tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56184116113694509882024-03-05T17:52:45.460-08:00What I ReadZacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-19811279632296313832012-12-20T08:16:00.000-08:002012-12-20T08:16:19.532-08:00Hyde Park on HudsonShoulda been called <i>Handjobs </i>on Hudson! On account of the romance. <br />
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<br />mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12927378740777632312noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-6435666003842340232012-11-03T18:47:00.000-07:002012-11-04T01:41:39.274-07:00The Years of Lyndon Johnson, by Robert A. CaroFrom May through October, I read more than 3,000 pages by Robert Caro, all on the subject of Lyndon B. Johnson. (Yes, that is a boast. Among the many lessons I learned from LBJ is the importance of shamelessly trumpeting one's accomplishments, no matter how insignificant.) All four volumes in the series are incredible, each in its own way. But when you get right down to the nut-cutting (one of the many wonderful turns of phrase found in these pages), what you want is rankings.<br />
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1. The Passage of Power (2012)</div>
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This volume covers the 1960 election, Johnson's years as Vice-President, and (spoiler alert) his first several months as President. It completely rules. Particular highlights include the descriptions of Johnson at Washington parties during the Kennedy years, when he became a figure of ridicule (nicknamed, by a bunch of Harvard assholes, "Rufus T. Cornpone"); the account of Johnson's procrastination, fueled by an all-consuming fear of losing, during the run-up to the 1960 presidential race; and of course the Kennedy assassination, and Johnson's immediate transformation into a kind of superhero (or possibly the most evil supervillain in American history).</div>
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2. Means of Ascent (1990)</div>
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This volume covers Johnson's naval service during World War II, the buildup of his massive fortune, and the 1948 Senate race. It's also amazing. The war section mainly describes how Johnson and one of his aides drove up and down the California coast, partying at night clubs. (He did fly in one actual mission, which sounds legitimately scary. For that he got a Silver Star.) Then comes a fascinating explanation of how Johnson became a millionaire just by exploiting his influence as a congressman. But my favorite part is the 1948 Senate race, which Johnson (who campaigned by flying all over Texas in a custom helicopter) indisputably stole, through rampant voter fraud, from Coke Stevenson, a self-educated lawyer, judge, and former Texas governor who comes off as the absolute best dude ever.</div>
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3. Master of the Senate (2002)</div>
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Honestly, I can't believe this volume is only in third place. It's awesome. Caro starts with a 100-page history of the Senate that establishes how dysfunctional it is. From then on, it chronicles Johnson's unbelievably fast climb to Majority Leader, a position that no one else even really seemed to understand. Caro portrays the 1950s southern democrats as a bunch of racist pricks who were nonetheless much smarter than the northern liberals in terms of planning and executing legislative and procedural strategy. LBJ, meanwhile, outsmarts the southerners by essentially tricking them, through a complicated long con, into voting for a Civil Rights bill. There is also a section about Johnson's penis, which he calls "Jumbo" and frequently shows to horrified subordinates.</div>
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4. The Path to Power (1982)</div>
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This volume may be ranked last, but it's still really great. It covers Johnson's youth in the Texas Hill Country, his time at Southwest Texas State Teachers College, and his rise to national power as a New Deal congressman. Most interesting to me is the account of Johnson's relationship with his political patron, Herman Brown, the founder of Brown & Root, which eventually became a subsidiary of Halliburton, which etc. etc. Also great is the story of Johnson's long, secret affair with the wife of one of his other financial backers. And how he immediately turns against the New Deal as soon as FDR dies. My only complaint, really, is that Caro's account of how insanely boring and awful the Hill Country was tends at times to be just a bit too evocative.<br />
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In general, I love how Caro introduces key figures in Lyndon Johnson's life (Richard Russell, Sam Rayburn, Coke Stevenson) with chapters of their own, only to show later how Johnson ultimately either betrayed or destroyed them. LBJ is a truly fascinating character, Caro is a genuinely terrific storyteller, and together these two assholes kept me reading all summer when I should have been outside enjoying nature or meeting new friends or something. Thanks a lot, dicks. See you in 2022.</div>
doogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10254346573992229840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-64610446824791553032012-03-20T11:34:00.000-07:002012-03-20T11:35:43.162-07:00Shifted some of my effortsover <a href="http://stevehely.com/">here</a>. Come play!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-20012968834461983072012-02-10T08:41:00.000-08:002012-02-10T09:23:19.694-08:00Pina<span style="font-style: italic;">Pina</span> is a 3D movie about Pina Bausch, a German choreographer and her troupe of pan-ethnic cultist dancers who spearheaded a movement of braless dance in flowy dresses. The movie's by Wim Wenders, and if you're looking for any information on Pina's life, or how her gang of multicultural writhers got together, or where they performed, or how they managed to communicate because every single one spoke a different language, or even in what decade, I suggest you direct your attention to Wikipedia rather than this movie. <span style="font-style: italic;">Pina</span>'s not about telling a story or giving information. It is about celebrating Pina's unique dance vision. I guess the point is that dancing is a language, which, OK. One of the phrases in this dance language is a move where one dancer shovels dirt on another while she is on the ground. I don't know much of anything about modern dance, but I think I get that one. People getting married: I think you can find a lot of inspiration for first dances in this one, so get to your multiplex. For everyone else: I don't know if I recommend the movie but I'm happy I saw it.<br /><br />And this is one reason why! Sitting next to my viewing companion and me was my favorite sort of old guy: sort of fat, wearing shorts, long-haired, snack-bagged, and dead asleep for most of the time. His personal snack-stash was at least a full pound of loose M&M's stored in a plastic grocery bag, which-you guessed it!-spilled tragically and loudly late into the movie. I'm not sure what sort of expectations he had for his viewing experience, or who put him up to it, but I sort of hope he was involved with this dance troupe a long time ago and this movie is his only remaining connection to his old, weird dancing friends. I hope he had a good time.mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12927378740777632312noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-69460352285939456542012-01-02T09:32:00.000-08:002012-01-02T09:49:16.879-08:00Christmas Roundup - The Princess Diaries, These Happy Golden Years, The Sunday Philosophy Club<style>p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }h1 { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; page-break-after: avoid; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0in; }ul { margin-bottom: 0in; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">My Christmastime reading program typically goes like this:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in;" start="1" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="">Weigh down my luggage with a large hardcover volume of literary fiction. </li><li class="MsoNormal" style="">Receive as gifts two or more large hardcover volumes of popular nonfiction. </li><li class="MsoNormal" style="">Perch in an armchair surrounded by my well-reviewed books, signaling to all present my seriousness as a reader, and as a person.</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="">Read only garbage paperbacks I find in the guest room.</li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">This year was no exception.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> "The Princess Diaries" by Meg Cabot</p><p class="MsoNormal">TPD moves along at a good clip, and can be read in its entirety in the time one might spend, say, dealing with the defecatory consequences of a few large holiday meals. This is its greatest virtue. Aside from general YA badness, my main complaint was a problem common to many epistolary novels and faux journals: the protagonist inexplicably stops at the height of any action to whip out her pen and write down her thoughts, thwarting any hard-earned suspension of disbelief. The copy of TPD I read belongs to my nine-year-old niece, so I was mildly surprised by the frequency with which it included things like alcohol and the phrase “vagina lips.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">"These Happy Golden Years" by Laura Ingalls Wilder<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I had never read any of the Little House books before, though I was familiar with the broad contours of the stories. THGY is pleasant enough. Laura is fifteen, and has just started as the new schoolteacher in a nearby settlement. It’s tough at first: Some of her students are older than she is, and though the school is only twelve miles from home, travel is so difficult that she must board with a closer family, the mother of which is a knife-wielding manic-depressive. Laura can only see her family every other month, until she begins to be courted by Almanzo Wilder, who comes in his sleigh each weekend to take her home. Their slow-growing affection was far more romantic than all the dances and kisses and genitals TPD had to offer. And the details of frontier life are useful if you’d like to be reminded how weak and soft you’ve become. Plus, I love the name Almanzo Wilder. He sounds like a journeyman NBA power forward. Probably was the sixth man on a Pitino-era Kentucky squad, then came into his own on a stint in the Italian league before finally getting the call from the Nuggets. I also enjoyed the use of the adjective “boughten.