Here’s what we uploaded to our brains this week:

Erik

I watched a documentary on James Brown celled, Mr. Dynamite. It follows his career from childhood through the early 70’s. It’s a pretty impressive onslaught of explosive live footage and social history. Say what you will about the ignominy of his latter career, this film made abundantly clear to me why he’s known as the GFOS (Godfather of Soul).

Absorbed some exciting matches in the Bundesliga.

Read through Dream Whip #’s 11-13 by Mr. Bill Brown. He pours his heart all over America and shares it with us in his zine. Every issue is an adventure chock-full of honesty, innovation, and humanity.

I’ve re-visited The Knife album, Silent Shout. I’ve always liked The Knife, I probably liked Karin Dreijer Andersson’s solo work, Fever Ray more so, however, after more than three listens this week, I found the music dreamy and well executed.

Meggyn

Eyes Wide’s When It’s Raining

Title Fight’s Hyperview

Cloakroom’s Further Out

Once I’m deep in a very specific music-hole, it’s hard for me to crawl out. This week it was shoegazey alt/emo. Ironically, no tears were shed.

I’ve also been really inspired and intrigued by Kyle Hilton‘s work. He mainly works in pop culture and media, and his stylistic execution had me interested in something I normally felt apathy for.

I’ve also been binge-watching The X-Files.

Elly

While waiting in line for the bathroom at Powell’s on Sunday night I found Betsy Lerner‘s book The Forest for the Trees. It’s ostensibly advice for writers but actually has a great deal of excellent lore about being a book editor, agent, or anyone else who works with authors. Tragicomically, it’s been remaindered, so I forked over $7.95 and have been gobbling up Lerner’s anecdotes and observations from the New York edge of the publishing wilderness. In her evaluation of writerly personalities she quotes a ton of unbearably pompous manspressions from great male writers of yore, including Gore Vidal, so I was hesitant to agree to watch a documentary about him when Joe suggested it the next day. But the documentary is good, and anyone who was willing to go on TV in like the 1950s and say things like “homosexuality is entirely normal” must have needed a giant ego to survive at all, so hats off to him.

Joe

In a hilarious turn of events, I have found obligation to read something each week rather than state the sad reality that I just watch reruns of Bruce Campbell’s Burn Notice to unwind after work.

Of course, to most people something like The Responsible Company isn’t reading that you’d do to unwind, but I found Yvon’s light and simple advice to be really encouraging. He creates these neat checklists and it was heartening to discover that we are doing 90% of each of them already at Microcosm, basically everything but organizing the staff to do group volunteer activities in the community. The book has nice production values for a self-pub and I appreciate that it’s the right length. 

I got a stack of zines to review for the new Xerography Debt but you’ll have to wait six months to read about those when the new issue is published.

Elly and I watched The United States of Amnesia about Gore Vidal, which thankfully seemed to effectively demonstrate the ways that he’s not just another babbling old white guy in the spotlight, but willing to talk shit to power in ways that even rich people! I took in The Wolf of Wall Street as my chaser. I get it that it’s Scorcese’s style, but almost every scene could be cut in half so the movie could be under two hours. All of the historical exposition is interesting and helpful to understand the people that both ruined the American economy and created capital without labor to substantiate it or make it stable. Perhaps it’s the fact that half of the movie is watching the staff do drugs or hiring prostitutes or the main character, Jordan, cheating on his wives that make it interesting to certain audiences, but that stuff literally put me to sleep.

Also, last week’s episode of This American Life and this Guardian article detail a fascinating story of an angry man troll and his obsession, a fat-positive comedian who is happy with her life. Best of all, they interview each other in a way that is awkward but gives closure.

Nathan

I went to another Powell’s book reading, for Sarah van Gelder’s Sustainable Happiness. Which ties into several of our “happy” books. But, more important, it fits right into our ethos of promoting “simple” living which pretty much covers all of our Urban Homesteader collection as well as many other DIY titles we sell. :o)

Here’s how we’re rolling with reality this week. 

