Life Artists 2: How to Turn Your Town into a Surreal Wonderland

That first post on Guerrilla Art-in-the-Round (as Lisa dubbed it) was so popular that I've been collecting links ever since for a second go-round.

*Cartoonify your life with a Sharpie and some pingpong balls, courtesy of Dyers.org.  Want to see this Muppetification on a grand scale? Check out FilthyLuker's DeviantArt gallery.

*Zoomdoggle strikes again with their Fun-O-Meter, a spiritual successor to the late, lamented Gumball Poetry. For fifty cents, you get a fun idea, a toy, and a quarter. Can't beat that in this town!

*The Toy Society started as an Australian street art project, but now "spreads the love throughout the streets of the world. Nothing to it really just a bunch of handmade toys looking for a nice home. "

*Got a steady hand and some chalk? Create your own choose-your-own adventure story on the streets of your neighborhood, just like the Mission Stencil Story

*LexofGreen is the one of the heir apparents of the glamourbombing community. Her fae (read: devious and quirky) sense of humor shines through her work. Seen here are her watchful trees, but I also love the havoc she wreaks with balloons and toy dinosaurs

*Fellow NYC denizens: you are lucky enough to have three guerilla art-ing collectives in your midst. Improv Everywhere is the one with the elaborate pranks, Flux Factory does the strange and thoughtful installations, and Newmindspace is all about having childlike fun on a giant scale.

All fired up, but want something to keep you company when curling up in bed after a long day of chalking? Here are a few guerilla-arty titles

13 Little Blue Envelopes is too much fun to give a lot of the plot away, but when its heroine discovers a series of letters from her beloved late aunt, she sets off on a whirlwind tour of Europe to do good in others' lives and make the world a more whimsical place--as well experience some crazy adventures of her own! It's very Amelie-esque for the teen set, and I love it.

 

 

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks is smart, funny, and cleverly full of inspiration for girls displeased with the social status quo. When Frankie's barred from her boarding school's boys-only secret society, she takes inspiration from the Cacophony Society and turns the Basset Hounds onto their heads, raising awareness about the inequalities present on their prestigious campus. Sound boring? Not when the Library Lady, a hound made of produce, and a kidnapped guppy make their appearance!

 

                                                                                                                                   Love, Stargirl is the superior follow-up to the infamous title about a magical girl who transforms a school, then leaves under mysterious circumstances after human nature kicks in. The sequel proves that Stargirl is no Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but a very human teen with hope and heart and plans to bring her community together in unique ways

 

 

 

The Queen Geek Social Club is rather on the light side for LSL,  but its heroines--who start a social group for misfits and plot screwball schemes with the help of a fussy but kind-hearted house robot--are charming enough to warrant  a check-out from your local library. I could do without Shelby's love interest in this volume and the sequels--he's a whiny, possessive drip--but the musical numbers, Feed the Models campaign, and ping-pong proms will keep you entertained.

Another New FLB Book!

Good news, everyone! According to the Francesca Lia community, Suza Scalora and Francesca Lia Block will be collaborating on a new title called Evidence of Angels--which already has a HarperCollins placekeeper website.

Ms. Block is crazy prolific this year! This means we have

The Waters and the Wild (I've read the ARC of this; it's a nice meld of her old and new styles)

Evidence of Angels

Open Letter to Quiet Light

Little Pink

Pretty Dead

Wood Nymph Meets Centaur: A Mythological Dating Guide

Lay Me Out Softly

and House of Dolls

to look forward to in 2009!

The Order of Odd-Fish by James Kennedy

Have you read any Neil Gaiman? He's clever in such an understated way, making such things as poetic redheaded trees, children raised by ghouls, and an angel and a devil coming together to save the world perfectly believable, touching and human.

China Mieville? He's endlessly inventive and deeply dark, filling underworlds with unsavory characters, salacious detail, and gripping underhanded plots.

Tom Robbins? He writes absurd, whimsical modern-day myths with strange characters saving the world from mundanity.

If the three had a magical literary baby who fended for himself in the dusty stacks of a small liberal arts college with arcane moonlit rituals until he was rescued by the members of pagan art-rock group My Barbarian, it would be The Order of Odd-Fish.

Jo Larouche was an extremely dangerous baby--but life in her movie star Aunt Lily's ruby palace in the desert was blissfully dry and tame till a neurotic hedgehog, a three-foot tall cockroach and a mysterious package from the sky crash Lily's costume ball and Jo's humdrum life, setting off a wild adventure full of ostrich jousting, dangerous epic pranksters who create the most terrifying balloon animals in the world in a battle, knights who revel in useless knowledge and pointless quest, underground worlds, elaborate ceremonies, a mysterious actress who knows more than she lets on, dangerous musicals and the end of the world as we know it. 

