What Number Am I On Now?

I don't even know! Things have been busy, kids. I got married and then we had a honeymoon. Before that there were all of these getting-married type things that you need to worry about (karaoke machine! tequila!) But one of the blog's two regular readers (and an actual, real journalist) Mr. Brendan Kennedy mentioned that he'd be happy when all the wedding shit was over "so you can start blogging again." His words have haunted - HAUNTED - me. And as it happens, when you drive across Eastern Canada for your honeymoon, you have a lot of time to think about your life, think about what's wrong with it, and read books to distract yourself from these things. I've got four new reviews coming up, fools. This be review the first:


Colors Insulting To Nature
by Cintra Wilson

Pages: 346
How: My friend Harrison, she of rock-bandery, puckish attitude and impeccable taste in music and writers, brought it over. Thanks M.


So I was wary about this book when I first started, and that was due almost entirely to one quote on the back cover. "The Dorothy Parker of the Cyber Age!" gushed the San Francisco Chronicle. Errr.....really? Yeech. Another one that threw me for a loop was in the first few pages, where one reviewer chimed in that Wilson was the "female David Foster Wallace." Ergh. The last time I heard these kind of accolade-amalgams thrown about was when Jonathan Safran Foer first appeared. And I fucking hate Jonathan Safran Foer. Say what you want about my level of insight or whatever, but you can't argue that Everything Is Illuminated is kind of a gigantic pain in the ass that I still do not believe is worth the work. Plus, dude is like, what? Thirty? Shut up.

Anyway, that's how I felt when I started Colors Insulting To Nature;it was going to be work. I was going to have to work to pay attention so I could get the grand payoff. Sometimes you have to do this with certain writers. Everyone has different levels of tolerance---as you guys know, Martin Amis' latest had me grinding my teeth at various junctures. Some friends have told me they really had to slog to get to the creamy centers of Infinite Jest (and no, I'm not there yet) or Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. For much of Colors, I felt like Wilson was settling into her very specific stylistic voice---or maybe it was just me needing to get used to it.

You see, Wilson used to write for Salon. (She might still write for them, but I haven't seen her around there for awhile.) If you go by her website and mini-bio/interview at the back of Colors, she used to write a lot about celebrities, culture and related ideas. Her first book was the hilariously-titled A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-Examined As A Grotesque Crippling Disease and Other Revelations. The woman can clearly speak with authority about fame, image and the ridiculous possibilities that lie therein. And that is exactly what Colors deals with.

The story is about young Liza Normal, born to the impossibly-named Peppy Normal - a failed showgirl who is on a hell-worn, lifelong attempt to recapture her dreams of celebrity. Most notably (and most important to the novel's development) is her revival production of "The Sound of Music" at a worn down playhouse attached to the family home. A ragtag summer stock troupe of children form the cast, including Peppy's own two kids, Liza and Ned (whose complete and total shrinkage from society results in his character's development as a reclusive but wholly successful outsider artist, in one of the novel's more obvious ironies.) This was my favorite part of the book - the time-honoured musical becomes delightfully twisted with a cast of queers, weirdoes, perfect stage children, deviants and Liza Normal. Liza's relentless and dogged pursuit of fame is hatched during this production and continues through the novel through a series of loosely-linked, bizarre and hilarious incidents (and a healthy amount of inspiration from Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam.)

Wilson's writing is so loaded - with cultural references, with zippy dialogue and with her occasional attempts to hijack the narrative with authorial asides - that it's hard to explain here. That's not the best part either. The best part is seeing Liza go from one humiliation to the next (a near-rape at a high school party, a sex romp with a drug dealer, attempts at acting, acid-fuelled sublets with a San Francisco elven cult, rehab, and - at the novel's climax - the transformation of her basement apartment into an inferno) and see Liza reinvent herself into a Wendy O. Williams-inspired punker, a hippie, a coke queen, and finally a Vegas S & M showgirl - and emerge triumphant.

Wilson's true accomplishment here appears in her creation of a character who, despite being likeable and relateable, is also so fucking ridiculous that you can't help but laugh at her. She's effectively erradicated pathos from Liza's story by making the character so fucking determined to be FAMOUS - the ultimate parasitical disease. The fact that she remains intact by the novel's completion is a miracle. The fact that the novel somehow remains readable and delightful is a triumph. If you can get past the loaded prose, Colors Insulting to Nature is a brilliant tribute to ego-fuelled girlhood, fame-whoredom, drug mayhem, and yes - even wisdom.