Christmas at Eagle Pond by Donald Hall

I picked up this short book at the library just before Christmas. A short story of just 73 pages it is just long enough to let you set in front of the fire for a half hour or so and imagine a Christmas from long ago.

The author Donald Hall is a former poet laureate of the United States and writes like one. The story tells of the Christmas of 1940. The author, twelve at the time, and living is Connecticut is sent by train to spend Christmas with his Grandparents at Eagle Pond in New Hampshire. His mother has had an operation and so, though he loves his parents, he is actually quite thrilled to be joining his grandparents for the holiday. He explains that he often spends his summers with them but seeing the house and pond under a blanket of snow is a completely new experience.

The story is told over a course of five days. The days leading up to the holiday are spend preparing. He spends time with " Gramp" milking cows, feeding horses, and listening to some of the many stories his grandfather tells. His Aunt, his Mother's Sister joins them and they attend a Christmas pageant at the church.

We meet aunts and uncles, we hear about people long gone such as Freeman Morrison a man with a heart of gold that had something broken in him when his father punished him as a boy, a wound not healed until he found a shiny sled abandoned on the mountain as a grown man. His Grandfather is one of those gems of those times, no matter the season there is plenty to do and with, as he says the exception of coffee, salt and pepper the homestead is self sufficient.

A nod to Mr. Hall's unknown future is presented when for Christmas from his Grandfather he receives a book of Great American Poems. It seems even then both Hall and those who loved him knew his predilection for the written word.

In the end of the book is a confession of sorts from the author one that gives the book a wry twist but does nothing to diminish one's enjoyment just experienced.

Hall's novella hits all the right notes and while it will not solve any of the problems of the world it will take one and all back to a time that we all should miss. A time when simple things were blessed things. A time when, like the Ingalls girls with their very own tin cups and an orange for Christmas and John Boy Walton with a tear in his eye over the gift of some Big Chief writing paper, a present that would today be considered small had more meaning than the largest pile of " stuff " one could receive today.

I am sure I romanticize the world of The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie and now Eagle Pond. It might well be that the stories themselves are romanticized versions of how it really was. When one feels, however, like something is missing in today's world but does not exactly know what it is a reading of Christmas at Eagle Pond, stunning in it's simplicity will let you know what you are missing in your holiday and perhaps in your soul.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

My daughter came home from school about a month ago with an assignment that she had to read a classic book of her own choice and then do a project on it. As folks know I look forward to sharing any type of literature with my children so I resolved to help her pick out a story. Wanting to find one that perhaps was not too long, as she has lots of homework, and also a story I had not yet read we chose this Bradbury classic,

Fahrenheit 451 is one of Ray Bradbury's most famous works and upon reading it now it is quite remarkable how prescient it was in many things.

Often taken as a criticism on censorship, it was released during the days of McCarthyism, Bradbury has often said that it was more a treatise on the effects of television on the reading of literature.

In the story we meet Guy Montag a citizen in a future age who is a firefighter. Firefighting is still a revered profession but it has changed dramatically. In this new society firemen start fires, specifically they start fires when they find people with books as books themselves have been outlawed.

Coming home one evening Montag meets a young teenage girl named Clarisse and is instantly struck by how odd she is. Why is she odd? She is odd because she likes to talk, talk about anything, asking questions, asking why things are they are. In the society Montag lives in people no longer do these things. They work and they watch television, television screens being these large monitors which take up whole walls. A special device can be installed on the television so that the home owners name can be used in place of pronouns to make it seem as the characters, referred to as the family, are in the story. If people do not wish to watch television or have deep thoughts they are encouraged to drive, not just drive but drive as fast as they can. In doing this they will be only able to think about keeping the car on the road so they will have no time to think these bewildering thoughts.

In a society where the government does not wish for people to think for themselves one can see why books would be a dangerous item. Montag, over the course of the book comes to question everything. His boss at work Beatty tries to help him see the error of his ways, his wife is very frightened, she would like him to just go back to being like everybody else. Eventually Montag makes a decision that will change his life forever.

As fighter jets fly overhead and wars which last minutes are declared often the society Montag lives in does not accept non comformity and for that he might well pay a heavy price.

In watching this movie a few things strike easily to mind. Our large flat screen televisions now which are in most houses certainly have a similarity to the walls of Bradbury's mention. Certainly a much smaller segment of the population reads now than did in the days before mass media infecting the home. The seashell radio's that Montag's wife has constantly in her ear that play soothing music or calming phrases certainly can remind many parents of the facts that their teenagers cannot appear without an earbud hooked up to themselves.

As I read a section of the story about when Montag was a fugitive and the efforts to capture him played out on live television I could think of nothing so much of the slow speed chase after OJ Simpson that appeared on all our televisions that night in the mid nighties. Many of Bradbury's exaggerations have come to pass. We are an intellectuality lazy society and our government now and our media especially, with it's targeted demographics feeds us information to create the reaction that it wants.

What makes this book so powerful is that the author inevitably wrote a book of mass exaggeration and hyperbole in an attempt to illustrate his point about the dangers of becoming a passive society of watchers. Most frightfully Mr. Bradbury;s books has become the stuff of reality. Scary indeed.

Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

After having read several positive reviews of this book I picked it up at the library. In this case the reviews were correct. This is a gem of a book. It defies any normal categorization, touching on the fantasy genres as well as being a riveting example of the conflict between new and ancient technologies.

The books narrator is Clay a twenty something who works the night shift in a very odd bookstore in San Francisco. Describing the bookstore and it's clientele we learn that the few books out front that people might want to buy are just a front for a collection of coded books in the back that are not sold but are loaned out to certain customers. This odd collection of customers appear at the store at odd times of the day hence the need for the store to be twenty four hours.

The book takes off as we begin to meet Clay's circle of friends outside of the store. His roommate and friend Matt who works in set design and most of all his long time friend from grade school Neel. Neel and Clay were nerds together but there paths have diverged, Neel is now tech rich with a company that makes breasts more real life in computer programs. Yes it's true the revenge of the nerds is coming to the world in all of our towns soon.

One evening working, as usual, alone in the store, customer's are usually counted on one hand during a whole shift Clay decides to investigate the books in the back of the store. Books that Clay has been told never to open, never to peruse, only to hand out to the list of approved borrowers.

From there the book takes us down the rabbit hole. We learn about ancient codes and eternal life theories. We visit the vast underground complexes of both a bibliophile cult and the above-ground, miles long, storage facility of overstocked and not on exhibit museum pieces in the Nevada desert.

Along the way Clay's relationship with his new girlfriend Kat, a wholly dedicated employee of the Google empire develops but certainly not in a straight line and his dedication to his employer, Mr. Penumbra, grows with each chapter.

Mr. Penumbra is himself a reminder of the fellowship that this strange bookstore is a front for. With knowledge of the history of the society and a deep seeded belief in the history of the organization he himself gives the book a sense of the mystical.

