14. City of Books

2/11/24

Feb 10, 2024

Recently Unearthed Portrait Of The Artist as a Young Man by S. Kozlowski circa ‘99

Greying Ghost and Criterion Featured at Powell’s

A Photo From The Archive Featuring SkullHum Alum Emily Pratt on the marquee!

When I moved to Portland in 1995 I lived at NE 80th and Glisan. (Someone added a “D” after the NE on the Flanders street sign on my block creating a “lightbulb” moment re: the Simpsons and Portland street names. )

Every Saturday I’d drive all the way down Burnside, and across the bridge in my Civic hatchback. Being young and brave, I’d park in the sketchy-ass parking garage that belonged to Powell’s Books. You have to honk before you drive up the ramp because it’s only big enough for one car at a time. The walls were covered with auto paint from less than excellent drivers. There were fat pillars next to nearly every spot. I wouldn’t dream of attempting that these days.

I’d take what was left of my $200 paycheck and go shopping for books, then run across the street to O-Zone records and spend some more $.

I didn’t plan on moving to a small city with a BIG bookstore, but the fact I did was more than ideal. Back then I could snatch up 1st edition Brautigan hardcovers for a couple of dollars.

Around this time I had a crush on a coworker who grew up here. She gave me a book of poetry called “How To Lose Your Mind With The Lights On.” The author was Kevin Sampsell.

Kevin has been curating the Small Press section at Powell’s for decades. I often avoided the Small Press room out of jealousy (a retrospective revelation)… I wanted be in there with all the coolest DIY books but I didn’t have anything to put in there!

I’ve met Kevin a few times over the years, most recently at the Portland Zine Symposium. We talked about mutual friends etc. and I started following him on Instagram. Last night I happened to see this on his page…

I didn’t even know my chapbook was at Powell’s! So you can say I’m pretty stoked. I’m also stoked for Carl at Greying Ghost Press… he does such a beautiful job with everything he puts out (and obviously has excellent taste!)

Criterion started with an idea about 10 years ago. I was looking for a movie to watch on their channel and each synopsis was more outrageous than the next! “This would make an incredible epic poem,” I thought. But where to begin? It was too daunting a task.

When the pandemic lockdown was in full swing I found myself back on the Criterion Channel. This time I found a filter feature that allowed you to sort by decades. So I started with the 1970’s. Then I figured I’d just do titles A-D. I went down the list and grabbed the best line from each movie recap. I put this out as a quick zine to share with friends. Then I made parts 2 and 3 and the 70’s were complete

The original DIY 3-part Criterion Zine, now out of print.

I was encouraged to try and get it published. I’d already read some things on Greying Ghost so when their call for submissions said to the effect “send us the weird stuff no one else wants” I knew I had a chance. Big thanks to Carl and Kevin. This made me really happy.

The nice woman who took this photo at Powell’s was camping out on a bench in front of this shelf making me too self-conscious to truly bask in the glory. Also notice that book next to “Death Egg.” More about that below.

Giveaway For Gaza

A collage from my G.a.R.t. series featuring text cut from Gravity’s Rainbow

If you donate any amount to Doctors Without Borders or The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund I will make you a custom analog postcard collage poem.

You will also receive a copy of Issue Four of the Skullcrushing Hummingbird Zine upon release.

Simply screenshot your donation and email it to larstonovich@gmail.com .

Contributors to Issue Four will still receive their deluxe copy in addition to the giveaway copy.

This offer runs through 2/16/23. Thanks!

Books

When I first read “On The Road” in High School there’s a part where the Kerouac character Sal Paradise and the Ginsberg character (whose name I’ve forgotten ) hear about this wild car thief in Denver … who reads Proust! They had to meet this guy, holy shit! Then the rest of the novel is about what a cool guy he is.

Yeah, I ate it all up. It lead to my first cross-country road trip after my Freshman year with 3 friends from college. But I never understood the part about Proust. What was the big deal?

Then I read Proust. What a commitment! It’s a microcosm under a microscope. Marcel apparently spent half his life living and then the other have in bed writing about the first half. It was semi autobiographical but he was gay so the love interest became a woman. Etc etc. Kerouac did the same, turned his life into fiction, changed the names of his friends and his multiple volumes were all part of one big story.

I loved Proust, and made my way through the 7 volume “In Search of Lost Time” over a couple of years. The thing was … why did this guy, with this incredible mind for detail and insight and beauty, who changed literature, have to be born in early 20th Century France surrounded by aristocracy? This I could not relate to their lives at all, but Proust made me relate to them as people.

Which brings me to “I Wish To Say Lovely Things,” the latest novel by Adam Gnade. (Officially published on 2/14/24) Adam has created a multivolume literary universe of the life he’s lived and all his friends are there as characters (with their names changed.)

Adam and I are relatively close in age and have lived in some of the same places (neighborhoods in Portland that is.) We both spent our 20’s hanging out with artists and musicians in bars and house parties and road trips at the dawn of the 21st Century. I can truly relate to the scene. He writes with an honesty and a tenderness that sometimes takes me off guard.

He’s been putting out a book a year and it shows. Not in a “ok yeah he’s just churning it out the same stuff and phoning it in” kinda way, but in a “nice, he’s getting better and better with each book” kinda way.

Adam is now a pal and so is at least one character in his books that I know of. That said, I wouldn’t toot his horn if I didn’t really mean it. I started reading him before we met. He’s an inspiration. I recommend reading his books and his latest is a good place to start.

You can visit his substack:

The Adam Gnade Daily

and

Website: https://adamgnade.com/