I know I’ve already talked about this service, but I want to put another plug in for freecycle because in the past couple of days Allen has gotten rid of a bunch of stuff from our basement that would otherwise have to go to the dump. The system works and, believe me, what you have in your basement might be useless and tossable to you, but there is someone out there who will take it off your hands for free.

It’s good for the environment. It’s good for your basement. And, it’s international–so there might be one in your area no matter where you live (and if there’s not, there’s probably a way where you could start one).

Here’s the official blurb:

The Freecycle Network™ is made up of many individual groups across the globe. It’s a grassroots movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is run by a local volunteer moderator (them’s good people). Membership is free. To sign up, find your community by clicking on the region on the right. It will generate an automatic e-mail which, when sent, will sign you up for your local group and send you a response with instructions on how it works. Or, go directly to the Web site for your local group by clicking on your community’s link on the left. Can’t find a group near you? You might want to consider starting one (click on “Start a Group” for instructions). Have fun!

The Freecycle Network was started in May 2003 to promote waste reduction in Tucson’s downtown and help save desert landscape from being taken over by landfills. The Network provides individuals and non-profits an electronic forum to “recycle” unwanted items. One person’s trash can truly be another’s treasure!

This just in: Marcus Grimm reviews the new Pam Anderson book.

*** please note: this post is as terse as his review, which cracked me up.

News from the fabulous Brangien Davis at Swivel (I wish I could attend this event! It sounds like perfection):

SWIVEL: THE INDISCRETIONS ROAD SHOW!

Don’t miss this exclusive Seattle engagement at BUMBERSHOOT on LABOR DAY, September 5th, from 3:00-4:15pm in the Bagley Wright Theater (just off Mercer).

It’ll be the SENSORY OVERLOAD of the season–not to mention an excellent way to support literary arts!

**SEE**
… Readings and performances by Swivel contributors and femmes
fantastique:

~Aimee Bender (author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and An Invisible Sign of My Own)
~Vendela Vida (author of And Now You Can Go and editor of The Believer magazine)
~Lauren Weedman (of Almost Live and The Daily Show and Wreckage)
~Ellen Forney (illustrator of “I Was 7 in ’75” and The Stranger’s “Lust Lab Ad of the Week”)
~Ali Davis (formerly of Second City and author of the True Porn Clerk Stories)

… plus the totally rad ’80s dance stylings of FANKICK, in psychedelic Swivelcolor! AND a special guest appearance by the lovely and talented Nancy Guppy (of Almost Live)!

**HEAR**
… stories of indiscretion both HARROWING and HILARIOUS… including trafficking in PORN, impersonating a DMV official, and reading a BOYFRIEND’S DIARY!

**SMELL**
… probably some stuff wafting in from the food booths!

**TASTE**
… the savory flavor of SWIVEL, the only nationally distributed literary magazine devoted to SMART, FUNNY writing by smart, funny women! (Read more at www.swivelmag.com)

**TOUCH**
… actually, please DO NOT TOUCH the performers! But stick around after the show for book and Swivel signings. And of course you’re encouraged to GRAB, FONDLE and PURCHASE the third (3rd!) issue of Swivel, HOT OFF THE PRESS.

Make sure you check out Ray Collins’s cool new venture QUICTIONonline.

On Monday, I was sitting at the gate waiting to board a flight. Three seats down from me sat a man in his fifties (I list his age only by way of saying, “He should have known better”). I was reading a book. He was staring forward. After a few minutes I heard, “click, click, click.” I turn and note that he was CLIPPING HIS FINGERNAILS. Yes, clipping them in public with total disregard that those little fuckers were flying around everywhere. But he was immune to my withering glance and carried on clipping.

I have to tell you that I do not want the fignernail clippings of someone who would clip in public anywhere near me. Where have those nails been? Is this even someone who washes his hands after going to the bathroom? I’m not much of a germaphobe, but nails are filthy.

Why, I ask you, would someone think it was okay to clip his fingernails in public? And this is not the first person who has done such a thing. Allen told me about a guy in his gym locker room who CLIPPED HIS TOENAILS–right out in front of God and everyone. Right where people were changing their clothes. Just put his foot up on the bench and started clipping.

I don’t get it.

All this is to say that it seems people are completely and utterly unaware of personal space and matters of hygiene.

As a far as personal space goes, I don’t understand how people think it’s okay to put their feet in my area when we are sitting next to each other on a plane. Do you think I might be feeling crowded as well as you, you space hog? And while I’m at it, that middle armrest is for both of us–it is not your domain. And, finally, you do not get to hang your elbow over my area and in front of my keyboard because you insist on writing on a table and having your laptop open. NO way.

