L o b a B l a n c a {dot} c o m

Our beautiful library’s graphic novel section just keeps getting better and better each time I visit. It’s a ploy, denizens. They know what to do to foil my desperate attempts to read only books from my own library. If only I was strong enough to resist the clarion call of all those beautiful books, just waiting to be mine, if only for a little while…

During this recent trip, I tried to limit myself solely to the graphic novel section. These are always faster reads, which means that I can quickly get back to whatever non-pictorial literature I was reading before the latest graphic divergence. Also, I’ve really enjoyed the graphic novel discoveries that I have made this year. There’s something so uninhibited about this particular medium of storytelling. Plus, there’s the doubled delight when you discover a brilliant story depicted by an incomparable artist (see Blacksad, which remains one of my favorite BookBin2011 reads).

I ended up leaving with five books from this section (and two from the nearby short story section, but we’ll get to the them when the time is right). First to be cracked open? Vertigo Crime’s A Sickness in the Family.

Written by crime novelist Denise Mina, this is the tightly wound tale of a family that moves at Mach-5 speed from the realm of marginally dysfunctional to irrefutably broken. Of course, being a crime comic, the end result of this damaging downgrade is death of diabolical proportions.

The Usher family finds their numbers dwindling a notch at a time after the father opts to purchase the downstairs apartment so he can increase the size of the family home. Of course, the downstairs came to him for a song after its previous tenants killed each other in a gruesome holiday-fueled domestic disturbance.

Is the ill will that’s now befalling the Ushers the remnants of a curse that haunts the land on which their home is built? Or is something far less spectral…and far more sinister that is causing the Fall of the House of Usher?

Ah. I was waiting this whole time to squeeze that one in. Edgar Allan Poe, FTW.

Artwork by Antonio Fuso is clean and concise, but not really much to write home about. Fuso’s done a lot of illustration for G.I. Joe comics. Let that be whatever you wish it to be.

Final Verdict: Interesting side trip of a read, but not a book that I feel I need to add to my library any time soon.

One of my earliest memories is of going downtown to the Smithsonian National Zoo with my aunts. Strangely, I don’t remember anything about the animals. Instead, I remember running along the asphalt pathways in search of the “footprints” the animals left behind. The National Zoo used to have animal prints painted along the paths, leading toward the various exhibits. I don’t know why, but one of the few memories I still carry around from that trip is of following the bright red prints to the elephant house. Much to my delight, the only tracks that I could find on my recent trip earlier this week were newly painted red elephant prints, leading to the recently finished outdoor elephant corral.

Incidentally, one of the memories that my aunts still carry around about that day was that their niece was apparently a tiny camel: I never had to go to the restroom, but I wanted to stop and drink out of every fountain we passed.

I still love going to watch the animals at the zoo. I hate that they’re penned up and removed from their natural habitats, but I appreciate that they’re being studied as a means of benefiting those of their kind still out in the wild. I also appreciate that these animals are granted a certain degree of dignity that their circus counterparts continue to be denied. Wild animals are not meant to be performance artists.

The zoo has been undergoing some massive renovations as of late. It’s a bit disconcerting to see welders and elephants interspersed together in the same enclosure, but what they have done thus far has given new life to what was sadly becoming one of the most disrespected and dilapidated of zoos—age was taking its toll on the structures and mismanagement and incompetence were taking an even greater toll on the animals. A spate of deaths throughout the latter part of the last decade left quite a cloud over the Capitol City’s animal refuge.

Now, however, there are visible signs of improvement that, if nothing else, at least make it appear that the zoo knows what it’s doing. Large portions of the park are still closed, including the elephant house and where the sea lions once sunned themselves in all their glossy glory, but that just means that I have a reason to go back again next year.

Until then, here are a few of my favorite shots from my trip earlier this week. I wish the weather had been a bit more cooperative; however, the sky remained gun-metal gray and the sun never made itself visible. At least the rain held off until I was walking back to the Metro. Ah, well. Another reason to go back to the zoo…

Sometimes, there’s a part of me that feels as though my alma mater failed me in certain indisputable ways regarding my studies. My concentration when I was in college was American literature. However, there are times when I realize that I have severe gaps in my exposure to some of the most important movements to transpire in this particular genre.

