Some books I've read.

So it's been awhile, again. I think I started my last blog the same way, anywho, sometimes I post on here about books I've read, sometimes I put a note on facebook and sometimes just a status update will do the trick. It's been three books back since I've posted about any of them so I thought a blog would be a nice fit. The last book I remember posting about was Faithless:Tales of Transgression by Joyce Carol Oates (to recap, it's a short story collection, I liked most of them). So after the somewhat long, short story collection I turned to something light and predictable but also enjoyable, The DayBreakers by Louis L'amour. If it were an old movie western it'd be the white hats versus the black hats, with just enough ambiguity thrown in (except for the hero who never waivers,of course)to give the story a minuscule amount of depth. But you don't read paperback westerns for depth you read them for the never give up, tough as nails, gun-slinging, gentlemen heroes and lines like these: "The first thing I was learning was there are times when a man had to kill and times when he had no need to. Reed Carney wanted a shoot out and he wanted to win, but me, I'm more than average contrary.", "There would be trouble enough, but man is born to trouble, and it is best to meet it when it comes and not lose sleep until it does." More than average contrary, I love that line.
After Louis I dove in to Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the first in his Millennium series, it was a big hit in Sweden and then a big hit here, they've already made Sweedish movies out of the trilogy and now there making them in Hollywood. So I thought I'd give it a try. It starts out a little slow as it sets up the characters and then it becomes a whirlwind page turner for most of the book. Reading it I was loving it and then it hit some sour notes, the Swedish title literally translate to Men Who Hate Women and that title is very much to the point. There's some real sadistic characters in this novel and I don't care to read about such goings on, had I know what I was in for I don't know that I would have started reading it in the first place. So by the time I finished the book I wasn't planning to read the sequels. Now, I'm not so sure because the main character Lizbeth Salander, despite being a little too over the top, is a really good character. Larsson said the idea for the character was a sort of Pipi Longstocking grown up, and I might add a little, no lot, twisted.
Then finally, this blog has gotten long winded I'm afraid, Transparent Things by Vladimir Nabokov. Again one I liked at the outset better than at the end, although let me hastily add that I still did like it at the end. It's the story of a person, Hugh Person to be exact, and his four trips to Switzerland (I just now realized I read back to back books set mostly in Switzerland) and it's about the transparent nature of life, things, and memories. Near the beginning there's a fantastic chapter about a pencil that falls out a desk drawer that Mr. Person tries to close. It runs down the history of the pencil from great tree to manufacturing to much sharpened and very little thought of pencil. Near the end Nabokov says, "Human life can be compared to a person dancing in a variety of forms around his own self...,going faster and faster and gradually forming a transparent ring of banded colors around a dead person or planet." This novella was... interesting and entertaining but also a little bit of a downer so next up is Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends, which should be an lol read.

Shakespeare and Spark Notes

I just finished reading The Merchant of Venice yesterday and besides the seeming anti-Semitism it's a good show. While reading Shakespeare's history plays I got in the habit of reading a synopsis of the play after finishing it to see if I had it all straight in my head, a few plays back I discovered Spark Notes (SN) and I wish I had found it when I first started reading my way through Shakespeare, it's really a great resource. The SN page address the antisemitism in this play and shows that in the context of the plays of Shakespeare's time he actually presents a human side to what would be considered a stock character (the evil Jew). It's this Jew (Shylock) that utters the now famous line, "If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die?" So while Shylock is the heavy in this show and is stereotypical he also elicits some sympathy. Another point that SN highlights that I completely missed is the possibility that Antonio (the title merchant) has a repressed homosexual attachment to the lead male, Bassanio. The female lead, Portia, is a great character and according to SN one of Shakespeare's first strong female roles. It's neat to note that the three main women of the show go in drag at one point or another, a regular Shakespearean device, which would have been very funny in his time since, of course, all the female roles were played by men. So you had men playing women dressed as men. In the end all is well and everyone is happy and in love, except for poor Shylock and Antonio.

Book, book, play: kind of like duck, duck, goose but without the running.

