Chile Today

Here's my latest book review from the Oregonian, printed Sunday, November 19.



Conquistadora conquers blood, sweat and Chile
Sunday, November 19, 2006
MIRIAM WOLF
L et the minimalist writers have their barren plots, their juiceless narratives. I'd rather read an Isabel Allende novel. Her books teem with richness, complexity and vivacity.

Her newest book, "Ines of My Soul," is a bold historical novel that is a great marriage of subject and style. For Allende, the novelist whose uncle was the Chilean president until he was overthrown in a violent coup, the story of Ines Suarez, a conquistadora and one of the original Spanish colonizers of Chile, must have seemed like a perfect fit. The women of Allende's novels are strong, sensual and self-reliant -- Ines Suarez is no different. Her passion, strength and absolute disdain for the fear of death have made her a legendary figure.

Ines was born in a small Spanish town. As a young woman she learns to cook, sew and dowse for water -- skills that will serve her well in the New World. She marries young, a passionate ne'er do well who departs for Peru to get his hands on some of the gold that has made its way back to Spain from the colonies. Ines, stifled by a rigid society, decides to follow him. She finds not her husband, who has already been killed because of a venal politician, but an awakening of her senses:

"In this New World the air is warm, propitious to the flowers, with their seductive fragrances, and the fruit, warm and fleshy, provoke lust . . . I questioned the principles that had guided me in Spain. My youth was passing me by, my life was being wasted. Who cared about my virtue?"

She also finds the great Pedro de Valdivia, the Spanish captain who thirsts for the kind of fame that requires founding a whole nation. Passionately in love, Ines and Pedro set south from Peru.

Allende excels at immersing her readers in the sights, sounds, smells and even flavors of an era; she brings to life the hardships of crossing a seemingly endless desert, the terror of confronting the fierce Chilean Indians, and the beauty of that strip of South American land. Allende is a voluptuously visceral novelist, and "Ines of My Soul" is filled with blood, guts, sex and sweat.

And there is plenty of blood, for you can't have conquest without a people to conquer. In "Ines of My Soul," Allende doesn't shy away from the atrocities the Spanish perpetrated in the name of their God and their king:

". . . They descended like demons on defenseless villages, chaining the men, raping and kidnapping the women, killing or leaving the children behind; after they stole all the food and domestic animals, they burned the huts and maize. They made the Indians carry more than was humanly possible. They even strapped newborn foals onto their backs. . . ."

But the Indians do fight back, and Allende chronicles the clashes that accompanied the birth of the city of Santiago, including a legendary battle in which the Spanish only prevailed because Ines ordered the decapitated heads of prisoners to be flung onto the battle to frighten the Chilean Indians.

She fought alongside men, then dressed their wounds. She fed her famous empanadas to the poor of her city every day. Her intuition and network of friends helped her uncover several plots against de Valdivia. She founded hospitals, churches, convents and sanctuaries. Ines Suarez was a woman of great power, and Isabel Allende has honored her with an equally powerful novel.

Miriam Wolf is a Portland journalist who writes about books and food.

Plastic Fantastic

My book review on Alex Kuczynski's Beauty Junkies ran yesterday in the Oregonian. It's a horrifying (the book, not the review) peek into the world of plastic surgery. Check it out. Or just stay here and read it:

Entering the strange cosmos of cosmetic surgery
Sunday, October 29, 2006
BY MIRIAM WOLF
W e've entered an age when moviegoers are likely to be more entertained by guessing which actor has had cosmetic surgery than by the actual plot of the film they are watching; an age when women in their 20s feel the need to get "prophylactic" shots of Botox to stop facial wrinkles before they ever start; and when a face lift or breast enhancement has gone from a slightly shameful secret to a proudly displayed accessory of a high-end lifestyle.

In "Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession With Cosmetic Surgery," New York Times reporter Alex Kuczynski shines a metaphorical light that is bright enough to reveal the scars of those surgeries on individuals and our culture.

It's juicy reading. Kuczynski doesn't spare the details of procedure junkies like her friend Robert, who maintains relationships with several doctors so he can get shots of Botox (a weakened form of botulism toxin that paralyzes facial muscles) every eight weeks, instead of the six-month break between shots that doctors recommend. As the chapter on Botox closes, Robert's heading into his doctor's office to get shots in his palms, the soles of his feet and his underarms. Kuczynski notes, "His goal is to live a life without wrinkles or sweat."