This is a wonderful little book. I found, as I read it, that it became the most important thing I was reading. I wanted to get to the end, I wanted to know if the code was real. Combining Google magic and the magic of those who created some of the first books six centuries ago with neither suffering for it this book, while hard to classify, will please both those from the Harry Potter school of magic and wizards and those that consider themselves, like me, to be a bit of the Luddite.

A Luddite with a blog that is, I guess we all have our contradictions.

Interestingly about this book, I think it translates well to young readers. My daughter at 13, a huge reader like me, is currently reading Fahrenheit 451, for a class project. I think that this book might be a nice follow up. Both books, in very different ways demonstrate the power of the written word. Not much is more important than that.

I highly recommend this book

The Top Ten Albums of 2012

This might well be one of the more eclectic lists of the top albums you will find for the year 2012. In order to qualify for my list the album must be one that I reviewed earlier in the year, that is, one that I was interested in enough at the time to listen too. In this way I know that I am not mirroring any of the more conventional lists that we all find this time of year.


10. The Once and Future Carpenter by The Avett Brothers - The Avetts as well as their compatriots Mumford and Sons released new albums this year. While the latter received more press it is the Avett's who make my top ten list. While the Mumford's first single I Will Wait might be the best of the lot it is the Avett's album that is broader and more balanced. Doing nothing more than what they do album in and album out The Avett's show why they are one of the most popular touring acts today.

9. Red by Taylor Swift - I cannot really call myself a Taylor Swift fan but one does have to recognize her ability to turn anything into a song. Watching my daughter skip and sing around the house this fall in her thirteen year old way I remembered how much music means to someone at that time in their lives. For millions of young girls and older girls too Swift makes the music that means the most to them. And it is intelligent music. For all of the adults who spent the fall trying to get " We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together " out of there head accept that it is hopeless. Swift can craft a tune like few today.

8. Born and Raised by John Mayer - Mayer coming off a year of bad publicity showed that when he stops talking and start singing all will be ok. With nary a bad song on the album and many like the title cut and Shadow Days are long to be remembered.

7. That's Why God Made the Radio by The Beach Boys - With a 50th anniversary tour and a new album it was an exciting year for the boys. It might well be that we do not want to know what recording methods made the music sound like the sixties version of the band but what there is no doubt of is that the harmonies on this song are as good as they have ever done. Pacific Coast Highway and the other songs of the second side of the album make this a true work of art similar in type of not in scope to the second side of Abbey Road.

6. Heroes by Willie Nelson - On this album which on many of the cuts Willie is joined by friends and members of his family Nelson's voice is still a treasure. Singing covers such as Just Breathe by Pearl Jam and Coldplay's The Scientist Nelson never sounded better. When he is joined by Billie Joe Shaver and Jamey Johnson on Hero and Snoop Dogg on Roll Me Up it is clear that Willie has friends in high places indeed and they all add to the fun of the album. Come On Back Jesus is another song of strong note.

5. Gospel Plow by Elizabeth Cook - I have just reviewed this in depth but suffice to say that I have listened to no album as much as this all year.

4. Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance by Patterson Hood - This solo effort by the lead singer of The Drive By Truckers was one of the strongest albums of the year. The title cut is one of the best tracks of the year, Hood's mumble drawl fits perfectly. After the Damage and Better Than the Truth are both great tracks and of course no Patterson Hood/Drive By album would be complete without a talk song, this album features another Alabama history lesson called Untold Pretties. A truly great album.

3. Tempest by Bob Dylan - One of the few albums in recent years to receive five stars from Rolling Stone Dylan's new album was superior. With the only song that made me get caught in public rocking out behind the wheel, Early Roman Gods, along with a tribute to John Lennon called Roll on John the album was an instant classic. Dylan's thirteen minute tale of the sinking of The Titanic, the albums title cut mixes truth and Dylan fiction in a classic way that is perfect the whole way through.

2. Battle Born by The Killers- It has to be considered true that The Killers are very good at copying the art of Springsteen and to some extent U2. Still sometimes the followers better there leaders and on The Killers later effort they have completed a supremely confident album. With song after song that one can imagine on the radio, if FM radio still played rock music, and that additionally you know would be perfect in arenas all around the country. Brendan Flowers has cut his hair, he looks like a male model, but there is no denying one thing, he can sing like few others. This is a very strong album, perhaps not as classically influential as some of the others but sometimes precision and perfection of the type displayed here but must be acknowledged.

1. Channel Orange by Frank Ocean - Truthfully it was not even close. I am not a rap music fan. I am not a connoisseur of blues, funk or soul. I know an album of incredible depth and magic when I hear it however. Orange's album is a salute to it seems each of his predecessors from Marvin Gaye to James Brown to certainly Prince. With songs such as Forest Gump, Pyramids and especially Thinking About You and Super Rick Kids Ocean proved himself a force beyond all forces in music this year. This was clearly the most influential and superior album of the year.

More in depth reviews of all of these efforts can be found on this blog from earlier in the year.

Gospel Plow by Elizabeth Cook

Any regular reader of my blog knows that Elizabeth Cook is one of our favorites here. In 2012 Cook released this EP of Gospel tinged music that was one of the best releases of the year.

Anyone wanting to get an idea of the range of this singer should run not walk to her album Welder which is stunningly good but for a look at how enjoyable Gospel music can be with some modern alt country influences not much will beat this.

Having seen her live this past summer I can attest that these songs play ever so well in concert. Opening with Clap Along Sing Along " If I Had My Way" one knows that Cook herself has been in a few of these revivalist churches whose energy can blow the roof off as this song certainly does.

With some sweet harmonies and a high note that is just perfect Cook follows that with the country twinged Gospel Plow. When Cook tells you to " keep your hand on the Gospel Plow" you never want to let it go.

Every Humble Knee Must Bow Cook takes us down to the river to sing a song of redemption and the knowledge that pride must leave before one can find God.

The Other Side of Life might well be the prettiest song you will hear this year. It is almost beyond words. With just an organ, a slight guitar and Cook's incredible voice we hear her say that she, as she approaches death, she feels like singing as she is on the Other Side of Life. Truly uplifting.

After we wipe out tears from that song Elizabeth wants us to get up and move and with the gospel stomp of New Jerusalem calling we certainly will. I dare you not to tap your foot along to this one.

Three Men of God gives us some Gospel step behind the story of Abraham, Lazarus, and Joshua and Cook with some great singing and what might be self harmonizing. Truly incredible.

The album ends with a reminder that Cook may sing country, may have the angelic voice for Gospel but that she might have a rock and roll heart. Singing the Velvet Underground's Jesus etc. Cook plaintively asks Jesus to help her find her proper place. Is there really any sentiment that is more correct in our talks with God. I saw her sing this in concert as well and it was a highlight of the show.

This is a wonderful album and will be overlooked at years end but make no bones about it, any list of the years best that does not include this album will have a gaping hole in it.

Top notch.

