Book Review: ‘The Abstinence Teacher’

I’m not quite sure what went wrong for Tom Perrotta this time around. I happen to have really liked the two books I read by him before this one. Joe College was heartfelt, funny, and pretty deep for a story ostensibly about such lighthearted fare as college social life. And Little Children—I say this with no exaggeration—was fabulous. That novel was well-paced and strangely riveting.

Unfortunately, The Abstinence Teacher is far less successful. In summation, just to get it out into the air now: I thought it was boring, in the most basic sense. Now, obviously that’s not typically a valid indictment of a book, since a novel’s subject matter can be mundane or slow but still described in beautiful prose (not the case here) or interesting for other reasons, such as social or political implications or current events relevance. This latter appeal of sometimes-boring stories is what Perrotta seems to be going for here by broaching the ‘hot topic’ of abstinence education, but he does so in an uninteresting and non-controversial way.

Yes, each side of the argument is conveyed (the teacher who feels that abstinence curriculum is harmful to kids by leaving them clueless about actual sex, versus the school board in a small, religious town that feels it better to give the conservative parents what they want by teaching kids to simply abstain). But Perrotta doesn’t choose sides, as Liesl Schillinger acknowledges (”Perrotta has never been one to cast stones”) in her NYTimes review, though it is a positive one. His refusal to give any sort of answer at all at the end of the novel is annoying, and rather than interesting (i.e. “Some issues cannot be resolved!”) it is actually unimpressive, and kind of seems cowardly.

We’re left to draw our own conclusions, I suppose, about who is correct—the secular crowd (led by reluctant abstinence teacher Ruth Ramsey who continually gets brought up before the principal for straying from her assigned curriculum) or the religious zealots (led by the other protagonist, Tim Mason, a one-time drug addict who has found Jesus and sworn off booze, pot, porn, and everything else that might be fun). But as I said, Perrotta does not choose a side, and neither can his characters, who at the end are still where they started, essentially.

Sure, Mason leaves his goody-goody church-going second wife, but he never officially leaves the church. He does experience a sort of meltdown in which he returns to his old ways by smoking a joint and having a few beers, so the implication might be that he has seen the foolishness of his religious worship, will leave the church, and has ‘come around’ to Ruth’s side. But all of this is unclear; Tim takes no real action (on the final page he cowardly sits hiding in Ruth’s house while Pastor Dennis bangs on the door, demanding to speak with him) and Ruth does not exactly join the church (though she respects Tim and she allows her daughters, who develop an interest in Jesus, to attend church), so both characters do nothing. Perrotta does nothing with them, but rather sets up some mildly interesting plot developments (Ruth reconnects with an old chubby-but-lovable high school flame only to discover he has lost weight and become an arrogant prick, Tim begins hanging out with the ‘wrong crowd’ of poker-playing manly men, to the dismay of his obnoxious, controlling pal Pastor Dennis) but in the end, nothing changes.

What happens, I believe, is that you’re left agreeing with whichever side you sided with before you began the book. Perrotta’s story doesn’t at all change your views, since the views of the two main characters are not changed. The core driving force of the novel is the battle between religious and secular (or abstinence education and proper sex-ed, politically conservative and politcally liberal, whichever angle you choose it’s all one battle), and yet neither side prevails. Throughout the book, I felt as though the religious characters who walked around spouting phrases like “This is a good day for Jesus” were ridiculous and deluded, and I idenitifed with Ruth Ramsey, who wants her children to stay far away from those crazies. But the religious characters, whose thoughts are conveyed through third-person omniscience, are described with equal sensitivity and consideration, so I would bet that a person who supported abstinence education and loved Jesus—say, Sarah Palin—would read this same novel and conclude that it is the Ruth Ramseys of the world who have it wrong and are destined for Hell.

And, again, beyond all that less-than-interesting hooey about religion, the book is plain unexciting. I was never compelled to turn the pages, or stay up late reading. There are isolated moments of excitement (mostly the sexual encounters), but the rest is rather uninteresting, and it often feels like Perrotta tries too hard to remind us how much research he conducted. This is most evident in the sections about the procedure of the church services (complete with full sermon!) and in one especially drab three-page account of Tim’s job in loan management.

Perrotta has never been a fabulous writer, in the sense that he’s not showy. His vocabulary is limited, and you won’t find much symbolism or subtle imagery. His novels read more like magazine features. But he is considered a good writer for other reasons, mostly for the dead-on way he portrays average life. In Little Children, for example, he deftly describes the suspenseful build-up that leads to an illicit affair between two married people. The pages turn rapidly as the two characters continue to meet and flirt but resist being physical, and then, finally, when they do have sex, it’s shocking and steamy, and perfectly done. Meanwhile, the central affair is surrounded and bolstered by additional threads of plot, all compelling, including a pedophile’s presence in the town, an ex-cop’s struggle to deal with his anger, and the plight of the spouses of the two protagonists. Each plotline is tied together and interwoven, all are dependent on each other. It all comes together as suspense reaches a boiling point for each subplot, and then climaxes in a wonderful, rewarding unraveling of every character’s best-laid plans.

The Abstinence Teacher lacks that suspense, and even though it’s about a man and a woman who feel that classic love-hate spark (their opposing religious views cause them to clash quite publicly, and yet they are inexplicably attracted to each other), we cannot call it a love story because the two never come together. In fact, they never even kiss. The entire story builds up to their final coupling, but Perrotta refuses to give us what has to be coming: the story ends with the two of them in the house, friendly, but not physical. Some would probably praise this, and say that the unfinished romance is the whole point, and that Perrotta is brave to leave us unfulfilled, but that’s garbage.

Plus, there are none of the interesting subplots that we get in Little Children. It’s pretty much all Ruth and Tim, save for the addition of a gay couple Ruth befriends, who break up and then make up, all without any surprising turns or interesting lessons to convey. Ruth’s daughters are intrigued by Tim’s devout behavior (he’s their soccer coach) and so they beg Ruth to allow them to go to church and see what it’s like. She consents, but we never actually find out what the girls felt, or if they liked it, or if they’ll be religious in the future. It’s yet another subplot that gets thrown in but leads nowhere. It’s all dead ends here.

And yet, the book has received great reviews. I can only conclude that this is a classic case of reviewers thinking a book is better than it is because they have been conditioned to think the author is a good writer who puts out good books. After Election, Joe College, and Little Children were all big hits, book critics must have just expected this one to be great as well (talk about highly anticipated, the film rights were purchased before the thing was even published, so expect the movie soon). Then, they reviewed it accordingly, without stopping to realize that it falls flat.

There’s clear evidence in the reviews themselves. Check out the praise that covers the paperback version—all the quotes are about Perrotta’s writing in general, rather than the book itself. Time writes, “Nobody renders the world of soccer moms and sprinklers and SUVs like Perrotta. He’s the Steinbeck of suburbia.” Okay, catch line, and the latter title may be deserved, but Perrotta already established that reputation. This book doesn’t have any soccer moms, sprinklers, or SUVs. The comment praises Perrotta, not The Abstinence Teacher.

Again, just below that one, a quote from the NYTimes Book Review calls Perrotta “a truth-telling, unshowy chronicler of modern-day America.” Yup, that he is: truth-telling, indeed, and definitely unshowy. But what about this book? What truth does it tell? That the battle between religious and secular rages on? Why did I need an unremarkable novel to tell me what I already knew from the news?

The other quote on the back cover, from The Seattle Times, tops off the group, making all three of them quotes that praise Perrotta in general, but not this novel: “Those who haven’t curled up on the couch with this writer’s other books are missing a very great pleasure.” Yeah, maybe his other books.

I wish the many people who raved about this one would read it again, and pause for a moment to think about how miserable they are when slogging through it. The Abstinence Teacher was unfortunately disappointing. I cannot recommend it, though I’ll probably still give Perrotta’s next novel a chance. After all, Chuck Palahniuk keeps fucking up, and I keep going back for more. And this was only Perrotta’s first failure, in my eyes.

NYTimes 2008 Book Cover Selections

Just a brief note: Over at the New York Times Book Design Review blog (actually the site claims that the BDR is not affiliated with the NYTimes, which is puzzling), they’ve posted their 27 choices for the best book cover designs of 2008. You can even vote on them up until December 31.

For what it’s worth, my favorite is the cover for Why You Should Read Kafka Before You Waste Your Life, which is holding its own in a tie for second place. The design is by Steve Snider and Douglas Smith, image below. The design is appropriate for obvious reasons (assuming you’ve read The Metamorphosis), and I like the clever “book within a book” idea created by the beetle reading the book itself on the cover, sort of like those paintings of a painting within a painting within a painting, etc. Or when you gaze into a mirror that is facing another mirror, and that ‘hall of mirrors’ effect is created, where you can see an infinite number of reflections stretching into the background.

Unsurprisingly, as is often the case with contests like this, I detest the design that is currently (miles) ahead of the rest. It will almost certainly win, and I think it’s actually rather tough on the eyes, but maybe there’s something going on, some clever statement it broadcasts, that I just haven’t quite gotten yet.

Honorable mentions: As far as the other choices go, I also like the covers of Sharp Teeth and Soon I Will Be Invincible.

Book Review: ‘The White Tiger’

When The White Tiger nabbed the Booker earlier this year, I knew I had to read it right away. The book was compared to Invisible Man and Native Son, two towering works of racial/cultural tension. Plus it was getting rave reviews.

But it was also stirring up controversy back in India, where the author is from. Numerous articles went on and on about how the book portrays India in a harshly negative light, and that Americans and Brits have applauded the author’s honesty, while critics and readers in India were rather furious and claimed that Adiga had made India out to be worse than it is. Adiga, for his part, argued that he was actually peeling back the curtain of what he believes is the false image of India that much of the West has developed. People in India refute that Adiga exaggerates the bad conditions of Delhi and the Indian culture in order to serve his message about the caste system and the problems of servitude.

Having finished the book, I can say that indeed, that message is the dominant feature of the novel, and that in a way, it ruins The White Tiger as a fictional experience. Before I continue, let me make a caveat: I am not, essentially, giving the book a “bad” review (or perhaps I am if you’re looking for a novel in the traditional sense). The book itself, as an exercise in storytelling, is quite good. It’s engaging because Adiga is a good writer, and it’s an exciting read. It’s also very funny.

But in terms of a novel—and I mean novel in the sense of a fictional experience that takes you to another world, gets you involved with its characters, transports you—it’s not great. Rather, The White Tiger is more like a polemic against the injustice of India’s traditional system of servitude-by-caste. The book is more like A Modest Proposal than the classic bildungsromans to which it has been compared (like Ellison’s masterpiece). The characters are flat and serve more as symbols of certain character types than as deep, realistic representations of real people. Balram Halwai is the stock servant—a poor victim of the rough system. His master, Ashok, is the typical rich bastard giving bribes to government officials. His family is just what you’d expect—hurt that their son has gone off to Delhi to work and forgotten about them—replete with guilt-trip inducing grandmother.

The Guardian review mentions that:

Talk of “lessons” should not be taken to suggest that The White Tiger is a didactic exercise in “issues.”

I don’t agree. I think that the book does feel like exactly that: a didactic exercise. And I didn’t feel this way through the first hundred or so pages! I was enjoying the story, and the narrator Balram’s unique, intimate voice. I was also loving the occasional hilarious one-liners, plus the subtle humor of Balram’s anger/frustrations/resentment of both his masters and his fellow servants. Here’s a good laugh that comes after Balram figures out that the servant one rung above him, Ram Persad, is a Muslim, and reports him to the bosses, who fire him promptly:

I thought, What a miserable life he’s had, having to hide his religion, his name, just to get a job as a driver—and he is a good driver, no question of it, a far better one than I will ever be. Part of me wanted to get up and apologize to him right there [for reporting him as a Muslim and getting him fired] and say, You go and be a driver in Delhi. You neber did anything to hurt me. Forgive me, brother. I turned to the other side, farted, and went back to sleep.

Moments like these are very clever, but infrequent. More often, Balram will do something or see something that provides a good example of the hazards and outrages that befall servants in India, but then Balram will verbalize the injustice and reflect on how unfair it was, thereby pointing it out to us yet again, bashing the message over our heads. This repetition really crystallized for me about halfway, from a scene in which Balram finds his master Ashok washing his own feet, and Balram leaps into action, obsessively insisting that Ashok never wash his own feet, demanding to know why he didn’t ask Balram to do it, attempting to stop him as if the situation were dire. Ashok gets furious and says he just wants to be left alone, and the message is clear: that Balram’s instinct toward subservience is so strong that it is nearly innate, and holds a scary power over him. We get it. But still, Adiga makes us hear about it further, just in case the point was too subtle (it wasn’t): “The way I had rushed to press Mr. Ashok’s feet, the moment I saw them, even though he hadn’t asked me to! Why did I feel that I had to go close to his feet, touch them and press them and make them feel good—why? Because the desire to be a servant had been bred into me: hammered into my skull, nail after nail.” Yup. Just like this notion of “the Darkness” and India’s problems has been hammered into the poor reader again and again.

Only twenty pages after the egregious previous example of Balram reflecting over his foot-washing instinct, we get another example of the tiresome repetition that makes one wonder if Adiga so doubts the intellectual capacity of his readers as to think they need constant reminders in order to pick up on a thematic trope. Our hero has just had to pour whiskey shots for his masters, who are sitting in the back seat, and then reach back and hand them the glasses, all while driving! In case we missed the absurdity, Balram explains: “Have you ever seen this trick? A man steering the car with one hand, and picking up a whiskey bottle with the other hand, hauling it over his shoulder, then pouring it into a glass, even as the car is moving, without spilling a drop! The skills required of an Indian driver! Not only does he have to have perfect reflexes, night vision, and infinite patience, he also has to be the consummate barman!”

The NYTimes review by Akash Kapur gets much closer to the truth than any of the others have. Kapur praises the book’s excitement and powerful tone, but also notes, quite honestly:

Adiga… is less successful as a novelist. His detailed descriptions of various vile aspects of Indian life are relentless — and ultimately a little monotonous… Every scene, every phrase, is a blunt instrument, wielded to remind Adiga’s readers of his country’s cruelty.

The characters can also seem superficial. Balram’s landlord boss and his wife are caricatures of the insensitive upper classes, cruel to and remote from their employees. Although Balram himself is somewhat more interesting, his credulousness and naïveté often ring false… The novel feels simplistic: an effective polemic, perhaps, but an incomplete portrait of a nation and a people grappling with the ambiguities of modernity.

Bingo. This one is a good book—it attempts to convey a strong, controversial message, and it succeeds in relaying that message. It sets up a character that represents the author’s opinion quite strongly, and the character delivers a compelling narrative, full of action and humor. Yet it fails as a novel, because it does not pull you into a fictional world. You are constantly aware that this is a story constructed by a man who has a political agenda, and that establishing this agenda is his number one priority.

But it’s worth reading.

Laugh at Obama? Yes, We Can… Well, Maybe.

Holy hell, we are finally going to have a president that we can be excited about. Even Bush called the victory “uplifting.” And once staunch McCain supporter I know admitted that even though Obama wasn’t his choice, he’s excited for the country, and proud to be an American. Tuesday was a night that I’m sure all of us will remember as long as we live.

But enough gushing. Already, Obama (who wasted absolutely no time celebrating) is hard at work choosing his cabinet, and the pundits and journalists are examining his every step. One question that’s come to the fore recently has been about political humor—how will we be able to ridicule a President Obama? Are Colbert, Stewart, Leno and Letterman all out of a job? In my humble opinion, the evidence suggests that yes—in trying to mock Barack, comedians are going to have some real trouble.

These guys never knew how good they had it for the past decade. We may not remember it now that he’s become a stout, lovable advocate of the environment and generally worshiped genius, but in 2000, Gore was an easy target—a robot with no emotion or facial expression. Plus, Tipper Gore. ‘Nuff said. Then John Kerry came along, with the Ketchup maiden by his side, and no one could let up about his three Purple Hearts (and to his own detriment, neither could he). Plus, trough it all, beginning in 2000, the “liberal elite media” (thank you, Palin) had George Walker Bush—a gift that God handed them on a silver platter. There was the pretzel incident, and there were the monkey faces, and there were the countless verbal mistakes (“misunderestimated,” anyone?) that came to be known as “Bush-isms.” This guy has practically been a standup comedian, albeit unintentionally.

Of course, there’s a long tradition of ridiculing politicians that goes back to before 2000. Bill Clinton? Even before the Lewinsky scandal, he was a figure as mocked as he was adored. And before him Dukakis, with that infamous photo in the army tank. The laughs came easy with these guys.

But a President Obama presents a problem, because, well—he just doesn’t really do anything wrong. He doesn’t embarrass himself. He speaks eloquently. He went to Columbia, then Harvard Law School. After college, he spent years toiling for others. He doesn’t have sexual dalliances a la Clinton, Spitzer, or Edwards. Instead, he has a beautiful wife and two lovely daughters. And he’s buying them a puppy.

And, in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s black. As Jimmy Kimmel told Maureen Dowd, “there’s a weird reverse racism going on” that has spared Obama from ridicule so far. Indeed, when all the comedians on late night television are white (and they gave Conan’s Late Night spot to Jimmy Fallon? How about Chris Rock, or anyone else who’s actually funny?), there’s certainly a fear, incited by political correctness, that we need to walk on eggshells. Remember how awkward it was when Ludacris wrote that new rap song in which he boasted that Obama would, “Paint the White House black, and I’m sure that’s got ‘em terrified!” Obama’s camp couldn’t have possibly distanced their candidate from the video quicker.

Maybe with the political correctness bug so rampant, this presidency will actually give comedy back to the many hilarious, talented black comedians who are so forgotten by most mainstream television. It’s like, perhaps if the white guys are afraid to joke about Obama, and feel (unfortunately) that they don’t have license to ridicule anything relating to his blackness, it could be a chance to see some great black comedians surge to popularity.

Forgetting the racial tension, there are still some areas that comics could, and will, desperately try to expose. There’s that bit in his first memoir, in which he candidly revealed his use of “a little blow” in college. Indeed these are some new times, huh? Times in which a guy who admitted to doing coke can get elected. And then there’s the liability of his own name (we elected a president who shares a middle name with a fascist dictator we just executed?), but these seem more like things that should make us impressed he was still able to gain the presidency. They should inspire admiration, rather than ridicule.

Another option (the only one, right now) is to tease him for how perfect he seems to be—you know, like: ‘The guy’s a law school professor, brilliant orator, and he can swish three pointers, too! What is he, Superman?’ But that can only last so long. Once we’ve laughed at how great he is, all we can really do is celebrate that greatness, and broadcast our pride at having elected him. And that pride isn’t really so funny; it’s serious, and wonderful.

Political humor is always a slippery slope, and undoubtedly the ‘funny guys’ will work hard to come up with clever ways to taunt the 44th president. But they’re going to have a tough time of it, unless he gives them fodder for jokes by faltering terribly in the early months of his presidency. I don’t see that happening.

Cover Contest For ‘Island at the End of the World’

So apparently the novelist Sam Taylor (who I’ve never heard of, and can’t decide if I should have or not) has a new book coming out in 2009, called The Island at the End of the World. Here’s a teaser plot summary, courtesy of the publisher:

A chilling novel about the near future, where most of the world has been destroyed by catastrophic floods. As a father and his three children begin to rebuild their lives alone on an island, his youngest son Finn begins to question how they arrived there and why they alone have been spared. Finn’s search for understanding takes an unexpected turn when a strange man named Will swims ashore, and he appears to know quite a bit about this family and the circumstances that surrounded the floods. But Finn’s father is determined to keep him silent and is willing to do anything to prevent Will from disturbing his family’s idyllic life on the island. Sam Taylor’s The Island at the End of the World is a riveting post-apocalyptic tale that explores the darkness that lies within the hearts of men.

…Sounds pretty much like a novelization of the show Lost to me, but hey. Anyway, everyone loves to judge a book by its cover, and yet another Penguin Contest has yielded some pretty damn gorgeous covers.

You may remember when I posted on the 2008 Penguin Design Contest, which asked art students to design their own cover for one of a handful of well-regarded books, including On the Road and On Beauty. Following that contest, I reflected that I felt some of the “honorable mentions” and other entries were far better than the three winners. I also expressed surprise that the reward for the winner was not a reprint of the book that used their cover.

This time around, it’s a bit different, and not merely because all the covers are created for one single book (which does make it more compelling, and easier to judge the entries). First of all, the prize this time is the use of the artist’s cover on the actual book, which makes the stakes high.

In addition, this time I really love the winning design. That’s right, a winner has already been chosen, but you might want to check out the 25 finalists before you scroll down and see the winner. After all, what makes it really fun is flipping through the images and trying to predict which one beat the others (In case you’re wondering, I picked 5 that were, for my money, the best ones, and the eventual winner was not in my 5). The winner (by Matt Taylor, no relation to the author I hope) wasn’t my overall favorite, because (again, I obviously haven’t read the book, so I can only gather plot details from the synopsis) I felt it had a bit too much going on. It looks more like a design you might see on a Threadless t-shirt (in fact I feel like I’ve seen that very design on one) than the cover of a serious new novel put out by Penguin. Still, it’s a gorgeous creation:

Matt Taylor

Like I said, very well-done… but not the most appropriate cover, I’d argue. Below are two of my favorites. Check out all 25 for yourself. My god, do I love interesting book covers.

Ben Thomas

John Hobbs

Wordle—Visually Impressive, But Useful Too

If you don’t yet know about Wordle, you should go check it out.

Wordle describes itself is “a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like.”

I first discovered the site from the blog Steamboats Are Ruining Everything, where someone cleverly entered the entire text of Moby Dick. The result is not only fascinating for a Melville fan (though it’s no shock that ‘Whale’ is the most frequent word) but also visually attractive. It kind of even looks like a Whale (is that a stretch?).

Clearly, Wordle is very inventive, and addictive, too. But it’s a lot more than a toy. After useless, time-wasting wordles I made from song lyrics or speech transcriptions (my first impulse was to enter DFW’s famous, outrageously brilliant Kenyon graduation speech; if you’re wondering, his most frequently used word, appropriately, was “think”), I finally got around to entering the text of my senior English thesis. A screen shot is below (I am too inept to figure out how to embed it directly, but here’s a link to the better-quality version from the public gallery).

Anyway, I’m only 22 pages through, so the startling realization that I’ve used the term “meanwhile” as much as some of the authors’ names (like Talese) was extremely helpful. I’m starting to see Wordle as, quite possibly, an indispensable tool for novelists and other writers, in determining the frequency of their diction, and maybe opening their eyes to certain buzz words that they might use more often than they intend.

Welp, go see for yourself. Very awesome.

Sweet Cover Art for the New Bolaño Book

As you may know, we at Boats Against the Current love cover art.

And we love keeping tabs on new and forthcoming novels. The next installment of Natasha Wimmer’s “I’ma translate all of Roberto Bolaño’s novels into English” game will be 2666, out this coming November 11. The Savage Detectives was raved about by all, so we can imagine this will be a great book.

And it’s got a great cover, too! Here’s the normal hardcover edition, standing beside the (tré chic!) boxed set, three-paperbacks volume that will also come out (thank you, Vulture).

Awesome, and clearly superior to the rather boring Savage Detectives cover.

Are We Living in an Era of Permanent Significance?

Don’t worry, this post is actually going to get very interesting, but before I recount the fascinating discussion that occurred, I need to provide the background.

One of the courses I took while I was abroad last year at Trinity College in Dublin was a lit class called Periodicity. The English department at Trinity offers it every year, but each time they do it they change the time period covered. That is to say, the class always focuses on literature published in one specific decade or even a single year. Past examples: One year they did 1939, which was a significant literary year, I guess (Finnegan’s Wake, new book of Yeats poetry, first Raymond Chandler novel The Big Sleep).

This year the focus was 1916. In 1916 Joyce published Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Frost produced a new volume of poetry called Mountain Interval, and then there were, ah, two other random-ass novels (A Munster Twilight and The Tree of Heaven; if you’ve actually heard of either of these books, you deserve a medal for your expertise in obscurity).

A conversation that occurred on the first day of the class has really stayed with me, and now the mood has at last struck me to blog about it. We started the class off by examining the poem “Easter 1916″ by Yeats. It’s arguably the most famous poem of the twentieth century, and a great read as well (I normally find poetry pretty lame). The poem is about the “Easter Rising” of 1916 in Dublin, when people revolted against British rule. They failed. And then they were all executed.

