Ten Second Reviews

Men to Avoid in Art and in Life

By Nicole Tersigni

This was like the froth on a cup of coffee: fun to contemplate, but when it came to drinking the stuff, basically intangible.  I like the idea, but maybe it's better enjoyed on a scrolling read, rather than in book form.  There's some attempt to match topic and art, but not always successful.  Like I said, briefly enjoyed, and briefly remembered.  

Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery

Edited by Christopher Golden and Rachel Autumn Deering

Well, first of all, it's very hard to compete with the gold standard of witch stories, which is, obviously, Nine Witch Tales, by, ahem, "Abby Kedabra", published in 1968. But there's always room for second place! 

Okay, I know this is dumb, but I liked the length of the stories.  And I know, I know, that sounds like I'm damning with faint praise, but honestly, if I'm reading short stories, one of things that bugs me is when I get like, five twenty-page stories, and then like, one seventy-page story. That is no longer a story, sir, that is a novella.  Also, as much as I like shakin' things up (to wit: very little) I much prefer orderliness.  Anyway, to the actual review!

Some good ones, some not so good ones. Of the ones that stuck with me, I have to call out Sarah Langan's The Night Nurse, which is definitely NOT something I should have been reading as a pregnant person and Tananarive Due's Last Stop on Route Nine was chilling and spooky, and took me down a Dozier School for Boys hole, which is where I thought the story was going (it wasn't but it was still satisfyingly spooky).  Angela's Slatter's Widows' Walk, Hillary Monahan's Bless Your Heart, Ania Ahlborn's The Debt, Chesya Burke's Haint Me Too (which felt inspired by Beloved, at least in the beginning style), and Theodora Goss', How to Become a Witch-Queen,were all above average, enjoyable witchery stories.  

I felt a bit let down by Helen Marshall's The Nekrolog, and Kristin Dearborn's The Dancer, both of which were really great, but wrapped up without a satisfying resolution. Both felt like they were excerpts from a much larger universe, but even thought the world was interesting and well-done, I wanted something more complete in my stories.

I also feel like calling out Rachel Caine's Home: A Morganville Vampires Story, and Amber Benson (yes, of Buffy fame)'s This Skin, which were my least favorites, by far. Home was part of a larger universe thing, and I don't know if the people were more sympathetic if you read the books, but in the story, this witch comes to town, looking for a drop of blood from the vampires who murdered her and her husband in order to resurrect her husband and her murderers basically are huge assholes to her, basically being all "she's a terrible person, blah blah blah" even though they're the ones who killed her and frankly should be expecting revenge. And then she doesn't even do anything that bad to them, she just leaves once she gets the blood.  This Skin was a let down, again with a protagonist who didn't draw you in, one of those ones who thinks they're soooooooo much smarter than everyone else, and when things don't work out, it's hard to tell if it's because we're meant to believe that the narrator did get away with murder because they're just that smart, or because the narrator is an idiot and has just puffed themselves up into buying their own hype. 

Ten Second Reviews

Poorly Drawn Lines

By Reza Farazmand

This is a collection of short panel comics by Farazmand, who got his start online (and is still there, I assume).  These are mostly 4-6 panels apiece, with some longer ones mixed in.  They've got that off-the-wall humor which I enjoy, talking animals and inanimate objects, birds judging how well you sing, aliens who just want friendship bracelets, thirty-seven year-old babies with beards, weirdly tall frogs, robots who suck.  It's got a bit of that Far Side influence, but it feels a bit more Dada-esque (yeah, I know shit).  One thing I didn't like was the formatting - if you have a four-panel page, but a six panel comic, for the love of god, just make it smaller and put it on one page!  It makes it weirdly hard to figure out if the small panel is a continuation of the previous page or a new comic.  Same for the eight (or more) panel comics.  When stuff is online first, you don't have the same space restrictions you'd get if they were published in the newspaper.  So they're all different lengths.  But you gotta solve that problem when you publish - and I don't think they've quite cracked the code yet.  But overall, a fun diversion, and a good gift for someone with that absurd sense of humor.