Tim

I have the (bad?) habit of just kind of flying through books of poetry. I know it’s usually the style of writing that demands the most attention, with each word or line-break having a very deliberate and specific meaning, but I often approach it like a song and go for the overall emotional impact. That’s what happened the other day when I sat down with If I Really Wanted to Feel Happy I’d Feel Happy Already by Jordan Castro…one pint of coffee and 160 pages of minimalist prose later, it was back on the bookshelf and I was slumped in my chair. The title is probably enough to know why. RIYL: All those other sad sacks (Mira Gonzalez, Spencer Madsen, Ellen Kennedy, Sam Pink, etc.). But you really can’t go wrong with anything from Civil Coping Mechanisms.

But to be honest, I’ve spent most of my life lately catching up on Bob’s Burgers. It’s its own sort of poetry.  

Jeff

I’ve been reading Humor by Stanley Donwood. He’s one of my favorite artists, he did the covers for all of the Radiohead albums (except Pablo Honey). This isn’t an artbook though… this is a collection of his nightmares. Which is surprisingly entertaining. Some of it is pretty gruesome, but most of it is oddly funny.

Also, I’ve been skimming through How to Stay Alive in the Woods. It’s pretty good, once you get passed the killing-small-animals part.

And of course the new Tape Op magazine…which is always great. Especially while listening to lots of Portishead.

Elly

I started using Facebook in earnest again last week, after months away. In part, this was for awesome reasons like creating pages for the Crate Digger book and Feminists Against Freeways. But from there things got out of hand and I was right back to the glazed-eyed clicking and scrolling that I’ve sworn off so many times. That ate up every moment that I’d normally give to pleasure reading. On Thursday I wasn’t feeling well and intended to rest all day, but there was social media, gnawing at my brain. Today I’m using Self Control again and my brain is once more my own.

Nathan

I went to yet another book reading last night at Powell’s, this time on Hawthorne. Which might work into some of our many parenting titles.

Here’s how we’re allocating our attention spans this week:

Rosie (intern)

 Princess Nokia (formerly Wavy Spice) came out with a new music video for her song “Young Girls” this week, which got me back into her Metallic Butterfly mix tape. So good!

I’m reading Dorothea Lasky‘s most recent book of poetry, Rome, and like all her other work it’s super weird and pop and amazing.

This might be a little late in the game, but I just started (and finished) Transparent… in just three days…

Poet Paul Legault‘s twitter has a super strange sense of humor, but I think it’s funny! @theotherpaul

Morgan (intern)

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of my all-time favorite band, mewithoutYou. Their understated, lyric-driven indie sound is in direct contrast to what I’m currently reading: Black Echo by Michael Connelly. It’s the crime/mystery/police thriller genre author’s debut novel, and having just enjoyed a novel of his based loosely on the work of Edgar Allan Poe, I decided to go back and start at the beginning. So far, it’s satisfyingly profanity-laced, cliff-hanger-y, and full of technical police talk. I love it. 

Meggyn (designer)

​This week, I really just played Hemingway’s So Predictable and REPLY’s remix of Let It Run on repeat…back and forth….forever.

Nathan (publisher’s assistant in training)

Nathan reports that he went to a reading of I Think You’re Totally Wrong at Powell’s this week. He describes it as a debate about the importance of the life/art balance and recommends one of our books and a zine that can also help with that. 

Erik (sales manager)

This week I spent an unusual amount of time on YouTube researching and listening to old Dub recordings. I’ve always liked old roots reggae and the Dub always seemed like a rogue splinter group with origins and facets hidden away in old vaults and obscure collectors closets. This isn’t too far off. Some of these recordings had numbered pressings equal to the amount of cash they had at the time, maybe 200 copies, maybe 1,000… making them for the most part, exceptionally difficult to find. Thanks to YouTube, I’ve invested no small amount of time tracing the legacy’s of King Tubby, Lee Perry, Mad Professor, and Jah Shaka. I’ve discovered a new holy grail of records to hunt and secure; it’ll likely be a long time before I see one, and it’ll probably be way too much money and I’ll have to make concessions… I did manage to go out and find a few of these albums, maybe the one I like the most right now is: The Commandments of Dub, Chapter 2, put on by Jah Shaka. Many of these album titles have these types of overtones linked to Rastafarianism, I just like the music.

I’ve been sifting through Michel Foucault’s, History of Sexuality series, three volumes: #1 An Introduction by the same name, #2 The Use of Pleasure, and #3 The Care of the Self. At this point it’s difficult to say exactly what I’m looking for, but I think I’m after some leverage to use against some other writers, which will remain nameless. Foucault has always left huge impressions, as I get older these impressions I feel, take shape alongside other dents and damages from lack of maintenance in my former study. So now as I encounter his work, which some would say is a little demanding, I feel I have to be all the more diligent not to re-open old wounds.

From volume two: ” My aim was not to write a history of sexual behaviors and practices, tracing their successive forms, their evolution, and their dissemination; nor was it to analyze the scientific, religious, or philosophical ideas through which these behaviors have been represented. I wanted first to dwell on that quite recent and banal notion of “sexuality”: to stand detached from it, bracketing its familiarity, in order to analyze the theoretical and practical context with which it has been associated.”

I received the Jan. 26, 2015 copy of the New Yorker, and I’m happy to say, that at this point I’ve only read the cartoons!

Elly (marketing)

Couldn’t stop reading this week. I finished Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and kept thinking about her unbelievably disciplined, almost athletic endeavor to be perfect in her career, marriage, parenting, and personal development. Started Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist. Takeaway from all of these: Women, we’ve got to stop being so damn hard on ourselves, it’s not like the rest of the world isn’t happy to do that for us.

Looks like I’m going to play Dungeons and Dragons for the first time this weekend. I read Joe’s battered 1989 manual and had a great laugh at the art and less happy laugh at the disclaimer about global use of the “he” pronoun (everyone would be SO confused if they did it any other way).

Also gobbled up: Let My People Go Surfing, Yvon Chouinard’s memoir and manifesto about founding Patagonia in the 50s and growing it into a successful global company in between long climbing trips. We’re looking for business role models for Microcosm, companies that started small and grew big while sticking to values and not being sold to investors. Check, check, check, check. Super inspiring.

Dove into the new Cometbus, felt some love and recognition for the smelly, unsocial book dealers in there. 

And I lay on the office floor and read Crate Digger! It’s so good. Bob Suren made a mix as a reward for the Kickstarter backers (could be you!), and I serenaded the office with it, closing out this week in screaming style.

Here’s what we’re putting in our brains this week.

Tim (publicity)

I’ve been kind of obsessively reading the blog Gargozo Manuscript where my friend, Rev. Joe Borfo, has been posting the eccentric stories his dad has been sending to him about his life growing up in Los Angeles. Obsessive gambling, rampant BLT consumption, and scamming his way through art school…

Rosie (intern)

I’m currently reading Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides – I was introduced to his work last year with The Marriage Plot, and had no idea how much more expansive this work would be. So far I’m loving it. I’m also reading Living as Form, a book by Nato Thompson about relational aesthetics and socially engaged art from 1991-2011.

I’m listening to a ton of Palberta, an experimental punk trio from upstate New York, and Arthur Russell

I’m watching reruns of Broad City (both the original web series, and their show on comedy central) in preparation for the new season (!!!).

Newly discovered, underrated twitter that gives unwanted and nonsensical life advice: @wackyfacks (“someone breathing down your neck? turn around and give a kiss”)

I’ve also been reading a ton of articles about Reborn Dolls being rescued from parked cars, which is kind of funny, kind of sad, and endlessly fascinating.