Kennedy's first novel is so many odd flavors wrapped into one, a novel as rich and creepy and magical as Eldritch City, where Jo discovers her past and apprentices herself with the Order of Odd-Fish, knights and dames trained in esoteric sciences and obscure knowledge as well as jousting and ostrich-taming.  Together, they'll save the world from destruction at the hand of the all-devouring Mother, aided by the deadly Silent Sisters and the notorious Belgian Prankster, whose hideously humorous reality show leads to rumors that he may, in fact, be the devil himself. It has a sometimes droll, sometimes quick sense of humor best appreciated by someone with a love for words:

There was so much to learn, so many new things to do, she felt it was impossible to take everything in. Even in the evenings, the knights would gather the squires together to give seminars about their own specialties: Dame Myra would show off some man-eating flowers or metallic, glassy blobs she'd collected in the fens, or Sir Alasdair would give each squire a different musical instrument and watch in silent amusement as they unsuccessfully tried to play them, never offering any help--not even when Nora's instrument got angry, sprouted wings, and flew away.

I felt as if the first few chapters dragged a tiny bit, but once Lily and Jo escaped to Eldritch City, the story picked up at breakneak pace. Another little caveat? The love interest is a brave and true lad, but sometimes I didn't feel so interested in their blossoming relationship. (I have a far more interesting match for Jo, but Mr. Kennedy may not totally approve.) Hands down favorite character? Audrey, the gifted actress with a heart of gold and mischievous spirit:

One afternoon Audrey and Jo picked the lock to Dame Delia's secret dissection lab, and they spent hours examining dozens of Dame Delia's dead monsters. A huge spider was still spread on the dissection table, its underbelly opened up to expose its colorful guts; other creatures floated in barrels, hung from the ceiling, or were squashed away in drawers; still others were sliced into sheets and bound like books. Audrey stole what looked like a furry starfish and hid it in Ian's bed, and that night Ian's road of shock woke up the entire lodge, and Audrey and Jo had to bite their pillows to muffle their hysterical giggling. (This was part of Audrey and Jo's campaign to torture Ian until he got rid of his mustache. When he finally shaved it off, Audrey organized a small funeral for it.)

If you love elaborate ceremonies, weird motives, strange smells, hideous devices, a classic quest with Lovecraftian squishness, strong women and strange men, and the odd creature or two (tame squid anyone?), The Order of Odd-Fish is for you.

*James Kennedy's website

*His blog

*His performance group, Brilliant Pebbles: An exciting mix of romance, epic battles, space dance, psychology and fun. Adventures of imagination. Time through obstacle courses. Holy arrows in directions of orbiting eyes to new places. Animal knows, human houses guide -light- start -shoes- fireblood hearts SURPRISE ! Red curtains, and baroque bows. Gymnastic mirrors floating in hope. .

*Chicago Reader's interview/review, "A Giant Peach", which mentions his next work, "The Magnificent Moots, a sci-fi comedy he describes as “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets Ender’s Game meets The Royal Tenenbaums meets A Wrinkle in Time."

*Laini Taylor's excellent review (scroll about halfway down):

You know how it's better to watch a comedy with somebody, that somehow the humor is riper and deeper when shared? Well, the whole time I was reading this I wished I was reading it with someone, so I could elbow them at particularly bizarre moments, or chortle, or read passages aloud and savor them. I don't recall having that kind of reaction when reading a book before, at least, not so consistently.

Capsule Prize Reviews: That's Bold

Like the shiny little prizes you get from a gumball machine, here are three titles I've picked up in a recent library jaunt involving brave teens defying tradition for notoriety, to stand up for a cause, or just to make some excellent music

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart, had me sold at the promise of mischievous doings in the name of gender equality. Frankie's an incredibly likable heroine; she plays ultimate Frisbee, writes papers about the Cacophony Society, and falls in love with P.G. Wodehouse's writing. When faced with an sexist secret society, she infiltrates and turns it on its head. This is a fast-paced and fun story with trenchant insights about the screwed-up nature of teen socialization. However, no moralizing harpy is Frankie; she takes what she's learned and uses her wit and savvy to get a message out there; her secret reign as a Basset Hound is responsible for The Library Lady, The Night of a Thousand Dogs, and the Canned Beets Rebellion.

Wide Awake, penned by David Levithan, has the quirk and charm of his less serious YA fiction. Duncan, our hero of this near-future novel, is thrilled at the prospect of a gay Jewish president. When Kansas declares a recount of votes, he travels with his town's Green Party team to protest, along with his furiously idealistic boyfriend, two self-proclaimed Jesus Freaks (who come from a movement that asked What Would Jesus Really Do?), and a couple of old-time dreamers from the 90s. Wide Awakes suffers at the hand of some heavy-handed lessons in politics and society delivered via the prospective president, his minions, and Duncan's peers. Despite this, it's little details (the non-shopping malls where you barter for self-shaping jeans and roasted marshmallow perfume, community-made pancakes, and the fact that pop music will always be painful to listen to), perfect emotional moments (including one of the best love scenes I've read in YA fiction, ever), and optimistic look at the future make it a good read for the curious and fans of Levithan's other work.