SO ANYWAY (wake up, here comes the beef) the professor mentioned that the poem is a perfect emblem for the concept of Periodicity, because indeed, some decades do seem more “historical” than others. In many periods, he added, people can already sense that they, right now, are living through a very weighty and significant period.

He then asked, “Does any of you feel this way about your own time?”

I must have nodded vigorously without realizing it because he looked at me and said, “Please,” and motioned for me to share.

So everyone turned to look at me and I thought, “fuck it, I’ll play the ethnocentric American dickhead,” and I guess I just went off on a diatribe. I said: “Oh, absolutely. No question.”

“Well what is it specifically that makes you feel that way?” I figured he was just coaxing out the obvious, so I said, “9/11.” I guess I hadn’t really thought about the fact that I was one of only two Americans in a classroom of 35 Irish kids, and that this was an American event specifically tailored toward American reactions, and it was most intensely tragic for American citizens, because to my surprise, some people did look like they disagreed. I was shocked. It took me a moment to realize that it actually may have been a really stupid comment.

But then I decided it wasn’t stupid at all, maybe just a bit self-absorbed (obviously someone from America would feel that 9/11 was an event of epic worldwide proportions), and the teacher finally asked, “Does anyone agree?”

One girl said, “Well, it definitely was a major event and none of us will ever forget it… but every generation has something like that. I don’t think it’s going to mark our era as an important one, and I’m also not sure it was as meaningful to Irish people as it was in the States.” Lots of people nodded assent, but I was annoyed. No, I don’t think that every generation has something “like that.” That’s a gross oversimplification. I think no single event in recent history created anything close to the horror of 9/11. It woke people up from their stupor, and reminded them that safety was an illusion.

The teacher told us that it often feels like events are significant when you are caught up in them, and you haven’t yet had the time to zoom out. For example, he said he felt for a long time that 1989-91 was massively important, due to the fall of the Berlin Wall. And then he said, “But I’m sure to you all, that means nothing.” One guy confirmed, “Right, nothing.” It’s true; sad as it may be, the fall of the Berlin Wall means nothing to me. Don’t care.

But now, seven months later (and seven years after the attack), I still believe that we are literally living through history. Today’s current events will be the content of high school textbooks fifty years from now.

It’s not just 9/11. It’s the huge boom in Internet “e-content” (some day soon, it seems, every single written text will be available as a download). It’s the Bush presidency—one of intense public opposition (has there ever been a president besides Nixon who was so obviously hated by the people of his nation?).

And it’s McCain selecting Sarah Palin as his VP. The choice was obviously deeply disturbing, for so many reasons, but it was her appearance on SNL recently that really showed just how unnerving her ascendancy to fame has been. Check it out on Hulu here (better quality than the YouTube version below, which doesn’t get to the skit until 2:30 in): Amy Poehler is standing there rapping insults about Palin as Caribou Barbie herself sits there at the desk boppin’ her head to the beat. Was she merely being a good sport, or was she actually on another planet, mentally—not even truly hearing the words? I’d go with the latter, but either way, it was downright spooky.

In addition, the fact that her appearance on SNL was pretty much mandatory (after Hillary, Obama, and McCain before her) perfectly represents the merging of politics, pop culture, and Internet. It’s a merger that is only just beginning to crystallize now, in the year 2008.

Now that McCain lost the presidency (thank god, or should we thank Palin?) only time will tell whether Palin’s fifteen minutes of fame will end and she’ll fade away, or if she’ll remain in the limelight as an unofficial leader of the hyper-conservative Republican sector. Regardless, I can’t shake the feeling that just by having been chosen as VP—even with the loss—her importance is ensured for generations to come. What a shame.

Unfortunately, all of my reasons for thinking this era is a major historical time are based on American events. Acknowledging this bias is helpful, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still there. The compulsion to care only about issues on our own soil is very powerful, and it’s difficult to overcome.

So are we actually living through history right now, or on that day in class was I just being another American tourist asshole?

Underdog Ethos Gone for Boston Sports Fans

Let’s talk Red Sox.

From the newest issue of GQ comes a brief blurb entitled, “Hey Boston, Shut the Fuck Up!”

Boston… Enough. We get it. You rule the universe. Yes, it’s quite an impressive run you’re on here. (For a small city.) But remember, fifteen years ago, your teams sucked large donkey balls… And because sports go in cycles, they will soon suck again. So relax. Try some humility. —bob finch

We do remember that our teams once sucked ‘donkey balls,’ but only vaguely. You see, it’s difficult to be humble when your hometown has won five major championships in the last four years. Since 2004, the Red Sox have won twice, the Patriots have won twice, and then—gasp!—the Celtics took the NBA finals last June, the team’s first banner since 1986 (before my time on this Earth). And I’m not even mentioning the Bruins because the NHL is no longer relevant in any real way.

So yeah, we’re damn good. But it’s not just about winning. Let’s remember that the Patriots haven’t won the super bowl since 2005. It’s about the potential of winning. What’s changed in Boston is that every season now, in the three major American sports that people actually care about (football, baseball, and basketball, in that order), we now expect to be contenders for a title. We at least know that our team will (or should) be up there with the best of them.

Obviously as Mr. Finch so eloquently pointed out, it wasn’t always like that. When I was in middle school, for example, my family had season tickets to the Boston Garden, and my dad and I would faithfully drive into town and suffer through that claustrophobic, sluggish parking garage in order to watch the Celtics play.

During the era of our season tickets, we saw players come and go who were not great—Walter McCarty, Eric Williams, Tony Delk, Shammond Williams, Joe Johnson, Vin Baker, Milt Palacio, led by the hapless Antoine Walker—and the team was not great either. In fact, after witnessing humiliating, double-digit losses every Friday night, and then watching the management inexplicably jack up ticket prices in 2003, my dad gave up and we canceled our season tickets. Call us fair-weather fans, but this team was painful to watch.
Little did we know that a year later, in 2004, our city was about to blossom into a town of winners. That year the Red Sox reversed the curse, and the Pats won a second consecutive super bowl.

Today, in the wake of the Boston Three-Party and their magical championship season, Celts fans, Pats fans, and Sox fans are all one and the same: people who expect big things from their team. We expect results, and we continue to get them. The Sox have already rather easily polished off the Angels and will soon begin an ALCS battle with the Tampa Bay Rays. Non-Massholes (New Yorkers most of all) may shudder to think of it, but it’s very possible the Sox will nab their third world series title in five seasons.

So what’s the problem? Besides being hated by everyone else in sports fandom (which we don’t mind anyway), we have an identity crisis on our hands. The underdog ethos is gone completely, and with it the pride of wearing that Red Sox hat, with the emblematic ‘B’ that used to represent suffering through season after season of close calls, and early playoff elimination. That ‘B’ now represents victory, and people hate Sox fans almost as much as they hate the Pats.

And boy, do they hate the Pats. Spygate didn’t help, but it makes sense why people would hate Tom Brady. He’s like a manifestation, in the adult world, of that high school quarterback every guy emulates and hates—the handsome one with the hot girlfriend and the gang of worshipers. Brady’s not only ridiculously good at what he does (being a star quarterback), but he finds time to grab the “hot girl,” then knocks her up and leaves her for an even hotter girl. And as if all the winning isn’t enough to keep him in the spotlight, he reminds everyone of his greatness by modeling for magazines and advertisements.

But Brady’s injured now, to the delight of NFL die-hards everywhere outside of Boston. So they find other players to hate, like Yooooook (that chant is damn obnoxious if you’re not from Boston), Papelbon (with his over-the-top, Bacchanalian champagne showers on the mound), and Paul Pierce (Lakers fans will forever bitch about ‘the injury’).

But it’s not just our players who step up to the plate (or the foul line) with that cocky swagger. It’s us—New England sports fans—and the way we’ve begun to act, without even realizing it. Recently while riding the T, I made a joke to a Lakers fan about his city, calling it “El Gay,” (coined by Brian Scalabrine) and he answered, “No, no, it’s Boston that sucks.” Without missing a beat another guy nearby, some Sully or O’,Malley, stepped in and said to him, “You’re kiddin’ right? It’s the sports capital of the world right now.” The L.A. guy rolled his eyes, and I hated my fellow Bostonian for a moment, and myself as well. What kind of stuff is coming out of our pompous, victory-spoiled mouths?

For the first time ever, people wearing a Sox hat could actually be called frontrunners. It used to be cool to wear one, even if you weren’t from Boston. They never won anyway, so who’s going to give you a hard time? Now, if you’re not from MA/VT/NH/ME, sporting that cap just makes it look like you’re cheering for the best team—the safe option. How strange and new. And with all our money, we are dangerously close to becoming the Yankees, who for a long time perfected the art of the joyless win. Their fans sucked because they didn’t even seem to care that their team was the best; it was a given.

So now what? I’m not about to root against the Sox—ever—but in all honesty, a Dodgers World Series title might be nice. First one since 1955, and even though we all hate Manny Ramirez, it sure would really stick it to the Yankees, who booted Joe Torre (not his fault the Yanks sucked that year) in what had to be one of the dumbest sports moves since the Charlotte Hornets gave away Kobe Bryant for Vlade Divac. Torre only needed one season with the Dodgers to get them to the NLCS, and Manny certainly didn’t hurt. A-Rod and Jeter must feel like idiots for balking on their threats to leave the team when Torre was fired.

Who knows what’s next for Boston sports—More wins, or a fall from grace? Just like ole Bob Finch said, sports success comes and goes in cycles, so let’s talk in, say, five years.

And just for kicks, here’s a hilarious reader comment posted on the GQ blog in response to Finch’s article. It perfectly exhibits the Boston sports fan attitude and behavior:

Hey Bob, Shut the Fuck Up!

Bob, We NEVER liked you. Please don’t visit again. If you are sick of our success, stay the fuck away and shut off ESPN. Better yet move to Kansas City, Oakland, Washington or another “small city” and wallow in misery with them. You are right, sports go in cycles, and we will suck again at some point, which makes it even more important to revel in our success while it lasts. So, Bob, either get on the party bus or don’t bitch about getting run over by it when you visit. Oh, and again…. Fuck you.

On the Possibly Imminent Death of the Printed Word

As a voracious reader, and someone who spent the summer riding the T to work — a fabulous way to get a nice 50 pages of free reading done, and even better, it doubles as a way to avoid those awkward stares that come on public transportation when people have nowhere else to look — I was recently asked by someone at my office why I don’t just purchase an Amazon Kindle. After all, it would save the hassle of always carrying a paperback with me, right?

Wrong. But let’s rewind and remind ourselves of what the Kindle is, for anyone who doesn’t know (and this isn’t one of those “have you been living under a rock” situations; If you’ve never heard of the Kindle, you’re totally normal, and good for you).

What is the Kindle? That one is easy. It is a wireless book-reading device. You will never again need to purchase a hard copy of a text. No more books (or teachers, or dirty looks). You wirelessly connect to the Kindle store and buy any book you wish (Well, maybe not the Goosebumps books, kiddies, but nearly everything, from ‘high lit’ to Tucker Max), for a set price of less than ten dollars. The book then magically (c’mon, let’s just agree to call it magic) downloads to your Kindle and you hurry off to India, Montreal, your neighbor’s wife’s bedroom, or wherever it is you plan to read the damn thing.

What does the Kindle represent for society? This is the far more difficult question. What the Kindle symbolizes is America’s growing dependence on what I will haplessly and unoriginally deem “e-content.” This dependence is indisputable—it exists, and it’s growing. But it’s a bit more hazy what the Kindle could represent for the future: bye-bye to printed media?

Already, seventy percent of Americans (I made that up) rely on the Internet for their news rather than a crinkly, inviting newspaper. On the Internet, you can watch a rap battle between Kanye West and Dwight Schrute. You can find out the precise numbers from the Iowa caucuses. You can purchase a fucking constellation. Now, you can also carry fifteen full novels in something thinner and slightly wider than a palm pilot.

For some people, this might be great. If that’s you, go ahead and add it to your ’08 Christmas list right now. For other people, this may represent the end of that satisfying feeling we get after our eyes arrive at the last sentence of a hefty novel, when we shut the book emphatically and breathe a sigh of achievement.

Yes, the Kindle can flip the page forward or back, and it features a non-abrasive display that (supposedly) mimics the properties of a printed page, and it can even dog-ear a passage for you. But it won’t lovingly wrinkle the cover from multiple readings, and it won’t pop out a full-sized tome that you can proudly slide onto your bookshelf for all to see.

The Kindles will not sprout legs and take over the country. No one will die, and our books will not cry to us from their shelves and whimper, “You betrayed me…”

I don’t care, though. I still feel concerned. To fear change, of course, is unreasonable. The rise of personal computers, vacuum-bots, and iPods has only done good things for humanity. Still, it is easy to feel like we have reached the pinnacle of advancement: what new technology could possibly come around? On the iPhone you can make calls, watch TV, surf the web, and blast tunes. What else could there be, right? But there will be more. The Kindle itself is an example.

Consider this: When today’s senior citizens were teenagers, the Internet was inconceivable. If a modern-era Marty McFly had cruised back to the 1950s and informed people that they would soon be able to type a message and have it instantly appear on a screen halfway across the world, they would have laughed (probably a quaint, friendly, brownies-in-the-oven, 1950s kind of laugh).

I’m not some crazy reactionary who hates new technology. I just feel that if we stop to look around (I won’t dare type out that overused Ferris Bueller quote), we notice ways in which the current cultural scene is frightening and highly individualized. As for me, I’ll clutch my paperbacks until the robots come to burn them up.

And in terms of “exciting new technology” coming up with new ways to fit all kinds of different media into one handheld object, well, I think it’s fucking terrifying. Just see Wall-e if you doubt me, because those floating chairs from which you could live your entire life are a very real possibility. I mean, we’ve already created a society in which someone could conceivably never leave the house. Ever. You can cook all your meals or order them from takeout, work out/exercise on your personal gym, watch new(ish) movies via Netflix or OnDemand, and get a personal shopper to deliver any groceries or products you need. It’s disturbing.

I guess I just like the feel of a book in my hands, you know? I like the heft of a real tome of language, and I take pleasure in watching the thickness of the pages on the right diminish, as the pages on the left pile up and I get closer to the end of a book. Oh, and I like when I’m on the T, or the bus, or an airplane, and numerous people sitting in my vicinity have a book out, and I can slyly gaze at the cover and raise an eyebrow if they’re reading Kafka or Marquez, or smirk pompously if the book is by Dean Koontz. This little social game is finished if every asshole on the train is holding a silver little box that conceals the title of their selection. Lame.

[UPDATE, 10/30/08]

And now, Oprah Winfrey has publicly endorsed the Kindle, thereby increasing its villainy tenfold. Thanks, Ope! I’m sure the Book Club faithful will appreciate the corporate plug.

Movie Review: ‘Pineapple Express’

Okay, it’s good. It really is an entertaining flick. But I don’t think it’s an instant classic in the way that The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up both were. These movies had the comedy and the heart, and this one’s got a lot of heart too, but also a surplus of slapstick.

Let’s praise “the good” before we start to bitch and moan. First up, James Franco (Saul). Really, very good. This is one of those guys who a straight man can watch and completely acknowledge his very clear handsomeness and heartthrob appeal. With his performance here, he snatches the movie up from the guy-comedy veteran Rogen. When you watch this, the girls want to hook up with Saul, and the guys want to become his best friend. Along with Rogen—and one would hope this began back during the Freaks and Geeks era when they played Daniel Desario and Ken Miller—Franco creates a real sense of male camaraderie that the audience can’t help but warm up to and enjoy.

Another ‘good’ moment is a scene in which Dale (Rogen) calls his high-schooler girlfriend from a payphone. He and Saul have just found out they should probably be on the run since they might be the targets of hitmen, so he calls her to warn her. After she reacts negatively and they sling insults at each other, a blubbering Dale breaks down and says he loves her, and she, on the other end, starts to cry too and says she loves him, and the moment is such a tender and, dare I say this of a movie of this nature, moving one, you just thin, “awww.” Then, a moment later, the girlfriend says she wants to marry him one day, and Dale smartens up and says, “Wait a minute, you want to marry me? But I’m an idiot! That’s so dumb!” And they start fighting again, and he hangs up on her, and it’s so funny, and so perfectly-done, and finally such a classic example of Apatow’s style—genuine moments of real emotional tenderness, broken up abruptly with comic relief of a one-liner or destruction of the moment. It works smoothly.

Finally there’s Gary Cole, who can apparently do no wrong. He’s one of those guys who was able to do a character as memorable as Bill Lumbergh in Office Space, and yet escaped the stigma of always being known as that one dude. I like him best as the dad in Talladega Nights– a movie lots of people hated, but I insist gets funnier, and more charming, on second and third viewings. Here, as the “bad guy” he’s terrific. Even just his facial expressions are gold.

On to “the bad,” though. First, some of the side characters, many of whom are very talented actors, are used poorly and fall flat in general. The evil female cop is a dud. Her lines fail to illicit laughs– she’s your typical angry villian, like a caricature out of Home Alone 7– she doesn’t belong in an adult movie.

Then there’s Darryl from The Office (real name Craig Robinson) who is always funny. He’s spectacular as the nightclub bouncer in Knocked Up, but here he kind of reprises the character, using the same whiny-funny tone of voice and pouty face, portraying the archetypal “tough-guy-who’s-really-a-softie” part. It’s kind of… lame. It especially gets stupid when Rogen is forced to shoot him (maybe it’s Franco, I forget) and he sits there half-crying, saying “I can’t believe you shot me!” Not very funny.

Finally there’s the character of Red. Okay, I get it– he’s cool because he’s not one of the main guys, but he kinda comes from surprise and ends up joining ‘the team’ and has some real funny lines and scenes. But I’ve heard so many people/reviews say that ‘Red steals the movie,’ and no, he doesn’t. I can’t tell if it’s the character or the actor I didn’t much like, but he is no Rogen or Franco. Most of the time, his ghetto-slang is more grating than funny (oh, white guy talking like a gangsta, that’s a concept no other comedies have tapped) and by the end of the movie when he’s coughing blood over breakfast and the other characters are joking that he should probably go to the hospital (I admit that diner scene was hilarious) I was kinda hoping he’d keel over right there and die. Now that would have been clever.

You see, that’s the main problem with this comedy, if you compare it to other Apatow films. The cast of supporting characters just doesn’t measure up. Franco and Rogen are on point, but they’re not enough to take this from a good to a great movie. In The 40-Year-Old-Virgin, every character is developed and fleshed out. All the workers from the electronics store are funny and uniquely acted, with their own clear personalities (Rogen, Rudd, Romany Malco [Conrad on Weeds], the old Indian guy who makes fun of Steve Carrell). Catherine Keener’s daughter (who’ll play Nora in the forthcoming, probably-funny Nick and Nora’s Playlist) gets well-developed and really progresses nicely from hating Carrell to supporting him and liking him as a suitor for her mom. Or take Knocked Up, in which Rogen himself, as the protagonist, but also Katherine Heigl, her character’s sister, her brother-in-law Paul Rudd, all become their own real, likeable people, and they aren’t flat like the side characters in Pineapple Express. Even Rogen’s dad, and his gang of friends, too (including Jonah Hill, Bill from Freaks and Geeks, and Jason Segel), are all well-done and emerge as important to the plot of the movie, each in their own way. Here in Pineapple, there literally is only Saul and Dale.

Finally, in addition to the cast, I didn’t like when the movie delapidated into a silly action spoof. It felt like the clever comedy had turned into Rush Hour 4, but with villains that were even more absurd and childish than the ones Jackie Chan always gets to fight.I understand that the point was for it to be over the top, and boy was it, but it was closer to Airplane slapstick than Shaun of the Dead-style comedic violence.

My last gripe is about the girlfriend plotline. I mentioned above that I really like the chemistry between Rogen and whoever it is that plays his high school girlfriend. I think the scenes between them are funny, but also tender (older guy dating high school girl is a great chance for both comic gold and considerate honesty) and I couldn’t believe she never shows up again in the film after she and Rogen fight on the phone and scream at each other. Are we supposed to think that’s it, or no? Are we not supposed to care? I did, and even though I know the emphasis here is on the ‘bromance,’ I was unimpressed at their failure to bring her back and let us see a resolution to their slightly-taboo relationship.

All that said, it’s a solid comedy, because it’s Judd fucking Apatow. Rogen and Franco are an excellent duo, just as Michael Cera and Jonah Hill were before them, and Rogen and Paul Rudd before that. This will never be in my hallowed comedy hall of fame with movies like Dude, Where’s My Car, Wedding Crashers, 40-Year-Old-Virgin, or Half Baked. And I won’t buy it on DVD (I’m sure it’ll be on movie channels every god damn night). But it’s worthwhile, and it’ll entertain you.

Did America Become Too Illogical for DFW?

So David Foster Wallace has killed himself at the young age of 46. And as terrible as this news is, I get the feeling his death (and life) will fly under the radar for so many Americans. I don’t intend to be pretentious here, but I’d bet the majority of people—even many who call themselves big readers—would not have heard of Wallace.

He was an intellectual, renowned only within the literary world. Since he was never arrested for a DUI, never dated Paris Hilton, never acted in one of the Ocean’s movies, and never “accidentally” flashed his snatch for the paparazzi, most Americans did not know or care to know who he was.

But there’s a reason why we should care, and why today’s college students, as the next generation of America’s leaders, should care deeply.

Wallace was a hilarious, brilliant, brutally honest novelist and essayist, as well as one of the most astute social commentators alive. I’m not just deeply saddened by his suicide; I’m shaken to my core by the very real possibility that an appalling farce playing out in the American media may have led him to the height of depression and, ultimately to his death.

I was reading various obituaries and tribute articles in the New York Times, and I decided to check out the readers comments’ section. After a long list of sad notes about his great work (one reader noted glumly, “Infinite Jest was my Catcher in the Rye“), an early entry of the 139 comments said, “Perhaps it was the image of Sarah Palin, the embodiment of entertainment in politics, that drove Wallace to this sad end.”

Now, my initial reaction—as I expect many of yours will be—was one of skepticism, and even disgust. What an absurd suggestion! And moreover, how disrespectful to his friends and family. This was a man who was clearly depressed (his father has said as much in the past few weeks), and to put his death on something as unrelated as John McCain’s choice of VP is downright foolish. Right?

But then I kept reading, and found fourteen more comments that mentioned Sarah Palin. The comment that really opened up my eyes said: “I immediately thought of Palin… She seems a pretty blatant extension of the ‘three-alarm emergency’ that he wrote about last year.” Indeed, in his introduction to the America’s Best Essays 2007 anthology, Wallace wrote, “There is just no way that 2004’s reelection [of Bush] could have taken place… if we had been paying attention and handling information in a competent and grown-up way.”

Wallace—like his contemporary George Saunders, who presents a similar fear of where this country’s headed in his book of essays The Braindead Megaphone— often wrote about the dangers of allowing the media to dominate our hearts and minds. Like so many socially conscious writers before him, he warned of the increasing entertainment factor of the news: sensationalized headlines, fawning portrayals of celebrities and politicians, or advertisements for Fox that declare things like, “THIS is compelling news!”

Obviously as someone writing a blog post about the possibility that Sarah Palin caused a famous writer to kill himself, I’m going to look rather liberal. But let’s forget her politics for a moment and agree on a few “self-evident truths.”

First, let’s agree that this woman was chosen as an obvious ploy by McCain. Her selection rushed her to the forefront of the media, and she has stayed there ever since (yet another inane article about her was actually placed on the Times Web site above the Wallace obit). She appeals to the GOP sector concerned with “god, guns, and gays” (she likes only the first two), and her Brady Bunch family circus attracted a sick, obsessed scrutiny at the RNC, at every event since, and, presumably, will do so in the White House.

After watching the crazed, breathless news coverage of two pregnancy scandals, Trooper-gate, the “Screw Polar Bears, Let’s Drill For Oil” fiasco, the library-censorship debacle, and finally the “Bridge to Nowhere” story, it has become clear that this woman is a constant fountain of absurdity. With every bizarre new secret that unfolds, it becomes more terrifying that she could very well be running the country in two years.

