I'm reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, whose books I always find interesting. In Chapter 3 he discusses unconscious biases as measured by Implicit Association Tests (IATs). You can take a bunch of different IATs at http://www.implicit.harvard.edu , but the one Gladwell describes in most detail is the Race IAT:

I've taken the Race IAT on many occasions, and the result always leaves me feeling a bit creepy. At the beginning of the test, you are asked what your attitudes toward blacks and whites are. I answered, as I am sure most of you would, that I think of the races as equal. Then comes the test.

Basically, you have to sort black and white faces and positive/negative words into two categories, then sort them again paired with "good" or "bad" concepts. For instance, you have to sort words like hurt, evil, and glorious into the categories "European American or Good" or "African American or Bad," then reverse the pairings: "African American or Good" and "European American or Bad." Supposedly most test takers of either race take significantly longer to sort the second set of pairings because they are biased to associate African American and bad, even if they don't consciously feel that way. Malcolm Gladwell, who's half black, was mortified to learn that he had "a moderate automatic preference for whites." He comments:

[O]f the fifty thousand African Americans who have taken the Race IAT so far, about half of them, like me, have stronger associations with whites than with blacks. How could we not? We live in North America, where we are surrounded every day by cultural messages linking white with good.

Well, I wondered. As far as I'm concerned, I don't live in North America. I live in a small northern outpost of the Caribbean that is, at most, a neglected protectorate of the United States. I am a white person living in a majority-black neighborhood and city. I find myself in way fewer all-white or mostly white environments here in New Orleans than in any other place I've ever lived or visited, except Jamaica and maybe London. Aside from Chris, most of the people I see and speak to on a daily basis are black. If I see white people in my neighborhood, it means potential disruption: volunteers (good/neutral) or lost tourists (neutral/bad). I'm pretty selective about the cultural messages I get: I watch no TV except sporting events (which have a large black demographic); I read the Times-Picayune (which has a significant black readership); many of our local political and cultural readers are black. I didn't feel I'd been inoculated with the white=good virus. And according to the Race IAT, I haven't: "Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for African American compared to European American." Which is exactly what I predicted before I took the test. Gladwell says you can't fool the test or answer to make yourself look better. I don't know about that. I do agree with the statement he makes a few pages later:

Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means we can change our first impressions ... by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions. If you are a white person who would like to treat black people as equals in every way -- who would like to have a set of associations with blacks as positive as those that you have with whites -- it requires more than a simple commitment to equality. It requires that you change your life so that you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with them and the best of their culture, so that when you want to meet, hire, date, or talk with a member of a minority, you aren't betrayed by your hesitation and discomfort.

Which is true, obviously, of any minority you want to feel more comfortable with: people of other races, queer people, trans people. And which also makes me wonder: what would the Race IAT scores of black New Orleanians look like? How much would they vary by neighborhood, income and education level? Does white privilege allow me to romanticize somewhat, influencing my score? Chris and I can live in Central City more safely than many of our black neighbors: we're perceived as having money and influence because we're white, and to some degree, we do. The criminal element perceives us as too much trouble to mess with, and there's truth to that too. Black-on-black crime is by far the commonest type of violent crime in New Orleans. Other white people sometimes wonder how we "dare" to live here, but the truth is that our neighbors are probably in far more danger from each other than we are from any of them.

About half of me is already in Amsterdam and I find it hard to concentrate on anything that doesn't have to do with the trip. Which is probably just as well, since I have at least two weeks' worth of stuff to do to get ready for it. A tendril of depression tried to creep in yesterday -- maybe you won't have as much fun as you think you're going to, you never know, it could happen -- and I booted it right back out, then went and bought some plants to keep myself cheery. Purple petunias, mint, curry, and cauliflower. Planted all of them today, and am feeling it badly in my legs and back now, so I will end this and return to my heating pad.

(ETA: Reading Rembrandt's Portrait by Charles L. Mee, Jr., an excellent biography that also paints a vivid picture of the seventeenth-century Amsterdam art world. Recommended.)

I checked the date very carefully this time and am pretty sure I have it right. The Bridge Lounge, 1201 Magazine Street (corner of Erato), 1:00-4:00pm. I'll be reading around 1:50. Entire schedule is behind the cut.

