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I Never Learned to Fish, and the Power of a Book

Over at Powell’s blog recently, Josh Hanagarne wrote about books that have the power to change lives. He mused over all the people he had encountered who claimed that a […]

Thinking Big and Banging It Out – Poster Design for Michael Pollan at The Crocodile

TONIGHT – Thursday, May 16th at the Crocodile, we have a super-tasty show covering a few of the acclaimed Michael Pollan’s best known books. You should go to it. And […]

I Never Learned to Fish, and the Power of a Book

Over at Powell’s blog recently, Josh Hanagarne wrote about books that have the power to change lives. He mused over all the people he had encountered who claimed that a […]

Thinking Big and Banging It Out – Poster Design for Michael Pollan at The Crocodile

TONIGHT – Thursday, May 16th at the Crocodile, we have a super-tasty show covering a few of the acclaimed Michael Pollan’s best known books. You should go to it. And […]

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

I Never Learned to Fish, and the Power of a Book

Over at Powell’s blog recently, Josh Hanagarne wrote about books that have the power to change lives. He mused over all the people he had encountered who claimed that a book had changed their life, but when questioned gave such a dissatisfying answer:

“How?” I said. Meaning, how did it change your life?

“Because it was amazing!” she said.

This is a pretty typical response, and I know I do it sometimes as well.

“Because it was just so good!”

“It was incredible!”

“I loved it!”

These are all great to hear, but none of them indicate any clues about how a life might have been changed…

Here at Bushwick Seattle, we are all book lovers. Saying what we love about a book is what we do. At every show our musicians articulate this sometimes intangible, mysterious force that weds us to the page. Whether it’s Del Ray’s love of Lydia Bennett’s particular brand of silliness (or rather, as Jane Austen says, the ability to be “ungovernable”) or Tai Shan’s empathy with Wendy Torrance in The Shining, the whole night is about the “why?” of what makes a book one that you love.

A life-changing book, however, is quite another thing. There have only been a few books that I can give life-changing status, and even then I’m not exactly sure if I could pass Hanagarne’s test. The closest that I can get is this:

In graduate school I signed up for a seminar on Ernest Hemingway. I never thought I’d like it. I was a feminist and Hemingway was perhaps the most famous alpha male of the literary world, and notoriously unable to write women characters. I was at a point in my life where I was purposefully ignoring literary greats (the dusty, old male-dominated canon) to read contemporary writers of the female variety.

But then there was In Our Time, Hemingway’s first short story collection. The collection is good, yes, but not life-changing…until I hit the final two stories: Big Two-Hearted River, Parts I and II.

These stories feature Hemingway’s Nick Adams character alone in the countryside. He hikes, sits on a stump and smokes, naps, opens a can of beans, boils water for coffee, fishes. He thinks. He sleeps.

…Nick felt happy. He felt he had left everything behind, the need for thinking, the need to write, other needs. It was all back of him.

Not much happens. The stories are descriptive, not plot-driven. Nick speaks only three times: once to a grasshopper, once out loud to himself, and once with his mouth full of food (“’Chrise,’ Nick said, ‘Geezus Chrise,’ he said happily.”).

The stories are about the aftermath of war. They are about being alone. Maybe a bit about healing, reconciling the past and present. The stories made me want to fish, to be alone for a while and eat what I caught. This might seem funny to anyone who knows me, but it’s true.

It’s been at least six years since I read about that big two-hearted river, and I haven’t yet been fishing. So maybe that means that my life hasn’t changed in any tangible way after all, but there are many times when things get crazy and I’m yearning for escape and I think about that river, those grasshoppers to which Nick says “Go on, hopper…Fly away somewhere.”

I still plan to fish, someday.

What about you, Seattle? What books have changed your life? Why? How? Tell us about them.

Tweet your answers #lifechangingbooks @iReadandSing

Thinking Big and Banging It Out – Poster Design for Michael Pollan at The Crocodile

TONIGHT – Thursday, May 16^th at the Crocodile, we have a super-tasty show covering a few of the acclaimed Michael Pollan’s best known books. You should go to it. And now…

If you’ve been to any Bushwick Book Club Seattle event in the last 3 years, what you probably haven’t heard us ask you as much as we should is: how did you hear about the show? Maybe you heard Geoff on the radio. Maybe you know one of the songwriters, musicians, or performers. Maybe you got a Facebook invite from a trusted friend. Maybe you wrote the book.

From now on, whatever the motivations for gathering your book loving butts up from your comfy armchairs actually are, when anyone asks why – you say, “Because of that F’ing Rad Poster.” That will make me feel awesome. Or it will make Michael Wallenfels feel awesome. It’s not important who gets to feel awesome as long as it’s one of us. The performers get to feel awesome all the time either by leaving the stage to a raucous applause, or by leaving the stage without having died of anxiety, or by getting all the chicks, etc. – c’mon, they will be fine.

I know that sounds like a designer saying, “Waaah! We don’t get anything!” Yes, but that would also be what we call “roping you in to a blog post.”

So actually, to be honest, we designers get all kinds of respect and recognition, and a ridiculous amount of praise, especially when like-minded artistic types are involved. But I had to find a way to start writing about the idea of a gig poster as something integral to a successful show. Really, it is very important, but its importance is intrinsic – it’s built in. You can’t not have a poster, or at least it’s not wise not to. Years of experience has taught me the only thing truly impactful about gig posters is whether or not you have one (and also if you distribute any).

Obviously that is simplifying things a bit – there is a wonderfully intricate landscape of gig poster history, from uncommonly awful to absolute works of art. But, The Bushwick book Club Seattle shows are a special kind of opportunity for everyone involved – the grand ambitions vs. reality tug-of-war of putting together something so quickly is not much different than the process all Bushwick performers know so well – a pressure cooker of great ideas and limited time.

Each event brings its own unique experiences for both performers and volunteers and audiences, so today we’re kicking off a regular segment meant to share a little more of that with you. In my case it’s the agony and ecstasy of show poster design, Bushwick style.

Follow along after the break with the (somewhat) less verbose story of the Michael Pollan poster.

Half Sized Blog Element (Single Author Style)

Half Sized Blog Element (Multi Author Style)

I Never Learned to Fish, and the Power of a Book

Thinking Big and Banging It Out – Poster Design for Michael Pollan at The Crocodile

I Never Learned to Fish, and the Power of a Book

Thinking Big and Banging It Out – Poster Design for Michael Pollan at The Crocodile

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

I Never Learned to Fish, and the Power of a Book

Thinking Big and Banging It Out – Poster Design for Michael Pollan at The Crocodile

Interesting links

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