The young men he found, who held him at gunpoint, were initially concerned that he might be part of a rival Mexican gang. But fortunately for him, and for us, the gang leader, a gentleman referred to within the book as J.T., decided that since Venkatesh had been courageous — and naive — enough to come into his world, J.T. would act as his patron, and let him hang around his building in the Robert Taylor Homes.

Venkatesh began by spending lots of time with J.T. and other gang members, but eventually broadened his research. From the first, it’s clear to me that the residents put up with him for three main reasons: his connection with J.T., the potential that he could do something for them, and the basic human need to tell their stories to an interested listener. I suspect that Venkatesh’s staggering naivete — initially genuine, but later used as a more deliberate strategy — was also key to convincing many people that he wasn’t a threat.

Until, that is, he became one. But I’ll leave that for readers to discover.

Serious Wire fans will be reminded of characters from the show. J.T. is sometimes reminiscent of Bodie, sometimes of Stringer Bell. The good cop, Officer Reggie, made me think of Carver — the post-Hamsterdam, mature Carver. As Venkatesh gets close to other groups within the building and learns the strategies they use to survive, fans will be nodding their heads, too.

Perhaps my favorite moment in the book is when the building manager, Ms. Bailey, calls Venkatesh out on his complicity. I also appreciate Venkatesh’s willingness to include his screwups, and his honesty in assessing his motives.

Like The Wire, Gang Leader For A Day tells compelling stories that aren’t often told, is frequently funny, and reveals uncomfortable truths about American society. I’ll be interested to see how the book is received.

It’s making me think a lot about, among other things, how to optimize your life for writing. Not just in the obvious ways, like, you know, making time to actually write, but in seeking out the sorts of experiences that can be transmuted into compelling prose.

Yes, I know, like Ellen reminded us at Clarion, you don’t need to have murdered someone to play Macbeth. I did not attend the Siegel Institute for Gifted Youth (which doesn’t exist), I do not live in Forest House (which doesn’t exist) nor am I a member of Flytrap Circus (which doesn’t exist). When you read the story I’m writing for Comic Book Tattoo you’ll see that I’m not a part of that world either.

But I do think that especially as we settle into professions and circles of friends and stable relationships, it gets harder to find new things that shake up our brains and engage us with the world differently. And despite my frequent travel (I’m leaving again on Thursday), I’m drawn to the familiar and comfortable. I want to fight those tendencies, or at least be more aware of them, this year.

Man.

You go away from easy Internet access for a week and somebody hacks your dang MySpace. For any of y’all who got bulletins from “me” alerting you to the latest horizontal hijinks of a young lady who I will not name, who is famous for being famous, please accept my sincere apologies. I’ve totally changed my password and reestablished ownership. I think.

It was a very bookish ambiguous winter holiday. I have just added to my obsessive LibraryThing catalog the following:

• The Points of my Compass: Letters from the East, the West, the North, the South, by E.B. White
• The Sound I Saw, by Roy Decarava
• Moomin: the Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip
• Strange Landscape: A Journey Through the Middle Ages, by Christopher Frayling
• The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, by Natalie Angier
• The Edwardians, by Vita Sackville-West
• Washed Up: the curious journeys of flotsam and jetsam, by Skye Moody

Some of them came from the several good used bookstores along US 101 between Lincoln City and Newport, one of which has this excellent poster:

Two of them came from the Visitor Center at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, which I highly recommend. We also purchased a fine rubber octopus, learned a bit about Antarctic whale research, and I took a few pictures. Here’s one:

Some fish you don’t need to work at all to anthropomorphize.

Last but not least! The other thing I did while away from the ever-enticing Internet was to finish writing my story for the Comic Book Tattoo anthology, which a few of you may have heard about already — it’s coming out this summer from Image Comics, and all the stories are inspired by Tori Amos songs. I don’t think I’m allowed to say yet which song is mine, but I’m extremely psyched about the story and the project as a whole.

Happy end of 2007 and beginning of 2008!

“Like what?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “like, you know…books.”

For some reason this made her laugh uncontrollably.

But it’s true. I’ve worried, ludicrously, that if I post in a substantive fashion about books, that I will:

• Make my friends who are also authors think I hate their books if I don’t happen to write about them
• Appear utterly biased if I write glowing praise of my friends’ books
• Offend someone, somewhere
• Otherwise Get It Wrong

Upon reflection, I realize that this is more or less insane. So one of my early New Year’s resolutions is to post more about books. I’m going to start by writing about some of the books that I imprinted upon, the ones that still hold up on rereading, the ones that really shaped aspects of how I see the world. Stealing a phrase from Francis Spufford, I’m calling this “series” Books That Built Me.

First up: Finn Family Moomintroll and other Moomin books by Tove Jansson.

I have owned this book for most of my life, as you can see:

The link above will give you an idea of what the Moomin books are about; I’m going to tell you a few things I took from them, with supporting quotes.

An expansive definition of family and an approach to hospitality:

Moomintroll’s mother and father always welcomed all their friends in the same quiet way, just adding another bed and putting another leaf in the dining-room table. And so Moominhouse was rather full — a place where everyone did what they liked and seldom worried about to-morrow. Very often unexpected and disturbing things used to happen, but nobody ever had time to be bored, and that is always a good thing.

The first restless wanderer I encountered in fiction:

“You talked of plans,” Moomintroll went on. “Have you got any yourself?”