Nathan (trainee)

Nathan reports that he went to a reading at Powell’s again this week, for Rose City Heist, a true crime story about the biggest jewelry theft in Portland. Now that the statute of limitations on the crime has run out, the primary suspect can finally dish everything. If you’re into that kind of thing, he wants you to know about some similarly arcane and fascinating slices Portland history that you can find on the shelves of our store, including Ariel Gore’s Portland Queer, Joe Biel’s history of local bike activism, this comic written by Sarah Mirk about the infamous Vortex Fest, and these two box sets of more fascinating comics that help you get to know all the parts that make up our city: One about our little-known history, and one about our activism.

Morgan (intern)

Besides the sounds of the MAX Green Line on my commute each day—last night, I heard a screeching baby, a man in a suit reciting the Declaration of Independence, and someone playing the flute—and a lot of rain, I’ve been listening to my favorite songza playlist : “At a ’90s Frat BBQ”. Please don’t judge me.

In terms of reading, I’m currently devouring HIV, Mon Amor, a book of poetry by Tory Dent that I picked up at Powell’s the other week. Dent has found a beautiful balance between poetry and prose, and the book is a stunning and resonant portrayal of the author’s life as an HIV-positive woman. I’ve also devoured, in a more literal sense, a couple of recipes that I found in my recent purchase of Barefoot and in the Kitchen.

Meggyn (designer)

I’ve, of course, been reading Teenage Rebels by Dawson Barrett [editor’s note: Meggyn is designing this book right now!] and revisiting my entire mix cd collection from the past. It’s been more than appropriate and has inspired me in so many ways.

The albums that have stood out have been Set It Straight‘s “Live Your Heart and Never Follow” and “My Favorite Words,” Down To Nothing‘s “Splitting Headache” and “The Most“, Have Heart‘s “The Things We Carry“, and Battery‘s “Final Fury“. Straight edge punk hardcore has always held a very special place in my heart, if that isn’t already apparent enough.

In the kitchen, I baked these brownies and the baked beans recipe in Hot Damn and Hell Yeah by Ryan Splint. The brownies tasted like those cosmic brownies I used to eat as a child, which I didn’t find very good in the first place. The beans were great and I HIGHLY recommend them, especially for those who don’t like to put too much work into their cooking.

Jonathan (sales)

Last night, as I wandered SE Division, I came across a cute shop called Little Otsu. While the Moomins books are what drew me in, it was the curated film selection that really sold me. There, I bought a Criterion Collection DVD of the 1955 French thriller Diabolique, by Henri-Georges Clouzot. It’s famous—or, depending upon whom you ask, infamous—for being the adaptation Hitchcock couldn’t make, as Clouzot reportedly snatched up the film rights to the novel mere hours before Hitch could get his hands on them. I can’t wait to watch it.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to follow Crate Digger author Bob Suren’s footsteps by building on my own collection of punk vinyl. I’m going to start with the ? and the Mysterians single “96 Tears,” tracing punk’s evolutionary process: from its roots in Detroit, MI, to the hyper aggressive hardcore scenes of California and NYC. It’s gonna be one helluva collection!

Joe (publisher)

Watched the Australian “comedy” Mental about five kids (four of which who dress identically) their dad who is an absent but successful politician and the woman that he picks up from the side of the road to be the ad-hoc “caretaker” of the kids. It mostly left me wondering if society’s cultural analysis of mental health is what is so fractured or if this is how Australians deal with difficult subjects. In any event, I didn’t watch the whole thing because I fell asleep and the litmus test was failed because I’m not going to watch the rest. C- unless you really need distraction from your life.

The current episode of This American Life, “Batman,” was totally bad ass. While I mostly got obsessed with how supportive his mom was throughout his entire life as a young blind person, the whole story is like all good narratives: it makes you think about all of the similar parables in your own life and how hardships are almost always that way because of how you perceive and interact with them. Thanks iGlass!

