TPC-CultureVultures: July 2008

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Pop that Popcorn!! .... W. and The Half Blood Prince

Two new trailers to watch ...

From Oliver Stone, the movie W. is coming soon:

And then, we have The Half Blood Prince ...

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Photograph for today

opening

(c) 2008 K. Smokey Cormier

I took this photo at the Berkeley Rose Garden in Berkeley, California. It's a treasure. If you visit Berkeley, you should try to visit it. Hundreds of roses. Plus, I love to read their names. Sorry, don't know the name of this one.

I then modified it in PhotoShop using the Colored Pencil filter.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Kay Ryan: Poet Laureate for a weary country

Congratulations to Kay Ryan for being named Poet Laureate for the U.S. You can read about it in the New York Times online.

THINGS SHOULDN'T BE SO HARD

A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space—
however small —
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn't
be so hard.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Black Cinima Depicted in U.S. Postage Stamps

Randolph E. Schmid of Associated Press reports that there is a set of five new postage stamps going on sale today. The stamps honor vintage black cinema. (Now I'm going to click on over to Netflix and see if they have them in.)

Note: The image they sent shows only 4 of the set of 5.

Schmid reports: "Ceremonies marking the sale of the stamps will be held at the Newark Museum in New Jersey, which is holding a black film festival."

Posters in the set of 42-cent stamps are:

-- The time is 1935, and Josephine Baker, the St. Louis native who transfixed France and much of Europe with song and dance, stares out from a poster advertising the film "Princess Tam-Tam." Baker starred as a simple African woman presented to Paris society as royalty.

-- Another poster, for a 1921 release, provides a taste of the racial divide that sent the young Baker to Europe to pursue her career. "The Sport of the Gods," the poster proclaims, is based on a book by Paul Laurence Dunbar, "America's greatest race poet," and it adds that the film has "an all-star cast of colored artists."

-- "Black and Tan," a 19-minute film released in 1929 featuring Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra.

-- "Caldonia," another short at 18 minutes, which was released in 1945. It showcased singer, saxophonist and bandleader Louis Jordan.

-- "Hallelujah," a 1929 movie released by MGM. It was one of the first films from a major studio to feature an all-black cast. Producer-director King Vidor was nominated for an Academy Award for his attempt to portray rural African American life, especially religious experience.

Schmid adds: "Josephine Baker also earned military honors as an undercover agent for the French Resistance in World War II. Later, she was active in civil rights work and appeared with Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington in 1963."

Ms. Manitoba's quick research shows that Netflix has only "Princess Tam-Tam" and "Hallelujah!".

Princess Tam-Tam -- great drag name.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Updated Book List

Oh, look, it's down to only 95. To be read before the last day of this year.

Anyone want to bet us a sushi dinner (at your expense, of course) that we'll make it?

Yii! What, I say, what possessed us?

A History of Malaysia - Barbara Watson Andaya & Leonard Andaya
A History of Modern Indonesia - M.C. Ricklefs
A History of Selangor - J. M. Gullick
A Point of Light - Zhou Mei
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
A Will For Freedom - Romen Bose
Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
Asian Labour In The Japanese Wartime Empire - Paul H. Kratoska, Ed.
Baba Nonnie Goes To War - Ron Mitchell
Between Two Oceans - Murkett, Miskic, Farrell, & Chiang
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
Chandranath - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Chinese Customs - Henri Dore
Clay Walls - Kim Ronyoung
Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavic
Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
From Pacific War to Merdeka - James Wong Wing On
Golden Gate - Vikram Seth
How I Adore You - Mark Pritchard
In Pursuit of Mountain Rats - Anthony Short
In The Grip of a Crisis - Rudy Mosbergen
Kempeitai, Japan's Dreaded Military Police - Raymond Lamont-Brown
Kempeitai:The Japanese Secret Service Then And Now - Richard Deacon
Kim - Rudyard Kipling
Krait:The Fishing Boat That Went To War - Lynette Ramsay Silver
Kranji - Romen Bose
Labour Unrest in Malaya - Tai Yuen
Lest We Forget - Alice M. Coleman & Joyce E. Williams
Life As The River Flows - Agnes Khoo
Living Hell - Goh Chor Boon
Malay Folk Beliefs - Mohd Taib Osman
Malaya and Singapore During the Japanese Occupation - Paul H. Kratoska, Ed.
Malaysia - R. Emerson
Modern Japan, A Historical Survey - Hane Mikiso
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Night Butterfly - Tan Guan Heng
No Cowardly Past - James Puthucheary
Operation Matador - Ong Chit Chung
Orlando - Virginia Woolf
Outwitting the Gestapo - Aubrac
Palli Samaj (The Homecoming) - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Power Politics - Arundhati Roy
Prehistory of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago - Peter Bellwood
Red Star Over Malaya - Cheah Boon Kheng
Rehearsal for War - Ban Kah Choon, Yap Hong Kuan
Revolt in Paradise - K'tut Tantri
Rhymes of Li Yu Tsai - Chao Shu Li
Rosie - Anne Lamott
Shanghai Refuge, A Memoir of the WWII Jewish Ghetto - Ernest G. Heppner
Singapore & The Many-Headed Monster - Joe Conceicao
Sisters in the Resistance - Margaret Collins Weitz
Soldiers Alive - Ishikawa Tatsuzo
Strangers Always A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai - Rena Krasno
Taming the Wind of Desire - Carol Laderman
The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
The Crippled Tree - Han Suyin
The Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan
The Double Tenth Trial - C. Sleeman, S.C. Sillein, Eds.
The End of the War - Romen Bose
The Gift - Lewis Hyde
The Malay Archipelago - Alfred Russell Wallace
The Malayan Union Controversy, 1942-1948 - Albert Lau
The Nanking Massacre - M.E.Sharpe
The Origins of The Second World War in Asia and the Pacific - Akira Iriye
The Pacific War - Ienaga Saburo
The Plague - Albert Camus
The Price of Peace - Foong Choon Hon, Ed.
The Rape of Nanking - Iris Chang
The Tin Drum - Gunther Grass
The War in Malaya - A.E. Percival
The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
Three Came Home - Agnes Newton Keith
To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Tokyo Rose - Masayo Duus
War & Memory in Malaysia & Singapore - P. Lim Pui Huen, Diana Wong, Eds.
Women in the Holocaust - Dalia Ofer, Lenore J. Weitzman, Eds.
Women, Outcastes, Peasants & Rebels - Kalpana Bardhan
Writers' Workshop in a Book - Cheuse and Alvarez
You'll Die in Singapore - Charles McCormac
A Choice of Evils - Meira Chand
Force 136:Story of A Resistance Fighter in WWII - Tan Chong Tee
King Rat - James Clavell
Murder on the Verandah - Eric Lawlor
No Dram of Mercy - Sybil Kathigasu
Rehearsal for War - Ban Kah Choon, Yap Hong Kuan
Singa, Lion of Malaya - Gurchan Singh
Singapore The Pregnable Fortress - Peter Elphick
Sinister Twilight - Noel Barber
Sold For Silver - Janet Lim
Syonan - My Story (The Japanese Occupation of Singapore) - Mamoru Shinozaki
The Fall of Shanghai - Noel Barber
The Jungle is Neutral - F. Spencer Chapman
The War Of The Running Dogs - Noel Barber
You'll Never Get Off The Island - Keith Wilson

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Book Review - June 2008

This month's review list was supposed to be Part Six of Twelve, but as we look back we notice we've only done parts One and Two. Whatever. This is now Part Three.

We'll start with the updated booklist from February, then dissect the ones we finally managed to read, and publish the new updated booklist separately.

The books in fuschia I have already read but need to re-read for a current book project.

Out of that enormous number here are the pitiful few we managed to read between the first of February and today:

A Cloistered War - Maisie Duncan

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? Excellent read for those interested in the Second World War as it played out in the Pacific. Told by a Eurasian boarder at the CHIJ convent in Singapore, it includes details about the author's life after the war as well.
Reread? For research purposes maybe.

