The Portable February

by David Berman

Running the gamut in topic and style from faux-political to faux–New Yorker, David Berman’s lo-fi cartoons incorporate strains of high and low comedy, wistful Americana, contemporary art, dream visions, and a visual analog to the semipenetrable personal allusions found in his music and poetry. His drawings invite the same deeper thought as his writings, making use of wordplay, cultural references, and offbeat observations. The sparse illustrations are complemented by poignant one-liners, and reveal moments of lightness within the author’s dark humor, providing a wry, erudite commentary on American culture.

Genres: Poetry, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Art, Comics, Music, Graphic Novels Comics

97 pages, Hardcover

First published June 23, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

David Berman was born in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1967. He graduated from the Greenhill School in Addison, Texas, the University of Virginia, and the University of Massachusetts. His band, the Silver Jews, has released four albums, The Natural Bridge, Starlite Walker, American Water, and Bright Flight, on Drag City Records (www.dragcity.com). He resides in Nashville, Tennessee.

Photo credit: Bernd Bodtländer

Reviews

[Sissy]

If you like this listen to his music, if you love this read Actual Air. If you hear him, take care of yourself as you would the ones you love.

[Sean Meagher]

I'm gonna shine out in the wild kindness
And hold the world to its word

[Owen Haines]

I mean not really a book so much as a collection of little doodles. A lot of them don't make any sense and some of them make you do a little heheh chuckle. David Berman was a cool guy with some cool thoughts and cool vibes.

[Nicole Fegan]

around a year and a half ago, i purchased seven Silver Jews concert audios from a man on etsy who no longer seems to exist. they were a gift for my best friend, and because the mp3 files were all just one big file with no track listings, i set out on a mission to write out track lists and thus spent two days listening to around 9 hours of live Silver Jews concerts from 2006 and 2008 - full of Berman's nervous banter in the first recording (his second ever concert as Silver Jews) all the way up to something that could maybe be called casual, comfortable up there, as they played their 99th show. in that weekend i felt myself instantaneously move from an incredibly casual listener of Silver Jews to someone completely enamored of Berman's entire artistry; it's hard to spend 9 hours with someone's live work and words and not come away from that with a certain kind of reverence.

reading The Portable February gives me a similar feeling. in the same way that hearing Berman perform 'pretty eyes' live feels different than listening to the album version (it's like with the veil of the recording studio completely stripped away, something more raw is left in its wake), these doodles feel like something of a window into what he was thinking. it's nice to laugh to small things, and to not want to drown.

[Matt]

I didn't understand what was going on in most of the drawings, but I enjoyed every one of them.

[J. Bradley]

Too absurdist for its own good.

[Asher Cohen]

We start life having won a race. AND wind up humbled by the void.

[Cloglover]

If you’ve drunk 50,000 beers in 27 years and they’ve just washed against you like the sea into a pier, this book is for you.

Always and forever humbled by the void.

Rip DCB

[gabs]

does this count towards my reading goal? not really. mostly nonsensical and objectively pretty shitty doodles but i enjoyed. david berman is awesome and i am so enamored by everything he’s created - may he rest

i rode in on a peanut butter cup. it’s raining triple sec in tchula!

[James]

Fun. Some really nice stuff here ild get tattooed,
The baseball player on the cross is iconic
Last 20 pages are very cool

[Matthew]

thank G-d he wrote songs too

[Chelsea Francis]

I miss David Berman.

[Daniel Cook]

Humbled by the void

[edmondegreen]

Just okay when I flipped through it, had it's moments. Became hilarious once I learned his therapist asked him to draw a lot of these.

[Reeves]

Since The Portable February was released in 2009, I have read it front to back probably at least five times. It has never become any less opaque, and most of it still is too abstract for me to assign any actual meaning. However, on my latest re-read, I noticed that there are at least two instances of future Purple Mountains lyrics in these comics. Which is interesting, because above all else, I think The Portable February is a glimpse into David Berman’s unfiltered mind. Rough sketches of ideas, thoughts, and sometimes words that just sound good together that provide, if anything, a self-portrait of Berman.

My strategy to parse meaning from these comics this go round was to say the words of what I was looking at out loud. For example: A football player is running with a ball and a machine gun shooting directly at player #67, who just happens to be you, with the caption “Whatever it takes.” Make of that what you will, but it helped me.

[Vicky]

A collection of line-y, scrawl-y drawings with a pen. Some of them reminded me of characters drawn by Tao Lin. I picked up a copy from the Drag City Records table at Pitchfork Music Fest this past weekend because I imagined carrying this around, portable throughout the year, to remind myself that I should allow myself to draw more often. Maybe pull out that blank, unruled journal I have.

[Forest Juziuk]

Best read in one sitting, each piece building on the last.

[David Liver]

I have got a few heroes. David Cloud Berman is one of them. His words run by my side for so many years now. I have read this book long ago and picked it up again this year of course…

[Timothy Dillon]

RIP

[Dawood Nadurath]

RIP.

[Susan]

Closer to 2.5. Slight but had its moments.

[Anne]

I love that he didn’t bother to spell “Cincinnati” correctly. I get it!

[Daniel J]

The book is... very David Berman.

Obviously not as great as his music or poetry but a quick read and not the worst use of your time if you're a Berman fan.

[Matt JL]

love dcb. this book was very abstract. not sure what to make of it, but i appreciate that you can see the early sketches for some of the concepts in purple mountains.

[Alex]

Always wanting more when it comes to DB

[Kaylee]

A collection of short words and drawings from Berman. We truly lost a huge light in the world when we lost him.

[Ella]

wasn’t expecting it to be just illustrations

[anc]

just didn't get it????

[Alex Forster]

Mixed bag

[Aleksandra]

thinking of this guy a lot lately