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">"The Sunday Philosophy Club" by Alexander McCall Smith<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The cover declares “An Isabel Dalhousie Mystery.” This is a lie. A more accurate claim would be “An Isabel Dalhousie ‘Mystery’ For People Who Hate Mysteries,” or perhaps “An Isabel Dalhousie Some Things Happen, Barely.” Yes, someone dies in the opening pages, and eventually the circumstances of this death are explained, but it is less a “whodunit?” than a “hasanythingbeendun?” The book is only 247 pages, but it’s not until page 57 that someone finally suggests the death might be suspicious. Even then, it’s not until page 87 that Ms. Dalhousie begins investigating in earnest. She eventually “discovers” the person responsible for the death only because he voluntarily presents himself at her house, and the climax is so lazy and ridiculous that it manages to be both sudden and boring.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">What actually fills the pages is an array of digressions, pointless asides, and rants. Ms. Dalhousie finds herself seated next to a table of young people at a restaurant; the reader gets more than a page of her reasons for disliking them. As part of her job editing a philosophical journal, Ms. Dalhousie must index an issue, a job that <i>she herself</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> complains is difficult and boring; the reader is nonetheless treated to a full-page account of the task. Ms. Dalhousie attends a concert, where she is simply horrified to discover the music includes a work by Stockhausen; could she not have turned her keen investigative powers to reading the program before she bought a ticket? I assume Isabel Dalhousie is meant to be perceived as a somewhat finicky middle-aged woman: intelligent, opinionated and prone to speaking her mind, no matter the consequences. In fact, she is a sour old bitch. Her main pastimes are pontificating about art, fretting about how much better everything used to be, silently judging the clothes / homes / accents of everyone she meets, and openly judging the clothes / homes / accents of everyone she meets.<span style=""> </span>I exaggerate: She also drinks coffee and does crossword puzzles. Sometimes, she combines drinking coffee with being judgmental, as when she congratulates herself for her attempts to choke down a cup of instant (gasp!) coffee prepared for her by the grieving roommate of the deceased, whom she has visited uninvited. What magnanimity.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I began reading TSPC mostly because of the title, which struck me as exactly the sort of title SCH both mocked and employed in HIBAFN. (Also, because Alexander McCall Smith appears on the back cover leaning against a tuba.) At last, a real mystery: Why is the book called “The Sunday Philosophy Club” when NO SUCH CLUB EXISTS ANYWHERE IN ITS PAGES?<span style=""> </span>We learn nothing about this supposed club, other than that Ms. Dalhousie disbanded it years ago. Basically everything about this book is a bait-and-switch. Even the tuba. The author’s bio says that he actually plays the bassoon. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I have a terrible premonition that I will find myself reading the sequel this time next year.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hope everyone has a great 2012! </p>schoboatshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01415953418993023380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-8797030315478559382011-12-22T14:16:00.000-08:002011-12-22T15:00:08.902-08:00Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick<div>Elvis seems like he was basically a twelve year old all his life. He was really into fireworks, guns, karate (a LOT of this book is about karate), slot cars, policemen, cowboys, horses. He was constantly buying cars for people. One day he bought fourteen cars for people, including one for a random woman he met on the car lot. When he got a camera, he "quickly figured out the possibilities. Sometimes he used Priscilla alone, sometimes in Priscilla’s absence he got girls to wrestle for him wearing only white bras and panties, and occasionally he included Priscilla, too, in an expanded scenario." He had no idea what anything cost and spent money like crazy on weird jewelry he designed. </div><div><br /></div><div>He had to be surrounded by people constantly, and assorted people he met around Memphis came onto his payroll and spent years as his professional pals. At one point one of them drew up a list of duties for everyone: </div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“it was up to Marty to “call Mrs. Pepper for Movie Times (As Early As Possible); Transact Business and Correspondence with the Colonel’s office for Elvis,” and maintain a purchase order system for all charges in Elvis’ name. Alan Fortas got the assignment to, “along with Marty, be responsible for Organization both in good and bad situations,” maintain Elvis’ scrapbook, and “be in den with Elvis as much as possible.”</div><div><br /></div><div>The scene at Graceland was pretty nuts: "In the short time that the Lackers had been living at Graceland, Elvis’ uncle Johnny Smith had threatened Marty’s wife and come at Marty himself with a knife, while Clettes Presley (Vester’s wife, and Johnny and Gladys’ sister), who drank as heavily as her brother, had made it clear that she had little use for him, too. Marty didn’t think much of Elvis’ retarded uncle, Tracy, who went around saying, “I got my nerves in the dirt” and made noises “like he was getting ready to explode”</div><div><br /></div>At the end of the last book Elvis was 23 and his mother had died, just after he went into the Army. He was already about as famous as anybody, but he was considered kind of a joke by New York critics. After the funeral he was sent to Germany, where he lived off-base in a weird household with his dad and a German secretary and some friends. His dad took up with the still-married wife of a fellow soldier of Elvis' - the fellow soldier was drunk all the time and didn't seem to notice. This twisted situation made Elvis angry, he had loved his mother dearly and this seemed too soon. If there's a turning point in this book that set Elvis on the desperate and sad path that would pretty much be the rest of his life, I guess it's this.