James Carville said a few weeks ago, “Look at this like a levee, and there’s a lot of water building up behind the levee for Governor Palin as we keep finding things out … Right now, the levee is leaking.”

It would seem possible (among many other deep problems, obviously) that the levee burst for Wallace, whose literary heart, full of so much hope for our country, simply could not accept America’s current illogical fascination with this person, who is by all acounts a complete symbol of anti-intellectualism and propaganda.

Yet Another Embarrassing Grammatical Error from a Prominent News Outlet

At Boats Against the Current, we love proper grammar. You might recall earlier this summer when I posted about the Associated Press article that called a Jewish kippah a “skullcap” when Obama wore one at the Western Wall—a problem of word choice, so not really a grammatical error per se, but certainly a foolish mistake that reflected both ignorance and, in a way, apathy toward careful reporting.

This time it was The Guardian, a somewhat well-respected British newspaper. What’s wrong with this headline?

Foster Wallace is a Huge Loss

Let’s all point and laugh: apart from the obvious poor judgment in phrasing (the headline makes it sound as though the author himself is a loss, whereas they meant his death was a loss), there’s a more blatant goof that exactly zero of the article’s 40 commenters pointed out: the man’s name was David Wallace. ‘Foster’ was his middle name (his mother’s maiden name, to be precise). They’ve treated it as though his last name were Foster-Wallace (though they didn’t include a hyphen, so one wonders what they actually were thinking). Either that’s the case, or they knew it was a middle name and they’re just idiots. This is an extreme example, but it would be like if Robert B. Parker died and the headline ran: “B Parker Dies at 74.” Oof.

In case it wasn’t clear, here’s what Wallace’s friend Martin Riker says in Slate:

David Foster Wallace was a pen name. It was also the author’s actual name, but he never went by it. Using Foster was his agent’s idea, he said, because Da-vid Wal-lace was syllabically unmemorable. This has proven to be sound marketing advice, although I don’t think David or Dave Wallace was ever very comfortable with it.

And here it is from Associated Content:

David Wallace (Foster, which was his middle name, was added at the suggestion of a literary agent) was born in 1962 and raised in Illinois.

Oh, England. You can do better. And how ironic, to see this error in an article about his literary legacy.

Never Forget

Let’s keep in our thoughts today all those people who were lost, or said goodbye to loved ones, on this day seven years ago. Can’t believe so much time has passed already.

The Case Against Sarah Palin

James Carville, wise man that he is, said on CNN, “Look at this like a levee, and there’s a lot of water building up behind the levee for Governor Palin as we keep finding things out… She wasn’t thoroughly vetted and I think Republicans are appropriately quite nervous about what else is coming out… I’m a little mystified by the pick of Governor Palin, it just doesn’t add up for me.”

When asked about the Trig scandal (the rumors that baby Trig was actually the child of Bristol Palin, not Sarah Palin herself), Carville responded, “Sarah Palin has now become a more compelling and interesting person than maybe even Senator Obama for the moment, and they’re going to have to introduce her… These first two days have not gone well, with all these different stories coming out… Right now, the levee is leaking, and they’ve gotta hurry up and get some sand bags in there because this thing is not going all that great for them.

Steve Schmidt, senior adviser for McCain had this bit of drivel to contribute at the RNC: “Smear after smear after smear. And the American people will overwhelmingly reject it when they see her.” No, they won’t.

How about Fred Thompson’s pompous, unsubtle pro-Palin dig at Hillary? “Some Washington pundits and media big shots are at a frenzy over the selection of a woman who was actually Governor, rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit!” I guess that’s meant to be Hillary. And that’s what Thompson thinks Hillary Clinton did, ‘hit the cocktail circuit?’ Unfuckingbelievable.

All we need to know comes from what one former Hillary supporter said on television—one of the few, idiotic, inexplicably illogical Hillary supporters who will now vote for McCain simply because he chose a woman as his VP, even though that woman does not uphold their ideals in any way: “She’s like a real frontier woman, ya know, with a baby in one hand and a gun in the other!” Yup. That’s what she’s like, all right.

Oh, and if you don’t buy any of what I wrote here, just take it from Jason Bourne himself:

No One Likes Novak Djokovic

After Novak Djokovic beat Robredo in the fourth round the other day, he was asked how he felt about being set to face Andy Roddick next. He apparently said something about how it would be a tough match, since he’s suffering from numerous injuries.

But Djokovic has made statements like this in the past, often in an attempt to psyche out his opponent. So after all the sports analysts concurred that Djokovic probably wasn’t so injured, Roddick was asked in an interview for his reaction to the news that Djokovic had an injured shoulder and ankle. Andy said something like, “Isn’t it both shoulders? And SARS, and Bird Flu, and Anthrax?” After all, the man is a hypochondriac, and besides, who knew the Djoker himself couldn’t tale the teasing? After all, this is the same Novak Djokovic who is known for his impressions of other tennis stars (he does a mean Sharapova, and a roast of angry Roddick, in which he destroys his racket). Just watch the two friendly men teasing each other here (they’re almost flirting):

So when Djokovic beat Roddick (in a match marred by particularly disappointing inconsistency by Roddick) yesterday, why did he flip out in the post-game Q&A?

This was after a very gracious Roddick hurried over to shake his hand, and the crowd—one which overwhelmingly favored Roddick during the match—actually cheered Djokovic’s impresive win. So then, questioned by the USA network’s current idiot, Djokovic said defiantly, “Andy was saying I have 16 injuries in last match; I guess I don’t.” This prompted big boos, and why not? He’s an asshole.

The interviewer said something like, “Uh-oh, careful, this crowd can turn quick” and Djokovic answered, “I know, they’re already against me because they think I’m faking everything. But that’s not nice, to say I have 16 injuries and I’m faking it.” How foolish. Couldn’t he just take the win, thank the crowd, and exit quietly?

I guess this clown can’t take a dose of his own medicine. But no matter, because I’m sure he’ll get absolutely torn apart by Federer.

Get ‘em next time, Andy!

The Brief Wondrous Junot Díaz Reading in Cambridge

Well, despite the arrogance and excessive joke-cracking of Salman Rushdie, I suppose his appearance in Cambridge, sponsored by the Harvard Bookstore, encouraged me to go to another one. This time, the Harvard bookstore booked Junot Diaz, and let’s just say he was a completely different story from the Satanic Verses scribe who listed Diaz’s new novel among the books he’s currently reading for pleasure.

The same obnoxious book store employee who introduced Rushdie marched onto the stage to deliver a chain of Diaz ass-kissing that was rife with strange phrases and mispronunciations. First she told us that Oscar Wao “met, exceeded, and exploded all expectations.” Ha! I love exploding expectations—sometimes to make them explode more easily, I fill expectations with water and throw them at cars!

She then went on to note that the book won the Pulitzer, which she pronounced “pew-litzer.” No matter; she got the fuck off and made way for the literary wunderkind himself, who began with some jokes about being from New Jersey, and therefore hating Boston.

But he then segued into small talk about politics, which was a decidedly bad idea. When you’re up on a stage, with a microphone, and everyone in the audience came to see you, there’s no such thing as small talk. And politics is never a safe topic, even if you’re in Cambridge, Mass., where the assumption that everyone present is hyper-liberal is probably a safe one. He said, “Being a person of color in the Boston area, it’s sort of like, Obama!” I’m not completely sure what that meant. He cracked another joke about the election, and when met with a silent crowd asked, “I mean, what happened to the Obama of 4 years ago, from the DNC speech? Where’s that guy?” Where, indeed. But get to the reading, buddy!

After only a little more stalling, Diaz revealed that he would be reading from a work-in-progress, a short story entitled “Flaka” (I think, but I may have heard him wrong), which is a Spanish word for “skinny.”

As it turns out, Diaz is a poor speaker, but a great writer. This of course will seem too mean, but it needs to be mentioned that his jilted reading voice was rather distracting. He read the first line of the story: “I’m not going to stay… [awkward pause] …long.” There was also some stuttering, and visible nervousness (surprising from an MIT professor who probably addresses giant lecture halls every day), prompting me to wonder, Is Diaz the real Oscar Wao?

In addition to the problem of his reading each sentence with the same cadence, therefore removing emphasis from the story, there were verbal stumbles on phrases like “You stood besides me,” (incorrect, obviously) which was either a mistake in the text (unlikely), was the correct text and therefore meant to reflect bad grammar by the character, or was simpy misread by Diaz; I could not decide. Again, later, he read something from the story as “News Jersey,” and it became clear to me that in all likelihood these were not errors in his story, but accidental verbal trips.

But it didn’t matter; the story was terrific. It involved a guy reciting to a former lover a numbered list that recounts his memories of their relationship. One especially moving line that prompted some sighs from the audience came after the characters have a chat in which they agree that they could never marry each other: “Then we fucked so we could pretend that nothing hurtful had just transpired.” Beautiful writing.

Once Diaz finished reading and the Q&A began, it became apparent that it was only when reading aloud that the author has problems. When fielding questions, he was unquestionably more eloquent, charming, and unfaltering. He even acknolwedged his public reading problems when he joked, “I know I suffer from this utter lack of affect that makes me sound like I’m trying to be funny, but usually I’m not!”

The vast majority of the questions (it got pretty old, in fact) asked about the influence and presence of Spanish in the text. After all, every person in the audience was able to trade in their ticket for a copy of Oscar Wao in its new paperback form; copies were also available en español, and those had a lot of takers.

They asked him if he felt his use of Spanish in the text made it a challenging read for any non-Spanish speakers (Of course he said that no, he thinks that most readers enjoy learning new things and looking up words they don’t know), and asked about his own allegiance to Spanish in his personal life, and even demanded the story about his relationship (if any) with whoever translated his novel into Spanish. These questions, all on the same general topic, grew tiresome—best exemplified when one girl asked this riveting gem: “I notice so many great writers are multi-lingual, are you conscious of how this affects your writing?” Yes, he’s conscious of it, and we just heard him speak about it for twenty minutes. Plus, she mispronounced ‘Isabel Allende’ twice during her useless query.

When one guy (okay, it was me) asked Diaz what books he’s currently reading for pleasure, he delivered some cloudy references, mentioning “A Book of Memories,” a novel few had heard of (evident by the completely dead silence when he said the title). He called it “super-duper dynamite.” Yes, this is an adult comic book geek. In fact, one comedic break in the Q&A was when a bold young dude asked Diaz to give us his “nerd cred,” even calling him a “Master Nerd” in the process. The author loved it.

Finally, Diaz laughed and said, “You’re so sweet, you guys are pitching me meatballs!” But his sense of receiving easy questions was visibly shattered when someone asked, “I read an article that proposed your book should replace The Catcher in the Rye as the seminal novel taught in high schools everywhere.” He simpy said, “Jesus… My comment on that is: No Comment.” Damn right. I haven’t read the book yet so I may not be qualified to make this judgment, but something tells me I’ll still believe after finishing it that NO, this thing should NOT replace Catcher. Just my instinct.

But I’ll have to wait to really judge its greatness. For now, I can anticipate a fabulous read, since even just the brief excerpt he delivered Wednesday was absolutely stunning. In fact, I was tempted to return my new copy of Oscar Wao and pick up his collection of short stories, Drown, instead.

For now, I can say that this guy isn’t great at reading aloud, but he’s damn good at writing. He’s a very different writer, speaker, and personality than Salman Rushdie, that’s for sure. And I’d like to see Diaz again in the future.

Bizarre NYT Book Review of ‘The Gargoyle’

Let’s all point and laugh.

I’m sorry to only just now be addressing Janet Maslin’s absurd 7/31 book review of Andrew Davidson’s much-hyped novel The Gargoyle. I saw this write-up the very day it was published on the NYTimes Book Review page, and I recall e-mailing the article to fellow voracious readers and asking them what they could make of it.

My co-worker Lynn responded: “The review is bewildering, and I will certainly never read that book.”

A different friend, Rob, told me, “Maslin must have fallen asleep before she could come to an actual conclusion about the book, then she woke up in the a.m. and sent in the review as is. It lacks all sense.”

Bewildering, indeed. I’ve read countless Maslin reviews that do make sense (she penned a prominent review of Edgar Sawtelle, and I also liked when she ripped apart Carl Hiaasen’s self-serving golf memoir), which is why this abberation surprises me.

She introduces her review by calling the book “transportingly unhinged.” What does that even mean? I’m not sure Maslin herself knows. Then, she quotes some admittedly very good passages from a description of the protagonist’s accident, and then concludes, “This was an ugly accident all right.” She sounds a bit like a seventh grader

But it’s okay so far—strange though her language may be, at least her opinion seems clear: she likes the book. Right?

I’m not so sure. She soon tells us whiningly that the book “wallows in degradation” for quite a while until things start “looking up.”

Then she begins to explain the plot, which involves the appearance of a woman—a stranger to the protagonist—who insists that she knew the hero in a past life. Now, unrelated to Maslin’s review, I have to say this was a deal-breaking turnoff for me. I hadn’t realized this novel would be fantasy, and as for my thoughts on the sudden appearance of strange, kooky women who claim to already know the protagonist, just see my review of Coetzee’s Slow Man.

Anyway, skeptical biases about fantastical romances aside, Maslin eventually declares, after admitting how zany the plot sounds, that Davidson has “vigorous and impressive narrative skill.”

But wait. In the very next paragraph, Maslin launches into an abrupt, aggravated list in which she fires off numerous aspects of the book that she apparently resents:

What are some of this book’s ingredients doing here? Did it really need two sets of acrostics, one made from the first letter of each chapter, the other made from the last letter? Is Dante’s hell, once Marianne begins leading her centuries-old lover on a hallucinatory guided tour, really so full of different typefaces? Why does the book pause to include long, voluptuous menus with items like “a plump eggplant’s fecund belly pregnant with stuffing?” Is that a reference to a centuries-old pregnancy or simply another nod to Mr. Davidson’s richly varied appetites?

She caps this off by calling this novel “overweening.” Sounds to me like she hates the thing. The next paragraph is yet another one entirely comprised of quotes passages, signaling to me that, at least on the day she wrote this particular review, Maslin lost the skill or interest to actually present opinions of her own, leaving the job of critiquing this new book up to the quotes themselves. Unimpressive.

Still, regardless of her own writing style/skill (or rare lack thereof in this case), the goal here is to figure out if the review was even a positive one, something that is more recently becoming challenging to discern from NYTimes book reviews.

The question is nearly unanswerable. After that list of grievances and occasional harsh terms, she concludes with this Dante-related zinger: “for all those who enter here, there is no need to abandon hope.” No need to abandon hope. So she likes it? Oh, no, wait: “Lessons are learned, love is found, spirits are restored, and faith is revealed, all in the overheated cauldron of Mr. Davidson’s imagination.” Ouch.

So thank you, Miz Maslin, for providing absolutely no answer to the question that provided my only goal in seeking out your review: whether or not it’s a good novel. Not that I’ll be reading a love story involving a gargoyle-sculptor with claims about past lives anyway, but hey. Thanks for nothing.

Perhaps the ineffectiveness of Maslin’s review was the reason the NYT felt the need to post a second review of the book by Sophie Gee, a completely new, first-time NYT reviewer who completely succeeds where Maslin fails: in actually reviewing the thing. Gee tells us in no uncertain terms:

As straight-up entertainment, “The Gargoyle” is so-so. It’s not exactly unputdownable, but it has enough unexplained details to remain interesting.

…Like most first novels, “The Gargoyle” does some things well and some things badly, and it does lots and lots of them because the author hasn’t yet figured out which ones will work.

…It is simply an entertaining novel straining to feel like something more substantial.

Cheers to the NYT, I suppose, for finding a proper reviewer, albeit after the fact.

I suppose the folks over at Entertainment Weekly, in a rare and surprising departure from their normally disappointing attempts at book reviews, really earned the “honesty award” with this doozy:

Doubleday ponied up a reported $1.25 million for Andrew Davidson’s debut novel, The Gargoyle — and if they were paying for just the unintentionally hilarious sentences, that would work out to about $10,000 per howler. This much-hyped book is eye-bulgingly atrocious, packed with medieval history to disguise prose that’s worse than your average Dungeons & Dragons blog. The unnamed narrator is a repugnant coke-addled porno actor (credits include Doctor Giving Bone, I Presume) who, in the first scene, burns himself alive after driving off a bridge while high. He spends the first never-ending 200 pages of the book in the hospital getting taunted by a chatty ”bitchsnake” who lives in his spine, prompting a Herculean bit of alliteration that sounds like Dante’s Inferno translated by Dr. Seuss: ”The sibilant sermons of the snake as she discoursed upon the disposition of my sinner’s soul seemed ceaseless.” Ssssseriously?

Soon, a woman enters — the tattooed Marianne, a carver of stone gargoyles by day who insists that she and the narrator were lovers in the 14th century, when she was a nun and he carried a crossbow. Gradually, the shriveled porno-actor gargoyle learns — awww — to love. But first, Marianne has an amusing moment while eating vegetarian pizza naked. ”A cheese strand dangled from her mouth to the edge of her left nipple,” the narrator reports, ”and I wanted to rappel it like a mozzarella commando to storm her lovely breasts.” The real expert on cheese here is Davidson.

Hey, might sound a little harsh (after all, Sophie Gee raved that it was “so-so!”), but at least EW made their opinion clear.

When Authors Cross a Line: Chuck Palahniuk & J.K. Rowling

So I just read Chuck Palahniuk’s second novel, Survivor. Although I didn’t think it was as fabulous as friends had promised, I did enjoy it, and I think I’m ready to admit that I would have loved it more if I had read it before I read so many of his other books. As I mentioned on my “Reviews” page, I feel like all the Chuck books are the same story, written in the same exact style, with virtually the same protagonist, just slightly different. But this was his second book, and had I read it when it came out, years ago, I think I would have loved it.

That being said, I didn’t really find it compelling enough to write a full book review. The reason it’s coming up in a post now has to do with something else: the ending of the book.

I would warn you of plot spoilers now, but this book is eight years old, so I think it’s okay for me to “spill the beans.”

So when I reached the end of the book, I thought it was pretty clear that Tender Branson dies. He says he’s up in the airplane, that all four engines have flamed out and he’s now waiting to plummet toward the earth, and that he knows he will die.

But a buddy of mine who is a major Chuck fan told me that Palahniuk’s official web site claims otherwise. He said, “You didn’t read the real ending?” I visited the web site, which is chuckpalahniuk.net, and found the section on Survivor. According to the man himself:

The end of Survivor isn’t nearly so complicated. It’s noted on page 7(8?) that a pile of valuable offerings has been left in the front of the passenger cabin. This pile includes a cassette recorder. Even before our hero starts to dictate his story — during the few minutes he’s supposed to be taking a piss — he’s actually in the bathroom dictating the last chapter into the cassette recorder. It’s just ranting, nothing important plot-wise, and it can be interrupted at any point by the destruction of the plane. The minute the fourth engine flames out, he starts the cassette talking, then bails out, into Fertility’s waiting arms (she’s omniscient, you know). The rest of the book is just one machine whining and bitching to another machine. The crash will destroy the smaller recorder, but the surviving black box will make it appear that Tender is dead.

What kind of bullshit is this? There’s no evidence in the text for this “two tape recorder” thing, and as for Tender surviving, I just didn’t see it that way. Yes, Tender mentions that there are parachutes (and so naturally you’re thinking, wait, he doesn’t have to die) but he also says on the final page that Fertility told him there was a way for him to live, but that he’s too stupid to figure it out. All signs point to death. But apparently Mr. Palahniuk envisions a different ending.

My point is that even if the ending Chuck proposes is in fact meant to be the clear ending presented in the book, it might not have looked that way to many readers, and it’s not Palahniuk’s place to present, definitively, the ending that he feels happens.

The beauty of literature is that so many different people can read a single novel and react in completely different ways. In fact, in some cases where an ending is unclear, each reader might have their own interpretation of a book’s meaning or resolution.

And in the case of Survivor, the ending is especially ambiguous, which (nicely) leaves it open to interpretation. But when Palahniuk allows his own perception of the ending to end up online, it ruins it. The issue of authorial intention is often a hazy one, but the ‘rub’ here is that if Palahniuk believed so firmly that his protagonist lives at the end of the book, then he should have made that more obvious in the text. He didn’t, and to simply tell people that Tender survives is to cross a line, and force his own ending (one that may or may not have evidence in the text) on the reader.

I felt similarly last October, when JK Rowling decided to announce that her beloved character Albus Dumbledore is gay. In fact, I was rather pissed off. I have absolutely nothing against gay people, and I consider myself a strong supporter of gay rights. But in this case, her declaration was inappropriate, and unfair to readers.

This all happened right after the release of the sixth Harry Potter book, in which Dumbledore dies. The announcement came during a hugely attended public reading at Carnegie Hall, when some innocent child asked during the Q&A, “Does Dumbledore ever find love?” Rowling answered defiantly, “Dumbledore is gay,” to which the crowd erupted in shocked oohs, delighted aahs, and then raucous applause at her bold courage.

I was angry because it wasn’t her place to simply add a detail to her fictional world after the fact—a detail that was never, ever included or (in my opinion) even suggested in any of the books.

I guess Rowling just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. I like the way the Salon article linked above puts it, in the headline: “Authors like J.K. Rowling just can’t stop telling their own stories.” Indeed, the books were already written, and if she realized late in the game that she had wanted to make Dumbledore gay in order to be daring, or modern, or impress people, too bad. She should have done so in the books, but she didn’t, and so it was ridiculous of her to cross that line and force a detail on readers which many of us simply don’t agree with or choose to accept. And that’s not about homophobia or anything. It’s about enjoying six long novels and then having the personal identity of a character altered outside of the text by a loud-mouthed author.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I feel that the entire story of a novel begins and ends in the novel itself. It is not, and should never be, an author’s place to add information on their own, via the internet or public appearances. Once a book is published and out there, the story is done. Set in stone. If they have in their own imagination a specific interpretation of the characters or story, they need to keep it to themselves. And it doesn’t matter that he or she wrote the thing; they still shouldn’t get to abuse that authorial power by announcing new endings or details.

What do you think?

Additional Thoughts on the Palin Pick (Hint: It Wasn’t Such a Dumb Move)

Well, after an entire day of watercooler buzz (if you work in an office, you undoubtedly noticed that everyone was talking about the McCain VP choice), I’ve come up with some more thoughts on the puzzling saga of Sarah Palin.

And at first, I pretty much reacted the way many did: I laughed in the face of the GOP and rejoiced, because in my mind he had secured Obama the win. “What a joke,” I thought. But even then I had an inkling of concern—a voice in my head reminding me that, hey, these decisions don’t just get made on a whim. McCain is no moron; give him some credit. He’s got a team of shrewd political analysts and veterans of presidential campaigning, and they wouldn’t have let him just pick some random asshole without considering every single angle. Without a doubt, they absolutely conducted an exhaustive investigation of all the likely candidates, and somehow, they thought this was the best choice. Better than Romney, better than Pawlenty. So there’s something we’re missing.

So I went back, and started to see it. The reasons this move might have been an absolutely perfect political machination. And boy, it’s kind of scary.

First of all, I had already noted that she’s super-conservative, but I hadn’t quite verbalized just what this means. Palin is a major supporter of gun rights. She’s staunchly against abortion and gay marriage. So it’s not just that she’s more conservative than even the proudest members of the GOP (Karl Rove is shitting himself at the news of McCain’s choice, by the way)—which itself is a smart McCai move that assuages the Repubs who don’t think McCain is far enough to the right—but what’s also compelling is that she’s pretty much a villain to anyone who cares about women’s rights.

In fact, I don’t see how any woman who considers herself a Democrat could possibly decide to vote for McCain simply because he’s chosen a woman as his running mate. If they have any intelligence at all, they’ll click on any one of the number of news articles that have already surfaced about Palin, that extensively log her strong opposition to pretty much every single thing that liberals want to see happen.

And so, in keeping with this, I wrote earlier today that I even find it insulting for McCain and his campaign to expect people who once supported Hillary to switch teams simply because they see a woman up on the podium.

But, you know what? They thought right. We’re watching it happen. Just check out any posts from the Caucus blog on the NYTimes today. Hillary supporters are indeed elated over this choice, and they’re threatening to vote for McCain, simply with the interest of furthering women’s history. Whether or not they will actually go through with it is anyone’s guess, and one would hope that maybe as the election gets closer they’ll smarten up, shut their mouths for a moment, and kick themselves for ever letting their anger take them so far over the edge of logic.

