Welcome to the first post of my new series! In Dispatches From the Mat, we will examine the lifestyle and philosophy of yoga, and what makes up a fully developed yoga practice (hint: it isn’t being able to stand on your head). I hope you will be part of the discussion and join me in the search for union, for the true Self and the true nature of reality.

There is a passage in the Katha Upanishad with which I deeply identify. Yama, lord of death, has granted young Nachiketa three boons, in reparation for the three days the boy waited at Death’s palace while Yama was away. Nachiketa’s first two requests were fairly practical: a return of the love of his father and instructions on how to properly practice a ritual which leads to spiritual development. For his third blessing, however, Nachiketa asks for the secret of death. Yama answers by saying, “That’s over your head, boy, ask for something else,” but Nachiketa sticks to his guns. Yama tries to tempt him with wonderous offerings:

Ask for sons and grandsons who will live a hundred years. Ask for herds of cattle,

elephants and horses, gold and vast lands, and ask to live as long as you desire.

Or, if you can think of anything more desirable, ask for that,

with wealth and long life as well. Nachiketa, be the ruler of a great kingdom,

and I will give you the utmost capacity to enjoy the pleasures of life.

Ask for beautiful women with loveliness rarely seen on earth, riding in chariots,

skilled in music, to attend on you. But Nachiketa,

don’t ask me about the secret of death.

To which Nachiketa answers:

These pleasures last but until tomorrow, and they wear out the vital powers of life.

How fleeting is all life on earth! Therefore keep your horses and chariots,

dancing and music, for yourself. Never can mortals be made happy by wealth.

It is an unfortunate truth of our world that most people seek comfort and luxury, as well as all sorts of pleasures, as opposed to seeking wisdom or lasting joy. Those things that we are taught to want, that our senses most desire, are very difficult to turn our backs on. I am as guilty as the next person — and was even more so when I was younger — of falling for the “sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll” ploy. Putting myself in Nachiketa’s shoes, I doubt I would have held fast as he did. The offer of beautiful women is tempting, but the offer of beautiful women skilled in music? That would likely have broken me. Especially as I may have been a little nervous to begin with, what with the whole speaking-to-the-Lord-of-the-Dead thing.

But Nachiketa has the right idea. he knows that all these pleasures are empty. He knows that they drain the natural energy (prana) that fuels us. Bodily pleasures are hard to turn down, but they lead to the desire for more bodily pleasures, whereas wisdom leads to the search for more wisdom. When we learn to turn ourselves away from the constant need for pleasure and luxury, we will find that we are more aware of what it is that we actually want, and that those wants come from a place far deeper than the wants of the body and senses.

This is key to a true yoga practice. In understanding what it is we really want, and in recognizing the wants that come from the Self as opposed to the self, we are tapping into our absolute nature, that exists beyond our bodies. It is this nature that was not born, that will not die. The goal of yoga is not to be strong or flexible or sexy. It is to gain knowledge of reality. All lower goals, all sensual desires, are merely illusion (maya). Yoga literally translates as “yoke,” meaning the joining of our minds and bodies in their true nature. When we begin to move beyond the illusion of our lives, we see reality, and it is a beautiful thing.

As far as hoary, oft-repeated sayings go, it’s hard to beat “rock is dead.” The origin of the phrase is shrouded in mystery — like the etymology of “heavy metal” — but it’s not hard to picture Lester Bangs coining it while reviewing the latest Lou Reed long-player in his underwear, specks of Robitussin drying on his mustachioed upper lip.

In reality, people have been claiming “rock is dead” since the genre wriggled its way into the repressed loins of America’s bobbysockers. Every so often, a new pack of scruffy young kids with guitars are labeled as its saviors, but it never lasts. ROCK IS DEAD. Long live paper and scissors!

But what if we had empirical evidence that rock really was dead? Or at least in a state of such dissolution that its resurgence was a probabilistic impossibility? To know for sure, we’d need data.

Now we’ve got some.

This article in The Hollywood Reporter indicates that rock is a spent force in the marketplace, squeezed out by more persistent pop forms. Based on a recent study highlighting the ubiquity of synth-pop, the news may be the final nail in rock’s coffin. (I’m just shocked that there was room for one more.)