It's been awhile since (I saw your face) I've blogged and almost as long since I've read others blogs. So I've just read about ten blogs and now I'm posting one of my own. In the past couple weeks I've finished reading two books and a play - Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching, Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar, and Shakespeare's Love's Labor Lost. The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu or as the translator of the copy I read believed the title is actually Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching and it is a collection of old Chinese proverbs (that one about the man with a hole in his pocket wasn't in there) that fall into the Taoist tradition. I read this after reading, and really liking, the Tao of Pooh and while there are some really great pearls of wisdom within it's pages there's also a lot of double talk, the kind you might find in self-help books written by would be sage's. In the introduction the translator says to understand the Tao Te Ching you have to know something of the time when it was written and goes on to explain that it was a time of political upheavals in China and that to find yourself on the wrong 'side' could mean literally losing your head, this is why the Tao Te Ching says to be like water always taking the lower but wearing away the harder and higher. Taoism has three gems (tenants) that are expressed in the Tao Te Ching - compassion, moderation and humility. Sounds like some pretty good gems to me.
   Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein is an overview introduction to some of the great names of philosophy and there main thoughts. According the the authors jokes and philosophy have much in common they both have a set-up and a pay off and they both try to shock us into seeing the world a little differently. The two writers use jokes to illustrate and explain some of the main thoughts and branches of philosophy. It was a really enjoyable book I wish I could remember have of what I read in it, my only complaint is that it wasn't longer. I would loved for them to have spent a little more time on each person and thought. I thought I'd share a couple of the jokes that I can remember- A man wants to get married but can't decide which of three women he's been seeing to propose to so he gives each woman a thousand dollars to see what she'll do with it. The first women goes and gets a new do, makeup, manni-petti, and new clothes and tells him it's all so she can look good for him. The second women goes out and buys lots of presents for the man and says making him happy is what makes her happy. The third women invests the money and makes big on it and tells him she's investing for their future. So which one did he marry? The one with the biggest tits of course. (I can't remember what point that was illustrating but I thought it was funny.)
      (This one isn't politically correct, sorry) Two Jewish men are walking down the street when they see a sign in front of a Catholic church that say's they'll give a thousand dollars to anyone who'll convert. One of the guys decides to go in and see what it's all about. The other guy waits on the sidewalk for a very long time, finally the guy that went in comes out. The guys on the sidewalk says, "Well? What happened?", the other guys says, "I converted." so the guys on the sidewalk says, "Did you get the money?" and the other guy says, "Is that all you people think about?" (This one was illustrating an Reductio ad absurdum.)
    One more and I promise I'm done with this book - An 85 year old man goes to his doctor and tells him his younger wife is pregnant and he's not sure how it could happen at his age. The doctor says let me tell you a little story, a man decides to go bear hunting but on the way out of the house he grabs an umbrella instead of his gun, he finds a bear, raises the umbrella and shoots, and the bear is shot and killed. What would say to that? The old man says, "I say someone else must have shot the bear." "My point exactly." says the doctor.

   And now the play Love's Labors Lost by ole Bill Shakespeare, the first of the comedies I actually enjoyed. The humor is mostly made of wit and biting sarcasm, Shakespeare would have been great at a Friar's Roast. The play center's on three men and their king vowing to study for three years forsaking all other things, including love. So of course they are visited by a princess and her ladies in waiting and all fall madly in love. At first I thought the women were being royal (pardon me here) bitches but then you learn they thought the men wooed them in jest and both parties verbally dismantle the folks who try to put on a show for them. Eventually all is resolved and the women promise to wait for the men if they make there vows true (but only for a year, not three.)

It's Kind of a Funny Story - movie review.

 I don't often do movie reviews but most movies don't touch me the way this one did, so I thought I'd share. It's Kind of a Funny Story is a coming of age story about a young man, Craig, under pressure (there's a cool scene in which that song is sung) who is contemplating committing suicide and ends up checking himself into, somewhat accidentally, a mental ward. In broad strokes you know where this film is going, have probably seen others like it but it's in the finer strokes that this film really shines. So yes Craig makes friends in the Ward, one of which is a romantic interest, Noelle, and one is a fellow inmate mentor/guru, played wonderfully by Zack Galifianakis and there's the cast of unusual characters who become part of Craig's life as he faces triumphs and setbacks and eventually break throughs. The finer strokes lends this movie credibility and makes the viewer feel connected to the characters and their trials. I think all of us, at least I know I do, sometimes feel we can't handle the pressures of life, that we are overwhelmed and under prepared for the many and diverse challenges that simple being born brings. There have been times when I wished I could lock myself away from life, either in a mental ward, or a hermitage. I'd hate to admit the number of times I've fantasized of dropping off the grid and buying a small one room cabin and subsistence farm or when I'm not so ambitious in my escapism daydreams I ponder a life of agoraphobia. I don't believe I'm alone in sometimes feeling the squeeze and Craig comes to find this out as well, yes there are problems in every life we just all have to try and find our way to deal with them. Another thing I enjoyed about this film is that it uses some neat visual effects to externalize Craig's internal feelings. Some films need to be 'real' but it's great that a film like this will use different visual styles, film is a visual media, you can do things in a film you could never do in a play or in a book, so I like it when a film shows you something unexpected visually. Just so long as it fits the story and doesn't get overplayed that is and this film did it right. In fact it did most every thing right, striking a good balance of comedy and drama, realism and pie-in-the-sky optimism. It was never over the top, even Galifianakis, and it left you feeling good, feeling that while there will always be pressure there will also always be ways to cope.