<div><br />Elvis met Priscilla when her military dad was sent to Germany. She was 14, but for some reason her parents let them date. Elvis had strange ideas about feminine purity - he would sleep with other girls but wouldn't want to sleep with ones he was seriously dating.<br /><br />Once Elvis gets back to America his story and this book turns pretty repetitive and tragic. He was contracted to make a bunch of movies, and he seems to have been aware that these were terrible. He was ashamed of a lot of his recordings. After a few years of nutty partying, constantly on speed, he had a kind of breakdown. A new hairdresser, Larry Geller, showed up. Elvis started asking him probing spiritual questions. "There has to be a purpose... there's got to be a reason... why I was chosen to be Elvis Presley." Larry started bringing Elvis spiritual books, and Elvis started going to the Self-Realization Fellowship in Pacific Palisades. </div><div><br /></div><div>But mostly he just kept doing crazy amounts of speed and massively powerful prescription painkillers given to him by "Dr. Nick." There was a brief period in '68 where he kinda pulled it together and had a huge TV special, and he played to huge crowds in Vegas, but he's kind of a mess throughout this book.</div><div><br /></div><div>Elvis had a weird thing about not liking ladies who'd had babies. He sort of turned on Priscilla after she had a baby (although he was cheating on her pretty thoroughly before, too). There's a sad story of a woman who got pregnant by Elvis, tried to tell him, and then heard him say something about how once someone was a mother they were sacred and shouldn't be interested in sex. She went and got an abortion alone. </div><div><br /></div><div>The absolute low point might have been the day he flew to Washington, more or less on a whim, had a crazy letter he'd written on the plane delivered to the White House, where he brought a gun to his impromptu meeting with Nixon. In their meeting Elvis talked about how he felt the Beatles were really behind a lot of anti-American feeling. Then he gave Nixon a hug and took off. </div><div><br /></div><div>Three years later some beauty pageant winner was sleeping in his bed when he died while sitting on the toilet. That day he'd thrown a raquetball racket at somebody, played Willie Nelson's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" on the piano, and been delivered a packet of "Seconal, Placidyl, Valmid, Tuinal, Demerol, and an assortment of other depressants and placebos which generally allowed Elvis to get several hours of sleep at a time." Also he'd taken a bunch of codeine to which he was mildly allergic. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, this is a really sad book. I pretty much skimmed it. It seemed like a lot of the tragedies of Elvis' life were a lot like those in Michael Jackson's life. I guess it's pretty impossible to get super-famous when you're a teenager and not completely implode. Elvis seemed to have a vague sense inside himself that he'd missed his potential, somehow. One of the band guys he played with in the first book said that he felt that Elvis was a kind of idiot savant - he knew hundreds of songs, but was strange and sensitive and certainly had no idea how to handle being as famous as he was. Maybe nobody does! </div><div><br /></div><div>He's really likable all through Last Train to Memphis, I'll prefer to remember him that way! </div><div> <!--EndFragment--><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-48060291405721237802011-11-28T21:13:00.000-08:002011-11-28T22:05:37.715-08:00Last Train To Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter GuralnickPeter Guralnick went to my high school. He came back to talk once. The only thing I remember is that he said going to college had been for him "a dumb idea." That notion was completely opposite to the whole point of my high school, it was quite jarring, I couldn't even really understand what he meant.<br /><br />Anyway, this is a good book, although for my taste it was maybe 200 pages too long. It's a tough trick for "authoritative" biographers: they have to cover all kinds of side journeys, occasional characters, and messy meanderings that are not "on story" in the way movies have spoiled me to expect. <br /><br />I feel like what I want from this blog is for people to summarize books for me and tell me the best parts, so let me do this one for you!<br /><br />Elvis' parents were real country folk. His father had done time in Louisiana's dreaded Parchman Farm prison for writing a bad check. It all seems pretty Dickensian, his boss was "making an example of him." Elvis' twin brother was born dead, and Elvis' mom told him he'd acquired the power of the dead twin. <br /><br />Then the Presleys moved to Memphis and lived in public housing until they made too much money to qualify (still not much money). Even in Memphis they were seen as kinda bumpkins. Elvis was completely devoted to his mother. <br /><br />In Memphis Sam Phillips was running Sun Records, trying to record "real Negro music," and the unrelated Dewey Phillips had a radio show that broadcast to a mostly black audience. Elvis listened mostly to gospel music and sometimes sang at an Assembly of God church.