vermont

The smallest Bauman demonstrates the sure sign of a good day of skiing.

the space you need

Daughter Kristina sent me this link, to a photo gallery of writer's rooms. (Be sure to click the little tag for SHOW CAPTIONS under the view window, so you can see which author belongs to which office.)

Kristina has a vested interest in this because, being a transient between-houses child, for a while there her room was also my office. (Sorry, Krissy.)

The photo gallery is great, much fun. I guess I come from a completely different generation, though. The laptop has really changed everything. And maybe I've changed, as well.

I used to think I needed a grand space. Books all around, solitude, great desk, notes tacked everywhere. Over the years, though, that concept has just drifted away from my life. When we gutted and rebuilt our house a few years ago, it finally died for good, I guess; we didn't really build a "writing place." I do have an office with a desk, sort of. But it's also the dog room, and more for paying bills and storing things. I do write in there from time to time, when I need to close a door and have silence. But I'm more likely to be at the kitchen table, or maybe up in the play room, which has a great view of the woods. Or, this time of the year, sitting in front of the wood stove in the living room. And those are just the home options. Fact is, most of my writing is done on the train these days.

Below: the laptop in action on my kitchen counter.

stop dragging my heart around

Hands down, the most fun I had in high school was being the drummer in a garage band. In a high school career that was mostly miserable with a few bright spots, this was the absolute brightest. It's a no-brainer, really. Is it possible to have more fun than playing in a rock band, at any age? I don't think so. We were called Hypothermia, because we practiced in the unheated loft of my barn. That's how I got the gig, actually. I wasn't a very good drummer. But I had a drum set and a place where the band could practice. That's really half the battle. Matt Williams (who played bass and owned all the equipment) and I say now we were the most dysfunctional rhythm section in rock history. And that's saying something.

This pic below was shot moments after our first gig (a 60s-theme dance in the old Girls' Gym at the high school). I'm quite sure I will be hunted down and hurt for posting this picture on the internet.

Check out the suede-fringed boots and coral necklace. Yeah, baby. I really made some stunning fashion decisions at the age of 15.

Say what you will, though. We had a great time. And I don't know too many high school bands with the balls to attempt "Scenes From An Italian Restauant." A few of these guys are still out there playing (Matt, Gregg, Karl).

Matt got married this summer, to another old friend of ours, Beth. We posed for the occasion in the pic below...not a pair of parachute pants to be found...



The great news is that Beth and Matt are now proud parents of baby Maeve. Congratulations guys.

my president, Barack Obama

I was driving home late on the night of the third, listening to the radio, and heard someone (Tavis Smiley?) say: "I want to live again in a country that is as good as its promise."

And now, on the afternoon of the fifth, that's exactly how I feel, but in the present tense. That is, for the first time in 8 years, I feel like there truly is the potential to again have my country be as good as its promise.

I'm writing today from Pittsburgh, the left coast of my fair state. There is no significance to that except that I am reminded of how damn long my state is, a fact I sometimes forget.

voting with vin...early and often

Returned to WFUV New York and Vin Scelsa's lair on Saturday, for another visit on Idiot's Delight. Always a good time. Joining us in conversation this time were Cintra Wilson (who did a Caligula monologue from her new novel that was just hysterical) and Marc Aronson (editor of the War Is... anthology mentioned below). This link has the whole 4 hour broadcast in a zip file. Our conversation spanned the first two hours. I read "Letter to a Young Enlistee" in its entirety for the first time (minus a few choice F-bombs), which was a more disturbing experience than I expected it to be. All around, good radio, if you have 2 hours to kill.

And RIP, Studs Terkel.

The Election Reading Project

Daughter Kristina and friend Nick DiGiovanni hooked me into GoodReads a while back, and I've lately been catching up with my postings. I'm in general a very stumble-along kind of reader...no agenda or schedule. I have a huge stack of unread books, and usual case is that when I finish one I grab whatever from the stack moves me at that moment.

For the upcoming election, though, I set out a three-book process. I'm halfway through.

1. I wanted to be inspired, presidentially, and at the same time fill in some large blanks about a president I know woefully little about. So I went with the big book of Lincoln.

2. I wanted a reminder (as if I need one; Christ) of how important my vote is, and how much damage one man can do. So I went with "Angler," the new book about Cheney. I'm halfway through that now.

3. To cap it, I'll turn to my man's own words, which I have not yet read. Not sure which I'll read, "Dreams of my Father" or "Audacity of Hope." Probably the first one.

