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Push

A Novel of Hope and Sorrow in New York

You really have to admire Sapphire for her smarts in getting the movie based on her novel Push to be called called Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. It's not really clear what led to this slightly verbose title, but it's very well deserved and I can't imagine it was an easy fight. I'm sure the film-indrustry executives that handled the negotiations couldn't have been thrilled about complicating their simple name “Precious” But the book Push was not simple, even if it was an almost iconic New York story.Of course, by now everyone has seen the movie; it won tons of prizes and Monique was amazing in it it launched the career of Gabourey Sidbe as well. And we got see Mariah Carey all non-glam and really actually non kidding acting, so all that was pretty exciting.

What people are going to miss if they only see the movie (although the movie certainly does follow the storyline of the novel very closely) is one of the best use of unusual literary conventions I've seen. The book is written in first person by the title character, and as the title character's writing improves, the book becomes more complex and also more easy to read.

The beginning part of Push/Precious is very difficult to read both because of the extremely difficult subject matter and because Precious can barely write. But as she works with her teacher Miss Rain (who figures even more prominently in the book) she is able to write more clearly and put together sentences in a way that the average reader will understand. As Precious' writing improves, so does her ability to communicate her world. To be, that's one of the strongest points of the book, and why everyone who sees the movie should definitely follow up with a trip to the library to get the original book.

The Works

I don't know if The Works: Anatomy of A City is for everyone but it is for anyone who has the slightest inclination to be an infrastructure nerd, or for that matter any New Yorker who has wondered “hey now how does that work?”The Works is, perhaps not surprisingly, about how public works in large cities work, as demonstrated by the city of New York. The book is divided up into five section; moving people, moving freight, power, communications, keeping it clean and the future.

Although I found all the sections fascinating, some were more intriguing than others. So much has been written about the history of the New York City subway system that there was little in the public transit part of the moving people chapter that interested me or was completely new. The information about car commuters; however, was almost all brand new, since this isn't nearly as sexy a subject. I wish they'd included more information about the ferry system though. Most non New Yorkers only know about the Staten Island Ferry and think that it crashes all the time since when it does crash, it makes big huge news.

The communications section was a bit outdated, since most people I know in New York do not rely on their landline for communication at all, if they even have a landline. Although older people are disportionately more likely to have a land line, it's still often a secondary form of communication; if the whole land line communication system broke down, most New Yorkers would have to go to their offices before they even noticed.

Most interesting to me was the keeping it clean section: more about New York's sewage and garbage than you ever needed to know! Just the same, interesting and important stuff.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

saw New York that way Toby Young sees New York in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People I absolutely could not live here. Luckily, I either live in a different New York, or interact with different types of New Yorkers, or I am not as much of a jerk as Toby Young. Most likely all three are true.One of the most fascinating things about How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is that the author has no idea how ironic his title is. For starters, one would expect a book with such a completely self deprecating name to be written by someone who has a modicum and humility and understanding of his privilege. But Young, a straight white guy in a man's world (whether he believes it or not) is so busy feeling sorry for himself for not being well-haired and handsome and, I guess, taller, all he can do is find fault with the people around him. And this is the real reason you feel alienated and don't want to be his friend. Not because the behavior he describes is really so bad, although it is, but that he doesn't even realize that it's straight white male privildge that keeps him from any meaningful consequences of his behavior.

Take, for example, the fact that he gets a job at Vanity Fair. At first I wrote “writing at Vanity Fair” and had to delete it. The man never seems to write anything for the magazine. All he seems to do is get drunk and be offensive and bitch about the women and the gay men at the office (his misogny taken to its logical conclusion I suppose) and get into fights with people who have less power than he does. But are there any real world consequences? Nope. For all of Young's complaining about the way Americans handle class, he doesn't seem to realize that his whole life is supported by the privilege he pretends not to have.

The Sky Isn't Visible From Here

Addiction memoirs set in New York City are not uncommon and they are certainly not a new phenomenon. The city that created the term “Bowery bum” isn't lean on addicts, addiction, or drugs, although you are much less likely to get offered heroin walking across 42 street now than you were 20 years ago.But among New York City addiction memoirs, Felicia Sullivan's The Sky Isn't Visible From Here is a real stand-out for a few reasons. First, Sullivan doesn't shy away from vivid descriptions not just what she did and what was done to her (the salient points in most addiction memoir, as far as I can tell) but also what she feeling at the time. This makes for a more dramatic, in some ways, addiction memoir. Sullivan wasn't sleepwalking through any of this, and so the reader doesn't get to either.