One of those glaring gaps is my exposure to the proliferate writings of the “Beat Generation.” In going through my memories of various syllabi from my years in college, I have come to the conclusion that I never had any professor introduce me to the literary likes of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg…I don’t even remember any offered classes that focused, even briefly, on the likes of these writers. I believe the closest I might have come was one professor who thankfully introduced me to Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, which included several essays, including the titular piece, on her experiences of being immersed within the 1960s Haight-Ashbury counterculture movement, which was inspired by and in many ways indebted to the bohemian non-conformist attitudes of the Beat Generation.

There was this massive push when I was in college to free students from the strangle-hold of the ubiquitous “White Male” on the literary canon. While I understand this desire to diversify the curriculum in this way, it came at what I deem to be an unacceptable price. Not only are these Beat Generation authors quintessential to the foundation of modern American literature, but Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” and Burroughs’ book Naked Lunch were both the focus of obscenity trials that helped to redefine the parameters of the publishing industry in this country. For these reasons alone, there should be a place at the literary table for the likes of these influential authors.

These are the types of things that I ruminate upon when I find myself in places such as San Francisco. Although the Beat movement began in New York City, in time it shifted to the City by the Bay where, some might argue it gained its greatest momentum and notoriety. It was here that a freshly relocated Ginsberg penned his Beat masterpiece, “Howl,” which was published by the now legendary City Lights Bookstore. I have now been to San Francisco three times. It was only on this recent trip that I finally gave in to my need to step through the doors of this sacred store.

Yes, I called it sacred. Bookstores are to me what churches are to the pious. And City Lights? City Lights is on par with the Vatican. This was the West Coast birthplace of ideas, desires, doubts, questions, intellectual revolution, the ripples of which continue to flow through our collective conscience. For better or for worse, the Beat Generation effectively shifted how we view ourselves and our roles in society…of how we view society in general. They brought under fire the established mindset and questioned the reality of what was deemed acceptable, preferred, right. And City Lights was right there in the center as the publisher of these revolutionary writings.

All this, of course, is build-up for the book that I recently finished. Needless to say, one of the reasons that I had been avoiding City Lights is because I knew I couldn’t go there without purchasing many, many books. I actually put back some of the books that I wanted (a difficult feat, I can assure you). However, I still ended up spending a great deal of time and money there. I left with several writings from Beat scions…not necessarily their most well-known contributions but instead lesser-known offerings that have received less attention throughout the years but still sounded provocative.

Among my purchases was a collaborative effort between Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, the earliest written offering by either author. Written in 1945, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks tells a fictional account of a true crime to which both Burroughs and Kerouac were made accessories by prime suspect and mutual friend, Lucien Carr. I won’t go into details since many of them made their way into this novel, and I would hate to give too much away here.

Although, honestly, the details of the crime are almost incidental to what I perceive as one of the cornerstones of the Beat mindset…and that is the ephemeral yet irresistible power of the now. There is an immediacy to how these characters behave that is in stark contrast to established parameters of acceptable behavior, especially that of 1940s-era America. They sleep when they are tired, they eat when they are hungry, they have sex when they are horny, they experiment when they are curious, they drink until their thirsts are quenched, regardless of time or place or responsibility. They respond to the primal rather than the proper. They act in the moment without considering later consequences. They are not shackled by societal pressures of conformity. They view possessions in communal rather than proprietary terms because they place more importance on ideas than on material things. Things are not to be coveted or kept but to be shared and used as needed, by whoever might need them.

There are so many ideas and behavior quirks embedded throughout this novel that came to identify the tenets of the Beat movement—all presented in its nascent years by two who would become linchpin contributors to its birth and growth. However, this novel remained unpublished throughout the lives of both its authors, not seeing the light of published day until 2008—63 years after it was first written.

Is it their best? I can’t say definitively one way or the other, but I can assume that it’s not either writer’s greatest offering. First books rarely are. Is it important? I think so. It is the beginning of Kerouac and Burroughs. Before On the Road. Before Naked Lunch. This was their joint birth, hidden from sight for more than six decades.

As to the strangeness of the title? That seems to be a bit of a hazy sticking point. Burroughs remembered hearing a newscaster state this line while reporting on a fire at the St. Louis Zoo. Kerouac remembered it as being in reference to a fire at a zoo in London. Still another thought is that it was in reference to a fire at a circus. Regardless, let us take a moment of silence for those poor hippos, wherever they might have been.

Final Verdict: You don’t give away a book like this. You give it pride of place with all those other seminal writings from other authors who helped shape and define the literary conscience at its various transformation points.