But that might not happen. For now, just look at the kinds of things they’re saying about Palin. On the news tonight, a Boston democrat, one-time Hillary fangirl said, in all seriousness: “She’s going to bring to the Republicans what choosing Hillary as VP would have brought to the Democrats.” Unbelievable. The only single thing that she and Hillary have in common is a vagina. But perhaps, to the horror of many of us, women won’t care that Palin shares zero of their interests. They’ll care, maybe, that she’s a woman, and that’s enough for them.

These people terrify me. Have you watched them speak? They don’t even make sense. They’ve completely lost it— a legion of pantsuit-clad, female Captain Ahabs, obsessed with revenge, ready to do anything (even vote for the party whose views they completely abhor) just to ’stick it’ to Obama, their White Whale (in this case, black).

One silver lining here is that I believe the Palin pick might actually force Hillary into the spotlight once again for the Dems, in an extremely positive way. I think we’re going to start seeing Hillary getting out there and pushing hard for Obama. I’m even envisioning a grand speech, more outstanding than Barack’s at Invesco, in which Hillary says something like, “I understand you all want a woman as VP, and that the time is now, but this is not the woman you want.” I think she’s going to become very, very crucial to the Obama/Biden ticket. Like a ‘Best Supporting Actress,’ if you will.

Another thing to think about is that, indisputably, it’s much more important who McCain’s VP is than who Obama picks, because McCain could very well fall ill during his presidency. I know, I know, he’s very healthy—for his age. But even the average life expectancy for an American man is in his seventies, and McCain will be 73 when (if ever) he takes office. His VP very well could end up leading our country.

And that’s going to be Sarah Palin?! This is downright terrifying. I think even Repubs don’t want to consider that possibility.

I think what’s clearly happened here is that while Joe Biden was a legitimate, capable candidate who himself was running for President before he was tapped as VP, Palin basically got lucky. She was in the right place at the right time, and pretty much was randomly chosen out of nowhere simply because she’s a woman, and an ultra-conservative. She didn’t really have to do anything at all to become a potential Vice President of the U.S. And that’s pretty shocking.

By the way, she is an intimidating person. If you watched her acceptance speech, you saw how deft she is with her hand motions and rhetoric, and you realized that, random as she may seem, this is a very, very charismatic politician. I fear women are going to be strongly swayed to like her. After all, she’s even got a winning story: mother of five (the youngest of which has Down’s Syndrome, I don’t really understand how she’s going to live and work in the White House with this kind of a difficult personal responsibility) and a hard-working, independent American woman of strong religious and ethical values.

And not only is she a great speaker like Obama, she’s a gun-nut, military-fanatic who is said to walk around with a Blackberry in each hand.

So here’s the image we now have of her if we don’t happen to be from Alaska: a gorgeous woman (she’s got that sexy school teacher thing going on) striding down Main Street in a scarlet business suit (skirt, not pantsuit like lame old Hillary) fielding important calls on a bluetooth headset while she sends texts to her husband on a separate phone, reminding him to feed the baby or pick up their mentally disabled child from daycare. With her free hand, you can imagine she’s holding a Starbucks latte, or maybe a health-conscious bottle of Pomegranate Juice. Buckled into a holster at her belt, she’s got a handgun she uses for target practice when she heads down to the range to let off some steam. In her purse are papers that detail her plans to drill for oil off the Alaskan coast, and the numbers she’ll use to try and convince everyone not to give a shit about Polar Bears.

In fact, that sounds like a pretty accurate picture, judging by this nauseating photograph:

Gosh. A bear-skin rug draped elegantly over her office couch. And—oh, gee—she and her father hunted that bear together. This is a vastly different world from the Northeast home of political blogs and NYTimes editorialists. Like McCain said, “she’s not from around here [Ohio where he made the speech], and she’s not from Washington.” You’re god damn right, John. But she certainly may end up in Washington if she successfully rides your ancient coattails all the way to the White House.

[UPDATE, 8/31/08]

Gail Collins seems to think that few women will take the bait. From her most recent column:

I do feel kind of ticked off at the assumptions that the Republicans seem to be making about female voters… The idea that women are going to race off to vote for any candidate with the same internal plumbing is both offensive and historically wrong.

Booya!

McCain Chooses Sarah Palin– Foolish Or Brilliant?

This just in: McCain has chosen his VP, and it’s not Romney. It’s not Pawlenty. It’s not even Joe Lieberman, which would have been a surprise but not a shock of this magnitude: it’s Sarah Palin.

Who?

Oh, right. She’s the current governor of Alaska, a 44-year-old “hockey mom” (her words) with 5 children and less than two years in office under her belt. This may just go down as the most risky choice in American political history. This could be more debilitating than the Dean Scream!

But it could also be a genius move. It’s a move clearly aimed at anti-Obama Dems who still don’t feel confident in their party’s nominee. I sure hope they don’t fall for it. I hope that the bitter, disappointed, ‘Nobama’ pin-wearing Hillary supporters, who are the clear targets of this cheap ploy, will see through John’s tactics and stick with their party. After all, Palin is strongly anti-abortion, and generally a more extreme right-wing conservative than McCain himself.

Any Hillary supporters with half a brain would hopefully care more about their supposed beliefs (liberal views to which a politician like Palin couldn’t possibly be more diametrically opposed) than to drop everything and vote for McCain simply because he chose a woman. Then again, there’s always a fear that the majority of American voters don’t care to learn about candidates’ actual positions on the issues. Rather, it’s often about image. And the super-pissed, die-hard female Hill-billies might just look up there at McCain and see a man who chose a woman as his partner. Then, they’ll look at Obama and see a guy who could have done the same, but scorned his one-time opponent in favor of Joe Biden. Hmmm.

So essentially, all she brings to the ticket are ovaries?

Well, no. Apparently she’s beloved by republicans all over the nation. She has an 80% approval rating in Alaska, and she’s made a major effort to reach out to troops who have returned from Iraq. They love her. Her entire oeuvre, also, revolves around her being a harbinger of change. This clearly appealed to McCain, who has played the ‘old codger’ to Obama’s fresh-looking calls for major change. In addition, she has become known as a whistle-blower (but in a good way?) for her shunning of fellow Alaska Republicans that were involved in highly-publicized corruption scandals.

Plus, she’s kinda sexy:

And yet Palin undercuts the GOP’s entire critique of Obama’s lack of experience. But if Joe Biden was Obama’s answer to those accusations, then the choice of Palin seems to be a sign that McCain knows he has the experience that Obama lacks, and thus can afford to pick an Obama-esque figure for VP.

Still, she’s really inexperienced. Younger than Obama and freshly elected to office in 2006, she’s going to look like a baby standing up there next to Old Man Rivers.

I had really been hoping for Señor Sleaze himself, Mitt Romney. He would have been an easy target for the Dems, and an instant object of mass ridicule by the likes of Jon Stewart and Jay Leno.

Oh well. Regardless of how the GOP takes it, and of how the Dems react and respond, this race is certainly getting interesting. And um, hey, has anyone noticed? This election suddenly has both a woman and a black man. We are literally seeing history made before our eyes. I can’t wait to watch the media circus play this one out.

[UPDATE, 8/30/08]

Oh, by the way, Sarah Palin hates polar bears. She fought to get them taken off the endangered species list so that she could drill for oil, thereby disrupting their habitats. Because, hey, who gives a shit about animals? We need gas!

DNC: Live Reactions to Obama at Invesco

Welp, you stuck with me through Hillary’s big show, and now you’re back for more? Sweet.

Why am I excited about tonight? I am extremely jazzed up to see a man who I’ve watched go from dark horse candidate to legitimate favorite for the White House. I am pumped up, and fired up about politics, and engaged and interested and riveted, all for the first time since the Lewinsky scandal. And it’s thanks to this man. He’s a fabulous speaker, a harbinger of hope, and an inspiration. And I expect big things.

Why am I also nervous about tonight? I am anxious because I have heard, read, and seen what the GOP supporters and Obama-haters have been saying about tonight. They’ve written that the party at Invesco Field tonight is overdone, showy, and embarrassing. That the big event the Dems are putting on will hurt them, and bring them shame. That we should feel guilty or bashful about the big celebration we’re throwing. Well I’ll tell you, we shouldn’t. The Dems have every right and duty, even, to celebrate, and with gusto. Here we have history unfolding before our eyes, and not just because Barack is the first official presidental nominee for a major party in America’s history, but because we are living through the subject of future history textbooks as we speak. His speech tonight, and the larger story of his rise to win the primary, is coming on the heels of 9/11 and in the presence of an economic crisis, a misbegotten war on a scale worse (in death toll) than Vietnam (though no one seems to realize it), and an inflation of oil prices that’s causing grief for middle class Americans all across the nation.

The time is now. But McCain and his band of idiots (a band which comprises at least half the country) could ruin everything, and they could, and very well might do it, easily.

Turning my LG, high-def TV on… right… NOW.

10:02 They’re showing clips from his speech at the 2004 DNC. I might tear up. “My story is the American story.” You’re god damn right it is. And the GOP wants to paint him as a stranger. An outsider, not just because of race, but because of his ‘different’ upbringing. Because he was raised by his grandparents, or because he went through a white high school in Hawaii. Well yeah, you’re going to stand out a bit when you’re a black guy with a big afro in a white, Hawaiian school. But it wasn’t those things. He clearly stood out then, and still does now, because he was supremely intelligent, hard-working, and compassionate.

10:05 Michelle is gorgeous, huh?

10:07 “Energy independece. Ethics reform.” Yes, please.

10:10 His grandfather used to say, “Americans, we can do anything if we put our mind to it.” This just might be the year we achieve that “anything.” This might be a leader as inspirational and symbolic as Kennedy or Roosevelt. This is someone who just might cure the apathy of today’s Americans, who are all so justifiably disenfranched from politics.

10:11 That video was very, very well-done.

10:12 “And now, the product of Kenya and Kansas…” Here he comes!

10:13 Chairman Dean is mentioned! Lest anyone think Howard Dean vanished after his accidental performance of the one-man show ‘Over-Eagerness a la Roid Rage Freakout,’ don’t forget: he’s the chairman of the Dems now! Woop woop.

Look at that woman already sobbing, just from seeing Obama come out. He’s still saying his ‘thank yous’ and she’s already in tears. This is what he does. Look how he makes people feel. How, in the face of a man with these oratory powers, can anyone be excited about John McCain? I’d bet my life you won’t see any women crying with joy when John takes the stage at the RNC.

10:15 Obama just called Hillary an “inspiration to my daughters and yours.” Well-put. See, angry feminists? She’s still an inspiration, even though, yes, she lost the nomination. Time to move on!

10:19 “We are better than these last eight years.” I sure hope so. Because, hey, it’s been bad.

10:20 “That sits on our hands as a major American city drowns before our eyes.” Wow. So he brings up New Orleans— and it couldn’t have come at a more apt moment. This is something we have not heard mentioned very much in the Democratic primaries. And he’s right. It isn’t just the Iraq war that George n’ Dick have fucked up. It’s other catastrophes that have flown under the radar. It’s gas prices, it’s the economy, and it’s the loss of Lil Wayne’s hood.

10:24 He just quoted McCain saying that our economy has made “great progress” under Bush. Bill Clinton reminded us of the same exact quote yesterday. Boy, McCain is kicking himself for that utterance. What a liability he is to himself. I dunno what’s more damaging to him: the praise of Bush, or the admissions of his Internet ineptitude.

10:25 Ha! Obama just quoted McCain’s definition of “middle class” meaning people who make less than $5 million a year. And then Barack stifled a chuckle! It’s true, this election’s republican nominee is laugh-worthy.

10:26 Jill Biden is almost in tears. Every time they show her! This is a woman who is elated to be a part of history. And well she should be.

10:27 Well, just in case you thought my stream of thoughts so far has been all gushing, let me point out something admittedly foolish: Obama just slipped in a Bill Clinton compliment. Come on, really? He’s reminding us about what we accomplished in the Clinton presidency. It’s a nice gesture, but it’s a bit overt, and clearly feigned. How we’re all supposed to just forget that just three days ago Bill was hinting to Dems to vote for McCain—that just three days ago Hillary and Bill were still encouraging her disgruntled ass-kissers to try and upstage Obama and ruin his moment—how we are supposed to ignore all this and believe that Obama and Bill are pals now, is beyond me.

10:30 Barack says he intends to win this election. Oy. He may intend to win, but it won’t be that easy. Half the country would rather go with comfort, stay with the familiar, elect John McCain.

“We have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.”This is the stuff I like, this is when I believe all the hype: when Barack Obama finds it important enough to mention morality, and human kindness. You don’t really hear Republicans talking about social codes, do you?

10:34 McCain has said NO to “higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, NO to investment in renewable energy, NO to renewable fuels.” And yet the McCain advertisements would have the public believe (many of whom are ignorant to the voting records of senators) that McCain is all about environmentalism and drilling for oil.

Obama wants wind-power, solar-power, and renewable fuels. Let’s hear it for some intelligence, some concern about what ought to be THE issue of this election (but it isn’t). I think if they brought Al Gore up there right now, this place would go nuts. That’s what they should do. Bust out a surprise guest. The rich hippies would cream their pants, and McCain would shit his.

10:37 Obama just mentioned health care, and his mother’s struggle with cancer. Women in the audience are crying. This without a doubt is yet another issue falling prey to petty concerns about the Iraq war. I mean yes, that matters. But to think that in the face of crucial problems like social security, the economy, and the energy crisis, to think that while these issues occupy the minds of average American, salt-of-the-earth people the pundits spend their time debating each candidate’s “plan for Iraq,” it’s just laughable.

10:40 The current camera angle has just opened my eyes to the perfectly swaying American flag, blowing lightly in a breeze behind Obama’s right shoulder. This is a bit much, maybe. Or is it? Does anyone remember that time a row of flags collapsed pathetically behind Hillary? Ha.

10:41 Obama wants to hunt down “the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11.” Yessir. Just what we should have done in 2001. It’s taken us seven years to realize we need to turn our attentions back to Afghanistan?

“We must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights.” Yes. Although this does sound a bit diametrically opposed to Obama’s usual peaceful rhetoric about unnecessary military hostility and the need to pull out of Iraq soon. Still a strong point though, about bin Laden.

** “John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell. But he won’t even follow him to the cave where he lives!” This statement, without a doubt, has got to be the most powerful, winning phrase of this speech. What a sound bite. His tone of voice, the escalation at the end, the somehow at once simultaneous anger and disappointment in his speech, (as though Barack himself is just as saddened by these lies as the American people ought to be), and the wild, raucous (loudest yet) response from the audience, this is the Obama we met in 2004. Yes, this speech has been great up until now, but it wasn’t historic yet. Now we have it. I think this is the phrase that will be in the boxed-out quotes on blogs and news sites come tomorrow morning.

10:45 “I will never hesitate to defend this nation. But I will only send our troops into harm’s way with a clear mission.” Good. This is what I meant earlier when I said he’s getting a bit muddled between loud statements of aggression toward Afghanistan and louder reminders of the need for less troops in Iraq, so here it is, he gave it to us—here he puts it well. Here he explains (in contrast to W who sent our boys in completely blind, with no time table or real organization) that he’s not going to be a pushover, but he also won’t be sending our military anywhere without a precise idea of exactly what they need to do and how long they need to be there doing it.

10:45 This is interesting: “One of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and each other’s patriotism.” Yes! Here you have it: a candidate who vows not to sink to negative campaigning or personal defamation. No one remembers anymore, but it was actually John McCain himself who, in 2000, swore to “always tell the truth” and never sling mud at his opponents with negative ads. Oops. Guess he threw that out the window with the anti-Obama Paris Hilton/Britney Spears ad.

“I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain.” Good work, because yes— McCain does love America. Probably even more than Obama. But that doesn’t mean he’ll make a more capable leader, and it doesn’t mean that hammering home the story of his 5 years at the Hoa Lo prison is going to get him elected. In my mind, at least, it shouldn’t.

“The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but, don’t tell me we can’t uphold the second amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.” Suck it, NRA. And you too, Cheney.

10:50 “If your hopes have been dashed again and again…” Well yes, they have. But perhaps that’s about to change? It might. But then again, our hopes also might get dashed a third time. But hey. Let’s hope the American people are smarter in 2008. As W himself so eloquently said, “Fool me once, shame on— shame on you. Fool me… you can’t get fooled again.” Yeah!

10:56 We. Cannot. Turn. Back.

10:57 Brian Williams just reminded me that this is the 45th anniversay of MLK’s speech. Hot damn! The symbolism is almost too much to bear. Hopefully no one stabs Barack with a letter opener.

11:07 I’ve also just learned now that Al Gore already did in fact come out and speak, just before Obama went on. My bad. I guess I could technically say I called it, because after all, I wrote that they should bust out Gore, and I didn’t at the time realize they already done so. But then again I feel more stupid than prophetic.

It’s too bad I waited ’til ten sharp to turn on the television, but hey. I’m sure Gore was brilliant, with gems like this line: “The forces of the status quo are desperately afraid of the change that Barack Obama represents.” I know it. They really are, and so the question is: are they afraid enough, and are enough of them afraid, to give McCain a victory? Getcha selves on ya knees and pray.

Final Thoughts A fabulous speech, as we expected, but let’s not forget, a scripted one. Does that matter? Yes and no. Convention speeches are always scripted, so why would 2008 be any different? Well. That right there is a head-scratcher, because it should be different. Because Barack is different, and better, I guess I expected something more. But even as I say that I can’t imagine how he could have done anything greater.

What matters is that after days (weeks) of chatter about a divided party, and dramatic headlines touting the anger between the Clinton posse and Obama fans, I think this party is uniting. I think. I hope. Because hell, we need it. The ignorance is out there, folks. And it may very well manifest itself in the form of a McCain victory in November.

The next two months are crucial. Stay tuned.

McCain’s Cheap Ploy on DNC Convention Night

Let’s all point and laugh.

John McCain has issued a new ad tonight, just before Obama’s big, heralded speech. It’s called “Convention Night.” It’s a joke.

The immediate buzz from commentators and YouTubers is all pointing out the obvious— that this is McCain’s subtle way of stealing Obama’s thunder. That what looks like a simple, straight-talkin’ “Congratulations” is clearly a strategy that undercuts Obama’s time in the spotlight tonight. It’s a rude way of announcing, “Hey, everyone, look at me! Forget Obama tonight, check me out! I’m such a gracious opponent.”

But it isn’t just about butting in to rain on the Dems’ parade. McCain is also trying to look like a good sport. He’s trying to prove that he is all about heart and mutual respect, and hates the vitriol of negative campaigning.

But it doesn’t work, because he has just spent the past two months cranking out negative ads against Obama. He has completely wrecked the reputation he earned in the 2000 race, when he rode around on his Straight Talk Express campaign bus, and impressed everyone by refusing to sink to Bush’s level by putting out negative ads.

After such blatant sleaze as the Paris Hilton ad earlier this summer, no cutesy little “Job well done” message is going to fix McCain’s image problem.

And, by the way, it’s all about delivery. Thirteen seconds in, when McCain says, “How perfect that your nomination would come on this historic day,” his tone of voice says it all. He sounds condescending, sarcastic, and mocking. It’s patronizing.

This little ad was a really nice thought. It’s a cool move, in theory, and perhaps a lot of people will really adore it, and applaud McCain’s decency. But me? I’m laughing.

DNC: Live Reactions to Hillary’s Highly Anticipated Speech

“Candidate X agrees with you on everything, but you don’t think that person can deliver on anything. Candidate Y disagrees with you on half the issues, but you believe that on the other half the candidate will be able to deliver. For whom would you vote?”

This was what Bill Clinton said earlier today in a not-so-thinly-veiled jab at Obama. If Candidate X is Obama, who shares Bill’s democratic views but I guess hasn’t earned his affection (I wonder why) I guess Bill’s ‘Candidate Y’ is McCain, who Bill believes will be a great leader, regardless of the fact he is a conservative. Unbelievable. I guess we know who’s getting Bill’s vote.

God damn. He just cannot bring himself to swallow the bitter little pill of his wife’s failure. Give it up, bucko. You look foolish.

Going into Hillary’s speech, you should know that I’m not a fan. I haven’t loved her behavior over the past couple months, and I don’t think highly of the many, many angry women (okay, and men too) who still seem to be holding out for a reversal of the presumptive nominee. God forbid, but I think the supposed Obama assassination attempt yesterday may have given them all some excited heart palpitations.

But it’s not an anti-feminist thing. And it’s not sexist. I hate that accusation. I’m perfectly happy to have a woman as our next president. Just not that woman. I think that Hillary is hoping the buyer’s remorse of many dems over their choice of Obama, and their resulting seeds of discontent, continue to grow and take root. She’s hoping for a Democrat loss this year, since McCain would neither try nor be able to feasibly run again in 2012. She’s willing to suffer through 4 years of McCain if it means the possibility of her own success in four years. She’s that ridiculous.

And I don’t think Maureen Dowd’s imagined Hillary-McCain secret conference is so far-fetched. I think that we are continuing to learning just how serious she is about her affection for this septuagenarian who clearly goes so against her own political views. But it isn’t so much that she likes McCain, it’s that at the moment, thanks to Obama’s nomination-win, she and John have similar, parallel interests.

So here we go. I’ll try to keep an open mind, but I’m not expecting great things. As many of us know all too well at this point, Hill and Bill have alienated a lot of good people—people who (I swear I did) at one point loved both of them and believed that the Clinton administration was the most successful presidency in decades, despite a mostly irrelevant sex scandal.

Let’s do it. Turning on my TV…. now.

10:40 Wow, Chelsea looks slim.

10: 42 Here she comes. Oh god, that heinous orange pantsuit. Bill sure looks proud. He’s thinking, “Those are my girls up there.” I suppose he’s probably been a good father, even if not a good husband. Then again, with Edwards running around DC, Bill looks like Husband of the Decade.

Welp, here come the signs. “Hillary,” written in a classy, feminine cursive. These ladies are really pushing for a miracle here. Barack is sitting on some pleasant family’s couch in some Podunk town on the trail, and he’s looking at these signs thinking— actually probably hoping — “bitches ain’t shit.”

10:43 What is that terrible music playing? It sounds like the DNC hired Nickelback or Creed. It’s grating.

10:44 Is Bill crying? And mouthing “I love you?” Okay.

Michelle does not look elated. I think she’s biting her lip.

10:45 “Thank you all very, very much.” But not you, Michelle.

10:46 Hillary just called herself a proud supporter of Barack Obama. Good one. Maureen Dowd is laughing out loud right now.

10:47 Why is she listing her accomplishments? Advocating for children, campaigning for universal healthcare, helping parents balance work and family? And “fighting for women’s rights… around the world.” Oh my goodness. Lady, it’s over!

Oh, wait, that actually makes sense, because she’s trying out her campaign speech for 2012.

10:47 “No way, no how, no McCain.” All right, I like that.

She just said that Obama “must be our president.” Michelle perked up. In fact, she seems significantly less pissed, and, wait—is that a smile?

10:49 “You even made me cry.” Well, yeah. We haven’t just seen Hillary cry. Chelsea too. And, oh yeah, Bill. Like four minutes ago.

10:51 The camera loves Michelle. They can’t get enough of her! I think it’s because she so clearly hasn’t perfected the art of disguising her inner feelings on her face. After every statement Hillary makes that even remotely relates to her own botched campaign (which is over, people) they flash to Michelle and Biden, sitting there trying with all their might to look like they don’t hate her. In fact, I think Michelle is working so hard on holding a grim smile that she just sharted.

10:57 Hillary is asking her supporters just why they were “in it.” Were they in it for her? she asks. The answer is no, Hillary. They were in it for first lady Hillary Clinton— the Hillary Clinton of many years ago, before she became a vicious, power-hungry, unforgivable sore loser.

“Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?” Wait, wait. Has Hillary been reading Ralph Ellison?!

11:00 “Democrats know how to do this. As I recall, we did it before with President Clinton!” Welp, I guess we should have seen some kind of statement like that coming. Oh, look. They’re showing Bill. He’s smiling. And redder in the face than a newborn baby. Maybe he’s holding out hope that, fuck Hillary, he could be the 2008 nominee!