The Powers That Be by David Halberstam

David Halberstam was one of the most impressive authors of his time. With an ability to write about sports, politics, and history that few posses the one thing you always know about a Halberstam book is that it will be researched well, written in a perfect pristine prose, and you will walk away much more knowledgeable than you were before you started.

In the early seventies Halberstam published the non fiction tome The Powers That Be. In this book the author follows four of the major players in the National media as they grew through the twentieth century. For many this would appear to be dry prose when fresh and certainly as it covers a time period up to its publishing certainly it can feel dated.

When one takes the longview however and realizes that technology is always changing and that the same issues that challenged newspapers as they moved away from labor intensive production to cold press technology challenge them now in an even more important and to the papers frightening way.


I will write of each of the entities that Halberstam speaks about and then address the commonalities that arose despite the media format.

Halberstam introduces us to Bill Paley a cigar maker's son who convinces his father to advertise on the radio and before long somehow has become heavily involved in the early days of radio. Eventually pulling together a network of stations to compete against the much stronger NBC Radio Paley soon shows himself a genius. Soon CBS not only challenges but passes NBC. During World War II CBS found great acclaim with the work of Edward Murrow in London reporting on the airstrikes. The book also chronicles the struggles of Murrow after the war leading to his confrontation with the network. What happened is fairly typical. As the network became larger and larger they were no longer the outsider but the entrenched. With sums of money involved that would have been astonishing just years earlier Paley became more and more conservative. Upsetting the applecart with wide ambitious news coverage was something to fear. We see CBS news shrink in the late fifties and early sixties as with the entertainment division dominating on a great scale each minute of network time was worth a fortune. Time to be eked out for news specials shrank and NBC soon surpassed them. The emergence of Walter Cronkite brought the network back into a leading position but it was never a comfortable relationship between the aristocracy of the network and it's news division. Be it Morley Safer in Vietnam or Dan Rather on the trail of Nixon there was a constant pressure from the top to pull back on it's coverage to be balanced against a news staff doing what news people do.


The Los Angeles Times is the story of the modernization of what was in terms of journalistic integrity a farce into a real newspaper by the late sixties and early seventies. The Times empire was owned by the Chandlers. Norman Chandler and his socialite wife Buffy were good Republicans. It is remarkable to see how during the early days of Nixon how this paper created and propped him up. Democrats were simply not covered, not even to respond to whatever charge Nixon was throwing that day. As the leading paper in the state it was a remarkably powerful entity basically controlling all the coverage of the political season. It is also pointed out that when Otis Chandler took over the paper in the sixties, and in an attempt to become a more fair minded publication started to give Democrats coverage and actually ask questions of the then national Nixon campaigns Nixon did not know how to respond. Otis succeeded in placing the paper on more even footing from an intellectual standpoint but there would always be a division between the naturally conservative editorial board and the more liberal reporting staff.

Time Magazine, the House of Luce was also a very conservative publication. Luce the son of missionaries took that same sense of zeal and promoting what was right into his paper. Luce was a strong Republican and Time was a Republican magazine. As Vietnam became a major story the frustrations of the Time reporters in Saigon to get any story published that was factual about what was happening on the ground was at its highest. Time had traditionally been a newspaper with the highest sources. What they did not realize or did not care to know was that of course the higher the source the more likely it was the governments information. The men on the ground in Vietnam would send in stories and the high placed source in the government would deny or refute the story and Time would go with the official version. When Luce died in the late sixties his paper rapidly changed and in the days of Watergate Time would move on the story in a way so aggressive it would have been impossible to foresee in Luce's time.

The Washington Post is perhaps the most compelling story in the book. Telling the story of the brilliant Phillip Graham who after marrying the publishers daughter soon became the publisher of a paper that was flawed. Graham's energy and friendliness soon made him a man in the know. His friendship with LBJ is often cited as being one of the main reasons that Johnson ended up on the Kennedy ticket. Grhaham however was sick, suffering from a mental illness, bi polar perhaps but eventually as he slipped more and more into fits of depression he was hospitalized. After his suicide his wife Kay took over. After a rough transition and as she slowly got her feet under her she became a force in her own right. Of course a large measure of her success came from employing Ben Bradlee as her editor. Bradlee a fiercely independent man, a man with a competitive streak like no other editor of his time, was the editor who allowed Woodward and Bernstein to dig deeper and further on the Watergate story when no one else saw or smelled was underneath the bungled break in. The stories of Woodward and Bernstein are compelling. Bernstein the misfit who many on the paper felt would soon just fade away but who added to the story with Woodward because of his great talents on the phones turned out to be the perfect counterpart to the young and hungry Woodward. The two made history and might well have been the only people who could have accomplished what they did.


Outside of the media stories in this book however there is one other figure that looms over this entire book. The time frames predominantly told of in this book is the time of Richard Nixon. From his beginnings being propped up by the Los Angleles Times and Time Magazine to his being chased by Dan Rather of CBS to his eventual comeuppance under the leadership of The Washington Post it is Richard Nixon who tells the tale of the media in the middle of the twentieth century. Indeed his rise and fall is the story of the change in the media and what the people felt the media should be. It is, as you read this book, the unwritten angle. As he stretched out across a quarter century of American history Nixon also tells the tale of the media in that same time frame.

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

Another of the great books that one is told they must read across the history of twentieth century literature is Walker Percy's The Moviegoer. The author's debut novel it is his most famous writing and the winner of the 1961 National Book Award tells the story of Binx Bolling. Binx is a young stockbroker making his way in New Orleans sometime in the late fifties. Binx is a veteran of the Korean War and in the week leading up to Mardi Gras we follow him as he meanders his way through the city of New Orleans and his life in it.

Binx is a dreamer, he describes himself as a moviegoer, one with a short attention span, a person engaged in " The Search." For Binx this search is rather undefined but in general it is the enjoyment of life the search for what a person not bogged down in the mundane of every day life would undertake. He also concerns himself with the malaise of life, the malaise can fall on anyone anytime when they become too much the same. Driving an MG is impractical, the ride is uncomfortable, but it beats the everyday sensibility of a nice comfortable four door. For Binx to be alive is to be unique.

In his circle Binx is close with an aunt and uncle and his uncle's daughter as well, his cousin Kate. It is an odd relationship with these people. the aunt is very kind to him and is often trying to guide him into the next stage of his life, she is the step mother to the daughter, his cousin Kate, and his Uncle Jules whom he describes as being incapable of negative displays of feeling. When Jules wants to express displeasure with someone or something he goes so far as to shorten a conversation.

Percy writes in a light, dreamy way. The books is a bit more existentialist than I might usually care for but Binx for all his faults is an extremely attractive character. When Binx says that he does not like to engage in pursuits that tie him up it is because like a small child he is afraid he will miss something better. His fear of being nobody, of suffering the everyday malaise, instead of being always ready to be somebody, something out of the ordinary in it's own way paralyzes Binx.

Not a great deal happens in the book it really is just a travelog of sorts of the life of this one unexceptional man who dreams of being different. Still the way Percy writes the book is like an extended poem, a sonata of sorts. As the end nears and Binx makes a perhaps unexpected commitment that is only possible once he and his Aunt come to grips that he is perhaps not special but specialness can be found in anyone we find ourselves cheered by the outcome, even as it is more conventional than the rest of the book.

A moving book, a book that I enjoyed greatly and one of the more unique characters you will read about it is certainly no shock to me that The Moviegoer consistently appears on any listing of The Great Books that you will find.

Annie Hall

Annie Hall is regarded as Woody Allen's most popular movie. For those on the fringes of movie fandom it is most likely candidate for an Allen movie that they know. I am not a Woody Allen fan. I would have to admit that I have only seen a few of his movies, have started more than I have finished and do not find him altogether that funny.

I do remember years ago, and I mean like decades ago watching the skit in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask about the queen with the chastity belt with Allen as a court jester determined to break in. Even then I, while interested in the subject matter, thought that Allen's broad farce was a bit beyond me.

In Annie Hall Allen tones much of that down. He still employs farce, the fourth wall comes down frequently, he talks to the audience often, but it is within the context of the story so is not too disruptive.

Far be it from me to critique a director as successful as Woody Allen, my guess is that his life experience, the New York city Jewish experience just does not lend itself to a wide viewership.

That said this movie was enjoyable. Allen's character Alby Singer is telling the story of his relationship with Annie Hall. Annie is a free spirit that Alby met playing tennis and their attraction is mutual. Played by Diane Keaton at her loveliest time Keaton is glowing in this picture. Tall and lithe compared to Allen's small non athletic frame they are certainly not a pair one would imagine in real life or on the screen. Alby at various times in the movie introduces us to his childhood, where he appears as a precocious youngster challenging his mother, and to his previous relationships.

Alby has a tough time with relationships. Wanting an exceptional sex life he often feels disappointed and is so insecure he usually recognizes that he is the problem. With Annie it begins so differently. On their first date he watches her sing, she is a torch singer at a dinner club, and when they end up in bed later it is, for Alby, a revelatory experience. When Annie lights up a joint after however the shine comes off the night for Alby. Later he notices that Annie only wants to make love after she has gotten stoned and his insecurities come raging back.

Perhaps Annie and Alby are destined to fail. Allen plays his typical character, whiny and unlikable, while Keaton is, frankly, a girl I would have liked to know. Flaky, fun and passionate I can only tell you that Alby blows it in this movie.

The movie won Best Picture in 1977 along with directing and writing awards for Allen. To me this seems a bit much. Certainly it would seem there must have been a better movie than this that year. It is a good movie with a few chuckles, anything beyond that however is a stretch.

Butter

Butter was one of those movies that appeared to be going to be released in the theaters and on demand at the same time. My guess is that is a fancy way of saying straight to video but it looked interesting enough for us to give it a look on a recent Saturday night.

One thing is sure the premise of this movie is unique being that it centers on butter sculpturing and the people involved in. Yes that is right, butter.

Bob Pickler is a butter legend. Having won the sculpture contest for the last fifteen years Bob is asked to stand down and give someone else a chance. A little disappointed perhaps Bob ( played by Modern Family's Ty Burrell) accepts this decision graciously. His wife, played by Jennifer Garner, however is less than pleased. Feeling that her status is tied up in being the Butter Kong's wife she is distraught and eventually decides to enter the contest herself.

Bob might be gracious about the contest but Bob also has secrets. Bob out drowning his sorrows at the local strip club invites dancer Brooke into his van for some quality time. Brooke, played by Olivia Wilde, is more than accommodating for a price, they are interrupted however when Bob's wife Laura crashes her car into the van thus interrupting the moment.

Laura and Bob are certainly headed for trouble but nothing is easy for Bob when Brooke shows up the next day on his doorstep asking for the rest of her money for her accompaniment the previous night.

Laura is a shrew, she and Brooke become mortal enemies which causes Brooke to also join the butter contest. Also entering is a young orphan girl, Destiny, who has been adopted by a childless couple played, surprisingly effectively, by comedian Rob Corddry and Alica Silverstone.

This movie is not groundbreaking. It is however one of those movies that is perhaps better than the sum of it's parts and the unique storyline allows it to make some fairly mundane and standard plot points more interesting than they normally woul be. This movie works, the cast is strong, and is certainly worth a viewing.

Ty Burrell seems typecast as the idiot husband and perhaps he would wish for more but he is very effective in portraying that person with a little more depth than we are used to.

A good movie.

Unorthodox Jukebox by Bruno Mars

I will gladly say it, you can put me in the Bruno Mars fan club. This young man has got an incredible voice, and perhaps an even greater talent. Channeling Sam Cooke, Prince and Micheal Jackson and that my friends is not just hyperbole this fellow might have the strongest, most versatile voice in music today.

As good, as catchy, as the first album was there is no doubt in my mind that this album is better than his first one. The first single Locked Out of Heaven has been all over the radio but even that is more of a generic hit, more a result of Mars ability to make a catchy hit in his sleep than a reflection of his talent.

On Moonshine Mars sounds like he has come off a Micheal album from the eighties with a chorus that is silky smooth, even makes me think a little of Dan Hartman. The first song on the album is Young Girls a song that Mars sang a couple of months ago on Saturday Night Live. This will soon be soaring to the top of your charts without a doubt.

Four other songs on the album deserve exceptional notice and in sets of two they are as different as any you will find. When I was Your Man finds the singer lamenting the loss of a woman that he should have bought flowers and held her hand. He was however too young and too dumb and now she is Dancing with another man. Heartbreak through the voice of Bruno Mars is pop friendly but that should mitigate this exceptional talent. If one is still not convinced the last two minutes and thirteen seconds on the album should seal the deal. If I Knew could have been sung by any of the forefathers of black music from the sixties, for me Sam Cooke comes to mind but you can take your pick. It is a perfect song.

To talk about the other two songs of note one needs to turn the page and put the kids to bed because that is when bad Bruno comes out. With his nod to Prince and perhaps even Marvin Gaye and Rick James the song Gorillas has Mars dropping his Mf's with the best of them advising his girl " you and me baby will be making love like gorilla's." After expressing no worries about the cops being called about their loud carnal activities, his girl calling him Daddy, and calling him, for you Prince, a sexy mother,,,,,r, we know that Bruno knows where all his sweet songs end up. It is a contrast but it is well crafted and Prince is surely smiling somewhere.

Following that song with a spoken into about squirrels and MF's again we here Treasure which starts like Delirious era Prince but before you get settled you get comfortable with another naughty song you realize this is just another slice of eighties pop sounding more like Kool and the Gang or El Debarge than anything else.

In short, and, with Bruno's height, that is indeed a pun, one does not know who Bruno Mars really is. Perhaps the Pandora skit on SNL earlier this year spoke volumes, perhaps the song title of Jukebox is meaningful. Whatever it is Mars has numerous influences and with his talent his albums are like a tour of popular black music of the last few decades. He has a voice like sugar and is incredibly talented.

