Get me through the next five minutes Odes to being alive

Atlantic staff writer Parker (Turned On) gathers gemlike tributes to "the essence... the quality worth exploring and if possible exalting" in childhood memories, day-to-day irritations, internet videos, fictional heroes, and anything else "that gets me through the next five minutes." Entries celebrate a squirrel's wild "pouncing runs"; fictional spy Jason Bourne as an exemplar of the "absurd condition of man"; and, in a decidedly unsentimental poem, meditation as an experience that can feel like being enclosed in "a warehouse of mental din/ pursued by a grinning zilch, with two ravens tugging at your intestines." Prizing linguistic particularity over sentimentality, Parker offers some loose advice for living (give money to panhandlers whole-heartedly, because doing so means participating in "the same divine economy that big-banged you into being"), but is at his best when poring over life's strange resonances. For instance, his wistful ode to crying babies recalls the "bitter clarion" of his infant son's voice ("In the night, it would rouse me like an electric shock") and ends with a reflection on the shortcomings of speech: "Soon you'll be talking, and language will betray you.... But right now your voice is very direct, very effective. It's going right through my head." This pays vivid homage to the beauty of the mundane. (June)

A collection of short pieces encompassing the whimsical, the meditative, and the tragicomic. Is the world a big place full of small things, or a small place stuffed with big things? Parker, a staff writer for the Atlantic and author of a biography of Henry Rollins, would probably say it is both, judging from this compilation of his essays and poems. His subjects veer from the philosophical to the very strange, from quantum physics to "the psychedelic locusts that run the universe." The author explains why Jason Bourne ("poor human suffering the essential questions") is better than James Bond and discusses which movie star has the best running style--he settles on Tom Cruise, who runs "with the face of an angry Christ." Parker is not shy about getting personal. He might be the only person to have written a poem about constipation, which includes a cat. He admits to a misspent youth, with too many party drugs and too much literature. However, both gave him odd insights into the way the world works. Is it possible that the hum of a refrigerator, heard in the insomniac hours, is really the hidden song of the eternal? What do hypervigilant squirrels know that we don't? Parker's writing is carefully polished, with the humor often hiding dark undertones, which in turn obscure deeper absurdities. (Consider a mixture of Cormac McCarthy's shade and Steve Martin's offbeat comedic spirit.) It all makes for enjoyable reading that can be consumed at once or piecemeal; many of Parker's essays deserve serious contemplation. Among numerous other topics, he pens odes to the "Farting Horse," "Crying Babies," "Bad Reviews," "My Dog's Balls," "Being Dead," and "Wanting to Be a Great Poet." Parker is articulate and provocative, seeing the poetry in the ordinary and the wonderful in the world. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.