Second, while many addiction memoirs play the either slash or game with their own behavior and their behavior of their family of origin, Sullivan doesn't do this. Instead she weaves the story of her own mother's addictions (to cocaine, to the men in her life who continually abuse her and her daughter) with her own journey through an Ivy League college to a prestigious MBA program to creating a whole alternative identity for herself.

Finally, Sullivan doesn't just deliver high drama situations. She talks about taking to her mother to the emergency room after she's overdosed on cocaine, but she also talks about equally heartbreaking aspects of her childhood that are more relatable: breakups with best friends, moving, and the never ending quest to find somewhere she fits in.

Bossypants

Okay I'll admit it. I stole a poster of Tina Fey once. I actually stole it right out of the display in the newstand at Philadelphia's 30 Street Station. Fey was on the cover of Philadelphia Magazine, featured in a feature called “celebs on how our city shaped their lives and atty-toods (the Philly was of saying attitudes if that's not 100 percent clear). I walked up, to the display and acted like it was my job to remove the sign, rolled it up, put it under my arm, and walked off. It graces my wall to this day.That's how much I admire Tina Fey, so I wasn't destined to hate this book written by someone who took the Boys' Club at Saturday Night Live and –with writing and will power alone and maybe some kind of weird super-power—made it into someone New Yorkers actually loved again.

Still, I was impressed with the book in ways I hadn't expected to be. I really enjoyed Fey's candor and humor, especially her self deprecating humor. Well, it's not exactly self-deprecating at least not in the same (annoying) way Fey's Liz Lemon character is self-deprecating. She makes a lot of fun of The Indrustry in the book, and more importantly and more funnily (is that even a word) she makes fun of the way human nature interactions with the excesses of television and celebrity. She also takes on Lorne Michaels, which it seems like no one else wants to do; she's not critical but she's certain very candid, and it's charming. I also appreciated her tales of adolescense, which I've recommended to teenager friends who stayed in the awkward stage longer than they'd like. It's hope in a hardback. Well, and probably in a softcover as well eventually, but the alliteration isn't as satisfying.

NYC Subway Reading

One of my favorite New York subway pastimes is a little game I call (at least in my head) What Is That Person Reading. The rules are pretty simple. Basically, you just pay a lot of attention to what people are reading and, if possible, try and read a little bit of it over their shoulder. I've actually gotten great ideas for books I want to read from this. One time I even ended up checking the exact same book (not the same title, the same book, I could tell because the cover was stained) from the Brooklyn Library as someone I saw reading the book on the L train.Now to be sure, Kindle has made this process much harder. You can't really read over someone's should when they're reading on a Kindle. Now I'm not using this a complete excuse—it's not impossible-- you have to be at just the right angle in order to do any over the shoulder snooping and sometimes the maneuvering is awkward at best, confusing or even offensive at worst. Plus there is no way you can even guess what someone is reading before you get in that position (not being able to see a cover of any kind) and that can make for a lot of disappointment.

I can't tell you the number of times I've done so twisting and moving and twisting some more only to find out some commuter from Long Island is reading that same book about who you meet in heaven that everyone else has been reading for the last decade and that I tried to read but ended up hating. Although it does prevent that awkward situation wherein someone prepares to get off the train just at the good part and you have to ask them to miss their stop so you can finish reading.

Holidays on Ice

Hilarious NYC Tales

Sedaris' largely New York based Holidays on Ice may be one of the least returned Christmas gifts of all time, although I bet it's not uncommonly passed along (meaning shared, not necessarily regifted) because frankly, it's about the funniest thing to ever be written about the Winter Holiday Season.The Santaland Diaries is the anchor for this short book, and it's one of Sedaris' best works. And if you've ever been to the Herald Square Macy's during Christmastime, you won't doubt that a single word of it is true. The short story is a perfect mix of his almost weirdly fastidious attention to detail blended with his convincing misanthropic observations and the pre-existing bizarre way America retail turns the holiday shopping season into something almost religious in nature (the shopping that is, not the holiday) that make the whole thing jaw droppingly hilarious. Anyone who can read Sedaris' account of interaction with small children who are often accompanied by a strange brand of sticky, a troubling bit of stinky and more than their fair share of attitude without thinking “oh I am SO grateful for my job” probably works pre-sort at the local nursing home laundry facility.

I also really enjoyed the Christmas Letter parody, Seasons Greetings To Our Friends and Family, which is not as well known or popular of other Sedaris' short works, but it nevertheless hysterical in its unironic take on the very ironic “happier than thou” Christmas letter.

