TITLE: Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior (Freshly Updated)
AUTHOR: Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners
PUBLISHED: 1979 (most recently revised in 2005)
GENRE: Etiquette
We're going to do something a little different from this book, because there is too much awesomeness here for only one entry. (It's also 826 pages. That's a lot of info.) Some of you may be surprised I would be at all interested in Miss Manners, as I am prone to slouching, cursing, belching, and all sorts of other un-mannerly habits.* I am, however, a big fan of people treating each other fairly, and that, more than proper usage of fish forks, is what etiquette is about. After all, mocking someone for a social mistake is just as rude as a profanity in church. And while we may not all need to know the formal way of eating a banana (strip peel entirely away, cut into slices, and eat with a fork, in case you're wondering), Lord knows we can all do with a little more civility.
Another thing that may come as a surprise to people is that being mannerly and being snarky are not mutually exclusive, which is good, because snarkiness is one of my favorite of God's creations. Miss Manners takes snarking to a higher level. Behold:
Dear Miss Manners:
What am I supposed to say when I am introduced to a homosexual "couple"?
Gentle Reader:
"How do you do?"
HA. Also:
Miss Manners:
What is the correct way to eat saltwater taffy?
Gentle Reader:
With the mouth closed. Actually, that is the way to eat all food, but taffy is the only food capable of enforcing the rule.
Miss Manners also offers a shocking amount of highly practical information, such as how to exit the subway (those getting off exit first) and how to say no to solicitors, co-workers, and anyone else requesting something you are not willing to provide (say, "No, thank you" and don't explain why). She offers suggestions for those situations where you just know the only thing you can do is suck it up:
Dear Miss Manners:
What is the proper etiquette on a crowded bus? If a little old lady with a pointy umbrella hits me in the shins first, may I kick back?
Gentle Reader:
It is rare, nowadays, to have a deep-seated, well-motivated sensual urge that you are forbidden even to gratify. However, Miss Manners must tell you that kicking little old ladies in the shins is one of them. Scream "Ow!" and stare at her with a frightened expression.
It may not be as satisfying as kicking back, but a lot better than just taking it. She even helps those who do not speak English as a first language, or those who do but just not very well. Here, a sampling from her glossary of conventional phrases:
"Let's have lunch": Among social acquaintances, this means, "if you have nothing to do on a day I have nothing to do, unlikely as that is, let's get together."
"We must see more of each other": It means, "this was surprisingly enjoyable, but it's still going to happen infrequently."
Also:
"Good day", an extremely useful expression, is less often employed. With the proper tone, perhaps expanded to "I wish you a good day, sir," it means "Get out of my sight this instance" in the language of irreproachable manners.
So it is with all this in mind that we launch ourselves, primly and properly, into the world of Miss Manners. I do hope you enjoy yourselves, and a good day to you all!
*As anyone who has watched a Met game with me knows. Especially if they're playing the Phillies, when my good-hearted calls of "get of the field, you whiny bleeep" get replaced with something less friendly. And if Chipper Jones is involved... well, it's probably better you just leave the room.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
The Green River Killer: A True Detective Story
AUTHOR: Jeff Jensen (Illustrations by Jonathon Case)
PUBLISHED: 2011
GENRE: Graphic Novel
I am, in general, not a big fan of books about real people murdering other real people. This story, however, is not a classic narrative but a graphic novel. It was also written by Jeff Jensen, who, up until this book, I had only known as a writer for Entertainment Weekly. It was his job to try and decipher the craziness that was Lost, and he did so with zeal and an unwavering sense that it would all one day come to something coherent. That never happened, but he earned my admiration for trying. The point of telling you all this is that I had only known him for fairly light-hearted, pop culture writing, and was interested to see how he would handle far more sinister material.
The story of the Green River Killer is not very well-known, at least not outside of the Pacific Northwest. From 1982 to 1998, Gary Leon Ridgway killed dozens of women, dumping their bodies in wooded areas often near the Green River. Ridgway was finally arrested in 2001, and received 49 life sentences, for the 49 murders authorities could verify. He confessed, however, to over 70. Because of this difference, Ridgway was offered a plea deal by the King County authorities: his sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment from the death penalty in exchange for his telling detectives where they could find the bodies of these unfound victims. The plea deal remains highly controversial to this day, as Ridgway was either unable or unwilling to lead detectives to many of the women he claimed to have killed.
The Green River Killer, however, is not really the story of Gary Leon Ridgway. It’s the story of Thomas Jensen, who is assigned to the case very early on and is the only detective to stay with the case for the entirety of the 20 years it took to catch Ridgway. He is also Jeff Jensen’s father.