And clearly I’ve been too tired and/or busy to read after work this week because the only other media entering my headtube is Jughead’s Revenge and his take on the Vindictives Hypno-Punko which, admittedly, I thought of as a kid band (albeit one that I loved as a teenager). I really like the way that Joey engages mental health from an “I’m not ashamed, I’m crazy motherfucker!” mentality and brings that suburban Chicago melodic punk sound to new highs (both in terms of pitch and merit). All of the episodes are stellar but this one touched me particularly.

Erik (sales)

I’ve recently acquired, at long last my copy of Burning Spear’s Marcus Garvey LP. It’s a classic roots reggae album. I had to travel all the way to St. Louis to find it! It’s one of those inimitable legends of the genre that gives me goosebumps. I also found The Impressions’ One by One (Curtis Mayfield’s first group). It has a track listing of mostly standards of the time, but the three tracks written by Curtis are unstoppable.

I’ve had the last two issues of the New Yorker on my table, got into those in an effort to catch up. The Jan 12 issue had some Malcolm Gladwell, if you’re into it.

I just activated my MUBI account, it was a christmas gift from a friend. If you’re not familiar, it’s like Netflix, but much smaller, with a changing collection of foreign films, movie shorts from artists, and other sub-genre projects. It features older films and new releases. I highly recommend it if you’re in search of more eclectic and abstract viewing.

I used my TriMet app twice!

Elly (marketing)

I found (on This.cm, which I love) and stayed up too late reading this very long article about a team of Swedish “troll hunters” that unmask the people behind anonymous racist internet comments, including some famous politicians.

My old friend Carl came over to breakfast and regaled us with tales of his new club, The Portland Flag Association. Turns out that flags (and the people who love them) are an endlessly fascinating topic, but don’t take my word for it; check out this article and podcast about the organization.

Part of my work here involves dabbling in a dark art known as “title development,” or in lay terms, “what exactly is this book supposed to be anyway?,” on which topic this is probably the best thing ever written, by a famous humor writer of yore:

The best ever review of Lady Chatterley’s Lover was in an American publication called Field and Stream: pic.twitter.com/J9eythcflu

— Andrew Male (@AndrewMaleMojo) January 16, 2015

Welcome to the first installment of our new weekly feature, Rampant Media Consumption. Every Friday, some Microcosm workers will share what we’ve been reading, watching, listening to, and otherwise putting into our brains.

(This feature was inspired by and shamelessly borrowed from the Weekend Reading feature put together by our friends at the Sightline Institute, a Pacific Northwest sustainability and public policy think tank whose rampant media output is also well worth following.)

Meggyn

I have been listening to the new Grammies album, GREAT SOUNDING nonstop​, Thundercat‘s The Golden Age of Apocalypse, and Angel Olsen‘s Burn Your Fire For No Witness during my hibernation.

As far as books, I have trekked through Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck and the new Dwelling Portably, but ….alas…I am only halfway through both. But they have both inspired me to keep on going and BE GOOD to people.

I have also peeped in at some Alan Watts lectures. Specifically Alan Watts ~ You Suffer Because You Enjoy It

Erik

I’m reading an old book called Ormond, by Charles Brockden Brown (1771 –1810). He is considered to be the first American novelist, or at least the first to make a serious living from his writings. The book is a tale of ignominy, death by contagion, women’s education, murder, morality, and all set in post-revolutionary Philadelphia.

I’m mostly re-watching soccer matches from the European Champions League in preparation for the round of 16!

Tim

Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky by David Connerley Nahm – It’s too soon to tell exactly how I feel about this book, but so far it’s been sweeping, lyrical imagery that leads to bold, poignant moments as two (possible?) siblings are reunited after one had long ago disappeared. Is there a word for the negative side of nostalgia?

