I
Read Odd Books

It’s been over a year since I wrote about an independent book store, which may seem like a long lapse for the average person. But I kind of like not leaving my house often. If I’m not taking a cat to the vet, buying groceries or subject to fire evacuations, I pretty much like staying home. And since we moved to the suburbs, driving into Austin seems like Death Race 2000. So even though Domy Books is less than 20 miles from my house, I hadn’t been in three years or so.

But Mr Oddbooks urged me to haul my carcass out of the house and off to Domy we went. Domy Books is an alternative arts and culture book store and art space. Perhaps it is a good thing I can’t go there much because when I do go, I spend unseemly amounts of money. It’s a visually appealing space.

Part of one of the art exhibits on display currently.

I don’t know from art, however. I mostly go for the books.

So many beautiful books.

It’s one of those spaces where you can never look enough. I feel like I never have enough time to get a handle on all that is on offer there. And I think I don’t look as much as I should because just a quick scan can cost me a couple hundred bucks. A deep look would likely require a bank loan.

The manager, a friendly and very knowledgeable man named Russell, turned me on to a couple of new strange writers and when I told him I maintained this site, he even offered to do a weird book tour for me if I gave him a heads up so he could organize it. I definitely plan to take him up on this offer once I have gathered sufficient money to take another Domy splurge. I guarantee you there is no way I would have the strength to go on such a tour and not, and forgive the rude parlance, blow my wad.

So Austinites, I heartily encourage you to check out Domy. It’s a place to find ‘zines, high and fringe art books, fringe graphic novels, amazing photography compendiums, vinyl collectible dolls, alt culture non-fiction and local art. Russell was laid back and let us look, while offering help or comments when needed. It’s definitely a place where long-term browsing is allowed and encouraged. So visit if you can and if you can’t, you can shop online. I’ve got more pictures of the store on my Flickr account – just click on one of the pics above and wallow in the pretty art and pretty books.

And oh yeah, here’s what I bought (and I am only linking to them on Amazon because what I purchased does not appear to be on the Domy web store):
Richard Dadd: The Artist and the Asylum by Nicholas Tromans
Encyclopaedia of Hell: An Invasion Manual for Demons Concerning the Planet Earth and the Human Race Which Infests It by Martin Olson
Burn Collector: Collected Stories from One through Nine by Al Burian
Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet Of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler
True Norwegian Black Metal by Pete Beste

Book: Ruthless: An Extreme Shock Horror Collection

Author: Collection edited by Shane McKenzie

Type of Book: Horror, extreme horror, short story collection

Why Do I Consider This Book Odd: Extreme horror will always have a place on this site.

Availability: Published by Pill Hill Press in 2010, you can get a copy here:

Comments: I think that I may have reached my saturation point in terms of what can horrify me. I can recall the first time I saw the movie Scarface and watched the scene with Angel and the chainsaw. I was still technically a kid and I remember feeling nauseated and light-headed. It was the first time any form of media had that effect on me, but now it’s like every movie has a chainsaw, even the romantic comedies. Even so, it still happens from time to time, that feeling that I might vomit as I am being exposed to something terrible, but not often. The Throbbing Gristle song “Hamburger Lady” is the only form of media I can think of that still upsets me when I am exposed to it. It’s not even the lyrics. It’s the strange, gravelly but warbling siren sound that recurs in the song. My microwave makes a similar sound when the glass plate inside gets unstable, so my microwave also upsets me a little. It’s a sound that always makes me feel desolate, like no matter how good and careful I am that my life could still end up an exercise in pointless brutality disguised as medical advancement, that I could end up in a place of unending agony perpetrated against me for my own good. This is an unpleasant feeling to have come over one’s self when reheating leftovers.

That sense of nauseated terror or grim but panicked fear of pain is what I expect of extreme horror and it seldom happens anymore. It could be because I am too hardened, having exposed myself almost relentlessly to the real and fictional bad men can do. But mostly I think extreme horror often goes for the gross out, cartoonish violence that has no punch after the initial sense of “Gross!” The Three Stooges with cleavers. Luckily this collection has more good stories than bad, and given some of the really unimpressive collections I have read over the last couple of years, just being better than average means this collection stands above the rest.  But little of it was particularly horrifying as I read it, and that which did horrify me crossed the lines of a personal taboo that I suspect fans of extreme horror would not find that upsetting. There was no “Hamburger Lady” equivalent in this collection, but there was enough gross out combined with good writing that allows me to overlook the absence of the sort of extremity that can truly affect me. Read the rest of this entry »

Book: The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir

Author: Stephen Elliott

Type of Book: Memoir, true crime

Why Do I Consider This Book Odd: I don’t even know anymore. I finished it months ago and put it in the “Odd – To Be Discussed” pile. It may not be odd but I don’t recommend a normal person with normal interests and a normal constitution read this book, not because it is outre, but because I suspect normal people would have given up within the first few chapters.

