David Lasky
David Lasky has been the heart of Seattle’s comics community since
the mid-’90s. He’s the one you want on your speed dial when you need an
answer to an obscure 1930s comic strip–related question, and he’s
so good at being supportive of other cartoonists that people often fail
to notice that he’s a goddamned comic-book genius in his own right.
Lasky’s early work was obsessed with interpreting one of the boldest
works of literary genius of all time, James Joyce’s Ulysses,
starting with an eight-page minicomic adaptation that straight-facedly
followed Bloom around Dublin without comment. Lasky followed this with
a more ambitious account of how Joyce came to write Ulysses in
the first place, told entirely in artwork swiped from Jack Kirby’s
1960s Marvel Comics. He’s since dabbled in autobiography, environmental
journalism, historical biography, and genre spoofs, and he’s continued
his scattershot adaptations of Ulysses, in one case illustrating
a short passage about love that’s nothing less than sublime.
Consciously or not, Lasky’s gestating a minimalist magnum opus that
will blow us all away. But when will we finally get to read it?
PAUL CONSTANT
Matt Ruff
Seattle’s always been very supportive of its literary superstars,
which makes the relative lack of excitement about Matt Ruff all the
more frustrating. His first novel, Fool on the Hill, has ardent
followers who love it as dearly as others love, say, A Confederacy
of Dunces or Youth in Revolt, but his second novel,
Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy, is the real
declaration of talent. Amid its Electric Negroes, giant sewer sharks,
and Amish submarine pirates, SG&E also serves as a
point-by-point refutation of Atlas Shrugged, and a love letter
to Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Ruff’s third novel, Set This House in Order: A Romance of
Souls, is less intellectually spastic but dramatically more
compelling: It’s a Seattle-set love story about two people with
multiple personality disorder. It’s a great bit of imagination that
manages to feel emotionally honest. And Ruff’s latest book, Bad
Monkeys, is a greased-lightning conspiracy thriller starring the
mother of all unreliable narrators.
Is it because Ruff’s style changes with every book that Seattle
hasn’t given him the adoration he so richly deserves? What’s
wrong with you people? Matt Ruff is one of Seattle’s best
writers, and it’s about friggin’ time we started to recognize that.
PAUL CONSTANT
Kimya Dawson
The Genius Awards committee has been talking for years about
including a songwriter in the writing category, but not until Kimya
Dawson landed in the Northwest did we see reason to do it. A Dawson
primer: After earning acclaim as one half of New York City’s antifolk
superstars the Moldy Peaches, Dawson started making records of her
own—adamantly lo-fi affairs showcasing her acoustic guitar and
sweet, plain, conversational singing. The magic was in the lyrics:
Moving past the Moldy Peaches’ witty goofs, Dawson dug deep, unearthing
a kaleidoscopic torrent of words that jelled into songs that were
unlike anything that had come before—simultaneously ridiculous
and profound, childish and wise, shockingly personal and laugh-out-loud
funny.
Dawson’s released five solo records since 2002; some are knockouts,
some are negligible, all contain moments of singular brilliance (2004’s
My Cute Fiend Sweet Princess remains her best approximation of a
start-to-finish Great Album). She’s also unapologetically precious:
love and hugs and silver-pink ponies are recurring motifs. But such
diversions are deserved for a writer who so resolutely refuses to gloss
over the ugliness of the world, and when she’s on her game—when
the whimsy and horror are in perfect balance—she gets more
accomplished in less space than any songwriter going. Here’s the
refrain from “Anthrax”: “The air is filled with computers and
carpets/Skin and bones and telephones and file cabinets/Coke machines,
firemen, landing gear, and cement/They say that it’s okay but I say
don’t breathe that shit in.”
Obviously, it’s about life in NYC following 9/11. In 2005, Dawson
relocated from NYC to Seattle; last year, she and her family moved to
Olympia. The Northwest is lucky to have her. DAVID SCHMADER
Jennifer Borges Foster
Jennifer Borges Foster’s poetry has been published in reputable
publications like ZYZZYVA and the Beloit Poetry Journal and has sweet, moony lines like, “On leaving/she lives in a biscuit,
peeking through the gnawed-out windows/at the robins who dumbly clutter
her roof” and “her letters to you are written in steam.” Her poetry is
good, but it’s her center of gravity that we love best: Good writers
circle her like moons.
There’s Filter, the hardbound, hand-stitched journal she
edits, with writing by people like John Olson, Joshua Marie Wilkinson,
and Rebecca Hoogs—the kinds of writers you want to read. Then, in
August, Foster organized four weeks of readings at ACT in honor of
First Class, a play about Theodore Roethke. The lineup included
three Stranger Genius Award winners—John Olson, Rebecca Brown,
Matt Briggs—and other good writers like Catherine Wing, Jonathan
Crimmins, and Allen Johnson. (Plus there was great music by the French
Project, the Half Brothers, and Ken Benshoof, a sometime composer for
the Kronos Quartet.)
A good readings series, a good literary journal, and good poetry,
all from one person—will wonders never cease? BRENDAN
KILEY