The story begins at the end: Thomas Jensen, since retired, is called back to service to interview Ridgway as part of the plea deal that will spare the killer’s life. From there, the story alternates between Jensen’s years of searching for the killer and the present, where Jensen and his fellow officers follow Ridgway as he leads them to what he claims are the graves of his victims. More often than not, they come up empty.
Jensen’s frustration, past and present, is palpable, especially as he is forced to treat Ridgway with kid gloves. The killer is reluctant to revisit his past deeds – whether this is remorse, embarrassment, or something else is left up to the reader to decide – and often appears confused or sad. Jensen must coach him, cajole him, to get the information he needs, and it takes an obvious toll on the detective. It’s all black and white, but that’s all the artist needs to convey the tiredness of an old detective, worn out by years of investigation and of visiting victims families with nothing new to tell them; the worry of a wife who knows better than to ask how his day was; the resignation of a mother who will never know what’s become of her daughter.
It’s an amazing look inside the case and, most importantly, inside the mind of the detective. Jensen is a good man but the book works because his son resists the urge to make him an unflinching hero. Jensen senior is unsure, flawed, almost obsessed. The Green River Killer is an insider view that could have only been written by someone who loved its hard-working detective. And so it is out of this horrible story that his son finds the perfect way to honor his father.
LENGTH: 240 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: No. Given its subject matter and its medium, most people will expect it to be full of exaggerated, comic book violence.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Yes, if for nothing else for the real emotion behind it all.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Pop Culture Sidebar: Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
The New York Times ran an article recently about the voice of the city subway - you know, the "please stand clear of the closing doors" guy. It answers a question I never knew I had, namely, how the hell do you get a job like that.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/your-fantasy-subway-announcements/
My favorite subway announcement story, however, has nothing to do with this guy, but with one of those poor conductors who spend their days just trying to get people to move along. My mother and I were on the 7 train on our way to Citifield last year with a conductor whose slow descent into madness went something like this:
Grand Central/42nd Street: "Please don't block the doors. Thank you."
Vernon Boulevard/Jackson Avenue: "Please step out of the doors. Please."
Queensboro Plaza: "Really, please. Don't block the doors."
Woodside/61st Street: "People, please. If you block the doors, it slows us all down."
82nd Street/Jackson Heights: "I'm begging you. Don't block the doors.
90th Street/Elmhurst Avenue: "Don't. Block. The. Doors."
103rd Street/Corona Plaza: "QUIT BLOCKING THE DOORS!!!"
That last one was delivered in a full-on scream over the speakers. You could practically hear his patience snapping. It was, quite possibly, the best part of the trip.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/your-fantasy-subway-announcements/
My favorite subway announcement story, however, has nothing to do with this guy, but with one of those poor conductors who spend their days just trying to get people to move along. My mother and I were on the 7 train on our way to Citifield last year with a conductor whose slow descent into madness went something like this:
Grand Central/42nd Street: "Please don't block the doors. Thank you."
Vernon Boulevard/Jackson Avenue: "Please step out of the doors. Please."
Queensboro Plaza: "Really, please. Don't block the doors."
Woodside/61st Street: "People, please. If you block the doors, it slows us all down."
82nd Street/Jackson Heights: "I'm begging you. Don't block the doors.
90th Street/Elmhurst Avenue: "Don't. Block. The. Doors."
103rd Street/Corona Plaza: "QUIT BLOCKING THE DOORS!!!"
That last one was delivered in a full-on scream over the speakers. You could practically hear his patience snapping. It was, quite possibly, the best part of the trip.
Pop Culture Sidebar: Check It Out!
As someone who often prefers the company of books to the company of people and needs help getting out of her own head, I have to recommend everyone visit the Nierenblog, home of Andrea Nierenberg - http://www.thenierenblog.com/. In addition to being an awesome human being, Andrea is the Queen of All Networking, and her blog is full of great tips and helpful hints on how to expand our horizons and our possibilities. She's on Twitter too, at @anierenberg. Check her out!
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Revenge
AUTHOR: Sharon Osborne (Yes, wife of Ozzy Sharon Osborne)
PUBLISHED: 2010
GENRE: Fiction. Dirty, dirty fiction.
This was a strange one.
PUBLISHED: 2010
GENRE: Fiction. Dirty, dirty fiction.
This was a strange one.