It’s been a long and lovely day, denizens, so I hope you’ll forgive me if this week’s Flashback Friday entry is a bit short and to the point.

(Don’t think I didn’t hear that collective sigh of relief just then…)

Here is the trailer for one of the very first anime movies I ever saw. When Cartoon Network first started up over here in the States, they used to play all kinds of different anime movies way into the night on Saturdays. It was thanks to these anime marathons that I first fell in love with that enigmatic Vampire Hunter D. It was also when I discovered…Twilight of the Cockroaches:

And all that time I thought that MTV was being original with Joe’s Apartment. Also, with an original release year of 1987, Twilight of the Cockroaches beats Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as an earlier example of animation and live action combined into one movie. It also wins as being a superior film with more likeable characters than any other film containing the word “Twilight” in its title.

Ahem.

I do believe this is a first for my BookBin entries, denizens: This is the first book I’m refusing to finish.

I didn’t even refuse to finish Stranger in a Strange Land, even though Heinlein’s unapologetic misogyny and startling lack of enlightenment made me want to crotch punch him.

I didn’t even refuse to finish Twilight! And anyone who knows anything at all about me knows that I want someone to suffer for the scourge of the Twilight saga. Someone Mormon.

But I just can’t finish this one, denizens. I made it halfway through The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson’s sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and I reached yet another mention of the “impromptu” tattoo that Lisbeth Salander gave her advocate…and I realized, I just don’t want to know anymore about this world that these characters inhabit. It’s an ugly, brutal world and its primary targets are women.

You know what? I already know how dangerous the world is for women. In fact, I daresay there aren’t very many women out there who need to be reminded of all the potential dangers waiting out there for us. Therefore, I don’t need to have this fact hammered into my head (in oftentimes highly disturbing ways) by the likes of Larsson’s novels.

I already spoke my thoughts on his goals for his Millennium series in my review of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. They remain strongly in place. Do I think that there are people out there who might not understand the truths that Larsson was trying to convey with his books? Yes. They’re called men.

I’m not trying to be sexist or flippant with that statement. I have found, however, that men often do not understand why women seem so paranoid or skittish when they are in certain situations. I’m reminded of one of the “death” openings from the series Six Feet Under (which I still think is one of the most brilliant things to come out of Hollywood in many moons).

Each episode began with someone’s death. This particular episode started with a young woman walking alone down a dark street when suddenly she finds herself being followed by a group of men. They start verbally harassing her and when she begins to walk away faster, they take chase. The woman breaks into a full run, heading straight into the middle of the street where she’s hit by a car and killed.

Turns out the guys who were chasing her were her friends. They thought they were being funny. They didn’t understand why what they were doing would in any way be frightening enough to cause their friend to run out into traffic just to get away from them. They weren’t being intentionally malicious. They were just sadly clueless.

Sorry for spoiling that opening for you, but that’s the first thing that came to mind when I was trying to understand why Larsson would feel so compelled to write these descriptively violent books. As obvious as the existence of these things are to women, they apparently remain a mystery to many men. Perhaps something good could come from these readers wrapping their brains around these stories.

Of course, the jaded, pessimistic side of me says that all these books will really be is titillation for explicitly dark-minded souls.

Whatever they may be to others, they are no more for me.

Final Verdict: Library book, so it goes back tomorrow. As much as I do still like the character of Lisbeth Salander, I just don’t want to read anymore from this series. Also, I am now no longer “unsure” about the future of my copy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I have already moved it to the donation box.

I lead a rather compartmentalized life at times. I like it that way. It gives me a sense of order (and probably a false sense of control). Order is comforting. I can write whole reams of paper on the placebo palliative of order. But that can wait for another post.

Back to compartmentalization. I tend to keep the various streams of my life from crossing. Work stays at work. Personal life stays out of my office. Even in my online living, I tend to keep barriers between my Internet Personalities^TM. Somewhat. I do cross streams a bit, but it’s somewhat one-sided. It’s kind of like how Tom Jackman tries to keep his life and family a secret from Mr. Hyde. Which doesn’t always work out…but the Bionic EastEnder is there to keep things sorted for the most part, so it’s all good.

What the hell was I talking about?!