Through The Woods

By Emily Carroll

 

This is sort of the antithesis to Poorly Drawn Lines: short stories instead of panels, arty illustrations instead of block characters, horror instead of comedy, confusing instead of straightforward.  I got this because I wanted some spooky stuff to read, and they were definitely - atmospheric - but I felt like a lot of them were kind of ended the same way: you have a set up with a spooky premise (I killed my brother but he's standing right there drinking, a lady is hearing a chilling song in the floorboards, my friend has a cloud thing that has arteries over her head, my mother warned me about the piano-teeth monster, etc), and then the character takes further action (goes down a hole to follow a monster [in several stories, actually, they should probably stop doing that], cracks open the walls and finds body parts, discovers someone is missing, etc) there's maybe like a little more explanation or clues about what's going on, but mostly not, and then we end with, like an ominous close up (of the monster, of the piano teeth, of the beating heart cloud, etc) but honestly, some of it (most of it) is so confusing, I can't figure out enough of what's going on to be scared.    For example, in the piano teeth one, Emily follows Rebecca down a hole and see her face come off into red worms, and then she leaves and hits her head and comes to back at the house, where she talks Rebecca out of using her body as a sack for Rebecca's red worm babies.  But then at the end, we find out Emily has piano teeth too.  So..... is she already a red worm monster? Did Rebecca change her mind and use her body anyway? It's so weirdly obtuse.  And the one where the brother is killed and then comes back, the narrator follows him down a hole he's been digging, and then sees... someone sleeping on the ground? The wolf the brother killed earlier? The brother is the wolf? Totally unclear. Anyway, beautifully illustrated, but a bit obtuse for me.   

Provenance

Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of  Modern Art

By Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo

It is the astonishing narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate cons in the history of art forgery. Stretching from London to Paris to New York, investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo recount the tale of infamous con man and unforgettable villain John Drewe and his accomplice, the affable artist John Myatt. Together they exploited the archives of British art institutions to irrevocably legitimize the hundreds of pieces they forged, many of which are still considered genuine and hang in prominent museums and private collections today.

I really enjoyed this book.  I have a semi-jaundiced eye towards art collecting to begin with, and this only proves my point: if the value of art is no longer based on the piece itself but some other extrinsic factor, then it is no longer art, but commodity.  The artist/forger Myatt makes the point (as do several others): the painting has not changed, only the name of the producer.  Why then does the price drop by the order of several hundred thousand?  Apparently the answer to Shakespeare's famous question is: no, a rose would not smell as sweet by any other name. Nor would a Giacometti.

Provenance is a really interesting book about a very specific fraud on the art world, but also about greater questions in personal responsibility, confidence, and the many cracks and seams that are available to be exploited by people without care for collateral damage, both in general terms in our modern society and also very specifically in the fine art forum.

Just this week as I'm reading it, the New York Times had two articles about long lost or newly discovered art pieces of great artists, an unearthed Caravaggio, found in an attic, and some purported Rembrandts, discovered in a collection held for six generations.  Honestly, both made me barking mad, since it seems like each loses sight of the forest for the trees. Look, all of this rush to decide whether this painting or that is painted by a "master" - authorship is more fluid than that (at least in paintings).  Stop attaching such importance to an unimportant feature.  In Provenance, they kinda wrap up the whole escapade by talking about art fraud via a broader lens, and mention that Picasso (and possibly other artists as well) would sign works done by other artists.

I've also been watching Fake or Fortune on Netflix, which is a fascinating look as the show people take paintings and try to authenticate them. It shows some of the avenues that people would use to support the provenance. It all seems to me like a giant guessing game, but there are definitely people out there who dedicate their lives to art, and in some cases, specific artists, so closely that they "know" immediately if something is off or not.  That sixth sense there is almost like a superpower.  What's interesting about this fraud perpetrated here is that it was able to succeed despite multiple people finding the forgeries lacking, because the provenance allayed all doubts.  That was the true con (obviously, otherwise they wouldn't have called the book Provenance). 

All of my aggravation about provenance aside, I am absolutely appalled at the utter gall of Drewe to callously upend historical archives for his own personal agenda and pleasure.  I am definitely a black and white seer, a rules follower, and no matter how silly I think it is to search for value in a trail of owners, I am utterly disgusted at his behavior.  Obviously, not only in this regard, but also in his refusal to acknowledge what it is. Just admit you did it for personal gain!  You're a piece of shit, John Drewe, have the self awareness to admit it.

48: Two Books That Share The Same Title