girlchild Book Tour Souvenir #WX2A is from Skylight Books in Los Angeles (where the resident cat is named Franny and is now and then written of hilariously on Skylight’s Facebook page): Walter Benjamin’s Berlin Childhood around 1900.
As resident and sometime mayor of the City of Emotion, I find Benjamin a cold and difficult bastard but I keep reading him, burning new neural pathways out of my favorite City and into the Land of the Intellectual.
(Or maybe I just want some intellectual juice… one of the reasons I adore my fiance is that when we first met, under Books on his Facebook page, he wrote: “Whatever makes me look smart.”)
Number of Salinger references in this post: 1.
Number of Facebook references in this post: 2.
2:59 pm • 8 April 2012 • 2 notes
Leg Three of girlchild’s increasingly legged book tour is done and as I’m unpacking souvenirs I realize that my own copy of GIRLCHILD has become a souvenir catch-all.
Here’s what it’s been filled with on the road:
-page flags that feature roosters, bears, foxes, horses, and rabbits. Each animal marks different trails I’ve followed through GIRLCHILD at readings
-an “Autographed Copy” sticker from Elliott Bay Book Store in Seattle. Leighanne, girlchild’s champion there, and I thought this would be hilarious and we were right
-a newspaper article about the 100-year anniversary of the Girl Scouts and its creator, Juliiette Low, given to me by one of the fantastic members of the Open Book Club in San Diego
-a letter from my mom to her best friend, written well before I was born. In it, she explains her love for the landscape of Reno versus that of California, saying that Reno makes you earn what California gives away for free
-a postcard of “The Raven” by the Brothers Grimm, sent to me with my own words written on the back, from the story of how girlchild’s Rory Dawn made you a CD, as shared on Largehearted Boy’s Book Notes: “…as is to be expected from a climber who carries the entirety of Melancholy under her arm…”
More souvenirs coming soon as the unpacking continues!
4:40 pm • 7 April 2012 • 2 notes
“Whether or not the reader is a dying breed is not Hardbound’s argument. But it’s my hope that the film will still be a record of what these creatures are like; live readers who leave their houses to encounter a book in person, ethereal as unicorns. But better than unicorns. Yes, better than unicorns!”
— Tupelo Hassman: Book Tour as Documentary
6:21 pm • 20 March 2012 • 1 note
Book Tour Souvenirs #10-13-ish!
I’ve begun collecting Q&A questions from the tour like wildflowers, pressing them between wood blocks to take out and listen to when all goes fallow.
So far, there have been two questions about the relevance of the Occupy Movement to those living in U.S. ghettoes, one question about what I think about what Romney thinks about what he says Obama says, and one question, presented as a statement, considering my life’s apparent trajectory despite growing up much like GIRLCHILD’s Rory Dawn, which is to say, impoverished.
I’d like to speak to this last question with the attached photo.
5:21 pm • 16 March 2012 • 9 notes
As I continue to untangle items from the girlchild Book Tour Souvenir Sleeping Nest, I admit, I didn’t only buy books while on the road, and Vlautin’s CD for Northside isn’t the only music I collected. Check it out, I came home with tunes!
Souvenirs 9-through-something are all from Portland and include:
Records from The Palace of Industry: David Live, Chuck Berry’s Golden Hits, and what might be my all-time favorite, Paul Simon’s Paul Simon
Sara Jaffe’s beautiful CD Salt & Water
and a ticket to download Cynthia Nelson’s in a lab, which I did, which I love.
Things to do today: Disassemble the nest (that is, unpack). Rock out.
4:07 pm • 16 March 2012
When I got home from the first leg of girlchild’s book tour (which is a three-legged creature, like the stool in that riddle…) the first thing I did was make a nest in all of the souvenirs I’ve been gathering, curl up, and take a long nap.
I’m awake now and it is time to stop hoarding and start sharing!
Souvenir #8, if I know how to count, is Willy Vlautin’s Northline!
I found this native-Reno author’s entire collection at Sundance Bookstore and Music. The awesome folks at Sundance told me that I had to start with Vlautin’s first, The Motel Life, but I was defiant because Northline (the first edition) comes with a CD, music performed by Vlautin and his Richmond Fontaine bandmate, Paul Brainaird. With a road trip before me, what could be better?
I haven’t cracked the book yet but I played and replayed the CD as landscapes rolled past and felt less lonely and more alone all at once.
2:35 pm • 16 March 2012 • 1 note
Keeping my incredibly easy promise to find a book at each of the stores on girlchild’s tour, here are the three lovelies I took home from girlchild’s journey through the Pacific Northwest with stops at The Palace of Industry and Powell’s, in Portland, and Elliott Bay Book Company, in Seattle:
-a magically old edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, the inscription is dated from a grandfather to his grandchild in 1903
-an Elmore Leonard collection, When the Women Come Out to Dance, like a shot of warm machismo on a rainy night
-Kevin Sampsell’s memoir, A Common Pornography, is next in my reading queue, which means it is traveling with me to Reno, San Diego, Los Angeles, and back home again!
8:06 pm • 5 March 2012 • 6 notes
fsgbooks:
“Ms. Hassman is such a poised storyteller that her prose practically struts. Her words are as elegant as they are fierce. A voice as fresh as hers is so rare that at times I caught myself cheering.”
That’s from a thrilling review of Tupelo Hassman’s Girlchild in today’s New York Times. As you can imagine, it put us in a very good mood here at the FSG offices. So we thought we’d celebrate by giving away a few sets of custom “Troop of One” Girl Scout badges. Why? Tupelo Hassman can explain.
I have five sets to send out. Follow us and send us a message with your address; I’ll pick the winners at random on Monday March 5th.
(Oh, and if you want to read Girlchild, here’s a couple chapters.)
10:08 am • 3 March 2012 • 5 notes
City of Portland! The Palace of Industry hosts tonight’s reading, “girlchild and friends,” with Zulema Renee Summerfield, Tye Pemberton, Sara Jaffe, and Matthew Stadler, plus music by Cynthia Nelson, and the Palace is a magical venue! Bradford and I went by yesterday to grab some exterior shots for Hardbound and wanted to move right in. There is beer, there is tea, there are typewriters to touch and buy, and coyotes race across the ceiling*!
Powell’s is tomorrow night’s venue and it was awesome to see Cheryl Strayed on the marquee, walk through its rainbowed rooms and drop off some rainbowed flyers I letterpressed just before leaving home (#geekierthanthou)! Thrilled at the honor of reading at this phenomenal store.
Next up on the Hardbound to-do list, grab some thoughts on being a writer and a reader from tonight’s fellow authors, then, off to Seattle!
*Can you find the bits of Bradford’s head I kept getting in my shots?
6:38 pm • 26 February 2012
Hardbound: A Novel’s Life on the Road is underway!
Monster, the film camera, made her debut on Saturday night at girlchild’s launch, where, in true Hollywood fashion, she broke a leg (to-do: get new tripod).
Yesterday was Monster’s first day out in the sun, taped up leg and all. Thanks to the soon-to-be in-laws visit, a whopping crew of four traveled to the Albany Bulb, a geographical and anarchical outcropping of San Francisco’s East Bay that is also one of the Best Places on Earth. D.P. for the day, Bradford, filmed the signing of a copy of girlchild and its arrival in its new home: a shelf in the Bulb’s Landfill Library.
Next on Hardbound’s road: the Palace of Industry in Portland, Oregon, followed by Powell’s!
10:47 am • 21 February 2012 • 5 notes