According to Hit Songs Deconstructed, 79 percent of top 10 pop hits used a synthesizer as the song’s primary instrument. That’s up from 62 percent a year ago and seems to signal that the current electro-pop fad is here to stay — at least a little while longer. Further boosting that theory: the fact that 88 percent of Top 10 songs used electric-based instrumentation. As for the least popular instrument? The guitar, which hit a low of 4 percent during the second quarter of 2011….

…as for lyrical themes in pop music, “hooking up” is the most popular so far in 2011, prevalent in 38 percent of hit songs, followed by “inspirational” songs, which have steadily increased to account for 25 percent of the Top 10 in the second quarter of 2011, “partying/clubbing” (21 percent) and “love/relationships” at 17 percent. Curiously, any “other” categories of lyrical themes have failed to register at all, coming in at zero percent so far in 2011. Last year, when music listeners were seemingly interested in a little more than sex, it was at 9 percent.

Now, it’s easy to come right back and say that the vast majority of rock songs have been about fucking. That may be true, but the flexibility and durability of the form was such that it could include both “Wango Tango” and “Roundabout” in the same canon. I’m not sure that today’s pop will evolve to the same extent.

For those of us who still traffic in this antiquated form, there are more troubling indicators:

Other curious trends pointed to a steep drop in solos, down from 17 percent to 5 percent of hits, and the once popular bridge portion of a song now only exists in 42 percent of songs, down from 54 percent last quarter and 55 percent a year ago.

You may think that it’s perfectly fine to eliminate the guitar solo. Years of co-existing with jam bands elicits a certain sympathy for that worldview. I still enjoy them (if they’re well-placed and say something), but they aren’t a musical necessity. I have more of a problem with the idea that nobody employs bridges anymore. Sure, some of them are useless, but they are a time-honored construct that helps to give songcraft a form. I’m all for experimental art, but eliminating the bridge is kind of like saying we’re no longer going to bother with paragraph breaks. Can you get away with it? Probably. But it says something about our society if we abandon such formalities. It’s a short hop from here to anarchy. Anarchy, I tell you!

One thing that I like about having quantitative data on the death of rock is that it liberates me to keep making it. I am The Contrarian, after all. It would hardly befit my status to toil in a popular genre.

As always, we’re interested in your reactions. What do you think of this data? Was rock dead all along, and we’re just now noticing? What if it turns into a zombie? Are we prepared for that?

The passing of Steve Jobs has produced an avalanche of tributes, most concerning his profound contributions to consumer technology. No doubt the man’s innovations — from personal computing to desktop publishing to portable music listening — impacted lives around the globe. But it was his view of his own life and its impermanence that I find the most interesting.

Since the news of Jobs’ death was announced, my Facebook wall has been inundated with tributes and anecdotes about the genius behind Apple. One persistent post includes a snippet of Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Steve Jobs was a Zen Buddhist. An early pilgrimage to India may have been the catalyst for his spiritual investigations, which he apparently continued even as he scaled the peaks of enterprise. Jobs didn’t advertise his Buddhism, but it very clearly informed his views of death (and life). I can only hope his practice brought him a modicum of peace as he transitioned out of this existence.

I am not going to sanctify Steve Jobs as some kind of technological Bodhisattva. He was a capitalist, first and foremost, and one who had an interesting relationship to control. Yet what we imagine Steve Jobs to be — aesthetic wizard or industrial authoritarian — are merely our own projections. If there is anything to be observed from his creations, it is an emphasis on cutting through the clutter. This is a uniquely Zen approach to Buddhism, which in turn can only be described as the technology of non-attachment. Interesting, then, that Jobs’ legacy is built on creating desire for mechanical devices. How to reconcile these attributes?

We will never know what it is like to have been Steve Jobs. But we can admire his views on impermanence, which seem to have motivated him to not take a single moment for granted. Perhaps his work was merely ego-fulfillment. Maybe it reflected a deep understanding of form and function within multifaceted manifestation. The important thing is to see the above as ephemeral states within an equally ephemeral continuum. And it seems as though he did.

I want you all to read a story in The New Yorker, called “How to Be Good,” which concerns the work of moral philosopher Derek Parfit. You will need a subscription to read the full article, or you can pay for one-time access. I think it’s worth it, particularly for those inclined to self-awareness but averse to mysticism. Heavy stuff, but necessary if we are to overcome the fundamental neurosis that affects our species, namely an awareness of mortality and a need to find a purpose behind our existence. Because we all die. How can we figure out how to live?