11:01 Hill is now kissing some new ass: Biden’s. She says Joe is “pragmatic, tough, and wise.” God damn right.

11:02 Here we go: “John McCain is my colleague and my friend. He has served our country with honor and courage. But we don’t need four more years of the last eight years.” Yeah, we don’t need it, but Hillary kinda wants it.

I think if Obama wins Bill could finally leave Hillary (with the prospect of eight Obama years ahead of us, Hillary would crawl back to the hole she came from, the senate) and start hustling young female Georgetown grads and political-hopefuls. Hillary, meanwhile, could beat the shit out of Cindy McCain with her heels and run off with John for a free ride on the ole Straight Talk Express.

11:04 “My mother was born before women could vote. My daughter got to vote for her mother for president. This is the story of America—of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.” Yes. And Hillary is happy to label herself as one of the greats among these women, and as someone who doesn’t give up. Hint, hint?

No, actually, I take that back. This entire last bit about women’s rights was quite stirring. No sarcasm.

11:05 “We’re Americans, we’re not big on giving up.” Hillary’s not big on it either.

11:07 A nice ending. But boy these bright lights are unflattering for Chelsea. Her smile looks painted on like businesswoman Barbie.

Bill is still crying, and, check it out: his bottom lip is even quivering dramatically.

11:09 The idiots broadcasting on abc (I started with Brian Williams on NBC but accidentally changed the channel halfway) just said, “And there were two people with tears in their eyes during that speech, Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama!” Incorrect. Michelle was never, ever tearing up.

Final thoughts. I know my comments seem harsh, and the truth is that already, ten minutes after the speech, I’m ready to say Hillary did quite well. She effectively linked her wishes and goals to Obama’s, and as she encouraged her supporters to support Obama, I think she might have even meant it. Sure, she spent time (too much) dwelling on her own campaign, re-living her near-success and stirring up her still-fervent supporters, but I think more time (slightly) was spent reaffirming her support for Obama despite the ill will that blatantly remains, and especially lies strong in Bill’s heart.

If my reactions to each individual moment were bitter or vicious, it only goes to reflect just how much damage the Clintons have done to their own reputations and to the faith of the Democratic citizenry. And as winning as Hill’s words were, Billy continued to vocalize his sour grapes as recently as a few hours before his wife spoke. Maybe he’s the problem here. If his wife can grow up (and after all, she’s the one who came so close and lost) then he should sack up, shut up, and slap on an Obama pin.

[UPDATE, 8/27/08]

Well, it’s the morning after, and it seems like the lovely Queen Dowd echoes my sentiments. She is less than bowled over by Hillary’s speech, although admittedly this is not one of her best columns. In a way it actually seems like she fired this off before she had really processed the speech, since I must say that even I had to admit a job well done, but Dowd still remains staunchly unimpressed.

It really isn’t the green-faced marital pair, necessarily (okay, Bill is pretty bad) but Hillary’s supporters who simply won’t let it go. In today’s article, just as she’s done so well for weeks, Dowd ticks off some of the most egregious actions of the Hillary nuts, such as “some in the Clinton coterie dissing Obama by planning early departures, before the nominee even speaks.” Unbelievable. Leading up to the speech, Dowd also reminds us that “she’s been privately egging on people to keep her dream alive as long as possible, no matter what the cost to Obama.”

But then Hillary gave what I can admit was a terrific speech, in which she appeared (appeared, which at the very least means she’s a passable actor) to genuinely support Obama and want a victory for him. But even after clearly asking her fans to vote for Obama, and stressing that the Dems are in good hands, her posse of rabid feminists can’t be satisfied. As Dowd shares: “Afterward, some of her supporters began crying, as they were interviewed by reporters, saying that her speech had proved that she would make a better president than Obama.” So they can’t simply be happy with her fabulous, stirring oration. Instead, they concluded that the powerful speech only went to illustrate that she would be better for the job. My goodness, ladies.

The comments on Dowd’s article today are especially intriguing. We see that, at least among the (presumably) highly-literate, likely-intellectual crowd of NYTimes readers, the camps are split among those who, like Dowd, persist in their Clinton resentment, and those who, like Bill, continue to bitch and moan and clearly haven’t put the dream to rest.

Alan from New York writes “It is unfair to blame Hillary for her supporter’s cheap shots at Obama… She cannot be blamed for having stirred such passion, but instead should be congratulated for her grace.” That’s convincing, and sure, it may be that we need to let Hill off the hook for her crazed fans. Maybe it’s a “don’t kill the messenger” situation.

But it’s equally stirring to read the comments of Obamaniacs for whom the Clintons have blown it, and won’t be forgiven any time soon. A second Alan, this one from Hawaii, says “Out here in the real world [clearly he means the Democratic world, which I guess for this guy is the one that matters?], Barack Obama is the nominee, John McCain is the bad choice, and the Clintons — well, who has the time and energy to sustain a heightened level of emotion?” Good point. You see, why should everyone care (oh, but they do) about the emotions of the losing family? It really doesn’t matter if Hill and Bill have conducted themselves well or not; the point is that due to their initial, very public bitterness, which may or may not have waned now, they effectively and cruelly stole the spotlight of this DNC. Let’s not forget this convention is supposed to be a celebration of Barack Obama. Not the disappointed woman who nearly beat Barack Obama. I think the Hillary supporters have forgotten, though.

Another NYTimes op-ed today from Susan Faludi, also about disgruntled Hillary supporters, gives us this gem from an online Clinton-worshiper: “I see this nation differently than I did 10 months ago. That this travesty was committed by the Democratic Party has forever changed my approach to politics.” What?! What the fuck is happening here? Your hero lost, and now you’re disenfranchised for good? Suck it up. The reactions of these people sound like we’re hearing from New Yorkers on 9/12/01. What an overreaction. What drama. How in the world can these dummies suggest that the Democratic party has failed them, simply because the voting public chose to go with Barack? This stuff is ludicrous.

And one more great Faludi snippet: “Shouldn’t they be celebrating, not protesting? After all, Hillary Clinton’s campaign made unprecedented strides. She garnered 18 million-plus votes, and proved by her solid showing that a woman could indeed be a viable candidate for the nation’s highest office. She didn’t get the gold, but in this case isn’t a silver a significant triumph?” Good question, and no, the silver just isn’t good enough for these people. And as they see it, a ‘gold’ is no longer possible in 2008. An Obama win, at this point, to these sore losers, would be the same as a McCain win (how foolish) and so they’re willing to do the unthinkable: vote Republican. All for the slight possibility that in 4 years their girl could finally grab the spot.

And this childish, revenge-seeking thinking is just the kind of thing that can and will cause the Dems to lose in November. Besides, with Bill convincing them that McCain “could deliver” on his promises (promises that couldn’t be further from what any respectable liberal wants for their leadership), then why not vote McCain? If our guy loses, we have Hillary’s fans to thank.

But at least (I’m ready to acknowledge) Hillary did her part to try and assauge them. She made a real effort to toss them some tampons. She told them once, twice, thrice, maybe ten times: vote for Obama. If they don’t listen to their own fallen idol, then there’s nobody who can knock some sense into them. Cross your fingers for a miracle.

[UPDATE, 8/28/08]

One thing is for absolute certain, and Timothy Egan puts it perfectly in an op-ed today:

If her supporters vote for McCain they were never Democrats anyway, or they’re clueless, like the former Clinton supporter in the Republican ad who mistakenly thought McCain was pro-choice on abortion.

Damn, the Beijing Olympics Are Incredible

Just a brief note here that I never could have imagined the Olympics would be so exciting to watch. I don’t know what has changed since four years ago (and I acknowledge it’s very possible that maybe it was me) but something feels different. And no, it’s not just the whispers (more like thunderous high hopes) that Phelps will become the most winningest (one of my favorite accepted-sports-terms-that-isn’t-a-word) Olympian of all time if he sweeps every event he’s in.

Every single sport is compelling. Sure, there’s the typical big attractions: swmming, diving, and gymnastics. But I’m finding even fringe events (sorry, that’s not to meant to diminish the skill of these, but I mean in terms of widespread popularity) to be equally exciting. I’m talking about events like beach volleyball (seeing those little Japanese girls soar above the net to pummel one into the opponent’s face is something to behold), water polo, even the kayaking!

This is action that absolutely cannot be missed, not only for the entertainment, but even for non-sports freaks. Did you see that opening ceremony? It’s like for two weeks, we don’t think of the other countries as possible enemies, or as political players on a giant chess board. This ain’t the UN. It’s a collection of delegates from all over the world who just have a sheer joy of these games and a desire to share in a community.

And it’s a community that’s being broadcast nearly all day, every day for two weeks. It’s all good. So turn it on, flip to NBC, and take a seat.

Worthwhile Article on the Relationships btwn Authors & Cover Designers

A month ago, I posted about amateur cover designs that I discovered on the web site for the Penguin Design Contest. I’ve always had an interest in judging a book by its cover, and now that I’ve decided to infect the blogosphere with my own intellectual interests, I keep a particular look out for interesting stories or web sites about book art.

So obviously I was excited to find an NYTimes essay by Stephen Heller called “Cover Stories,” which details the connections that can sometimes develop between prolific novelists and artists that they choose to design their covers.

Heller explains that

Most authors have no control over their book covers… But some writers, by virtue of either their renown or contractual caveat, not only get to accept or reject designs, but also choose the designer.

And how nice for me— the three authors he chooses to highlight happen to be among my very favorite writers (well, certainly Roth and Murakami; Palahniuk is more of a fading infatuation). Indeed, are there any authors who deserve such control over their covers more than these three? I don’t think so. These are writers with such dominant, unifying themes in their work—Roth with his neurotic, Jewish intellectuals and sex-hungry middle-aged suburban men, Murakami with his interweaving narratives of mystery, darkness, dreams and nature, and Chuck’s obsessions with depravity, rare idiosyncrasies and scarring memories.

Milton Glaser’s covers work for Roth’s books because they are understated, classic, and subtle. Usually they contain, if any at all, one single image among block text, such as the cracked family photo on American Pastoral or the symbolic therapy couch on Portnoy’s Complaint.

Meanwhile, a writer like Chuck, whose stories are so modern and of the current time period, demands covers that complement his zany, unrestrained (often too vulgar) attitude. That’s why the sort of iconic, pop-art designs that Rodrigo Corral has done for him function so perfectly on covers like Invisible Monsters (with the optical illusion, cartoony beauty queen/old lady head) and Lullaby (with the striking image of a dead canary).

Murakami’s work, meanwhile, appeals to Americans with whimsy and fantasy, while still being rooted in elements of traditional Japanese culture. Hence the appropriateness of the vintage Japanese that John Gall uses on particularly beautiful covers such as that of After Dark or The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.

Clearly I really enjoyed this little slice of art education. Great article. And as long as we’re on the subject, I might as well share some of my very favorite cover designs.

First of all, I really like the covers of Tom Perrotta’s books (I’m still waiting patiently for the paperback release of his new novel The Abstinence Teacher, which I expect to be terrific). Like the three mentioned in the article above, Perrotta appears to have an exclusive designer, Henry Sene Yee. My favorite covers are the designs for Joe College and this one for Little Children, which effectively uses the childhood image of goldfish as a sad reminder of what’s to come in the book: loss of innocence, and a lusty affair that begins at a playground, right in front of other children and their horrified stay-at-home mothers.

I also consistently like the covers of J.M. Coetzee’s books, though I’m not sure if he chooses them or not. The cover of Disgrace is perfectly fitting for the story; it’s completely white, a blank slate if you will, with the title of the novel written humbly in tiny type at the center. The cover for Slow Man, meanwhile, has a similar paucity of images or colors.

The look is all-white, again, but with a lone bicycle in the center that is bereft of one wheel (an overt representation of Paul Rayment’s missing leg). As you can see, I really favor simplicity on novel covers.

Not Sure What to Make of Titlepage.tv

I discovered titlepage.tv thanks to Ben Chambers of The King’s English. He commented with a link to titlepage’s second episode, which contains an interview with Sloane Crosley (among three other new novelists). I felt compelled to go back today and watch not just Crosley’s section, but the entire hour-long episode. I had never heard of the web site, and so was surprised to find that there have already been six episodes. After watching the first one, and then checking out the brief descriptions of each other episode, I was intrigued. I thought, ‘Hey! What a terrific idea. We need something like this site.

But the first one I watched had major problems. The conversation feels stilted and forced. Menaker interviews each author one by one, leaving the others to patiently wait and gaze with feigned interest at the speaker. The camera is so very up in their grill documenting their facial expressions that every bored look (Aleksander Hemon looks particularly, hilariously dubious or annoyed by what Nam Le is saying at about 34 minutes into episode 5), every weary, furrowed brow, every tired yawn is captured for all to see. In fact, the camera work in general zooms in far too close for comfort on the face of whomever is speaking, and painfully remains there for minutes at a time, long stretches in which we see every pore on the guy’s face. Side angle shorts of Menaker’s nose or Nam Le’s forehead really don’t work, and you wonder just how limited a budget this thing is working off, or, if they do in fact have money to burn, why they don’t see when reviewing previous episodes how sorely they need a new cameraman. In addition, the writers seem to be miserably uncomfortable, sitting straight-backed in white plastic chairs that look like they were hurriedly purchased at Target by Menaker’s teenage intern or something. Finally, I’m sorry to say that the questions asked are mostly tedious or overdone. It’s clear just in how long it takes Menaker to ask the questions that the show is trying too hard to probe unique aspects of the interviewee’s new work.

There are, lucky for Menaker and his staff, easy solutions. If they care to enact them. First of all, they need to chill out with the camera. Keep the view removed, maybe a not-too-distant focus of the whole circle from two different points behind the group. Let’s see this party as a whole, rather than ridiculously close zooms of one author’s eyes or mouth. Next, how about some briefer, broader questions that give the authors more room to expand and talk about what they would like. This goes hand-in-hand with the possible improvement of proposing questions to the general group as a whole, so that the guests actually speak to each other and interact in compelling ways, rather than sitting around waiting for their turn. I admit that what I’m suggesting is a change in the entire format of the program, but I am confident it would be for the better. They need to bring in couches instead of chairs, throw a table in the middle with maybe some crackers and hummus, and ask thought-provoking questions to the entire group, so that we have multiple voices being heard at once.

Oh, and by the way, another glaring gaffe is the strange, jilting moment at the opening of every episode, after a voice-over describes each author, when we see Menaker from a slightly off angle, staring into a camera situated a bit to the left of us, and he says, “The title of today’s episode reads…” Come on. The title reads? Just be normal! Look right into the camera, directly at us, and say, “Today’s episode is called ‘You Always Remember the First Time! Because today we are interviewing four writers who have just published their first book!” Be normal.

All this criticism is not to say that the site fails completely, or is unnecessary. The New York Vulture page, in a post months ago (I’m behind on discovering this site, clearly), harshly mocked Menaker’s show as “painful to watch,” and I don’t think I would go that far. Some of the exchanges are smart and illuminating, and the conversation thrives (naturally) when we are lucky enough to see a guest who is well-spoken and confident. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with most of the writers who have hopped aboard. This is what makes it so much more special when we do have a respondent (to Menaker’s mostly lame questions) who is engaging and animated (see Ceridwen Dovey in ep 2 or Nam Le in ep 5). Sometimes the rare interesting guest is actually so fascinating that you feel compelled to go out and buy his or her book at once, as was the case for me with Simon Winchester after he so articulately described the rub of his new book The Man Who Loved China.

It’s a cool concept, this online wealth of authorial appearances. Menaker deserves to be commended for the effort, and as a ravenous book lover, the idea of Titlepage appeals to me. But the execution is poor. It could be great, but for now, it isn’t. Let’s stay tuned.

Book Review: ‘Then We Came to the End’ vs. ‘Personal Days’

When I was in Dublin, I discovered (on the bestseller shelf at Hodges Figgis) the debut novel by Joshua Ferris, a British office drone who apparently decided to write a book about his hilarious (but often distressing) workplace experiences. I went home and read the NYTimes review, which was extremely positive. Then I went back and bought and read the book, which is called Then We Came to the End, and it was very good.

But then I got home to the States, and learned about Ed Park (who is a co-editor of The Believer with Middlebury alumna and wife of Dave Eggers, Vendela Vida) and his new debut novel Personal Days, which is also about an office and also supposedly very hilarious, and also highly praised by the NYTimes. So I read this one, too, and it was good, but not as good. And I thought, “Why am I not liking this book as much?” And I figured it out. It’s because I read them both. Park’s novel, which I read second, was doomed to fail at impressing me. Allow me to explain.

In the above review of Personal Days, Mark Sarvas admits that:

Much is likely to be made of the similarities between “Personal Days” and “Then We Came to the End,” Joshua Ferris’s 2007 National Book Award finalist. Both are set in offices convulsed with layoffs… But considering the ubiquity of the work experience in American lives… perhaps the question shouldn’t be why there are two work-related novels right now but why there aren’t many more.

Fair enough. Except that then Sarvas goes on to acknowledge only the one most obvious similarity, the use of the first-person plural to narrate the story. He then has the michigas to ignore the plethora of other duplicated plot elements and narrative techniques, concluding that between these two novels, “the similarity seems superficial.”

Wrong. Perhaps the similarities are slight for Sarvas, who conveniently pretends that the only thing they share is narrative voice. In truth, reading Personal Days after reading the Ferris novel was like reading the Ferris novel again, but a version written by a different novelist attempting to implement slight changes.

Now, there is clearly no way that Ed Park intentionally copied the Ferris novel, and I am not suggesting that. It just isn’t possible, since they were published within a year of each other and I highly doubt that Park could have read the Ferris book, mined it for ideas that he could use, and then fired off a similar book of his own and had it published all in one year. So please keep in mind that (I suppose) the many similarities are just coincidence. And yet, this is what makes the conundrum of their many convergences all the more strange—how in the world could this have happened? These two novels are eerily, ridiculously, blatantly similar.

First there is the obvious, which Sarvas so astutely points out: the use of the “we” voice to narrate the story. It’s unique, sure, but it’s so unique (see Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City) that for both of these books to have used it is suspect. It works, but because Ferris did it first, it’s difficult not to feel unimpressed when Ed Park does it.

Then, later on in the narrative, both novels break free of the first-person plural for a limited time in order to utilize a different narration that closely follows the actions and feelings of a single character. In Then We Came to the End, this character is the boss, Lynn Mason, who may or may not have cancer. The book abruptly (but it works) abandons the “we” voice and shifts to a third-person omniscient voice to give us a window into Mason’s mind on the evening before her surgery. In the final section of Personal Days, a similar change occurs: we read an email, written naturally in the ‘I’ voice, from Jonah (an employee who is stuck in an elevator and feels he may not make it out) to Pru, a co-worker crush who was fired. Just like the Mason section, it is the first time in the book that we get a truly uncut presentation of one character’s emotions. The worker, whether it’s Mason or Jonah, steps forth from the many and gets shaded-in and presented more fully.

There are other similarities in the social trends that develop among the workers of each book’s office. Nicknames materialize out of thin air and catch hold, like characters in the Ed Park book such as ‘Crease’ (his name is Chris, but he has an old foreign stalker who comes to the office and asks his whereabouts, botching his name) and ‘Grime’ (another joke on pronunciation, this time a British guy named Graham), or clever meshing of names such as when Karen Woo and Chris Yop work on projects together and Ferris’ characters lovingly call them “Yopanwoo” productions.

In addition, each book mentions early on some sort of clothing article given out to employees by the company, which now has been relegated to their “never wear” piles, or “just as a joke” clothing. In the Ferris, it’s company polo shirts that are given out at an annual barbecue—one guy insists on wearing his to work, often wearing two at a time. Similarly, in Ed Park’s book the items are hats from the company softball games. No one seems willing to be caught dead in one except for a couple guys. The parallel is glaring.

The workers in both books are at once social and reserved. They like to go out for drinks after work, but they don’t meet up on weekends. They go out for lunch together and discuss new places to try, but they rarely meet each other’s spouses or children. Ferris’ characters guiltily head over to McDonald’s when they want a quick lunch, Park’s debate between the “good” and “bad” Starbucks. Brand names like these snack chains, or Soda varieties, are dropped like a snarky in-joke. But we know that people in the working world frequent these establishments, it’s no revelation, and so to hear about it—twice—is cloying.

Both workplaces are run by a mysterious boss figure who is both liked and disliked (but more of the latter). In the Ferris, we have Lynn Mason, who continually acts so authoritative, severe, and composed that it becomes that much more disorienting to her employees when they see her drop the all-business attitude for Joe Pope, or when they imagine her in a personal weakness, falling victim to cancer (which both excites them to gossip and throws them into sympathy). In the Ed Park version, the boss is The Sprout (real name Russell) who hands out absurd motivational phrases that are gifts to his workers who love to ridicule these business-isms. Like Mason, The Sprout shows some weakness when he receives a call from ‘The Californians,’ and his staff likes him more after seeing him humanized and diminished before his own higher-ups.

Both novels include the presence of a second-in-command who is generally resented and mocked by the collective peons of the office. In the Ferris book, we meet Joe Pope, who is a true teacher’s pet of the workplace. Mason loves him, and naturally the others hate him. But when a homophobic insult is graffiti’d on his office wall, his insecurities come out and he gets the balls to confront his co-workers, and just like that, they respect him. The same plot device is used in Personal Days. The character here is Maxine, who is a sexy, dazzling presence in the office (the men love her, the women abhor her) who no one can seem to analyze. It’s unclear how much higher she is than they are, but she works with The Sprout and won’t really socialize. Finally, toward the end, she is fired in front of a small number of the peons, and she breaks down and cries, and here we have Park’s attempt at the Joe Pope moment.

Firings is another subject treated similarly. In both novels, a central character is fired late in the story and is both surprised and reluctant to go (Jenny in Personal Days, Tom Mota in Then We Came to the End). Once the victims of the firings leave, there are significant personal objects that remain, in each book, and serve as reminders for their colleagues that they once were there, living and working among them. In Park’s novel, Jill forgets to take ‘The Jilliad,’ a detailed diary she had packed full of clichéd inspirational quotes. In the Ferris story, Chris Yop’s infamous chair (which is the subject of so much comedy before he leaves) remains, getting bounced around from person to person, until one day, shockingly, they find him back in the office disassembling the thing with the plan of symbolically throwing it into the river.

Finally, the most brazen similarity of all—a small, clever gem of an idea that one would not expect two novelists to come up with on their own—is the detail in each novel that one of the drones is writing his own novel about the office (Ferris and Park’s stabs at a bit of metafiction, I suppose). Ferris gives us Hank Neary, who is writing a “small, angry book about work.” Meanwhile, in Park’s book we have Jonah (it may actually be a different character, I didn’t feel like searching back through the entire book) who says he plans to write a “layoff narrative” of the group’s shared office experiences. Again, I understand that Ed Park did not copy Joshua Ferris, but some of these similarities are astounding.

Even the cover designs for these novels are the same! And yes, I will defend that hyperbolic use of an exclamation point. The original hardcover run of Then We Came to the End uses a collage of post-it notes, while Ed Park’s paperback cover has the title written on keyboard keys.

The end effect is the same—sticky notes or keys, the overall aesthetic appearance of each cover is the same. Change the color of the post-its on the Ferris book to white, and you maybe can’t tell the books apart.

Both of these novels are very good. Each is well-written, well-researched (coming, I’m sure, from true authorial experience), and funny. The Joshua Ferris book is undoubtedly better, with its balance of humor and serious emotion and concern for its characters. Yet I liked reading both. It was just the problem of reading Ed Park’s book (unlucky for him to come after) having just read the Ferris book, that threw me off completely and ruined it for me. Once you’ve read both, it’s very, very difficult to feel that Park’s book is wholly original. And yet I stress again that I know he couldn’t have seen Then We Came to the End in time to steal any ideas for his own book. And so you have my final conclusion:

Yes, I would recommend either one of these books on their own, but because they do the same thing, and because Josh Ferris does it better, then No, I would not recommend reading both.

At Gillette, Bruce Springsteen Gave Quite a Show

At Gillette Stadium in Foxboro Saturday evening, the excitement in the air was palpable as thousands of people flooded the parking lot hours in advance to tailgate. Fans gave each other fives and everyone left their car batteries humming so that they could blast 100.7 (the best classic rock station in Boston) from their radios as they grilled burgers and dogs, tossed footballs, and threw back beers. The rain had stopped, the sky looked all right, and in two hours they were going inside to see the Boss and his E Street Band bring the house down like no Pats game could.

