Awarded to Eli Sanders of The Stranger, a Seattle (Wash.) weekly, for his haunting story of a woman who survived a brutal attack that took the life of her partner, using the woman’s brave courtroom testimony and the details of the crime to construct a moving narrative. -The Pulitzer Prizes
I was a paragraph in, and tears were already welling up. I had no idea how it happened so quickly. There was no escalation of drama before the tear-jerker. It took place at the beginning of the piece and didn’t let up. I sat there and read the 130 comments after the story.
I knew by the tone given off by Teresa Butz’s partner that she would not of been able to stay anonymous for long, and I was right. I Would Like You To Know My Name was written by Jennifer Hopper less than three months later. The tears did not stop, and I read the 288 comments following her piece.
I was left reeling. The story and the writing took me places, showed me parts of people I didn’t think existed, at opposite ends of the spectrum. From love to hate, from pain to joy, from bleakness to hope, from being able to identify to unable to relate, from the unforgivable to forgiving. If you have the time, please, please read these two pieces.
Words escape me. Thankfully for Sanders and Hopper, they did not. One of the interesting points was the desire, motivation and determination of Jennifer to not let Teresa be forgotten. Between the award and response to the pieces, she surely never will.
I’m not exactly sure the piece matched the article’s title, but it was still a good read. It is more or less about a few young(?) people who hit the road, wander aimlessly, and record their travels and adventures. Not sure if that exactly makes them journalists, but these days discussions about what exactly defines a journalist is a slippery slope.
Regardless, the results are pretty interesting. At least to me. One because of my little fascination of the rural, low-income life, which is often their subject matter. And two, because the idea and technique of both the people doing the reporting.
Two brothers featured in the Wired piece, are riding around the country on their bikes doing long-term stands in various places.
We’re two brothers riding recycled bicycles across the United States and meeting people. Lots of them.
But whether they’re devout Baptists who’ve lived in a small southern town for four generations or disaffected crust punks packing themselves into a crumbling squatted building, there is a common thread that ties them together.
We sense a growing movement in this country that rises above race, region, and subculture. Americans are yearning to rebuild space, community, and local culture, each in our own way. And it’s going to take a lot of blood, sweat, and ambitious insanity.
It will mean different things for different people. Some are rethinking business models to facilitate more intimate and local exchange. Others reinvent living spaces to allow for more community at home. It’s coming from all different angles and from all sorts of people. Fuel and transportation, energy use, urban/suburban planning, building construction, farming and food production, public space and civic art.
And it’s already started. All across the country, people are finding innovative ways to come together and make revolutionary change on a local level, to regain control of their lives, rediscover independence, and recycle the American Dream.
We’re finding them. And we’re telling their stories.
Here is the video they put together for their stay in North Carolina. It’s awesome, sweet, disgusting, beautiful and inspiring all rolled into one. I can’t imagine many anyone watching the full video, but I thought it was pretty great.
This all tickled two things in me. The video itself I thought had some pretty poignant thoughts. Just the whole idea of bucking the system and living outside the box. Something that of course I am drawn to. Rejecting the whole prescribed notion of success being defined as participation in the rat-race and chasing the American dream.
People want to feel good good about their lives. People want to feel responsible. But we are kind of lost within this labyrinting framework of the Utopian society we created after World War II. We’ve examined those values one by one, you know. You get your house, you get your white picket fence, you pay your taxes, all we need to do is you continue working, and we will create this enlightened society. I think this has gotten worn around the edges…
I think the American dream is running away from a country that has unattainable standards of happiness.
Now, I’m not entirely drawn to the crunchy, tree-hugging, hippie lifestyle of all this, but the spirit of this does appeal to me. Really, who wouldn’t want it? Part of it, I think, has to do some with stepwork I am doing and going over with sponsees, and exploring the idea of freedom. It is like a lot of things with me, the juxtaposition and dichotomy of what appeals to me. What really does make me happy? There is rarely grey area. I either want to live in a city, or in the middle of nowhere. I go from listening to The Avett Brothers to Cam’ron. Then I wonder if I even have to pick one or the other. Maybe because it is that I live in a big city and for years have been surrounded by rap music and all that that the other extreme calls to me. Maybe at the end of the day both satisfy a part of me. It’s just that the other side doesn’t get fed as often.
Maybe that is one of the reasons the article appealed to me. As school was winding down I started with this little fantasy before I settled down into a job, of traveling the country for a while. Via Greyhound. A 60 day unlimited pass is only $556. I didn’t want to go from city to city though, but small town to small town. No itinerary or agenda. No timetable. Just a ticket and a bag and sort of wander. Write about my experiences. See what I found and where I ended up. I can’t say that I have given up on that, just some logistics that would need to be worked out. Who knows.