“Yes,” said Snufkin. “I have a plan. But it’s a lonely one, you know.”

Moomintroll looked at him for a long time, and then he said: “You’re thinking of going away.”

Snufkin nodded, and they sat for a while swinging their legs over the water, without speaking, while the river flowed on and on beneath them to all the strange places that Snufkin longed for and would go to quite alone.

And the first obsessive collector:

At last the Hemulen burst out: “How hopeless it all is!” And after another pause he added: “What’s the use? You can have my stamp collection for the next paper-chase.”

“But Hemulen!” said the Snork Maiden, horrified, “that would be awful! Your stamp collection is the finest in the world!”

“That’s just it,” said the Hemulen in despair. “It’s finished. There isn’t a stamp, or an error that I haven’t collected. Not one. What shall I do now?”

And the first sufferer of panic attacks and nameless dread:

fillyjonkexcerpt.mp3

A short excerpt of me reading from one of my favorite short stories, “The Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters.” Click and you’ll see why I wanted to read it out loud.

At this point I should remind everyone that yes, these are children’s books.

“Every children’s book should have a path in it where the writer stops and the child goes on,” Jansson said. “A threat or a delight that can never be explained. A face never completely revealed.”

What I love about these books, and what stays with me: the combination of coziness and bleakness, the characters that apparently were sometimes based on family and friends,  the warm house full of comfort and conversation, the wide world full of adventure and danger just outside.

It was only recently that I realized that there are ways in which their work reminds me of each other’s, so I  made a few notes about things that both creators explore. If I were a real literary blogger, this would be a real essay, with full paragraphs and stuff, but I am scattershot and fragmentary, so here are some fragments:

Memory and its nature, how it can be manipulated/enhanced.

The unintended consequences of technological advances.

The nature of artistic creations, reacting to them, reinterpreting them, using the narratives of others to deepen and enhance the story being told. “She reads, thought Milena in admiration, unheard-of books.”

Culture clashes and connections, rituals.

Political organization and its discontents.

Details that immediately let the reader know she’s somewhere unexpected – the sneakers and the portable music player from this bazaar scene in Talisman; this bit from the opening of Child Garden:

It was a production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. The children were bored; they could follow the play with such ease…’Another one of these New History things,’ sighed a little girl in the front. Her cheeks were purple from the sun. Her voice was sulky, light, breathy. She was about three years old.

1. Wildfire has the most minimal website I’ve seen since approximately 1996, but at least there’s a phone number and map. We went there last night. I learned what sopressata is, and that it is delicious, and also that truffle oil is a fine addition to a mushroom-oriented pizza. Check it out, Portlanders.

2. American Gangster and other stories by Mark Jacobson. The title story is the basis for this movie. I can’t speak for the film, but I agree with the Entertainment Weekly review that puts Jacobson in the tradition of Joseph Mitchell as a New York City chronicler. Also, were I to make a “If you like The Wire” booklist, I would put this book on it.

3. Territory by Emma Bull. Thanks to Greg for the recommendation. You could, in fact, high concept it as magical Deadwood. I enjoyed it enough that I started over at page one again immediately after finishing. I love the way she handles the magic.

4. I was happy to see that Rules is one of the titles featured in this Eclectica Magazine article: An Extra Helping of Family Chaos. The reviewer is the inimitable Colleen Mondor, who also wrote the Territory review I linked above. I’m especially pleased that she loved Battle.

5. And a question: what, if anything, are you going to do and/or be for Halloween? (And is there any other context in which we ask “what are you going to be” without following it with “when you grow up”?)

I smiled and thanked her, because it was easier than explaining, but I figured I should pass the sentiment along to the person it was actually intended for.

Another highlight: one girl in Laurie’s very very long signing line was a fan of Empress.

Both/and, again. Librarian, writer. Simultaneous.

But — I’m not an editor!

The event, excellently emceed by Gabriel Boehmer, brought out a bunch of writers, among them Katie Schneider, Ellen Urbani, Monica Drake, and Kassten Alonso. Kass won, and as previously stated I was the runner up.  We were the two library employees in the room, so perhaps that conveyed an unfair advantage. The library school student who was present (also a bookseller) acquitted herself nobly as well. Cheers all around.

Other notable literary events of the day: Lessons From A Dead Girl appeared! And so, apparently, did a book by some guy named Colbert.

Also: all y’all in Portland should buy your tickets to see Laurie Halse Anderson this coming Monday night! It will be super fantastic.

Here are some people posing with their favorite books. I love the black and white documentary-looking style, and I’m also fascinated by the titles people chose.

There’s a new interview with me up over at YA Books Central; it’s one of the many features of  GLBT Month. Speaking of all things GLBT, check out Worth The Trip, a great, newish blog devoted to queer books for kids and teens.

On another topic: it’s 4:37 AM as I type. When you find yourself awake in the middle of the night, what do you do to re-achieve unconsciousness? (Blogging, I find, is not so effective.)

I’ve been enjoying Thomas Hine’s The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager, enough that I’ve put two of his other books on hold, too. Here’s a quote:

Our beliefs about teenagers are deeply contradictory: They should be free to become themselves. They need many years of training and study. They know more about the future than adults do. They know hardly anything at all. They ought to know the value of a dollar. They should be protected from the world of work. They are frail, vulnerable creatures. They are children. They are sex fiends. They are the death of culture. They are the hope of us all.