Plastic Angel, Nerissa Nield's first novel, is the sweet story of a budding folk-rock duo. Randi's a drifter on the edge of the popular crowd; Angela's an outcast for being too beautiful, too successful as a child model. With Randi's famous songwriting father's gift of a guitar and a certificate "good for FIVE lessons," she's inspired to turn around their boring summer by starting a band. Both girls are preternaturally gifted in music, and experience the joys of song scribing, secret recording sessions, and dressing like you don't give a damn under the gentle glow of their guardian glow-in-the-dark plastic angel. With Gellie's mom hell-bent on raising the next Lindsey or Miley, the two girls deal with family squabbles, social machinations, and some really heinous agents in pursuit of their dream. Gellie's mom is truly vile (SHE GAVE HER GUITAR TO GOODWILL. BITCH.) until intervention, and her adverse reaction to Angela's interest in music seems overblown, especially in this age of pop-superstars. Besides that sour note, it's a cute first work with some excellent emotional depth and fantastic descriptions of the joy that comes of creating music. Included with the book are sample tracks from This Town is Wrong, the novel's soundtrack--so you can actually listen to the songs the girls write in the novel.

*E. Lockheart's website and blog
*Read the first two chapters of The Disreputable History...
*David Levithan's website
*Read the first two chapters of Wide Awake
*Nerissa Nield's website
*Read an excerpt from Plastic Angel

This is for the girl: Tomorrow All Will Be Beautiful by Brigid Lowry

In the garden there was a mossy statue of Venus de Milo, the goddess of love. There were tamarillos and grapefruit and a plum tree, and purple wisteria petals thrown in the air like confetti. The gum blossoms wore fuzzy red ballet skirts, and a wild tea-rose curled in the window of the shed. Nina was eight years old and she loved the garden. It was a place of secret corners, of light and shade. In this quiet place the girl played alone, making lipstick from petals, and dolls from old wooden pegs. ("Nina")

Tommorrow All Will Be Beautiful collects prose and poems into a stunning whole, with a subtle theme of There is more than this, there is beauty everywhere. Her writing is full of earthly goddess wooed by chocolate dipped pears, women marrying seahorses "carrying a bouquet of red nasturtiums and surrounded by my bridesmaids, a merry row of dancing paper dolls," first crushes that will be "a handsome gypsy boy who'll break my heart, or a soft girl with a diamond in her belly button." There are family stories, tragic deaths and losses of friendship, dreams deferred, and questions of identity hidden within the pocketful of stars. Gracing every story are delicate black and white pencil illustrations, teacups and bamboo and high-heeled sandals layered scrapbook style within the text. I especially love her more experimental pieces: "An Alphabet of Girls with Glorious Names" demonstrates her gift for memorable characters painted with the shortest, brightest strokes of a pen, "Coffee, Love, Everything" is the day in the life of The Frangipani Cafe and its inhabitants delineated by its playlist, "A true story involving elves and starlight" documents the real correspondence between Brigid and a young poet named Grace.

I want to tell them that I spent my whole childhood wanting to be ordinary, to get away from my beat-up family with their beat-up lives; but that ordinary is dreary and special is the best. I wish I could show them my angel statue from Indonesia and the anenomies in my pink-blue silent evening garden. I want to say that my auntie bred snakes and that everything changes; that life is hard but you must treat it softly....("The Mirrored Surface")

Brigid Lowry is queen of opening lines, dreamy protagonists, and collage-like prose. This (sadly, Australia-exclusive) collection of her short pieces and poems is for the girl who holds parties in her head, and the girl who wants a nose ring, and the girl who thinks it's entirely impractical that she can't have a pet dragon--readers as whimsical, tragical, and beautiful as the girls woven into Tomorrow All Will Be Beautiful.

Tomorrow All Will Be Beautiful is one of those sad Australia-only exclusives. If you've got the dosh, import it from Gleebooks. If not, pick up a copy from a UK distributor; Book Depository has the best price, cheaper than the AU cover price (and free shipping everywhere!).

If you've followed me this far and need a Brigid Lowry fix now, let me introduce you to three titles you can pick up at your local book emporium.

My name is Rosie Moon. I come from a line of women who have flower names. I'm hungry for a juicy life. I lean out my window at night and I can taste it out there, just waiting for me.

Guitar Highway Rose is the story of Rosie and her friend Asher, and how running away can sometimes lead you exactly where you need to be. As they grow, their parents learn how to let go and become their own people.





As I drifted off I remembered the love spell, safely hidden in the pocket of my dressing gown. Money in one pocket, magic spell in the other; a dressing gown of great riches and supernatural power.

Follow the Blue introduces you to Bec and her crazy, messy, loving family as she grows brave enough to let her wild side out to play. It was one of the first books I reviewed; check it out here.