I write this post on a Mac laptop, with two mobile Apple devices next to me and a desktop iMac in the other room. I suppose that is a testament to how Steve Jobs’ innovations have become a part of my life. But that’s just window dressing. I prefer to think that he understood something more fundamental about what connects us: impermanence. No one knows but Steve, and he’s not talking. I suppose he already has.

I was a 21-year-old fingerpick guitarist at the time, obsessed with blues pickers like Skip James, Willie McTell and Robert Johnson, as well as the varied British folk sounds of Nick Drake and the Incredible String Band. I had heard of Jansch, but had not located any recordings. My bus got into Boston early, so I found my way to the Avalon, the now-defunct music hall, where I would later meet my brother & Casey, then went for a stroll. I located a Tower or Virgin Records (note: kids, there used to be these places called music stores, where you would go to buy things called CDs, which were like a collection of downloads) and stopped in to kill time. I picked up Dazzling Stranger and walked back to the Avalon, sat on the street outside and put the CD into my Discman (note: kids, it was like an iPod, but it played the CDs I mentioned above). I heard this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMlLlwVk9eI

When that was over, I heard this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqjUWJtH88c

The next few years were devoted to British folk, from Jansch and John Renbourn, as well as their band Pentangle, to John Martyn, but none of them could touch Bert Jansch (except maybe Davy Graham). Jansch’s playing was superb and his melodies haunting. He could pick with a delicate beauty, but his style was characterized by sporadic, rhythmic plucks. He was undeniably one of the greatest players of his time, and is idolized by many greats, including Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin stole covered his “Blackwaterslide” as “Black Mountain Side” on their first album).

Jansch died this morning at a hospice in Hampstead. If you haven’t listened to his work, take a few minutes to do so. You’ll be glad you did.

Last night, I had a long conversation with my wife about the Obama presidency and electoral politics in general. My political self has been at something of a loss lately — when there is something to fight for I can scrap with the best of them, but at the moment I just feel disconnected.

It’s certainly not for a lack of opposition to rail against. It’s just that the party I most often align with is incapable of leadership on crucial issues. A lot of this is Congress’ fault. But as dysfunctional as the legislative branch may be (and it is certainly that), I feel that the president deserves his share of the blame.

I’m not alone. It appears that no one is really happy with Obama right now. The left feels let down and isolated, and the right, well, they’re out for blood. The latest numbers put the president’s approval rating at just 43 percent, a new low. This is certainly unwelcome news for his reelection staff.

I’m just trying to figure out what Obama can possibly gonna run on. “Hope” and “change” are off the table. Let’s see… what’s left… things aren’t as bad as they could be? That’s not exactly campaign slogan material. I don’t think he can run on health care reform — Americans aren’t interested in renewed debate, and it’s red meat for the opposition. Can’t talk about troop drawdowns, ’cause Americans only care about one thing right now: jobs. And he can’t talk about that, because the economy isn’t adding any.

At least he got Bin Laden. Right? Right?

My wife made the observation that we might actually fare better under Mitt Romney. Yes, I know that sounds weird, but it makes sense if you think about it. First of all, Romney’s record indicates that he’s a fairly moderate Republican. Earlier in his career, he very plainly supported a woman’s right to choose. If elected, I doubt he’d push to overturn Roe v. Wade (he’d probably just leave it to the states, which is kind of what Obama is doing by default). Romney’s health care solution in Massachusetts looks a lot like what the President promoted (and ultimately got). On the campaign, Mitt has to tack rightward to appease the teabaggers. But those positions wouldn’t necessarily carry over to the Oval Office.

My wife’s most interesting point was that, instead of negotiating against himself, like Obama, Romney could end up giving the left more of what they want. It’s not hard to picture him telling his party that he “had to make concessions” in the course of negotiations. And those concessions might very well be more than we get out of Obama, due to the fact that he gives away half the store BEFORE entering talks.

I know some people are calling for a democratic primary, but I’m not willing to go that far. First, I think it would splinter the party at a time when democrats can least afford it. Second, I’m not sure there are any attractive candidates. Hillary Clinton isn’t a remote possibility, so let’s not go there.

I’m sure there are smart and talented people on the president’s team. But I do wonder what they’re thinking right now. It’s like everyone is just standing around waiting for him to advance an agenda we can all rally behind. Even those with excellent lung capacity couldn’t hold their breath for that long.