I picked it up based on some reviews/best of lists I saw and because the publisher, Two Dollar Radio, published one of my favorite books of 2014, Crapalachia by Scott McClanahan (Well, they published it in 2013, but I read it in 2014. You know how these things go). 

And due to a recent trip to LA, it’s been accompanied by the actual consumption of some Kenyan beans from Trystero Coffee. The best damn roaster man has ever encountered, with the added bonus of an obscure literary name.

Elly

We’re in the development stages of Jaime Herndon’s book, Taking Back Birth, so I spent some time reading up on stuff I don’t normally think about. A friend’s dog-eared copy of Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth blew my mind. Ina May Gaskin has been a midwife and birth activist since the 70s and is super inspiring even if you’re not a baby-haver—here’s a nice multimedia introduction to her work.

On my mom’s recommendation, I read Marie Kondo’s bestselling Shinto decluttering manifesto The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I liked her stories of learning to channel her teenaged extremism into a successful career, and how she learned good boundaries along the way and replaced her anger and resentment about clutter with a strong sense of respect for home and ultimately self. I used her method and put the 80% of my clothes that don’t make me seriously happy on the curb. I can’t say I miss any of the specific items, but heed my cautionary tale: now I have to do laundry every two days.

The best thing I read on the Internet this week is an essay by Oboi Reed on Streetsblog: “Why I Fight: How Biking Saved My Life and Can Help Other Black Chicagoans.”

In non-book media, I chose a movie called Barbara on Netflix because the cover showed a woman riding a bicycle, and it ended up being one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a recent movie, but it’s about the pivotal moment of choice for a dissident doctor in East Germany before the wall came down. I’d have loved it anyway, but it doesn’t hurt that the bicycle is the movie’s symbol of freedom and independence.

Joe

Just read Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland in research mode to grasp a finer understanding of my roots and to start the polishing for the 20 years of Microcosm book coming out in 2016. While Harvey hits the soul of the city on the nose and I realized for the first time that he actually lived there during the glory years of the 1930s, most of the second half of the book rehashed his existing material and life and was thus a bit disappointing. For a man who was an expert on the city and its history, I wanted more specifics, more depth. There was no shortage of love and I like the idea of hugging format between memoir and city history but if he’s going to tell us about all three of his wives again, then I want the book to be twice as long!

Next up was a documentary, Mentor, about bullying-related suicides at my second high school. The film lays out mostly emotional content about four well-documented suicides with relentless calls for help to administration in as many sequential years while the school continued to ignore that a problem might exist. The film draws the line to the high population of Bosnian war refugees living there and how many of them are targeted by bullies. I wanted a bit more factual analysis and historical context, even though obviously, I know the area where I’m from. It felt a little “every town” when we all know that places are unique.

I followed that up with the Cleveland Tourism Videos and the book that the director wrote, Damn Right I’m From Cleveland but it was totally disappointing. Less depth than reading Tumblr and mostly obsessed with the most boring places to hang out in the city and old moments in sports. I get it, that’s the morale that we hang out hat on. But he missed this time.

Fortunately, Joyce Brabner’s new book Second Avenue Caper was bedside to bring me back to remembering what a good graphic book is. She put a serious plug for Microcosm in the acknowledgements for inspiring her to remember what a group of dedicated people can accomplish and that’s why I tracked down a copy, but it’s also a heartening story of what you can do when you feel powerless: band together with your elegant cast of friends, sell drugs, and ignore government warnings. It’s not a triumphant ending but it does compel the reader to imagine how to engage with problems in the world today and to know that a response is warranted. The power is in your hands. 

Oh and also, this interview with Tommy Wiseau about his new sitcom ends with the interviewer pissing off Tommy, who is apparently very sensitive about the fine line of his fans loving his work while making fun of his ridiculous personality.

Jonathan

I’ve been using Duolingo to (re)learn French. It’s a great little app!

Nathan

Nathan went to the reading at Powell’s for More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing and reports that it touches on many of the same issues as one of our recent books.