Balto Book Festival 2012

Bookworms Donna B., Peter G., Mindi and Amy look for good reads

(Saturday, September 29) - Amy and I went to the 2012 Baltimore Book Festival this past Saturday and, I must admit, we go to score books and check out the food and music - not to hear authors read or talk. I know that's shameful for two English majors and, in my case, a practicing librarian, but as The Donald (Rumsfeld) once quipped in a moment of profound metaphysical insight, "It is what it is." (Besides, we get book talks every day of the week at my library. Talk is  cheap - I'm all about the swag and the goods!)

We spent an inordinately long time at the first stop we made, Book Rendezvous (where we also rendezvoused with Donna Stinnett Bowen, Mindi Siegel and "Man About Mt. Vernon" Peter Geier, as pictured above) because in addition to many fine books there were some great vinyl LPs this year, as well. Used records and paperbacks could be had for as cheap as $1 so, being a "I'd buy that for a dollar" kinda guy, I immediately scarfed up a 1952 Charles Schultz masterpiece The Wonderful World of Peanuts, a Penguin edition of Graham Greene's "entertainment" The Ministry of Fear, modern Evelyn Waugh-heir apparent Tom Sharpe's Indecent Exposure, and Richard S. Prather's The Shell Scott Sampler.

Four Score for a $1: Schulz, Prather, Greene & Sharpe

I was particularly pleased with my Shell Scott score, as these are really fun hard-boiled detective reads in the simile-savvy Raymond Chandler meets politically incorrect Mickey Spillane sexist-womanizer style. Plus the beautiful sexy gal cover was by pulp artist extraordinaire Robert E. McGinnes. McGinnes illustrated 18 Prather covers (see them all on Flickr) - not to mention covers for Rick Holman's Carter Brown, Ian Fleming's James Bond (his most iconic was for the theatrical poster for the film Casino Royal), and Mike Shayne paperbacks.

McGinnes's psychedelic "Casino Royale" poster art

McGinnes gals Bang a Gong - and Get It On!

A McGinnes cover makes it a book you wanna curl up with in bed

In his preface to Art Scott and Wallace Maynard's gorgeous collection The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis (I'm so glad Michael Yockel gave me my copy, because it's out-of-print and goes for between $110-170 on Amazon!), Prather commented on McGinnes's "fine art" as follows:

"...he paints members of the opposite sex in a way that makes them more opposite; somehow he makes brush strokes in another dimension (one I hope to visit at least briefly when far far away in the future I kick the bucket); clearly, at his most creative, he is in contact with angels, some of whom pose for him.

Pursuing this mystical connection: I suspect that Mr. McGinnis and I share a belief seldom spoken of aloud by us men, for fear that we may be considered mentally unhinged. I have long believed that all women - tall or short, fat or thin, beautiful or less beautiful - are Goddesses. Yes, I really do mean authentic honest-to-God capital-G Goddesses, bright sparks of burning spirit with their blinding light temporarily dimmed behind sweet flesh in order that we dorks, at least sometimes, may approach them with less fear and trembling than we otherwise would."

I love Raymond Chandler's prose above that of all others, mainly for his brilliant hard-boiled similes and "Chandlerisms," and Prather is clearly a protege of Marlowe's creator, albeit in a much more un-P.C. style that reflects the influence of his two-fisted (one fist to hold the liquor, the other one for a cigarette) Spillane and Swingin' '60s Bondsian times. 'Twas the era of G-men (girls, guns and guts) or perhaps (as the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band crooned in "Big Shot") of "L-men" (liquor, love and laughs). Take this passage describing sexy model Lydia Brindley  from "The Guilty Party":

"She smiled but still didn't say anything. Maybe she couldn't talk. Maybe she was an idiot. I didn't care. But if curves were convolutions, she had an IQ of at least 37-23-36, or somewhere in that neighborhood, and that's the high-rent district.

Moreover, if some faces can stop a clock, hers would have made Big Ben gain at least forty minutes an hour. A lot of black hair, somewhat tangled, as if a horny Apache dancer had just wound his hands in it, preparatory to flinging her across the room. Narrow dark brows curving hotly - yeah, whether you think so or not, they curved hotly - over tawny brown eyes the indefinable shade of autumn. Lips that would burn holes in abestos. And then that genius body. Man, whatever she had, it should be contagious."

OK, it's not exactly Shakespeare or Melville. Perhaps it's not even "Letters to Penthouse" worthy in its graphic adulation of the female form ("I never though this would happen to me, but when Good Time Sally squeezed my..."). But it's great fun and works for me. (And was Prather anticipating my feelings about Amy with that line about "whatever she had, it should be contagious"?).

