Talk not with scorn of Authors- it was the chattering of the Geese that saved the Capitol. Coleridge
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Friday, April 26, 2024
Monday, April 22, 2024
Sunday, April 21, 2024
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Mayflies by Andrew O'Hagan
Good, pungent book. The story of a friendship between two Scottish men broken into two parts: Summer, 1986 and Autumn, 2017. The first half is a trip to Manchester for a concert, and is rip-roaring and drunken, loaded with 18 year old full of themselves and life and bristling with arrogant comic knowledge of a world they barely. The second half, thirty years later, is sobering, to see the least.
Almost all references are insular to UK 1980s pop, American mid-century films, and English literature. Didn't know half of them, but they still gave me a kick.
But found it an abrupt book, something missing from the center, and what happened in the intervening years. Still, O'Hagan a gifted stylist and dialogue-ist. Will seek out more of his work.
"'The past isn't really the past, Tully said. 'It's just music, books, and films.'" [p. 244]
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Absolution by Alice McDermott
Liked this, although there's a cautiousness and a certain smugness to (both) the narrator's voices that I dislike. The first half of the book feels like it's heading toward a more dramatic ending that I got, and the switching of narrators between the older woman and the younger woman does not yield significant unveilings of meaning or narrative.
Monday, April 01, 2024
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Must have read this before but don't really remember it. It's interesting but seems to be an early (1963) experiment in Vonnegut's more mature and radical books Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions.
The fantastical human-based religion of Bokonism, the short chapters that always end with a flair (if not much narrative oomph), the sci-fi flirtation of the doomsday weapon ice-nine, are all elements to be perfected later.
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My son and I saw THE HIDDEN FORTRESS at AFI Silver yesterday afternoon, what a masterpiece! The 21-year old Misa Uehara as the Princess was ...
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May he have an accident shaped like an umbrella. [p. 13] Finally reading this after owning it for almost 40 years. Collection of short &q...
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Early Abstractions films: various soundtracks added by various people. The Critic, Ernest Pintoff, short comedy film, Mel Brooks voiceover...