This is a very good album.

Uncle Paul Comes To Visit

Who would have ever thought back in the sixties that Paul McCartney would become America's favorite houseguest. That foreign cousin who stops by once or twice a year and always does something to brighten your day.

Watching Saturday Night Live this past weekend it became fascinatingly clear that our comfort level with Paul, along with his constant desire to please, makes him uniquely qualified to lift our mood.

Saturday Night Live's cold open this week featured only a children's choir singing. It was heartfelt and emotional and without addressing this past week's senseless tragedy dealt with it perhaps in a way that was more meaningful than any other tributes we will see.

The episode itself was uneven with only a skit called Your a Rat Bastard Charlie Brown and the always funny What's Up With That making me chuckle. Even Seth Myers struggled to be funny on Weekend Update although another edition of " Girl you don't want to start a conversation with at a party " showed that it is a keeper.

Sir Paul started his night off by performing My Valentine. All I can say to that is Paul we love you and we are glad you are in love again but that song is nothing we need to keep hearing. Much better was his performance of his new song recorded with the boys from Nirvana. Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear joined him, as they did at the 12/12 concert for Cut Me Some Slack an original tune that features a Helter Skelter like feedback laced riff in which Paul shows that he can still howl pretty well, amazingly well for a seventy year old.

The last skit of the night featured host Martin Short and a character played by Paul auditioning to perform at a village Christmas concert. Short's character is the singer and Paul's only plays the triangle. Eventually the skit gives way to Paul asking the judges if he can sing now and of course they say yes and the stage is cleared and Paul joins his band to sing his Christmas single from the days of Wings Wonderful Christmastime. About halfway in he is joined by the same choir that started the show. Paul having great fun, and the joy on these children's faces as they sang with,inevitably some guy there parents were more excited by than they were, was a tonic we could all use about now.

So yes I believe if not in Santa Claus at least in America's new favorite Uncle. Uncle Paul with his vegetarian ways, his younger wives and his eccentricities. But Sir Paul still has his heart in the right place and he wants us all to feel better. He is welcome on our side of the lake and on our television anytime.

Thanks Paul

A Hologram For the King by Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers has become one of the most popular writers of the last few years. Having not read any of his books I picked this, his most recent book, up at the library and gave it a go.

The premise of the book is the story of Alan Clay. Clay is a 54 year old career salesman who has fallen on hard times. From Jonathan Franzen to Dave Eggers and everyone in between it seems that there are no characters in modern American literature that are confident and well. Perhaps that is because the truth is that a full bodied success is not that interesting. We like are characters to be broken, it makes us feel better about ourselves.

Alan Clay has problems. He is divorced and his ex wife is the definition of a shrew. His daughter is at college and he loves her fiercely, wants to provide for, but he does not have enough money for her next semester's college tuition.

In an attempt to fix all this Alan has taken a job leading a consulting team to Saudi Arabia to, hopefully, gain a contract for Reliant, a technology company, to provide all things technological for a new city the King is building.

When Alan arrives in The Kingdom he is joined by a group of young workers who do not think too much of him. He knows that he gained the job mostly primarily due to a previous friendship with the King's nephew. Upon arriving in Jeddah Alan begins to meet a few people. A woman from Denmark who works in the company's offices at the new city, a Doctor who helps Alan deal with a ball sized growth at the top of his spine and most importantly a local named Yousef who becomes Alan's unofficial tour guide to all things Saudi.

As Alan and his compatriots attempt to get set up for the demonstration for the King, a demonstration that will happen when it happens with no warning of the King's arrival, nothing seems to go right. They have been placed in a tent outside the large office building which, when Alan takes a tour , seems to have more than enough room for them to be inside.

It seems that everything in Saudi Arabia is a mystery, nothing is as it seems and no one follows the rules. As Alan spends his days doing little more than waiting on the arrival of The King he reflects on his life, his marriage, his relationship with his daughter and his general feelings of incompetence in dealing with the world. As he becomes Yousef's friend and wingman he meets Yousef's father, sees his home village and even helps strangers build a cement wall. An act that of itself seems of little import but to Alan has overwhelming significance.

The turning point for Alan comes when he goes on wolf hunt with Yousef and some of his villagers from his hometown. The wolf is a menace a local farmers sheep and Alan, feeling thrilled to be part of a group, is sure he will be the one to bring it down.

Soon thereafter Alan arrives at work to discover that the King is on his way. The presentation is done and everything goes perfectly but Alan soon learns that in Saudi Arabia nothing is as it seems and in everything there are levels of the onion that you never know exist.

The book was good, one felt for the characters. Alan is likable and recognizable for many of us. I felt that the relationship that Alan has with his father is very easy to relate to. Alan's decisions in his corporate success have been symptomatic of the withering away and hollowing out of American business and as his father never fails to point out to him Alan and his companies planted the seeds of their own destruction when they attempted to make more and increasing profits by abandoning their principles and skilled labor. It is a a cautionary tale for any businesses that today send jobs overseas.

The ending is not perfect, one looking for a crisp and clean resolution will be disappointed. That said I plan to read more Eggers. His perspective is one I look forward to learning more about.

12/12 Concert: Who Washed Up and Who is Washed Up

Last night at Madison Square Garden a host of the greatest acts in Rock n Roll got together at the Concert for Sandy Relief. A benefit to raise funds to help with the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy there was no shortage of great acts that wanted to lend a hand.

Watching the whole show gives me a chance to review entire show. Some acts were better than expected, some were fantastic and some disapointed.

The show opened strong with Bruce Springsteen and his full band going through Land of Hope and Dreams,Wrecking Ball, and My City of Ruin before being joined on stage by fellow Jersey boy Jon Bon Jovi for a duet on Born to Run. Springsteen was great as always, during Born to Run many who have not seen Jake Clemons, Clarence's nephew and replacement on sax got a chance to do so, and the band was sharp. Looking for audience participation Springsteen seemed a little disappointed a couple of times, particularluy on Wrecking Ball but there is no such thing as a bad performance.

Chris Christie was in the audience and received one of the biggest chairs of the evening. It was a pleasure to see a politician actually be received emphatically by a cross current of crowd.

Next up was Roger Waters. Waters was in a word, fantastic. Playing The Thin Ice and then Another Brick in the Wall to open Waters voice was in fine form. In truth it sounded like Pink Floyd records. I do not know the name of the fellow playing lead guitar but on Money and Us and Them Waters allowed him to take the lead vocals, and then ended with Comfortably Numb joined by Eddie Vedder. Waters was wonderful but certainly when he stopped singing the songs lost some luster. It was a great performance however.

Adam Sandler played a comedic version of Hallelujah which was only slightly funny. Kristin Stewart introduced Bon Jovi and I have to say that charitably she looked terrible. If one was not being charitable the words to be used might include meth and addict.

Bon Jovi's performance was far from overpowering. Jon's voice was not strong. The best part of their set was Dead or Alive and the best part of that was Richie Sambora's backing vocals as he still sounds incredibly strong.