The story is fairly interesting: Half-sisters Chelsea and Amber have always been in competition with each other, whether they knew if or not. It's largely due to mother Margaret, who sees her older daughter as a constant reminder of a mistake-ridden youth and her younger one as the path to fulfilling Margaret’s own dreams of stardom. Chelsea, constantly berated by a distant mother, has success early but flames out in a sea of drugs and alcohol. Amber, who would never think of, well, thinking for herself, passively stands back as her mother builds for Amber the acting career Margaret never had. It’s not long before each begins to see the other as the one that did her wrong. What follows is boyfriend-stealing, role-stealing, daddy-stealing madness.
There are two big issues with this book. The first is language. There’s lots of dirty language in this book, and I don’t mean curse words. This book very often dissolves into literary pornography. The heroine and her lover don’t close the door coyly behind them to end the chapter. No, Osborne – if you’ll excuse the inexcusable pun – gets all up in that. Repeatedly. Messily. Out of nowhere. It’s not that I’m proposing censorship here. If she wants to write it, good on her. I can’t even argue that the library should classify it differently (unless the library opens a porn section, which I cannot see it doing). And yet there was something wrong about it. I finally realized what my real problem was: the cover. Pink and black and sparkly, it looks for all the world like a young adult novel. It was this feeling that the book was being marketed towards a younger audience that really gave me the creeps. I doubt Osborne really meant this for a teen audience, but it’s Joe Camal selling cigarettes all over again: you can’t tell me you didn’t mean it for teens when it looks just like a Gossip Girl book.
The other big issue in this story is the character of Margaret. The story is ostensibly about her girls, but the specter of Mommie Dearest lurks always in the background. Her daughters hate each other because of how Margaret raised them. But when Chelsea and Amber start to implode, she disappears into the guest house. She goes from micromanaging Amber’s every move to missing in action. Even worse, in the end (spoiler alert!) Margaret finds happiness with an old love and moves back to London, suddenly pleased to live the quiet, domestic life. It’s a complete about-face for a woman who has been obsessed with appearances for 350 pages, and supremely unsatisfying for the reader who has witnessed her bully her daughters into misery.
Amber has found love in the quiet life too, and mother and daughter, relationship renewed, chat happily over the phone. But Chelsea – unloved Chelsea, who from her moment of birth was despised by her own mother – has fallen down a dark hole. It’s life, maybe, but to reward Margaret while punishing the daughter she rejected makes for a real crap ending. Never once is Margaret held responsible for the way she has treated her daughter – either daughter, really. In that way, she gets the best revenge. Unfortunately, it’s on a daughter who never had a chance to defend herself.
LENGTH: 371 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: The Sharon Osborne train is coming to a stop and she’s trying to get the engine started again, lest she have to go home and hang out with Ozzy.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: No. It’s terribly unsatisfying. And I didn’t even mention the writing, which is bulky and awkward.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Pop Culture Sidebar: A History Major's Thoughts: Lies My Teacher Told Me
Mr. James W. Loewen
123 I-Know-More-Than-You-Do Lane
Condescendingville, CA
Mr. Loewen:
I am in the process of listening to an audio recording of your book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your History Textbook Got Wrong". While I agree with your main argument that history textbooks are, well, crap, I would offer the following notes for consideration:
1. Perhaps people do not hate history so much because of the material, but rather because of people like you and your giant stick of superiority. A little hint: people do not like being poked with what they don't know. You may have a lot of great information, but if you act like a douche, people aren't going to listen. In fact, they might just punch you in the face. So ease up on the condescension there, buddy.
2. Textbooks are propaganda. They tout American supremacy and avoid all talk of, oh, let's see, all those times we invaded Central American nations and replaced their governments with ones of our own. They turn every public figure that ever existed into a hero. But by swinging all the way to the opposite side, you just sound like one of those guys who's still arguing about a UFO crashing in Roswell in 1947. Take it from someone who used to argue that Andrew Jackson should have been brought up on a charge of genocide for his treatment of the Native Americans. People don't want to hear you wail on their favorites presidents.*
3. History textbooks make broad generalizations. You don't have to then counter-balance that by giving every. single. detail. of someone's life. It's enough to say Helen Keller was a militant socialist. We don't need to know about every letter she wrote to Eugene Debs.** You made your point. MOVE ON.
4. Referring to non-honors classes as "the slow high school classes" was perhaps not the best choice of words.
5. What is your problem with Chester A. Arthur? Sure, he might not have been Abe Lincoln, but sheesh. He was still president. The civil service act did some good.
Just a few thoughts for your next book about what's wrong with America today. Thanks so much for listening. Even thought you probably didn't at all.