( ACLU Banned Books Reading Lineup 2009 )

As well as the section from the epilogue of It, I'll be reading a short essay King wrote in response to the removal of his books from school libraries. Unfortunately, I won't be able to stay for the whole event, as my stamina has been limited lately and Chris has to be at work at 3:00. I'm particularly bummed that I won't get to hear my pal louismaistros read from Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. This is a book I've long meant to read, and I'll pick up a copy at the event if it's available (the featured books, along with some of the author/readers' books, are usually sold there).

There's a new graphic novel out, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufield, who has previously done artwork for Harvey Pekar's great American Splendor. (I usually include Amazon links because it seems to be easiest for all concerned, but in this case I ask you to support an independent New Orleans bookstore, Octavia Books, if possible. Amazon does have A.D. in stock, though.) The three panels reprinted in today's Times-Picayune made me lie down and bawl for twenty minutes, so I don't know if I will be able to read the comic, but I'll certainly buy it. Neufield is signing locally this weekend: Friday, 7pm, The Canary, 329 Julia St.; Saturday, 1-3pm at Maple Street Books, 7523 Maple St.; Saturday, 3:30pm, Octavia Books, 513 Octavia St. (I'm going to try & make this one); Sunday, 1pm, Beth's Books/Sound Cafe, 2700 Chartres St.

So I had to stop taking the Vilify Abilify because it was screwing with my ability to read, or, more specifically, with my concentration on and enjoyment of reading. It would take me half an hour to get past the front page of the newspaper. I was skipping around between books, reading three or four at once, which I almost never do and don't like. I've been worried about this apparently atypical side effect since I first noticed it on June 25, but it came to a head on Sunday when I tested myself by thinking about the new Stephen King book and felt about as much excitement as if I were thinking about a block of wood. Clearly this was not acceptable. I quit taking it the next day. According to my doctor, the drug's half-life means it should clear my system in about a month. I can't wait, because I hate this.

Other than that, I'd say it only worked OK. I think it made me a little speedy. It improved my mood, but conversely, it also gave me a craving for -pams. I don't know how that worked. I don't mean to sound like a Special Flower, but my reactions to medication are not always typical; I was apparently one of three people in the world who didn't experience those very unpleasant-sounding "brain zaps" when I went off Cymbalta for five weeks. Perhaps it confirms the prevailing theory that your correspondent does not, in fact, have a brain.

PZB: ...blah blah blah blah blah Stephanie Meyer.

CdB: Uh-huh.

PZB: You don't know who that is, do you?

CdB: Who?

PZB: Twilight?

CdB: What?

PZB: Edward?

CdB: Who?

PZB: Sparkly?

CdB: Huh?

PZB: You don't have any idea at all what I'm talking about?

CdB: No.

PZB: Oh, I love you. I love you so much. You are the most wonderful man in the world.

If I didn't know faustfatale and I were destined to be BFF before, I realized it when I found out we had both enthusiastically bought and read the wonderful book Washed Up: The Curious History of Flotsam and Jetsam by Skye Moody, though others scoffed at our "goofy" reading. But right now I use the phrase because I have many little skritty bits of subjects to write about, nothing worth a full entry. Chris and I have booked our 20th anniversary trip to Amsterdam, our second-favorite city in the world, which makes me very happy. We'll be there for our actual anniversary (November 5, Guy Fawkes' Day) and for Museumnacht, a wonderful event we stumbled across on our last trip in 2000.

Gardening goes well; as you know if you read me on Facebook (hey, don't be shy; I'll friend anybody except ex-stalkers), the milkweed I planted attracted a monarch butterfly, the first I've ever seen in my garden! Actually, I made a whole little butterfly garden with purple and white coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, and Queen Anne's lace as well as lots of milkweed, a Golden Trumpet esperanza, & three kinds of salvia nearby. I also have a big passionflower vine for the Gulf fritillaries and plenty of parsley and fennel for the black swallowtails. I found a caterpillar on each one, and I'm betting our black swallowtails from this spring came back and laid their eggs here. We got grandworms!

Later this week I must return to my doctor and discuss whether the Vilify Abilify is actually, er, abilifying me any. I have kept a log of possible side effects which I present to you here:

Overall -- increased use of -pams; intermittent twitch in eyelids (though this is something I've had off and on for years)

6/21 -- bug crawling sensations (I did spend a lot of time in the garden that day and once there really was a bug on me)

6/22 -- a weird euphoria in the AM but it went away

6/25 -- could not concentrate on reading; jumped from one book to another unable to settle on one (this virtually never happens to me -- I finally gave up and read some Carson McCullers, as it's almost impossible not to become absorbed in "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe")

6/26 -- major mood crash; feeling of utter futility & hopelessness -- lasted about 12 hours

6/27 -- still no appetite; price of meds is actually raising my stress level

6/27 (11:30 pm) -- sudden dizziness & extreme nausea -- lasted 20-30 minutes (?), then headache

And that is my flotsam and jetsam for today.

