Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Monday, February 15, 2021
Abba Zab #2 Is Ready to Ship!
The second issue of Abba Zab, my crate-digging, B&W digest music review zine, is ready to ship! It features over twice as many pages as the inaugural issue, twice as many LP and CD reviews, more film reviews, a larger font size, and an interview with Columbus, Ohio's own Elizabeth's Records owner David Lewis! Plus, podcast reviews and the proverbial more.
Abba Zab #2 is 36 pages of jam-packed music goodness, with a cardstock cover - only $6 ppd. Order Abba Zab and other sweet zines and small press comics here! http://www.nenoworld.com/Minicomics.html
Friday, February 12, 2021
Recently Read: The First Four Years, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls Wilder's The First Four Years was found in the late '60s as a first draft, unfinished, unvarnished. It was published not only after Wilder's death, but also the death of her daughter, Rose, who had collaborated with her mother on the series, giving the other "Little House" books a narrative flow and romantic sheen.
There's no romantic sheen here - just stark, brutal reality, and it's best read remembering that it's a first draft. Events are described, but rarely elaborated on for long before the next event. And many of those events in Laura and Almonzo's first four years of marriage were harsh: blight and debt and poverty, losing a child, their house burning down. Ma and Pa Ingalls are now far away, both geographically and emotionally, and barely make an appearance. There's virtually no mention of Laura's sisters. Almonzo is nearly unrecognizable. The smart, confident, well-planning fellow who literally saved his town's lives in The Long Hard Winter now seems emotionally distant, and a victim of the elements of nature, with physical problems, financial hardship and the sort of bad luck Pa Ingalls experienced for decades.
The First Four Years is, frankly, a hard book to digest in comparison to the rest of the series, though likely more emotionally truthful to the ways hardship ruled Laura's life at the time. I question Harper & Row's decision to package it with the rest of the series, marketed to children, as the tone is so extraordinarily different. I'm glad that it was published, though, as it gives insight into Wilder's life from a different perspective. Garth Williams' illustrations are as beautiful as ever - a good thing, since most of the shimmering poetry in earlier book's text is missing here.
Monday, February 8, 2021
Saturday, February 6, 2021
Friday, February 5, 2021
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