Eric Clapton had a mellow set, in a word there is just nothing exciting about seeing Eric Clapton at this time.

The Rolling Stones played a short two song set. You Got Me Rocking and Jumping Jack Flash were not surely the songs we would have chosen but they were entertaining. The boys look a little old, the holes in Mick and Ronnie's cheeks look like they need more silly putty than you can buy in one store but that said they still play great.

Without a doubt the highlight of the show was the performance by The Who. Having seen them at the Super Bowl a couple of years ago it would seem a bit surprising to say this but both Roger and Pete seemed revitalized. Pete's guitar playing was tremendous, and Roger's voice though showing a crack or two still was very above the curve. When Roger started to unbutton his shirt I got nervous, that is alot of old but when it came fully unbuttoned it was fine. Roger still looks good and they are still The Who. Their set was killer. Opening with Who Are You and then going into a very sweet Keith Moon tribute called Bellboy that actually featured video of Moon singing with Daltrey and Townsend saluting from the stage while watching the video screen. Next came the Pinball Wizard/See Me Feel Me with Townsend seemingly delighted with both the song and his night. The crowd roared with the opening riffs and Daltrey started playing with the aforementioned shirt, feeling the years float away. Baba O'Riley never disappoints, Daltrey's harmonica solo at the end is amazing, a song from the last album Tea and Theatre delivered a small segue to Daltrey howling Love Reign Over Me. This set was the strongest of the night, the crowd went crazy.

Occasionally, in between sets, Brian Williams would take us backstage to the phone banks to see the celebrities taking the calls. At this juncture we were treated to many members of the cast of The Sopranos taking calls. Williams talked to James Gandolfini, watching the interview one had to wonder where does Tony stop and James begin.

Kanye West played next and was awful. I just do not understand as I saw one person tweet The Stones got two songs and West had a full allotment. Diversity rules I guess. Alicia Keys played before The Who I should add but I used this time to get a few things done that I needed to.

Billy Joel was next and with the exception of The Who was clearly the second star of the night. Playing Only the Good Die Young, Big Shot, and Movin Out one was easily transported to those early teenage years when Joel ruled the charts. Opening with Miami 2017 and playing New York State of Mind Joel showed that his catalog of music might well be one of the most underrated around. A fantastic performance.

Chris Martin played a couple songs and was joined by Micheal Stipe for Losing My Religion. The set was forgettable but Martin with his patter and talking showed himself to be very warm, wry, and gracious.

Ending the night was Paul McCartney and I would have to put his performance as a bit subpar. Maybe I was tired, it was on towards one but I thought his song selection was weak with Let Me Roll It, 1985, and My Valentine taking up space on the set lists with songs we wanted t her such as Blackbird, Helter Skelter and Live and Let Die. Much was made of the " Nirvana reunion" with Paul fronting for one song all the surviving members of the band for a new song called Get Off My Back. It was the highlight of the set, Paul seemed energized and Dave Grohl on the drums showed why he is clearly the most energetic man in rock today.

Alicia Keys ended the show with Empire State but I shut the television off. All in all the show was good not great, acts like Bon Jovi, Paul and Eric Clapton were a letdown, while Bruce, Billy, and the crazy good The Who stole the show. The Stones and Roger Waters also deserve praise.

Hopefully a great deal of money was raised on this night of East Coast bias.

EmmyLou by First Aid Kit

This might be the sweetest sounding song I have heard this year. I had earlier spoken of this band. The Lions Roar off their last album was wonderful but this song singing to a lover asking him to be her Graham or Johnny, she will be Emmylou or June just hits the spot.

Harmonies that are like a country Cranberries and name dropping legendary in love rock and rollers like Gram Parsons, Johnny and June Cash, and the incomparable, and incidentally of the four the only one still with us, Emmylou Harris one senses First Aid Kit know their music history and have a clear path they wish to follow.

A great song on all levels.

Death of A Pig by E B White

EB White will always be known as the author of Charlotte's Web. He was many other things however. He was the step father of the great New Yorker editor and sportswriter Roger Angell. He had a great connection with our very own state of Maine and often wrote about the farm in the Blue Hill area that his family maintained.

White wrote and edited for The New Yorker himself for many years and his collection of short stories and essays called One Man's Meat is a classic that I have sampled but will soon be reading in full.

Like singers who could sing the phone-book White could write about any subject of your choosing and turn a phrase to make your head spin. Today I happened upon this short story of White's called Death of A Pig. The mark of a great writer is you can see that title and think " How on Earth can I be interested in a story with a title like that?" In the case of an E B White story you would be wrong. White can make you interested, can make you feel as if you are there on the farm in Maine witnessing the very death of his very pig.

It all starts out simply enough. White would like to join many of his year round neighbors and buy a pig in the spring, fatten it all summer and then with a planned execution enjoy bacon and ham all winter. Things do not go according to plan as one summer morning White travels to his converted ice house/pigpen and finds his pig in gastrointestinal distress. Over the course of the story we learn about exactly when White feels his experiment in pig raising going over the cliff, how his dog Fred enjoys playing bad cop to his good, the joy of party lines, and how one helps a constipated pig.

As I said only White can write about a pig who can't poop and make it entertaining enough to be grandest story you will read this month.

To have a gift to write, like EB White, me thinks I would not sleep at night. As you can tell E B White I am not.

The Hour Season Two

Season Two of the BBC series The Hour has made its appearance on BBC America recently and having watched the first two episodes I feel compelled to give the series a huge positive rating.

So few shows are intelligent and compelling. We can find shows that intrigue us, Revolution, The Walking Dead, for example. We can find shows that are intelligent but rarely both. With it's nod to history and the assumption that we as viewers have a basic knowledge of it, The Hour is a superbly done show.

The first season centered on the personal relationships of the staff of a new British news show in the fifties. The British government is in the middle of the Suez Crisis, and Eisenhower is far from the most popular figure on the right side of the pond. The cast is led by Ben Whison as reporter Freddie Lyon, Dominic West as anchorman Hector Madden and Romola Garei as Bel Rowley.

Hector Madden is the stereotypical anchorman, portrayed as handsome, charming, and incredibly self indulgent and centered. Freddie Lyon as the young reporter and best friend, Boy Friday of the female lead, Producer Bel Rowley or Moneypenny as he calls her. Rowley has a face that one does not forget. She is not attractive in the modern women as stick way, and not in the over the type Jane in Mad Men crazy way, but in one of the most alluring ways I can recall. For me Rowley is not a woman to take your eyes off and her character in show is just as alluring. When one thinks of the woman she is portraying from that time period one must come to appreciate those women even more.

Along with the Suez Canal we have a second storyline involving a former acquaintance of Lyon who as Lyon looks into her death uncovers a Communist conspiracy.

