Download issue as PDF - SLUG Magazine

(68) SLUG
BURT’S Tiki
Lounge
• Cheap Drinks
• Cheap Cover
• Cheap Women
726 south State Street • A Private Club
187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross
the Boarder: Undocumented 1971 – 2007
Juan Felipe Herrera
City Lights Publishers [Street: 02.08]
Despite the fact that the Mexican population is growing greater in the U.S. every day,
many people choose to remain ignorant of the history of our neighbors from South
of the border. After reading Herrera’s new book I felt like I had gained a great deal
of insight about the experience of living in the U.S. as a Mexican. Herrera compiled
over thirty years of “undocuments” consisting of poetry, journal entries and essays,
in which he discusses everything from food to freedom marches. Some of his
writings are longwinded and repetitious, while others snap to the point with powerful
thoughts and imagery. To get the most from this book I’d recommend grabbing
a Spanish-English dictionary––it’d be a shame to miss something important just
because you don’t understand it. –Ben Trentelman.
American Hair Metal
Steven Blush
Feral House [Street: Nov. 2006]
WOW! If you have any illusions that butt-metal bands were into making music for any
other reason than taking tons of drugs and getting laid, think again! From the picture
of Aqua Net adorning the first page of American Hair Metal to the leopard-spandexed
buttocks of Mike Tramp of White Lion on the last, you will take a rip-roarin’
tour through the mid-to-late 80s like you’ve never before experienced. Welcome to
170 full-color, glossy pages of over-the-top fashion and grandiose quotes from Warrant,
Poison, Guns N’ Roses, Ratt, Motley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Kix and more. Steve
Blush, also the author of American Hardcore, takes a nostalgic, thumbs-up look
back at the hair-metal movement, but puts in some ironic quotes for balance. Don’t
get me wrong, his irony ain’t no Decline of Western Civilization II, but his observations
on girl bands oversexualizing their acts to get any sort of respect in the scene
(Vixen, Femme Fatale, Poison Dollies) and the wholesale sexual exploitation of
worshipping prepubescent females at concerts everywhere, is definitely poignant.
The best page might be the series of press quotes from Nikki Sixx between the
years 85-’90 running the gamut of “I don’t do drugs! Why does everyone think I do
drugs?” to “Yeah, rehab sucked.” That’s Mr. Brownstone for ya! –Rebecca Vernon
The Forger: An Extraordinary Story of Survival in
Wartime Berlin
Cioma Schönhaus
Da Capo Press [Street: 01.07]
Over the years there have emerged countless tales of survival and valor amid Hitler’s
reign over Germany during World War II. One such story is The Forger, a remarkable
first-hand account of how Russian-Jew Cioma Schönhaus escaped from
his hostile home of Berlin in the 1940s and lived to tell the story. With vivid detail
and imagery, Schönhaus chronicles his experiences as a graphic artist whom was
determined to save himself and as many other Jews seeking salvation from the Nazi
party as possible. By forging passports and identification cards, Schönhaus was
able to spare many Jews the fate of being sent to concentration camps and even
made a pretty good living for himself. The talented and cunning young man did not
live the typical life of a Jew in wartime Berlin as he dined in fancy restaurants and
occasionally spent nights with a certain German officer’s wife. It is no surprise that
there is already a film in the works, though I’m not sure how well it is going to adapt
to the screen. Regardless, The Forger is as inspiring of a story as you will ever read,
making it a hard book to put down. –Michael DeJohn
The New York Trilogy
Paul Auster
Penguin Books [Street: March 2006]
City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room all feature such thematic communalities
as private eyes, mistaken identities, trailing a mark and guns. In this way, they
are identifiable within the oft-depreciated genre of detective fiction. However, with
their emphasis on the limited abilities and implications of language, the function of
story-telling, and the basic principles of existentialism, Paul Auster takes a formulaic
(if not delightful) genre and turns it on its head. While these novellas contain variations
on the typical narrative framework of a mystery novel––the summons, the trail,
the snag, the breakthrough––the case ostensibly being worked on in an Auster story
will probably be abandoned for more universal queries. The identity the protagonist
ends up obsessing over is usually his own, the clues being less likely a smoking gun
and more likely being a strange turn of phrase. Like Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49,
The New York Trilogy can be viewed as Sam Spade with a dose of Jacques Lacan,
Phillip Marlowe visited by Wittgenstein. However, unlike Pynchon, Auster utilizes
intertextuality, deconstructionism, and existentialism in way that even the reader unacquainted
with continental philosophy can enjoy immensely, without feeling entirely
unschooled. –J.R. Boyce