Thursday, December 16, 2010

Whats The Best Car Thermostat

Novels in New York # 24: One Day I'll come and throw stones at your window


The closest thing to "One Day I'll come and throw stones at your window" I have read is the Official Biography Ramones di Jim Bessman e, sia chiaro, è un accostamento che faccio con piacere. Con quel piacere tipico del lettore che ha tra le mani un volume da scoprire e ne viene catturato già alle prime pagine.
Il romanzo d’esordio di Claudia Durastanti, italiana di Brooklyn classe 1984, è un affresco transgenerazionale che parte dalla fine degli anni 70 e giunge ai giorni nostri attraverso le vicende di giovani irrisolti, inquieti, più o meno angosciati dall’esistenza, che arrivano a Manhattan dal vicino eppur lontanissimo New Jersey, terra di periferia e di piccole trasgressioni sfrontate nel look e smarrite nell’anima: “Starai bene a New York. Sono solo venti miglia da qui, ma so bene che c’è un fiume in half, they just get there and find out how much you scare your diversity is commonplace here that you could sell so well. "
Jane and Michael, Francis and Zelda, Edward and Ginger live a postpunk version of the American dream ( the phrase "The American Dream is over" peeps since the cover), the boys will attract and repel the magnetic field of the city the world's most coveted among college premises, rented rooms, underground parties, but always surrounded by lots and lots of music (the author is an expert in indie-rock, a collaborator of the webzine IndieforBunnies ). What
old prof (who also ... about my age) called "young universe" here is gutted, sometimes almost vomited on the pages of the author's sharp as you can appreciate the ability to tell the years she has lived and serene (cynical?) distance by which ignores New York "fashion" to reveal unconventional corners and neighborhoods of the city, pop art, the opposition, the rebellion of the characters to something that perhaps did not understand what it is but in any case to which it is right to rebel.
The book proceeds with a fitting multilevel narrative, postmodern heir to the dictates of John Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer and his (I know, this blog I quote him often, but there you are) and descriptions that reveal a brilliant originality "The German word Neu (a record store, ed) of the sign was painted lime green, the color that most of the other Jessica associated with that type of music. What then is the color of the drains in the Batman cartoons and teeth of the Sex Pistols singer who calls himself Johnny Rotten. "
who wanted to attend any concert at CBGB, it stopped more than five minutes in front of a work by Basquiat to see America, who thinks that the disk was crap then and now rather than revalue, read Claudia's book and read it along with all others.
A day will come to throw stones at your window , Claudia Durastanti, Marsilio, 2010

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Church Member Welcome Letter

Novels in New York # 23: New Trilogy Novels


The first contact with the works of Paul Auster I had in 1995 through the comic book adaptation of his story City Glass, published by Bompiani and recently reissued by Coconino Press.
time I was employee of the Italian edition of Batman and one of the drafters of the Dark Knight, David Mazzucchelli, was part of this project of graphic novels with Paul Karasik.
I was so impressed that I went immediately to look for the book, that The New York Trilogy that in addition to City of Glass also has Ghosts and The Locked Room .
The stories appeared in the U.S. between 1985 and 1987 have arrived in Italy by Rizzoli, and then, ten years later, published by Einaudi for the "Supercoralli" and continually reissued under "Super ET.
are three detective stories, unusual and haunting, with memorable anti-heroes and writing a textbook for a New York real and surreal at the same time. Auster is one of the best writers and New Yorkers do not find some in this blog. In City of Glass
the main character is Daniel Quinn, a writer of detective, who gets a call from a stranger who mistook him for the investigator Paul Auster. Needless to say Quinn decides to meet his mysterious interlocutor: Peter Stillman, troubled individual from the past ...
In the second story, Ghosts, the protagonist is a real investigator, that Mr. Blue, who is nominated by his boss, the mysterious Mr. White, to spy on the mysterious Mr. Black ...
Finally, The Locked Room. Here, as in the first episode, the character around which the story is a writer, tracked down by his wife of his old friend, Fanshave, who disappeared mysteriously years ago. Through the manuscripts of his friend, the writer reconstructs the strange life of Fanshave, you will fall in almost replaced but ... a surprise is coming.
stories, in hindsight, are not disconnected from each other. Reading them in a row makes us feel involved in a game of roles not defined (who follow those who spy who, who loves). The noir becomes almost a psychological thriller, the reader is led not only to wonder how it will end, but also to look inside himself, to identify themselves in situations that are most unlikely they reflect on life.
And then there's New York, a beautiful and metaphysics: "New York was an inexhaustible place, a labyrinth of endless steps: and as the exploring, getting to know thoroughly the streets and neighborhoods, the city still left with the the feeling of having perduto".
Trilogia di New York , Paul Auster, Einaudi, 2005

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Does Shingles Cause Throwing Up

