And Let the Earth Tremble at Its Centers, by Gonzalo Celorio
Translated from Spanish by Dick Gerdes, Foreword by Rubén Gallo
The world comes crashing down at the very center of the Mexican universe as the hero of this contemporary novel by scholar Celorio feels his life ebb away from excessive drinking and an inexplicable gunshot wound. He lies naked and vulnerable at the base of the flagpole that supports the huge red, white and green ensign, in the very midst of Mexico City’s own version of Tiananmen Square called the Zocalo.
The hero and the reader can see the irony of his situation in the predawn hours in the abandoned main square: -- dying utterly alone in the most populous city in the world. Statues in the Main Cathedral start to come loose from their perches where they have stood since the Spanish tore down the immense Aztec Pyramid and used the stones to build the vast Zocalo. Our hero is getting swept away much like the native culture of Mexico was by the colonists. In many ways it’s his own damn fault, but you get the sense reading this incredibly urbane and profane novel that essential history is being forgotten with the passing of our hapless hero. And especially Mexico City itself, the downtown area (El Centro) of which is also a main character in the book; Mexico City is found to be hurling itself forward into an unknown oblivion, its past crushed and relegated to mere garbage.
And let the earth tremble at its centers is a line from the Mexican national anthem. You have the idea of rebirth and redemption when you walk along the dark and seedy confines of the Zona Historico in Mexico City with our well-read and knowledgeable hero. It’s all so uncertain, but Celorio is a master storyteller and the reader is riveted by our hero’s fateful walk through history, and then onto the next world.
Dick Gerdes and University of Texas Press have done English readers an immense favor by bringing this stark and original novel to print.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Northern Illinois University Press to debut new fiction series
NIU Press is taking a departure into fiction with the establishment of a new series called Switchgrass Books - http://www.switchgrass.niu.edu/switchgrass/ - and they are billing it as “authentic voices of the Midwest.” One of the first books in the intriguing new series is by Chicagoan Joseph G. Peterson, called Beautiful Piece. What follows is a brief review of this book:
Plinking at the dump
Joe Peterson hits a bull’s-eye with his new novel, Beautiful Piece. The narrator of this stark tale, set during a brutal heat wave in Chicago, acquires a Glock 10 mm automatic almost by accident and through sheer happenstance. “Odd, a gun,” he says. “I wouldn’t own a gun even if I could.” But that’s not all he comes to own, as he takes up a torrid affair with Lucy, a girl he meets at the gas station in the middle of a blistering hot day. Problem is that Lucy is engaged to another man, a certain Matthew Gliss, who the narrator, named Robert, knows and likes. This realization of love is new to Robert, who finds himself at thirty-five years old living alone in a one bedroom dump, as he calls his apartment, and desperately lonely.
The unrelenting heat of the Chicago summer goes a little bit to Robert’s head and he starts fantasizing about dying alone in his one bedroom dump. His upstairs neighbor, simply called the Vet, also lives alone. The Vet is severely damaged from his tours of Vietnam during that war. These two unlikely types form an alliance, and they agree to call each other every morning just to make sure each one is still alive. Robert has a rough time getting along with the Vet, who is so much older and worldly wise, but comes to respect and admire him with all his eccentricities. Robert has another friend named Epstein. Epstein is a mystic who can turn into a stone while they go fishing on the Des Plaines River. Epstein is well-adjusted and has a wife and kids, and lives in a different world from Robert. Robert has Epstein call him up every third morning just in case he was to expire from the heat and no one would know. This is his contingency plan to stay connected with the outside world.
Robert goes to the dump on the outskirts of town with the Vet to go plinking with the Glock. There is a certain poetic meaning to the way the gun goes off and rearranges everything. The Vet loves the mechanicals, and Robert starts to rethink his relationship with the world. His instincts tell him to try and be more like the mystical Epstein and try to be one with the natural world, but his love for Lucy upends everything for him.