I wish I lived in another time and place, where round bodies were the fashion. Maybe in Paris in 1892. I can see myself, on my balcony, picking a red geranium from my window box, waving to the handsome boy from across the street. How plump and lovely she is, he thinks, as he waves back. I breakfast on buttery croissants, hot chocolate, and peaches, wearing a cream silk kimono and slippers embroidered with golden birds. Or maybe Tahiti, in Gauguin's time when women were big and brown and lovely no one wanted them to be any different.

Things You Either Hate or Love finds Georgia determined to find love and the $500 she needs for the concert of her dreams. Inspired by The Pillow Book, she documents her attempts in lists, journal entries, and little scraps of her day.

*Brigid Lowry's website
*"Saturday Night," a short piece

Whatever You Are, You Revel in It: Notes from the Teenage Undeground by Simmone Howell

Sometimes it takes more than a cursory read to fall for a book. Sometimes it takes five hours of personal time navigating the public transit system of NYC to give it the undivided attention it deserves.

Bev named me after her favourite feminist, Germaine Greer. My namesake was brave and audacious, a sexual libertine, and an authority on Shakespeare. Umm...much to live up to?
Bev insists all that all smart girls have an inner Greer. I picture mine asleep under a rock or kidney stone.

Gem thought she and her unlikely trio of friends would rule their school, leaving the "barcodes" in their waste. Wild Lo leads the pack, slipping into different roles as easily as she slips into Gem's castoff wardrobe. Mira tests the limits of her newfound beauty, still as desperate for attention as the gawky preteen she once was. Gem, however, is in pieces. A little bit she owes to her well-meaning artist mother Bev, who's done her best to combine security with freedom in their nest. A little bit she owes to her father, a cipher who took off to the Bush before she was born and sends dubious haiku every holiday. A little she owes to the summer projects of the past, when she rubs oils into her chakras and lights candles and a cigarette to consult the I Ching.

Lo is inspired to lead the girls Underground this summer, imbuing their days with guerilla art, cinema veritee, and surrealist acts to sabotage their exams. Gem is exhilarated studying such muses as Warhol's Freaks and the second-wave feminists as well as working on the script for her first film, but Lo and Mira have other plans for their Happenings and Gem's hard work. Gracelessly figured into the equation is her video store coworker Dodgy, a film student in love with criminally bad movies and the sound of his own voice. While navigating the wreckage of her friendships after a hysterically bad first Happening, Gem's father decides to reappear, throwing another curve into the path. Ultimately, she transcends her obnoxious peers and comes into her own as a feminist, an filmmaker, and her own self--or at least has found the tools to do so.

I told them about Nico, the Teutonic blonde who front Andy Warhol's "house" band, the Velvet Underground. She looked like an angle and sang like a drone...In the Factory days she had a white suit and a black suit and that was all she wore.
And I told them about Brigid Berlin, who was fat and loud and funny...Her parents were society people, and everything she did horrified them.
And I told them about Viva, who studied art at the Sorbonne, and Ultra Violet, who had a thing with Salvador Dali, and Candy Darling, the realest looking man-woman ever. I talked nonstop for half an hour, telling Lo and Mira about all the beautiful freaks, finishing on Edie tickling her though with a scarlet ibis feather.
"These were women who didn't care!" I summed up.
How cool, not to care.

Sometimes I forget the urgency of teenagerhood. The elements that I found hair-tearingly annoying (Gem's inability to just ditch her friends at the first sign of betrayal, the endless quest to lose her virginity) are true to life for the normal teen who looks past what the media and her peers feed her. In morally bankrupt twentysomethings such as myself, it may inspire one to spread horrible, untrue facts to the young and gullible. ("If you don't lose your vees by the time you're 21, it'll grow teeth and eat all your best knickers!") After seeing Gem subdued time and time again by her rotten so-called friends and love interest, it was wonderful to see her come into her own with her family and new allies in the last act. The writing is crisp and fast-paced, with satisfying emotional depth and great observations: Gem describes the State Library as "filled with the perfume of knowledge," where Mira "finds it a challenge because it's rife with nerd boys" and Lo is "Our Lady of the Microfiche." Oh, all this and Gem's a hoot too.

Dodgy indicated the screen..."Edie [Sedgewick] gave film the best years of her life."
"Maybe it's a good thing. She wouldn't have remembered them otherwise."

Notes from the Teenage Underground is a terrific first effort, carried by its unique angle and refreshing approach to feminism. (Gem is skeptical but open-minded.) I enjoyed it thoroughly, and can't wait to see what Simmone Howell comes up with next.

*Simmone Howell's Website
*Simmone Howell's Livejournal
*Interviews: at Pink World (especially good!), Up Close and Personal, Slayground (also very good!)
*Some of the films featured: I Love You, Alice B. Toklas; The Sandpiper, Midnight Cowboy, Three Coins in the Fountain

I Wrote with Freedom and Courage: Secret Scribbled Notebooks by Joanne Horniman

I wonder if I read enough about the lives of other women whether I would find out how I want to live my own. Whether I’d feel surer about what I wanted to do with myself…I feel like I have been waiting my whole life for something to happen. For someone to come along and change me. Or for a grand event, like in an opera—lots of shrill singing and fancy costumes.

