Frank Bures

Under Purple Skies, an entry in Belt Publishing’s series of non-fiction anthologies showcasing various Midwestern cities, is a solid, diverse collection of essays and poems that capture life in Minneapolis and Saint Paul and what makes them different from any other metropolitan area. The authors included, from prominent local writers like Kao Khalia Yang to visitors like Jonathan Raban, explore many aspects of the people and history of the Twin Cities, and their place in Minnesota, the region, the US, and the world, both the good and the bad.

The pieces included tackle the subject from various points of view, from cultural and historical perspectives, to the role that the region’s climate plays on the former, to its political and racial dynamics. In addition, the collection includes works written specifically for the collection, as well as some excerpted from collections from as far back as the sixties, helping to evoke how the city has changed over the last few decades. In particular, the strong musical character of the Twin Cities was a major theme among the essays.

Going along with this, though, the collection could perhaps have used a little more editorial curation, as there appears to be no particular order to the entries. It would have been slightly stronger if there had been some sort of arrangement by chapters based on some of the themes included, the aforementioned music, perhaps, or maybe the environment, or the social character of the city.

All in all, though, I think this was perhaps the most accessible of such collections I’ve seen, though I may be biased. I’ll have to check out a few other of Belt Publishing’s anthologies and learn a little more about Milwaukee or Cleveland as well.… (lisätietoja)

When I began reading, I thought to myself that this was feeling a bit like a Jon Ronson book, and that was delightful. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, things fell apart a bit for me. I was hoping for more variety in the syndromes explored, but Bures stayed unfortunately penis-focused. Had the title been other than what it is, I would not have expected variety. I rather wish the author had admitted to himself that the only one of the "World's Strangest Syndromes" he had any interest in was vanishing penises and kept to it. The occasional dip into exploring other syndromes seemed more of a distraction than a support of the author's theme.

(Also, there were several grammatical/spelling errors which I found distracting. I'm going to put those down to this being an uncorrected proof and hope they're fixed by the time the book is published.)… (lisätietoja)

The author examines how culture itself can not only shape how you think and what you believe, but what you see or don't see. Part of the title alludes to this. In certain cultures, men can have their penises "stolen" by a witch, and the only way is to force the witch to put it back. If the man truly believes his penis has been stolen, then he literally cannot see his own penis. Others in the culture won't be able to see it either.

This example and the others in the book show how malleable the human mind is to the culture around us.… (lisätietoja)