Season two starts up nine months later, Freddie is gone after being fired, and Belle is carrying on. In the first two episodes Belle is producing away, with a new producer who is asserting more control than she likes, soon into episode one Freddie has returned from his travels and has been hired back. Bel is glad to have back, however she is perturbed by her not being consulted, and even more shocked by a surprise he unveils.

Hector, if anything, has moved further down the road of decadence and seems to be self destructing at a rapid rate, his wife moving from being constantly feeling abandoned to resolving to live her life next to him but not with him. As Season Two takes off Hector's self destruction moves at a rapid clip and embroils everybody in it's wake.

The news, the history, the backstory of Season Two is if anything is more interesting than the first, Britain has gained a Nuclear Bomb and the government is fear-mongering to move attention from a crime wave and with British censors being a constant antagonist as the producers struggle to air the stories they wish is continual.

Few shows you will watch can place you in a time period as well as The Hour. Mad Men at the beginning did so, as the show has moved into the mid sixties the efforts to place the characters in the historical time period have seem contrived and stilted while those same efforts in The Hour are seamless.

The cast is strong, intriguing, and not to be forgotten. Watching the British shows on PBS, these shows on the BBC America Wednesday night block one wonders if there is a reason that British network, not cable mind you, network television appears to be so strong in comparison to ours.

It is a question well worth asking. In the meantime this is not a show to be missed.

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner

When I was in college I was given Light in August to read and thought it was incomprehensible. Of course at nineteen in college my interests when I was reading were more along the lines of Stephen King. And those were great books.

Even a couple of years ago when I decided to read some Faulkner, starting with his short stories I struggled to find his writing much more than the vegetables that we have to eat. Then I tackled the three classics in the Summer of Faulkner set. These were very challenging but somewhere along the way I started to understand the rhythm's of Faulkner's writing. The run on sentences, the punctuation from hell, and the having to keep a mental note of who is actually speaking at one time. When you get through the first two sections of The Sound and the Fury and feel like you understand the thoughts of the heavily autistic Benjy, and the suicidal Quentin you feel like you deserve a medal. The funny thing for me was that as I read, backtracking often to understand, it became less like work and more anticipation of what was going to happen. In that book when we get to section three and read the more straight forward account of Jason one feels nostalgic for Benjy and Quentin.

Reading some reviews on Goodreads of this book it is clear to see that Faulkner will always be controversial. Some cannot get by this writing style. I certainly understand that. Others will always be uncomfortable with the handling of race in his books and the frequent misogynistic viewpoints of the characters, they cannot be hidden, often they make up a large part of the story. For me though Faulkner is stunning in his use of the language. It is clear that he is telling tales that try to relate what he has seen, grown up in, and felt growing up in a Southern culture in which a great deal of the populace were veterans of the Civil War and or one generation removed. Growing up with the bitterness of defeat, the loss of a way of life, with the racial tensions that created is something those in the North could not understand than and factually none of us here seventy five years later.

So with this backstory in my mind and my growing respect for the work of Faulkner I kept seeing lists that showed Absalom as his greatest novel, the greatest Southern novel of all time, and in some lists as the best book of the twentieth century. Certainly armed with my understanding of Faulkner's rhythms I was ready. I was not quite as ready as I thought. If one reading those previous books feels challenged they pick up Absalom and suddenly realize there is one more level of Faulkner.

This is the Faulkner of legend. This is the Faulkner with a twelve hundred word sentence. This is the Faulkner with several different narrators telling the same story, each adding a little, peeling the onion of the story as it were a little deeper. Still even with the additional challenge in the reading one sees quickly, if they will be open to it, that this book in a perfect specimen.

The book tells an overview of the life of Thomas Sutpen and his descendants. Certainly not told in a linear fashion, this is Faulkner after all, we learn how Sutpen came to Mississippi, swindled 100 acres of land and built his castle and then his life. Over the course of the book we learn Sutpen's pre Mississippi backstory, what motivates him and how one story in his youth changed his whole life. We meet his son Henry and daughter Judith the children he built his whole life for and we see how even in the world of a man like Thomas Sutpen, a man with more ambition than any ten men, life does not move in the expected way.

The book features, as one of the narrators Quentin Compson. Quentin who will commit suicide just two years later ( than the time frame of his existence in this book) in The Sound and the Fury tells his roommate at Harvard one cold winter night how he came to know the story of Thomas Sutpen and Quentin's aunt Rosa and her sister Ellen and how sometimes we find out things in our family tree that might have been better left unknown.

Perhaps I was naive, as revaluations of Sutpen come to the fore in the book I still did not see the left hook that was coming. When finally the truth was known, the reason for the conflict that eventually burns so hot that it destroys nearly everyone, I felt like I should have seen it coming. It is after all a Faulkner book. I confess I did not see it all coming. As my wife said maybe I was so in love with the sentence structure, the sentences that I just could not digest the full meaning of the words.

She was not wrong about my love of the writing. Often at night as she was fading to sleep I would make her listen to a certain sentence, one that went on for three quarters of a page, and ask her to enjoy the luxuriousness of his writing. Safe to say that while my wife respects and supports my love of literature she does not get a chill in her spine at eleven at night from any writer.

Still it does make me feel like at least my teachers were trying to expose me to the greats when I was younger, I do worry that in today's society with the need to be politically correct ( by today's standards) Faulkner in another thirty years will be unread by anyone under 50. Perhaps all great literature fades away but to me if Dickens tells us about London in the first half of the 1800's, if Hemingway takes us to Spain in the thirties, then Faulkner is our best chronicler of the South in the first half of the last century. Just because we do not like what he puts in the mirror for us to see does not mean that we should not see the value in looking at the reflection.

I cannot speak enough praise for the works of Faulkner. Absalom is an incredible book, and if your lucky you, like me, will not see it coming until it hits you in the face.

Upstairs, Downstairs on PBS

The second season of the reboot of Upstairs, Downstairs aired this fall. We taped them all, time is short when school is in session and there certainly is a great deal of television to watch, so we could watch them at our leisure.

My wife's Mom had missed the return and not taped them so we need to watch when she is visiting so playback has been delayed. Last weekend however we were able to watch the first two episodes and I must say that this might be better even than Downton Abbey. As this season takes off we are in the run-up to World War II. The patriarch of the new family is working for the Chamberlain government and is against the policy of appeasement that Chamberlain is pursuing. He, in fact, that by signing this pact, he has put Britain on a course for war sooner rather than later.

Amidst all this the daily lives of the staff downstairs take place. We have cooks in revolt, a head butler trying to run the show but with such a parsimonious demeanor he is not sewing any seeds outside of discontent. The show features a special sensitivity to the Jewish question. A young Jewish girl has come under the guardianship of the family, her Mother having been a member of the staff before she died and with the knowledge of her refugee status a good deal of time is spent examining the plight of the refugees in waiting.

From a historical perspective one can feel nothing but shame at how prejudice and failure to act did more to create the death camps than anything the feigned ignorance of the German populace did. We should never look away from the fact that it was not until Hitler knew that other countries would not take his Jews that he came to his final solution, believing in his warped way that he was only taking the step that those countries which would not allow Jewish refugees were not daring enough to take.