<br /><br />As a boy Elvis used to turn on lights on Saturdays for his Orthodox Jewish neighbors.<br /><br />Elvis was driving a truck for an electric company and trying to be an electrician, even though he felt he was too easily distracted to be good at wiring - he was a little afraid of blowing himself up. He was dating a girl named Dixie who was really in love with him. They were committed to remaining "pure" until marriage.<br /><br />Elvis used to hang around Sun Records, and he recorded a demo of himself. Sam Phillips had him on a list of maybe promising singers. Months later he found what he thought was a good song for him. It turned out to not sound so good, but Elvis and the musicians Sam had recruited kept screwing around for hours until Elvis started singing an old blues song. <br /><br />When Elvis' record of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1s-E1WWipc">That's Alright Mama</a> first got huge on Dewey Phillips' radio show. The first time it was played on the radio Elvis was too nervous to listen and went to the movies. Dewey Phillips kept calling his parents and demanded Elvis come down to the station. When he got out of the movies he went down there. Dewey tricked Elvis into being interviewed on air. He asked Elvis where he went to high school so everyone would know Elvis was white. <br /><br />Elvis wore "crazy" clothes, like a pink shirt. But he was also incredibly sensitive. He was always afraid people were laughing at him. Sam Phillips wouldn't let him play at a bunch of rougher bars because he thought Elvis would get beaten up. <br /><br />"[Roy] Orbison later said of his first encounter with Elvis: 'his energy was incredible, his instinct was just amazing... Actually it affected me exactly the same way as when I first saw that David Lynch film [Blue Velvet]. I just didn't know what to make of it. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it.'"<br /><br />One thing I took from this book was that musicians in those days died on the road like all the time. Cars caught on fire. At some point Elvis' mother made him promise not to fly anymore, so he would take the train to Hollywood and New York. <br /><br />(says a bandmate of an early tour): "he would run the women, he'd run two or three of them in one night - whether or not he was actually making love to all three, I don't know, because he was kind of private in that sense and if I thought he was going to run some women in the room with him, I didn't stay. But I just think he wanted them around, it was a sense of insecurity, I guess, because I don't think he was a user. He just loved women, and I think they knew that."<br /><br />By 1955 when Elvis was 20 girls would tear his clothes to pieces. "Of course the police started getting them out, and I will never forget Faron Young - this one little girl had kind of a little hump at the back, and he kicked at her, and these little boots fell out." ??? Sometime after this Elvis took Dixie to her junior prom.<br /><br />Manufacturing a hit record back then could actually put a small record company out of business, because there were high upfront costs of making the record, so Sam Phillips had to sell Elvis' contract, seemingly without rancor. <br /><br />"Popular music has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley," wrote the Daily News. OH REALLY!<br /><br />In between having his clothes ripped off Elvis seemed to "date" relatively pure-heartedly. There's a weird account on p. 315 of Elvis and his girlfriend sort of dry-humping and tickling each other and almost doing it but then not doing it: "'we almost did it, didn't we baby?' And I said, 'We almost did.' He said, 'That was close, wasn't it?'" <br /><br />Later, in Hollywood, "more experienced girls" were surprised to find that "what he liked to do was to lie in bed and watch television and eat and talk all night - the companionship seemed as important for him as the sex - and then in the early-morning hours they would make love." <br /><br />This book had a good amount about what food everybody ate. Elvis liked eggs cooked rock hard and burnt bacon. At age 23 he's conducting an interview "while lunching alone in his dressing room on a bowl of gravy, a bowl of mashed potatoes, nine slices of well-done bacon, two pints of milk, a large glass of tomato juice, lettuce salad, six slices of bread, and four pats of butter."<br /><br />In Hollywood he seems to have fallen in with some real lame characters and professional best friends. He stayed at the Knickerbocker Hotel until that got too nuts and he stayed at the Beverly Wilshire. His movies were shot on the Paramount lot. Sometimes he would call his mother and talk to her all day.<br /><br />This book ends with Elvis getting drafted into the Army. He agreed with his weird hypnotizing carnival-guy manager Colonel Tom Parker that he should turn down all special offers and just be a regular soldier. He joined the Army and then his mother died. He was totally shattered. <br /><br />After his mother died, he invited his dentist over and showed him around the recently purchased Graceland. "He said, 'the newspapers have made my house so laughable' - that was the word. He said, 'They have made it sound so laughable, I would love to have your opinion of my home.' He took us all through the house, my taste is not so marvelous, but it was very attractive, it all fit - there was a modern sculpture on the chimney over the fireplace, and I had the same sculpture in my office, it was called 'Rhythm.' Anyway, when we got back to the living room, he said, 'What do you think? and Sterling said, 'If you give me the key, I'll swap you." <br /><br />I don't think I'll read volume two anytime soon because I don't want to read about the sadder things that will befall my new friend Elvis.