(And just in case you're wondering...yes, I have decided what I'm reading on the heels of this presidential swim. The new one by Marilynne Robinson, "Home.")

50 reasons to vote obama

Gregg sings it. "50 Reasons to Vote Obama." Yeah.

new albums from Linda and Jack, and a return to Vin

Tune-in alert: I'll be returning to Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight on the evening of Saturday Nov 1 (schedule and streaming info here) for a little pre-election hell-raising, as well as some chatter from and about my essay "Letter to a Young Enlistee" from the new anthology War Is...


In other news, two old musician friends have new releases (recent readers of In Hoboken can decide if they want to play "Who's that character based on?").


First is the amazing, the lovely, the talented Linda Sharar. Linda, Gregg, and I have spent more time together cramped between guitar cases in small vehicles than any three humans ought. We explored the burnt-out remains of Woody's childhood home together, we picked ticks off each other (same trip, oddly), we...well, you get the point. Her new album is called Everyday. It's wonderful. This is Linda's first outing post-motherhood, and that experience has added in richness to her lyricist's pen. And of course, as always, Linda packs a killer band.





Also new in the world is a project from Jack Hardy. Jack and his old pal David Massengill have taken to calling themselves the Folk Brothers, and did a CD to prove it. That's Jack on the right (if you didn't already know that...)



This one I just got in the mail and am only halfway through, but fantastic so far. Mark Dann on lead guitar, two great songwriters (and singers, let us not forget), and a song called "The Worst President Ever." What's not to like?

Ayelet's quest

Late to the party, but I'm in.
I sent books. You send money.

Oh dear. I guess my politial affiliation is public.
What a shock.

David Foster Wallace has left the building

The news today, oh boy, is David Foster Wallace has died, at a very young age, and from terrible circumstances.

In private conversations with writers and other artists I trust, I’ve been known to discuss dividing the world of novelists (and maybe the whole world) into two camps: those who get the joke and those who don’t get the joke. You know, “the joke.”

D.F. Wallace, though, was a different stripe of cat altogether. Even saying “gets the joke” has a certain finality to it; i.e., to get the joke, the joke’s been told and done. But Wallace seemed to play on the plane of the never-ending joke. Hey, I’m not talking about the title of his novel here.

Anyway. You had to walk away from your life to read Wallace, slip through the door. And you had to bring a fork.

And now it seems David himself has slipped through the door; his method was different, but he’s laid the terrible master to waste. Poor David. His poor wife.

do re mi

I had a tasty breakfast and friendly sit-down a few weeks ago with Richard Cuccaro, him what used to run ye olde Fast Folk Cafe in New York's Tribeca neighborhood. Richard now edits Acoustic Live, one of the last of the folkie pubs still thankfully hanging on, and the breadth and depth of our conversation is in the article he wrote for this month's issue. Included in the free admission are some choice (you can define that word any way you like) old photos of some skinny young folksinger from many moons ago...like this 1996 photo below, of the skinny young folksinger and friends tearing one up with the skinny old folksinger.

That was "Do Re Mi" we were singing there, my favorite Woody Guthrie song. As I recall, we'd run through it once before the show, and had it about where we wanted it, and then when time came to do it onstage, Seeger came on already playing, and playing it about three times faster than I'm used to. His way was better, as it turns out. That picture up there ranks in the top 5 most fun 5 minutes I've ever had. Along for the ride up there are Carol Sharar (The Amazing Incredibles) on fiddle, Karl Dietel (The Samples) on bass, Gregg Cagno, and Amy & Jennie.

high school, grade school, and presidential politics

Just back from Mexico; on edge down there for awhile eyeballing Gustav's approach across the Atlantic, but it worked out for us. Not so much for New Orleans, so it seems this morning. But hopefully not as bad as Katrina.

It was my 20th high school reuinion (North Hunterdon Regional, Class of 88...barely, in my case) right before I left. I couldn't make it, but Gregg and Karl did.

I haven't made a reunion yet, and doubt that I will. High school and I had a less than comfortable relationship. If they had reunions for grade school, I'd go to that, I think (not that my relationship with education was any stronger in the younger grades). 4th through 8th grade I went to Franklin Township School in tiny Quakertown, NJ. We were still partially a farm community back then. There were only two classes for each grade, so maybe 40 kids total per grade. It was awful, frequently, because we all knew each other and each other's business in inescapable ways...there were no secrets and no hiding. But like prison or the army, those close-quartered bonds come to mean something. You get a group protection mentality, even when you're eviscerating your own members inside. It is possible to hate and love someone at the same time, and I learned that at FTS.

