while checking out the july must reads from flavorpill and not finding anything to read, i decided to check out last year's july must reads post and found joe meno's "office girl" (i was super disappointed with myself for having not heard of it prior.) it seemed like the type of book i would love, quirky and funny. of course the cover was adorbs (click on the post to see the hardcover, the paperback is cute as well) and i loved all of the other possible titles: or bohemians, or young people on bicycles doing troubling things. though i think the last one makes the best title (it's my inner hipster). and last but not least it was described as "the perks of being a wallflower" but for twentysomethings, though i am now a thirtysomething, i had to check it out.
and love this book, i did. (sorry no idea where that yoda talk came from.) but it reminded me of two of my favorite movies: "(500) days of summer", and "beginners"; one of my favorite shows: "girls", and even my one of my favorite books: "high fidelity".
"office girl" is the story of odile (pronounced o-deel) and jack, two chi-town artsy hipsters lost, at low points in life and realizing that they are not as special as they were raised to believe (a sad realization we millenals experience). though i just realized that odile and jack are generation x and not y, because the story is set in 1999 (clinton's impeachment than acquittal played a part, which made me realized just how silly the world is, at the time i was too young to get it but i mean really it was just a blow job). though as i read, there were a handful of things that felt too gen y hipsters for it to be the 90s, ie bike riding, ironic moustaches, and DIY street art (unless this was around then and I was too young to know it). and i hate to be mean but maybe meno set it in the 90s to avoid it being a gen y manifesto but sadly that is what it was. i mean both generations are screwed up so it's kinda like same diff.
and just like "(500) days of summer", though it may feel like it, "office girl" is not a love story. well it is in the sense that their relationship is the push they need to get on with their lives. both leave the relationship better people so in that sense it is a love story. and yes there is a "lets just keep things casual" conflict just like summer and tom. also the introduction of odile and jack totally reminded me of how tom and summer were introduced in the film. at one point, as i read a description, i totally saw the scenes in the film when tom talks about all the things he loves about summer. another things that reminded me of (500) was when it listed out odile's exes or boys that fell in love with her, it was like when summer talked about her exes. (it also it totally reminded me of rob listing out his lost loves in "high fidelity".) also there is a moment where jack and odile get pancakes like summer and tom but they don't break up. ans in meno's defense is not completely (500) days but (500) days-esque.
however it was not the romance that made me fall for this book. it was their artsy-ness (this is when it started to feel like "beginners"). odile is an art school drop out and jack is an art school graduate and both produce art that i would love. for example, jack had a comic strip about a boy in love with a log, it sounded so cute, i wished it existed in real life. jack also recorded sounds he heard while biking around chicago. some of his sounds were not even sounds, for example, "green glove in the snow" or "girls reading books on the subway". though is favorites were quite beautiful: a woman singing "look for the silver lining", a weather man fescue ricin clouds as "gray cumulus, just like ponies jumping over a fence" and a woman saying "i ate a plum and thought of you". jack thought the later was "so perfect in it's briefness, in its sense of longing" and i couldn't agree with him more.
odile is more of a guerrilla artist. when we first met her she is tagging anything with her silver sharpie (pretty much tits and penis) but she starts this movement with jack. it i totally wanted to be a member of their movement, named after alphonse f., the first true artist odile met. she went to elementary school with that drew pictures of naked ladies and tried to sell them to classmates.
here is a list of their art:
-wore ski masks and left a ton of silver balloons in a elevator
-rode on the bus dressed like ghosts
-made a banner that says "you will forget this by tomorrow-alphonse f. (which reminded me of miranda july's art book)
-bought three parakeets and released them in a school yard
-put a portrait of alphonse f. in the mca between a warhol and cindy sherman (very banksy)
-reenacted "jaws" on the subway
-create a zine
sounds like a blast right?
and to top it all off, the book at illustrations and pictures for the art! there was even the zine in the middle of it!
this last one is from a party jack went to where people dressed like building.
i loved all of the little random illustrations and photos in this book.
i mean this book was the epitome of hipsterness which is why i loved it. it's nice to be able connect with characters who are artsy and angsty, just like you. (though i am not a hipster). it was good, i mean its probably already in the works for a movie or an MTV series based on it.
one last thing. this book taught me the story behind the song "save the last dance for me". i always thought it was sad because it seemed like the guy was okay with his girl being a flirt and reminding her like flirt all you want but you are coming. home with me. but that is not the case! jack's stepdad, david, shared that the songwriter doc pomus at polio and at this wedding he can't dance but watched everyone else dance with his bridge. "so he writes this song to tell her, you go have your fun but remember who's taking you home." pretty sweet, huh?
oh and one final thing, i read meno's other book "hairstyles of the damned" in high school. like i think i still have it. I didn't enjoy it that much back then but plan on giving it another chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment