November 13, 2006 at 3:45 pm · Filed under Literature, Music
Got up early on Saturday and headed for Book Passage in Corte Madera, where Lemony Snicket and Stephin Merritt performed their newest batch of bleak ditties for a mob of adoring young fans. Merritt appeared in his wonted dolorous mood. As Snicket fanned his accordian and gleefully warned children of the Complete Organic Pregnancy, Merritt hung his head low, strummed his uekele and crooned of the Baudelaires’ encounters with despair, death, and Count Olaf’s eye-shaped tattoo.
Later, I went home and made short work of Snicket’s last installment in A Series of Unfortunate Events, The End.
January 23, 2006 at 11:04 pm · Filed under Literature
Leave it to the Canadians to find topics like naughty rodents or overgrown primates and whip them into addictive reading material. Graham Roumieu’s latest work, Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir, is the brilliant second installation by the popular (and misunderstood) recluse, chock full of gnarly humor and inventive illustrations.
With an appropriate introduction from that other mysterious beast, Nessie of Loch Ness fame, the book includes a hand-clapping tablature for one of his endearing ballads as well as equally priceless descriptions of his rollicking days hanging with Chet Baker and Emilio Estevez. It’s quite possibly the funniest narrative I’ve read this year, and friends with whom I’ve shared the story have also elicited “hootilicious” reactions.
Roumieu has illustrated for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harpers, Paper Mag, and perhaps most notably, Andrews McMeel’s A Really Super Book About Squirrels… He lives in Toronto, is a Libra, and is easily annoyed. Bless his most noble heart.
Run to Giant Robot for your own copy!
http://roumieu.com/