But the 8:15 official start time would be nixed when the skies opened up for a torrential downpour around 8. Those in clubhouse seats headed indoors, and everyone out on the floor scurried around in panic, donning ponchos or ducking under the eaves. Thunder rumbled and everyone shared the same dreaded thought: “What if this continues and they send us home?” The rain continued as ten minutes became half an hour. More time passed.

Finally around 9, the weather miraculously cleared, rain stopped, and everyone ventured back out to their seats with thick Patriots napkins and fresh beers. Time ticked away and stage crew members were seen pulling the plastic off instruments, as people cheered like Sox fans when the tarp comes off the field at a rain-delayed Fenway game.

Suddenly and unexpectedly at 9:15, the lights were cut, the stadium was plunged into darkness, and the big screens and flashing lights kicked in as the band, who had quietly slipped onto the stage, broke into “Summertime Blues.” The mood was electrifying as people danced in the aisles and waved their hands. Finally! The gang was here, and boy did saxophonist Clarence Clemmons make it clear with his deep, sonorous asides bellowed into the microphone.

Springsteen didn’t really speak until six songs in, but for the second song he did announce “Here’s a little New Jersey fairy tale” and performed “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” Two minutes in, everyone went nuts when Bruce got to the lyric, “They made that change uptown, and the big man joined the band,” as Clemmons wailed out an especially lively and loud bit in recognition. The fans shrieked their approval.

They segued right into “Radio Nowhere,” the current hit that everyone had expected to be the show’s lead-off song. Bruce sounded amazing, as though his voice hadn’t lost an ounce of strength since Greetings From Asbury Park. He ran around giving high fives to those in the front row, sliding across the edge of the stage on his knees. The Boss moved more like he was 30 than 58.

The band next played the oldie “Promised Land,” with Weinberg going nuts on the drums, hair disheveled and eyes frenzied, like a different person from the composed, suited musician you see on Letterman. Guitarist Steve Van Zandt sidled over to the mic and put his head alongside Bruce’s, something they did continually as the night wore on, singing in unison, both of them all smiles.

When the band finally got to the favorite “Spirits in the Night,” Springsteen introduced it with a gospel-like call of “Can you feel the spiriiiit?” Yes, the fans screamed. “Can you feeeeel the spirit now?” Yes! He jumped around the stage, spent time among the crowd, and collapsed in a heap to finish the song on his ass, triumphant and sweaty, worn out but far from done.

After this opening set, Bruce began doing something he only recently implemented: grabbing signs that fans on the floor have made and playing whatever request they had advertised. He would pick up a sign, making some remark about the song to the audience, and then he’d flip it around to surprise the band, giving them only a moment’s notice before launching into song. The first request was a real throwback: “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street.” Everyone was grooving.

Other sign-requested songs played included “Little Latin Lupe Lu” and the familiar radio hit “Hungry Heart.” Another sign-request in the Encore segment later on prompted Bruce to hint mysteriously, “The rarely played and very rarely requested…” before hoisting up the sign that read: “I’m Goin Down” with cartoony letters that fell away, down toward the bottom of the sign. We ate it up. “I’m going down, down, down, down” he sang, only to hold the mic out toward the crowd and let them have the next batch of “downs.”

Eventually they went off on a string of classics, hitting all the big ones like “The Rising,” “Dancing in the Dark” and “Mary’s Place,” which he introduced by asking, “We’re going to a house party, let’s all go to a house party, but you have to take us there! We can only go so far; you have to take us the rest of the way!”

At one point toward the end of the first bit, we were treated to “Long Walk Home,” a loud emotional hit from the new album, and in a rare moment Steve Van Zandt took the mic all alone and wailed, “It’s gonna be a loooong walk home, ooooh now, ooooh, loooooong walk hoooome” to the amazement and delight of everyone in the house. Who knows whether the love he was shown by the crowd was due to his Sopranos fame or not, but in any case this guy had a huge night, and the applause showed it when Bruce said his name in the roll call at the end of the show.

When the band played, “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” a palpable, pure joy was felt as everyone rocked out and looked to the skies in relief and satisfaction. Next came some beautiful piano sections in the crowd-pleaser “Jungleland.” Then, Bruce allowed himself a brief political rant in which he mentioned wiretaps and W, but it was nicely toned down from his usual speech. Then he went into the song that always follows the political statement, “Livin’ in the Future,” one of the best songs off the Magic album.

When they finally wrapped up the show at 5 past midnight, after nearly three hours of songs and three “encores,” Bruce introduced every member of the band as they held their instruments up in pride. He belted out his trademark spiel, “You’ve just heard the booty-shaking, earth-quaking, Viagra-taking, etc. etc. etc. band!” Then, to everyone’s amazement, Bruce acted like he caught the eye of someone out front and got real close to the mic, sweating and shaking his head “no,” but also grinning, saying, “No, no, you don’t want one more. We can’t do it, these guys, we’re done, we can’t do one more, you don’t want one more, you don’t want it, okay, you want one more, okay!”

The entire band then marched out and paraded around the stage shaking their instruments and bodies to the song “Rosalita” which Bruce prefaced quickly by shouting, “Here’s another New Jersey fairytale for ya!”

Everyone was happy, and couldn’t find anything negative to say. The Jersey stud and his band played as though they had something to prove, and at 3+ hours of hard rocking they truly delivered, making the trip well worth it for the many out-of-staters.

Fans pouring out of the stadium at 12:20 am into the misty summer night all agreed that the show was ridiculously good, and that Bruce hasn’t lost a beat. At 58, healthy and proud, this entertainer is still enjoying his Glory Days. And we were all lucky to be a part of the fun.

Movie Review: ‘Be Kind Rewind’

This is a tough one to review. I hesitate to slam the movie completely, because it’s charming, original, and fun. Coming from any other place, this would be a fabulous movie. However, it’s not just from anyone—it’s Michel Gondry. His credit list is so insanely good that I simply couldn’t help from having super high expectations. Unlike, say, The Dark Knight, this one did not meet those expectations.

My biggest criticism of the movie (and this is an especially negative quality, something no one has ever said about the previous Gondry films) is that it’s predictable. Sure, the concept is very original, but I mean that once the concept begins, the progression of the plot is formulaic.

The trailer (that everyone saw before the movie was released), wastes no time revealing the strange Gondrian “what” of this movie (for Eternal Sunshine, it was the memory-erasing procedure, and in Science of Sleep, it was the protagonist’s penchant to actually sleepwalk during his dreams, carrying out actions which he thought he only dreamt). The creative rub this time around is that Jack Black has become magnetized— we learn in the very first few moments of the trailer that he accidentally erases the video tapes at Mos Def’s rental store. Indeed, this is a kooky, surreal kind of plot device typical of Gondry. But the trailer goes on to show us the solution they find (filming amateur versions of the movies themselves) and even goes a step further and shows some punk-looking tough guys coming into the store, sliding back the amateur tape, saying, “That wasn’t bad. What else you got?” So we know from the trailer the entire three act story arc: the tapes get erased, Black and Def film home-made versions to replace them, and the townspeople actually like their homemade versions enough for the duo to begin filming a bunch of them. The preview paints an exciting, possibly terrific new movie that Christian Lander correctly mocked as a “white person’s wet dream.”

And it was a wet dream for any fans of Gondry’s first two movies. But then, sure enough, the movie’s plot turns out to be the very arc laid out in the trailer. There really aren’t any big surprises from what you already know going in, though I suppose defenders of this movie could argue that the big twist is when lawyers show up to destroy the tapes for copyright infringement. I guess it’s true that you don’t see that coming, but it certainly isn’t an “exciting twist.” If anything, the destruction of the tapes actually leads one to wonder what the point of it all was; Black and Def make the tapes, everyone loves them, and then the tapes are destroyed. Sure, there’s a whole campy, uplifting rally in which all the people of Passaic unite and become friends, but that doesn’t redeem the movie. If anything, that sappy, neatly tied-up ending detracts from the creative, exciting, fascinating beginning of the story. Ending the movie on such a sappy, clichéd note undermines the entire Gondry oeuvre.

As one amateur reviewer put it at Rotten Tomatoes (on which the movie has a 67% fresh rating—not too shabby, but underwhelming for a Gondry film): “The premise of Be Kind Rewind is pure Michel Gondry. The end result is anything but.” That’s my gripe in a nutshell. The zany Gondrian twist—Black’s magnetic powers—is put to rest halfway through when Black accidentally downs a whole bottle of Advil that inexplicably cures his magnetism. From then on out, it develops in exactly the way one would expect of, say, a nice, friendly Olsen twins movie. Everything goes well, with a few bumps in the road, and ultimately the characters succeed in saving the day. The movie ends in smiles. It doesn’t work for a filmmaker who is capable of (and has given us in the past) so much more. That “so much more” includes both Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which everyone seems to love, and the far more underrated Science of Sleep. The former is a favorite among college students as well as critical, discerning adults, and not just thanks to breakout performances like a serious Jim Carrey, an out-of-control Kate Winslet, a charming, shy Mark Ruffalo or a repellent, slimy Elijah Wood. All of them are great (plus Tom Wilkinson who is always, and I mean always incredible), but it’s the concept and the filming that shines. Scenes in which Jim Carrey re-experiences past memories and finds himself still vulnerable to childhood emotions are both fascinating and moving. Plus, the story toys with perceptions of chronology and reality. When the film ends with scenes of Joel and Clementine running around on the beach in winter, it isn’t a conventional happy ending, because these may be scenes from an earlier point in time, before they erased each other.

In The Science of Sleep, Gondry’s ambition pays off and he manages to effectively capture the experience of our wackiest, most tripped-out dreams. When scenes begin, we can never be quite sure whether Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal, who forcefully draws us in as he often can) is awake or asleep. In addition, the love story (because that’s what the film is) develops slowly and awkwardly. The courting between Stephane and Stephanie is odd and quirky—Stephanie is well aware that Stephane actually began by liking her friend, and the two of them muddle through whimsical art projects together in a limbo state between friends with shared interests and mutually enthralled lovers. Even by the end of the movie, it is still unclear whether they will end up together; Stephane falls asleep on Stephanie’s bed, even after she has tried to kick him out, and in his sleep he dreams of them riding a horse together. Much like after Eternal Sunshine, we leave the movie feeling engaged, entertained, but also uncertain as to the conclusion of the characters and their dilemma. This, clearly, is real life, and we recognize that somehow Gondry has delivered a message of realism while depicting the story in completely surreal ways. As A.O. Scott correctly puts it in his 2006 review:

“The Science of Sleep,” for all its blithe disregard of the laws of physics, film grammar and narrative coherence, strikes me as perfectly realistic, as authentic a slice of life as I’ve encountered on screen in quite some time.

This is Gondry’s mastery: blending the surreal and the authentic. And both films leave us wanting to see more of the central couples, Joel and Clementine or Stephane and Stephanie, respectively.

But this is not true of Be Kind. By the time the movie ends, you’ve had quite enough of Jerry and Mike, and there’s no need to go back, nor is their any mystery as to their future, since everything has been wrapped up with a nice bow.

Black, especially, is an unappealing presence. He plays the same character he created in High Fidelity, perfected in School of Rock, and then reprised in Envy. At this point, it’s stale. I hear he’s different and likeable in The Holiday and that his voice works extremely well for the surprisingly well-reviewed Kung Fu Panda, but I’ve seen neither one. In Be Kind, his character (and I acknowledge it could be the character, not Black himself, that you’ll resent) is a misery. He erupts rudely at strangers, nags and cajoles the mild-mannered Mike into joining him for ridiculous, criminal adventures, and all of this before he even becomes magnetized and brain-addled. The situation was a lot like the friendship in Superbad; the Jonah Hill character was such a whiny little bitch, such a fun-killing Debbie Downer, that it impaired my enjoyment of the movie and also made me wonder why the straight-arrow character (in that case, Michael Cera, here it’s Mos Def) couldn’t manage to find a less lame best friend.

Meanwhile, Mos Def and Danny Glover do fine; they’re pretty harmless. And Alma (previously under-the-radar Melonie Diaz) is adorable, though also rather irrelevant. A mini-arc in which she could become a love interest for either of the two guys (both start to like her) is briefly explored and then abandoned altogether, which is jarring. One scene even involves a face-to-face discussion between her and Mike about whether he has a crush on her. The moment ends with an almost-kiss (interrupted by, who else, Jerry) so that when the movie ends without ever re-investigating it, we actually feel like there must have been a scene in which she does kiss one of them, but the director cut it absentmindedly.

In addition, the entire setting is grossly implausible. As Owen Gleiberman writes in his EW review (which, unlike A.O. Scott’s raving praise, generally shares my reaction; he gives the film a B), Gondry turns the town of Passaic, NJ into “a touristic Retroland and hobby camp.” The real Passaic is an industrial city of smog and busy commuters, but the Passaic that Mike and Jerry have the pleasure of inhabiting feels more like the set of Toy Story. Local residents seem completely happy to look for exciting movies at a place that has maybe forty videos total, and only in VHS. It’s a pipe dream; the movie, from what I can tell, is supposed to take place now, in 2008. And yet, in today’s America there is nowhere—save perhaps tiny towns of 2,000 people in Nebraska—that a videocassette-only rental store could survive and do business.

Still, it’s not my intention just to trash the movie. The childish setting of friendly, smiling locals and Black’s bothersome performance are only minor problems. It is really only in comparison to his dazzling previous outings that this movie fails. On its own, there are still moments of pure delight. Many of these come from lines that are innocently funny (even in the Apatovian-dominated world of comedy, Gondry does a good job with ‘funny’ that doesn’t need to be raunchy), such as when Jerry and Mike are filming The Lion King using giant cardboard puppets, and Jerry demands that Alma say (as Scar): “I will piss on the bones of your ancestors!” There are also tenderly funny moments between Mike and his mentor Mr. Fletcher (Glover) such as when Fletcher writes a message backwards on the window (“Keep Jerry Out”) and Mike can’t seem to understand, presuming the sign says “Peek Yrrej Tuo” and thus at first concluding that Mr. Fletcher is illiterate.

In addition, there is a small bit of the patchy, amateur-esque animation that was so charming in Science of Sleep. A scene in which Jerry pees in the street while magnetized shows a river of urine flowing along, forcefully pulling objects such as soda cans and even a carburetor into its yellow river. The objects are sucked toward the gutter in jerky, cutesy little movements, as if they are living things crawling slowly toward the curb of their own volition. It’s the same style of filming that was used to illustrate Stephane’s wildly inventive dreams.

Additionally, the movie continually gives us brief scenes of old-fashioned, 1930s-era black-and-white film stock in which Mike is dressed up as the local jazz legend Fats Waller. It seems inexplicable (where are these clips coming from?) until the locals finally agree to make a documentary about Fats, and we realize that the clips are from the movie, and that Mike must end up playing the part of his storied Jazz hero. When they show these clips again, we view them in a new, more loving light and we feel a soft spot for Mike and his naïve worship of this symbolic local icon.

Finally, there are bits of their amateur filmmaking which are completely genius, and show us Gondry’s brilliant, inventive imagination. When the boys film Men in Black, they cleverly paste Matchbox cars onto a giant cardboard cylinder and then revolve it in the bottom of the camera’s field of vision in order to perform the illusion that Mike and Jerry are driving in the car upside down, above all the other traffic. Similarly, when doing Rush Hour 2, they need Jerry to be hanging from a flagpole off the side of the building, dangling hundreds of feet up from the street, so they have him stand on the ground and hold a pole above his head, then film it at such an angle that the stunt looks authentic. These little tricks of camera work are ingenious and entertaining.

So the movie is not a stinker, by any stretch. It’s fun and cute. It has delightful moments of creativity and playful banter. But there are so many things it fails at, and thanks to a campy, optimistic ending I hesitate to recommend it to any big Gondry fans, since they will be expecting from him something so much more than “cute.”

I’m in Love with Sloane Crosley

I can’t quite recall where or how I originally heard about I Was Told There’d Be Cake. What I do know is that when I saw it in paperback at the bookstore a week ago, I had already read about it and knew it was kind of a ‘hot’ title at the moment, though how I came to believe this, I’m not sure.

I tried doing a search online for the NYTimes review, but there was none. In fact, I couldn’t find a review of the book from any of the usual critical sources, nor did the search turn up much general info about the book apart from this uninteresting puff piece in the New York online magazine.

But one amateur reviewer on Amazon called the book “hyped,” which might confirm my feeling that everyone in the literary world knows about this book. And the ‘hype’ makes sense, because it’s a delight.

I’ve only just begun, but I can say that Crosley is indeed in the company of David Sedaris, as Jonathan Lethem raves on the cover. But she’s almost more relaxing to read, because she’s less pretentious. In fact, reading her reflections feels a lot like kicking back with George Saunders– similar humor and style– with the difference being that Crosley’s stories are non-fiction, and that for now she can only dream of becoming as prolific and quietly worshiped as Saunders.

Anyway, the book is no deep, heavy fare but it’s a breezy read, and a laugh riot. Plus, Miz Crosley is young, Jewish, NESCAC-educated (Conn. College), and gorgeous. So naturally I love her.

And you should, too. I would definitely buy her a plastic pony (you’ll get it). I’m not sure I’ll bother to write a lengthy, full review of this one when I do finish it, but 40 pages in, I can already safely assert:

Yes, I would recommend it.

Everyone Hates ‘The Love Guru’

Let’s all point and laugh.

It’s hard to believe that So I Married an Axe Murderer was fifteen years ago. Man oh man, that was one great movie. Austin Powers was another solid one– until they made a mediocre (that’s being kind) sequel, and then really took the series out back and killed it with the third, Goldmember, which was fucking painful. Sorry, but it truly was hard to handle. One particularly unfunny scene comes to mind in which Austin is lying on his back at the bottom of a laundry hamper, and ‘Fat Bastard’ throws his soiled sumo diaper into the hamper on top of him. For the next couple minutes we watch a closeup of Austin’s face making various disgusted expressions.

Unfortunately for him, it looks like Wayne’s World remains his most recent legitimately good movie. When I first saw the trailer for The Love Guru months ago, a buddy of mine said, “I’d see that.” I almost smacked him. I said, “Bet you my life that movie will be a disaster.” I mean, as soon as Myers showed up screen in a turban I knew trouble was coming, but the addition of Jessica Alba and Justin Timberlake really sealed the deal. This was going to be a bad, bad movie.

And boy, it was bad. I haven’t seen it (and won’t) but reading the many vicious reviews has been entertaining enough. In fact, it’s becoming clear that the reviews are a hell of a lot funnier than the actual movie. Apparently, when a movie is this bad, critics really allow their oft-restrained middle-school cruelty to come out and have free reign. I mean, these people sound like schoolyard bullies teasing the kid who tries out for Varsity basketball and can’t even dribble. They all seem to be forming a gleeful chorus chanting in Myers’ blushing face, “YOU SUCK!”

Insanely funny as it was when I saw the Harry Knowles headline, “If shit got some of The Love Guru on it, shit would wipe it off!” the real comedic gems come from A.O. Scott’s review. He writes:

[The phrase] “it’s somehow less amusing than it should be” might sum up “The Love Guru” in its entirety but only at the risk of grievously understating the movie’s awfulness. A whole new vocabulary seems to be required. To say that the movie is not funny is merely to affirm the obvious… No, “The Love Guru” is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again.

Ha! I don’t have to wonder if I’ll ever laugh again, since Scott’s skewering comments made me crack up. He went on to share a couple lines from the movie (“I think I just made a happy wee-wee”) and “I’m making diarrhea noises in my cup”) that confirm for me an early estimate of the odds on my watching this thing by choice: I would maybe watch it if it was showing on a plane and the Pilot announced, “Everyone watch the movie or I’ll crash this thing.”

Now, whenever a movie with some big star gets panned, I always revel in the trainwreck (a la Employee of the Month or Norbit) but a friend of mine insists that big comedy stars don’t care when their new movie gets ripped. They got the paycheck, and maybe they enjoyed filming the thing, so what’s it to them? He reminds me that they don’t get paid less if the movie tanks, and in most cases, it won’t lessen their chances of being cast in future movies either.

But on this occasion, I can’t agree. There’s just no way that Myers can read the things that are being said of his new movie and smile cheerfully. Come on. He’s gotta be hurting. And I would have hoped, for his sake, he’d really be ashamed. Learn a lesson from this outing, you know?

Nope. Predictably, Mike Myers will follow up this shitshow with what has to be the worst decision a guy has made for his reputation since Michael Richard’s n-bomb: Myers is writing and selling Austin powers 4. Jesus. This news prompted for me a question I often ask myself after seeing previews for things like Meet the Spartans or Scary Movie 9: What poor motherfuckers are actually paying to see these movies? Who are they? Show me the people that see these trailers and say, “Oh man, I can’t wait to devote ten dollars and two hours of my life to that movie!” Who?!

The above story even mentions that New Line is “panting” for this movie. How in the world could this be? Maybe the article confused excited panting for the kind of “spare me” pleading that a girl does when a sweaty, fat, drunk dude is getting all handsy on her at a kegger. Please, New Line! Please, Myers! Spare us!

One witty commenter put it well responding to a ‘Love Guru’ story on Deadline Hollywood Daily: “I found his humor to be about as amusing as a car alarm in a mall parking lot.” Yup, as my dad loves to say when we go to a theater and get treated to a horror trailer (think The Ring, The Grudge, The Descent, or House of Wax): “Ooh, icky. I can skip that one.”

I Need to Read ‘Netherland,’ and Salman Rushdie Needs to Not Win This Year’s Booker Prize

Welp, the 2008 longlist for the Man Booker Prize has been released. Of special note to me is the nomination of Netherland, a sweeping new novel by Joseph O’Neill that apparently was just barely able to slip into the nominations because O’Neill was born in Ireland.

He now lives in Manhattan, and his book is getting the kind of abundant, unrestrained praise and widespread buzz that most aspiring writers only receive in their wildest wet dreams. James Wood, the newest hot shot in review land, called it “one of the most remarkable post-colonial books I have ever read,” and the NYTimes Book Review’s Dwight Garner wrote that this is the “wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we’ve yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell.” Michiko Kakutani had the cajones to compare the novel to The Great Gatsby in both tone, scope, and quality of writing.

The book is yet another post-9/11 novel in a long list of recent examples, but thankfully Dwight Garner claims that “another post-9/11 novel” is just what it isn’t. This book should be better than the unexciting entries (Ian McEwan’s Saturday, Don DeLillo’s Falling Man) and also better than the pretentious, over-ambitious attempts (Jonathan Safran Foer, natch).

In short, I want to read this book, and I need to read it, but I also don’t buy books in hardcover. Not only are they too expensive (even paperbacks are pricey enough these days) but I love to devour books on the subway, gripping the overhead railing with one hand and a worn, folded paperback with the other. This doesn’t work with a hardcover. And yet, waiting for the hottest new fiction to come out in paperback certainly might put me behind the curve at times like these. Just like how I’m waiting til September to pick up Oscar Wao. Hmmm.

Regardless of when I get to read it, this thing clearly must be terrific, and I can only hope it beats out The Enchantress of Florence, because it’s laughable to see that piece of shit on the list. It’s pretty clear that the people over at the Man Booker panel simply feel that any new book from Sir Salman automatically deserves the Booker. It’s a shame, considering that the book was panned by most of the major book reviews in the States. Then again, he did win the Booker of Bookers. What a man. Someone bring this guy down to Earth! And besides, if he loses, he’s always got his budding film career to fall back on. That, or his current zeal for comedy.

[UPDATE, 9/9/08]

Ha! Rushdie’s book didn’t even make the shortlist (out today), so it will not be winning. Looks like the Booker panel ain’t so dumb after all. Maybe the long list’s inclusion of Enchantress of Florence in the first place was just a kind, respectful nod to the Booker veteran.

However, to everyone’s shock and awe, Netherland didn’t make the cut either! Perhaps it really isn’t the next Great Gatsby, Ms. Kakutani, you overzealous fountain of praise!

But I still want to read it. First, though: Oscar Wao and Edgar Sawtelle.

