Reading Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, which he got at at a rare book sale along with a first edition of Richard Brautigan short stories. Old books, he said, feel better than new ones.He works at a rare book auction house called PBA Galleries, just a couple blocks from where he was reading in downtown San Francisco.
His favorite book of all time--We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. It's about two agoraphobic sisters who never leave the house and everyone in town hates them and think they killed their parents. He likes to relax reading the first eighty pages, accompanied by cheesy goth music, like Switchblade Symphony or Suzie and the Banshees. Up to page eighty, he said, it's magical and charming, but after that bad things start to happen.
If he were to write his own book, it'd be about his time in art school at CCAC (California College of the Arts and Crafts). The struggle against humanity, against convention and good taste (and other things too, which I didn't write down). He was in the last graduating class to still get the "Crafts" on his diploma. The school has since been renamed to California College of the Arts. He is, in his own words, hella proud of that last C.
What do you think of when you hear the word crafts?
i LOVE We Have Always Lived in The Castle. Such a beautifully eerie book.
ReplyDeletei hope i can live in the casttle
ReplyDeleteWhe I hear "crafts," I think of stupid stuff like refrigerator magnets.
ReplyDeleteI *wish* I thought of stuff like wood carving, carpentry, embroidery, knitting, etc.
Now I call tohse "handicrafts" or "hand crafts."