In a cute twist, the real More Successful Than Thou Christmas Letter is found in the form of the parody short story towards the back of the book, Christmas Means Giving.

Reading After Dark

In Law and Order SVU the character Chester Lake has such severe insomnia that he roams the city every night, which gives him an excuse for knowing every nighttime sound of every borough. Why he doesn't just stay home and read a book like the rest of New York's insomaniac is never quite explained. However, if you're an insomniac New York reader who, like Chester Lake, just can't stay at home and be awake, there are some options for late night reading in the city that never sleeps.

The first option is the Tick Tock Diner. The Tick Tock Diner, located in the lobby of the New Yorker hotel and across the street from Penn Station, is not a fancy place. To say that it doesn't have great ambiance doesn't even begin to describe it, and the food is mediocre on a good night (definitely stick with breakfast or grilled cheese or another diner favorite). But the thing is Tick Tock is wide open 24 hours a day, so the people watching, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, is fantastic. What might you see? A troupe of drunken Belgian chefs or a team of drunken Peruvian rugby players. Or a whole heap of girls with big hair who were driven in by van from New Jersey. Regardless, if you order yourself a full meal and a cup of coffee, you can finish reading War and Peace here. Or maybe get some ideas for characters in a War and Peace of your own!

The second option for when reading replaces sleeping is Think Coffee. If you spend the wee, or nearly wee hours here, you can get jacked up on very tasty coffee and equally tasty grilled cheese sandwiches,. Three of the Manhattan locations for Think Coffee are open until midnight or later and their Mercer location stays open until midnight and has free wifi.

Swish by Joel Derfner

"Swish is an interesting look at gay life in New York in a certain time... and on a roller coaster."

You can't help but root for Joel Derfner, the author of Gay Haiku, in his (relatively new) memoir, Swish. Like Augusten Burrough's Dry, New York City is definitely a character in Derfner's book, as well as his life. His blog, in fact, is heart-rendingly called The Search for Love in Manhattan. It's hear-warming that he has found love in Manhattan, although he does appear to blog less often now.Anyway, about Swish. Swish is a strange book in all the ways a memoir should be strange, because people are strange. It starts out as a comedy and ends up as a tragedy. But then you keep reading and then you say “oh my good gracious it's a comedy again!” Which again, is kind of like life, which is most often a tragedy and comedy combined and you never have any idea what you're in for next or even whether it's a tragedy or comedy that you're in at that moment.

Swish is an interesting look at gay life in New York in a certain time... and on a roller coaster. When Derfner attempts to join New York's gay cheerleading squad (he's easy to throw, apparently) it seems to be going well, but when he fails at a pick-up or spends time with someone who is clearly real bad for him, you're thinking “uh uh.”And when he writes about his mom dying, Jews, the Holocaust and atheism, you can't help but think really hard and cry just a little. Or maybe a lot.

Manhattan Readings!

The first time I went to a reading at the Union Square Barnes and Noble, I was amazing by a couple of things. First, the huge size of the store, second, the amount of people it could hold, and three, that they had such a problem with crowd control that they needed to place instructional stickers (see above) on each and every chair that was set up at a reading. The truth is, the Union Square Barnes and Noble doesn't host readings, it hosts celebrity sightings. If you want something with a little more depth, you'll mostly have to go elsewhere.

Since reading series come and go in the City like rats in the West 4th Street Subway Station, the best way to find a good series is by searching out the venues themselves. For example, the Bowery Poetry Club and Cafe, (308 Bowery) almost always has something interesting and semi-literary or at least semi-literate going on, sometimes more than one thing in any given night. They often have storytelling events as well. Stay away from anything marked “Slam” unless you are up for a very specific type of experience, since those are often open access, open mic type events. Any given performer might be fantastic but they also might be horrendous. Bowery has a bar, and while events usually have a cover, there is seldom a drink minimum.

Another place to look is the Housing Works Cafe, one of the best bookstores in town. Housing Works hosts all sorts of different readings, and events; as of this writing they had a “speed shrinking” event scheduled, where troubled New Yorkers could meet and greet a number of therapists in a short period of time. Ah, New York.

KGB Bar is a third place where you're almost always guaranteed a reading. One series, the venerable Drunken Careening Writers reading, has been going on every month for more than a decade. Finally, check out the nonprofit, all volunteer collective Bluestockings Bookstore and Cafe, for some queer/quirky and progressive events.

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