The Netherland-less (and Rushdie-less) shortlist does include novels by Sebastian Barry, Aravind Adiga, Amitav Ghosh, Steve Toltz, Philip Hensher, and Linda Grant. Initial thoughts: firstly, I’m not sure what it could mean that only woman is on the list. I tend not to lean toward sexism, but then again I can’t know how many novels this year that were written by someone who is a woman and is from the commonwealth or Ireland were actually any good. Secondly, my pick is the Sea of Poppies. Thirdly, I’m acknowledging that Hensher might be a likely winner, but simply because Amazon.com has chosen this novel as their book of the year. Then again, Amazon—fabulous, cheap outlet for books and DVDs though it may be—is not such a reliable intellectual authority.

[UPDATE, 10/14/08]

Aravind Adiga’s novel about India, The White Tiger, has won. I’m adding it to my “books to read” shelf. Meanwhile, it’s causing quite a stir so it might have to leapfrog over Updike’s third Rabbit novel and Edgar Sawtelle and Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter because I want to get to it now, while it’s current.

Movie Review: ‘The Dark Knight’

I’ll announce right off the “bat” (ha) that I loved this film. It is worth the hype, and it delivers on levels that one would not expect of a typical comic book movie. The performances are commanding nearly across the board, and the writing is clever as well. With that being said, it isn’t perfect. There are moments of foolish implausibility, and there are annoying details that go unnoticed on that first exited, rapturous viewing.

Warning: Those of you who haven’t yet seen the movie probably don’t want to continue reading.

When the movie came out (on my birthday!) I didn’t have a chance to see it right away. I went to only one movie that weekend, and my choice, for better or worse, was Wall-E. I knew I wanted to see Dark Knight, but I also knew I would now have to wait until the next weekend. Of course, the week went by and with each day I continued to read reviews that absolutely raved about the film. Owen Gleiberman, Roger Ebert, Manohla Dargis– all of these people had trouble finding anything negative to say.

The praise was so enormous that I became skeptical. To my friends who constantly nagged me to see it, I would say things like, “But don’t you think it’s just hyped because Ledger died? I know that’s not politically correct, but come on, if he hadn’t died there wouldn’t have been this much talk about it, or this many tickets sold.” Friends would tell me, “It’s not undeserved. People aren’t exaggerating. He’s that good.” I would scoff at them and say, “I’m sure he’s good, but come on, an Oscar nomination? That’s so stupid. I sure hope they don’t do that. Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean he deserves an Oscar nod, and even if he is really good, a superhero movie is not Oscar material. It would just be stupid.”

A friend and I then argued about whether it would be inappropriate to see a comic book movie (a sequel, no less!) get selected for an Academy Award. I insisted, as un-snobbishly as I could, that a Batman movie is fundamentally in league with “fun” juvenile action flicks. You know, popcorn blockbusters that might entertain and fill theaters, but are not thematically deep enough or artistically accomplished enough to show up on any Oscar lists. But then remembered that Denzel Washington won Best Actor for just that kind of movie: Training Day, which, sure, was a great flick, but remained an exciting action movie that made no great statement and broke no cinematic boundaries. And yet still, it was a movie that delivered an Oscar for Denzel. I chose to keep this counterpoint to myself. Still, my friend pleaded with me, I had to accept the possibility (probability, it now seems) that Ledger would be nominated for a posthumous statue.

After seeing the film, I can now say that my doubts were ungrounded, and that Heath Ledger completely earns every bit of wild, hyperbolic praise he is currently receiving from reviewers, scholars, bloggers and fanboys. His Joker is more than just a memorable villain– he is a fully developed, very real person. Ledger’s performance is nuanced and researched, and we see the Joker’s mind working away in every single scene. He is both terrifying and funny, and he shatters the traditional clichéd flatness of comic book bad guys. He does this mostly by creating a persona who really is not just “the bad guy” but rather an actual human being, with psychoses and neuroses and a zest for life that somehow coexists with his disregard for the lives of others.

And here’s the best thing I can say about the performance: Heath Ledger disappears. Sure, Nicholson was a great Joker as well; he inhabited the part with a fun, zany enthusiasm. But Ledger doesn’t inhabit the part– he becomes the man himself. The only time I was actually thinking about the actor playing the Joker was in the interrogation scene when his makeup is mostly rubbed off and we can actually see the face beneath, and for the first time in the film he is recognizable as Heath Ledger. Otherwise, the man on screen, who is completely and horribly nuts, is no one other than this conniving villain, the Joker.

So yes, he steals the show. Although “steals the show” isn’t truly an appropriate phrase here, since his death pretty much automatically made his performance the show. Ledger is what people are going to see, and he delivers. However, I don’t think he is the only star here. There are a number of other players who aren’t receiving the praise they deserve.

Most importantly, Aaron Eckhart is getting a tough deal from some reviewers. Joe Kugelmass has written that Eckhart has “considerable limitations as an actor.” That may be, but I don’t see it in this particular film. In fact, even with the menacing Joker running around, Harvey Dent’s transformation into Two-Face is horrifying. I think specifically of the scene in which Commissioner Gordon stands by Dent’s bedside and Dent says softly, “What was that name the boys used to call me over at Internal Affairs?” Gordon plays dumb and mumbles, “Oh, I dunno…” and Dent says firmly, “Say it.” Then there’s a silence, and he shouts, “SAY IT!” I pulled my knees up to my chest and huddled in my seat. He was scary. And terrific.

[UPDATE, 8/5/08]

A brief article on the NYMag’s Vulture blog today confirms my belief that Eckhart is not getting the credit he deserves. At least they agree with me!

…if it wasn’t for Heath Ledger, it would be Aaron Eckhart whose breakout performance and Oscar hopes we’d all be talking about right now. The actor, who’s long underwhelmed us, gives one of those where-the-hell-did-that-come-from? performances as Harvey Dent, going so far beyond anything we’ve seen him do in the past that it’s as if he’s on some kind of performance enhancer. He’s vivid, specific, and energetic in a way we haven’t seen before, and the performance is the first in his career that perfectly taps into Eckhart’s weird mix of handsomeness and creepiness.

I admit that the power of this twist was probably stronger for me and anyone else who was not an expert in the comic; that is, I did not already know that Harvey Dent is Two-Face, and so the transformation came as a surprise. I’m sure for many fanboys with high expectations, the moment may have been disappointing. For me, it was everything I could have imagined, and as he went around killing cops with one eye bugging out of its socket and tendons exposed on his cheek, I thought he was nearly as strong a character as the Joker, although I admit I did not like the coin gimmick. As if we didn’t already guess that the thing was double-heads, they reveal it by his bedside like a shocking twist. Come on. Maybe the recent success of No Country didn’t help; we’ve all just seen Anton Chigurh run around flipping a coin to decide the fate of his targets, and his gag was a whole lot more chilling.

During that pivotal scene, when Dent finally did turn his head to the side and we saw the burn damage, and the music swelled, and a new villain emerged, I turned to my friend and said, “Aah, so that’s it! That’s so awesome. He’s going to be the villain for the next film.” But then they killed him off! This I couldn’t understand, but regardless, it has led me to conclude that I hope they don’t do a third movie. There is no question in anyone’s mind that no actor can ever play the Joker again, and with Two-Face dead (he better be, come on, we saw his body, they better not bring him back) I don’t see how a third installment could possibly top this one. What are they gonna do, bring in The Penguin or Mr. Freeze? Those baddies are going to look like characters from a Saturday-morning cartoon compared to Ledger’s Joker, no matter who plays them.

Back to the performances. In addition to the obviously outstanding Ledger and the surprisingly good Eckhart, I felt that Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine all prove crucial to the movement of the plot. Chief Gordon’s fake-dead trick got me good, and Alfred’s machinations involving Rachel’s letter were considerably moving. His important decision to burn the letter after Bruce Wayne’s cheesy, faux-teary line (”She was going to leave him, Alfred, for me”) was compelling and had me seriously wondering if it was the right move (is ignorance bliss?). Finally, Freeman was naturally fascinating to watch, as he always is. When his Lucius Fox objects to Batman’s new spy machinery, I didn’t cringe at the obvious political overtones, because Freeman plays it so well that it just seems part of the story; you don’t necessarily need to analyze the anti-Bush implications (however, I will analyze the politics of this film later).

But two of the four “stars” of the film– Batman and Rachel Dawes– fall flat as intriguing characters. As Batman, Bale is all breathy growls and silent heroics. He doesn’t really get a chance to stretch his acting chops, because no great feats of dramatic emotion are really required of the hero. As Bruce Wayne, I was even less impressed. I can’t tell whether it was Bale himself who made this choice or the writers by forcing stale lines on him, but the Bruce Wayne character was completely unlikeable this time around.

In fact, in the two scenes in which Wayne goes “out on the town” (the dinner with Dawes and Dent, and his cynical fundraiser for Dent) seemed to give us a Christian Bale straight out of American Psycho. Bruce Wayne was an asshole in this film. He acted arrogant, and not even in an intentional, must-do-this-to-cultivate-public-persona kind of way. No, Bale’s Bruce Wayne was almost laughably dickheaded. He trotted out three bimbos to his fundraiser, spoke with an affected air of cockiness and condescension, and boasted the same exact hairstyle as Patrick Bateman. Did Bale get confused during filming and think it was 1999? Perhaps verbally attacking his mother and sister threw off his method.

And by the way, Batman’s voice annoyed me far more in this movie than it ever did in the first. That ridiculous low growl just sounds silly. I know, I know, he has to use a different voice so that others won’t identify him as Bruce Wayne. But I don’t care, it still made me want to laugh at him.

As for Maggie Gyllenhaal: No, she was not a fabulous Rachel Dawes. But it’s not her fault, because I’m not sure any actress could play the part well with the lines they give her. In addition, I didn’t like that they replaced Katie Holmes. Now, hear me out first: I think Katie Holmes sucks. She has little talent, and any films she gets casted in from here on out are solely the result of her newly-elevated celebrity, thanks to the contract she signed with Tom Cruise to marry him and pretend he’s not gay. Still, Gyllenhaal wasn’t so much of an improvement, because the character herself just isn’t interesting. She’s there as a stock figure– the love interest– and she doesn’t do (or need to do) much else. She has a few “important” lines like when she tells Bruce she’s going to marry Harvey, or when she hisses back at the Joker defiantly. But she’s a two-dimensional character in a field of confident, relevant leading men. I don’t know what that says about how female characters are treated in cinema today, but I’m sure Manohla Dargis would have something to say about it.

So Katie Holmes sucks, but replacing her annoyed me, because it ruins the continuity of the series. Get her acting lessons, or get her to stop making that god awful lip-curl expression; do something. But don’t just replace her with a different actress and act like nothing happened. I think it’s foolish, I mean, are we all to pretend we don’t notice? It’s a different person! They did this same trick with The OC: In the first season, Ryan’s brother shows up in a single episode, when they go to visit him at prison, and appropriately, he’s some beat-up, unglamorous kid. Then, when they bring the character back in the second season, he’s suddenly scruffy, handsome, and well-spoken, and he’s played by the better-known Logan Marshall-Green. The obvious switch didn’t work then, and it didn’t work for me in The Dark Knight.

There are other similar moments of implausibility in the film. An early scene in which the Joker busts into Dent’s fundraiser ends up with Batman sliding down the roof to grab Rachel, and the two of them falling about nine stories down to land on the roof of a car. First of all, the fall itself is ludicrous. Both Batman and Rachel are completely unharmed (sorry, but Batman is still just a man, he’s not indestructible, that’s what makes him an appealing superhero). This is just fantasy. The fall looks especially stupid in retrospect when Batman and Two-Face later fall from much less of a height (maybe two stories) and end up lying on the ground, immovable, with Two-Face dead and the Bat considerably hurt.

But the fall itself is not the main gripe that I had with this scene. The problem is that the scene itself just ends. Batman is lying there on the ground with Rachel, and meanwhile we know that the Joker, whom he fled, is still up there at the party, terrorizing the guests, looking for Dent. And yet, the next shot gives us Bruce Wayne back in his home with Alfred. What the hell happened? Did the Joker just decide to leave the party? Was this a case of bad editing that accidentally made it through? I understand the movie was originally 3+ hours and it took a lot of cutting to get it down to its current lengthy length, but this is one scene that they couldn’t afford to cut. But they did, they left it just hanging there, and it was obvious.

Another glaring bit of absurdity was when the Joker is terrorizing the city, blowing up hospitals, causing enormous destruction all over the place, and the city officials decide to load all these people onto the barges, filling two giant steamers with “normal citizens” and convicts, and they don’t think to check the boats for explosives? This guy has been surprising the police at every turn, revealing bombs all over the city in places that they can’t imagine he could have rigged, and they just hop onto these boats and set sail?! It was illogical.

Having pointed that out, I do think the boat scene was one of the most compelling of the entire movie. The ethical dilemma that the convicts and the “normal” people face is gripping and clever. It reveals thoughtful writing, and it leads to captivating, edge-of-your-seat viewing (actually most people were on the edge of their seats for the whole movie). The scene actually had me wondering (and everyone else, I imagine) what I would do, and even after I concluded that I would push the button and blow up the convict boat (hey, what can ya do, gotta survive) I was turned around when the guy who represented my view stepped up to take charge, all gusto and pomp, and couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Now we need to address the political face of this movie– and it’s undeniably there. As I mentioned earlier, I thought the subplot of Lucius Fox and Batman’s spy machine was an overt jab at Bush and the government. However, a guy I work with who has some knowledge about film studios asked me today, “Did you get the movie’s political message?” I said of course I did: the spying thing was totally anti-Bush. He gaped and said, “Wait, you thought it was anti-Bush?” He then explained to me that film studios today are getting very political, and that most in the business are well aware of which studios lean in which direction.

Warner Bros, he explained, is known to be conservative. He then pointed out that even though Fox objects to Batman’s call tracing, he ultimately gives in and uses it to help him. And what happens? His help allows Batman to find the Joker and at last catch him for good. Fox’s use of the spy program proves indispensable. The message, then: “Sure, this is morally questionable, but sometimes measures such as these are needed to get the bad guys. It does the job.” It’s the Patriot Act.

Furthermore, most of those contributing to the online ‘chatter’ seem to glean the same general message from the film: the superhero (good guys) often needs to break some laws and become “dark” in order to have any chance against the villain (bad guys). This element, too, can easily become the power-abusing, Bush ethos of today’s conservatives: The forces of Good (America) often need to go rogue and jeopardize some civil liberties, if that’s what it takes to conquer Evil (terrorism/Saddam/Al-Qaeda).

As a contrast, my friend explained, take a look at the other recent superhero movie this summer, The Incredible Hulk (I know, we don’t want to compare this shitfest to Nolan’s gem, but hey). Hulk was from Universal Studios, which my friend claims is a very liberal company. And who/what is the main enemy in that movie? The government. It is government officials and military leaders who cause every single problem and disaster for the innocent hero, Bruce Banner.

I know, I know, it’s no fun to analyze a movie as genuinely entertaining as The Dark Knight on a political level. I didn’t want to do it either, and after writing this I’ll hope and try to forget all about the conservative agenda. But it’s still useful to discover these thematic elements, and to point out obnoxious political statements when studios are lame enough to put them in their films.

Bottom-line: Apart from the lackluster efforts of Bale and Gyllenhaal, and discounting a few implausible details and gaffes, this film is fabulous. The performances are mostly incredible, and Ledger does indeed shine brightly. The twists are daring and surprising (I was shocked and impressed that they had the balls to kill off Rachel Dawes; it made us believe the Joker’s threats in the future, since he said Batman would have to choose one, and in the end he was correct, Batman didn’t get to save the day as we expected). The action is gripping, and the moral questions raised about the line between good and evil are compelling and clever.

Finally, the film leaves the typical superhero story mold completely shattered. Batman is too conscientious to inflict the lethal brutality on criminals that his opponents are willing to enact on him (I loved when the Joker shrieked, HIT ME! and Batman pussied out and turned his motorcycle to the side at the last moment). His moral uprightness actually makes him vulnerable and makes us lose faith in him, and this is what’s truly scary about the film.

It’s a terrific movie. It’s not going to be the Best Picture of 2008, and it’s not a masterpiece, but it’s damn good. It might be the best comic book movie to date.

Appalling Gaffe by Associated Press Reflects Ignorance & Shoddy Reporting

As anyone who cares about the fate of our nation (and by that I mean the presidential election) has heard by now, last week a student in Jerusalem got hold of Barack Obama’s prayer note at the Western Wall and gave it to a local newspaper.

While reading the Associated Press article that covered the story, what shocked me was actually something only laterally related to the actual topic of the article. In the final paragraph, the story concludes:

At the Western Wall, Obama was greeted by a crowd of curious onlookers and photographers. He donned a white skullcap, listened to a rabbi read a prayer, and inserted a folded white piece of paper between the stones.

He donned a white skullcap. How in the world did this make it through the copy editing? It’s called a kippah or yarmulke. In an article about Jerusalem and the Western Wall, why wouldn’t the reporter (or team of reporters, since the AP does not attribute stories to one person) care to learn the proper name of a religious item?

Now, when I first noticed this, I laughed and closed the story, but as I tried to do other work I continued to think about the mistake, and finally I became annoyed enough to write about it. I don’t doubt that many people reading this might scoff at me for overreacting, and I agree that it’s nothing to blow a gasket over. Still, a mistake like this, from a supposedly reliable, sophisticated news source, is troubling. It has cultural significance. So hear me out.

Make no mistake, an error like this one does matter, and it is culturally relevant to America’s current ‘problem,’ i.e. the entire gamut of bigotry that pervades our nation– the ‘big three’ being prejudices over race, sexual orientation, and religion.

There is a racist element in the assumption that the article of clothing is a ’skullcap.’ This term reflects an item commonly associated with black culture. Obama puts on a kippah, they call it a skullcap, because Hey, he’s black, right? It must be a skullcap.

Yet this is a lesser issue, because many people might argue, “Well, it is a cap, and it closely covers the skull, so that’s really not such a bad term for it.” Fine. But in a religious sense, the misnomer at once removes the spiritual importance of the item. It undermines the role that kippahs play in Judaism, and relegates it to just another cap, like some winter beanie that a high school kid in Beantown might pull on. You can almost hear one of these ignorant reporters asking a colleague, “Did you see Obama was wearing one of those silly Jew hats? Oh man. I’m doin’ the story on that, what are those things called?” and the other guy responding, “Oh, those skullcaps? Yeah, I dunno. Just put skullcap.”

If Obama had also visited, say, West Africa on his trip, and had joined in some religious ceremony, he might have put on a dashiki. I can guarantee you that if that had happened, the article would not have called it a ‘muu-muu’ or ‘hoodie.’ Just like an article about the Pope would not call the episcopal mitre a “pointy Pope hat.” I mean, seriously, they might as well have called the kippah a du-rag.

I believe and hope that my being Jewish is not the reason this mistake bothered me so strongly (though it might be an instinctual response I can’t stifle). As I mentioned, it’s not just about failing to use the correct name for an important item in Judaism, but also shows cultural ignorance. It reflects the AP’s indifference to proper research. And it wasn’t just that one idiot didn’t care enough to find the correct name, it’s that all the different people in the process who saw this didn’t bother to change it.

It’s disappointing, and unfortunate. The AP should be embarrassed.

Movie Review: ‘Step Brothers’

Welp, this was not a great movie. But before I rip into the various reasons why this latest highly-touted Ferrell/Reilly outing failed, let me assure you that I am a Will Ferrell fan. Or, I was at some point in my life. I think Anchorman is just as funny as legions of teens believe (though it is obnoxiously over-quoted on college campuses everywhere, i.e. ‘I’m going to punch you in the baby-maker’). I think Ferrell’s cameo at the end of Wedding Crashers is a fabulous final surprise to an outstanding comedy, and I even liked Talladega Nights, which is underrated and really gets funnier upon multiple viewings.

But after that one, Ferrell fell into a bad streak, I mean bad. He began to practice the Ben Stiller art of basically making the same movie over and over (for Stiller it’s stories in which a central ‘poor schlub’ finds himself in a situation that gets worse and worse, to the point of painfully uncomfortable awkwardness for the viewer, and then everything [sort-of] works out in the end. See: Something about Mary, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fokkers, and The Heartbreak Kid). Ferrell chooses to continually play characters who spout hilarious one-liners but ultimately don’t seem like real, plausible people. The character is always a former-something (reporter, race car driver, figure skater, basketball player) with a ‘hilarious’ huge belly (that he relies on for nearly half of the comedy, always baring it at least 5x) and a dirty mouth. The plot line is always the same: we see a glimpse of his success, then we watch his downfall, then he gets built back up again from disgrace to honor. The premise really became stale with Blades of Glory, which even the superhuman comedy marital team of Will Arnett and Amy Poehler could not save. Then, it reached all new lows with Semi-Pro. He needs to think of something new, real soon, if he wants to survive in a comedy world that now, thanks to Steve Carrell, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, and Martin Starr, boasts movies that inexplicably mix shocking language with clever brain and true heart (see Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, both terrific).

Meanwhile, it’s anyone’s guess as to why John C. Reilly, once a very good actor, has joined up with Ferrell, who is already beginning to drag him down. What the hell happened? Check out John C. Reilly’s list of highbrow credits, pre-Talladega Nights: Magnolia. Gangs of New York. Chicago. The Hours. The Aviator. A Prairie Home Companion. This was a guy headed for greatness, if not definitively there already. Since teaming with Ricky Bobby and his gang of dumbasses, Reilly has played Sasquatch in the Tenacious-D movie, then Dewey Cox (sorry, but Walk Hard was nothing special) and now Dale fucking Doback in Step Brothers. What a shame. And by the way, to the surprise of many, Reilly actually out-Ferrells Will Ferrell in this movie. It is Dale who commands the action and actually delivers more of the inane, outrageous lines. Ferrell himself takes a back seat.

Most of what the brothers do, both to strangers and family, is downright hateful and vicious. It’s clear why this movie apparently prompted an existential crisis for Roger Ebert:

Sometimes I think I am living in a nightmare. All about me, standards are collapsing, manners are evaporating, people show no respect for themselves. I am not a moralistic nut. I’m proud of the X-rated movie I once wrote. I like vulgarity if it’s funny or serves a purpose. But what is going on here?

Honestly, it’s bewildering to me what could have made Owen Gleiberman give this movie a solid ‘B.’ But enough with analyzing Reilly’s recent career mistakes and Ferrell’s disastrous track record. As for the actual movie, it actually starts out quite pleasantly. The first five minutes gives us a hyper-speed view of the coupling btwn Dale’s father and Brennan’s mother. These two are played so well by Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen that it almost makes you sad to see actors of their caliber in this movie. Richard Jenkins is quite talented and you might recognize him from The Kingdom, Fun with Dick and Jane, or as the hilarious shrink who doesn’t listen to his patients in Something About Mary. Meanwhile, I haven’t seen Mary Steenburgen in much else but I have to admit that a large influence on why I may have liked her so much is because she’s pretty sexy for her age. Yes, she’s 55, and I don’t care. She’s hot in this movie.

So the opening scene in which Jenkins and Steenburgen meet at a conference and devour each other in a hotel room is totally cute and makes the parents lovable from the start. Plus, it makes it that much more miserable later to see them tormented by these two borderline-retarded assholes.

Once Dale and Brennan move in together, the antics begin, and they go from kinda-funny to straight-up appalling. There are some very funny lines here and there, but for the most part the things that they do to each other are upsetting either because they are disturbingly violent or just gross. At one point, we are treated to the close-up sight of Ferrell’s ball sack. I can only guess that Apatow hopeed a naked Ferrell moment would be surprising, daring, and tenderly hilarious/cute like it was when Jason Segel dropped his towel in Sarah Marshall. It wasn’t any of those things; the Ferrell ball sack was cringe-worthy.

[UPDATE, 9/11/08]

Just because so many people have (oddly) asked me about this, here’s Ferrell’s answer regarding the ball sack: “They were stunt nuts, $25,000 dollars worth of stunt nuts.” You heard it here… I guess.