Then there's the Hollywood housewife who, after liposuction, a tummy tuck, face lifts and breast enhancement, underwent genital cosmetic surgery because, " 'I've spent so much money for the rest of me to look like Dolly Parton,' she says, 'so why should that . . . look like Willie Nelson?' "

But "Beauty Junkies" is more than the sum of its horror-story parts. Kuczynski delves into many facets of plastic surgery, from its history as a way to make the grievously wounded or deformed look more human to the money issues that drive the industry today. She makes surreal hay from a visit to the American Board of Plastic Surgery's trade show, where she fondles silicone implants, attends the "Effective Marketing Techniques for Plastic Surgeons" seminar and checks out her pores on a high-tech diagnostic machine.

She also looks into the sociological reasons for our obsession. Going beyond the easy answers and cheap shots about women of a certain age, Kuczynski looks for deeper cultural markers. She implicates factors as disparate as the mainstreaming of pornographic images in advertising, the peripatetic nature of our society, even managed-care health insurance and, yes, the cult of youth and perfection.

Kuczynski is not just a plastic surgery critic; she's also been a client, and has her own story of addiction, escalation and remorse to tell (". . . was it wrong to pay my mortgage late so I could get some Botox?"). It adds even more layers of depth to this already meticulously researched and highly entertaining book. Give it to those you love before they go "under the knife."

Miriam Wolf is a Portland writer.

We Like Her, We Really Like Her

"What are you doing on October 31st?" Seth asked while we loitered around the bookstore.
"Giving out candy while you take Sage trick or treating," I answered.
"You might change your plans," he said, noting that Amy Sedaris would be at the downtown Powells that evening.
Since I was just at that moment hungrily leafing through her new book I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, a lavishly illustrated twist on those 1950s how-to-entertain books. In it, Ms. Sedaris shares her secrets on how to throw unforgettable bashes. With notes on everything from applying the perfect kohl to your eyes for your Greek party to making felt-covered pencil cups with rude or obscene sayings on them, this book can give you a whole lifestyle makeover. And she even providesthe recipe for her famous cupcakes!

Friday the 13th

While Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling has been content to birth six behemoth novels starring her little wizard, Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Evan Handler, whose non-Lemony novel of San Francisco teens -- The Basic Eight was plenty dark and funny) has published more than double that amount -- today, Friday the 13th, sees the publication of The End, the (sniff) last in the series. I will always have a soft spot for Mr. Handler, as he at one time lived in my 'hood -- though we've both since moved. Long live the Richmond District!

After devouring that, young goths with no where else to turn might look into the new edition of Jane Eyre illustrated by the always creepy good and gothic Dame Darcy, whose zine Meatcake was always eagerly devoured when it came into the Factsheet Five office.

Running with Memoirs

What if your famous son wrote a memoir that painted you as a mom who was as neglectful as you were nutty? That happened to Margaret Robinson, whose son Chris grew up to change his name and write the bestselling memoir ... wait for it ... Running with Scissors.

NPR digs her up and posts a profile on All Things Considered.

There have been few mothers as monstrous as the one in his memoir Running with Scissors. In it, Robison is described as so cold and self-absorbed that she gives away her young son to her psychiatrist.

But it turns out that she is a quiet literary person who sounds much more rueful about about losing the closeness with her son (they used to write together and critique each other's work), than about how she was portrayed in print.

As James Frey's experiences have pointed up, the hotter the memoir, the more grains of salt the reader has to take it with.

Subject and Artist

The coffee table crushers have started to arrive in advance of the holiday season. First out of the gate, Annie Leibovitz's mammoth tome A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005. While she's best known for her work with celebrities (I think the ultimate Leibovitz photo is not the John and Yoko one, but the Meryl Streep portrait on the cover of a Leibovitz collection from the 1980s.), this book also lets readers into her personal life a bit with portraits of her longtime companion, cultural critic Susan Sontag.

Fast Foodie Nation

Once food was a status symbol for only a few of the richest people willing to down challenging dishes like foie gras and caviar. Now everyone from yuppies to convicts is insisting on farm-fresh produce, free-range eggs, and authentic South Indian food. What the hell happened? We used to be so happy with our Kraft macaroni and cheese and our Swanson TV dinners. Now all our pasta has to be hand stretched or extruded through brass dies. Where is Sylvia Lovegren, the author of one of my favorite books about food fads Fashionable Food, which traces American food manias from the Jello salads of the 1930s to the duck breast pizzas of the 1980s. It even has recipes, for those brave enough to dip into the past for their next dinner party. Sadly, the book, originally published in the 1990s has no information on the current we-are-all-foodies-now-(but-don't-call-us-that) craze.