A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? Highly. The subject matter, although deeply disturbing, is not my normal choice of reading fare. The book describes the death of a child (not the protagonist's) and the effect that it has on various people involved. I tend to avoid books about children because they, generally speaking, are just way outside my experience and I don't have any interest in the subject. Plus they tend to be cloying and sentimental, on the whole. And this book is very much about children and mothers and fathers and the like. Nevertheless, the author held my interest for every damned page. A good read, and, as I said before deeply disturbing.
Reread? Maybe.

A Tagore Reader - Amiya Chakravarty

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? This is a very accessible collection of Tagore's essays, short stories, speeches, plays, poems, and extracts from various of his longer works for readers who cannot avail themselves of the original. Although I would have preferred a less eclectic mix, I cannot fault the editor, who has done a noble job throughout. Excellent. I wish there were such a compilation in the original language (which, luckily, I can read).
Reread? Maybe, time permitting.

Abraham's Promise - Philip Jeyaretnam

Borrowed? Gift.
Recommended? Given that the author has all kinds of prestigious academic attachments to his name, I was expecting a much better caliber of book. It's hard to feel any sympathy for the protagonist, who comes off as a really unlikable doddering ancient self-obsessed prick, quite frankly. The writer also throws in various characters along the way but leaves them too ill-limned to allow any real understanding of them or their motivations, self-knowledge, influence upon the protagonist. Sadly, the gay theme has been added as an afterthought, rather like an attempt to dress up an overcooked fowl with a heavy sauce.
Reread? No. If I could take back the hours spent on reading it the first time, I'd be happy.

Buffalo Gals - Ursula K. LeGuin

Borrowed? Gift.
Recommended? I've always been very fond of LeGuin's writing. This little collection of short stories and poems does not disappoint, although I liked Catwings better.
Reread? Some day, some day.

Burglars can't be Choosers - Lawrence Block

Borrowed? Yes. Blame the S-person. Retro me, Satanas!

Recommended? Lawrence Block is a find for me, and quite the treat. This is one of his books in which the protagonist is a professional burglar who runs a bookstore on the side. Delightfully witty dialogue and an intriguing mystery with less blood and guts and more smarts. Read it if you're into mysteries, lesbians, smart women, bookstores, or burglars.
Reread? Not really unless I need some tips on clever dialogue.

Busman's Honeymoon - Dorothy Sayers

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? Highly. Dorothy Sayers is probably one of the best mystery writers that ever lived. The breadth and depth of her knowledge on various arcane subjects (campanology? Yes, campanology!), and Peter Wimsey is, in this particular novel, new-wedded Lord to his bride and Lady, Harriet Vane. Wonderfully unsoppily entertaining.
Reread? Well, yes. But not till some of the other inhabitants of this damned list have met their due.

Faster - James Gleick

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? Probably not. Although the writer makes an interesting case for his argument of an artificially hastened tempo to modern life, he's really not saying anything most of us don't already know and feel pretty resentful about. But do give it to your country cousins if they're particularly out of touch.
Reread?

Gaudy Night - Dorothy Sayers

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? Sayers explores a murder set among the scholars of a women's college and makes some astute observations on the psychological background of a poison-pen who attempts murder. The redoubtable Harriet Vane finds she must call on Lord Peter Wimsey's assistance in solving a mystery, and finds a whole new side of Lord Peter to explore, in addition to mystery and motives therefor.
Reread? Like I said, already, not till my list has shrunken somewhat.

Have His Carcase - Dorothy Sayers

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? Yes. Sayers is always worth reading. In this particular story, she employs an interesting twist which we all "could have thought of" if only we had.
Reread? Yada yada yada.

In the Midst of Death - Lawrence Block

Borrowed? Yes.
Recommended? Yes.
Reread? Probably Not.

Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy Sayers

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? Only to Sayers aficionados who don't care overly much for the lovely Harriet Vane. Sayers worked in advertising in her early years, although the stuff she talks about in this novel belongs to the early days of the industry. This is not one of her best, having become rather dated due to changing ideas about advertising, morality, and murder.
Reread? Probably not.

Old Filth - Jane Gardam

Borrowed? We're not naming the responsible party. Ever.
Recommended? Highly. Although there's plenty there to annoy anyone who found imperialism and the raj unpalatable, there's also a great deal of charm and insight into the life of Sir Edward Feathers, otherwise known as Old Filth (Failed in London, Try Hongkong).
Reread? Maybe.

Rouge of the North - Chang Ai Ling

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? Highly. I now understand why Ms. Chang commanded such a following once. In this beautiful novel, she brings to life a China now long gone, peopled with colourful characters and language and exposes the mystery of the human heart. Was the butterfly dreaming he was an Emperor, or vice versa? Beautifully written and well worth reading.
Reread? Only ten thousand books to go.

Strong Poison - Dorothy Sayers

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? This is the first of the Lord Peter Wimsey murder mysteries in which Miss Harriet Vane appears. It's not Sayers' best work, but is still highly readable and enjoyable, and liable to fill one with appreciation for Sayers' skill in creating a romance in a murder mystery without any trace of revoltingly cloying emotion. As always, the dialogue of the Dowager Duchess of Denver is believably witty and highly entertaining. And though many accuse Sayers of having fallen in love with her own character, Lord Peter Wimsey is just the sort of feller to inspire such feelings in most female hearts.
Reread? Probably, for the dialogue, if nothing else.

Tao Te Ching - Ursula K. LeGuin

Borrowed? Yes. A different, but nevertheless unnameable, maledictor.
Recommended? No. I really wish Western writers would not attempt to explain Eastern spiritualism. Haven't they ever heard the old saw, "That which can be explained is not the X," where X may be replaced with any spirituality of Eastern flavour that one chooses? Perhaps that's just my own prejudice, but I did not find this work particularly enlightening. Especially since Blofeld's definitive translation is probably closer to the original, though not without its detractors. In the event, I read it.
Reread? No.

The Age of Diminished Expectations - Paul Krugman

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? For students of the economic history of the 1990s; economists; historians; and the like. Krugman is an excellent writer and possesses a clarity that is very helpful to one without a PhD in Economics.
Reread? No.

The Burglar In The Library - Lawrence Block

Borrowed? Yes.
Recommended? Yes. It's good.
Reread? Not likely.

The Burglar In The Rye - Lawrence Block

Borrowed? I'm not telling.
Recommended? Yes. Block is witty, funny, and his mysteries are well-constructed, with more depth and character(s?) than one expects from this genre.
Reread? Ten thousand, we say.
The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling - Lawrence Block

Borrowed? She-Who-Must-Remain-Unnamed (But Obeyed).
Recommended? Oh, yes.
Reread? Not likely. Same odds as previous book
The Grand Guignol - Mel Gordon

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? This is an interesting little book on the history of horror theater. It's pretty niche reading, and not for the weak of stomach. That said, it's fascinating for theater buffs, horror movie fans, and, of course, the sick and twisted.
Reread? Not likely.
The Makioka Sisters - Junichiro Tanizaki

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? Highly. This is a stately, beautifully written novel of life in pre-War Japan and the fall of a once-powerful family. Tanizaki is an observant writer. The novel flows rather like an Ozu film, slow, graceful, full of symbolism. Sad, yet enjoyable.
Reread? Not likely.
The Marquis - A Tale of Syonan-To - E.J.H. Corner

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? For scientists, anti-war activists, historians, Japanophiles, and their ilk. Corner was a botanist living in Singapore and Malaya around the time WWII broke out. He was fortunate to encounter several Japanese scientists and the Last Lord of the Tokugawa line who saw their mission as the preservation of scientific records rather than the imposition of Japanese imperialistic ambitions. If science held sway in the world, what could we not hope for? No wonder the superstitious, ignorant, and stupid oppose it.
Reread? For research purposes only, I promise (Bah!).
The Nine Tailors - Dorothy Sayers

