Saturday, January 20, 2007

Upcoming Gig at Arthur's Market

I'll be performing on Tuesday, Feb. 20, at Arthur's Market in Schenectady's Stockade neighborhood. This will be my first show at this venue, which has recently been reopened under the management of Richard Genest, proprietor of the Moon & River Cafe. I'll play two or three sets, starting at 7 p.m.

Bring your friends! Tell your neighbors!

On a related subject, I've noticed that there are some old-time music jams planned at Arthur's Market for 2-4 p.m. on several Saturdays: Jan. 27, Feb. 3, Feb. 10 and Feb. 24. I'm going to try to show up for a couple of these so I can saw out a few fiddle tunes.

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

The Year of the Bookworm

Happy New Year, faithful readers!

My friend Roland Vinyard sent me a message today mentioning all of the great books (and some of the disappointing ones) he's read in the past year. It got me thinking about my own reading habits and what I read in 2006.

 I won't bore you with the complete list (mostly literary theory, criticism and writing technique), but among the worthwhile books I've read this year are:
 
 
Where I'm Calling From, short stories by Raymond Carver.
 
Thirteen Moons, historical novel by Charles Frazier (who wrote Cold Mountain). Excellent - I got it for Christmas and consumed it in a few days. A great fictionalized memoir of a white man who was adopted by a clan of Cherokees in the years prior to the civil war.
 
The Whore's Child and Other Stories, shorts by Richard Russo. The title story is excellent.
 
The Lottery and Other Stories, by Shirley Jackson. Strangely, I had never previously read the famous "The Lottery," which is on everybody's list of great American shorts.
 
Pig Earth and Once in Europa, by John Berger. Strong, atmospheric stories, essays and poems based on his experience living in a French peasant village.
 
Piles and piles of books full of "agri/cultural" essays and poems by Wendell Berry. I haven't read much of his fiction (yet), though people tell me it isn't as strong as the other works.
 
Piles and piles of books of essays by the Hudson Valley naturalist John Burroughs, and several biographies of him and critical essays about his work. I recommend two recent anthologies: The Art of Seeing Things and Sharp Eyes, both edited by Charlotte Zoe Walker, a professor at SUNY Oneonta.
 
Music Through the Floor, short stories by Eric Puchner. A nice variety of themes and points of view; funny, disturbing, touching.
 
Responsible Men, first novel by my thesis advisor, Edward Schwarzchild. A well-written tale about family life, organized crime, Boy Scouts and textiles sales.  Oh, and bowling.
 
Dry and Magical Thinking, a memoir and a collection of autobiographical essays by Augusten Burroughs. Very well-written. Hilarious and troubling stuff about a gay "metrosexual" advertising copywriter with a seriously screwed up childhood and his struggles with alchoholism.
 
Ironweed, by William Kennedy. I bought an autographed copy at a used book sale on campus. It cost me a dollar!
 
Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner. I'm glad to have read it (studied it, to be precise), but it's not exactly a pleasurable book. It's a tangled-up narrative and quite challenging.
 
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Truly worth reading (or re-reading as an adult if you read it as a youth). Interesting to see the extent to which Franklin's reputation still survives just the way he intended.  
 
Most of Thoreau's most highly regarded works, and many of Emerson's.
 
A little Walt Whitman, a little Emily Dickinson.
 
Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener," which is vexing and highly nuanced ... not exactly enjoyable, but certainly thought-provoking.
 
Piles and piles of anthologies of great short stories: James Joyce, John Updike, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemingway, many others.