Read Recently “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros

Smokler on August 22, 2008

Womanholleringcreek

Title: Woman Hollering Creek

Author: Sandra Cisneros

Origins: WHC was one of those you couldn’t avoid if you were in college in the early 1990s, a totemic example of a kind of American literature establishment English departments overlooked: about women, about Mexican-Americans about cities like San Antonio, Texas. That it became a rallying cry for the Political Correctness movements of the time has done it and its legacy a disservice. Its much more than repeating a community’s story back to it. Which I discovered when I took this book on my recent trip up north to Healdsburg with my girlfriend. 

Synopsis: A collection of short stories largely focused on towns, communities and heads of households along the Mexican-American border.

Verdict: Sandra Cisneros uses the words the way a great ballerina or athlete uses their body, which a grace that seems effortless but masks the craft and skill of a great professional. The title story is a feminist classic, deservedly so, but deserves a place alongside Vonnegut’s "The Long Road to Forever" as an example of perfect narrative architecture barely holding in a swelling heart about to burst. I also liked  "Little Miracles, Kept Promises", a story told entirely through letter to the Virgin De Guadalupe, which races past its gimmick well before you you can label it a gimmick. The last story (which I quoted in an earlier post) reads like a section of a Texas-fried Tales of the City, which coming from this San Francisco convert, is high compliment.

I very much enjoyed Cisneros’s first collection The House on Mango Street (WHC is her second) but felt, there as here, she needs a bit more patience with some of her stories. There’s maybe five too many one-and-two pagers that read as ideas for larger pieces that never materialized instead of the pieces themselves. But thankfully, those pass quietly and leave us with the larger, meatier work, which is wonderful.   

iPod on Moving-In-Day:

Smokler on August 22, 2008

According to this story in the New York Times, newly-minted college freshman are increasingly receiving an iPod and/or an iPhone when they arrive on campus.

The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like
tracking where students congregate. With far less controversy, colleges
could send messages about canceled classes, delayed buses, campus
crises or just the cafeteria menu.

While schools emphasize its
usefulness — online research in class and instant polling of students,
for example — a big part of the attraction is, undoubtedly, that the iPhone
is cool and a hit with students. Basking in the aura of a cutting-edge
product could just help a university foster a cutting-edge reputation.

I think when I came to college in 1991, we got toiletry kits. So while I’m tempted to say, "My how times have changed!" I would not count on my own university changing with them.  We got a full fledged art center in the late 1990s. An off-camera medical reporter for ABC was once a graduation speaker.

Yes, chilins, my beloved Johns Hopkins is about as cutting edge as a ball point pen. Sigh.

Thought of the Day: “Today”

Smokler on August 21, 2008

"And every bird in the universe chittering, jabbering, clucking, chirruping, squawking, gurlging, going crazy because God-bless-it another day has ended, as if it never had yesterday and never will tomorrow. Just because it’s today, today. With no thought of the future or past. Today. Hooray, hooray!"

—Sandra Cisneros (in Woman Hollering Creek, which I just finished reading).

The Affordable Napa: Healdsburg

Smokler on August 19, 2008

Healdsburg

My girlfriend and I spent this past weekend in Healdsburg, California, a little town in the wine country about an hour north of San Francisco.  It’s about the same distance from home as Napa, California which is what most folk think of when they hear "wine country" in Northern California. Because of that, Napa is now very crowded and very expensive   and hardly the place you’d go for a relaxing weekend. So we opted for its country cousin, one of a number of valleys of grapes and vineyards in this part of the world.

It was lovely. Beautiful scenery, great food, no crowds and wine wine wine if that’s your sort of thing. It’s not exactly mine (my girlfriend, Bay Area born and raised, grew up with the purple stuff) so I typically join her in winery tasting rooms to eat the oyster crackers, read a paperback book and drive us both home. Or in our case, the wonderful Madrona Manor hotel which housed us for a few days.

What follows is a short list of things to do on a weekend in Healdsburg, all highly recommended based on our experience. If the category headings speak to you, then you seek the same in a vacation as us.

Eatin’:

  • Cyrus is the ultimate dining in Healdsburg for a way-expensive (see for yourself) special occasion kinda dinner. It was a bit rich for our blood so we settled for an 11$ cocktail (plenty of non-alcoholic goodies for the tea tottalers as well) and dinner at the Madrona Manor Restaurant, just as good, just as special, half the price.
  • We also took in Fieri’s restaurant Johnny Garlics in Santa Rosa which I’ll call "TGI Fridays if a real chef was in the kitchen." Mostly tasty fun food but surprisingly good despite the cornier-than-Iowa atmosphere.

Littler Eatin’:

  • We didn’t get anything there but Powell’s Sweet Shoppe (part of west coast chain apparently. Bah) is candy and sweettooth wonderland. You can even have a kid’s birthday there.