But then we all left and went to the huge regional high school (of the aforementioned reuinon).

Anyway, I didn't go to the reunion, but I (surprise) wrote something for the local paper's (Hunterdon County Democrat) monthly magazine about it. You should be able to right click it below then blow it up to read. It's about me and Gregg. Yeah, those are our Senior portraits to the left. Yuck it up.

In other news, Obama picked ol' Joe Biden for his running mate last week. I'm okay with that. Joe is a good guy, and a native Pennsylvanian. I met him, twice, although he certainly wouldn't remember. Two years ago, when my daughter Kristina was a freshman at college in New Hampshire (this before transfering to UVM). I flew up twice on the Saturday morning dawn patrol from Philadelphia, and both times ol Joe was onboard. A Senator, visiting New Hampshire regularly, a year before a Presidential election? Not hard to figure that one out.

Speaking of Kristina, she's a diehard Nader girl. And this will be her first votable presidential election. It's kind of fun, having differing politics in the household (fun unless there's a slide to the right, and then someone loses an eye). Krissy is collecting her own political meets already. This is her and ol' Ralph, from a bunch of years ago:

The setting was the National Press Club in Washington. The occasion can be found in the essay link to the right labeled "Mr. Bauman Goes to Washington" or something like that. Anyway, I like ol' Ralph a great deal, I think he's a kind of a genius, an often-unheralded gift to this country, and he had or has my support in most everything he does...I just wish he'd stop running for president. It's just that one tiny thing I don't agree with him on.

Anyway, Autumn approaches, thankfully. Happy time. And writing time, too. Happy September... time to lie down in that September grass.

new essay in new collection

There's a new cover on the list of anthologies down below and to the right. An essay I wrote called "Letter to a Young Enlistee" opens a new collection titled War Is... coming from Candlewick Press in a few weeks. Friends Joel Turnipseed and Chris Hedges also contributed. In addition to contemporary authors, they did something cool by adding in Mark Twain and Bob Dylan among others. Good book. Here's the back cover copy:

***
War is...
Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk About War
edited by Marc Aronson and Patty Campbell

"The most important Young Adult book of the year, tough, smart and clear-eyed about a topic more taboo than sex - going to war - a topic teenagers need to know about before they make real life and death decisions." -- Robert Lipsyte, author of THE CONTENDER

Marc Aronson thinks war is inevitable. Patty Campbell thinks war is cruel, deceptive, and wrong. But both agree on one thing: that teens need to hear the truthful voices of those who have experienced war firsthand. The result is this dynamic selection of essays, memoirs, letters, and fiction from nearly than twenty contributors, both contemporary and historical -- ranging from Christian Bauman's wrenching "Letter to a Young Enlistee" to Chris Hedges's unflinching look at combat to Fumiko Miura's Nagasaki memoir, "A Survivor's Tale." Whether the speaker is Mark Twain, World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle, or a soldier writing a miliblog, these divergent pieces look war straight in the face -- and provide an invaluable resource for teenagers today.
In a provocative anthology, two editors with opposing viewpoints present an unflinching collection of works reflecting on the nature of war.

Chatting from Paris

Hands down, Jessa Crispin's Bookslut.com is my favorite book news/commentary site. Detractors claim Jessa's blog is snarky. I think she's pragmatic and usually right. Anyway, loving the site like I do, it's big fun for me to be one of their interviews this month.

The interviewer was Jessa's sister Jen Crispin, who I'm a big fan of because she's written flattering reviews of all my books (I'm easy like that). It's rare, too, to have a reviewer who actually gets what's you're trying to do. So, you know, the whole Crispin family is basically aces in my book.

Anyway, we did this by email, and I was in Paris at the time. Here's how my side of the conversation started:

***
"Hello from Paris, where I’m answering these questions. The weather is milder over here this week than at home in Pennsylvania, and for that I’m thankful. The weather and the foie gras, thankful for both. And I saw Jeanette Winterson today. Not in a “we shared witty conversation and a bottle of wine at a small table overlooking the Seine” kind of way, but in a “I walked into Shakespeare & Co. wondering what the line was about and there she was, signing books.” Unable to browse the stacks because of her line, I wandered over to Notre Dame just in time to have the guard lock the gate on me. A wrinkled little pear of a street woman saw my defeat and showed me how to get in through the Exit, so she got my 5 Euros directly, rather than me having to pass it through God’s hands first. Okay, let’s answer questions."
***

We go on from there to talk about In Hoboken, my other books, Silas House, singing with Woody Guthrie's sister, Stephen King, and the Dragonriders of Pern. It's all here.