Oh, yeah. Compartmentalization. Here, then, is a rare moment when I’m letting Dr. Jekyll’s and Mr. Hyde’s lives mix it up a little bit…for a beery good cause. So there’s a podcast I’ve been listening to for a while now called Here Goes Nothing. It’s a show about…nothing. And everything. It’s whatever you want it to be, really…movies, music, beer reviews, rants, ramblings…the whole nine yards, the kitchen sink, and a partridge in a pear tree. What makes it a gem is it’s hosted by two of the most amazing blokes you’ll ever hear. Not only do I find Boz and Casey to be two of the hands-down funniest people to populate this planet, but I’m very proud to consider them both to be my friends.

Sadly, life has roadblocked their ability to continue to record Here Goes Nothing. All I can say to this is a very loud FUCK CANCER. So, to honor (and honour even) their efforts, their humor, their rants, their chemistry, and their all-around awesomeness, I named my very first attempt at home-brewed beer after their show. I even designed a label just for them:

I was trying to make it a label somewhat akin to the grunge-effect labels used by their favorite brewery, Brew Dog (WOOF CLANG), but with deep, bold colors and a strong “heavy metal” font for my heavy metal dudes. And, of course, we here at LobaBlanca Brewing Co. made sure to include the proper paraphrase of a popular Here Goes Nothing truism (“Now That’s Metal!”)for this particular beer’s quote: “Now That’s Porter.” Here’s what the labels looked like applied to my three bottles:

And now, in that fine Here Goes Nothing tradition…

Loba’s Beer Review: Here Goes Nothing Chocolate Maple Porter

As I already wrote, my cousin did very well in her beer selection for the home brewing kit she gave me, because I love nothing more than a nice dark beer. And how much more black could this lovely porter be?

And the answer is none, none more black.

I cracked open my first bottle and was very pleased to hear the hiss of carbonation. One of my biggest worries was that I didn’t add enough yeast to the brew or that I didn’t activate it enough. It’s not quite as frothy as it could/should be (you can see from the photo that there was no head whatsoever when I poured). However, porters tend to not be as frothy as lighter beers anyway, and I’ve also come close to perfecting a headless pour (do with that statement what you will), so that doesn’t really bother me all that much.

I know very little about descriptive qualities of beer smell other than to say this brew has a decidedly strong, malty, and familiar scent. The smell has the rich quality of a professionally brewed porter…another positive sign.

As for the taste, the first sip was a bit…sedimenty. That would be completely my bad. I ended up siphoning too low into the brew jug and I pulled in some less-than-appealing sediment that I couldn’t then completely strain out. However, I let the glass stand for about 10 minutes and returned for a second sip…which was a mouthful of happy.

Deliciously robust with deep malty undertones and the slightest bite of tanginess at the end is how I would describe this beer. I modified the recipe slightly by adding a cup of black coffee, so I’m not sure what effect that might have had…maybe the tang? I don’t necessarily taste the maple sweetness, but overall, this is a solid, hearty porter. And with a 6.5 percent ABV, it leaves you with a nice, happy buzzy feeling.

I know already where I made mistakes in the process and what I need to do to fix them, but this is definitely something I can see myself doing again. In fact, Brooklyn Brew Shop has released a holiday Gingerbread Ale that sounds too delicious to resist…

And there you have it: My first foray into home brewing. A success? Mostly. Amazing birthday present? Absolutely. Suitable tribute to the awesomeness of Here Goes Nothing? I hope so.

Behold the wonder of teh Interwebz, denizens. Earlier this year, one of my amazing British ImagiFriends^TM suggested that I might like It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me, a collection of journalist Ariel Leve’s essays that appeared in her Sunday Times’ column, “Cassandra.”

I’ve trusted his recommendation before (for a book that has already appeared in my BookBin adventures), so I happily added Leve’s book to my wishlist…where my lovely friend Z saw it and selected it as a birthday present for me this year.

Oh, the awesome power of teh Interwebz!

So let me show you the lines that made me fall madly in love with this book and know with all certainty that I was going to keep it:

I can’t imagine a life without coffee. The way some people can’t imagine a life without children.

This is the kind of line that only a deliciously warped person could write. Leve fits this description perfectly. Of course, I already suspected that she would; anyone who would name her column after (I’m assuming) the tragic figure Cassandra of Greek mythology, she who could predict the future with unflinching accuracy, but who was cursed by Apollo himself so that no one would ever believe her…well, she’s going to be my cup of tea, indeed.

I will say this: The book is a bit much to consume in one sitting (which I practically did while flying cross-country last week to San Francisco [more to come on that]). There’s a certain degree of repetitiveness as well as an overwhelming pessimism when you read all these essays in one massive chunk. They definitely have more appeal in smaller, weekly doses.

