On my bedside table

My mind is currently screening the best of short attention span theater. This means, there are many projects of my plate and my focus is being pulled in many delicious directions. As a result, my literary cravings lean toward (very) short fiction and magazine articles.

A good friend (a very good friend judging by her recommendation of a book of vignettes no longer than 5 pages of liberally spaced text) turned me on to Steps by Jerzy Kozinski. I remember finding the novel Being There for one Swedish kronor in 1996 on a table in the skew angled area of Haga and thinking it an excellent little book for a person just starting to tumble into the world. It develops the themes of chance and the impact of an “innocent” on society in the vein of Forrest Gump, but without the sugar and with potent brevity. I can never really get behind a serious Tom Hanks movie. Part of me yearns for the charming wavy haired fellow in Splash and Bachelor Party. Sure, he is an excellent actor, but I enjoy him so much more in drag.

When Miranda July steps in front of a lens, she has exacting magic. Her work may be diverse, engaging, and inspiring (Do one of her assignments. Awesome.), but she inspires photographers to sameness. That is, in every recent photo I have seen her wide baby blues stare with certain interest and shock at the camera, set off by backgrounds or clothing in kelly green, sap green, lemon yellow and other color updates from a 1960s palette. I enjoyed her write up in the current lust-themed issue of Angeleno magazine and in LA Weekly. For all her press, her written work holds its own. Just flip open the New Yorker’s Summer Fiction Issue and read “Roy Spivey.”

Speaking of short stories – check out Sandi Tan’s “Thwack.” Well done.

Also on my bedside table – New York magazine’s Design Issue (unread), a plastic blue heart key chain (without keys), loose change, one sip of water in a glass that is not mine, and long, green-legged Gerbara daisies in yellow, brash orange, and magenta. If I look at them long enough, I get the strangest feeling that Miranda July is watching me through the petals.