Here come ol flat top

I'm down with Al Gore, baby. Traded in the gas-sucking red Beemer (was a sweet ride, though, sigh) for a new Mini Coop. Soundtrack for the first week's riding:

The Fratellis, Costello Music
Steely Dan, Vol 2 and 3 of the boxed set
Paolo Conte, Best of
Chet Baker, a concert bootleg Gregg got me from someone in the Netherlands
Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
Blue Oyster Cult, Agents of Fortune
mix CD daughter Kristina made for my birthday

Art Nouveau

There's a nicely condensed conversation I had recently with Damon Sgrignoli to be found over at Art Nouveau magazine.

"In Hoboken" in Hoboken

I'll be at the Hoboken Historical Museum this Sunday 6/22 at 4pm for a reading, signing, etc., with Gregg Cagno and Connie Sharar (and whoever else shows up) doing some fabulous music.

with Vin Scelsa on Idiot's Delight

Had a fabulous time with Vin Scelsa on Saturday. And got to check another box on my Legends of Radio fantasy list. In usual Vin fashion, the conversation was freeflowing and all over the map...we both read from all three of my novels, played some good music, pontificated on matters profound, and Vin tried to pry out of me the real identity of every character I've ever written.

The broadcast is available streaming here at the WFUV site, although only for two weeks or so because they don't permanently archive. But if you've got a speedy connection and/or some time to download, you can pull the entire broadcast as an mp3 (wrapped in a zip file) from the Idiot's Delight fan site. The whole show is 4 hours long...my segment is first in the broadcast, and lasts 2 hours.

***

Here is how WFUV introduced the show:

Christian Bauman, writer and public radio commentator ("All Things Considered"), will talk with Vin about his latest novel, "In Hoboken", which chronicles the acoustic folk scene in that unique city across the Hudson River during the mid-90s. Bauman, whose experience as a soldier in Somalia and Haiti earlier in that decade informed his novels "The Ice Beneath You" and "Voodoo Lounge," is not only a novelust but a songwriter and guitarist who was part of the "Camp Hoboken" collective of musicians and artists that thrived at Maxwell's and other clubs in NJ and NYC in the mid-to-late 90s. His new novel throbs with a hands-on accurate portrait of the city and its inhabitants, a city going through enormous changes and a group of people trying hard to cling to a musical chain that links back to Woody Guthrie. Readers and listeners will recognize very real people in Christian Bauman's fictional characters, notably the late Don Brody of The Marys, and even a radio station called WFUV that figures occasionally in the tale.

***

Inbetween all of our jawing we spun discs. Here's the playlist, scattered around the 2-hour conversation:

1. "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere" / Utah Phillips & Ani DiFranco

2. "God Damn Everything But the Circus" / The Story

3. "The Day Roy Orbison Died" / The Marys

4. "The Grind" / Gregg Cagno

5. "The Places You Will Go" / Christian Bauman

6. "Give Me Some Truth" / John Lennon

7. "The Queen of Ohio" / Christian Bauman

8. "Gone" / Big Happy Crowd

That whole folk novel thing

So, next time you have 36 minutes to kill, why not listen to me and Ed Champion talk books and writing and such (well, I could think of reasons why not, but...)

It's at the Bat Segundo Show...direct link here...or straight to the mp3 here.

***
An excerpt:

Ed Champion: You have this particular rock ‘n’ roll novel dwelling upon Hoboken, as well as Mona Smith, who is this Erica Jong-like figure, who is the mother of Thatcher. But I wanted to ask you about this. Because it’s very fascinating to me. I have the belief that if you write a rock ‘n’ roll novel, there needs to be some additional element. Some additional hook. Because if you dwell too much on rock ‘n’ roll music, well, it’s going to possibly be something of a circlejerk. So I wanted to ask you. Was this a consideration in setting this book in Hoboken? The Hoboken aspect came first? What happened here?

