Losers Press

And there's a ton of new press on Losers. Check out the site for the whole megillah, but here's some of it:

Bookami
"As the volumes of YA novels published each year continue to grow, it's going to be less and less about what happens, and more about how you say it, and I think Matthue Roth knows how to say it."

The Bloody Snow
"Losers...shows that not all kids want or like to be popular, that some strive for something more meaningful, and that awkwardness is an art form. The resulting product is a story of not only meaning, but also hilarity."

Vilde Chayas

I'm the first person to 'fess up to my Maurice Sendak obsession -- Where the Wild Things Are is the only book that my daughter actually asks for on her own. (The fact that I toss her around during the Wild Rumpus probably has a lot to do with it, but I think she admires the strong narrative tone, too.)

Anyway, I kept telling everyone that the Wild Things themselves were given traditional Yiddish names from the 1940s and '50s: Moishe, Emil, and Tzippy, but no one seemed to believe me -- even when I tracked down references).

Anyway, here's a site where you can buy mini-Wild Things of your own -- named, as it turns out, after Sendak's uncles and aunts. Even the term "Wild Things" comes from the Yiddish vilde chaya, which is what your grandmother called you after you had a little too much salt water taffy and were leaping on the furniture.

Doctor Who geekout moment

I don't know if anyone I know will find this riveting, but I do: A catalogue of every time anyone has said "What are you doing here?" on Doctor Who.

brother-in-law karaoke

today the masses of family-in-law converged upon our house, filling up the living room and dining room for possibly the first time ever. (here i should note that the terms "living room" and "dining room" are location-specific, meaning that, in new york city, the only way to divide a postage-stamp-sized living room from a postage-stamp-stub-sized dining room is by putting a bookcase that takes up half of both rooms but does, nonetheless, create the illusion that you have a normally-segmented (though microscopic) house.
annnyway....

itta spent the afternoon babysitting niece and nephew, and i spent it finishing the passably beta version of the candy in action website. then tonight, my in-from-melbourne brother-in-law dov and i went off in search of a bar.

i'd passed this lounge/bar/internet cafe a bunch, so we went there first. turns out the "bar" part was...well, false advertising. "we might apply for beer," said the hostess. "what do you think?"

we walked around. we found a place that, according to a hipster on the corner, "might be sketch or might be not." we took our chances. dov's tall. i have payos. who in brooklyn would be threatened by us?

so we went into the bar. dov asked them to put on the eagles game. three people worked the TV until green uniforms appeared. and, as the bartender returned with our drinks, she bore a deathly serious countenance as she told us:

"it's karaoke night. and you are both going to sing."

we did. eventually. dov kept flipping through the book, asking should we do this? we can't do this. and telling me that his voice wasn't good. then i signed myself up, and i told the host that he was going to sing "land down under" right after me.

i went up. we were the only white people in the bar, did i tell you that? and the only people who had gone before sang mary j. blige. i was freaked out. usually, when i do karaoke, i do cheesy white-people songs. the dixie chicks and madonna are my friends. alanis. god, alanis. but tonight i did stevie wonder. signed, sealed, delivered. and everyone started clapping along with me. after i was done, dov sang, and he even hit the whistling chorus. and then a middle-aged man sang a note-perfect rendition of luther vandross.

and we all felt like we'd earned our keep in this world.

candy, cooking, and what not to do at parties

before i forget, let me tell you that Candy in Action is signed, sealed, on its way to the printers, and you can pre-order it from me or from amazon through that link there. if you order through on amazon by clicking through my page, i get a very tiny percentage, so yes, it's cool if you do that. if you order through me, of course, mention if you'd like to have me write anything special.

a mere few hours before shabbos, and we are both in the kitchen cooking up a mad storm. as if there were any other kind of storm, especially in cooking. we have carrots so big, i almost stabbed itta's stomach with one. no hard feat, of course, since it's getting bigger than christmas, and hard to avoid, especially when carrying armfuls of spices with names like Pottery Barn colors.

last night at the Jewcy party, i spent a good deal of the night getting drunk with marty from ROI 120, and having him introduce me to people in the most abrupt of ways:

MARTY: "Hey, this is Izzy. She's the one who pays you and tells you when your stuff is shit."
ME: Oh. (pause) Was it?
IZZY: (longer pause) Erm, what was your name again?
ME: Matthue. Matthue Roth.
IZZY: Oh, no. Mostly not, anyway.
Me: (sigh of mostly relief)

toward the end of the night, i pitched them what i remember as being a sequel to my memoir in maybe a hundred and fifty columns. i remember being really excited about it, but i wasn't the person whose reactions i should have been watching.

important things in the waking world

I'm still getting over that bar with all your friends,
lying here in pajamas
and stretched upwards,
cradling my head
and I'm trying to hold onto
my dream. You said we all

sleep fetuslike. In my dream
I was a fetus, when we all went to
a bar and brought us our orders.
I was the one who had the embryotic fluid.
Duh.
They set an egg in front of me. Last
night, I dreamed I was guest-starring
on Buffy.

i feel like the intersection of
all the matthues, a lonely desert
crossroads of two long highways.
But I'm just the crossroads itself:
no length, no depth, just a small
inclusion of substance.

I'm wearing my pajamas. I barely
ever wear my pajamas to bed
anymore: they're for entertaining,
not sleep. People keep intruding on my
night-time. No lights out for me.
Now, when I fall asleep I'm always
naked, half-undressed, or changing.

And my hair is getting longer. I can
already hide my eyes in it, like
a pillow I carry around during
the day. The fluffy back of my head,
like goose feathers, something
to keep me warm in winter.
Keep me warm in winter.

Last night I dreamt you were Buffy,
the vampire slayer, and I was a friend
of your friends', Willow's internet
pen-pal. I was your love-interest
for the season. I tried to read the
lines so we'd be friends, so we'd never
start kissing. I liked your friends, I
knew them so well, how Xander would
flinch and Willow would clap like a girl when
you killed vampires.

I've always been out in the cold,
known so many gangs but never worked
with anyone. When the wind comes, I go
into fetal position, living off my
own warmth. When we go to restaurants
I forget to bring my own food and I listen
to my stomach growl, thinking perhaps
that I'm digesting my own fat, in
the absence of kosher food, living off myself
until something better comes along.

And I don't say much when your friends
talk, I like to listen
and think of our bar-nights like episodes.