Beer & Book #7

 

Yesterday’s beer: Rogue Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout
Yesterday’s book: Habibi by Craig Thompson

–Dedicated to Beck Norton.

Beer & Book #6

Tonight’s beer: Ayinger Hefeweizen
Tonight’s book: Paris France by Gertrude Stein

Notes: Adam Gopnik’s introduction is atrocious, as if he couldn’t be bothered to reread the thing–and, y’all, at 105 pages, it ain’t that long–before sniffily half-liking/half-dismissing it for not being what it never intended to be. But, to be fair, it’s not what its title claims, instead being very much Stein’s self-portrait, filtered through a country she loves. (Yes, “Paris” is in the title but it’s largely about France–or, at least, the French–as a whole.) So, it’s the same thing Stein’s always doing, writing about herself through other means, and Gopnik knows enough to know this. Since he hinges so much of his criticism on Stein’s apolitical stance (he’s wrong, by the way) on her unwillingness to engage with the just-started World War II, it would behoove him to note that–as she mentions several times in the book–the book was actually written mostly in 1938 and in 1939 before Hitler’s invasion of Poland (1 September 1939), which officially kicked off the atrocities. So, a good part of his churlishness is based on his basic fudging of the book’s chronology. Anyway, I’m enjoying it so far, and finding her good company in the City of Light, most of which is in her own head. Oh, the beer: A basic hefeweizen–citrusy, sweet, light and summery, with a very slight aroma of cloves and a blonde coloring that’s more appealing than the beer’s actual taste.

Commonplace

“One of the taboo male archetypes in our culture is the male martyr. I wonder if you have a bit of the macho male martyr in you, the one who sacrifices everything for others and then when he isn’t rewarded, cannot express his anger and disappointment, since he has been secretive about his expectations, or hasn’t even been aware of them himself. So he turns the anger inward and it becomes depression.

<…>

“Why in such an enlightened society in some ways can we still be so backward about the human emotional life, especially the emotional lives of professional males?”

—Cary Tennis, “Since You Asked” (2 May 2013)

Beer & Book #5

 

Yesterday’s beer: Ommegang Abbey Ale (Dubbel Ale)
Yesterday’s book: A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Notes: Big beer, big book, happy cat. I’m roaring through Tatsumi’s oeuvre but I hadn’t braved the big one. A note from Jennifer Nelson encouraged me to tackle it–good luck, girl! But, hey, seriously, it might not be the place to start with him. If you’re worried about the sheer seediness of his comics, go to Fallen Words (funny & ambiguous parables, drawn in a wispy but assured style, somewhat sweet by his standards). Anyway, I’m on page 80 (of 820), so I’ll be with this one for a while. Oh, the beer: Slightly honeyed but otherwise unremarkable, except for the rich amber coloration and the two, sometimes three tones (like layers) in the froth.

Tea & Tome #1

 

Yesterday’s tea: Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Tea
Yesterday’s book: Rebecca Solnit’s The Faraway Nearby (page proofs)

Notes: Saturday involved entirely too much beer, so a rainy-day Sunday provided the perfect comedown. The Solnit book–out in June; I’m reviewing it for a journal–is, like most Solnit, brilliant, infuriating, meandering, unfocused, sharp as a tack, emotive, cerebral, you name it. It’s gonna be fun to write about.

Beer & Book #4

Yesterday’s beer: St. Bernardus (Abt 12) Belgian Abbey Ale
Yesterday’s book:Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella

Notes: Because it’s the beginning of baseball season, because my beloved Texas Rangers are doing well, because my newly adopted Atlanta Braves ain’t doing too shabby, either, and because—for all my love of baseball literature—I’ve never actually read it. Oh, the beer: Look, last night I jotted a quick impressionistic take on the St. Bernardus in my notebook that referenced Rabelais, deflowering nuns, and rolling orgasms, all written in the 2nd-person. A cooler and less inebriated head prevailed this morning. Maybe, when I have my second St. Bernardus (tonight), I’ll decide to give you the full write-up. But, unless my enthusiasm was hyperbolic, let’s say that this is simply the best beer I’ve ever tasted. Ever.

Beer & Book #3

Yesterday’s beer: Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout.
Yesterday’s book: Good-Bye by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Notes: By 1970 and 1971, Tatsumi’s short stories had gotten longer, the level of detail had grown more assured in his art, and the terrors weren’t just existential but now also political. In Good-Bye, which collects the best of those years, his wimps, murderers, perverts, and nailbiters engage directly with the aftermath of World War II and the atomic bomb. Joblessness is rampant, as is the idea of prostitution being one of the few open lines of work for single or desperate women. Politics sharpens Tatsumi’s comics—they still move at breakneck speed, with dark panels that pace the suspense perfectly, but the protagonists’ actions now radiate outward into the world, or they soak in the world’s horrors. The nightmares and quick fixes no longer take place just in their heads or their tiny apartments. Oh, the beer: It’s everything a stout should be—so deeply brown that it’s almost black, with a dark/baking chocolate afterbite, and a creamy smoothness going down.