There is a wry humor and interesting sentence construction that make up this raw tale of urban lost souls. There is a compulsive repeating of information and unorthodox narrative construction that reminded me of Joseph Heller’s Something Happened. It’s more than just a stylistic exercise in fiction writing; Peterson has something fundamental to say about human nature here, and the tale is funny and heartbreakingly wise.
Plinking at the dump
Joe Peterson hits a bull’s-eye with his new novel, Beautiful Piece. The narrator of this stark tale, set during a brutal heat wave in Chicago, acquires a Glock 10 mm automatic almost by accident and through sheer happenstance. “Odd, a gun,” he says. “I wouldn’t own a gun even if I could.” But that’s not all he comes to own, as he takes up a torrid affair with Lucy, a girl he meets at the gas station in the middle of a blistering hot day. Problem is that Lucy is engaged to another man, a certain Matthew Gliss, who the narrator, named Robert, knows and likes. This realization of love is new to Robert, who finds himself at thirty-five years old living alone in a one bedroom dump, as he calls his apartment, and desperately lonely.
The unrelenting heat of the Chicago summer goes a little bit to Robert’s head and he starts fantasizing about dying alone in his one bedroom dump. His upstairs neighbor, simply called the Vet, also lives alone. The Vet is severely damaged from his tours of Vietnam during that war. These two unlikely types form an alliance, and they agree to call each other every morning just to make sure each one is still alive. Robert has a rough time getting along with the Vet, who is so much older and worldly wise, but comes to respect and admire him with all his eccentricities. Robert has another friend named Epstein. Epstein is a mystic who can turn into a stone while they go fishing on the Des Plaines River. Epstein is well-adjusted and has a wife and kids, and lives in a different world from Robert. Robert has Epstein call him up every third morning just in case he was to expire from the heat and no one would know. This is his contingency plan to stay connected with the outside world.
Robert goes to the dump on the outskirts of town with the Vet to go plinking with the Glock. There is a certain poetic meaning to the way the gun goes off and rearranges everything. The Vet loves the mechanicals, and Robert starts to rethink his relationship with the world. His instincts tell him to try and be more like the mystical Epstein and try to be one with the natural world, but his love for Lucy upends everything for him.
There is a wry humor and interesting sentence construction that make up this raw tale of urban lost souls. There is a compulsive repeating of information and unorthodox narrative construction that reminded me of Joseph Heller’s Something Happened. It’s more than just a stylistic exercise in fiction writing; Peterson has something fundamental to say about human nature here, and the tale is funny and heartbreakingly wise.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Printed catalogs are vital to the publishing process
American Association of University Presses (AAUP) President Alex Holzman recently sent an email message to his colleagues concerning seasonal catalogs where he states he is “utterly befuddled” by why his fellow university presses bother to print them. The color ink used in the catalogs is pretty, Holzman says, but is a complete waste of money, and he castigates the university presses for being behind the times by still issuing catalogs on paper. “Do folks genuinely find that more beautiful catalogues lead to better sales? To better acquisitions? To better university relations? Can you quantify that somehow?” The economic rationale of Holzman’s argument seems to hinge on the fact that university administrations would applaud the cost savings of eliminating catalogs, therefore slashing marketing budgets, and there would be very little collateral damage because independent bookstores are going the way of the Dodo, and the reps who call on these bookstores are just as behind the times as the marketing departments at the university presses whom they represent for continuing the use of paper catalogs as essential sales tools.
I am one of the sales reps for Temple University Press where Holzman is currently the director. I have no recollection of howling in protest over his suggestion, as he stated was the case with his reps, but I have to say that with all due respect that paper catalogs reflect the essential character of a university press, and I have yet to see a better alternative for selling books than the use of a catalog, color or not. Furthermore, the catalog transcends the mundane process of selling books to retailers, librarians, wholesalers, and teachers: it serves multiple purposes such as list development, publicity, and public relations. A catalog enhances the personal expression of the authors whose books are listed there. A catalog expresses the worldview and outlook of the publisher, be it programmatic or a special series of books that the publisher is developing. It’s there for the world to see in a cohesive, integrated format that has stood the test of time.