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? This is one of Sayers' best in that it displays her astonishing knowledge of such an arcane subject as campanology (bell-ringing). The prose is rich with description of the foggy, waterlogged lands in which she spent her early life. A great read, for the interested.
Reread? Well, yes, but not till after ten thousand more books have been des-, as it were, patched.
The Sins of the Fathers - Lawrence Block

Borrowed? From that unnameable person who is my fondestly adored reading and writing partner.
Recommended? Yes and yes again, although the subject is rather disturbing.
Reread? Not likely.
Vietnamese Traditional Water Puppetry - Nguyen Huy Hong

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? To those interested in the arts, culture, history, drama, Vietnam, puppetry, and the like. Rather technical but a thoroughly enjoyable book. It made me want to fly to Vietnam, gimpy leg and all, just to witness a performance.
Reread? Not likely.
Woman of the Inner Sea - Thomas Kenneally

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? Kenneally is an excellent writer, of that there is no doubt. This is an interesting, odd novel. For one thing, he obscures the tragedy that befell his protagonist to an incomprehensible extent. Perhaps that's for reasons of pace, but I found it a tad frustrating. Still, it's well worth reading, and richly evocative of Australian culture, history, politics, and the like, as well as the age-old themes of love and loss and pain, universal values.
Reread? Not likely.
Writing Fiction - A.B. Guthrie, Jr.

Borrowed? No.
Recommended? A good starting point for writers. Concise.
Reread? Regularly, I'm sure.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

This 'n That and ... FRIDA

Dear Readers,

I’m reading Nick Hornby’s Housekeeping vs. The Dirt and enjoying it very much. [Even the title tickles me and really could be the title of my autobiography -- or my epitaph, slightly modified: Housekeeping vs. The Dirt. The Dirt won.]

It’s a book of his essays. They’re supposed to be book reviews but they ramble all over the place (another thing I love about his writing). And, I think they ramble for at least two reasons I can think of:
-- He’s not an American. Several of my fellow immigrants and I have concluded that Americans are much more likely to tap their feet and say “Get to the point” when we're talking.
-- Book reviews are sometimes very hard to do. I’m finding that these days (without good editors at publishing houses) it’s hard to talk about a book for more than one or two sentences. Tangential subjects? Huh! Could spend a whole day flapping the trap. (Note how brief my comments about some books were in my sem-annual “Books Read in 2008” list were?) Of course, sometimes I catch myself not having much to say even about a good book.

As Hornby says:

The truest and wisest words ever written about reviewing were spoken by Sarah Vowell in her book Take the Cannoli. Asked by a magazine to review a Tom Waits album, she concludes that she “quite likes the ballads,” and writes that down; now all she needs is another eight-hundred-odd words restating this one blinding aperçu.

I read his previous collection, The Polysyllabic Spree and really enjoyed that -- it was listed in my “Books Read in 2007.” And have been reading his Songbook for a few years -- a riff on 31 of his favorite songs -- highly recommended.

I’m not “supposed to” be reading Housekeeping vs. The Dirt. It’s not on my reading list for 2008. I was thinking about this and thought “Shoot! I even rebel against myself! I even rebel against my own advice.” Someone has probably already said this ... and said it better ... but maybe all rebellion is against some part of ourselves ... especially those starchy bossy voices inside us.

Another excerpt:

I now see that just about everything I read was relatively new: Tom Perrotta’s absorbing and brave satire Little Children, Tony Hendra’s mostly lovable Father Joe .... Soldiers of Salamis is, I think, the first translated novel I’ve read since I began this column. Is that shameful? I suppose so, but once again, I don’t feel it. When you’re as ill-read as I am, routinely ignoring the literature of the entire non-English-speaking world seems like a minor infraction.

I truly can relate to that. Oh, yes, I read a lot ... but I’m only trying to catch up with my other truly well-read friends. Plus, I’m a slow reader. So, I don’t read that much. And I’ve read very little ... a thimbleful ... of the classics. And, like Hornby, don’t read much of works from non-English-speaking writers.