My trashy summer reading has mostly consisted of Harlan Coben thrillers. I like his characters (especially Win in the Myron Bolitar books) and he tells a ripping good yarn (if sometimes one I feel I could map out with a flowchart before I've read it), but, bless his heart, he's not much of a stylist and occasionally gets very clunky, which judging from his copyright dates is likely the result of writing very fast. I liked this bit from One False Move:

Dear Mr. Slaughter:

We are in receipt of your letters and are aware of
your constant communications with this office. As
explained to you in person, the matter you are
asking about is confidential. We ask you to kindly
stop contacting us. Your behavior is fast approaching
harassment.

Sincerely,
Thomas Kincaid

"Do you know what he's talking about?" Myron asked.

She hesitated. "No," she said slowly. "But that name -- Thomas Kincaid -- it rings a bell. I just can't place it."



Hee hee hee ...

(Yeah, I know the Painter of Light spells his last name Kinkade, but I am easily amused.)

I'm reading a short story collection called The Littlest Hitler by Ryan Boudinot (which he or somebody apparently sent me as an ARC back in '06 -- Ryan, if you're reading, sorry about that; 2006 was not a good year). I think this might be the kind of thing people mean when they talk about "slipstream." The stories are strange, sometimes funny, sometimes surreal. I like them.

But in the editorial letter -- which is bound into the ARC, otherwise I probably would have lost it ages ago -- I found perhaps my favorite editor-ism ever:

Like many authors of strange or violent stories -- Edgar Allen [sic] Poe, Anne Rice, Truman Capote -- he is, paradoxically, a perfectly normal guy.

Yup, when I need three perfectly normal guys -- like, say, if I want to hire a fishing charter down in Delacroix -- Mr. Poe, Annie From Da Block, and Tru are the first people I call. You should see the hauls we come back with -- specks, reds, wahoos, the Red Death, moody vampires, greasy little thugs who slaughter whole families.

So after having had it on my shelf for a couple of years, I finally read Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. It's amusing, quite well-written, has an interesting main character, and probably seems exotic to people who haven't read a lot about sub-Saharan Africa, but I was somewhat at a loss to understand the massive literary fuss that has been made over it and the ensuing series. Of course, writers usually can't control whether their books are annoyingly hyped, ignored, or (if they happen to be writing for Three Rivers Press) flushed down the toilet, so I am in no way blaming Smith for this fervor; it's better to see well-written books being hyped than the usual movies and TV shows.

Still, I felt I wasn't quite getting the appeal. Then suddenly it hit me. Duh, it's even in the cover blurb: this is what people mean when they speak of "a charming book." And on the heels of that, I realized with a mixture of sadness and perverse pride that, with all the past holds and whatever the future may hold, I have never written and will probably never write a charming book. An Amazon reviewer called D*U*C*K "cute" (which to me is damning with very faint praise, though they seemed to mean it nicely), but, like The Value of X, it has all that cocaine and buttsex in it.

Have ordered a new MacBook, though I declined to pay the extra $299 for the cool aluminum case. Am feeling dizzy and unwell today. Swine flu, most likely. Also just finished Dan Simmons' amazing DROOD and now nothing will satisfy me except another long novel of sinister Victoriana, which I do not have.

Posting this on my iPhone, so I'll keep it short since this little tiny keypad is a real pain to write anything longer than ''plz get milk.''

Looking back at yesterday's entry, my review of Haunted Heart seems a little out of proportion, like using an ICBM on a mosquito (does that date me terribly? Do you young people even know what ICBMs are these days? I hope for your sake that you don't). It's true I did not like the book (and it turns out that I may have been right about the author's remembering a more "upbeat" movie ending to Thinner; again, this is unconscionable given that she was explicitly referring to the texts of the Bachman books), but I should note that I have also felt lightly slimy after reading biographies I did enjoy, such as Elvis: The Last 24 Hours or the Michael Jackson one that told about how he shaved his chimpanzee's ass cheeks. I even felt lightly slimy after writing a certain biography, though I don't think I would go back and do things differently. We live how we have to live, and we don't always get to stay in our ivory towers devoting ourselves to Art.