Other low points: when Brennan actually begins burying Dale alive (is this for real? we’re supposed to believe these idiots are so ‘wacky’ they’ll commit murder?) and only fails because Dale rises up out of the dirt, not due to any pangs of conscience by Brennan. And that’s just it– the movie lacks a conscience. As I said, the things the brothers do to their parents are just mean. In one scene, they excitedly show their family a music video they shot on their dad’s opulent, beloved sailboat. At the end of the video, as the father’s veins pop and he looks ready to cry, we see that the two crashed the boat into a rock wall and completely destroyed it. And they don’t feel any guilt, and the disaster isn’t even funny.

There is one scene that deserves a mention: Brennan’s dick of a brother, Derek, who tormented him in their youth, is now a successful businessman with an “American Dream” family: two pretty little brats and a trophy wife. In their debut scene, as they ride in an Escalade to visit Brennan’s family, Derek leads his little Nazi clan in a rousing, completely serious a cappella performance of ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine.’ He directs the tykes with his hands, and they sing their hearts out in a memorably awkward, yet wonderful musical performance that’s even better than when John Michael Higgins forces his family to sing with him at dinner in The Break-Up. The ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ scene, for my money, is the best in the movie. It’s here:

Other than this and one other hilarious bit that has Dale and Brennan dressing up as a Nazi and a Klan member to scare away possible house buyers, most of the movie’s big moments are wearisome and miserable. They fall flat, mostly because the entire premise, and the characters (other than the parents) are absurd. The way they behave is like nothing that would come from any real human beings with half a heart or brain.

Plus, the brothers aren’t the only implausible people in the film’s environment. Derek’s wife, who is obviously unhappy in her marriage (that part makes sense), inexplicably mauls Dale, and in a bizarre series of sex-starved encounters, does things like write “Fuck Me in the Kitchen” on a cake in frosting at a formal family dinner, and straddle him on a sink counter in a public restroom and gyrate lustily against what had to have been a flaccid dick for ten seconds. We’re supposed to think they just had sex. And if you don’t buy it, she announces herself: “We just had sex.”

It’s not only that Dale and Brennan are stupid enough to insult the people that interview them for jobs, or that they get beat up by fifth-graders (which just doesn’t make sense) but that they show no sense of understanding that there is a problem. Because of this, when they ‘grow up’ later and get jobs and move out and behave normally, it doesn’t make sense since the people they were at the beginning of the movie show absolutely no potential for betterment. It’s all just too easy.

So it wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen (that honor goes to Bicentennial Man), and I bet it’s still better than The Love Guru, but it wasn’t a satisfying comedy. And it was especially disappointing since it could have been so much better, and smarter. I left the theater wishing I still had my ten dollars.

Obama Perfect Even in His Prayers

So this past week, a nosy young seminary student in Jerusalem apparently watched Barack Obama slip a personal prayer into the Western Wall, waited for him to walk away, and then removed the slip of paper and read it. Even worse, the little jerk (to borrow McCain’s catchphrase) gave it to the press so that Obama’s private thoughts could be published for all to see.

Of course this is beyond immoral, but the action is also puzzling because one would expect a seminary student, of all people, to cherish the holiness of the Western Wall and have respect for the prayers that visitors place lovingly into the cracks.

As it happens, the carefully-calculated, cool-as-a-cucumber candidate never makes a wrong step, and so naturally his little prayer note, if anything, only made him look even better to the public. No scribbled plea like, “Please God let me become President,” or, “Let that old son of a bitch keel over before the general election.” No, you would never find any such casual, self-important missive from ‘The One’ (as the McCain campaign has christened him, in a backfired attempt to mock all the press he gets).

Instead, Obama went with:

Lord– Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.

This is the stuff you find in prayer books. The formal language, the humility (and the wish to keep that humility and not fall into pride, even as millions of people begin to adore him more and more), and the respectful tone are all impressive. One wonders if Obama or someone on his team already considered the possibility that his prayer would be stolen and made public. After all, it’s not hard to believe that on the same visit, a note from John McCain might have read something like, “Well God, what do ya think? Is Mitt too sleazy, or no? Who do I choose? Do I even have a shot? Oh man… well we beat the bitch, now let me crush this young buck. It’s my time.”

You have to admit, this guy conducts himself with enormous honor and dignity. While John McCain has done nothing to assure Americans that he would be a capable leader, and continues to age himself by calling the web “Internets,” and insisting he does know how to “do a Google.”

I really don’t see how Obama could lose. Sure, conservatives can criticize his Middle East tour as pompous or presumptuous of an imminent win, but the bottom line is that he’s out there to educate himself on how business gets done in foreign nations, and to meet those leaders and revise his policies accordingly.

Meanwhile, McCain’s campaign is collapsing. His latest ad (below) meant to mock the press and their love for Obama just looks foolish, and actually functions more like a pro-Obama message.

He also was rejected by the NYTimes when he tried to write an Op-ed response to Obama’s fabulous “My Plan for Iraq” article. The NYTimes insisted that the decision was content-based. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the content of his op-ed might be questionable or hazy, because McCain doesn’t have a plan for Iraq. Apparently, his article merely mouthed off about Obama and failed to provide any real rebuttal to the Illinois senator’s impressive outline.

It has become clear that the ball is in Obama’s court; it’s his election to win or lose. But half of the country very well might still vote for John McCain, and they will do it out of fear. Half the country fears Obama for his intellect, his race, and his stylish, young persona.

And as long as there are Americans who fear change, this nation is in trouble and the Bush administration has a chance of continuing for four more years under the guidance of someone who became eligible nearly a decade ago for the Senior Citizen discount at movie theaters.

Book Review: ‘Divisadero’

I was not excited to read this book. It was chosen as the new selection for our book club at my office (a book club I started) and I had never read a Michael Ondaatje book before. I saw the film version of The English Patient and was not entertained. I also asked my mom (a high school AP English teacher) what she has read of his, and she said that she read and hated The English Patient. Granted, she and I have starkly different tastes in fiction (she told me to avoid A Clockwork Orange and it turned out to be one of my all-time favorites; she is also responsible for recommending A History of Love, which was simply atrocious). Still, her negative opinion of his magnum opus made me concerned about the prospect of having to read this book, and a mediocre NY Times review was not encouraging.

I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I am completely impressed. Ondaatje is a fabulous writer whose sentences are subtle, understated, and yet hauntingly beautiful.

The story begins slowly, and in general Ondaatje is in no rush. The opening descriptions of the land and setting are nice, but (for me) not a main attraction in choosing a novel, so I worried that this book would be tiresome. To my delight, the story builds and soon takes flight, and I was relieved that the book is in fact plot-driven.

The story centers on (though not for long) a patchwork “family” on a farm in Northern California. There are two girls– Anna and Claire– who function as twin sisters, though the latter was adopted at birth by Anna’s father, whose wife died giving birth to Anna (stay with me). If you feel lost, I can vouch that these details come across seamlessly and are not confusing. Also living on the farm with Anna, her father (who I believe is never named), and Claire is Cooper, a virile, outdoorsy American boy with a few years of age on the girls.

Even though Cooper lives with the family, he is never accepted as a “son,” but rather treated like an indentured servant– not cruelly, or without respect, but formally. He is removed from the girls and their father, though soon enough they, too, are divided from each other, hence the novel’s apt title.

The action soars once a shocking event occurs that sees both Anna and Coop (separately) flee the farm for good. We are then given the briefest of glimpses into the lives of the three children as they move across the western coast and lead out their fractured lives. All three are lonely, and damaged by their memories. Yet the book is not a typical, gloomy meditation on “the past,” and because of this we are never bored, or annoyed by the characters. We also don’t pity them. Instead, the book becomes (to my surprise) a real page-turner as we breeze through Coop’s adventures as a gambler in Vegas, Anna’s restrained love affair at a writer’s house in the French village of Demu, and Claire’s work for a Public Defense lawyer in San Francisco.

Throughout the book are little sentences that are so beautiful they beg to be read aloud, softly. When Cooper begins a sexual tryst with a gambling, alluring older woman, she occasionally reminds him of Anna, and we read that, “He did not know whether she was a lens to focus the past or a fog to obliterate it.” Later, when a character gazes out of his window toward the neighboring farmhouse (home of his forbidden love) we get this gem: “There was a tightrope between the two farms, and below it an abyss.” Ondaatje’s details are never overstated, nor could he be called verbose. Each word is used carefully, painstakingly selected as in a Hemingway passage.

Another striking passage comes when an adult Claire lazily accepts a pill from a stranger in a casino, unaware and uncaring what drug she has taken. Ondaatje gives a perfectly graceful, restrained description of her high, telling us that when a man brings her a glass of milk on a tray, the milk looks so white that Claire decides “there must have been a lit bulb within it.” When she drifts into a dream state and completely forgets her purpose, she reasons that later, she’ll try harder to think about it, and eventually, “the reason for being in Tahoe would then roll in her direction like a marble.” This is terrific writing.

Once the characters depart the farm and its painful memories, Claire remains the only one of three who continues to go home to the original farm and see her father, though it is implied that even they have a strained relationship. The father’s brutal reaction to the book’s early inciting event remains, for all characters, an elephant in the room.

However, the book is divided (ahem) into three parts, and although there are clear strands of relationships connecting them, it is done less beautifully than in, say, a Murakami novel. Whereas a book like, say, Norwegian Wood occasionally switches focus to fringe characters, but leaves you still caring about them all equally, I did not find the same appeal in Ondaatje’s shifting focuses.

Although the first part (and as I said, the most enjoyable) is the longest, the second part abandons Coop and Claire (and we only stay with Anna peripherally), shifting focus to Rafael, a mysterious gypsy that Anna has begun something with at her country home in Demu. There are details about their relationship, but for the most part we learn of Rafael’s childhood and the path he travailed that led him to his current station in life. Though the writing remains strong, it is frustrating to leave Coop and Claire, and, disappointingly, Ondaatje never rejoins them. I acknowledge that his writing is powerful, and engaging, and so we do quickly become nestled in Rafael’s story, and it certainly never becomes boring. However, the feeling remains that this is not the figure we care about most.

Finally, matters worsen in the third and final part, which takes us all the way back through the years to the childhood of Lucien Segura, the writer whose home Anna (in our would-be present) is now inhabiting. Again, here (and in fact possibly more than in Rafael’s section) Ondaatje slyly brings the reader to care about Lucien and become enwrapped in his story. We learn of how he became partially blind, and of certain enthralling affairs between his adult daughters and their husbands. We watch Lucien age gracefully, and we see a tragic love that never comes to fruition between him and a neighbor.

At all times, however, I couldn’t help but miss our three original characters. Ondaatje deftly weaves the three sections together, and the connections are engaging. But this is a book without a protagonist, and without final closure. As Erica Wagner wrote in her NYTimes review, Divisadero “is a series of narratives that calls itself, perhaps for convenience’ sake, a novel. I’m not sure that it is, in fact, a novel.” I agree. However, I would hesitate to call it anything else. Certainly the writing is too stylized, and the focus brings us too deep to simply consider this to be three novellas. The links between the three parts are abundant, and though I personally was not as riveted by Rafael’s history or Lucien’s, I was impressed by the full, complete character backgrounds that Ondaatje delivers, almost like a historian. I was impressed, as well, by the way that he builds up timelines without the reader noticing that it’s happening.

The trick of attaching us to three fascinating characters, only to abandon them, is difficult to stomach. In fact, there is even one rather exciting cliffhanger that he leaves completely unexamined: Claire decides to drive a memory-addled Coop back to the farm to visit the father, and we never see the outcome of this very risky moment. It is as though Ondaatje himself could not imagine what would occur– a tearful reunion, an intensely uncomfortable, tense greeting, or quite possibly more violence– and so he simply left it floating there, as he does with the conclusion of Anna’s romance with Rafael and with Claire’s professional future.

However, the book is rewarding on multiple readings, and the gorgeous, restrained prose draws you in almost immediately. Even with frustrations toward the end, Divisadero is a satisfying read, and has moments of absolute wonder.

Super Cool Cover Designs for ‘On The Road’

So at work today I stumbled across the 2008 Penguin Design Contest, which asked art students from all over Europe to submit their own creative/fresh/striking cover design for a novel. It looks like their choices were On The Road, White Teeth, or Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine. Take a look.

I’ve always been interested in cover art, and I always love when a book’s cover manages to catch my eye and leads me to pick up a novel that I otherwise might never have discovered. I guess I do judge books by their covers, at times. In fact, I love doing that.

The fascinating thing about this contest is how the designs actually reflect the content of the book. From reading the student commentary on their entries, you can see that no one merely found the general themes of these books and tailored a cover loosely related, but rather each kid read the book and took away from it specific moments or scenes in order to influence their cover.

In general, as far as the entries for this contest go, I think that most of the designs ’shortlisted’ are actually better than the winners. Specifically, I’m not a fan of the seatbelt covering the title in the 2nd place design, and I don’t believe the design is ‘classic’ enough for the text itself. I don’t care for the 3rd place design at all. But I do recognize the merits of the 1st place cover, with the tumbleweed spread across both sides. Very subtle and well-done.

Jenna Jones

My personal favorite is the design below by Matthew Mayzell, with Moriarty’s bandaged thumb, though I also love the Zadie Smith cover of the tree and city skyline. Tom McGill’s Shock Doctrine cover, on which blades of grass contain skyscrapers, is also pretty damn creative.

Matthew Mayzell

It’s a little surprising to me that first prize is not the rather natural (I would think) reward of Penguin actually printing an edition of On The Road that uses the winning cover design, but I guess an automatic six-week job in the Penguin Art Department is just as nice; it’s probably a wet dream for an art student. In fact, the coveted job might actually include some actual cover designing, so I doubt miss Jenna Jones is anything other than pleased.

Winners from the previous year’s contest, in 2007, are also online, and they cover books by Hardy, Malcolm Gladwell, and Lisa Jewell, though I must say (and my co-workers and friends agreed) that pretty much none of the 2007 designs are nearly as good as those from 2008. Too much going on, too many abrasive, bright colors. I guess art students got better with time. What difference a year makes!

‘Sir’ Salman Rushdie Slams Poetry & Kerouac, Praises Zadie Smith, Fitzgerald, & Himself

A couple weeks ago, I was convinced by a friend to go see Salman Rushdie read at the Harvard Memorial Church in Cambridge. I bought two tickets, and my “date” ended up being my dad, who admitted that his only experience with Rushdie’s lit was when he bought The Satanic Verses “to see what all the fuss was about” and gave up after the first thirty pages put him to sleep. That was ten years ago, when my old man and Rushdie himself– they were born in the same year– were mere sprightly youths of 52.

I felt inclined to agree with my dad’s verdict. The sole Rushdie book I had read was Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a title assigned in my high school English class by a cracked-out baby boomer that all the student loved until they had him for a class. The book felt so much like an acid trip that my friends and I were sure the author had dreamt it, woken up, and scribbled the whole mess down. How in the world, we wondered, did he pass the thing off as a legitimate novel (albeit children’s lit)? There was a tap in a child’s sink from which tears of stories dropped, conversations took place on magic carpet rides, and central characters included a pair of rhyming fish. Rushdie himself, it seemed obvious, had hoped to become a rapper (with character monikers like The Ocean of Notions and the Sha of Blah), but must have given up and decided to pinch off a living as a writer. Needless to say, the book was an inappropriate choice for seventeen-year-olds, and I readily developed a (admittedly unfair) low opinion of Rushdie and his work. I knew he must be good– no, not just ‘good,’ probably great– but after slogging through the depths of his shroomed-out Sea of Stories I had no interest in giving him another shot.

Rushdie was met with a packed house. The Harvard book store sold out the church, and then allowed even more worshipers to take up standing room at the back. An overzealous senior employee from the book store introduced him, remarking on the Midnight’s Children Booker win in 1988, and its subsequent crowning this year as the “Booker of Bookers.” The audience shared a nice giggle at the sheer volume of this man’s award collection. However, the poor girl then embarrassed herself by reflecting, “It appears that Mr. Rushdie might provide some of his own competition with the book he is here to discuss tonight, The Enchantress of Florence.” Had she somehow avoided reading the scores of abysmal reviews? She selectively quoted a raving review from The Financial Times– apparently the most quotable source she could find, since the book got panned in the NYTimes Book Review (twice) as well as in New York Magazine. Then she wrapped up by listing his other books, and had the balls to share with us that Haroun and the Sea of Stories is her “personal favorite.” Go figure. After plugging the book store and its upcoming events a few more times, she stepped down proudly and our portly, wizened old owl, Sir Salman himself, took the podium.

Rushdie began by telling us about the new novel, which is a fantastical story about– what else?– the magic of storytelling and the moving love affair of some royal princess and prince (or whatever). He explained that the passage he would be reading us is about the “lost princess and her beloved, an Italian mercenary who is working as a general of the Ottoman army.” Like I said, whatever.

“Much of the weirder stuff in this book is true, and the kind of ordinary stuff is the stuff that I’ve made up,” he said. Big laughs for that one. He busted out another snazzy one-liner when he told us, “I discovered to my intense delight that the Ottomans were, amongst other things, fighting a war against Dracula. I mean actual Dracula himself, Vlad the Impaler. And the moment I realized that I could have Dracula in my novel, you know, without cheating, I thought that I’d gone to Heaven, really.” This, too, raised the roof. Rushdie himself cracked up. He concluded, quite pleased with himself, “So the book is full of all this absolutely improbable stuff that is in fact in the historical record. And all the probably stuff is the stuff that I wrote.” Yeah, we get it. Finally, before beginning, he squeezed in one more zinger: “I have this weird moment where I have to, ah, to see you I have to wear one pair of glasses, but to see the book, I have to wear a different pair of glasses [dons the new spectacles], so now you’ve all disappeared, but, oh look, here’s a book. Let… me… read to you from it.” Ha! He chuckled along with his fans. A real gut-buster.

I won’t re-type the passage he read here. I’ll spare you, but let’s just say that there were massive highs and crushing lows. The intensely detailed descriptions of minutia– flower varieties that the soldier liked, ornate decorations on a magical mirror– were yawn-worthy. However, the passage had its moments of great wonder and entertainment as well. A description involving a tattoo of a tulip that the princely figure had on the shaft of his penis (I know, right?) prompted my friend to nudge me and whisper that Rushdie might be sharing an autobiographical detail. I wouldn’t be surprised; a penis tattoo might explain how this 62-year-old intellectual had managed to lure the ridiculously gorgeous, 37-year-old model/cook Padma Lakshmi into his bedchamber.

The passage also included a footrace that was won by the male hero thanks to the stock ‘bad guy’ character yielding to “a bout of the foulest farting anyone had ever smelled.” As Rushdie continued to describe the farting with stone seriousness, chuckles filled the room and functioned, also, as a collective sigh of relief at the opportunity to wake up, slap ourselves into attention again, and laugh. Otherwise, the reading in no way made me want to buy the novel itself.

It was the question and answer period that brought some real entertainment. When asked to compare writing novels to a “9-5 job,” Rushdie said he has never been a writer who can get up early in the morning and work. “Martin Amis does that, Martin Amis gets up real early, he finishes his work by twelve noon, and spends the rest of the day playing tennis and drinking and smoking.” This name-dropping tickled everyone pink, and prompted Rushdie to ease into a hilarious, lighthearted jab at poets:

“I can’t write in restaurants, you know, I have to be at my desk. I can’t go sit at a café or under a tree. Poets do that. You know, poetry? You know, where the words don’t go all the way across the line? And the lines don’t go all the way to the bottom of the page? And you have sixty pages and you call it a book.”

Ouch. Everyone was rolling at this point, which egged on our would-be comedian enough to add: “So, I guess you could do that at restaurants.” More laughs. “Sorry, poets.”

One audience member/supplicant asked the Booker Guru what he’s reading for pleasure right now. He began his reply by imitating the Italian accent of Umberto Eco (his good friend) who apparently said, “If it’s like my writing, I hate it. If it’s not like my writing, I hate it.” More snickers for the impersonation, with the biggest laughs coming from Rushdie himself again.

His first mention was of Junot Diaz. Somehow, as soon as he was asked about his own reading interests, I just knew he would say Junot Diaz. He called Oscar Wao a “wonderful book,” but said that other than this, he likes to revisit older lit, and doesn’t really “read to keep up anymore.” He qualified this: “Well, naturally I still have to read what my friends write, or they get cross…”

Then, to everyone’s delight, said:

“I just re-read Gatsby. I hadn’t read Gatsby since I was 21, and I just couldn’t believe how good it was. I mean, I knew it was good. But just what I had forgotten was how extraordinary it is, sentence by sentence brilliance. It was just absolutely electrifying to read it again. Really, there isn’t a bad paragraph.”

Audience members nodded their heads vigorously, like ‘Yes, yes. Oh, so true. He’s right!’ It was funny.

Next he added that he also re-read On the Road recently, and he “was terrified to read it again because I assumed it was going to turn out to be garbage. But, very interestingly, it did not.” He couldn’t stop there. “Other Kerouac, I think, is very close to the garbage can.” Wow. Finally, he mentioned 100 Years of Solitude and called it the greatest novel of the last hundred years. Wow. It wouldn’t have been my choice.

The final question came from a timid young female student who asked him if he had any advice for aspiring writers. He became pretty animated. He said the best writers that he knows all began careers in their twenties and were immediately successful. All had a certain drive. “If you don’t have that real thing burning in you that makes it possible to spend twelve years trying to learn to do something without any guarantee that you’ll ever learn how to do it, um, then, it’s a problem.” Everyone laughed here, though I couldn’t quite see why. I felt this comment was quite serious. He continued: “The great writers have always known why they wanted to be a writer. They’ve always known what was burning inside them that had to get said. So, if you don’t have that fire, don’t write.” There was a stunned silence. “I’m sorry, it’s brutal, but it’s a real truth. There are, you know, enough books in the world. None of us in this room could ever read all the great books that there already are to read. If you’re going to add to that mountain, it better feel necessary to you. It better feel like a book that you can’t avoid writing. And then it has a chance of adding something interesting to the mountain.” Bravo. Honestly, this was just enormous. Well said, and more precious than any of the inflated nonsense he read from his book.

Talking about people he knew becoming writers/the process, etc., prompted him to suddenly tell what I thought was a great story about Zadie Smith:

“I am slightly responsible for the career of Zadie Smith, I have to say. I met Zadie at my friend’s house, and by the end of the evening, it was clear that she was so brilliant, and she was like 20, or 19, something pornographic! [huge laughs] And I was so impressed by her that I said what I never say, I said, ‘If you ever have anything that you want me to read, let me see it.’ And what is interesting is she didn’t then go home and print out two hundred pages and send them round. She waited a year. A year later, she sent me a hundred pages of an early draft of White Teeth, and it was just absurdly good. I thought ‘God, you’re now, twenty and a half years old?! I mean, I should either kill you or help you.’ And it was close! [big yuks] But, in the end I helped her get a literary agent. And if I hadn’t, she would have found one in thirty seconds, because the work was so obviously extraordinary. And ten seconds after that, the agent got her the zillion dollar advance, because it was so obvious. I mean, it was obvious. So, I guess that’s what I’m saying, you know. The real writer, you can feel that blazing thing inside of them.”

Then, to the delight of some but the horror of the girl, he added “So my view is that if you need the advice, don’t write the book.” Everyone laughed/gasped and he said helplessly, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It’s tough, but I think it’s true.” With this, the audience erupted into applause as the poor girl slunk back to her seat.

So I can’t deny that Rushdie was at the top of his game when answering questions. His witty remarks about the writing process had the audience in stitches, and managed to make us all forget, briefly, the sweltering, uncomfortable summer humidity of the packed cathedral.

To be precise, he was entertaining, this Shalimar the Literary Clown. A real one-man show. I was impressed, in the end, though not by his writing (which should have been the draw). Really, though. This rolly-polly, fatwa-surviving, bushy-bearded, near-sighted teddy bear of a man was actually quite charming, though his effort to be so was obvious. And although I have no new interest in his work, he’s obviously very brilliant. And far more interestingly, he’s funny and fascinating.

It was no surprise, then, to read when I got home that the man is trying to become a movie star. I just discovered this article from New York Magazine:

Just how hard is Salman Rushdie trying to break into showbiz? First, we had Helen Hunt telling us about casting Rushdie as her obstetrician in her new movie, Then She Found Me. Now we’ve got Rushdie showing up, somewhat inexplicably, in Scarlett Johansson’s new music video.

If this guy shows up on the big screen, hey, I’ll shell out my nine dollars. I’ll probably buy a fucking popcorn, too. Let’s see it.