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-31097627956103415482011-10-30T18:44:00.000-07:002011-10-30T22:58:29.568-07:00The Fatal Shore: The epic of Australia's founding, by Robert HughesThis was a book I kept seeing on certain kinds of bookshelves: there was one on the Commerce Street apartment of Rosen's grandmother, for instance. I bet Helen Stevens' dad had a copy. Finally a trip to Australia coincided with coming across a chance mention of it in SDB's <a href="http://pillowbook.tumblr.com/">writings</a> so I read it.<br /><br />My favorite kind of book: books where the thesis is "history is absurd," some amazing fact on every page, and the author writes like he's had one or two before sitting down at his typewriter. You've heard that Australia was settled by convicts, but the details of England deciding to transport boatloads of people, basically treated like human garbage, onto a distant place nobody knew the slightest thing about keeps getting more incredible. <br /><br />England was filling up with criminals - people who'd, say, stolen some cheese or a shirt. It seemed too much to hang these folks, so they kept them on leaky hulks in the river. There was a vague plan to send them to America, but then the Revolution happened. The ships kept filling up. There was an idea to dump them in West Africa and let them fight it out with the locals, but that was scraped, finally, in favor of sending them to Australia, which had been visited like three times.<br /><br />To the busy FunFriend I can't recommend a 605 page book about Australia, so share in my joy vicariously through these highlights. <br /><br />- "At the lower end [of poor London circa 1788] were occupations now not only lost but barely recorded: that of the "Pure-finders," for instance, old women who collected dog-turds which they sold to tanneries for a few pence a bucket.<br /><br />- one guy who got transported was "an impecunious young actor" named Mansfield Silverthorpe who stole a trunk.<br /><br />- of the first night the convicts were allowed on land in Australia: "as the couples rutted between the rocks, guts burning form the harsh Brazilian aguardiente, their clothes slimy with red clay, the sexual history of colonial Australia may fairly be said to have begun."<br /><br />- sometimes people would have a heavy iron put on their leg. "Months later, when the weight was removed for the voyage, the prisoner's right leg would jerk up uncontrollably as he walked." <br /><br />- "Davey marked his arrival in Hobart Town in February of 1813 by lurching to the ship's gangway, casting an owlish look at his new domain and emptying a bottle of port over his wife's hat."<br /><br />- runaway convicts were called "China travelers," because they thought they could maybe run all the way to China. Instead they'd starve in the bush or be bitten by snakes or killed by aborigines. <br /><br />Anyway, if you like floggings and sadism, there's lots of that in this book, on average a flogging per page.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-76524067406266159002011-10-21T16:59:00.000-07:002011-10-21T17:00:42.329-07:00I, Claudius (1934), by Robert Graves1. Know going in that the book is about Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula, and not really about Claudius as Emperor.<br />
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2. If you want to know more about Roman history, this is a great book. He personalizes all these figures into the "horny Stalin" types they really were. I feel like I know how the whole Imperial Rome thing worked now, and why Caligula was a bad guy (or at least, the few remaining historical sources make him out to be such a bad guy.)<br />
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3. As a "novel," it's a bit of a slog as you get very few scenes where Claudius talks to people. He's mostly talking about other people's lives and historical events.Marxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09065918073025392209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-7812981041859455552011-10-18T08:28:00.000-07:002011-10-18T08:56:39.723-07:00Blue Blood, by Edward ConlonBlue Blood is the cop memoir ("copoir") by Edward Conlon '87, who went to Regis, wrote for the Lampoon, and became a beat cop in the South Bronx. The book is an extremely detailed account of the years before Conlon became a detective. If some sections feel repetitive and mundane, I think that's intentional; Conlon seems to want to show just how repetitive and mundane police work can be. Even so, I was never even remotely bored; I actually found the book hard to put down.<br /><br />As an added bonus, it's fun to imagine literally anybody else from the Lampoon in literally any one of the scenarios he describes. (Klein interrogating a crack dealer; Vali asking, very seriously, if there are any guns in the apartment; Dubbin using the word "skell," etc.)<br /><br />Have any FFs had the chance to meet Conlon?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-22182540935210341462011-10-18T07:52:00.000-07:002011-10-18T07:53:42.604-07:00Wanted (2010)I <span style="font-style: italic;">wanted</span> to hate this movie, but instead I found it <span style="font-style: italic;">mildly entertaining.</span>Zacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-25188560187457934092011-10-16T14:33:00.000-07:002011-10-16T14:33:02.219-07:00Appointment in Samarra (1934)In the last 3.5 years, I've read 53 novels chronologically from 1900 to 1934. John O'Hara's <i>Appointment in Samarra</i> likely marks the point where American novels get cynical, dark, and creepy — like the 1930s' equivalent of Bret Easton Ellis. The main character is completely loathsome, and there's no real moral center of the book.<div>