Okay. So why don’t I just say something to these people? Normally, I would, but, to be honest, I’m scared. I’m afraid of airplane rage. I’m afraid of the seething mass of travelers breaking through the tenuous balance of civility and erupting into violence.

And so I act out in a passive-aggressive way. I push back, ever so gently on the feet. I squirm in my seat. I put down my tray table so Mister Elbow needs to move. I ignore the nail clipper and hope that he will not be sitting near me.

I don’t like to be passive-aggressive–it’s against my nature, but it’s what I must do to stay safe in this crazy, crowded world.

Administrivia note: I just had to re-add (add again?) Haloscan to my site because there was a lapse between comments… blah blahblahblah. Do you really care? I’m not sure I even care but it was sort of driving me crazy because I couldn’t figure it out. Anywhooo, I’m boring myself now. So, bye.

David Bezmozgis’s debut story collection Natasha will not leave you–not while you are reading it and not soon after you finish. In fact, it may stay with you always–it is memory.

These stories, carry us through the lives of Roman, Bella and their son Mark, who are strangers in a strange land–Russian Jews (but not Refusniks, which we learn would have given them more cache with a rich doctor and his friends) now living in Toronto. Each story brings you a little deeper in the intricate lives of these people, the delicate balance they maintain–what it means to belong, to not belong. To be other.

I loved all of these stories but my favorite was “Choynski” which juxtaposes the death of the narrator’s dearly beloved grandmother with the death of Charley Davis, a random acquaintance. The end of this story is so haunting that I shall never forget it. In the end, it is about love–embedded, vestigal, not to be lost. A feeling of love that is as true as bone, as true as the country where we are born and from where we are departed–grief, as blinding as a blizzard, for all things lost and all things kept to remind:

It was only later, that night, when I was on my hands and knees in the cemetery seraching for her dentures in two feet of snow, that I wailed in Russian: Babushka, babushka, g’dye tih, maya babushka? Babushka, babushka, where are you, my babushk? I cried shamelessly, up to my elbows in the snow, looking for the new teeth which they had forgotten to bury with her. Bearing the dentures I had driven out into the worst blizzard since 1944 with neither a flashlight or a shovel. I had gone to the cemetery even though my mother had forbidden it and even though Jewish law dictated that nobody was permitted at the grave for a month. But I felt that I was following other laws. And so I dug–first with purpose, then with panic. My hands burned and then went numb. Snow soaked through my shoes and pants. By the end, I didn’t even want to bury the teeth anymore, I just wanted not to lose them.

edited: adding a link to Jordan’s interview with David Bezmozgis–thanks, J!

When I read Alicia Erian’s short story collection The Brutal Language of Love, I thought, “Now here’s someone speaking my language.” I also wondered how she could get any better/appeal to me more. Well, clearly she only improves as she goes because her novel Towelhead is great. It’s not a book for everyone. There is racism. There is rage. There is sex. There is rape. There is molestation. Basically, it is often a hard book to read (in regards to the situations) but it is important, because it is real, it is honest. This is the way life is for some people, possibly more people than we could care to believe.

It is, however, a book that is masterfully written from the POV of the thirteen-year-old Jasira, who has never known proper love and who has been conditioned to accept it from the most unlikely of people. Never once do we feel that Erian is preaching to us through her narrator, or that she is not in the moment as the writer. What we feel instead is that they have become one.

This book will grab hold of you and if you have to put it down to do something else, you will do so with regret. This is not because you are so engaged in the story you can’t wait to see what happens next, rather it is because you care about Jasira, you fear for her, and you want to see how she will survive.

It doesn’t get much better than this–Susan Diplacido interviews one of my favorite people and writers–Ellen Meister. It’s a great interview. Go on and read it.

Newpages.com has published its new selection of lit mag reviews. I love reading through these reviews. I often learn of new journals this way. It’s a great service.

Crap. One of my day’s worth of postings accidentally got deleted–one of which was a congratulations to Kat for honorable mention in that contest judged by Kurt Kurt Vonnegut and Peter Matthiessen. Congrats, Kat!

Okay, I’m off like a prom dress. Will likely post more during the week as there is wireless at the hotel.

I’m intrigued by this concept but I’m not sure I would pay to read these Amazon Shorts:

Amazon Shorts are never-before-seen short works from a wide variety of well-known authors, available only on Amazon.com. Try a new genre or a new author–there’s something for everyone. Amazon Shorts are:

New short-form literature from top authors for only 49 cents
Delivered electronically; there are no printed editions
Yours forever after purchase; save or print and read at your convenience