So I took a little trip home to hang with the fam for the holidays. One of the things I wanted to do was catch up on some reading. Being the end of year and all, I thought “Best Of” lists from Longform and LongReads were two good places to start. I finished the LongForm’s Top 10, and am still making my way through LongRead’s Top 10.
As usual I came back with a grip of new books to read.
For Christmas my sister gave me House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. This book looks fucking rad. It was written by the brother of Poe, and looks fascinating. It is written with crazy footnotes (a la Pynchon) and is filled with random boxes of text on pages, with certain words in different colors throughout the text. And just read some of the reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Had The Blair Witch Project been a book instead of a film, and had it been written by, say, Nabokov at his most playful, revised by Stephen King at his most cerebral, and typeset by the futurist editors of Blast at their most avant-garde, the result might have been something like House of Leaves. Mark Z. Danielewski’s first novel has a lot going on: notably the discovery of a pseudoacademic monograph called The Navidson Record, written by a blind man named Zampanò, about a nonexistent documentary film–which itself is about a photojournalist who finds a house that has supernatural, surreal qualities. (The inner dimensions, for example, are measurably larger than the outer ones.) In addition to this Russian-doll layering of narrators, Danielewski packs in poems, scientific lists, collages, Polaroids, appendices of fake correspondence and “various quotes,” single lines of prose placed any which way on the page, crossed-out passages, and so on.
Now that we’ve reached the post-postmodern era, presumably there’s nobody left who needs liberating from the strictures of conventional fiction. So apart from its narrative high jinks, what does House of Leaves have to offer? According to Johnny Truant, the tattoo-shop apprentice who discovers Zampanò’s work, once you read The Navidson Record,
For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You’ll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you’ll realize it’s always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won’t understand why or how.
We’ll have to take his word for it, however. As it’s presented here, the description of the spooky film isn’t continuous enough to have much scare power. Instead, we’re pulled back into Johnny Truant’s world through his footnotes, which he uses to discharge everything in his head, including the discovery of the manuscript, his encounters with people who knew Zampanò, and his own battles with drugs, sex, ennui, and a vague evil force. If The Navidson Record is a mad professor lecturing on the supernatural with rational-seeming conviction, Truant’s footnotes are the manic student in the back of the auditorium, wigged out and furiously scribbling whoa-dude notes about life.
Despite his flaws, Truant is an appealingly earnest amateur editor–finding translators, tracking down sources, pointing out incongruities. Danielewski takes an academic’s–or ex-academic’s–glee in footnotes (the similarity to David Foster Wallace is almost too obvious to mention), as well as other bogus ivory-tower trappings such as interviews with celebrity scholars like Camille Paglia and Harold Bloom. And he stuffs highbrow and pop-culture references (and parodies) into the novel with the enthusiasm of an anarchist filling a pipe bomb with bits of junk metal. House of Leaves may not be the prettiest or most coherent collection, but if you’re trying to blow stuff up, who cares?
From Publishers Weekly
Danielewski’s eccentric and sometimes brilliant debut novel is really two novels, hooked together by the Nabokovian trick of running one narrative in footnotes to the other. One-the horror story-is a tour-de-force. Zampano, a blind Angelino recluse, dies, leaving behind the notes to a manuscript that’s an account of a film called The Navidson Report. In the Report, Pulitzer Prize-winning news photographer Will Navidson and his girlfriend move with their two children to a house in an unnamed Virginia town in an attempt to save their relationship. One day, Will discovers that the interior of the house measures more than its exterior. More ominously, a closet appears, then a hallway. Out of this intellectual paradox, Danielewski constructs a viscerally frightening experience. Will contacts a number of people, including explorer Holloway Roberts, who mounts an expedition with his two-man crew. They discover a vast stairway and countless halls. The whole structure occasionally groans, and the space reconfigures, driving Holloway into a murderous frenzy. The story of the house is stitched together from disparate accounts, until the experience becomes somewhat like stumbling into Borges’s Library of Babel. This potentially cumbersome device actually enhances the horror of the tale, rather than distracting from it. Less successful, however, is the second story unfolding in footnotes, that of the manuscript’s editor, (and the novel’s narrator), Johnny Truant. Johnny, who discovered Zampano’s body and took his papers, works in a tattoo parlor. He tracks down and beds most of the women who assisted Zampano in preparing his manuscript. But soon Johnny is crippled by panic attacks, bringing him close to psychosis. In the Truant sections, Danielewski attempts an Infinite Jest-like feat of ventriloquism, but where Wallace is a master of voices, Danielewski is not. His strength is parodying a certain academic tone and harnessing that to pop culture tropes. Nevertheless, the novel is a surreal palimpsest of terror and erudition, surely destined for cult status.
