peevish mama

Someone once said that a good title will get you half way there. Actually, I just made that up. But it’s true, I think. Which is why I would have picked up Another Bullshit Night in Suck City if I had seen it in a bookstore, even without the recommendation of our good friend, Flan. To tell the truth, Flan could recommend a book called Beige Slacks and I’d probably still give it a try. I love this title and I love this book. A memoir by Nick Flynn, it’s raw and beautifully written, pain and humor, grit, blood and spittle spun into something fragile, translucent, vivid and incredibly complex and textured. I can’t help but think of Chihuly’s work. Flynn uses such a light hand and strings each chapter together with the most tenuous of invisible strings – the whole book feels a mere gust away from crashing to the ground in a pile of tragic shards. Instead it soars. One example of countless:

“When my grandmother comes to dinner at our house she always carries her own jar of Turner’s Special Blend. She knows how much she needs and doesn’t want to be caught short. My brother remembers her at Christmas one year, an especially weepy time for her, when she put her hands around his neck and murmured, My little angel, you wouldn’t be so hard to kill. And though he knew it was only the whiskey talking, he also knew that the whiskey talked daily.”

I can’t get that image out of my head. Her wrinkled hand against the smooth pale skin of the boy’s neck. At a certain point, what really separates a caress from an atrocity? Just a bit of pressure for a few minutes. Man.

Another title I love is from Atmosphere’s last album: If Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold. Genius. And they back it up – it’s a great album.  These boys have a knack though, because in 2002 they released an album called God Loves Ugly, which are my sentiments exactly.  Offensively stinky cheeses, drinks so strong they make you grimace, books that make you cry, music laced in rage or grief, meat – what can be sadder than eating meat? That’s the good stuff.

That murky water hole where pretty and ugly swirl together? That’s where I want to wallow.

* Saffron Tower, by Dale Chihuly on exhibition at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ until May 31, 2009. Wish I could go.