By the way, he mentions Little Children ... did you see the movie? It has stayed with me for months. Especially the portrayal of the pedophile. I am NEVER EVER EVER sympathetic to pedophiles ... there were too many around me as a child ... and I think they are even more sneaky and destructive than alcoholics ... but I actually felt something close to sympathy towards the character Ronnie. And then I felt mad at myself for feeling sympathy. So, the movie is complex. Plus, let me be clear, in no way is the movie championing the rights of pedophiles. But it does put a magnifying glass on those people who have violence within themselves and then go after pedophiles with a vengence.

----

I was in Walgreen’s getting some Clariton (which sometimes I think doesn’t do anything ... its only purpose is to provide a challenge to owners of meth labs ... am I being to obscure? I have to present my driver’s license whenever I buy it because apparently people use Clariton ... and buy it all up ... to make meth with.)

So, I’m there at the counter and glance up at the TV monitor whose associated camera--cinema vérité-- is filming my transaction with the pharmacist. Tartar sauce! I looked like such an old geezer in my old baseball cap. Plus, I badly need a haircut so the grey hair is somewhat sticking out around my ears. I looked like one of those lonely old fellows that you avoid in stores ‘cause they look like they’re going to talk your ears off.

----

I play peculiar little “Dare you” games with myself. I’m running out of toilet paper -- the 150 rolls I bought several months ago at Costco are gone. And, I don’t want to brave the crowds at Costco on a holiday weekend. So, I won’t stop to buy some ... won’t stop ... won’t stop ... down to 10 squares ... I give in finally and stop. Why do I do this? Is this a ridiculous (and boring) variation on the Drama Queen syndrome ... trying to create a little artificial drama in my life?

HOORAY ... IT'S FRIDA KAHLO'S BIRTHDAY TODAY ... HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FRIDA ... I hope you are ... at last ... in peace.

From the Writer's Almanac ...

It's the birthday of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, born near Mexico City (1907). Her father was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant to Mexico, and he operated a photography studio. She admired him greatly and from an early age hung around at his studio and learned how to hand paint color onto black-and-white photographs. She contracted polio when she was six years old, which left her right leg deformed and then, when she was 18, she was in a streetcar accident in which she was impaled by a steel bar. The accident broke her spine in three places, her leg in 11 places, and both her feet and her collarbone and pelvis were crushed. She nearly died and spent months in a plaster cast. To help her pass the time, her mother built her a special bedside painting stand, and she began painting for the first time.

She suffered from health problems for the rest of her life. Doctors operated on her more than 30 times, trying to fix problems with her back and her legs. She had several miscarriages. She eventually had to have one leg amputated. She was forced to wear spine-supporting corsets, and she spent months at a time in bed. It was during these bed-ridden periods that she produced most of her paintings. She had few subjects to chose from, so most of the time she just set up a mirror and painted herself. She said, "I paint myself, because I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best."

She didn't have her own major solo exhibition until 1953, the same year she had her leg amputated. She was carried into the show on a stretcher and then laid down on a four-poster bed in the middle of the gallery, as though she were one of the art works. She died the following year. She was 47 years old.

Over the course of her lifetime, she only produced about 140 paintings. About a third of her paintings are self-portraits that depict physical or psychological pain. She's now considered one of the greatest Mexican artists, and one of the greatest female artists of the 20th century.

[We are so lucky here in the San Francisco Bay Area ... there's the most complete exhibit of Kahlo's works right now at SFMOMA!]

Okay, bye everybody. Back to reading. And a visit this afternoon with PolCat who has returned.

Books Read so far in 2008

A couple of years ago, PolCat suggested that I make up a list of books to read at the beginning of the year ... as a guide to my reading. To add a little discipline to my reading ... but, of course, I can read whatever I'd like. So, here's my semi-annual report from my booklist I posted in January.

I rarely tell what the book is about. I figure you can look it up on amazon.com. But sometimes I do because I want to say something about the story or plot.