Luckily there is a new book that purports to tell us all we need to know. David Kamp's The United States of Arugula has just been published to tons of interest (including reviews last Sunday in the New York Times, SF Chronicle, and The Oregonian. For the most part, the book is concerned with the personalities that drove the movement forward -- Alice Waters, Julia Child, Craig Claiborne, and James Beard. There is lots of gossip. Sadly, no recipes, though, since dining out is a big focus of the book.

Kamp's touring now, so you can check him out. He's at Portland's Powells Books tonight.

The People that You Meet at Starbucks

I like to think I'm more upper-middlebrow than lower-middle brow -- maybe that's the reason I disdain Mitch Albom. I was forced to read Tuesdays with Morrie for a book club I foolishly joined (I barely have enough opinions to sustain my freelance book reviewing -- I can't go spending them in a book club situation, and besides, the only thing I had in common with the other women in the club, all of whom were really nice and smart, was that we were all nursing newborns). That book had more pap than a visit to the gynecologist.
Maybe I'm just cynical. Ten million people can't be wrong, right? At any rate, Albom is about to be Starbucked, as his new heartwarmer For One More Day becomes the first author in the new Starbucks book program. The book, s slightly creepy novel about what would happen if you had one more day to spend with a loved one who died, treads familiar Albom territory of emotions, death, and healing.

Starbucks has done amazingly well in its music partnerships. The CDs sell like hotcakes. Not so much with its movie deal to promote Akeelah and the Bee. (People may be getting tired of the spelling bee thing, what with documentaries, broadway shows, novels, and other media flooding the market) Still, Albom doesn't really need Starbucks to push him, and the people who feel he's too populist and treacly probably are eschewing venti carmel macchiatos and strawberries and cream frappucinos in favor of espresso shots and mugs of shade grown in their locally owned cafe that features freshly roasted beans and housemade pastries.

Wes Anderson loved pop-up books

Wes Anderson has obviously been inspired by book on ocean adventure as shown by the significant role that Jaques Cousteau's book Diving for Sunken Treasure played in his filmRushmore. I love that movie so much that many times I've been tempted to pick up a hard back copy of the book. I was reading my copy of the pop-up version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and came across this illustration and was immediately reminded of the scene in Life Aquatic where we are given a tour of his boat. I'm sure Wes and his brother Eric had this book when they were kids.

Too Much Television

I love projects in which someone immerses themselves in TV for days on end to prove what a shallow medium it is. In the 1990s, environmental critic Bill McKibben wrote The Age of Missing Information in which he recorded all the television available to him on cable and broadcast in a 24 hour period, then watched all 1700 hours of it. He then went into the woods to go camping for 24 hours. Which experience would teach him more -- a day in the woods or 1700 hours of TV? Hint: Camping.
In the latest issue of the The New Yorker, Bill Buford sets himself a comparatively light schedule of watching a mere 72 hours straight of the Food Network. Woozy with overstimulation, he becomes entranced with the visual pleasure of making a salad. Also, he caps on Rachael Ray.

My, What Big Thoughts You Have ....

The British Guardian Unlimited has a nice piece on the many and varied interpretations of the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood" to commemorate the opening of the kids' movie Hoodwinked on that side of the pond. Originally penned in 1697, the story has offered rich material for writers, filmmakers, graduate thesis penners, and other thinkers. Does her red cape represent menstruation? Sin? Is the wolf, well, a wolf? Or merely misunderstood? And what to make of the fact that my 1970s-era CB handle when I was a kid was "Red Riding Hood?"

There's lots to think about in this article, but perhaps its raison d'etre is this line, about the 1980s Neil Jordan film The Company of Wolves:

"A movie so Freudian that you keep expecting it to grow a beard and move to Vienna..."

Barnes & Noble stock jump on analysist upgrade

Barnes & Noble stock jumped when Goldman Sachs upgraded to "neutral" and removed the bookseller from its Americas Sell List. That reminds me of the gag on Arrested Development when their company's stock goes from "triple sell" to "Don't Buy" and everyone cheers.

Nevertheless, this is mostly good news for the book industry as one of the reasons cited for the upgrade is the slew of new blockbuster books planned for release this Fall.