Sincerely,
Julia
*Not that I don't still think that's true. I just don't talk about it as much.
**Yes, Helen Keller was a socialist. She thought the Russian Revolution was the best thing since sliced bread. Get over it.
123 I-Know-More-Than-You-Do Lane
Condescendingville, CA
Mr. Loewen:
I am in the process of listening to an audio recording of your book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your History Textbook Got Wrong". While I agree with your main argument that history textbooks are, well, crap, I would offer the following notes for consideration:
1. Perhaps people do not hate history so much because of the material, but rather because of people like you and your giant stick of superiority. A little hint: people do not like being poked with what they don't know. You may have a lot of great information, but if you act like a douche, people aren't going to listen. In fact, they might just punch you in the face. So ease up on the condescension there, buddy.
2. Textbooks are propaganda. They tout American supremacy and avoid all talk of, oh, let's see, all those times we invaded Central American nations and replaced their governments with ones of our own. They turn every public figure that ever existed into a hero. But by swinging all the way to the opposite side, you just sound like one of those guys who's still arguing about a UFO crashing in Roswell in 1947. Take it from someone who used to argue that Andrew Jackson should have been brought up on a charge of genocide for his treatment of the Native Americans. People don't want to hear you wail on their favorites presidents.*
3. History textbooks make broad generalizations. You don't have to then counter-balance that by giving every. single. detail. of someone's life. It's enough to say Helen Keller was a militant socialist. We don't need to know about every letter she wrote to Eugene Debs.** You made your point. MOVE ON.
4. Referring to non-honors classes as "the slow high school classes" was perhaps not the best choice of words.
5. What is your problem with Chester A. Arthur? Sure, he might not have been Abe Lincoln, but sheesh. He was still president. The civil service act did some good.
Just a few thoughts for your next book about what's wrong with America today. Thanks so much for listening. Even thought you probably didn't at all.
Sincerely,
Julia
*Not that I don't still think that's true. I just don't talk about it as much.
**Yes, Helen Keller was a socialist. She thought the Russian Revolution was the best thing since sliced bread. Get over it.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
AUTHOR: John Berendt
PUBLISHED: 1999
GENRE: Non-Fiction
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is the story of Jim Williams -
Wait. I'm sorry. I can't do it. I can't lie to you, dear reader. (Takes a deep breath.) I didn't actually read this book.
No, I didn't watch the movie. (I'm not that bad.) I listened to it on CD. I don't really feel that bad about this, because, as my daily commute is a total of 10 minutes, it took FOREVER to listen to it. I started to miss NPR. So I feel I've done my penance, thank you very much.
Midnight takes place in Savannah, Georgia, that beautiful representation of the Old South. Old-fashioned and secluded, Savannah does things its own way.* That doesn't mean it's boring, as Berendt learns. His main focus is Jim Williams, a social-climbing antique dealer who ends up being tried 3 times for the murder of Danny Hansford, local hustler and part-time employee. Then there are the subplots, which include but are not limited to: Chablis, the cross-dressing cabaret star who makes Berendt her own personal chauffeur; Joe Odam, the piano-playing lawyer who apparently has an extreme aversion to paying rent (or bills of any kind); Luther Driggers, who may or may not poison Savannah's water supply; and a myriad of other characters that don't just make brief cameos but stick around for entire chapters at a time. There's so much going on in this book that it feels like 3 or 4 books instead of 1, leaving the reader to wonder how the author is ever going to tie it all together.
As it turns out, he couldn't. Or didn't want to. It really doesn't matter. Each story is interesting, but stuck all together, the whole thing starts to wear on you. Most of them don't ever get a decent ending. Berendt leaves Chablis at the Black Cotillion Ball and we never hear from her again, despite the fact that at least 3 or 4 chapters have been devoted to her; the reader just ends up wondering why he brought her up to begin with. Still, it's an intriguing look into a lovely city, one that has intentionally hidden itself away from the rest of the world. If nothing else, it'll make you want to take a trip down below the Mason-Dixon line.
LENGTH: 416 pages (or 14 very long CDs)
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: It got made into a movie with John Cusack and Kevin Spacey.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: I'm still undecided. If you do, however, actually read it. The CDs are just too much.
*The only thing I knew about Savannah is that it had banished Rhett Butler after he took a girl out for an unsupervised carraige ride, and then refused to marry her.
PUBLISHED: 1999
GENRE: Non-Fiction
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is the story of Jim Williams -
Wait. I'm sorry. I can't do it. I can't lie to you, dear reader. (Takes a deep breath.) I didn't actually read this book.
