer's anti-snark manifesto here. There is a certain joy that is derived from reading a good book and discussing that book with a fellow reader. Having a blog has allowed me to direct this inward act outward. My blog is essentially a reading journal, and my reading journal exists to interact with other readers (and with their reading journals, if they have them). Although many of my fellow members in the LBC have garnered a certain amount of fame by holding mainstream book coverage to a high standard, I am relieved that the LBC seems to arise from a different sort of urge. I look at the LBC as twenty readers getting together to recommend to you a book that they hope you'll enjoy.(Mark your calendars, LBC selection #1 is just 6 days away).