But I find that I cannot compare writers' biographies to junk about Elvis* or Michael Jackson. My standard is The Lonely Hunter, Virginia Spencer Carr's life of Carson McCullers, which seems to me the finest literary biography I have ever read. While Stephen King has led a more interesting life than he seems to believe (and I don't blame him for wanting to think it uninteresting; after a certain point, writers must start cultivating and craving boredom if they are to get anything done), he has not had the travels, tragic loves, or fascinating neuroses of a McCullers (and a good thing for him, too, sez I). While I can't imagine that The Lonely Hunter was easy to write by any standards, biographies do write themselves so much more readily if the subject has managed to get him- or herself into a lifelong series of big, splashy messes and dramas. I dearly hope that nobody is ever able to make anything of mine. You, there in the back, stop snickering.

*I should admit that anything about the end of Elvis makes me a little sad, as I like his music and a part of me will alway understand how a person could get to that point. However, Albert Goldman's amazing lack of perspective, over-the-top sense of outrage, and willingness to present speculation as dead-to-rights fact all make it impossible for me to take seriously anything he writes.

In case you don't know about Temple Grandin, she is a very high-functioning woman with autism who overcame tremendous childhood problems to earn a Ph.D. in animal science, write several brave and groundbreaking books, and revolutionize humane slaughter techniques in the meat industry. I've long had a particular admiration for her because my mother worked at a program for autistic children and young adults when I was growing up, and though she was an administrator and didn't work directly with the autistic people, I did get to meet many of them and see firsthand what huge challenges they faced as well as what amazing work they were sometimes capable of (incredibly detailed and painstakingly accurate artwork, mostly, since the program did a lot of art therapy).

I am reading Grandin's new book, Animals Make Us Human. In her chapter on cats, she discusses evidence gained through lab and shelter studies showing that cats who live in large colonies may have significantly fewer emotional/behavior problems than cats who live alone with their human, and fewer catfights than cats who live with their human and just one or two other cats, especially if the two or three cats weren't raised together. Apparently they not only have the ability to adapt well to colony life; many of them appear to thrive on it. She reports much curling up together, mutual grooming, particular friendships that develop and often last until one of the friends dies -- in short, all the behavior Chris and I have been observing in our cats since 1996 or so, which was when our population really started to rise. I guess this shouldn't come as a big surprise to me since I live with a large, peaceful colony of cats, but -- maybe because of the way society looks at "cat people" -- I'd always assumed our living situation was somewhat crazy and extreme. Of course it is crazy and extreme in terms of the expense and amount of work involved with a big group of cats, but it is good to have some outside, expert corroboration that the cats themselves are perfectly comfortable with it.

Re: my comments on N.C. State yesterday, I was also pleased to read in Grandin's book that in nature there is no such thing as a "wolf pack"; this is apparently a longtime misconception based on observation of zoo and shelter wolves forced into unnatural proximity, which caused them to fight, eventually establish an "alpha" wolf, and form a pack. In the wild, they live in small family units.

tl;dr - Anybody who has ever called us "collectors" or intimated that our cats don't get enough attention can bite my crank, because Temple Grandin is awesome and knows more about animals than almost anybody. Also, State still sucks.

Ans seriously, thank you again for all the kind comments and e-mails about Boo. There is a big hole in the fabric of our family right now, and your words are a comfort.

No matter what stratum of New Orleans society you inhabit, trashing the Times-Picayune seems to be a "done thing." I won't deny that our daily newspaper has pissed me off a time or two (or ten or twenty), but it is an essential part of my morning -- my coffee, my paper, my easing gingerly into the day -- and most of the time I think it does a pretty damn good job of bringing many diverse bits of our city to our attention each day. One of my favorite things about the T-P is that, as long as books editor Susan Larson is alive and kicking (may she live a thousand years), it will always have a book section, and that book section will always spotlight local authors.

Such as my pal Louis Maistros, who has just published what may be the best New Orleans novel since A Confederacy of Dunces. (The Sound of Building Coffins has little in common with Confederacy except a New Orleans setting and a cast of characters who would probably be considered "grotesques" by someone unaware that they are just regular New Orleans folks, but I say that to let you know precisely how much I admire this novel.)