But now I want to choose the way I live my life

The big question is, How?

I unabashedly, wildly, ecstatically love this book.

That's why I've put off writing up Secret Scribbled Notebooks, penned by the magnificent Joanne Horniman, for so long. How could I possibly describe this story so close to my heart, this story about growing up as warm but expansive as its setting, the guesthouse named Samarkand?

Kate O'Farrell is perfectly ordinary--17, red-haired and be-freckled, possessing beautiful feet, three notebooks, and a fig tree in which she writes. Red for lists, music, favorite words, and writeups of the books she so loves. Blue for her scant memories of the family that left her, and the one that didn't (her sister Sophie and Samarkand's caretaker, Lil). Yellow is her wonder book, where she looks outside of herself at the events of her life, weaving them into the mythic tale of a woman who eats Turkish delight, tames a fox spirit guide, and works for a publishing house where the editors sing together at lunchtime.

This isn't a book where all that much happens, but at the same time, so much does. Sophie has a baby girl, Hetty, whom Kate loves enormously. After a chance meeting at the local used bookstore, Hope Springs, Kate meets the mysterious Alex. He is her first love, and she puzzles through the intricacies of her relationship with a boy who courts her with mint tea, fresh from the garden, and possesses little more than a typewriter and past as cloudy as her own. Her best friend Marjorie is a vintage darling with Louise Brooks hair who loves physics equations and cake baking in equal amounts, and they quake at the looming exams, ones that will decide Kate's fate. She grows, changes, and passionately loves life; every page has a turn of phrase, an observation that catches my breath and makes me sigh.

Secret Scribbled Notebooks is a story for book lovers. Sophie quotes Oscar Wilde, Lil hides from the guests with chocolates and novels, and Kate falls into the embrace of great literature, who finds that "kissing a book was like hugging a tree. It made me feel better." She reads Anais Nin and Virginia Woolf and Sei Sonogan, finding her thoughts mirrored in literature.

There are several threads that run through the novel: the sisters' missing parents, the question of Sophie and Hetty's future, and Kate's own reluctance to leave what little family she has, questioning if she even has the right to do so. Each reaches its own satisfying, if not always oblique, conclusion. You will ache when you put down this novel, as it hurts to leave her behind--but you will smile, for the gift of having known Secret Scribbled Notebooks. It's the best book you've never read.

I am thrilled to tell you that a companion book from Sophie's point of view, My Candlelight Novel, will be released on the first of September. Currently looks like a Australia-only release thus far, but you may have luck with UK book distributors--I'll be checking The Book Depository like a fiend till it's out. I also like Gleebooks, but shipping from Australia's gone a bit out of my budget--if you can, try them, they've got an excellent selection and are so good to international customers.

*Secret Scribbled Notebooks at GoogleBooks
*Joanne Horniman's other books are Mahalia and Little Wing (companion novels about a young man raising a baby on his own, and the mother's year without her child), as well as A Charm of Powerful Trouble (a sensuous, evocative novel about a slightly mystical family living in a rainforest, which ties for the number one book in my heart next to this one. It also has major points for featuring a Non-Miserable Lesbian Character.)
*Some of the books Kate reads: A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf. The Diaries of Anais Nin, Volume 5. Nausea, by Sartre. Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. Good Blonde and Others, by Jack Kerouac.
*The title of the book is from Jack Kerouac's "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose:" "1. Secret scribbled notebooks and wild typewritten pages for yr own joy"

Everyone was Making a Story, All the Time:Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier

Sometimes it's harder to write about the things you love best. Born Confused, penned by Tanuja Desai Hidier, is easily one of my favorite books, an epic coming of age tale that I've put off reviewing too long for fear of not doing it justice.

Dimple Lala has your typical YA-girl teen experience. Her parents don't understand her, her best friend's gone loopy for the wrong guy, and she has distinctly bad luck in the dating department. Here, your resemblance to the typical YA-girl teen book ends. Born Confused is a tour de force of artistic and cultural discovery, a story about finding out who and where you are and learning to love it and work it, filled with gorgeous descriptions of her world, fusion outfits and her mother's Indian cookery and the brilliant gatherings of minds and matters that become important to Dimple for the first time.

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Dimple hits bottom, stuffed into a slinky white outfit, drunk on cheap alcohol, and stuck on a blind date with a creepy artist dude who expects her to be an Indian love goddess. The only place left to go is up, and a birthday gift from her sympathetic cousin Kavita leads her to a summer discovering new facets of her Indian identity and the exhilirating community gatherings happening a hop, skip, and bridge and tunnel away in New York City with her beloved camera, Chica Tikka, along for the ride:

A woman was singing, after all the man vocals, with a scorchingly sweet voice that sounded like India herself, mingling with the prodigy of the deer-eyed, mud-caked rapper, all atop an ever-weaving tapestry of sitar and snare and cachunking key. Somehow, the music felt exactly right. It was full of as many emotions as a bite of bhel puri; it crunched and it spilled and it lingered and was gone in a heartbeat.