History for Dummies

The [Blank] for Dummies series is 15 years old now, and the New York Times celebrated this past Sunday with a juicyish insider's piece on the series.
Starting with the DOS for Dummies book in 1991 (which surprisingly has no value today, if the prices on Ebay are any indication), IDG has more than 1000 For Dummies titles. That's a lot of stupidity, from Opera for Dummies to Diabetes for Dummies. Best of all? They call the process of editing the book to their style "dummifying" it.

Ban Noam Chomsky?

Maybe more people would read Noam chomsky if his books were banned instead of Where's Waldo.

Pictures of Sony's eBook Reader

There's some cool pictures of Sony's new ebook reader over at Gizmodo. I'm amazed at how thin it is. Combine it with something like the Million Books Project and you have something very interesting.

Gone to New York, by Ian Frazier

Just finished Ian Fraizier's Gone to New York. Great book. I got the first edition hard back cuz I'm such a book geek but I just love the cover to the paperback version. It is instantly recognizable to any reader of the New Yorker as his bag snatcher story.

I love books with lots of different stuff in it, particularly books that feature stuff from the New Yorker or other magazines. Books from Steve Martin and David Rakoff come to mind. What I love most about this book is how it holds together so well. It builds up short bits (from his Talk of the Town column) and other things into a large narrative about his life growing up in Ohio, moving to New York city, then to Brooklyn, and finally moving to Montclair, New Jersey.

His mind seems to work very much like my own, becoming obsessed with historical details and the unexplored underbelly of all the places he lives. His stories of living in a loft above an Army surplus store on Canal Street is like shooting fish in a barrel, but who would have though that New Jersey could be so interesting.

As someone who was born in Queens and lived many years in lower Manhattan, this book really satisfies a craving I'd had recently. As some might suggest it doesn't make me long to visit any time soon. In many ways it makes me even happier to be living in Portland right now.

While Ian Frazier is able to bring a rare sense of sanity to New York, Portland is the kind of place where it isn't a struggle to find the sanity. It's right there where you live, surrounded by your friends and community. It's when you leave Portland that you discover the insanity, which only makes life here even more satisfying.

Don't Let Me Buy Any More Books (At Least Not This Week)

What do you do if you're faced with an enormous tableful of (outdated but still pretty cool) children's hardback ex-library books? And what would you do if you had a child who loves books? And they were charging only a quarter for them?

Yes, you'd dive right in. Even though your daughter's shelves are bursting with books and the basement is overflowing with them and there's a stack of not-ex-library books that need to be read and returned so you can check out more.

This Saturday, the Twi-Night Rummage Sale at the Eagles featured just such a table. The woman who runs the sale rescued the books just as the school system was getting ready to throw them in the trash. I chose 16 books -- 14 for my kid and two for resale. They included such gems as About the B'nai Bagels by E.L. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler Konigsburg and a photo-illustrated book on owning and caring for horses by Jill Krementz, A Very Young Rider, and a Robert McClung books on salmon. When I was a kid, I loved his Luna: The Story of a Moth.

Ban the Bomb

Here's an idea -- have a banned books party and have everyone come as their favorite character in a banned book! Personally, I'm planning to go as Captain Underpants.

Or maybe I'll choose the perenially-banned Judy Blume book Forever and go as the hot-to-lose-it Katherine. So many choices!

Banned Books Week

Tomorrow kicks off Banned Books Week, sponsored by the American Library Association. The list of most frequently challenged books of 2005 includes the ususally suspects like Catcher in the Rye and many books that educate people about sexuality. I image this might be a big deal in places like Florida, but such a book-centric city such as Portland mostly takes such an event in stride.

No More Homework

My daughter brought home some homework this afternoon that was actually pretty cool. She has to interview us about how we chose her name. That's nice because it fosters creativity, family history, and literacy all at once.

On the other hand, I'm kind of opposed to homework for first graders. Slate reviewed three new books that take on the controversy about homework this week and writer/mama Emily Bazelton concludes that, for elementary school students, homework is at best, just something to do instead of turning on the T.V.

Alfie Kohn, in his new book, The Homework Myth , argues that the elementary level, homework is mere drudgery and kills intellectual curiosity. I tend to agree a little -- would you rather help your kid memorize the multiplication table or support his avid interest in learning all he can about yucky bugs? Even more damning, Kohn seems to believe that the only thing homework is good for doing is instilling the unquestioning obediance and tolerance for drudgery to turn our kids into the 60-hour-a-week worker-drones that are the necessary engine for our fading economy.

Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish's The Case Against Homework makes many of the same points as Kohn, but its authors also offer stragegies for dealing with the homework, and with the school.

The third book, Harris M. Coopers The Battle Over Homework crunches the numbers of a 700-family study to find out shocking facts like the fact that in younger students there is a negative corelation between the amount of homework a student does and his grades.

Everyone seems to agree, however, that the best homework a kid can do is to (voluntarily) curl up with a good book.

Cody's Books bought by Japanese book distributor

Cody’s Books, which recently suffered the loss of its flagship store in Berkeley, announced that it had been acquired by Yohan, Inc., the largest distributor of foreign books in Japan. This past May, Cody’s closed its flagship Telegraph Avenue store. The Yohan CEO assured that all employees at the San Francisco store in Union Square and the Berkeley store on Fourth Street will be retained and the bookseller will continue its writer’s events and book services for schools, libraries and companies.

Dirty Sugar Cookies by Ayun Halliday

I still haven't decided if I'm going to Ayun Halliday's reading at Powell's Books. I usually wait for the author reading before picking up a book I'm thinking of reading, but I grabbed a copy early and finished it in a few days. While it's lacking the intimacy of her zine, The East Village Inky, I liked the book very much. It's more about her life growing up and her years attending college than current tales of raising kids in New York City.

While my favorite parts are certainly the few chapters about life in New York, I also enjoyed her tales of college life -- getting her first apartment, cooking for a series of boyfriends, and hanging out in greasy spoon diners.

While I'm not usually a big fan of vegetarian conversion stories, her's was very enjoyable. I particularly liked the honest intimacy of falling off the wagon during her travels and big family meals. I don't recall exactly how long she remained a vegetarian for, but her intimate relationship to food is typical of vegetarians and oozes throughout every chapter.

Chocolate Magazine

Came across this magazine at the local back date magazine shop.

It seems very much like a British version of Chocolatier Magazine. I don't know how many issues they published. This is the first one, dated April 1999, and might very well be the only one.

It's got all the standard stuff you'd expect the first issue of a chololate magazine to have; chocolate history, how it goes from bean to bar, and an overview of chocolate themed books.

As short lived as it might have been, it's still a fine publication. Really nice production with bright photos on high-quality paper. The chocolate tasting runs four pages and has some nice objective comments from multiple tastings on a wide variety of (mostly European) chocolate bars.

Their domain at http://chocolate-magazine.co.uk has been taken over by squaters but the editor Arthur Martin is still making the rounds.

Turkish Novelist Acquitted

Elif Shafak, the Turkish novelist who was arrested for "insulting Turkishness" because her novel had a character talking about the turkish slaughter of Armenians in the early part of the last century (uh-oh, now I've insulted Turkishness) has been acquitted in Turkey.

Although the concept of "insulting Turkishness" may sound funny, her trial and its implications was no laughing matter. Several Turkish writers and journalists have been charged under Article 301.

What if the U.S. adopted a law like this? I'd wager we'd have a lot fewer books about the U.S. history of slavery and a radically reduced amount of dissident political views. On the other hand, even though I'm no fan of George W. Bush, the bookstores are getting kind of overloaded with anti-Bush books. Just the other day I picked up The I Hate Bush Cookbook, The Idiot's Guide to Why George Bush Is an Idiot, and Ramona Quimby, Anti-Bush Activist.

Corrections!

Although I've read most of Jonathan Franzen's new book already, since lots of it previously appeared in the New Yorker, I'm excited to check out The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History because goodness knows, it's hard to find any memoirs out there. Franzen's ability to make readers squirm makes him a great candidate to chronicle his self-loathing adolescence.

And speaking of memoirs, I'm re-reading Judith Moore's haunting Fat Girl. As you can imagine, it's even more poignant since her death a few months ago.

Portland Library book sale coming up on October 6

The big Portland Library book sale is coming up October 6, 7, 8, 9. Pay $30 at the door to become a member and get in to the preview sale on Friday night.

British phone books go online

I've been fascinated with old phone books for many years. While I've never actually collected any, I've heard of old NYC phone books where you can look up Edgar Allen Poe's phone number. British Telecom is posting British phone books dating back to 1880, the year directories were introduced. I only wish the U.S. phone company/ies would do that. Look for it at ancestry.co.uk.

Kid's Book Fair

This looks like fun. A kid's book fair sponsored by the Multnomah County Library. A good event to check out before the Sunnyside Art Stroll.