this is a cool collection of the strips published in Car Busters magazine. mr Avidor has an amazing ability to summarize complex issues around urban planning and transportation without taking from them. it’s awesome. finally, a way to explain to your friends all why you ride a bike and eat less animal products and dislike corporations with humor and without dumbing stuff down. very cool.

illustrated by Clement Oubrerie and written by Marguerite Abouet. it’s cool. adult comics made by a children books illustrator. it has that children book feel to it although the content is more serious. i have never been to Ivory coast but i’d guess he did a good job at portraying it. a colorful dynamic style. the story has good sense of humor, and i liked the recipes at the end. nice.

another one courtesy of my friend/neighbor Joe. beautifully drawn with simple lines and gorgeous black and white watercolor backgrounds. the story is full of deep deep implications and subtleties for the state of the world. war. third world. young. conflict. Gipi (Gian Alfonso Pacinotti) nails this third world war feeling like a master story teller. his comic book narrative is impeccable: the scribbling as illustration, the frames where the character is being filmed are left colorless to suggest the difference in resolution. word balloons that overlap. dream scenes.
really worth checking out. it’s depressive and it seems to go nowhere but so it’s war and youth and so many things in between.

i ended up reading this because it’s one of those classics. you know, it’s written by two women (a plus) a couple of characters, that were into Dungeons and Dragons and decided to go into a book with support from the company that originally published D&D (TSR). very cool. sections and characters from the book actually came from playing the game.
it’s a must in geekdom his/herstory.
now, one thing i was suspicious about where all the nods, references or plain lifts from lord of the rings. i mean, the group is almost obviously a form of the fellowship of the ring. even the dwarf acts as the comic relief. there is a human/half elf that is in love with this elvish princess.
i guess they were just doomed to play so similar.
on the bright side this book is about a collective, which is awesome. since so many stories are dedicated to individual heroes. this is about a group, in action. i like that. must come from playing games i guess, games are better with others.
anyway. it’s a “candy” sort of read – as my friend Dave calls them – sweet, quick, fun and nutritionally empty. and when you finish, you want another one. we’ll see.

not bad. not as heavy weight as other books but it touches on opium trade and asian countries. your usual ultra clever tom robbins. i loved the mythic japanese tanuki made into a character of a novel. vere straight out of japanese folklore thought.

this is a very “round” book, almost symetric. i did like the different narratives-styles-time periods. and the way they felt loosely connected at the beginning but the connections become more clear as the book ends. the second part of “the orison of somni” was quite beautiful and dark – one of those sciFi special moments were i wanted to cry, seriously.
versatile writer. i does not take the reader by the hand with the narrative. i like that. very few explanations. more show don’t tell. nicely crafted.

the problem with reading this book is that any other book that intends to be funny/clever pales in comparison. this is the sort of book that will ruin your appetite for other books by virtue of making you a gourmet of the clever-funny-and-yet-intelligent eternal punchline.
the question is: how can someone write clever phrase after clever phrase for more than 200 pages?

anyway. would this qualify as an introduction to the middle east? yes. in fact, a friend of mine says she read it by pure coincidence before a long trip to israel and it couldn’t have been a better encounter. go figure.

one of my favorite phrases by the owner of the restaurant: “someone’s need for structure is in direct proportion to the amount of chaos inside of them”
in quoting out of my head so don’t sue me.

this thing doesn’t really cut it. a mixture between new age shit and cyber shit that in theory sounds pretty interesting ends up being a mashup of poor quality in this novel. one of those books i read till the end just because i want to give it a chance.
it’s like a little portrait of a spiritualized bay area of the future, silly universities and all.
the jokes are bad. mostly poor exagerations like “the jumped faster than the fleas on a dog”
come on, anyone can do better. maybe i’ve been reading too much neal stephenson or tom robbins or something. by the way, if you are feeling like some cyberpunk virtual reality kind of stuff do your self a favor and don’t read this, reach for some stephenson, gibson or paul di filipo, hey, even paranoid mr. wired columnist bruce sterling will entertain you better.

so mr steinbeck has a dear place in the heart of the literature of the oppressed i know i know. a mexicano-chicano friend of mine said: when i meet those born again (racist, as in anti white) chicanos i tell them, grapes of wrath man, read the grapes of wrath so you get your history and class struggle right. anyway. that said. i think this book is somewhat racist.
oooohhh…. i said it. there.
when a white man is writing about people of mexican descent in the US he just gets it wrong. sorry. just wrong, there is nothing mexican about these characters but a bunch of stereotypes: lazy, been eaters, drunks…
from wikipedia: “The book portrays with great sympathy and humour a group of paisanos (fellows/countrymen), denouncing society by enjoying life and wine in the idyllic days just before U.S. prohibition.”
hey, he might have had some good intentions but you know what is paved with good intentions.
terrible read.

me cago en los clasicos.

the best thing about this book is the sense of humor. the pictures are good, the recipes are good, but the delivery is excellent. this is not a comprehensive guide to western mushrooms (if you wanted that you would get “Mushrooms Demystified”) but it’s incredibly helpful and a very fun read.