Bauman: Yeah, I think the Hoboken aspect came first. Well, first of all, I should point out that everyone keeps calling it a rock ‘n’ roll novel. It is actually a folk novel. So we should just be clear here. There’s a lot more Woody Guthrie here than anything else. But it’s a good point. You know, the whole thing I wanted to do, in as far as I wanted to anything and it didn’t just happen the way it happened — I was trying very hard this time to do two things. One was to write about a place. A very specific place to the point where the place became one of the characters in the book. And of those places where I’ve either lived or been alive in my life, Hoboken was one of them that stood out as a good place to go. And the other one was that I really wanted to try and write an ensemble novel to the best of my ability. And I kind of failed in that aspect.
***

How's that for a good time? Hot, hot, hot.

Crazier than a shithouse rat

There is no deeper meaning to that subject line above...it just aptly describes a few people in my life right now. And probably describes me, too. And mostly, I just wanted to write that as a subject line.

What I really want to talk about is chatting. So much jawing, with a new book. We begin with Ed Champion, one of the two best long-form lit interviewers online (and the only one doing it audio; the other is Birnbaum, of course...we had coffee in Boston a few months back, he and Rosie are resting). Me and Ed attacked blue cheese burgers at the Moonstruck Diner on 37th and Madison in NYC the other day, then blathered into the microphone awhile. I'll post it when the link goes up.

And then there's Vin Scelsa. Respect the elders. Embrace the new. Encourage the impractical and improbable, without bias. I'll do some blathering about In Hoboken on Idiot's Delight, probably Saturday May 31, I'll let you know airdate for sure when I know. There is no one living cooler than Vin Scelsa. No one.

right coast book club, left coast lunch date

The other night I stopped by a book club that had read In Hoboken over the previous month. I've visited a lot of book clubs over the past few years, and it's always a fun but surreal experience. It actually used to make me very uncomfortable. Not so much anymore...it's fun. But the surrealness hasn't changed.

This club provided one of those experiences I always love: someone pointing out something VERY OBVIOUS about the book...that I hadn't realized. Which always elicits this response from me: "Oh yeah, glad you noticed...I meant to do that. Completely intentional."

I'm just not that smart. Fortunately, my readers are.

Speaking of nice, smart readers, here's one from Seattle who had lunch with me and I didn't even know...

fun at maxwells

So, we did two book releases for In Hoboken. A normal one, at Farleys on the Delaware...very nice evening. Thanks to Julian there, and all who came out, and stayed for the party after.

And there was Maxwells. For those who live elsewhere, Maxwells is...well, hard to describe. The New Yorker calls it the best club in New York, and it isn't in New York. It's in Hoboken. Some of us used to drink there. Some of us used to work there. Some of us used to live there.

It had been an awfully long time since I'd visited.

We started, of course, with a reading. Because that's what you do at these things.

And then it was time to strap on.

I should have stuck with the reading, but...what the hell, man.

A quorum of the Camp...for the first time, I think, since The Bottom Line, 1998.

Kids and drunks. Gotta love it.

Carbone is impressed.

Moments after the picture below was taken, we strolled off-stage and decompensated into a vicious fight over blue M&Ms.

Many, many thanks to Annalee Van Kleeck for the photos. And huge thanks to all of you who came out and packed the joint. It was the most fun I've had this decade.

word on the street

So, I try hard not to get too promotional gloppy and horn-tooting here on the blog. But there is one little thing I've made a tradition of, so indulge me for the day. That's the first review. Y'know, us'n authors are supposed to be all cool and uncaring but I can't lie on this score: the first review is a groovy thing. You work 3 years on something, it's nice to wake up one morning and read someone saying, "Hey, this novel doesn't suck." The first review of The Ice Beneath You came from Publishers Weekly (which, back in the day, was the location of all first reviews; not so much anymore). If I recall correctly, Voodoo Lounge got a three-way tie for first review, because I heard about Details, Booklist, and Bookslut.com all on the same day.

And for In Hoboken? Turns out of all things the first review is fromThe Star-Ledger (for those of you who don't live in the greater New York-New Jersey area, that's the paper that used to slam down on Tony Soprano's driveway every morning). Can't argue with the cosmic appropriateness of the venue.

***
The Star-Ledger
"Ambling to their own beat"
Sunday, March 23, 2008
REVIEWED BY BETSY WILLEFORD
In Hoboken
a novel, by Christian Bauman

In 1995 gentrification is merely nibbling at the edges of the "mile-square city." Bauman's characters live in sixth-floor walkups; use pay phones, not cells; eat in unretrofied diners. Some commute to day jobs across the Hudson. But music is the passion that draws them together -- wood music, folk songs they write and play on acoustic guitars, earning "tens of dollars." There's also an artist, and a pair of buddies right out of Simon and Garfunkel's "Old Friends" who spend the day at the local behavioral institute, formerly the mental health center.