While this newfound interest brings her closer to her parents (in a lovingly drawn, natural manner that's a joy to read), conflict arises when her best friend/supertwin Gwynn decides to adopt the exotic aspects of Dimple's culture as her own--including Karsh, aka DJ Gulab Jammin', subject of a failed matchmaking session by the Lala's who becomes a reluctant crush. So much is in these 500 pages: family secrets, bursts of humor (the dialogue is especially witty and creative, with lots of made-up slang and catchy little phrases coming from Gwynn's glossy lips and dry wit from Dimple's mother), stunning imagery in saturated color and a deep message about being who you are:

And this much was clear now: It was no passive homogenous creature, identity, but rather diversity, a thrashing grind and all-out dirty dancing together. It moved and it grooved and it might even sleep with you before marriage. You were the dancer and the dance, and you could shape yourself through a riff, or a shrug, or an on-the-back spin, adapt to new rhythmns without losing a sense of harmony with yourself. And harmony, that was no static thing either, but so many different parts coming together to sing the same song.
And the beat, well. The beat you had to follow was your own heart.

A thing of beauty and a joy forever, Born Confused is not to be missed.

*ThisIsTanuja.com is Tanuja's home on the web
*Born Confused has a companion album, When We Were Twins. If you love folky art-rock with an electronic spin, give Tanuja's band a spin
*Tanuja interviews: Bookslut, MyBindi
*Want a crash course in the music from the book? Bollywood for the Skeptical is my favorite mix cd's worth of Bollywood tunes.
*Back in Oh-Four, I saw Tanuja's band, San Transisto. Here's my writeup of that night.

Gender is a Choice, Not a Life Sentence: Freak Show by James St. James

Where have I been for the past few months? Where haven't I been is a better question, but there are too many answers to that one--"Budapest," "Salamanca," and "Bluestockings NYC" come to mind. Where I have been is a much easier question to answer, and that would be Library School. Yes, like many greater book bloggers before me, I'm on the path to be a custodian of the cultural record, a grande dame of the general public's right to truth, knowledge, and the best damned Story Hour and Macaroni Picture Workshop in the NYPL.

Here are a few facts about your blogmistress: I live in Outer Borough of NYC, I go to East Coast Library School and love it more than I can stand, and when I'm not reading, I'm teaching myself how to watercolor and play Tori Amos songs on the keyboard. My favorite Outer Borough hangout is the Everything Goes Book Cafe, and if it were possible to marry The Strand, I probably would.

I've also invited my professors to view my oeuvre online; hello professors!

Now, down to business. Today, I have a review of a heartwarming tale about the coming of age of a teenage drag queen, Freak Show by James St. James.

(Goodbye, professors!)

Billy Bloom has accepted his fabulousness. The population of his reform-school-cum-prep-academy is not so keen on letting an all-singing-all-dancing fully costumed review of one flounce confidently through their hallowed halls. The abuse Billy endures is brutal, and culminates in a month-long stay in the hospital after a savage beating. His savior? The untouchable school quarterback, simple but kind-hearted Flip (who, need I mention, Billy is over-the-moon-and-heels-over-head in love with):

Since the day he carried my limp and lifeless body into the emergency room here at Plantation General Hospital, he's been by my side...He's been talking to me nonstop, he says, telling me stories, details about his life and his plans, anything at all, hoping that maybe the sound of his voice would guide me back.
And now his prayers have been answered.

Well! How about THAT!
Of course, I'm WILDLY jealous of myself for spending SO MUCH TIME with him and hearing his stories and GETTING TO KNOW HIM like that. I wish I'D been there. I wish he would tell ME stories. It's not fair!
COMA BILLY HAS ALL THE LUCK!

Upon his triumphant return (wearing flowing white and bestowing blessings on all who did wrong by him), Billy decides to use his new untouchable status for good. How? By running for Homecoming Queen, of course. The opposition, Lynette Franz, has all the wholesome charm of a cupcake laced with arsenic, but Billy perseveres, winning the vote of his school's underground society and sparking a media war. I won't breathe a word about the end, but it's fitting and lovely.

Billy Bloom posesses the most unique voice I've read in young adult literature; if you can't abide capslock speak, you'd best turn back now. He is raunchy and witty and passionate, but with a heartbroken undercurrent sparked by the death of his relationship with his bon vivant mother. One of the only criticisms I have about this book is that this particular thread was not explored in a deeper manner, and it would have been great to see closure to that storyline. However, what is here is so surreal and wonderful. The story particularly picks up when Billy's best friend, Blah Blah Blah (I shan't give away her real name) joins him in a bloodless revolt against the status quo. While she suggests tae kwon do classes and The Art of War, he offers to design a boomerang tiara and hypno-belt-buckle with a compact full of knockout powder.

