 |
  |
 |
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
Books: Wine:
Sherm
Alexie at UO
TEN LITTLE INDIANS, stories by Sherman Alexie. Grove Press, 2003. Paperback, $13. Each of the nine stories in Sherm Alexie's latest collection stands alone, yet read sequentially, the stories build the reader's appreciation for Alexie's storytelling artistry. He handles language beautifully, creates characters we care about and ponders details that situate his stories in the real world, but Alexie is foremost a storyteller. Whether you sit around a fire and tell stories on a summer night or hole up in a house on the coast and take turns reading them to each other on a rainy day, Alexie's rhythmic language lends itself to being read aloud. These are stories to share. When Alexie reads at 7 pm on May 12 in 150 Columbia on the UO campus, come prepared to experience a wordsmith and performance artist with a passion for telling stories. "Flight Patterns" tells William's story, a husband and father who must leave his desirable wife and loving child still in bed on a Seattle morning. William, who is flying to a meeting in Chicago, feels that he's always leaving the people he most wants to be with. On this morning, his talkative taxi driver asks if his wife and daughter are beautiful and if William misses them when he's away. William shares his thoughts with the driver. "'I miss them so much I go crazy,' said William. 'I start thinking I'm going to disappear, you know, just vanish, if I'm not home. Sometimes I worry their love is the only thing that makes me human, you know? I think if they stopped loving me, I might burn up, spontaneously combust, and turn into little pieces of oxygen and hydrogen and carbon. Do you know what I'm saying?'"
William and the driver, an Ethiopian man named Fekadu, swap stories. Fekadu left his wife and sons 30 years earlier when he defected from a dictatorship by flying his military plane to France, where he received asylum. He's never seen them again. By the end of their journey to the airport, the men have found common cause, laughed together and understood each other. And William has found the resolve to follow his heart. The first story in the collection, "The Search Engine," is about a Native American college student named Corliss, who discovers a book of poems by a man claiming to be a Spokane. No one knows anything about him. Her curiosity leads her to find him. The poet tells her he hadn't written a poem in 30 years, but when he did write it was to feel like he belonged, "to feel more Indian." In each story, Alexie shows us how it is for his Native American characters to live in white America now. Sardonically, often sadly or hilariously, Alexie gives us a perspective on our dominant culture that we need, a cure for a social illness we might not even know we have. But once we've taken in his words, the world seems better balanced than before. I doled out these stories over a couple of weeks, savoring each one and allowing it to work on me as I slept. I'm grateful to Alexie for making me happy about his work. Alexie's exuberant yet lyrical stories shed light and love on our human condition.
Book Notes May 6 — June 3 2004: The Spring issue of Etude: the Journal of Literary Nonfiction now available online at http://etude.uoregon.eduincludes interviews, feature stories, essays, reviews and more. …Poet B.H. Fairchild (Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest), recent winner of National Book Critics Circle Award, reads at 8 pm on May 6 in 282 Lillis (the new Business building across street from UO Bookstore). …Dawn G. Stuart speaks on "Book Marketing in the 21st Century" at 7 pm on May 6 in Baker Downtown Center. Mid-Valley Willamette Writers' members free; $5 non-members. …Calvin Trillin, Mary Karr and Robert Stone read "A Dramatic Dialogue adapted from the letters, essays and notebooks of Ernest Hemingway and Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald" at 8 pm on May 8 at the First Congregational Church, Portland. Tickets (503) 227-2583. …Phil Condon (Clay Center) reads at 7 pm on May 10 in Knight Library Browsing Room, UO campus. …Former Eugene novelist Diana Abu-Jaber (Crescent) reads in Portland at 12:30 pm on May 10 in Annie Blooms (7834 SW Capitol Highway). …Sherman Alexie (Ten Little Indians: Stories) reads at 7 pm on May 12 in 150 Columbus Hall. …Martin Prechtel (The Toe Bone and the Tooth) reads at 7 pm on May 13 in Tsunami Books. …Mark Pearson (Europe From a Backpack: Real Stories from Young Travelers Abroad) reads at 7 pm on May 17 in EMU International Lounge, UO. …Poet Martha Silano (What the Truth Tastes Like) and personal essayist Bette Lynch Husted (Above the Clearwater) read at 7 pm on May 18 in Eugene Public Library downtown. …Essayist Kathleen Dean Moore (Pine Island Paradox) reads at 7 pm on May 20 in 100 Willamette Hall, UO campus. …Ana Maria Spagna (Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging and the Crosscut Saw) reads at 2 pm on May 22 in UO Bookstore. Spagna also reads at 7 pm on May 21 in Corvallis at Grass Roots Books. …Radio commentator David Barsamian (Louder Than Bombs) speaks at 7 pm on May 24 in Eugene, First United Methodist Church, sliding scale $5-$10. Barsamian also speaks at 7 pm on May 19 in Corvallis, Oddfellows Hall; and at 4 pm on May 22 in Florence, Siuslaw Public Library. ….James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) speaks at 7:30 pm on May 26 in Portland, Powells Books. …Tom Cantwell (The Seminole and the Slave) reads at 7:30 pm on June 2 in Sheldon Community Center (2245 Willakenzie, next to Sheldon H.S.). …Essayist Brian Doyle (Leaping: Revelations and Epiphanies) presents the four award winners in Oregon Quarterly's Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest at 7 pm on June 3 in Gerlinger Alumni Lounge.
