Stephen McClurg
Dove has written some great poems and there are some good ones in here. I get the feeling while reading some books of poems that the author is just getting a book out there instead of letting these things sit awhile and then revising them. I don't think this is necessarily a fault of Dove, but of publishing in general.
Dove hits the mark with some lines and descriptions: “a dirty wingspan/of the daily news” and “tidy rupture.” “Twelve Chairs” and “Evening Primrose” are my favorite sequences in the book. As part of an installation by Larry Kirkland, the “Twelve Chairs” sequence was carved on the backs of twelve marble chairs in the lobby of the Federal Court House in Sacramento.
A Well-Designed Life Is Not Without Disorder: Paul Sahre's Two-Dimensional Man: A Graphic Memoir
I made two mistakes when I chose this book. One I make all the time and may get Paul Sahre's approval as a designer. I chose this book because of its cover. I'm rarely rewarded, but I do it anyway. The cover design for Sahre's book looks like somehow all the cover information had been set on top of the book, and then someone picked it up and everything slid down in a ragged pile at the bottom. It immediately drew me in. My second mistake was thinking that this was a book written by or about Jean-Paul Sartre and that the “two-dimensional man” was maybe one who acted in bad faith or was unfulfilled in some way. While Sahre broaches some existential angst and anxiety, that's not this book.
The first thing to hate about this memoir is the author's style. It's well-written and funny. I hated this because a part of me hoped if Sahre was this entertaining in writing, his design work would be awful. This, of course, counter to the fact that he likely designed the cover that piqued my interest. And that's the second thing to hate. His work is really good. It seems unfair.
When I opened the book and realized it was about design, I thought that at least it would be a quicker read than the imagined Sartre book. It was so immediately entertaining, I had to go back and check that I was indeed reading a memoir about work in graphic design. Sahre's intro about his early art and his family is as easy and fun to read as David Sedaris. I didn't expect it. An early drawing, prominently and embarrassingly displayed in his parents' house, gives the name to the prologue: “Demon Eating Human Flesh.” This picture was a favorite of Sahre's troubled brother who renamed himself “Angus” after Angus Young from AC/DC. Sahre describes his grandfather's choice of one day capping his Old Spice with the head of a GI Joe doll, and deciding to continue this until his death. What's wonderful about this object is that it is at once a bizarre juxtaposition, like something in a Devo video, and also a functional aspect of someone's toilet. Quotidian magic.
When Sahre's book finally becomes the book one expects, the one about design, the reader may feel cheated, but that's only in comparison to the rest, and then only slightly. The table of contents page for Part Three seems to be a clue. Echoing the cover, the contents are in a heap at the bottom of the page. He's sifted through piles of ideas, work, and events from his career and offering lessons and observations. The sections are shorter and more matter-of-fact. He discusses everything from teaching to business, including what he learns after a profanity-laden shouting match with Steely Dan.
Two-Dimensional Man also reminds me of Stephen King's craft book/memoir On Writing, one of the few books about the craft that non-writers seem to have read and enjoyed. Both books are worth multiple reads in the way they show how lives shape art and art shapes lives. Like other satisfying books about particular arts, Sahre's book has important lessons not only for others hoping to go into graphic design, but also anyone hoping to improve their work or hoping to find inspiration. Besides seriously analyzing fonts and their features, and having a deep understanding of basics like shape and color, Sahre put in a great deal of sweat equity painting signs and creating his own silk screen machines to create posters outside of his regular hours of design work at a firm. He sometimes slept on a cot in his office. There is some luck to his process and success, but a lot of labor went into creating that luck.
Like many of the popular business and marketing books I've read, this one is easy to read and has several ideas and techniques that are immediately applicable to my situation. After a few months or so, I'll likely review some of the chapters and see what I need to review and what I need to begin using.
Overall, the book is a fast-paced page-turner. A fun Sunday read with some nice plot twists. Contemporary readers may find it too “talky” and not bloody enough, but that's part of the charm here.
Relating to an Irrelatable World: Melinda Camber Porter in Conversation with Wim Wenders
I assume that like many others, my initial interest in this book was in Wim Wenders. It also caught my attention that this was about my favorite movie of his, Paris,Texas (1984), and that the interviews were done during filming. I was hoping that the book would then be a peek into the process that Wenders was using for the film, and there the book doesn't disappoint.
For example, Wenders and Sam Shepard, one of the screenwriters, are full of doubt and concern that the film may fail artistically and monetarily. Neither artist was a total unknown at this point, both were fairly well-established in the industry, though not necessarily household names, which didn't seem to be their goals anyway. The takeaway, particularly for young artists, is that even established creators work in self-doubt and struggle. Wenders, who had been making movies for almost a decade-and-a-half at that point, says, “I mean if you make a movie that questions its own ideas all the way, you realize that questioning your ‘ideas' really means questioning yourself.” For him, this means that he has to maintain confidence in those around him, even “mankind,” (though I'm not quite sure what that means–maybe that the film will find its audience?) rather than himself.
While not always discussed blatantly, much of the thematic material shines through the conversation. Wenders discusses the “discrepancy” in the title, Paris, Texas, and you realize how much that illuminates the film. Wenders, a European, telling this story written by Shepard, an American, sometimes iconic for his loner/rambler status. This discrepancy, really a beautiful tension, gets carried over into the film in which the viewer encounters the visuals of the American landscape set to a European cinematic pacing.
Initially, I thought that this was more or less like many “on set” books, but opening it up to the title page I noticed that it was labeled as part of the “Melinda Camber Porter Archive of Creative Works Series in Journalism” as “Volume 1, Number 3.” I was wondering if Porter was someone I should know or had read before, but didn't remember her name. Reading her bio I realized she had died of ovarian cancer in 2008 and “left a significant body of work in art, journalism, and literature.” When I had casually flipped through the pages previously, I wondered why there were pictures of the tapes and cassette recorder that Porter had used to record the interviews. It just seemed odd, but the backstory helped me make sense of them.
There are photographs in the book by Porter that are spare and gorgeous, reminiscent of O'Keefe's desert paintings, yet more abstract. Her husband, Joseph Flicek, also has photos, though his remind me more of Andrew Wyeth in terms of color and composition. When I carve out some time, I'm interested in seeing her paintings.
After reading the book, I was directed forward in a couple of ways. One, it made me interested in Porter's work, an artist that I knew nothing about. Two, the conversation made me go back and watch Paris, Texas for the first time in about twenty years. Not only did it look much better, since I wasn't watching it on a rental VHS, but the movie was even better than I had remembered. And that's probably the best praise I can offer a book that is a transcribed conversation, that it is an impetus into the creative works under discussion.
Sure it's kind of a re-telling of Gilgamesh, but it reads like a surf/tiki-noir filtered through Lot 49-era Pynchon.
The energy of the book reminded me of the best parts of the old Choose Your Own Adventure novels, too.