Sandra Tsing Loh
Sandra Tsing Loh is an innovator in what I call the Performance Writing genre. In earlier days when paper did the talking, readings were a bohemian indulgence -- a writer's-clique scene in nameless, smoke-filled cafes. But in our modern day word industry, if you want to write it is almost obligatory to talk: radio, reading tours, one-writer acts and the like. David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell and Dave Eggers are a few who have capitalized on this sort of writer branding, piggybacking off of Loh's early groundbreaking work.
To be fair, Loh is a performer first. When asked in an interview to categorize herself, she steered away from "writer" choosing the more flexible moniker "storyteller". But regardless of which came first (the writing or the act), she's had a mountain of influence on the multi-media approach her younger contemporaries have taken.
Whatever the category, she has earned her byline. Her observations are witty and encapsulating. A gifted social observer, she exposes day-to-day procedures for the cultural oddities they are, deconstructing such sacred institutions in her Southern Californian realm as Trader Joe's and Ikea. She's great fun to listen to and you can catch her acerbic oratory on the hip KCRW if you're local, or over the internet if you're not. She found a nice fit in audio -- fun on a dateless Friday night or streaming through the house on a Saturday afternoon.
Her portfolio is packed with music recitals, comedy acts and other odd bits, but this site is about the writing so I picked up her essay collection Depth Takes a Holiday. The collection covers a delicious buffet of topics -- temping, dating, fake chic, sex, the grueling climb to fame -- all clumped around the underbelly of southern California culture. Plenty of 'why bother' humor here, played out while sipping 7Up-spiked chablis in sweatpants with the shades drawn, breaking out Trader Joe's gourmet knockoffs for company.
Loh kicks the book off with "Ikea: Cry of a Lost Generation", an hilarious riff on consumerism, class distinction and suckers. Her cultural truisms are dead on - we are what we buy - and her class distinctions acute ( "Middles", for instance, are the "Wicker Class"). The Swedes got it right, Loh claims: "starting with the warm hug in the Ikea foyer, you are seized with a feeling of indescribable happiness. The general feeling -- of bright colors, big windows, educational displays -- is of having entered some marvelous Montessori-type school for creatively gifted children." No red-blooded consumer has a chance.
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