A publisher can lose creative control over the development process when you take catalogs out of the mix. One could argue that the dissemination of information is now relegated to the Internet, ceded to Google, to Microsoft, to Intel, to Amazon.com, and to the electric utilities powering computers, polluting the air with coal-burning power plants. There is a political element to this that should not be ignored. How are various books represented in culture? Who controls the process of how books are distributed, digested, and reviewed in the greater quotidian? The cost to the publisher should not be measured here in money saved or set-aside, but in something greater, something more important, and something akin to saving their souls.
My guess is that the bound book itself will be next on the digital hit list, and university presses will be harshly criticized down the road for not saving money by going exclusively digital with their offerings. With Pandora’s box thrown open, ultimately we need to ask: what is the role of a university press in the world today?
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Midwest Book Review cites Tom Palazolo's At Maxwell Street
The Photography Shelf
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/feb_09.htm#photography
At Maxwell Street
Tom Palazzolo
Wicker Park Press PO Box 5318, River Forest, IL 60305-5318
9780978967611, $45.00, http://www.wickerparkpress.com/
Chicago's Maxwell Street had its beginnings as an old-world style European market place in the 19th century and evolved into Chicago's official open-air market in the 20th century as a tri-part combination of sidewalk storefront shops, curbside vending sheds, and vending plywood table-tops on wooden horses lining each side of the street. A pedestrian only area because of the density of vendors, Maxwell Street was a true Chicago and enduring cultural landmark. Now in "At Maxwell Street: Chicago's Historic Marketplace Recalled In Words And Photographs" by Tom Palazzolo, we are provided with a wealth of black-and-white captioned images along with informative commentaries by Lori Grove, Jack Helbig, Lionel Bottari, Linda Platt, and others. Enhanced with an accompanying DVD, At Maxwell Street is an especially recommended addition to personal, community, and academic library Photogaphy and American History reference collections in general, and Chicago History supplemental reading lists in particular.
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/feb_09.htm#photography
At Maxwell Street
Tom Palazzolo
Wicker Park Press PO Box 5318, River Forest, IL 60305-5318
9780978967611, $45.00, http://www.wickerparkpress.com/
Chicago's Maxwell Street had its beginnings as an old-world style European market place in the 19th century and evolved into Chicago's official open-air market in the 20th century as a tri-part combination of sidewalk storefront shops, curbside vending sheds, and vending plywood table-tops on wooden horses lining each side of the street. A pedestrian only area because of the density of vendors, Maxwell Street was a true Chicago and enduring cultural landmark. Now in "At Maxwell Street: Chicago's Historic Marketplace Recalled In Words And Photographs" by Tom Palazzolo, we are provided with a wealth of black-and-white captioned images along with informative commentaries by Lori Grove, Jack Helbig, Lionel Bottari, Linda Platt, and others. Enhanced with an accompanying DVD, At Maxwell Street is an especially recommended addition to personal, community, and academic library Photogaphy and American History reference collections in general, and Chicago History supplemental reading lists in particular.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
St Lawrence Seaway’s 50th Anniversary Inspires Two New Books
You can look at the St Lawrence Seaway from a number of perspectives. You can see it as a spectacular feat of engineering, a brash and bold opening of world trade routes across the North American continent, or as an unmitigated ecological disaster. Jeff Alexander takes the last view in his book, Pandora’s Locks: The Opening of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway ($29.95, 416 pages, ISBN 978-0-87013-857-7, Michigan State University Press). Alexander pulls no punches in his book, and shows how the opening of waterways reeked havoc on the Great Lakes as invasive foreign species moved in along with the trading vessels from the high seas. Eric Reeves, a former Coast Guard Staff Officer for the Great Lakes ballast-monitoring program, says Alexander’s book, “tells the twisted story of this exotic disaster – and the story of our abject failure to prevent it.”