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That being said, it's a brutally honest portrait of small-town Pennsylvania of that time, and pretty easy to read. Not sure that there is truly any literary value but perhaps historical. John O'Hara's star has fallen from the literary pantheon, but it's interesting to know that this guy was huge at some point. </div>
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<br />Also if you want to write about anti-semitism in pre-WWII American novels, the characters spend their days bashing Jews the entire time.</div>Marxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09065918073025392209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-17967183511497992272011-10-02T20:21:00.001-07:002011-10-02T20:23:09.921-07:00The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan DidionI thought this book sucked! Did anybody else read it? I loved <span style="font-style:italic;">The White Album</span>, and there was stuff in <span style="font-style:italic;">Slouching Towards Bethlehem</span> that blew my head open. HATED <span style="font-style:italic;">Where I Was From</span>. <br /><br />Is this a safe space to discuss the wild unevenness of Joan Didion? Most of TYOMT seems to be about which hotels Joan Didion stayed at.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-2699027449350586662011-09-20T11:49:00.000-07:002011-09-20T17:06:14.593-07:00The Art of Fielding, by Chad HarbachThe first 60 pages of The Art of Fielding are very baseball-y, and I thought it might turn out to be one of my all-time favorite books. Then it got way more college-y, and I didn't enjoy it as much. (Your opinion may differ if you don't have a deep nostalgic affection for taking grounders.)<div><br /></div><div>The main character, Henry Skrimshander, is a college shortstop who's never made an error. It doesn't take Guert Affenlight to recognize that metaphor! (Guert Affenlight is another character.) I think fielding lends itself especially well to prose because so much of it is mental. Excerpts from "The Art of Fielding," a fictional book-within-the-book by fictional shortstop and philosopher Aparicio Rodriguez, were some of my favorite parts.</div><div><br /></div><div>I guess my complaint with the college-y section is that it feels so constrained. The five main characters mostly interact with each other, and some of their relationships are more interesting than others. (As campus novels go, I prefer the underrated and much more expansive I Am Charlotte Simmons.) Still, Henry's quest for perfection remains compelling throughout the book.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>Apparently a lot of references were lost on me because I've never read Moby Dick. I blame Herman Melville for writing Billy Budd and my high school English teacher for making me read Billy Budd and Billy Budd for stinking.</div></div>doogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10254346573992229840noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-17868060188584738862011-09-18T18:38:00.000-07:002011-09-18T18:40:17.831-07:00Drillbit Taylor, 2008Not that terrible! Not very good, and almost no jokes, but Owen Wilson charms me. I watched this while I prepared and ate dinner by myself. I think that is probably the way someone should watch it. Don't make a night of it.Zacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-54935126568775533742011-09-18T18:35:00.000-07:002011-09-18T18:38:13.336-07:00Limitless, 2011A solid entertainment! Didn't love the ending, and it glossed over some potentially interesting plot points, but that seemed like it was for the sake of keeping the story tight and the audience happy. I wouldn't mind seeing this as a TV series actually.Zacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-58859787959665401442011-09-14T17:42:00.000-07:002011-09-14T18:07:21.321-07:00Bel Canto, by Ann PatchettMy mom's taste in entertainment is weirdly great, the best example being her inexplicable love for Flight of the Conchords. She bought Bel Canto for me, and it did not disappoint. The plot is based on a 1996 hostage crisis in Peru, and Patchett manages to convey the monotony of a months-long standoff without ever being boring. The main characters are very likeable and include a Japanese business executive, his translator, and a famous opera singer. Mostly this book is about how the human capacity for violence is no more powerful than our capacity for appreciating art and beauty and shit.<div><br /></div><div>Fun facts about Ann Patchett from Wikipedia:</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">For nine years, Patchett worked at <i>Seventeen </i>magazine. She mostly wrote non-fiction, and the magazine would publish only one of every five articles she wrote. She said that the magazine was cruel and eventually she stopped taking criticism personally. She ended her relationship with the magazine after getting into a fight with an editor and exclaiming, "I’ll never darken your door again!"