Wine
Bashing the Talibushes Still early morning, air heating rapidly toward mid-summer swelter, I prowl my shabby office on the 17th floor of Eugene's most ghastly office building; stop, stare out the grimy windows, look down on the milling throngs at Saturday Market, awash in color of spring, thick clusters of callas, poppies, iris and lupine. Up here, trapped in this monument to functionalist mausoleum architecture, the defining style of Eugene commercial building for the last half-century, I grind my teeth and wrestle with angst: massive corruption in government, young men and women dying daily in the Halliburton wars, poor and ailing millions sinking in despair, mere victims of "Market Forces" and the corporate ethic of unbridled greed and moral indifference — and I should write about the frail beauties of wine and food. Words from my lovely daughter, Sulwyn, erstwhile manager of Marché, offer some comfort: "Dad," she pleaded, "you of all people know that it's all about doing the work of beauty and pleasure, 'cause if we don't hold on to that, we all get the short end of the hoo-hoo." She's right, of course; it's a blessing to have our children return our support and love and modest modicums of acquired wisdom. I breathe a little deeper, even as I watch the city's smog wrap around city walls like a napping cat. Sip dark coffee, peer through haze: sweet blend of Bluegene citizens fingering hand-made arts and crafts, baskets laden with fresh produce, hands/arms heavy with pots and plant starts, pretty faces, all colors, all ages, eternally hip and blandly square, easy smiles, America's true hearts and only hope. Mind wanders: Last weekend, more than a half-million women thronged Washington, D.C.'s, great Mall to demonstrate for women's rights, most importantly the right to control their own reproductive decisions. Their passion and fervor was electric, despite all efforts of media reporters and anti-choice hacks to downplay or disparage the massive display of unity and the depth of the women's moral commitment. Freedom: The word means the individual has the right to choose, and the state created by free people must, first and foremost, protect that right. Imagine, now, a half-million freedom-loving, women-honoring men rising in support of those dynamic marchers. Imagine the despair of mean-spirited, misogynistic Talibanners the world over. Wouldn't that be cool? OK, from the sublime to the merely mundane, but still in the spirit of choice, let's choose some wines. BUT FIRST: Take note, Oregonians, that the latest issue of Wine Spectator, prime world-scale winepress, for the first time in memory lists over 50 Oregon wines at 90 points (excellent) or better, most from the fine 2001 and 2002 vintages. WS rates a whole raft of Oregon pinot noir and gris at 85-90 points (very good). Many of these (ahem) have been mentioned in this column — more to follow — but we should keep in mind that most Oregon producers are so small that they won't even send samples to the press, even if their products are superb (Broadley Vineyards comes to mind). And sometimes we get local-folks prices that contrast sharply with national retail. Case in Point: Griffin Creek Viognier Rogue Valley 2002; Spectator rings up 88 points (reeeeal good), praises this lovely dry white for flavors "rich, spicy and effusively floral" (all true, and more — round, ripe, brilliant with fresh crab), retail at $25. Nah, on sale on local shelves at $13, super value for superb wine. Haul the penny-jar to favorite wineshop, pull clerk's coat, say vee-o-nyay, gimmesum. We cook a lot of Asian-style — love the spicing, textures, colors — enjoy the way Oregon rieslings and gewurztraminers match-up, particularly Amity Dry Gewurztraminer (WS 87 pts., $12, mentioned in March column), but lately we've been charmed by O'Reilly's 2002 Oregon Pinot Gris ($10), so generous with flavors/aromas of ripe pears, minerals, hint of starfruit, so bright and clean. Don't see any particular reason to share this lovely juice with outtastaters; OK, one bottle to Molly Ivins. She's a hero and suffers living in Texas. Last month, we surveyed local wineries, tried to give some love to Eugene's own, but one slipped under the radar, newbies in the Lorane Valley, neighbors to King Estate et al., and recently hired Sundance Wine Cellars' longtime manager, the gentlemanly Keith Tabor, to become general manager. We refer, of course, to the producers of Iris Hill 2001 Pinot Noir ($15); the label is funky but the wine is light in body yet with fresh fruit flavors of cherries and raspberries, tasty with light meats and ripe cheeses. Local foodies' new rave is Zelaya's at 839 Lincoln, where Patrick and Madeline McKee (who opened Red Agave, then moved on) have turned a teeny space into a fine dinery with Spanish flair. Popped in the other night for Patrick's fresh halibut, drank a bottle of Burgans 2002 Albariño ($13 retail), such a pretty white from Spain's Rias Baixas region: dry, clean, with flavors of limestone, pears, apples, floral notes, just all over the mouth, danced a charming pas de deux with the grilled fish. Doubt me, test me, try it — but keep yer paws off Maddy's swelling, boy-bearing tummy. 'K, hit the bricks, folks, serve and protect your freedoms. Don't let the Talibushies give you the short end of the hoo-hoo. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