We Were the Mulvaneys; a book review.

"We were the Mulvaneys, remember us?... For a long time you envied us, then you pitied us." These lines from the opening of Joyce Carol Oates magnificent story of family, family lost and family found, sum up the novel wonderfully. I feel like this novel deserves more than the meager review I can give, it needs a paper or thesis, there's so many subtexts and issues dealt with and it packs such an emotional wallop, bordering on  maudlin at times but thankfully never crossing over into Sparks territory. Corinne the matriarch of the Mulvaney clan is an antique lover, supposed dealer but she can seldom part with her finds, she especially loves clocks. Every room of High Point Farm, where the Mulvaneys lived was filled with clocks, no two keeping the same time much like the members of the family themselves, each marching along to his/her on tick-tick-tick. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it but the fact that the only clock that was know to have the 'right' time was the one Michael Sr.'s, the father of the tribe, friends had giving him. Michel Sr.'s self-made life depended so much on how he felt society saw him and that turned out to be one of his biggest faults and one of the biggest drivers of the conflict in this story. I don't want to give too much away because I really hope others will read this book so let me gingerly out line it for you. This great, picturesque all-American family (Michael Sr., Corinne, Micheal Jr., Patrick, Marianne, Judd and a host of dogs, cats and horses) live on a great, picturesque all-American farm (High Point Farm) in upstate New York. The family seems blessed and lucky hence the narrator (Judd, the youngest Mulvaney) saying you may have envied us, until something terrible happens to one of the family members and the family begins to fall apart (and then you pitied us). One of the underlying messages of the book is that our lives are not entirely our own, our decisions, our actions affect everyone that loves us. In fact you could say that the burden of love is caring about what happens to others. When something terrible happens to a member of this close-knit family it has a jarring effect on all members of the family. The terrible thing that happens though isn't even really the time and life redefining moment, merely the event that starts it, the real tragedy is a decision to try and save the family that just rips it apart. You just feel like screaming at the characters- "No! No! No! Don't do it, how can you?" I think one of Oates' greatest achievements in this book is making you care so much for the characters, early on you fall in love with Corinne and the farm (the farm is as much a character in the book as the people) and when things start falling apart Oates pulls away from Corinne and the farm, their always in the back ground but others now take center stage. That pulling back has an emotional impact on the story, you love Corinne yet your mad at her and that relegating her to the back ground for awhile emphasizes and compounds those feeling. Like I said this book is masterfully written. Each of the characters lives take different twists and turns as none are willing or able to really cope with what happened, not for a while any way. A lesson you can take away from this book is that life changing events, even terrible, horrendous, unfair events, events that leave families filled with impotent rage can lead to good things. It reminds me of the bible verse- All things work together for good for those that love the lord- but in a less celestial way - all things work together for good for those that will continue to live.

Feeling fine

  Driving down the highway with the sun bathing me through the sun roof, listening to one of my all time favorite albums, Chris Issac's San Fransisco Days. Steering wheel fitting snugly into my hand as if they were molded one for the other, cruising down the fast lane of life while Issac plays his west coast rockabilly/jazz and hits those falsettos. Zened out, living completely in the moment, I was most definitely feeling fine.

Broccoli Dreams

I had a very strange dream this morning, I must have been nearly conscious because I remembered it very vividly upon waking. It started with me having walked away from work, angry or frustrated by something and wandering through some sort of concourse, a type of amalgamation of a Turkish bazaar, a large mall and Times Square. I ended up in an almost empty theater sitting near the top snacking on something, I don't remember what, as the theater slowly began to fill. There were a group of service men in naval uniforms but by and large the auditorium was filling up with heavy set middle aged or older women. I found myself sitting amongst a sea of estrogen. As we waited for the show, I didn't know what or who was performing/being performed, we could hear loud music coming from outside the theater, it was something by the Beastie Boys. Some of the women started to complain and I began to defend the Beastie's saying how much their music had meant to me when low and behold the show begins. It's Margaret Cho doing stand-up only Margaret looked like Christina Applegate in a svelte, sparkly blue dress and she was doing a big song and dance production all about... broccoli. Yeah, I know. So some time after the performance she's (Margaret/Christina) talking to the audience about getting our 5 servings of fruit/vegetables a day and I told her I ate lots of veggies, especially broccoli as it's a superfood. She asked what I'd had that day and I was doing good until I remembered I'd had bacon and eggs for lunch and so had the kids and then the crowd turned kinda holier than thou feminist/left wing/vegetarians on me. Somewhere around here I lost the thread of the dream and awoke and remembered the dream and then just shook my head.
        As an afterward while at the grocery store today they had broccoli spears (is it spears, or bunches, or heads, or branches, or a murder? no that's crows) two for three dollars so don't think I didn't drop two bunches of branches in my buggie. After all, broccoli is a super food.