You can read more about Louis at louismaistros, and if you're in New Orleans, you can meet him and get a signed copy of The Sound of Building Coffins tomorrow (Thursday) evening at Octavia Books, 6:00. Hope to see you there!

Before I got up this morning, I lay in bed thinking about Paul Harvey, which led to thinking about Ray Stevens (there is a connection, though only my old chef at Cookies & Company in Athens is likely to get it), which led to thinking about Drawing Blood, because there was a piece of business in the novel about an employee of the Whirling Disk record store in Missing Mile who'd accidentally ordered something like fifty copies of Ray Stevens' Greatest Hits, and at the time this seemed hilarious to me. I still think it's pretty funny, but -- like many of the little in-jokes and cute references in Drawing Blood -- it is totally irrelevant to the story, and as I lay there, the idea came to me that every novelist starts out trying to create something that looks like the front of a beautiful tapestry and ends up creating something that looks -- at least to himself -- like the back of one. You, the reader, may see the carefully stitched horses and kings and Virgins and floral motifs. Or, if you don't like the book, you may not. Either way, you will never share my view, which is of all the messy, incoherent stitching on the back of the tapestry that is needed to create the design on the front. And the farther away I get, the messier it looks.

Anyway, I've worked that simile quite enough, and I am here to offer you news of a book, not to maunder about books in general. I'm happy to announce that Small Beer Press will be publishing a paperback "omnibus" edition of The Value of X and D*U*C*K, titled Second Line: Two Tales of Love and Cooking in New Orleans. (OK, much of D*U*C*K takes place outside New Orleans, but Two Tales of Love and Cooking in New Orleans and Opelousas would make for an unwieldy subtitle indeed.) "Second line," for anyone who doesn't know, is the New Orleans term for the crowd of revelers that follows a large parade, or for a smaller parade that usually takes place in a poor neighborhood, features brass bands, and often happens after a funeral, in order to celebrate the life of the deceased. There has been no actual death connected with the Liquor novels except the blessed passing of my relationship with Random House, but I think the title fits the book well, since TVoX and D*U*C*K are smaller works attached to the three "big" Liquor novels.

I am very excited about this project because it will make two books I like a lot more affordable and widely available, and also because I admire what Small Beer is doing and am pleased to be working with them. I believe their target publication date is October '09, so I'll have more on this as we get closer to that date. Sorry, I won't be touring or anything like that -- a book tour would be an utter impossibility for me right now -- but I do hope there will be some interesting interviews and other press for Second Line.

Here's me presenting T. Jefferson Parker with the key to the city at Octavia Books last night:



TJP is one of my favorite modern writers, which caused me to do dorky things like call one of his novels by the wrong title (Where Serpents Lie; I called it The Shapes of Snakes, which is the title of a very different mystery by British author Minette Walter) and, after giving him my card, loudly announce "BUT I'M NOT TRYING TO HIT ON YOU!!!" He couldn't have been nicer, but I was still smacking myself in the forehead by the time the signing ended. Chris was busy with restaurant stuff (see chefcdb for news of his upcoming project) and didn't go with me, but when I told him about it later, he asked me, in a nicer way than I am currently able to phrase it, why I still geek out around writers I like when I know perfectly well that most writers are just boring dweebs like me. (And I say that with the utmost love for my boring dweeb writer friends, who know the truth of this all too well.)

It took me until this morning to come up with an answer that satisfied me: Even though I'm aware that writers are just regular folks, words are still the best magic I know about. Put in the right order, they can excite me, comfort me, and take me out of myself like nothing else can. Without the books by the writers I love -- hell, without books in general -- I have no idea how I would maintain even a vestige of sanity. I could live without music, visual art, dramatic performance of any type, or even sports if I had to, but life without books is totally out of the question. The people behind the books are just people, but they impress me because I know how much I owe them. On some level I must have already known this, since I've always tried to be kind to the people who geeked out, cried, or otherwise seemed embarrassed by their own behavior at my signings, even though I privately thought they must be, you know, a few noodles short of a casserole to get so worked up over a boring dweeb like me.

(On the other hand, it's always fun when I get to be good enough friends with a wonderful writer that they are just human to me. "Oh, Gaiman? He's a great guy, but he really needs to learn to keep his sunglasses away from my flamingo." But they, too, turn into magicians when I read their books. It's said among writers that the highest compliment you can give to a book by a friend is that you became so immersed in the writing, you forgot your friend wrote it. I don't entirely agree, but I understand what it means.)