From Library Journal
When Johnny Truant attempts to organize the many fragments of a strange manuscript by a dead blind man, it gains possession of his very soul. The manuscript is a complex commentary on a documentary film (The Navidson Record) about a house that defies all the laws of physics. Navidson’s exploration of a seemingly endless, totally dark, and constantly changing labyrinth in the house becomes an examination of truth, perception, and darkness itself. The book interweaves the manuscript with over 400 footnotes to works real and imagined, thus illuminating both the text and Truant’s mental disintegration. First novelist Danielewski employs avant-garde page layouts that are occasionally a bit too clever but are generally highly effective. Although it may be consigned to the “horror” genre, this novel is also a psychological thriller, a quest, a literary hoax, a dark comedy, and a work of cultural criticism. It is simultaneously a highly literary work and an absolute hoot. This powerful and extremely original novel is strongly recommended for all public and academic libraries.
From Booklist
This stunning first effort is destined for fast-track cult status. A photographer decides to create a film document of his family moving into a new home. The project runs smoothly until the interior dimensions of the house turn out to be larger than the exterior. Over time, a maze of passageways appear and disappear, perhaps inhabited by an unseen malevolent creature. Equipped with cameras, a team tries to explore the shifting labyrinth, but they are forced out after the expedition proves deadly. But what they have managed to film is a critical success, generating thousands of pages of analysis. Years later, a trunk of these documents fall into the hands of a young man after the curious death of a neighbor. He finds that the dimensions of his own life may not be as fixed as he once imagined, and that he might also be pursued by an unknown entity. This work is a kaleidoscopically layered and deconstructed H. P. Lovecraft-style horror story. It hums and resonates with wonder, dread, and insight.
Review
[H]is book is funny, moving, sexy, beautifully told, an elaborate engagement with the shape and meaning of narrative. – The New York Times Book Review, Robert Kelly
“This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore, put down, or persuasively conclude reading. In fact, when you purchase your copy you may reach a certain page and find me there, reduced in size like Vincent Price in The Fly, still trapped in the web of its malicious, beautiful pages.” – Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn
“An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel — ten years in the making — that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted house tale…Danielewski skillfully manipulates the reader’s expectations and fears, employing ingeniously skewed typography…The story’s very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski’s mastery of post-modernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“The novel is a surreal palimpsest of terror and erudition, surely destined for cult status….The story of the house is stitched together from disparate accounts, until the experience becomes somewhat like stumbling into Borges’s Library of Babel…The horror story — is a tour de force.” –Publishers Weekly
And then at some random store I picked up Working by Studs Terkel. For $3. I liked the premise of this. It was to just go out and talk to every day people about their every day jobs. It sounds boring, but I am sort of into every day people and every day life. And what is revealed by the people Terkel talks to is supposed to be pretty revealing.
All this brings me to my New Year’s resolutions goals/ commitments. I’m not really into the resolution thing, but I wanted to make a few simple goals to try and stay conscious of and committed to over the next year. I know you have all been waiting, so without further ado…
Take a picture every day.
I may not post it directly on the blog, but I will try and upload one each day over at my Tumblr, or here.
Keep track of the books I read over throughout the year.
My sister asked me how many books I read a year, and I have no idea. Sad. I will try and keep this updated over at GoodReads.
As much as I complained about the semester, one thing it did make me do was some writing. That is what two writing classes and two journalism classes will do. I had a chance to write a bunch of short stories, as well as a few journalistic pieces as well. I updated the Words I’ve Typed and Clips sections, but thought I would drop two of the stories here.
Need an adjustable dado blade for a day? No problem. How about a squirrel trap, just for the weekend? Got it. Or a 40? aluminum extension ladder for a few hours? It might be checked out.
Tool librarian Mimi Cheng.
Nestled in a nondescript warehouse space at 1314 South 47th Street is the new home of the West Philadelphia Tool Library, a concept simple, smart, and just as it sounds. The library loans out tools to it’s members to maintain their properties, complete projects, take care of their yards or gardens, or any other reason they may have for borrowing one of the 2,500 plus tools in the collection.
Its concept is not unique to Philadelphia, with various tool libraries in over twenty cities across the country, such as Atlanta, Oakland, Buffalo and Portland. But the West Philly Tool Library is the first of its kind here. Started informally in 2007 by Michael Froelich, an attorney at Community Legal Services, the library officially opened on March 15, 2008. The West Philadelphia resident had first heard of the idea while elsewhere in the country, but upon his return to Philadelphia, thought it would be a great idea to begin here.