Remarkably, for an ensemble story, Bauman has created nearly a dozen fully rounded characters, each of whom could be the core of a novel.

Thatcher Smith, 24 and newly released from the Army, and his high school friend James, recently released from Rutgers, both amble in slow diagonals when they walk, a block up, a block over, taking it all in, the crowd flowing around them.

That's how Bauman tells his story, too. Marsh is a middle-age dad with a lifelong polio limp, eking out a living promoting marginal groups to marginal album labels. Quatrone is the painter who lives with his 80-year-old mom in an apartment downstairs from James. Bruno, who works in Manhattan, had a minute of almost-fame on a Bananarama tour in the '80s. Lou is a singer whose departing lover schleps her to a shrink for "closure."

A lot of comic stuff about language here, but so deftly interwoven you have to read the novel at James' walking pace to notice. Orris, one of the day patients -- clients, they're called -- at the behavioral institute where Thatcher works as a file clerk, remembers that when one of his friends died, the hospital staff didn't want him going to the funeral. "They think the funeral might be disturbing."

A lot about Hoboken, too. Elysian Field, where Alexander Cartwright's home team lost the first recorded baseball game, 27-1, to the New York Knickerbockers. Guglielmo Marconi -- who, it could be argued, made Frank Sinatra possible -- lived in Hoboken. Willem de Kooning supported himself as a sign painter for a year before crossing the Hudson.

Quatrone explains to Thatcher how de Kooning's early work has changed over time because of the materials he used. "Materials decay." Like a song, Thatcher thinks: You play it, and it's yours. And then immediately it's not.

Bauman's throwaway lines resonate. He's wise enough to let the echo do the work. Having helped his son move furniture into the sixth-floor apartment, James' father says, "I worked my whole life to keep you out of this." This being the Hoboken that energizes Bauman's people and his story. No easy revelations or resolutions. The material is frayed at the start, loosely woven at the conclusion, a year in the life.

Tempting to call the book a tour de force, but that suggests a neon light flashing a*c*h*i*e*v*e*m*e*n*t. What's amazing about "In Hoboken" is you're unaware of the writer's hand.
***

Having been on the receiving end of reviews that -- even when positive -- were clearly written by someone who didn't "get" the book, I can't tell you how nice it is to have the first review of In Hoboken be by someone who so clearly got it. A nice feeling. And now I can go back to pretending I don't care what the critics say...

all of the ladies attending the ball

Me and GG are feverishly working on compiling a list of every song mentioned in any way inside In Hoboken. Can you smell the smoke? Gears are turning and burning. Not every day you can get Woody Guthrie, Blue Oyster Cult, The Dorkestra, and Sinatra on the same playlist.

List to come soon. As well as pics and stories from last week's release events at Maxwells and Farleys. (Odd, that: the release parties have come and gone, the book is available on Amazon, yet it's still not "officially" released. Whatever. If you need a bookstore to make your purchase, it's coming, man, it's coming.)

get your red hots...

And oh look, Amazon has it in stock as of today. Beat the hordes in the book stores two or three weeks from now.

And you know you want free shipping, so you might as well order two or three copies.

http://www.amazon.com/Hoboken-Christian-Bauman/dp/1933633476/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204910481&sr=1-1

5 days to Maxwells

Okay, I'm officially psyched for Tuesday now. And to celebrate, more pictures! Gregg sent this next one over, a view of Maxwells from back in the day...


Followed by my all-time favorite photo of The Marys...



And then, for some reason, Don cut his hair. Nobody knows why. Here he is at the first Camp Hoboken photoshoot in NYC, circa 1996 I think. From left: moi, Gregg, Con, and Don.



And to round it all off, a man I haven't seen in a long time...he'll be flying into Newark on Tuesday afternoon just in time to join us Tuesday night. Seen here on the woodline up in High Camping at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival somewhere back in the mists of time, using a Bud bottle as a slide on his guitar, the legendary Rich Grula.

Margaret B. Jones

So, this whole thing. I wrote about this for IdentityTheory the last time it happened, January 2006. A short essay called "Jumping for that Elusive Truth." Slightly different context...same general idea. And my opinion hasn't changed much.