Prep: A Novel - Curtis Sittenfeld
Didn’t finish
Not sure what to say. The writing was good. I think the main character just got on my nerves too much. Her insecurities really bugged me. Funny thing is that the way she dealt with her insecurities was the way I dealt with mine when I was an older teenager and in my early 20’s. Maybe it was too close to a negative quality that I had and despised in myself?

Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich
I loved it. It was a page turner. It was a nice balance of serious ... serious stuff about work lives of the full-time, barely-making-it workers ... mixed with Ehrenreich’s sense of humor. Oh, and it brought back memories of all those jobs (I’ve had a million of ‘em!) that paid shit and humiliated you at least 8 times a day. Highly recommended.

At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays - Anne Fadiman
I love Fadiman. I loved her Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader -- an excellent book about reading. At Large and At Small was very good too. But Ex Libris was the better book. Still: Recommended without hesitation.

Granny Torrelli Makes Soup - Sharon Creech
Creech is a good writer. This book was so-so. Pleasant. Not that interesting or well-written or funny, though. Do I recommend it? No. Don’t waste your time. Okay, if you’re 10 go ahead ... you probably have plenty of time to waste. But me, no.

Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Oh, my god. What do I say about this? It’s just a rich, excellently written story with lots of interesting action and characters. Bonus: Rushdie has a wicked wicked WICKED sense of humor. And, did I say that the writing is to die for? Envy the size of an elephant inhabited my body as I was reading this ... however, it didn’t take any pleasure away from the reading of it. Okay, I’m gonna get bossy now: Put it on your to-do list.

A Bird in the House - Margaret Laurence
Interesting inter-related stories. Set in Manitoba. However, this is a tricky one to recommend ... would someone NOT from Manitoba think it was as interesting? Dunno. I would guess not. Although Laurence did get a lot of acclaim by folks in the U.S. for her books. I wish the NY Times reviewers would say that to us when they review books: “Would someone NOT from Manitoba think it was interesting?” They never say that. They always assume that we will be as interested in a book as they are. [Okay, I’m guilty of that too. See my entry for Midnight’s Children.]

Esperanza Rising - Pam Munoz Ryan
Oh, this was good. Very good. Recommended. It was really successful in placing the reader right there in the midst of a labor camp.

Mortal Stakes - Robert B. Parker
Plot thin and, therefore, unmemorable. I’ll probably be able to read it again in six months and not remember what happened in the plot. He’s good at dialog though and that’s why I kept reading it.

Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood - Kate Simon
Part of my New York City research for my story ... that I haven’t written a word of this year, by the way. But, I’m still doing the “research” ... which means reading books about NYCity, Ireland, and Canada (especially about French Canadians) ... things I’d want to read anyway.

Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of ARTMAKING - David Bayles and Ted Orland
Another so-so one. PolCat was reading it so, of course, I wanted to read it to ... because I follow her around like a puppy dog. I heard her praise it and now I wonder if she really liked it all the way through? It’s a thin book and I did get something from it. It’s very encouraging to artists of various stripes and plaids and dots with the message in various ways: just do it. So, I did take away this message in my brain to keep working at it -- my photography, videography, writing.

The Carniverous Carnival - Lemony Snicket [audio cd]
Wonderful. So good. Highly Recommended. See next entry.

The Grim Grotto- Lemony Snicket [audio cd]
Wonderful. So good. Highly Recommended. See next one.

The Penultimate Peril - Lemony Snicket [audio cd]
I think the writer Lemony Snicket is very very good. He makes allusions to other stories or parts of stories in literature that fit so nicely in the story he is creating. So it adds this rich layer. I am a champion of children’s literature. An ex of mine is the person who really showed me how wonderful children’s literature can be. I often enjoy children’s books better than mainstream “adult” novels. On top of the author’s creativity, this audio cd series is read by Tim Curry. Tim Curry is so talented! He is such a good reader for this series. The voices he invents are interesting and often hilarious. PolCat, break through this prejudice you have! Listening to a book on tape/cd can be even richer than moving your eyeballs across a page. Come on, babe, shake up those 100 billion neurons and come over to the dark side.