Availability: Published by Graywolf Press in 2009, you can get a copy here:

Comments: You know, I’m gonna go ahead and cop to the fact that this is not going to be a favorable discussion of Elliott’s book. But I also want to make it clear that this is not going to be the full-bore assault I think the book likely deserves. You’ve seen what happens when I really loathe a book. But Elliott’s book discussion comes after the mental assault of discussing a mass murderer’s manifesto. I’m pretty sure I would be kindly disposed to even the biggest pile of crap ever to be released in trade paperback after 1500 pages of bigotry and murder blue prints. So just remember my perspective may be favorably skewed even as I skewer the book.

I bought this book because I found it in the True Crime section at BookPeople. The memoir part didn’t alarm me or seem out of place. James St. James‘ Party Monster is a drug memoir and is one of the best true crime novels I have read in years. I think that is what I expected when I picked up this memoir about a man with a drug problem who was writing about what the back cover described as a “notorious San Francisco murder trial” and an “electric exploration of the self.” But the back cover gets it very wrong when it asserts that Elliott “seamlessly weaves them together.” Alas, Elliott is no St. James. The murder trial at times doesn’t even seem like a side story in this book. After reading this novel unless I flip through it again I cannot tell you even the most basic details about the murder. But I can tell you a whole lot about Elliott and, frankly, most of it is devoid of emotional meaning and context.

I don’t intend to demean the power of the addiction or sexual discovery narrative, and I don’t want to demean those who may have found something relevant in Elliott’s narrative. And I fully admit that I may have missed something because I have not read any of Elliott’s other works. I wonder if I would have cared more if I had read his other books. But the fact remains that I did not care much about this book. The narrative was flat and uninvolved. The addiction barely registered as being damaging. The bondage and S&M details were seemingly tossed out with no emotion or attempt to lure the reader into a deeper sense of understanding Elliott. It’s a bizarre condemnation of a memoir to say it was self-absorbed, but that was the problem I had with this book.

How can a memoir be self-absorbed? Well, it’s easy, actually. When someone you find interesting goes on and on about him or herself, your interest trumps the self-absorption. It is subjective, to be sure, but a memoir has to contain content that makes the reader care that they are reading a stranger go on and on about him or herself.  Given the proliferation of it, this flat, disengaged writing style must appeal to someone. But I am not that person. ( Which is odd, in a way, because I am fully aware that my book discussions are utterly self-indulgent, written to please myself as much as to entertain and inform.)

The subject matters of this book – addiction, sexual taboos, a murder trial – should all be interesting. But conveyed through Elliott’s numb prose, it is all unexciting. It’s the literary equivalent of tapioca with a dash of tequila. It’s white bread with a dab of mold on it. It’s a boring man telling boring stories to a barely interested audience. I contrast the content of this book with much more taboo writing, like the non-fiction of Peter Sotos, and it becomes clear why Elliott’s writing did not appeal to me. Sotos, in his extremity, forces the reader to think, or to react at the very least. Elliott’s numb tale was like watching a Warhol movie. As I read this book, a quote from Charles Bukowski came to mind often: “Boring damned people. All over the earth.”

And in the course of any sort of discussion I can have about this book, how can I convey how little it interested me? Discussing the plot is hard – Elliott does drugs, has extreme sex, comes to terms with some of feelings about his family and muses about the murder, the discussion of which ostensibly was the focus of this novel. In a way, this is no different than many other memoirs, but when I consider the emotionally numb and at times alienating manner in which Elliott writes, any structure would be lost behind the veil of ennui his words provoke. At times the meta in this book irritated me, but perhaps some will find it delightful. Perhaps some will also report back to me on what it feels like to snort ketamine and take an icepick to their frontal lobes. Perhaps some will find this book so utterly transcendent they will be forced to leave me half-assed, unintelligible comments to show their indie cred. Perhaps some think I should stop typing entirely until I am in a better mood. Perhaps those people are right, but fuck it, I’m sitting here, computer in my lap, so let’s get this over with.

So let me give my examples of why this book was terrible so I can move on to something else. Read the rest of this entry »