The Hills Are Alive

The Book Bench Loose leafs from the New Yorker Books Department. The Hills Are Alive August 27, 2009 Posted by Macy Halford The hills of Pittsburgh, that is, are alive with the sound of an indie literary revolution. What does such a thing sound like? According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: remixed Dolly Parton spliced with the optimistic ejaculations of Carnegie Mellon grads, with just a hint of irony. If twee could be edgy, that might describe it. Witness the names of some of the city’s twenty-three small publishers and literary journals: Encyclopedia Destructica Caketrain Debutante Hair Unicorn Mountain Words Like Kudzu Pear Noir! Fiji Island Mermaid Dirty Poet Ophelia Street Air and Nothingness Speed and Briscoe Aren’t these names beautiful? Visit the Web sites—where they exist, they are gorgeous, with a sort of handmade quality. But I’m beginning to sound like a tourist, and everybody hates a tourist. Pittsburghers hate them with the fiery intensity of the chronically underestimated, which I know because I once lived there for nine months. A quote on the Unicorn Mountain site sums it up: Regardless of whatever some coke machine head hollywood dipsy doodle (read: Sienna Miller) sez about Pittsburgh, do not be fooled by fools: this town rules. Miller told Rolling Stone that she hated being stuck there while filming “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” which brings me to Michael Chabon, whose books (and the movies based on them) have done much to paint the city in a literary, or at least an academic, light. I’m surprised at how sticky Pittsburgh’s reputation as a backwards steel town has proved. It’s an amazingly complex place, in terms of both culture and landscape. Most people live up on a hill, which means that life there consists largely of driving round a bend, getting lost (street signs are scarce), and, eventually, emerging on a breathtaking vista. Along the way, you travel through unique townships: there are insanely wealthy clusters set in woodland (like Sewickley, where Toby Maguire lived in his parents’ basement, in “Wonder Boys”); hollowed-out ghost towns that used to be filled with steel-workers and that now have defunct amusement parks, blast furnaces, railroads; islands with skating rinks; convents; hip Orthodox Jewish enclaves; historic markets; Polish hills; evangelical churches; big businesses; and, of course, the universities. For all the variation, though, the place retains an insular, Midwestern feel, which is to say: it’s ideal for writing and for publishing—it’s multicultural, connected to the intellectual mainstream, but secluded and spacious enough to foster original work. According to the Post-Gazette article, writers are realizing how great Pittsburgh is, and moving there en-masse. Of course, the article makes clear, it’s not about the money (there is not much)—it’s about being able to attend Encyclopedia Destructica’s weekly “binding parties,” where tomes are produced “with a zine attitude and a book aesthetic.” Or stumbling upon Dirty Poet’s “publications,” all of which are written on lampposts around town. Or hanging at bookstores called things like Caliban, Copacetic Comics, Slacker, and Phantom of the Attic.