Map of Ireleand: A Novel - Stephanie Grant
Complex story of a 16 year old Irish American working class girl in South Boston. Very well written. Complex story about race and class ... and being a lesbian. The characters were finely defined. Highly recommended.

Riding in Cars with Boys - Beverly D’Onofrio
This book -- like many books these days -- could have used a few more drafts. I expected more from Beverly D'Onofrio ... and I really wanted to like this book. I grew up near D'Onofrio around the same time. So, I enjoyed reading about that time and place. But Ms. D'Onofrio could have gone deeper. She wrote about all her wildness, drinking, drug abuse. But what got her out of all that? Just going to college? Just growing up? I wanted more. Plus, I didn't think the writing was very good. I think part of the problem with a lot of books these days is that publishing houses don't have the staff they used to. So, writers really do not get edited like they used to. Books are being released when really they could use two or three (or more) drafts.

Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man - Wendelin Van Draanen
It was fun but not more than that.

The Great Gilly Hopkins - Katherine Paterson
My youngest daughter recommended this book. And, we listened to it in the car to and fro. We loved it! The story is fascinating and the characters are wonderful. It’s the story of an 11 or 12 year-old girl who has become hardened and deceitful because of her experiences as a foster child. She's been moved around to different families a lot and she's understandably resentful and it's had consequences on her behavior. She’s white and has grown up racist ... but this changes ... not in a sudden epiphany (how rare those are!) ... slowly ... organically. I highly recommend this book. We listened to it on cd from the library. It’s a great story to listen to on a trip.

A Freewheelin’ Time - Suze Rotolo
This book is for the most part, but not entirely, about the time that Rotolo was lovers with Bob Dylan. She's an interesting person so I was also interested in the stories about her time in Italy, her life as an artist, her upbringing as a working class red diaper baby, her experiences in Greenwhich Village, the people she knew in the folksinging world there in the Village, her work in the civil rights movement. Then, of course, there's Dylan. Interesting stuff. However, her writing was often flat and the ending was disappointing. She skips chunks of time. I would have liked to know more about her evolution as an artist and the ways she may have struggled to keep being a creative person. I do recommend it to those of you who are interested in that period of time and Greenwhich Village.

Proof a play - David Auburn
A really interesting play. I wish I’d seen it in the theater; nonetheless, it was a pleasure to read. Not great super quote-filled writing, in my humble opinion. But a very interesting plot. And, with the right cast, it could have made good theater.

Lush Life - Richard Price
I thought it was very good at plunking you down in this particular group of settings. He’s good at characterization. Very good at dialog. It’s set in NYCity so I love that. I'm not recommending though ... for one thing, the ending is a bit of a let down. I’m not sure why I say that because in many ways the end was satisfying. In a novel, dénouement is tricky ... it’s a very tricky part of the book. Here’s another thing: I didn’t like any of the characters. That bothers me when I read. Is it a sign of true maturity when you can really like a book even though you don’t like any of the characters? Dunno. I think it’s a sign of maturity when you can recognize that a writer is really good at writing even though you dislike the characters. For example, I thought the plotting and writing in Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter was really good. Really good. But I intensely disliked everyone. And, ultimately, that means I wouldn’t recommend a book I felt that way about. Maybe I’m being unfair ... because what if that was Porter’s intention all along ... to portray these characters so that we wouldn’t like them? I guess I would recommend it with reservations.

Back to Lush Life: I’m not recommending it because the further away from reading the book I have been -- it's about a week and a half since I finished it, I’ve been thinking: yeah, so what was so great? There was something significant that the book was missing for me.

Summary: It looks like I liked more children’s books so far than books “for adults.” Favorite book so far: No question, Midnight’s Children.

Friday, July 4, 2008

A Visit to The Edible Schoolyard

Yes, today a friend and I went to The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley ... at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. We sat and talked and laughed a good two hours or so.

It's one of my favorite places to go.