In a 2004 article in the Star Tribune, Few ships checked for invasive species, writer Tom Meersman spells it out, “These untested ships -- nearly 3,500 since 1995 -- are loaded with cargo, rather than ballast water. In theory, their nearly empty ballast tanks shouldn't be teeming with foreign creatures. But they are, scientists have discovered. Even ships with nearly empty ballast tanks can carry millions of tiny invaders in residual water and mud that can end up dumped into Great Lakes ports. Once established in the world's largest freshwater lake chain, an invader like the European round goby can become a permanent resident, out-eating, out-reproducing and overpowering native species. Two-thirds of the 79 non-native species discovered in the lakes since the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959 almost certainly arrived in ballast tanks, according to recent U.S. and Canadian research analyzed by the Star Tribune.” http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/ny/061604_great_lakes.htm
And so it seems that ocean freighters are laying waste to the Great Lakes ecosystems, and little was done has been done about it. Alexander is an award-winning writer, and author of a previous Michigan State book, The Muskegon: The Majesty and Tragedy of Michigan’s Rarest River. He blends science with first-hand accounts in a readable, journalistic style.
The St Lawrence Seaway may be bad news for the wondrous lakes on both sides of the United States-Canadian border, but the story of its construction is well-told by Calire Puccia Parham, a history instructor at Siena College in Loudonville, NY. The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project: An Oral History of the Greatest Construction Show on Earth ($34.95, 328 pages, 40 b/w illustrations, ISBN 978-0-8156-0913-1, Syracuse University Press) is a vivid tribute to the hard work and dedication of the project’s 22,000 workers. It was a phenomenal feat of engineering and manufacturing, and involved unprecedented cooperation between the governments of the United States and Canada.
The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project consisted of a series of locks, canals, and dams that tamed the ferocious St Lawrence River. Perham’s book draws on first-hand accounts of various engineers, laborers, and carpenters who built the Seaway in 1959. This book offers a human side to the massive international public works project. Perham is an expert on the history of the area, and she wrote a previous book on two towns that are separated by the St. Lawrence River: in Canada, Cornwall, Ontario, and in the United States, Massena, New York. The book is From Great Wilderness to Seaway Town (State University of New York Press) and offers various perspectives on the people inhabiting the area. Her new book is tells an important and almost forgotten story of how the St. Lawrence Seaway came to be built, and vividly recounts the experiences of the people who labored to make it a reality.
In a 2004 article in the Star Tribune, Few ships checked for invasive species, writer Tom Meersman spells it out, “These untested ships -- nearly 3,500 since 1995 -- are loaded with cargo, rather than ballast water. In theory, their nearly empty ballast tanks shouldn't be teeming with foreign creatures. But they are, scientists have discovered. Even ships with nearly empty ballast tanks can carry millions of tiny invaders in residual water and mud that can end up dumped into Great Lakes ports. Once established in the world's largest freshwater lake chain, an invader like the European round goby can become a permanent resident, out-eating, out-reproducing and overpowering native species. Two-thirds of the 79 non-native species discovered in the lakes since the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959 almost certainly arrived in ballast tanks, according to recent U.S. and Canadian research analyzed by the Star Tribune.” http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/ny/061604_great_lakes.htm
And so it seems that ocean freighters are laying waste to the Great Lakes ecosystems, and little was done has been done about it. Alexander is an award-winning writer, and author of a previous Michigan State book, The Muskegon: The Majesty and Tragedy of Michigan’s Rarest River. He blends science with first-hand accounts in a readable, journalistic style.
The St Lawrence Seaway may be bad news for the wondrous lakes on both sides of the United States-Canadian border, but the story of its construction is well-told by Calire Puccia Parham, a history instructor at Siena College in Loudonville, NY. The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project: An Oral History of the Greatest Construction Show on Earth ($34.95, 328 pages, 40 b/w illustrations, ISBN 978-0-8156-0913-1, Syracuse University Press) is a vivid tribute to the hard work and dedication of the project’s 22,000 workers. It was a phenomenal feat of engineering and manufacturing, and involved unprecedented cooperation between the governments of the United States and Canada.