York in New York # 22: The Stochastic Man


Ecco uno di quei "lampi di futuro" citati nell'intestazione del blog. L'Uomo Stocastico (The Stochastic Man) è un romanzo di Robert Silverberg, classe 1935, scrittore considerato, a ragione, uno dei maestri della fantascienza con circa cinquanta romanzi all'attivo.
Innanzitutto, per quei pochi che non lo sapessero, spieghiamo che l'aggettivo stocastico significa "dovuto al caso, aleatorio, congetturale" ed è proprio di congetture, previsioni e probabilità statistiche che il protagonista Lew Nichols, è un esperto. Le sue capacità sono messe al servizio di Paul Quinn, sindaco di New York con ben altre ambizioni politiche. Siamo in un futuro oramai passato (romanzo del 1975, ambientazione 1997-2000, e oggi, sempre per quei pochi che non lo sapessero, siamo nel 2010).
Il talento di Nichols è però nulla al confronto di quello di Martin Carvajal, personaggio enigmatico, squallido e insignificante nell'aspetto, che finanzia Quinn e inizia un inquietante connubio con il protagonista.
La New York narrata da Silverberg è apocalittica quanto basta, socialmente devastata quanto basta (ricchi ricchissimi, poveri poverissimi, bande di afroamericani che annunciano l'acquisto di carrarmati con una conferenza stampa), promiscua sessualmente quanto basta (l'AIDS has not been the subject of clairvoyance), violent enough, but are capable of withstanding all: "A part of New York of the same brilliance shines known from Athens, Constantinople, Rome, Babylon and Persepolis, the rest is a jungle, a real jungle, filthy and squalid, the only law is force. It is not a dying town, but rather an ungovernable city. "
The story is channeled early on the ground of political fiction, the character of Quinn can remember so many politicians today, not only Americans, and the very special relationship with the wife of Sundara Nichols shows us a doctrine, the "Transit", which mixes Buddhism, Zen, fascism, Platonism and tantra.
Do not forget the New Year in New York in 2000 and the manner in which he lived in the novel, compared to which the real one, marked only by the false, the thrill quite false millennium bug, will only make us feel tenderness.
Stochastic Man was first published in Italy in 1976 at no. Urania 687 of the series, and has recently been reissued on No 80 Collection of Urania, which incorporated science fiction texts of the past of some importance, for the most part already presented in the series "mother."
Stochastic Man, Robert Silverberg, Urania collection, Mondadori, 2010

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Do I Need Special Paper For Laser Printers

Novels in New York # 21: Paradise Boulevard


What happens to a young Sicilian immigrant origins in the 50s who decides to leave New York City and groped his fortune in Hollywood? To tell us about Rudy Paradiso, born in 1925, whose true identity and age you can feed more than a few questions, but no matter.
Who attends this web space can easily be argued that the story is set in Los Angeles and very little or nothing in the Big Apple, but the link with the city, the continued references, provenance of the author-protagonist, the recurring references to New York (also referred to the book by John Dos Passos, see here ) make Paradise Boulevard a novel metanewyorchese "jokes are effective on cities, such as when the protagonist's father recalled that "I arrived by ship, I saw the Statue of Liberty and thought wonder: These Americans are so rich that the works of art, not keep them in the village square, but in the sea ".
The story of Rudy, who earn a living as a translator-guide for the bride and groom immigrants, is the story of a young quarrelsome, insolent, brash, brilliant teller of stories and anecdotes, and then bound to succeed as a screenwriter in Hollywood. He lives with his girlfriend, Joyce, also a writer, educated but without talent, who earns his salary as a cloakroom. Among
fistfights with Frank Sinatra, guilty of teasing - he just - The Italians, and chat with John Wayne in a prey to the fumes of alcohol, Rudy grasp the opportunities that manufacturers provide. But everything has a price and the bill presents McCarthyism, the witch hunt against alleged communists and those that devastated the world's cultural year 50.
To survive we must betray all, friends, ideals, and unconventional love Rudy will have to make difficult decisions.
The New York point of view comes and goes throughout the narrative and features: "I admired the red-hot banana trees along the road and I enjoyed the sight of the western sky, moving and immense, thinking with relief as the cold was far New York .
Rudy, the Italian-American Rudy, you'll soon see how they are different from those of New York "California in Sicily": "A New York worked hard to feel up to the Americans in Los Angeles best picture, cultivating lotus diversity ... Italians on the West Coast were so, they took the Americans' delusions of grandeur. "
Writing Heaven sent flowing, dry, half way between the hard-boiled Mickey Spillane and John Fante and creative despair among lobbyists, femmes fatales, bartenders, spies, sycophants and Hollywood moguls three hundred pages to slip away a nice finish.
Paradise Boulevard, Rudy Paradiso, Lindau, 2010