No, I didn't watch the movie. (I'm not that bad.) I listened to it on CD. I don't really feel that bad about this, because, as my daily commute is a total of 10 minutes, it took FOREVER to listen to it. I started to miss NPR. So I feel I've done my penance, thank you very much.
Midnight takes place in Savannah, Georgia, that beautiful representation of the Old South. Old-fashioned and secluded, Savannah does things its own way.* That doesn't mean it's boring, as Berendt learns. His main focus is Jim Williams, a social-climbing antique dealer who ends up being tried 3 times for the murder of Danny Hansford, local hustler and part-time employee. Then there are the subplots, which include but are not limited to: Chablis, the cross-dressing cabaret star who makes Berendt her own personal chauffeur; Joe Odam, the piano-playing lawyer who apparently has an extreme aversion to paying rent (or bills of any kind); Luther Driggers, who may or may not poison Savannah's water supply; and a myriad of other characters that don't just make brief cameos but stick around for entire chapters at a time. There's so much going on in this book that it feels like 3 or 4 books instead of 1, leaving the reader to wonder how the author is ever going to tie it all together.
As it turns out, he couldn't. Or didn't want to. It really doesn't matter. Each story is interesting, but stuck all together, the whole thing starts to wear on you. Most of them don't ever get a decent ending. Berendt leaves Chablis at the Black Cotillion Ball and we never hear from her again, despite the fact that at least 3 or 4 chapters have been devoted to her; the reader just ends up wondering why he brought her up to begin with. Still, it's an intriguing look into a lovely city, one that has intentionally hidden itself away from the rest of the world. If nothing else, it'll make you want to take a trip down below the Mason-Dixon line.
LENGTH: 416 pages (or 14 very long CDs)
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: It got made into a movie with John Cusack and Kevin Spacey.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: I'm still undecided. If you do, however, actually read it. The CDs are just too much.
*The only thing I knew about Savannah is that it had banished Rhett Butler after he took a girl out for an unsupervised carraige ride, and then refused to marry her.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
A Shore Thing
AUTHOR (and I use the term loosely): Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi
PUBLISHED: 2011
GENRE: I don't even want to try and classify this thing.
As previously noted, I am not one of those people who considers all reality TV evil. I have, on more than one occasion, watched Jersey Shore, almost always in the form of those marathons MTV runs where the episodes bleed into each other, making it all one long mesmerizing moment. Jersey Shore is the proverbial train wreck: you don't want to look, you know you shouldn't look, but you just can't look away, even as part of you rants about the absurdity of celebrity and the demise of civilized society. How can you look away, when all you can think is are you (bleeping) serious right now.
A Shore Thing is the literary embodiment of that train wreck.
I will not speculate on how much of it Polizzi actually wrote herself, except to say that the use of certain language and the emphasis on bodily functions suggests it was more than you might expect. Whoever co-wrote it with her didn't put their name on the cover, which he or she cannot be blamed for. The story is this: Gia (aka Polizzi) and her cousin Bella have come to the Jersey Shore looking for love and adventure and, of course, juicehead gorillas*. Along the way, they get themselves into some wacky, wacky situations, including, but not limited to: an exploding oven, the unintentional saving of a beached shark, an attempted rape, laxative-laden jell-o shots**, and some unusual encounters in a tanning bed. It is basically a slightly exaggerated episode of Jersey Shore. But only slightly.
The writing is, well, exactly what you would expect from this sort of thing. Childish is probably the best word to describe it. It's another example of see? just like us! so funny! writing. When she tries to get descriptive, we get gems like this: "they [a bunch of potheads smoking under the boardwalk] huddled together like a family of Ellis Island immigrants just off the Mayflower". Amazing, how those 17th century pilgrims transported forward in time into the 19th century somewhere across the Atlantic.
The truly frightening part is - and this is true for the show too - I can't decide if she's being serious or not. If she is, then I really do weep for humanity. But if she isn't - if she is on the joke and playing us all - then she is a freaking genius. Someone, somewhere, had the gall to charge $24.99 for a hardcover copy of this thing. That takes a lot of chutzpah. But people bought it. Hell, I bought it. I bought it for $4.99 at the supermarket, but still. It's a fist-pumping empire. And this book is one of the more entertaining parts of it.
LENGTH: 304 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Try as you might, you can't escape the phenomenon that is Jersey Shore.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: I want to say no. I want to say you must not feed the monster and encourage the downfall of civilization. But if you like Jersey Shore, then go ahead. Any brain cells it would have killed have been done in by the show, anyway.