The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project consisted of a series of locks, canals, and dams that tamed the ferocious St Lawrence River. Perham’s book draws on first-hand accounts of various engineers, laborers, and carpenters who built the Seaway in 1959. This book offers a human side to the massive international public works project. Perham is an expert on the history of the area, and she wrote a previous book on two towns that are separated by the St. Lawrence River: in Canada, Cornwall, Ontario, and in the United States, Massena, New York. The book is From Great Wilderness to Seaway Town (State University of New York Press) and offers various perspectives on the people inhabiting the area. Her new book is tells an important and almost forgotten story of how the St. Lawrence Seaway came to be built, and vividly recounts the experiences of the people who labored to make it a reality.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Tom Palazzolo captures Maxwell Street Market in his Unique Lens
Steve Balkin, professor of Economics at Roosevelt University in Chicago, had this to say to Tom Palazzolo, compiler and editor of At Maxwell Street: Chicago's Historic Marketplace Recalled in Words and Photographs:
" I was very impressed with your book. Of all the photographers that shot the Maxwell Street area, your photos best capture the soul and spirit of the place. They are works of art -- the subject matter and the photographs. It was the last place that connected the old world to the new, a remarkable place of authentic folk culture. I appreciate your sensitivity to Maxwell Street's gritty urban beauty. You are a hero for history. But for all the bastards that destroyed Maxwell Street, they should spend eternity in Schaumburg. "
-- http://faculty.roosevelt.edu/balkin/
And also, the following excerpted comments about this book:
"His book serves as a historic record about the phenomenon that was Maxwell Street … To see Maxwell Street through the eyes and lens of Tom Palazzolo with the help of photos and stories of his students, friends and wife, is to be transported back to a place that engages all the senses: images of the people, including merchants, shoppers and street performers, the products, and outsider art on a massive scale; the sounds of jazz and blues; the smells of street food, of Polish sausage sandwiches (of particular interest to Tom); and the feel of the market and the goods being sold by vendors, hawkers and pullers who drew people into the stores."
-- CHRISTINE VERNON Contributing Reporter -- Chicago Journal
see http://chicagojournal.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=6713&SectionID=5&SubSectionID=5&S=1
Bob Sirott, host of WGN AM 720 Radio, the Noon Show, calls this book, “quite a nice little keepsake.” http://wgnradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46757&Itemid=557
Book Information:
AT MAXWELL STREET: CHICAGO’S HISTORIC MARKETPLACE RECALLED IN WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
Compiled by Tom Palazzolo
With Introduction by Jack Helbig & Foreword by Lori Grove
$45, Hardcover with DVD, ISBN 978-0-9789676-1-1 Wicker Park Press -- http://www.wickerparkpress.com/
" I was very impressed with your book. Of all the photographers that shot the Maxwell Street area, your photos best capture the soul and spirit of the place. They are works of art -- the subject matter and the photographs. It was the last place that connected the old world to the new, a remarkable place of authentic folk culture. I appreciate your sensitivity to Maxwell Street's gritty urban beauty. You are a hero for history. But for all the bastards that destroyed Maxwell Street, they should spend eternity in Schaumburg. "
-- http://faculty.roosevelt.edu/balkin/
And also, the following excerpted comments about this book:
"His book serves as a historic record about the phenomenon that was Maxwell Street … To see Maxwell Street through the eyes and lens of Tom Palazzolo with the help of photos and stories of his students, friends and wife, is to be transported back to a place that engages all the senses: images of the people, including merchants, shoppers and street performers, the products, and outsider art on a massive scale; the sounds of jazz and blues; the smells of street food, of Polish sausage sandwiches (of particular interest to Tom); and the feel of the market and the goods being sold by vendors, hawkers and pullers who drew people into the stores."