The art of fashion and makeup is Billy's driving passion:

Suddenly, I was tired of my mewling, tired of feeling powerless, and tired of being traumatized. I burst out of the cupboard and took over my place at the makeup table. Ah! The healing power of creation.

Our hero, a self-proclaimed "gender obscurist" (I love that term!), makes himself over with fierce Kali-inspired warpaint, bubbling wigs, and Spanish-moss draped gowns. You've never read fashion so over-the-top, except maybe in Simon Doonan's work and of course, Ms. Block's own. Billy's use of the healing power of art and transformative qualities of costuming (not always beautiful, mind you--he dresses as Dead Zelda Fitzgerald for an oral report, with strategic use of Grape Nuts and burned finery) brings to mind a line from "Fashion Quest:"

Call me superficial. But when my soul is fully expressed by my body, she can leave her dark room, sing her stories out loud and fearlessly dance.

There is something here in Freak Show that I've rarely seen before in queer teen lit. Despite the horrors that surround Billy, he never internalizes the horrendous things said about him. He realizes that the people out to hurt him are ignorant, cruel, or both, and his place in life is to speak for those who don't possess his bravery, or must keep silent to preserve their own lives.
Another rare theme is that of gender fluidity; sexuality in the Oughties cannot be easily labeled and categorized, and many young queer people are experimenting with all the shades and tones of gender identity. I loved seeing that explored in an exciting, positive manner in Freak Show.

Freak Show is a marvelous revenge-of-the-geek story, smart and sophisticated enough for the adult freak, but lively and snarky enough for its teen audience. I cannot recommend it enough for its fantastic narration, wicked wardrobe, and beautiful message.

You are a drag queen! It's your nature! You provoke. You expose. You arouse and inspire.
You open wounds and push buttons and rattle cages.
You unleash demons. You do! You do! You waken slumbering tigers. You know you do!
It's the path you've chosen. The life you desire.

Freak Show, by James St. James
The author's Myspace
A video on how to make your own tentacle makeup (Cheerios are involved)
"Holden Caulfield in Chanel, Size 4," an amazing interview at the School Library Journal

Painful and Magical, Like a Martyr's Jewels: The Orpheus Obsession by Dakota Lane

I feel a spark inside, thinking of his drawing in my book like a treasure. The day worked out beautifully. There are moments when you only have to think a thought to make it happen. If only that were true at all times. You could paint your world in perfect strokes. I heard some lady in the grocery store say that the veil between this world and the other world is growing thinner.

This is one of the best quirky-chick-with-a-camera-on-surreal-adventures novel that nobody's ever heard of, and I'm sorry for them.
It's your girl-meets-rock-star-and-gets-in-trouble-for-
ignoring-mythic-archetypes kind of story.

Anooshka is the kind of girl that falls in love often, but not with those you might expect-- her parakeet-psychopomp Zack, old people at the beach, and of course, the hidden beauty of NYC:

I left Moon's and took pictures of trees in an East Village park, until a deep twilight fell. An ecstatic bird sang out, with clean silver notes, expressed so freely. All the birds started up then, the cooing, the warbles, the flutey trills, all the good-byes sung to the sun from the tops of trees. Shadows scattered in dark shapes on the ground and the trees grew black, but between them there was golden light.

Then darkness covered everything, birds, leaves, trees.

Anooshka Stargirl meets Orpheus, falls in love, is frightened by fangirls and taunted by the wannabe glitteratti of her small town in New York. She loses her friends, her self-respect, and ultimately her own self, stripping herself down to nothing in an unexpected twist in the 3rd act of the novel that will appeal to fans of NYC lore. Ultimately, Anooshka forgives herself and starts anew with a fresh perspective on her strange origins, a theme in Lane's work to date. (Get your hands on Johnny Voodoo if you loved this one. It's worth it, I promise.)

One of the best little details are Anooshka's photographs incorporated right into the narrative, along with Orpheus's lyrics (which feature copyright info for a touch of realism-genius.) Lane does a fantastic job of bringing Anooshka's world to Technicolor life, full of teen drama, the secret lives of rock stars, really great fashion and food, family secrets and all those silly things us fangirls do. Read it after Dangerous Angels, and as a companion to Born Confused (another gorgeous "girl with a camera, a dream, and a Metrocard" story).

P.S. When this book was first published, several musicians wondered if it had been written about them-Moby being the most public. I caught little things that would point that way (the fabulous desserts at Orpheus's cafe in the city, and the tiny alien dude on his gear), but the word from Ms. Lane is that nope, sorry, he's not the man you are seeking.

The Orpheus Obsession by Dakota Lane
Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Powell's

Whatever Wild Idea Suits You: Going Going by Naomi Nye

Ah, youth. A time of figuring yourself out, finding first love, and...taking up causes?