*A part of me just died typing that.
**An event that almost derails the course of true love, as explosive diarrhea often does.
PUBLISHED: 2011
GENRE: I don't even want to try and classify this thing.
As previously noted, I am not one of those people who considers all reality TV evil. I have, on more than one occasion, watched Jersey Shore, almost always in the form of those marathons MTV runs where the episodes bleed into each other, making it all one long mesmerizing moment. Jersey Shore is the proverbial train wreck: you don't want to look, you know you shouldn't look, but you just can't look away, even as part of you rants about the absurdity of celebrity and the demise of civilized society. How can you look away, when all you can think is are you (bleeping) serious right now.
A Shore Thing is the literary embodiment of that train wreck.
I will not speculate on how much of it Polizzi actually wrote herself, except to say that the use of certain language and the emphasis on bodily functions suggests it was more than you might expect. Whoever co-wrote it with her didn't put their name on the cover, which he or she cannot be blamed for. The story is this: Gia (aka Polizzi) and her cousin Bella have come to the Jersey Shore looking for love and adventure and, of course, juicehead gorillas*. Along the way, they get themselves into some wacky, wacky situations, including, but not limited to: an exploding oven, the unintentional saving of a beached shark, an attempted rape, laxative-laden jell-o shots**, and some unusual encounters in a tanning bed. It is basically a slightly exaggerated episode of Jersey Shore. But only slightly.
The writing is, well, exactly what you would expect from this sort of thing. Childish is probably the best word to describe it. It's another example of see? just like us! so funny! writing. When she tries to get descriptive, we get gems like this: "they [a bunch of potheads smoking under the boardwalk] huddled together like a family of Ellis Island immigrants just off the Mayflower". Amazing, how those 17th century pilgrims transported forward in time into the 19th century somewhere across the Atlantic.
The truly frightening part is - and this is true for the show too - I can't decide if she's being serious or not. If she is, then I really do weep for humanity. But if she isn't - if she is on the joke and playing us all - then she is a freaking genius. Someone, somewhere, had the gall to charge $24.99 for a hardcover copy of this thing. That takes a lot of chutzpah. But people bought it. Hell, I bought it. I bought it for $4.99 at the supermarket, but still. It's a fist-pumping empire. And this book is one of the more entertaining parts of it.
LENGTH: 304 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Try as you might, you can't escape the phenomenon that is Jersey Shore.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: I want to say no. I want to say you must not feed the monster and encourage the downfall of civilization. But if you like Jersey Shore, then go ahead. Any brain cells it would have killed have been done in by the show, anyway.
*A part of me just died typing that.
**An event that almost derails the course of true love, as explosive diarrhea often does.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Pop Culture Sidebar: The Voice
So, normally, I avoid singing competition shows like the plague. This is not to say I am opposed to all reality shows. America's Next Top Model is, in my opinion, a source of endless entertainment, although this is due mainly to Tyra Banks's obvious decline into madness and megalomania. (For proof, please refer to the season where she wore nothing but jumpsuits.) What gets me about American Idol and its kin is those first few weeks of the season where they drag out all those poor, delusional people who quite obviously have no chance and let them humiliate themselves on national television. Yes, yes, they choose to be there, I know. It doesn't mean they have to air it.
It should come as no surprise then that I had no intention of watching The Voice last night after the Superbowl. But the Superbowl ended and I didn't change the channel fast enough - the kiss of death for anyone watching reality-based programming - and suddenly there I was, entranced by the bright lights and Christina Aguilera's four-finger "XTINA" ring. (I thought she stopped doing the XTina thing when she stopped wearing chaps on a regular basis. No? I guess not.) And strangely enough... I kind of liked it. The singers were (gasp!) actually talented. The judges - excuse me, coaches - actually seemed to have some real interest in these people and, even better, snarkily ranked on each other. And snarkiness is one of my favorite things, like, ever.
So now I have to decide whether to watch the 2-hour episode tonight or stick with my usual line-up (that line-up being House, which I watch out of obligation to Hugh Laurie, and Alcatraz, which I watch out of obligation to Sam Neill).
So I ask: is it worth it? Shall I turn my back on Hugh and Sam, and turn my soul over to The Voice? Or do I run now, back to the sweet arms of scripted television? What do I do?
And we haven't even started talking about Smash yet.