I also scored a Penquin paperback edition of  gifted Polish writer Tadeusz Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen for a buck at Book Rendezvous. Borowski, who took his own life in 1951 after having survived both the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps, wrote of surviving the unendurable and the hopeless during his time in the death camps. I'm a sucker for these kind of accounts because I agree with comedian Bill Hicks (R.I.P., Wild Bill!) that Humanity is a "virus with shoes" - and nothing reinforces this cynical (i.e., informed) worldview more than stories about Nazi atrocities (i.e., a primer in "Man's Inhumanity Toward Man") during World War II.

From Prather's sexy babes traipsing around the bedroom to Borowski's naked death camp victims walking towards the showers is a 360-degree mood swing, but both books are great literature, in their own bi-polar ways.

I also picked up four LPs for a buck each: an English Beat compilation What Is Beat?, Fourth Drawer Down by post-punk sulkers The Associates (considered Edinburgh's 3rd greatest post-punk band, after The Fire Engines and Josef K) containing their signature Bowie-Eno-Krautrock "Berlin ist wunderbar" influenced single "White Car in Germany"; a 1985 Rough Trade compilation record If You Can't Please Yourself, You Can't Please Your Soul that had Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel, Virginia Astley and (just to make Amy jealous) Marc Almond on it; and my trump card platter, the first Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks LP - the one with "How Can I Miss You (When You Won't Go Away)?" (which I sing to myself at work whenever the junkies come in to doze and use the bathrooms and pass out mid-sentence when asking me a question).

Walking around, we came across the Institute of Notre Dame high school girls escorting storybook characters like Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit and a huge white shaggy dog (at first I thought it was either the Abominable Snowman or Big Foot!).

Amy had a hare-raising time at the book festival with Peter Rabbit

 Amy stops to listen to this street person's shaggy dog story

Then we stopped by the American Visionary Arts Museum tent, which is always a highlight of the festival. Amy tried on some reading glasses that came with a mustache, but ended up buying only another mustache ring (you can never have too many of these - they give you instant hairy knuckles!).

Amy embraces Mustache Chic trying on reading glasses at the AVAM booth

We had to stop when we saw a vendor selling t-shirts that said "Conversate is not a word."

Amy rests her case: She's pro-"Conversing" & anti-"Conversating"

It's one of our pet peeves that "conversating" has replaced "conversing" in the popular vernacular. We were gonna blame John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) for this phenomena because we recently watched an episode of the British TV series Misfits and could have sworn the theme song was PiL's "Careering" until I looked it up on the Google and learned that it was a wholesale nick of PiL called "Echoes" by latter-day punk-funkers The Rapture ("The city breathing/The people churning/The conversating/The price is what?").



Regardless of Who Struck John, the word still makes us grate our teeth whenever we hear people add that extra, unnecessary syllable (which, like the "S" in Mash's HAMS that stands for "salt," should be thrown away!) in everyday speech. For the record, the Urban Dictionary defines "conversating" as "a word you use when trying to say you were talking to someone so as to come off as more cultured or intelligent. In reality, it does little more than make you look like an idiot who's trying too hard. If you must make yourself sound like a pompous ass, the correct term is "conversing."

Later we ran into our musician friends Brian and Helena and together watched an eclectic musical set by Emma White that mixed folk with jazz with Beyonce.

We stopped by the Radical Books tent, where Amy bought a Nikola Tesla pin from the Steampuk vendor (is Tesla now considered steampunk? He did have those Tesla coils, so I guess it fits).

Exhausted from a day of walking around amidst the ever-moving throng of humanity, we bid Donna adieu and headed down to Sticky Rice to finally use Amy's Living Social meal deal at our favorite (after Henninger's Tavern, of course) Fells Point restaurant. As we walked in, the bar was blasting Buzzcocks on the sound system. No wonder we love that place!

Hairy Baltimore

At this past weekend's Baltimore Book Festival, "I, Hoarder" limited myself to two purchases (I was, after all, financially challenged after that day's earlier trek to the Nostalgia Convention!), both for $2 a piece: a second edition copy of P. Adam Sitney's experimental cinema tome Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde 1943-1978 (because they just don't write 'em like that any more!) and, even-better-yet!, the Alex Fine-curated limited edition zine, Hairy Baltimore.


Hairy Baltimore zine

John Waters famously called Baltimore "The Hairdo Capital of the World," though his generation grew up with the ducktails, mullets and beehive hon-do's that pre-date a lot of the 40 "Nouveau Balto" hairstyles depicted in this booklet.

Naturally, (young Nikola Tesla lookalike) Alex Fine, Baltimore's finest artist in my humble opinion (see Alex Fine Illustration for further proof), is himself depicted in the pages of Hairy:


Alex Fine

As were other local luminaries and icons of the current film and music scene, like Dan Deacon and Reaction!'s Amanda Otto.