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"Don't read Ann Patchett's other books!" my mom warns.</div>doogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10254346573992229840noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-21376707499110481352011-09-13T10:11:00.000-07:002011-09-13T10:16:59.686-07:00The Trip, 2011There are a few charming/funny parts in this insanely long Steve Coogan movie, but the best part by far was watching Vali's face while he was watching—he looked so confused and angry the whole time.Zacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-16993566671032022642011-09-13T10:01:00.000-07:002011-09-13T10:11:50.610-07:00Midnight in Paris, 2011I saw Midnight in Paris a month or two ago. I thought it was O.K., but the acting for the most part was horrible (Owen Wilson, Marion Cotillard and the guy who plays Hemingway are the exceptions). Most of the jokes were that Owen Wilson would meet someone and he would say, who was that, and Hemingway or someone would say, "That was Salvador Dali" and Owen Wilson's eyes would bug out and he'd go "BWAH! I JUST MET SALVADOR DALI!" "THAT WAS DEGAS???" "F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, THIS CAN'T BE REAL!!!" Anyway, my parents loved this movie, but they are pretty big Francophiles. I think it would be fun to do a version of this movie in the present day to be released in 50 years— the progatonist meets someone and then goes "WHAT?! THAT WAS KYLE BERKMAN???" and then you just hope that in the future Berkman is a huge superstar.Zacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-46706303096280451812011-09-12T20:08:00.000-07:002011-09-12T20:14:20.749-07:00The Abstinence Teacher, by Tom PerrottaA sex-ed teacher in a New England suburb is made to teach an abstinence only class due to the influx of born-again evangelicals in the town. Meanwhile, a born-again soccer coach struggles with his faith and family. I enjoy Perrotta's writing and the book is a quick read. I was sort of hoping for more of a skewering of the abstinence class, but that would have been pretty easy and it's probably a good thing the book doesn't focus on that very much. One thing I had trouble with is imagining ten-year-olds being good at soccer. I referee'd a ten-year-olds' soccer game once and the kids didn't even know where they were. No one was running in the same direction. There might as well not have been a ball.Zacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-25261288497168843242011-09-12T20:00:00.000-07:002011-09-12T20:08:32.441-07:00Chronic City, by Jonathan LethemAbout some oddball characters in a slightly altered version of New York City. There are some interesting parts in this book, but seems a little cutesy if you live in and are familiar with New York. I don't quite know what to make of it, to be honest. I wouldn't recommend it if you are on a beach somewhere, but I wouldn't discourage you from reading it if you are holed up in an air conditioned apartment and feeling sort of out of place in the world. The middle third of the book is pretty aggravating.<br /><br />However, I would strongly recommend Lethem's graphic novel update of "Omega the Unknown." So there you have it.Zacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-67934398326709487332011-09-12T19:56:00.000-07:002011-09-12T20:00:55.666-07:00Into Thin Air, by Jon KrakauerThe story of the catastrophic 1996 ascent of Mt. Everest. I love Krakauer. This story is compelling and tragic. I'd read <span style="font-style: italic;">Into The Wild</span>, and after reading this I bought <span style="font-style: italic;">Under the Banner of Heaven</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Where Men Win Glory</span>. What I'm trying to say is that I'm making quite a bit of throwing-around money.Zacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-86648279489801734062011-09-12T19:51:00.000-07:002011-09-12T19:56:45.863-07:00Citizens of London, by Lynne OlsonVery interesting book about the Americans who were pushing for the United States to enter WWII while Britain was struggling to survive as the last European holdout against the Nazis. It focuses on Averell Harriman (not a particularly positive portrait of him), Edward R. Murrow, and Gil Winant, who is the most fascinating character in the book. Churchill and Roosevelt, meanwhile, come off as big egotistical babies. Crazily, all three of these American protagonists become so closely involved with the British wartime government that all of them had affairs with members of Churchill's family.Zacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-29721589479223019532011-09-12T19:50:00.000-07:002011-09-12T19:51:07.264-07:00Everything Must Go, and Blue ValentineThese movies are depressing as SHIT.Zacharyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16926858269587133305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618411611369450988.post-58448659058421294812011-09-10T20:20:00.001-07:002011-09-10T20:44:41.020-07:00ContagionThis movie was pretty much what I expected: a "good" but not very emotionally compelling depiction of what a pandemic might look like if a bunch of movie stars were involved. I was a little ahead of the game, from having played the board game Pandemic -- and I got a little distracted trying to figure out whether Laurence Fishburne was supposed to be the Operations Manager or the Dispatcher, or why they didn't just set up a research station in Macau from "Day 1". I guess these are the burdens of being an expert!juterughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12892864288507628925noreply@blogger.com0