To be fair, there aren’t a lot of great options at the moment. Another round of stimulus is highly unlikely. Forget about “green initiatives” to spur investment and job creation — the president just backed away from his clean air agenda because corporate lobbyists made squeaky noises. It would be difficult for the president to make any of his proposals stick. But without real achievements or bold new ideas, he’s gonna have a lot of difficulty convincing Americans to vote for him again. I guess the Obama Era was a lot shorter than anyone could’ve anticipated.

We’ll see what his big jobs speech looks like on Thursday. I’m not expecting much beyond austerity and platitudes. I’ve said time and again that Obama’s true failing is in communication. He simply doesn’t know how to — or refuses to — talk directly to the American people in a manner to which they can relate. His inability to do so is, in my opinion, the basis for the largest squandering of political capital in recent memory.

This presidency has become an island unto itself. They don’t like it when the left singles them out when the president acts like a moderate republican (although Obama is easily to the right of Nixon). And they don’t understand why the right won’t let them join their special club. It’s because you’re on THE OTHER TEAM!!! (Also you’re black.)

It’s going to be really interesting to watch the White House try to turn out the vote in 2012. I’m pretty sure that the only easy path to reelection would be a Michelle Bachmann nomination. And even then I’m not 100 percent convinced he wins.

And that is a sad thing. A truly awful, sad thing.

HAPPY RAPTURE!

The Contrarian Media and LUX ETERNA wanted to take this moment to celebrate your imminent ascendancy to His Kingdom.

What’s that? Not getting Raptured? Well we’ve got the perfect consolation prize.

Here’s a brand new track from Strange Angels just in time for End Times:

I’ll be in Paris. For real. That is, if I don’t get spirited away to my Father’s Kingdom along with the rest of the pious bigots faithful. Yesiree, Saturday, May 21 is the day — at least according to religious radio broadcaster Harold Camping, who came up with the latest apocalyptic meme to sweep the globe.

Camping is basing his end-times prediction on a numerological formula of his own device. Meaning, all the billboards loudly proclaiming “the Bible guarantees it!” are utter bullshit. In fact, the Good Book explicitly says the opposite: “Of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only.” [Matthew 24:36].

That hasn’t stopped Camping’s ministry from driving paranoid Christians into a tizzy. So what’s the math behind his claim? It’s kinda complicated, even to Scientific American. Apparently, it has to do with the date of Christ’s crucifixion, which is conveniently unverifiable. But not to this wackadoodle:

Camping takes Christ’s crucifixion to be April 1 in 33 AD. Come May 21, 2011, Camping says, 722,500 days will have elapsed since that occurrence. And 722,500 is (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17). Those numbers are important, according to Camping, because 5 symbolizes atonement, 10 represents completeness, and 17 is for heaven.

Why does 5 symbolize atonement? Here we turn to Exodus 30:15: “The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the Lord, to make an atonement for your souls.” For those of you who prefer fractions, “half a shekel” would be 1/2 shekel; the decimally minded might favor 0.5 shekel. Camping is evidently in the latter camp; he takes this verse as evidence of 5′s association with atonement.

Blarbity-blarb, derp-derp. Is anyone even taking any of this seriously?

Turns out, yes. Some Christians are even taking that job and shoving it in anticipation of Armaggeddon. I assure you, this is not why I’m going on vacation. Total coincidence.

Organized atheists are also taking advantage of the insanity. According to DC rag Roll Call:

A group of self-described Godless Americans is defying predictions of the Rapture to kick off a new campaign this week against the religious right. As some Christians quit their jobs this week to prepare for the end of the world, the Secular Coalition for America headed to Capitol Hill with an ambitious task: reducing the influence of religious interests on government. The lobby group — created in 2000 to unite atheists, humanists, nontheists and nonbelievers of all stripes — chose this weekend to meet because of its significance to a small faction of Christians. For followers of religious radio broadcaster Harold Camping, Saturday marks the beginning of the end of civilization and the return of Jesus Christ as predicted in the Bible.

Getting ready for a three-week vacation is actually not that different from preparing for the Rapture, come to think of it. We have four cats and a bunny, which makes it difficult to plan a holiday. Imagine if you were taken by God? Thankfully, The Creator has a plan for our furry friends (or at least his followers do). It’s called After the Rapture Pet Care, and it’s an honest-to-Jehovah business.