It should come as no surprise then that I had no intention of watching The Voice last night after the Superbowl. But the Superbowl ended and I didn't change the channel fast enough - the kiss of death for anyone watching reality-based programming - and suddenly there I was, entranced by the bright lights and Christina Aguilera's four-finger "XTINA" ring. (I thought she stopped doing the XTina thing when she stopped wearing chaps on a regular basis. No? I guess not.) And strangely enough... I kind of liked it. The singers were (gasp!) actually talented. The judges - excuse me, coaches - actually seemed to have some real interest in these people and, even better, snarkily ranked on each other. And snarkiness is one of my favorite things, like, ever.
So now I have to decide whether to watch the 2-hour episode tonight or stick with my usual line-up (that line-up being House, which I watch out of obligation to Hugh Laurie, and Alcatraz, which I watch out of obligation to Sam Neill).
So I ask: is it worth it? Shall I turn my back on Hugh and Sam, and turn my soul over to The Voice? Or do I run now, back to the sweet arms of scripted television? What do I do?
And we haven't even started talking about Smash yet.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
The Call: A Novel (in case you couldn't figure that out on your own)
AUTHOR: Yannick Murphy
PUBLISHED: 2011
GENRE: Fiction
What the title means: The main character, a poor large-animal veterinarian, takes calls from his neighbors all around their rural town, for sick horses and lame goats and the occasional cow in the
basement.
How this book works: Short sections describing an initial action, such as "what I said" and "what she ate" and "things I did not want to do" and "what I dug through the junk drawer in the kitchen for".
What I said: I sense bull.
What the critics said: It "explores marriage, parenthood, small-town life, medicine, and hope with a sensitivity, skill, and fearlessness that will rattle your bones."
What I said: Okay, fine, I'll read it.
What happens: the main character drives all around the town treating animals and preparing his son to go hunting. Fights with wife, who is either a real harpy or married to a lazy pain in the ass.
What I said: This episode of "Police Women of Memphis" is way interesting.
What happens next: Narrator goes hunting with his son, who gets shot out of his blind by a wayward hunter and ends up in a coma. A spaceship shows up. Hovers around the house. Family looks at it, shrugs, and goes back inside.
What I said: Who in the what now?
What happens next: Kid stays in coma for a while. Kid wakes up out of coma. Family joins swimming team. Narrator and wife discuss his "levels" a lot. Somebody calls and hangs up, then calls and hangs up. Narrator becomes obsessed with who shot his son but doesn't do anything about it. Spaceman comes out of ship and introduces him as the narrator's biological son, the result of his donating sperm 25 years ago.
What I said: You have got to be freaking kidding me.
What the critics said: "A triumph of quiet humor and understated beauty."
What I said: A triumph of bull.
What happens next: Spaceman and family chat about how he's from Philadelphia and had a very nice childhood. Spaceman says aliens have decided narrator is going to help them save their dying animal species, then never brings it up again. Spaceman and narrator go out on some calls. Spaceman reveals that he needs a kidney.
What I said: How the freaking hell is he a spaceman if he's from Philadelphia?
What happens next: Wife rants and raves about how narrator can't do it. Narrator does it. Wife forgives him. Life goes back to normal.
What I said: Thank goodness that crap is over.
LENGTH: 223 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Not in content or format.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: What I said: NOT.
PUBLISHED: 2011
GENRE: Fiction
What the title means: The main character, a poor large-animal veterinarian, takes calls from his neighbors all around their rural town, for sick horses and lame goats and the occasional cow in the
basement.
How this book works: Short sections describing an initial action, such as "what I said" and "what she ate" and "things I did not want to do" and "what I dug through the junk drawer in the kitchen for".
What I said: I sense bull.
What the critics said: It "explores marriage, parenthood, small-town life, medicine, and hope with a sensitivity, skill, and fearlessness that will rattle your bones."
What I said: Okay, fine, I'll read it.
What happens: the main character drives all around the town treating animals and preparing his son to go hunting. Fights with wife, who is either a real harpy or married to a lazy pain in the ass.
What I said: This episode of "Police Women of Memphis" is way interesting.
What happens next: Narrator goes hunting with his son, who gets shot out of his blind by a wayward hunter and ends up in a coma. A spaceship shows up. Hovers around the house. Family looks at it, shrugs, and goes back inside.
What I said: Who in the what now?
What happens next: Kid stays in coma for a while. Kid wakes up out of coma. Family joins swimming team. Narrator and wife discuss his "levels" a lot. Somebody calls and hangs up, then calls and hangs up. Narrator becomes obsessed with who shot his son but doesn't do anything about it. Spaceman comes out of ship and introduces him as the narrator's biological son, the result of his donating sperm 25 years ago.