Dan Deacon


Amanda Otto

I hardly know any of the youngsters displayed in Hairy Baltimore, but I'm learning thanks to this handy who's who guide to the current crop of unusually coiffed scenesters of Charm City. Oh, if you missed picking up a copy at the book festival, try asking at Atomic Books. After all, iconic co-owner Benn Ray (looking like a cross between Charles Manson and actor John Hawkes) is also included in the zine. His likeness was drawn by Noah Patrick Pfarr.


Atomic Book's Benn Ray

Cookin' with Coolio

Cookin' with Coolio: Five Stars Meals at a 1 Star Price
Atria, 224 pages, 2009

My score of the day at the Baltimore Book Festival was this cookbook ($5 at the Daedalus Books booth!) by rapper-turned-"ghetto gourmet" Coolio. And yes, I was sold by the cover, where Coolio's manning his combo stovetop burner/turntable (where can I get one? Home Depot? Soundscape?). How can you resist a book that starts off, "I can take a cow out of Compton and make it taste better than Kobe beef at your favorite steakhouse...I'm the ghetto Martha Stewart, the black Rachel Ray. I am the kitchen pimp who won't hesitate to fillet Bobby Flay or send my posse after Emeril Lagasse."

Coolio continues: "Let me be clear, I have seen the burning bush and I have spent forty days and nights preparing to guide you on your journey of pimpification from here to the Promised Land...Learn it, love it, live it bitches! Shaka-Zulu!"

Coolio Cuisine stresses that presentation is everything, and the way he uses his verbal skills to present his recipes is a thing of beauty. Like the term "Shaka-Zula," which Coolio explains is his waying of describing something that "tastes better than your momma's nipples."

Feast on a sampling of his descriptions of some favorite meals:

Backyard Grass Salad:
"I call this the grass salad because it's fresher than a girl in booty shorts on the first day of summer and cleaner than your momma's forehead."

Oil My Mussels:
"Damn, baby, you lookin' so good. I know you're lookin' at me too. That's right, it's your man, Coolio. I know you're hungry, and I know it's not just for food. Get your ass over here and oil my mussels. We'll be enjoyin' a meal together in no time."

Karate Meat:
"This dish ain't just called Karate Meat because it's got an Asian kick to it. It's called Karate Meat because it will beat you up like a pigeon in prison. This is straight up Blasian cuisine - all the delicacy of Asian cooking with all the attitude and flavor of Coolio's very own kitchen. Perfect this dish and you'll see yourself turning from Ralph Macchio into Mr. Miyagi."

Tricked-Out Westside Tilapia:
"Your lady loves Moby Dick but you've never caught a fish on a rod and reel? Take a chance, make her some Tricked-Out Westside Tilapia and you'll be watching them panties come right off. Zoom! Knocking over lampshades and shit. Shaka!"

Now that's what I called (Gettin' On) Down-home cookin!

When it Rains, Readers Pour

13th Annual Baltimore Book Festival
Friday September 26, 2008 - Sunday September 28, 2008
Mt Vernon Place, Baltimore - "The City That Reads"


Opening Ceremony, Baltimore Book Festival

What is it about the Baltimore Book Festival and torrential downpours? I went down on Sunday (the final - and only dry - day, after spending Saturday bailing out my flooded basement), of the 13th Annual Baltimore Book Festival and mused that question as I walked past the Walters Arts Gallery and saw one of the Walters museum guards outside on a smoke break.

"That's how you know it's the Book Fair," the guard said. "Every year they get the wettest weather - every year!"

Got that right, buddy. I think they even cancelled it one year due to a hurricane alert (2003?).

The sun finally came out Sunday, though festival goers wearing jeans like me still got soaked from the humidity. Anyway, before I even worked up a sweat, I ran into Baltimore Grassroots Media maven Mike Shea on his recumbent bike, down to film a Mark Twain impersonator for Baltimore City Public Access TV. Turns out he was interviewing Alan Reese, the guy I succeeded as Towerlight Features Editor at Towson State College in the '70s. Alan's always been involved with the local poetry and writing scene, and he looked pretty cool in his white suit. If he put on some pounds and grew a beard, he could pull double duty doing in-store appearances at KFC as Colonel Sanders with an outfit like that.


Reel Around the Fountain: Kids frolic in the Children's Book Tent

And Mike Shea? Well, the former Critical Mass-termind is never without his video camera, a spiffy Hi-Def Panasonic HDV30 that had me turning green with digital envy. I always considered Mike a social activist, but he decries the term. But I remember reading him getting busted for videotaping a Critical Mass rally back in 2004 ("Singled Out," City Paper, 5/12/2004). Must have been a hot-head cop (don't they have better things to do in Bodymore, Murderland?), because Mike's a pretty mellow fellow.