If the Rapture does come this weekend, I guess most of our readership will be “left behind.” Which leads me to my final point: if there’s a lack of posts here over the next few weeks, it’s because I’m ON VACATION, not sharing fondue with Sarah Palin and Moses.

Unless, of course, I am…

Hello! My name is Molly. I am an artist and costumier from Northern Vermont. I am also a lifelong aficionado of most things perverse, bizarre, and grotesque. Am I an expert? No, but I sincerely don’t believe it is even possible to be achieve mastery in a field as vast, diverse, and mercurial as human deviancy. I studied cultural anthropology, and I try to approach all topics with the relativism and open curiosity inherent to that branch of the social sciences. When I use words like “weird” or “strange” it’s usually with wonder, not derision.

You may remember me from my old Contrarian gig, the Peculiar Planet Picayune. The Picayune was a linkdump of stories about global oddities. That’s nice and all, but I was starting to feel too limited and wanted to be able to branch out into other areas of esoterica. Today I am excited to announce my new weekly feature, The Sex & Mayhem Report! Here is what you can expect in every S&M Report:

• Serial Killer of the Week. Everyone knows about Dahmer, Bundy and Gacy, but there have been hundreds of serial killers throughout the ages who are just as fascinating but have been largely ignored by popular culture. Let me be perfectly clear: I don’t think serial killers are admirable, laudable or awesome. However, I do think that they are very interesting. They are human and relatable in myriad ways, yet with this terrifying psychological deviation that drives them to do things prohibited by every human value. What causes their aberration? Nobody has definitive answers, but the quest for those answers certainly leads down many fascinating paths.
• Fetish of the Week. You are probably aware of a number of unusual fetishes, but hear me now and believe me later: tip of the motherfucking iceberg. The internet has provided an important tool for people with rare fetishes to connect with each other, and to inform interested voyeurs like me. I think it’s lovely. Before online communities, many people would feel freakish and feared they were mentally ill believing that they surely must be the only weirdo who was aroused by (for example) women farting while sitting on cakes. Now instead of wallowing alone in shame and self-loathing they can connect with others who share their predilections in a safe, anonymous online environment and discover that they are not alone. I am 100 percent cool with all fringe fetishes so long as nobody gets unwillingly hurt.
• Obscure Religion of the Week. As with the prior two weekly subjects, you probably have a decent knowledge base to begin with. However, there have been thousands of religions throughout human history and I am always interested in exploring them. I’ll just get this bias right out on the table: I am an atheist and view religions as human inventions and spiritual experiences as being wholly explainable by psychology and neurology. Don’t think that means I’m disrespectful of the beliefs of others, though. As the old secular humanist saying goes, I take religion seriously but not literally.
• Links. This is the part that will be like the Picayune and will probably be the most variable. There were times when I felt like I was really scraping the bottom of the barrel with the links I was providing, so instead of relying on the global weirdness reporting for the bulk of my content I’ll give you at least the Killer, Fetish, and Religion of the week and then only the crème de la crème web weirdness. Strange websites, news items, videos, or new books being published about my areas of interest are all examples of links I’ll post. Things relating to: sex; death; occult and paranormal matters; conspiracy theories; strange antiquities; freaky archeological finds; cryptozoology; cults; serial killers; and unusual artistic endeavors like creative taxidermy.

Sound good? Good! See you next Monday for the first installment.

Miss Molly

You got to give it to the Republicans. The 11th-hour budget deal to keep the government operational has been achieved, with major concessions by the Democrats. Tea Party folk will likely gripe about the failure to gut the Environmental Protection Agency and funding for Planned Parenthood, but from where I sit — literally at a media reform conference in Boston — Speaker of the House John Boehner pulled off a pretty amazing maneuver.

Political forensics is its own industry, with pundits of all stripes weighing in on what really happens in these (and other) negotiations. That said, I haven’t had the chance to follow post-game reports due to the conference. So what follows is my own spot-analysis of the outcome.

Throughout the process of resolving the 2011 budget and avoiding an economically disastrous shutdown, the Democrats gave and gave and gave on cuts, while the GOP leadership kept revising their terms. By Friday of this week, the Republicans — under pressure from social conservatives who drive the agenda for the Tea Party (even if they don’t admit it) — had made federal funding for Planned Parenthood and the EPA part of the package. Never mind that Planned Parenthood receives no federal dollars for abortions and exists as one of the only providers of essential health services for low-income women.

