NYLON - January 2008 - (Page 134) EDI T ED BY KAT E WI L L I AMS MINIPOP A New Hope (Take Root Records) In my college apartment, things would begin to stir around 12:30pm on Saturdays. If, for some odd reason, one of us was up before then, we were all respectful of the fact that no one else was. But when afternoon rolled around, roommates and friends would start to converge: ordering pizza, watching movies, taking long walks when the weather was warm and long drives when it was not. These days were mellow and cozy and comfortable, and if my nowworking-self could tell my then-student-self one thing, it would be to see these crystalline hours of idleness for what they were: perfect in their own little way. The same could be said about Minipop’s debut A New Hope, where the honeystick voice of lead singer Tricia Kane lifts songs such as “My Little Bee” and “Like I Do” to unhurried, sublime sweetness. The album, like the name of the band might suggest, consists of tiny pop songs with effervescent choruses and soaring guitars, and it clocks in at just 36 minutes. Enjoy it while it lasts, and then hit play again. KATE WILLIAMS BOOKMARK: BROOKYLN WAS MINE For many, Brooklyn is not a part of New York—it is New York: the bridge, Coney Island, Prospect Park, the pizza, oh my God, the pizza The attributes run on, not to mention that Brooklyn is currently, and arguably, New York’s most literary borough, and Brooklyn Was Mine (Riverhead) collects essays by some of its best talent. After an introduction by Philip Lopate, Katie Roiphe looks back on a first date at Coney Island and the marriage, and eventual divorce, that followed; Jennifer Egan tells of getting lost in the personal histories of women working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during WWII; and Lara Vapnyar writes of coming to Brooklyn from Russia, and struggling with immigrant communities that just reminded her of everything she wanted to forget. One of the most interesting, and most contextual essays, considering Brooklyn’s current state of rapid sky-scraperization, is from Jonatham Lethem, a Brooklyn native, who stays true to the adage that writers will always have complicated relationships with their hometown, no matter where it is. Conspiciously absent from the collection are Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer (one would assume they were asked, but declined?), but the book is still a nostalgic, elegant, funny, and wonderfully diverse collection to read—especially while riding the F and L trains. KW BOOKMARK: Great Loves “What are you doing?” asks one of Casanova’s conquests, in a story he relates in his memoirs “I am removing your cloak,” he says. “Give me your muff too.” “That would be difficult, for it has been nailed.” “How naughty!” And so the seduction goes. When she goes to the bathroom, he hides her condoms and replaces them with a poem—less effective perhaps, but an interesting move. She responds by also writing a poem, which begins with the curious lines “When an angel f…’s me [not my abbreviation] I’ve no doubts that nature’s author is my only spouse/ But to keep his line above suspicion/ Love must return my sheaths without objection.” The best part? She’s a nun and her husband is watching the whole thing from behind the curtains. Casanova’s stories (which methinks might be exaggerated somewhat) are in fact among the least interesting, if most humorous, of Penguin’s nine-book Great Loves collection. Great Loves follows Penguin’s tradition of releasing stunning paperback series, and also includes snippets of less-erotic work from Kierkegaard, Virgil, and Stendhal. The slim volumes work best, though, when the texts are complete, as in Turgenev’s beautiful First Love, the author’s most famous novella. Frustratingly, there are in fact 20 books in the complete set, and it’s the ones not available in the U.S. that are the most charming (these include work by Nabokov, Lawrence, Nin, and Fitzgerald). It’s a minor quibble though, and you can always order them online. While you’re waiting, dip into a bit of Giovanni Boccacio who, in The Eaten Heart: Unlikely Tales of Love, tells of a peasant who seduces an entire nunnery. “Whereas a single cock is quite sufficient for ten hens, ten men are usually hard put to satisfy one woman, and yet here I am with nine of them on my plate,” confesses the exhausted man. “As a matter of fact I’ve been on the go so much that I’m no longer capable of delivering the goods.” LUKE CRISELL
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