Cops put the brakes on biker Mike Shea

There must be something about Mikes clustering together, because next I ran into Mike Hughes, erstwhile MPT and Baltimore Mag Webmaster who also writes fiction on the side. In fact, his short story "The Blackwater Lights" - included in the Legends of the Mountain State anthology - was recently lauded by Huntingtonnews.net as "one of the best stories in a collection that has no bad ones" and compared to the great horror writing of H.P. Lovecraft! (To read his fiction or other observations, check out his great blog at michaelmhughes.com/wordpress). Mike's definitely a social activist of the Literati Set. Apparently he had a reading at the CityLit Stage earlier that day, and was now cooling his jets talking to the hip-savvy McSweeney Books dudes, who looked like they were in Weezer.

Next I ran into a former Pratt Library co-worker, Donna Woods, who was manning the BookMooch booth. BookMooch (www.bookmooch.com) - whose motto is "Give books away. Get books you want" - is an international community for exchanging used books that operates under the premise that's it's better to give AND to receive. Every time you give someone a book, you earn a point and can get any book you want from anyone else at BookMooch. Once you've read a book, you can keep it forever or put it back into BookMooch for someone else, as you wish. I liked their banner (shown below); the Moochie critters are kind of creepy, like something out of a John Wayne Gacy-style clown painting.



And speaking of giving and receiving, when I wandered up to the Radical Books tent, I met the nice folks hawking $pread, the New York-based mag dedicated to worldwide sex industry workers (call girls, escorts, strippers, prostitutes, porn stars, et. al.). Naturally the sexual nature of the mag's headlines and photos attracted a number of horndogs, including some off-duty cop whose flair for the obvious ("I've found that a number of the prostitutes I've arrested had drug problems" - Really! Ya think?) astounded me. But they soon wandered away when they realized the mag wasn't at all prurient, and featured articles about sexual abuse, sex workers unions, hookers that murder their pimps, and such. Far from Red Hot, the mag's focus is more Red Emma's, with an appeal of "Sex Workers of the World Unite!"

I bought the issue with Tracy Quan on the cover, recalling that she wrote the text for a cool photo book I had seen at Daedalus Books & Music called Orientalia: Sex In Asia (2003). Quan, a former sex worker, has branched out into fiction, penning Diary of A Manhattan Call Girl: A Nancy Chan Novel (Three Rivers Press, 2003); though fictional, Quan's book (which originally ran as a column in Salon.com) is based on her real-life Sex and the City experiences. The same issue also had an article about menstruation fetish videos (we live in troubled times!!!) and an interesting interview with Caveh Zahedi about his autobiographical film I Am a Sex Addict, in which Rebecca Lord (one of my favorite adult film actresses) plays the director's wife.

Seeing $pread made me think of Teresa Dulce (pictured right), the Portland-based artist/activist who started stripping to pay off student loans and eventually founded Danzine - an Oregon sex workers organization and zine (1995-2005) - and later curated Portland's Sex by Sex Worker Film Festival (1998-2000)...I remember videotaping her in 1997 for an Atomic TV segment that never aired (trust me, there were a lot of them!), back when she did an in-store appearance at Baltimore's old Atomic Books (then on Charles and Chase streets). As former Atomic Books/TV impresario Scott Huffines recalled, that's when the bookstore used to have a display of James "Shocked & Amazed!" Taylor's sideshow oddities in the store, and Teresa did a "How To Put A Condom On" safe-sex demonstration in which she slipped the "love glove" over one of the horns on a three-horned goat head!

Later I spotted Joe Giordano, creator of the snazzy/snarky online mag GUTTER, wearing one of those Sinatra hipster hats that they sell at Target now (though Joe insists he got his fedora/trilby in New Orleans), the fashion craze that's replaced ironic trucker hats on the Ottobar and Joe Squared circuit...Just kidding Joe! Joe's a good guy and an ace photographer whose getting plenty of work and (well-deserved) kudos of late. I like it when he stops by the library, because he always finds the good books and CDs there before me - it's hard to keep up with his cool finds!

On the way out I had to stop at the American Visionary Arts Museum's booth, which is my perennial favorite. There I was dismayed to see that the already marked-down copy of Andy Warhol's Screen Tests I picked up at Daedalus Books & Music was even more marked down at AVAM! Oh well, live and learn. (By the way, reading about the screen tests is much better than actually viewing them, according to Video Americain's Scott Wallace Brown, who has a number of them in his collection; basically, the screen tests provide a Who's Who record of every notable '60s personality that stopped by The Factory)...Anyway, I told the AVAMsters that they have the best gift shop (officially known as Sideshow) in town and that I regularly recommend them to any out-of-towners who stop in the library and ask what landmarks they should see in Baltimore. By way of thanks, they gave me a Pirate book bag. You just can't beat that: trendy - and functional!