Make no mistake: this is a war on the disadvantaged by a small percentage of vocal, organized and well-funded bigots, who are in turn being used by corporate vampires with no concern for the well-being of their puppet “patriots.”

Then there’s the science around global warming, which the GOP is hellbent on ignoring. But it’s not just about climate change. It’s any regulation meant to prevent corporations from slowly or not-so-slowly poisoning us. The profit motive is a terrible steward of our planet, and it’s time conservative voters figured this out for the sake of those unborn fetuses they love so well.

Speaker Boehner performed an expert kabuki dance to satisfy both GOP leadership and the Tea Party insurgents, while his lieutenants manhandled the media. By the time the music stopped, Republicans had managed to get the Dems to agree to 38 billion dollars in spending cuts with defense largely off the table. That’s a victory however you frame it. They didn’t get their Planned Parenthood and EPA ambush, but they probably knew they wouldn’t all along. More importantly, Bohener and his cronies had the Democrats in a box. If they caved on PP and EPA funding, the right wins. If they didn’t, the right still wins, but Boehner has amassed enough political cover to escape Tea Party bloodletting.

Ultimately, the GOP strategy is doomed in the long term, and I intend to write about why in an upcoming piece. For now, they are consistently successful at exploiting the Democrats’ negotiation posture to get pretty much everything they were ever gonna get on the budget.

Neat trick, but I wonder when the country will realize that they, too, have been taken hostage.

Hello again, friends, and welcome to a very special edition of DFtS! Throughout this series, I have done my best to provide a humorous, or at least mildly amusing, overview of the library profession. I have discussed proper practice for the professional librarian, censorship issues, technology, fuckwits, patrons good and bad, etc, but I have never yet actually reviewed a book for this fine magazine.

Things must change!

So, behold, dear bookworms and bookwormesses, the first in my (intended) series of book reviews: Assam & Darjeeling by T.M. Camp.

Mr. Camp’s novel accompanied me on my recent trip to Cambodia, and it made for a joyful companion indeed! A deceptively simple fantasy that would be of equal interest to adults and teens, Assam & Darjeeling is one of the nicest literary surprises I’ve had in some time.

Well-deserving of comparison to the work of Neil Gaiman, Assam & Darjeeling begins with a terrible accident, which leaves a mother and her two children in a coma. The children are awake outside of their bodies, existing somewhere between life and death. The mother is lost closer to death, and the children decide to descend to the underworld in order to find their mother and bring her back.

Thus begins a story that dances wonderfully from funny to sad, from touching to scary. Along their path, the children come across a collection of characters, many of whom will be familiar to those of you who have read your mythology. There’s even a brief appearance by a certain shaggy-haired songwriter with round glasses.

The author borrows heavily from classical mythology and Dante in his portrayal of the underworld, but the final product is Camp’s and Camp’s alone. This is a modernized view, with pollution and litter, cellphones and cars, in which Charon goes by Charles. This is a world (excuse me, underworld) in which The Darkness has a job washing dishes.

In Camp’s capable hands, the two children come perfectly to life. Of the younger child, the girl, the author says, “She didn’t have a lot of room left over inside for listening, with all her fierceness.” I will gladly read a thousand books in which the boy is the sensitive, intuitive one, and the girl the fighter, before I will read two with the opposite. Assam (not his real name) is a thinker, a boy who is in touch with things that other people are not. Darjeeling (not her real name) is a little badass, who will kick the Ferryman of the Dead in the shin without hesitation.

The depth and literary flesh of the two lead characters is one main draw of the work, but the real star here is Camp’s near-perfect prose. This is a beautifully written book, plain and simple. Few contemporary authors write with such elegance.

All of this is not to say that the book is perfect. It is unfortunately plagued with typos, which is a real shame given the beauty of the writing. I do not understand why Camp chose to refer to the children as “the boy” and “the girl” at first, only to reveal their real names in succession partway into the book. But my complaints are very few, and very minor, when compared to the many truly wonderful aspects of this book.

I highly recommend Assam & Darjeeling, both to libraries and readers. With the charming characters, lovely prose, and two big surprises toward the end, this is a rare book, to be treasured and returned to time and again.