SHORT TAKES There is no finer gift than a well-chosen book. Here are a half-dozen eloquent shortcuts to somebody’s heart, plus a few other chakras.
Walking Woodstock: Journeys into the Wild Heart of America’s Most Famous Small Town Michael Perkins & Will Nixon, illustrations by Carol Zaloom Bushwhack Press, 2009, $18.95
Two clear-eyed poets celebrate their local landscape and a friendship forged on foot in sprightly, remarkably varied essays that exalt the pedestrian in every sense. “Walking is subversive,” writes Perkins; Nixon calls it “a radical act.” Foot Stompin’ Book Party: 12/6 at 3pm, music by Bruce Ackerman, Spider Barbour, Julie Parisi Kirby & Laurie Kirby, Kleinert/James, 34 Tinker St., Woodstock.
The Hudson River Valley School: Nature & the American Vision Linda S. Ferber Rizzoli International, 2009, $50
This sumptuous presentation of Hudson River school paintings and related artworks (sketches, ceramics, engravings) from the collection of the New-York Historical Society begins in New York City, then travels upriver and into the wider world. Ferber’s text is detailed and informative, and the wide-format layout provides panoramic vistas with every page turn.
Bob Dylan Revisited:
13 Graphic Interpretation’s of Bob Dylan’s Songs W.W. Norton, 2009, $24.95
Another Bob Dylan book? Yes, but this one’s a feast for the eyes. Thirteen celebrated graphic artists, many of them European, spin visual narratives from Dylan song lyrics. From the poison-laced acid trip of “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” to the spaghetti-western “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and the near-wordless charcoal noir of “Lay, Lady, Lay,” each segment suggests a film storyboard.
The Christmas Magic by Lauren Thompson, pictures by Jon J Muth Scholastic Press, 2009, $16.99
This mesmerizingly simple story of waiting for the magic that makes reindeer fly is both a classic holiday tale and a parable of patience and inspiration. Vibrant watercolors by Ulster County Caldecott honoree Muth conjure homey interiors—his mustachioed Santa heats with a woodstove and wears bunny slippers—and mystical northern nightscapes.
Hudson Valley Mediterranean: The Gigi Good Food Cookbook Laura Pensiero William Morrow, 2009, $30
The owner of Rhinebeck’s Gigi Trattoria and Red Hook’s Gigi Market offers a mouth-watering array of 120 recipes using seasonal produce, artisanal cheeses, and other local bounty. Interspersed with “snapshot” portraits of such foodie destinations as Sky Farm, Montgomery Place Orchards, and Hearty Roots Community Farm, Pensiero’s recipes escort you from farmers’ market to table.
Women’s Anatomy of Arousal: Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure Sheri Winston, CNM, RN, BSN, LMT Mango Garden Press, 2009, $19.95
Exuberant, frank, and revelatory, Winston’s “in-depth, illustrated tour of the land of female genitalia, feminine sexuality, and the intimate erotic arts” is the ideal holiday gift for anyone who has, or desires, a vagina. Give it to someone you love (including yourself) and get ready for tidings of comfort and joy.
The Awakener: A Memoir of Kerouac and the Fifties Helen Weaver
City Lights, 2009, $16.95
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here is a beautiful Jack Kerouac anecdote that Kingston resident Helen Weaver retells in her memoir The Awakener. Walking on MacDougal Street, composer David Amram suggested that he and Kerouac cross to the sunny side, but Kerouac refused, saying, “A writer must be a shadow.” His French way of walking—“hands in pockets, head down on one side”—is itself relevant to our understanding of him; it is a style one still sees, according to Weaver, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the novelist’s hometown. Other than Rimbaud, there may be no other literary icon as inexhaustibly intriguing. Inventor of the term “Beat” (from beatific), Kerouac embodied the polarities of lowdown hipster and sacred seer. He was a wild man and legendary drunk, but those who were closest recall his sweetness, his singing voice, his respect for animals, and his movie-star looks. Helen Weaver had a romance with the revolutionary writer in the year preceding his rise to fame with On the Road. Her new book is as much about Kerouac—the meteor and its impact—as it is about her own ambling through the dales of the New York literary world. Blessed with friends and tutors such as Richard Howard, Robert Giroux, and Susan Sontag, she translated over 50 books from the French, including Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings, a finalist for the National Book Award. Brought up in straight-laced Scarsdale, Weaver initially moved to the Village to pursue a same-sex college crush. She slaved in publishing before discovering that her métier was translation, and in fact it was her workaday normalcy that killed her relationship with Kerouac. A noisy night with Lucien Carr led her to kick the ruffians out (the men were blasting her “My Fair Lady” record), a betrayal her lover was not about to forgive. Despite some misgivings about being suddenly out of the coolest of loops, she couldn’t ignore that living with him “was undermining my health and possibly even my job.” In retrospect, she reflects, “I rejected him for the same reason America rejected him. He interfered with our sleep.” Still, one detects that Weaver must have been preternaturally hip. Comic provocateur Lenny Bruce was another “awakener” with whom she had a momentary fling. “Lenny was one of us. He saw through all the bullshit that was going down, from sexual prudery…to the true obscenity of racism, poverty, religious bigotry, nationalism, and war.” Weaver collected signatures to protest his 1964 obscenity trial. It is noteworthy that Kerouac refused to sign (“I hate him. He hates everything.”)—a response Weaver attributes to Bruce’s attacks on religion. The subject of Kerouac’s Dharmic-Catholicism is given more play than in other accounts, owing to Weaver’s Aquarian proclivities. She later became a learned astrologer, and ultimately adopted Kerouac’s mantra, “Nothing is real. It’s all a dream.” But during their time together, she thought this was simply “a load of crap.” Although Weaver’s narrative is bolstered with letters, journal entries, and humorous glimpses of her psychoanalysis, the reader may yearn for more detailed reporting of the heady scenes she was part of. Weaver has not forgotten the sexism that tainted even the enlightened Beats, but she speaks from the sunny side and is grateful for their energy and vision. Like Kerouac, she was drawn to bad boys and dictionaries—it’s easy to see why they were a match. Helen Weaver will appear at the Golden Notebook in Woodstock 12/4 at 5:30. —Marx Dorrity
46 books ChronograM 12/09