-- CHRISTINE VERNON Contributing Reporter -- Chicago Journal
see http://chicagojournal.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=6713&SectionID=5&SubSectionID=5&S=1
Bob Sirott, host of WGN AM 720 Radio, the Noon Show, calls this book, “quite a nice little keepsake.” http://wgnradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46757&Itemid=557
Book Information:
AT MAXWELL STREET: CHICAGO’S HISTORIC MARKETPLACE RECALLED IN WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
Compiled by Tom Palazzolo
With Introduction by Jack Helbig & Foreword by Lori Grove
$45, Hardcover with DVD, ISBN 978-0-9789676-1-1 Wicker Park Press -- http://www.wickerparkpress.com/
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Author of Water Tanks of Chicago to be featured on WGN TV’s Midday News with Steve Sanders on Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Larry W. Green, a Chicago artist, will talk about his 2007 book Water Tanks of Chicago: A Vanishing Urban Legacy ($19.95, paperback, ISBN 978-0-9789676-0-4, Wicker Park Press) on WGN TV Midday News program on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at approximately 11:25 am. This is local Channel 9, and nationally syndicated on Cable TV through WGN America.
Water Tanks of Chicago remains the only book on the subject of Chicago’s disappearing rooftop water tanks. Tony Jones, Past President of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Green is a 1975 graduate, says in his foreword to the book: “Chicago’s crumbling water-tanks take on a new significance when seen in Green’s paintings – surely we knew they were there, they’d registered, but they weren’t the star of the street-show. But we’ve woken up to them, become part of his celebration of them as dynamic incidents in what is clearly a Chicago landscape.”
Water tanks have been omnipresent in Chicago for the past 136 years, but are often overlooked and/or taken for granted in the urban environment. Green’s vibrant images of these iconic structures gently remind readers of their historical and cultural significance to the city. The tanks, strong symbols of the city’s industrial past, are rapidly becoming extinct. It is a primary mission of this book to call attention to the plight of the water tanks, and to raise awareness of the urgent need to preserve them.
Green’s paintings are currently being featured in the Museum of Science and Industry’s ongoing Black Creativity Exhibit and Program (January 15 – March 1, 2009). This is a juried art show, and it is a good chance for museum visitors to see Green’s colorful and distinctive paintings of the city’s water tanks up close. For more information about this groundbreaking exhibit, visit www.msichicago.org
Mayor Richard M. Daley was quoted in the Chicago Tribune in 2005 in a speech at the Chicago Cultural Center saying, “This is all about the history of the city of Chicago, the architects, engineers and tradesman who built these wonderful tanks basically reflect the great history of Chicago.” Water Tanks of Chicago is both an artist’s bold statement about the plight of the tanks, and a clarion call to save these picturesque rooftop structures from demolition and the industrial scrapheap of history.
Water Tanks of Chicago remains the only book on the subject of Chicago’s disappearing rooftop water tanks. Tony Jones, Past President of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Green is a 1975 graduate, says in his foreword to the book: “Chicago’s crumbling water-tanks take on a new significance when seen in Green’s paintings – surely we knew they were there, they’d registered, but they weren’t the star of the street-show. But we’ve woken up to them, become part of his celebration of them as dynamic incidents in what is clearly a Chicago landscape.”
Water tanks have been omnipresent in Chicago for the past 136 years, but are often overlooked and/or taken for granted in the urban environment. Green’s vibrant images of these iconic structures gently remind readers of their historical and cultural significance to the city. The tanks, strong symbols of the city’s industrial past, are rapidly becoming extinct. It is a primary mission of this book to call attention to the plight of the water tanks, and to raise awareness of the urgent need to preserve them.
Green’s paintings are currently being featured in the Museum of Science and Industry’s ongoing Black Creativity Exhibit and Program (January 15 – March 1, 2009). This is a juried art show, and it is a good chance for museum visitors to see Green’s colorful and distinctive paintings of the city’s water tanks up close. For more information about this groundbreaking exhibit, visit www.msichicago.org
Mayor Richard M. Daley was quoted in the Chicago Tribune in 2005 in a speech at the Chicago Cultural Center saying, “This is all about the history of the city of Chicago, the architects, engineers and tradesman who built these wonderful tanks basically reflect the great history of Chicago.” Water Tanks of Chicago is both an artist’s bold statement about the plight of the tanks, and a clarion call to save these picturesque rooftop structures from demolition and the industrial scrapheap of history.
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