Each member pays a yearly fee, between $25 and $50, based on a sliding scale according to income. There is also a lifetime membership option for $200. Then they are allowed to take out tools as needed, for up to one week. As with traditional book libraries, there are late fees. The cost is $1 for each day each tool is kept past the due date.
If growth is the measure of success, the West Philadelphia Tool Library has been successful in its short three and a half year existence. What started in a small space donated by West Philadelphia real estate developer Guy Laren, with wood provided by Woodland Building Supply’s Larry Reese, and a fraction of the the number of tools the library now boasts, the library has grown to just shy of 1,000 members, with 351 different people borrowing tools this year alone. Over the summer, it also moved into a much larger space to accommodate it’s expanding collection of tools.
Even with the increase in membership, yearly fees alone aren’t enough for the library to sustain itself completely. Operating costs include the building rent, two tool librarians on staff, and the acquisition of new tools. Although at times tools are donated, as was a large collection recently gifted to the library from Gene and Patricia Woock, they are also purchased as needed with money from grants. The rest of the budget is comprised of grants and donations from such places as the University of Sciences in Philadelphia, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell and the Philadelphia Activities Fund, PhillyCarShare, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, the Sparkplug Foundation, SCI-West, the Spruce Hill Community Association, and others. The West Philly Tool Library also operates as a project of the Urban Affairs Coalition.
West Philly Tool Library Steering Committee member Jake Blanch.
“They are our fiscal agent,” explains Jake Blanch, member of the tool library’s steering committee. “We, as an organization, don’t have non-profit status. What the UAC does is manage our paychecks for the librarians, taxes and other financial duties. It is a relationship we have been maintaining for a long time and the grants are separate.” According to Form 990 tax filings by the Urban Affairs Coalition for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010, the coalition took in more than $30 million, which it uses to unite “government, business, neighborhoods, and individual initiatives to improve the quality of life in the region, build wealth in urban communities, and solve emerging issues.” The library relies on the coalition’s non-profit 501(c)(3) status for applying for their own grants. “We don’t actually get funding from the UAC, but we get grants because of their non-profit status, as a project of the UAC,” Blanch says.
He originally stopped by the tool library one day to check it out, and instead became a part of the steering committee, the six person decision making body for the library. Even after time, Blanch is still impressed by what the library accomplishes.
“It’s such a great resource, for a number of reasons,” he says. “You don’t have to buy all the tools you need to maintain your property. The other aspect is the community involvement. People meet there, people come together there, people share projects there. It’s become a real hub for all the people in the neighborhood. People coming from very different backgrounds, coming from very different places, that would of never struck up a conversation.”
There certainly seems to be a need, if not demand, in the neighborhood surrounding the library for the services it provides. According to the Board of Revision of Taxes, there are 3,362 properties in the Cedar Park and Walnut Hill neighborhoods, 73.44% of which are residential. In the Department of Licenses and Inspection’s 2000 survey, it found only 4.13% of these properties to be vacant. The 2000 U.S. Census reports that of those, 72.03% are renters and 27.97% are owner occupied. The census also lists the median year structures in the neighborhood were built as 1941, so it is only natural for some of the properties to need repair 70 years later. The Licenses and Inspection department found in 2005 that 30.96% of the houses in these two neighborhoods to have open housing code violations. But with 22.14% of the population in the area falling below the poverty line according to the 2000 Census, the idea of a community sharing resources makes sense.
From power tools, to carpentry and woodworking tolls, concrete and masonry tools, gardening tools and books, if you happen to need it, there is a good chance the library might have it. And the strangest tool he has come across in the collection? “The Super-painter Padomatic Painting Kit,” Blanch says without blinking.
It isn’t a painting kit that bring lifetime member and neighborhood resident Larry Lee in on a Monday evening. Lee is returning a wheelbarrow after borrowing it to move the chopped wood he split.
A member returns tools to the library.
“Mine broke three years ago, so I come here,” he explains. “It seemed like such a great idea to be able to share tools. I already had a house I was fixing for myself for eight years, so I had a lot of tools. If I were starting out I would do this anyway, so I donated a lot of tools, and for the tools I don’t have, I come here.”
Lee takes tools out a few times a month, except in the summer when he stops by weekly to checkout a weed-whacker to trim his lawn.
“I think its a tremendous service.”
The West Philly Tool Library continues to increase and expand it’s membership well past the borders of West Philadelphia. This year it won Philadelphia Magazine’s Best of Philly prize for Best DIYers Secret. Anyone can stop in to become a member, not only West Philadelphia residents, during the library’s operating hours, Monday through Thursday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m..
Ish you’re talking