Written on the Body

On Wednesday night, I was fortunate enough to attend a party held in honor of the new book The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide. I have been an ardent, albeit voyeuristic, fan of the "literary tattoo" phenomenon ever since a friend tipped me off to Contrariwise, an excellent website that is devoted to them.

I would venture to say that most people (even people like me, who have a hard time remembering things like ATM pins and computer passwords and sometimes conversations completed less than ten minutes ago) carry around with them a line from a poem, or a phrase from a novel, that they will never, ever forget; a sentence or a stanza that set their synapses ablaze, ingraining itself forever in the intricate passageways of the mind.

Some of these words will leave their mark through beauty, whether it lies in their rhythm and assonance -- the way they roll off the tongue -- or the image they evoke; others remain indelible because of the deeper meaning they contain. Sometimes the association is indirect, related more to the context. A phrase, perhaps innocuous in itself, can be powerfully symbolic of an experience or a personal relationship.

However, it is a big leap to have these beloved, iconic words indelibly inscribed on your flesh. Permanently inking something onto your skin is a serious statement, and choosing to get a tattoo is a very conscious, and often deeply-pondered, decision. What spurs someone to get a line from The Satanic Verses etched into their flesh? Or, for that matter, a Charles Bukowski poem? Choices are drastically varied, as are the designs; some are straight calligraphy, whereas others incorporate illustrations.

You can while away many afternoons scrolling through the photographs on Contrariwise and also on the book's blog. Often, the featured tattoos are accompanied by an explanation from their proud wearers, each an illuminating glimpse into someone's deeply private interior life. The Word Made Flesh is also structured around this pairing of tattoo and essay, but the editors' thoughtful curation of its entries leads to bigger and broader inferences that makes the book almost anthropological in scope. It manifests a staggering breadth of human emotion and experience; it also provides incredible insight into the way we read, and the relationship that we as a society have with the written word.

For instance, some authors and quotations appear very frequently. At the event on Wednesday, the editors -- Eva Talmadge and Justin Taylor -- described the process of choosing what to include in their anthology. They received many submissions inspired by Kurt Vonnegut, e.e. cummings, and Sylvia Plath; Shakespeare and J.K. Rowling are apparently also popular writers in the nation's tattoo parlors (as an observer, this trending is more apparent on the blogs because Talmadge and Taylor made a deliberate effort to avoid repetition in the book).

This leads me to what I consider to be a major issue regarding literary tattoos. Would you be pissed if you got "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt" etched on your shoulderblade, only to discover on some blog that at least fifteen other people have that same tattoo? Would it tarnish the special relationship you have with Slaughterhouse Five? Or would knowing you belong to a community of Vonnegut fans somehow it enhance it?

I'm not quite sure how I would feel. People seem to have mixed reactions; some of the people in the book clearly got intricate and obscure tattoos as an expression of individuality, whereas others seem to have wanted more to signify their fandom, their inclusion in a larger reading public. As I don't have any tattoos, I can't really claim to understand what it's like to select a design, get it done, and then live with it -- you know what I mean?

However, I have been thinking about the possibility for a while. I had back surgery earlier this year, which left a vertical scar about two-and-a-half inches long on my lower back; although it's perilously close to "tramp stamp" territory, I'm intrigued by the idea of disguising, or incorporating, it somehow with a tattoo. I even know what I would get (I think), but I haven't quite yet made the plunge into certainty. It wouldn't be a text tattoo, but it certainly would be literary-related... if I get it, I promise I'll show you guys a photo!

The Morning After The Night Before

A suprising number of important things happened in January, 2004: NASA landed a Mars rover, Britney Spears had her Vegas wedding annulled in less than 24 hours, the U.N. called America's bluff on the invasion of Iraq. I, however, remember that January for one thing -- the very last episode of Friends.

I freely confess to being a total Friends fiend. Moments from the show are imbedded in my brain, taking up valuable space; I often forget how to transfer calls on my phone at work, but I certainly remember the episode in which Marcel swallows a Scrabble tile (it was a K, if you're wondering). So, when grey clouds began rolling across the sky yesterday afternoon, I immediately thought of the beginning of the seventh season, when Monica and Chandler celebrate their engagement at the Plaza. Everyone is celebrating and having a great time; that is, until Monica catches Rachel hooking up with Ross. She furiously confronts them, accusing them of "stealing her thunder."

I felt a certain sympathy for Monica as I sat at my desk on the 19th floor, watching lightning bolts splinter the sky and the Twitterverse explode with furious tweets of "TORNADO!"; "OMG tornado wtf"; "Quetzalcoatl came early!" Seriously, a tornado on the night of much-anticipated [tk] reviews event? We had cake! We had raffle prizes! We had homemade guacamole! But, with this kind of weather, who would turn up? Damn mother nature, up in here stealing all our thunder!

The subway ride was rather morose, as we cradled the cake and contemplated a damp evening alone together, stuffing ourselves with cupcakes and making up silly imaginary names to enter into the raffle. (Mike Ock, anyone?) However, as soon as we got off the subway in Brooklyn we ran into some colleagues, intrepidly rubber-booted, and a thin ray of sunshine began to show itself over the horizon.

This is all a long way of saying that, despite the Doppler Radar-registering chaos , we had a fantastic evening and a terrific turn out. The High Dive folks were wonderful, and we took over the back with our tables of food and [tk] reviews paraphernalia. Claire made beautiful cupcakes, Jess brought delicious flat-bread pizza, Carmen baked fresh chocolate chip cookies, and Joey mashed up a wicked guacamole. Nearly everyone entered the free raffle for two prizes: we gave away a "wild card" bundle of funny and crazy books, as well as a grand prize stack of every book reviewed in Issue V! We also got to wish ourselves a happy quinquennial by blowing out the candles on Caroline's amazing cake.

We're so grateful to all the people who came, hell or high-water. Friends, colleagues, significant others: we couldn't do this without you. As NPR recently pointed out, word-of-mouth is still the most effective way to sell books -- and the best way to let everybody know about start-up online book review websites. Thank you so much for your support, and for sharing our site with the people you know. We can't wait to throw another party and have an equally fantastic evening. There are rumors of literary trivia in the air...but we'll keep you posted.

[tk] reviews Book Swap!

Our very first [tk] reviews book swap at Madame X in celebration of our second issue was a great success! Here are some moments from last night, in case you missed it.

When we arrived, our first guest Francisco was already there waiting for us, reading Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, the next book for the Union Square Reading Group that he organizes.

Everyone put their books out on the tables and immediately started browsing.



Hannah found a book that made her cry.




Meanwhile Rob and Nick decided on a fair trade: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski for Lost Positives by John Cotrona.


[tk] reviewers from left to right: Jess, Caroline, Carmen, Hannah and me.



Allie picked up a copy of Levels of the Game by John McPhee.



We realized at one point that we had many canvas book bags among us.

Hannah, Ronit and Joey are telling you that there is more TK from this website!