NPR stories

Sorry about the drippy slog of photographic nostalgia I thrust on you the last few days...what can you do. For a completely different slice of self-indulgant memory, here's this:

Two of my favorite pieces I've done for NPR's All Things Considered over the years were the two about music. The first was called "Rules of the Road," a memory of Godfrey Daniels, Passim, and Caffe Lena, among other places and things. The second is one of my all-time favorite things I've ever written. It's called "Traveling Companion," and is about my then-seven-year-old daughter Kristina (now 19!) keeping me company on a road trip up to the Iron Horse in Northampton, Mass. (Those links above will take you to the audio at NPR's site. For the text of the pieces, see the links to the right.)

In Hoboken comes out officially in eleven days. I got a couple of copies of the printed book in the mail yesterday. As I've said, I dig Melville House's design for it. And the proportions are slightly odd, too, which is cool. It's kind of square-ish. Big fun.

...this time, really

Okay, one more, and then that is it, I swear, for the month, if not the year.

Not to be outdone by Grula, Gregg sent this one below in the middle of the night. Pic from a long-forgotten newspaper feature, that's Carol Sharar with the violin, Gregg and me, a few minutes before we walked onstage for my set and to sing one with Pete Seeger at an outdoor benefit concert circa 1996 (Pete joined us for Woody's Do Re Mi; thanks Pete).

It was that same summer that I was working on a short story called "Two Soldiers" that, a few years later, became the basis of The Ice Beneath You.

okay, one more...

Alright, one more today...Grula just sent this. I had completely forgotten about this great picture. It was taken by famed folk/blues photographer Robert Corwin, somewhere in a back hallway in the middle of the night at the 1997 North American Folk Alliance, about one month before Don Brody died. That weekend's concerts were, matter o fact, the second to last time Camp Hoboken played together before Don's death (last time was at the Shannon Lounge in Hoboken). That's Don front and center, leading the way, with Grula in the baseball cap. Linda and Connie are in there, too. Only one missing is Gregg.

ah, the sweet, stupid memories

It's inevitable, of course, that publishing a novel where the setting and characters are so close to my heart (which is what you do with a third novel, right?) is going to force me to pull out the proverbial shoebox, looking dreamily at things I haven't looked at in years (and probably should never look at again). So expect a smattering of crumbs from the chicken-nugget-bucket that is my media memory over the next few weeks. Let's start with this below, shall we? Fort Eustis, Virginia, circa 1993, shortly after returning from Somalia. I was playing some gigs on the weekends and needed a b&w, so my buddy Trent Kolden put me up against the wall and took this shot. The hair you see sticking out from the front of the newsboy is about all the hair I had at the time: I wasn't Christian Bauman then, I was Private Bauman.

[UPDATE] Funny...after I posted the above, I saw how the picture in the right column looks like an old-age re-creation of the one from 1993. My daughter Kristina took the one to the right up in Burlington in the fall. So, somewhere between my early 20s and mid 30s I lost the cigarette and the hat, and gained hair and pounds. Fun for me.

For more of what we look like now, check out this down below, Carbone and Cagno at the Kitchen Table reunion at the Hoboken Museum a few months ago. Nice.

And, for more of what we looked like then, scroll way down to the old Camp Hoboken touring poster I found a while ago. (What I'd really love is a jpg of the circus-type original Camp Hoboken poster that Grula designed...I have the poster, but not electronically. Hint hint.)

sad news from across the river in Princeton

I heard today that Raymond Smith died last week, of complications from pneumonia. He was the publisher/editor of the Ontario Review and the independent press associated with it (they published my friend Barry Raine's memoir Where the River Bends a few years ago). I didn't really know Smith, but met him twice, both times at wonderful dinners at the home of a mutual friend. The first time with my wife, the second time with my daughter Kristina...around the time my first book came out, I think. I remember Raymond and his wife Joyce were both so kind and gracious to Kristina, who was I think in middle school at the time. They were also clearly devoted to each other, and doted around each other like little frail old birds at the end of the evening. How horrible that she has lost her companion.

...and here's how it's wrapped

So, down below there I showed an early comp of the cover of In Hoboken. And now we have the real thing...look to your right (assuming this is still the top post). Many, many thanks to Neal Pollack for the nice blurb (one of these days I have to write an essay or something about the fine arts of giving and receiving blurb...but that's another story). Neal and I have actually only met in person once (a beer-drenched evening in Philadelphia many years ago, an evening of readings at the old 215 Festival...The Ice Beneath You had just come out, so I was reading stuff from that, and Neal was touring with a full band, and they absolutely rocked; that was a lot of fun). We knew each other from a small and far-flung tribe back in I guess 2003 trying through email and blogging to keep each other sane as Cheney marched us head-on into this war. Atrios was publishing some of what we were writing. And this was I think the same way I met Joel.

But boy do I digress. So to your right is the cover, and down below is the back-cover copy, as it will appear on the printed book (for those of you concerned about the "seedy" controversy of my previous post):

***
As in Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments and Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, IN HOBOKEN is about the music that makes it all worthwhile when you’re young and struggling—but in this New Jersey waterfront town, there is as much soul in the place and the people.

In the mile-square city of Hoboken, a twenty-four-year-old Woody Guthrie-obsessed guitar player named Thatcher Smith has come home from the army to a clerk’s job and a circle of unlikely friends trying to form a band. Critically acclaimed novelist Christian Bauman—himself a former soldier and itinerant guitar player—has returned with his finest writing yet, drenched in time and place and the vivid colors of its characters: Marsh, the polio-crippled rock & roll king of Hoboken; the bachelor painter Quatrone and his ancient Italian mother; Thatcher’s “brother” the virtuoso James and their “sister” the folk chanteuse Lou; the half-blind, half-mad Orris. Drunk in a sea of failed relationships, distant celebrity parents, and the certainty he was born fifty years too late, Thatcher navigates a year of life and death in Hoboken, New Jersey, the Bohemian city alive and kicking in the shadows of New York.

Christian Bauman’s first two novels The Ice Beneath You and Voodoo Lounge were based on his experiences as a young soldier in the combat zones of Somalia and Haiti, and on his wanderings around North America. Bauman is now a regular contributor to NPR’s All Things Considered and an editor-at-large for IdentityTheory.com. He lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with his wife and daughters.
***

Publishing is a funny thing, for many reasons, one of which is that these books are usually finished long before they hit the shelves of your local bookstore. In this case, In Hoboken was done last year, and I'm knee-deep in not just one but two new books (a novel called The Dog House, and a young adult novel called The Night Door). So it's kind of like by the time a book comes out, you've already moved on, you know? But it's fun, especially I think in this case, to come back to it, and see it come to life for everyone else. I'm very, very happy to see this one in the flesh, and really looking forward to it's publication next month.

"Seedy" Hoboken

It seems that the Star Ledger posted something about the book release on their website, and picked up some old back-cover copy about the book that says something about Hoboken being "seedy"...and that in turn has become the object of much discussion in the SL's comments section.

Let me just say: Hoboken isn't seedy. I'm not even sure what seedy means, but whatever it is, Hoboken isn't it. It isn't it now, nor was it in 1995 when the novel is set. The publisher put that word on their original draft of the back cover, and I requested it removed. It HAS been removed, in as far as it won't be on the actual printed book, but I guess the old descriptions of the book (along with the old draft of the cover art) are still up on amazon.com etc. I'm in the process of begging to get the new cover art and especially the new book description up, but these things are slow-moving unfortunately. Meantime, rest assured, there's nothing seedy about nothing.

"In Hoboken" events

So, starting to get some info for the release of In Hoboken next month. Me and the wife and kids are going to have a little bit of a party on Tuesday March 11 in the back room at Maxwells on Washington Street in Hoboken. Besides the usual book release night hoo-ha, looks like we'll have us a bit of a concert. Mr. Cagno will MC the affair, with a pretty-dern-near-to-it Camp Hoboken reunion...Linda? Grula? Con? All that. We hear tell that young Perry Brody might swing by for a song. Right on. And as for Linda, she's got a new album and fingers are crossed to see if she has it in hand in time for this...

And then two nights later, on Thursday March 13, we'll do the hometown version for friends and neighbors out here in Pennsylvania. Some wine, some cheese, some books. All good. We'll be at the fabulous Farleys Bookshop in New Hope.

For you New Yorkers: we'll do a little something in Manhattan, and also in Brooklyn at Melville House. Details to follow.

But now...time for Quebec. J'ski.

Where my eyeballs have been

Much like the government, IdentityTheory continues to track what we're reading...

And Ed Champion, one of the few really interesting long-time book bloggers, closed down shop but is doing something else very cool and completely different.