So goes the plot of Going Going by Naomi Nye. Sixteen year old Florrie has a pechant for grey clothes, old postcards, good Mexican food, and her pet project; as the button of a fellow protestor says, she is out to Keep San Antonio Weird.

After blowing out the candles on her pineapple-topped, smiley-faced sixteenth birthday cake, Florrie encourages her family to join her in patronizing only small, local businesses. She implores them to keep away from larger corporations that threaten the character of her beloved city--not to mention her Lebanese family's Mexican restaurant, which has been open for several decades. Her mother and father accede easily, noting that it would be something their parents would have encouraged; her brother True is skeptical. All agree to give up big business for sixteen weeks, the remainder of the year. From there, Florrie goes on to encourage the rest of her city to join her--starting with her neighborhood, which is more than happy to take up the cause. However, hurdles come in the form of an apathetic public, laws nobody even thought about, and Ramsey, the handsome young son of the owner of the Marriot with a taste for adventure to match Florrie's own:

Ramsey wanted to see everything: the toilet seat museum, the Shrine of the Black Madonna. He wanted to see the wolf-dog spirit that supposedly haunted the grounds of the Mission Espada. Florrie had never heard of it, despite her specialization in Weird Things.

Nye's language is fluid and fun, with a gift for simple but beautiful images:

Pasquale de Leon would be wearing his bright blue overalls, arranging crates of fresh tomatoes and zucchini around his battered green truck in the parking lot down the street. He was the one that caused Florrie to fall in love with turtles when she was a little girl. He would give her chunks of mango and papaya to pitch into the river and all the mysterious turtles would rise.

Florrie has a rather unique voice, comfortable in her skin and sure of what she believes in. The supporting characters are a bit weak (I would have liked to get to know them better--especially Ram), but her family shines; they are loving and functional and it truly is a pity they're too busy to spend much time with each other. If the descriptions of unique places and people run away with themselves, Florrie is an engaging enough narrator to put the story back on track. The conclusion is open-ended but hopeful.

This is one for your idealistic younger friends, or those wishing to relive those wild carefree days of culture jamming. Going Going is a suitable primer for the youthful starry-eyed protester, as Florrie's actions are commendably non-violent (Be positive, support local and independent business, research the law, dress up, leave a false name, be legendary...wait, those last three are Hakim Bey), so never fear.

Enjoy with some low-key 60s folk and an avocado chalupa.

Going Going by Naomi Shihab Nye
Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Powell's

Before you know it, you're all tangled up in purple and turquoise: Follow the Blue by Brigid Lowry

Stories are mysterious things. Beginning, middle and end, that's what they tell you at school, but life isn't actually actually neat and tidy like that. It's more like a funny old muddle of weird threads that sometimes has boring bits, and sometimes has tricky bits, and sometimes has just-right bits...

Bec, collage artist, gardener, and narrator of Follow The Blue, succinctly sums up the whole of the novel on the first page. The line of blue that she chooses to follow winds through dealing with her father's nervous breakdown and recovery, coping with a naff housekeeper with an interesting past, and figuring out the best way to spend unexpected money.

Lowry's characters, whether small children or middle-aged office workers, always hold a bohemian bent which is quite charming. Bec's family holds a number of interesting members: her sister Bing, who shears her own hair and dresses up her guinea pig; her brother Josh, with a room full of specimens and a predilection for making up email addresses; mother Vera, a famous chef who "eats and dreams food;" and father Lewis, a thoughtful architect who "is more interested in the essence of things."

This is a character-driven novel; those looking for a thrilling plot may do better elsewhere, but for a gentle but realistic coming-of-age story, Brigid Lowry's your woman. Bec's a teenager through and through, which means a little awkwardness and a bit of whinging, but she is creative and generous and the sort of girl I'd befriend in no time. The descriptions of life in Australia, especially the food and gardens and art, are absolutely delicious, such as this passage narrating a visit to Bec's father in the institution:

Bing spent ages checking out the pig's nether regions, and when she absolutely sure that she owned a girl pig she chose the name Begonia...Vera made up a song to celebrate. 'Begonia, Begonia, the fabulous creature from Patagonia,' she sang. Usually I feel embarrassed when my mother sings, and wish she didn't try so hard to be young and funky, but that day her singing felt just right. Josh made Begonia a daisy-chain necklace and we all sat around lazily in the sun and finished off the chocolate mud cake. Begonia ended up with a tiny sticky brown moustache and Josh found a two-dollar coin that someone had dropped in the grass.

Hand it off to younger teens craving the sun and surf and a group of arty friends, or keep it for yourself if the winter's got you down and you wish your family's eccentricities were this interesting (but I'll bet you ten to one that they are).

Best enjoyed with All Girl Summer Fun Band and fresh fruit.

Follow the Blue by Brigid Lowry
(Her website features a lively biography and prose poems, check it out!)
Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Powell's