That, however, simply means that this is the perfect book to pull off the shelf and peruse on those dark days when you just feel like staying on the couch in your jammies (I believe Leve would call those moments “days that end in y”). Actually, though, I suspect that Leve uses her journalistic endeavors, such as “Cassandra,” as her own personal Portrait of Dorian Gray-esque venting outlets. I bet she’s quite upbeat and lively in real life. Maybe?

Final Verdict: Definitely a keeper. I’m delighted to have a literary-minded ImagiFriend^TM who knows me so well as to recommend such a perfectly suited collection for me. Of course, it does worry me that Leve’s rather pessimistic outlook reminded him of me…

I make no secret of the fact that I hate dolls. I think they’re creepy as sin. Only nowhere near as fun.

When I was little, relatives insisted on buying me dolls for Christmas…you know, because I’m a girl. And girls are supposed to want to play with dolls. It’s good training for when we grow up and have real babies.

…

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The road to my personal hell is paved with creepy plastic baby effigies. Like Baby Laugh-A-Lot. At least, I thought that was the name of this particular doll from my past. She was creepy and blonde and when you squeezed her, she giggled uncontrollably for about a minute and then sighed, “I wuv you.”

Yeah, I bet you do, Baby I’m-Gonna-Snap-Your-Neck-While-You-Sleep.

However, when I looked up “Baby Laugh-A-Lot” on YouTube…I came across this:

Sweet Baby Meat Jesus, this is even creepier than the doll I had! Who the hell would buy this for anyone, let alone someone they supposedly cared about? This doll is one step away from being a Twilight Zone episode.

Now if you’ll excuse me…I’ve got a corner I need to go rock quietly in…

Coming in down to the wire for this Flashback, but that’s all right since I really don’t have a whole lot to say about this one. I hadn’t thought about this particular toy in years…and then an ImagiFriend^TM from another part of my online universe posted a link to a YouTube video for Pipi-Max, which is apparently a robotic dog that drinks water and then “pees” on people’s shoes…or heads.

Do what you will with this statement, but this toy idea is not new.

True, the version that I remember from my childhood was not robotic. Instead, “My Puppy Puddles” was nothing more than a plastic dog with furry fabric ears and wheels in its paws so that it would roll behind you when you pulled it along with its leash. To get Puppy Puddles to “drink,” you had to stick its tongue into a bowl of water and squeeze the collar. It would draw water up through the hole in the bottom of the tongue and store it in whatever reservoir it had inside for its “bladder.”

When it was time for Puddles to…puddle? Well…here, just watch this:

They were far more innocent times, those plastic-loving 70s and 80s…

See? I did warn you in my last review that I’d finally gotten my hands on a copy of Coach Summitt’s first book, didn’t I? Okay then.

Reach for the Summit is pretty much equal parts business-minded motivational pep talkery, behind-the-scenes glimpses of Summitt’s coaching style, the extensive work and research that goes into each Lady Vol basketball season, and autobiographical side trips along the way. I think I liked the autobiographical tangents the most. Summitt is extraordinarily interesting, not just as a coach but as a person (although I suppose one could argue that one feeds into the other feeds into the other). I think, however, that this might be the closest thing we will ever get from her to an actual autobiography. She doesn’t strike me as the type of person who would willingly participate in just talking about herself.

However, for the purposes of this book, she was willing to allow readers in to see those private sides of herself as a means of understanding the “Definite Dozen System” that she uses with her players and staff and that she and co-writer Sally Jenkins outline as a course of action for those looking to be motivated and inspired in whatever they are doing in life.

I’m not really a touchy-feely, motivational speaker, “Just Hang In There” poster kind of girl. Luckily, neither is Summitt. She is fierce. But with the most successful record of any NCAA coach? She also obviously knows what she’s doing and what she’s talking about. And what she’s defining through this book isn’t some miracle elixir program. She outlines hard work, focus, practice, preparation, and a willingness to change and to also admit when you’re wrong.

But never to readily admit defeat. I don’t really think that’s a word that gets much use in her vocabulary.

I’m not going to tell you what the “Definite Dozen System” includes, because I actually think that this book is worth the read. I even found it to be (gasp!) motivational. And, seriously, denizens, I hate motivational books.

Final Verdict: Keeper. Right next to my copy of Raise the Roof. Woots.