What I said: You have got to be freaking kidding me.
What the critics said: "A triumph of quiet humor and understated beauty."
What I said: A triumph of bull.
What happens next: Spaceman and family chat about how he's from Philadelphia and had a very nice childhood. Spaceman says aliens have decided narrator is going to help them save their dying animal species, then never brings it up again. Spaceman and narrator go out on some calls. Spaceman reveals that he needs a kidney.
What I said: How the freaking hell is he a spaceman if he's from Philadelphia?
What happens next: Wife rants and raves about how narrator can't do it. Narrator does it. Wife forgives him. Life goes back to normal.
What I said: Thank goodness that crap is over.
LENGTH: 223 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Not in content or format.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: What I said: NOT.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
The Gates
AUTHOR: John Connelly
PUBLISHED: 2010
GENRE: Fiction
The Gates is the story of Samuel Johnson and his little dog, Boswell*. Samuel is a brilliant yet quirky English 11-year-old who is trick-or-treating two days early (to beat the crowds, he explains) when he happens to witness his neighbors accidently opening a portal to hell. Across Europe, the Large Hadron Supercollider is operating as normal when a molecule of energy flies off and disappears, just before a deep voice from nowhere starts telling the scientists to fear it. As you can imagine, it all goes downhill from there.
Samuel is a prime example of the go-to character of the moment: the brilliant but socially awkward young man. He is almost always in his early teens, and his teachers and fellow students find him confounding. He can’t lie and often doesn’t get it when others lie. He doesn’t have much better luck with social cues and situations. He is almost always accompanied by a long-suffering mother who wearily answers his endless questions, his father having died or abandoned them long ago. It can seem like every book you open lately has this character at its heart.** As a result, Samuel’s “quirks” just seem tired. The only other character that gets any real development is, oddly enough, Nurd, the Scourge of Five Demons. Nurd is himself a demon (albeit a lowly one) who’s been banished to the Wasteland with nothing but a chair and an ugly, even lowlier demon to serve him. Nurd is the only personality in the book that experiences any character growth. Everyone else stays exactly the same.
The writing is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek representation of the British – “dear me, there appears to be a demon in my garden. And right before tea. Tsk, that just won’t do” – but Connelly goes completely overboard with it. Nothing rankles these people. Samuel has a calm and substantial conversation with the monster hiding under his bed. When the demons attack one home, the man of the house chases them away from his rose bushes and then returns to tend the broken stems. Children dressed as ghouls take on real ghouls, then finish trick-or-treating. Connelly takes pains to describe the monstrosity of these creatures, and the pain and torment they intend to rain down on the inhabitants of Earth. One would think, therefore, the humans would react with a little more fear and panic.
The chapter titles are cutesy missives such as “In Which the Universe Forms, Which Seems Like a Very Good Place to Start” and “In Which We Encounter a Small Boy, His Dog, and Some People Who Are Up to No Good”, the up-to-no-good people being the afore-mentioned evil-summoning neighbors, who should really be described as something more severe than “up to no good”. The book is also filled with – here we go again – annoying footnotes. A footnote to a discussion of the Big Bang reminds us that, as atoms as constantly recycled, we all have a little bit of Julius Caesar in us, which is the same “fun” little fact that annoying guy at the party tells whatever pretty girl he encounters. Another footnote attached to the introduction of the source of all evil, known as the Great Malevolence, defines malevolence for the reader then admonishes them for not paying attention in school, which is not only distracting but insulting to those of us who already knew what malevolence meant.
The Gates resides in adult fiction but was apparently designed to cross-over into Young Adult fiction as an adult book for children, or the other way around. This might explain some of its heavy handedness, but really, there’s no excuse for it. Teenagers don’t need that kind of exaggerated writing any more than adults do. It’s too bad. If Connelly had tempered himself, he might have had something really interesting.
LENGTH: 304 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT?: Methinks his usual stuff – thrillers – is more popular.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: No. When the science behind a portal of hell opening onto our universe is the most believable part of the story, you’ve got a serious problem.
*Boswell, as you may know, refers to James Boswell, best-known as the biographer of Samuel Johnson, the prominent 18th century writer. That kind of wink-wink, do-you-get-it? naming put me off from the very start.
**Most recently, I encountered him as Oscar from Extremely Loud and Incredible Close, which you will not see reviewed here, since I could not force myself to finish it. I am, however, going to ignore my own rule and see the movie.
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