Drinkin’:

We went to three wineries we both liked very much…

  • Everett Ridge: A real friendly joint, with a bit of sass. One of their wines is called "Diablita" and they have devil horns scattered about the tasting room. There’s a photo somewhere of me wearing said horns.
  • Lambert Ridge was a bit pricier and more formal: dark woods, recessed lighting, a bar probably carved by artisans imported from abroad. It could have been tasting room where a mid level mafia capo had been wacked. But the staff was very nice. The tasting room also had an enormous Hansel and Gretel fireplace with a ledge I said on and read my book.
  • Korbel Winery (famous for their champagne) was more of a production, with train tours of the wine country leaving from their front door on the hour and a lot of dudes in khaki shorts and black socks. But they’ve got a full marketplace where we had a lovely lunch and the grounds were pretty enough to walk around and breathe a few snootfulls of air in. And out.

Walkin’:

  • If you’re in this part of the world, do not miss the Armstrong Redwoods Grove, an absolutely majestic collection of Redwood Trees, the largest organisms on planet earth. The oldest in this grove are over 1400 years old, an idea which just blows me away.

        We spent a calm, thoughtful morning there, just looking at these huge things, chatting some but   mostly being very quiet in their mighty shadows.

        It was that kind of weekend. And great for both of us because of it.

Thought of the Day: “Guides”

Smokler on August 13, 2008

"The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond."

—Rumi (on a particularly bad day)

Sprocle my Nemesis!

Smokler on August 12, 2008

Have you fallen into the dark, bottomless hole that is Sporcle? Sporcle is nothing more than a collection of list games like can you name all of Julia Roberts’s movie or reel off elements on the periodic table.

I’ll stop between tasks to play one round. Which becomes two, then six. I even stopped in the middle of writing this post to try and name baby animals. I got 6 of 16.

I have my best friend David Dylan Thomas to thank for this madness. He’ll be receiving a bill shortly for all my lost productivity.

My Black Book or The Annual Nookie Report of Kevin Smokler Inc.

Smokler on August 12, 2008

Myblackbook

My Black Book is an online application used to keep track of your sexual adventures. If you at that point where a) you can’t remember them in your head or b) a notebook and golf pencil will no longer suffice then perhaps you are part of an elite clan of cool kids than does not include your narrator. I’m guessing you’re also the segment of the population that would make good use of the Graphing and Report Generating features.

To which I throw up my hands in outrage. What no Powerpoint? How am I supposed to prep my advisory board at the weekly meeting?

And while were at it, I’m a bit disappointed that I can’t generate a bound Annual Nookie Report to distribute to staff and shareholders complete with Executive Bios and SEC Filings. And before you snicker  about "penetration in the marketplace," stop. My second-grader sense of humor beat you to it.

I’m going to propose a future edition of this program called Our Black Book for cats like me in serious relationships. Sure, you’ll be able to record all your amorous encounters but they’ll be a whole section dedicated to optimal snuggling positions, fabulous meals you’ve shared and pictures of gifts your mate has given you which you don’t understand but love anyway because it came from the one you love.

Said book would deadly boring and painful to anyone but you and your partner but to the two of you, it could put the "Our 3rd and 3/4 Anniversary" scrapbooking industry right out of business. Now that’s the kind of nookie niche marketing my shareholders can get behind.

Behind? Oh, stop it now! (via Buzzfeed)

Beijing Olympics: The Trouble with Design:

Smokler on August 11, 2008

Chinaolympicsymbol

There’s nothing I like better than a truly unique take on a subject I’d be happy never hearing another  word about ever again. Such is the case with this fascinating article in Business Week about how Beijing is approaching its hosting of the 2008 Olympics from a graphic design point of view.

Not since the "rising sun" of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics logo has an
Olympics emblem incorporated so many politicized double meanings. Then
again, when it came to selecting a uniquely Chinese icon, what choice
did the Party and its designers have? China’s most notable contribution
to design over the past century, the muscular propaganda poster art of
the Cultural Revolution, would have been inappropriate for an Olympics
that’s intended to improve and update China’s international image. The
obvious option was to leapfrog the recent past that China wants its
citizens and the world to forget, and refer to the country’s ancient
traditions.

BW is one of my favorite publications, doing in print what Marketplace does on radio: thoughtful discussions of business from a humanistic perspective instead of gushy encomiums to CEOs and quarterly profits. And after reading this piece, I’d love to find the same for graphic design.

Dear Readers: Are their blogs/websites/magazines/podcasts you listen to which discuss graphic design in a thoughtful, intelligent way for the interested schmoe not the Battledecks Champion of Photoshop?

Recommendations gratefully accepted. Thanks ya’ll.