For me the historical angle of this series played out with deep and meaningful characters makes it an incredibly winning combination. As much as I look forward to Downtun Abbey next month the historical angle of World War I was given much shorter shrift than what is being done in Upstairs, Downstairs. For me as strange as it is to say I believe this series sitting on my TIVO may be the superior of the two.

Of course one problem is the similarities, watching I have to refresh my memory to make sure that I am mot intertwining the characters. AFter all just how many serving maids can one keep track of.

A wonderful series, both of these English dramas provide ample reason beyond Big Bird why PBS is a gift all year round.

The Twelve by Justin Cronin

The Twelve is the second book in the planned trilogy of Justin Cronin's apocalyptic series of books. Following up on the huge success of The Passage this book introduces us to more of the backstory of the outbreak of the plague itself, shows us survivors in a Texas Republic in a time prior to the survivors we met in the original book, and most of all of a period of time five years hence from The Twelve.

The survivors of the Colony are featured strongly in this book. Peter Jaxson, Hollis, Sara, Alicia, and of course Amy, the one girl to save them all. This book is not perfect. In this book we learn of " the familiars" who act as guardians to the members of the twelve. Two books in I am still a little foggy on the relationship between the workers recruited to care for the twelve in the lab prior to the outbreak and the twelve themselves.

Another concern could be the incredibly likable characters we meet in the section of the book that introduces us to a few survivors in post breakout Denver. Danny, an autistic school bus driver becomes an out of the box hero. Knowing Cronin's habit of zooming in and out on various characters and places in time we might well see them again in Book three to see how Danny's heroism turned out. This could be another story inside the later story of the final conflict between the Virals and the Survivors that we anticipate seeing in the next book. Much has been written about the similarities of this series and Stephen King's The Stand and in this, the Danny section, the similarity is most easy to see. M-o-o-n spells Tom Cullen, but it could easily spell Danny the Bus Driver as well. No matter I guess in apocalyptic scenarios there are only so many.

The book is well told, once we get to the last 400 page section on the conflict between a tyrannical society in Iowa and the Texas group which has taken in our survivors from Book one. Amy, the girl who was to be part of the twelve, still surivives, well over a one hundred years old but still looking like a teenager but Amy knows her time is coming, a change is coming, one she will not be able to turn away from.

I do not want to give away too much. After reading this book I feel a little silly, like a book snob that has read comic books in secret, but one cannot deny that what Cronin does he does very well.

If you are looking for some escapist reading and a bit of a different take on our vampire, zombie fascination of late this book series is a good place to start.

Flight of the Phoenix

A few weeks ago I watched Flight of the Phoenix, a 1965 adventure movie based on the novel of the same name. I found the movie to be very strong, extremely underrated on the whole and with Jimmy Stewart as the star, a fantastic movie.

The movie begins with Frank Towns flying a cargo plane across the top of Africa to land in Benghazi, Libya. Towns played by Jimmy Stewart is a veteran pilot, grizzled and a bit surly, one gets the sense there is a backstory for the man. His navigator is the Richard Attenborough played Lew Moran. Getting caught in a sandstorm Towns is forced to crash land in the middle of nowhere. Much worse having attempted to evade the storm they are one hundred miles off course and so not in the path of any would be searchers.

With one man severely injured and two dead Towns is racked with grief. The survivors are a motley lot. Oil field workers, British soldiers, and others involved in the oil industry including an accountant and a company Doctor. Also among the survivors is a rude, arrogant, German aeronautics engineer. Eventually he approaches Towns by saying he can create an aircraft out of the viable remains of the plane that crashed.

As time passes and the water and supplies run dangerously low Towns, who had been against any cannibalization of his aircraft thinking it could not be done, agrees to the plan. He is convinced by Moran that even if it will not work the survivors need to believe in something while they await being found.

The movie follows a fairly predictable path from there. Personality conflicts, the loss of a man here and there until eventually the plane is ready. With a limited amount of starter cartridges to fire the plane there is a real danger all the work will come to naught. On the eve of the test Towns and Moran discover that their German engineer is aero engineer of model aircraft. Incredulous they realize they have no choice but to keep their own counsel and move forward. This is a last attempt at survival.

It will not be giving anything away to say that of course eventually they are successful, Jimmy Stewart does not often die in his movies, but the movie does do a good job of building suspense and introducing us to characters that are credible and worthy of our care and investment.

The movie is filmed wonderfully, the desert scenes, the endless blue skies. The grizzled, unshaven, sweaty survivors leave no doubt of where they are and have been, this is no pleasure cruise. A wonderfully filmed and executed movie. Perfect for a long snowy Saturday afternoon.

A Duckumentary on PBS

The PBS series Nature only runs a few new episodes a year but when they do it is often must see television. A couple of weeks ago one of those episodes aired. The title of this show called, in a very punny title, A Duckumentary. Hosted by Paul Giamatti whose voice is perfect for voice-overs this was a very enjoyable show.

Speaking of many different duck breeds but focusing primarily on a pair of wood ducks as they make their way through a full year. Filmed perfectly we see the beauty not only of the ducks themselves but there surroundings and learn many interesting facts. My wife, who unlike me and my daughter, is not exactly a nature buff, watched this show with interest which tells you all you need to know about how entrancing this show was.

We learned that ducks spend hours each day on the maintenance of their tail feathers, that they produce the ointment that they treat their feathers with, that the female chooses the male for her mating season before the winter, they spend their winter together before mating in the spring, and, this seems unfair, if she wishes at the last minute she can dump him for another male late in the game.

The most stunning visual, the one we were talking about days later was what happens to wood ducks right after they are born. Mother to be Wood Ducks make a nest in a tree, in a tree that is high, very high, off the ground. The day after the chicks arrive the Mother leaves the nest and goes out into the nearest body of water and calls the ducks. The ducks inside a tree, sixty or seventy feet in the air, then have to go to their mother. Did I mention that ducks cannot fly when they are born. The baby ducks, a day old, then jump out of the tree to the ground, in the video we watched seventy feet. The idea of this is amazing. And yes, baby ducks bounce. Incredible.

It is easy to say, when you enjoy these shows, that more people should see them, that the garbage that is on most networks at most times should be replaced by these shows. Perhaps that is true but for me the fact that this series is available to contrast with those less reputable shows makes it succeed even more so in the contrast.

Take a moment and watch these shows, if you have kids you have a built in excuse. If you do not have kids you might have the time to actually enjoy it.

Lincoln

Lincoln has been as well received as any movie in years. Directed by Stephen Spielberg, based on the Doris Kearns Goodwin book Team of Rivals most consider Spielberg and much of the cast to be Oscar worthy.

The movie, unlike the book, which examines the whole Lincoln Presidency, centers on the last four months of Lincoln's life. At this time Lincoln is working feverishly toward getting the 13th amendment, that which bans slavery, to be ratified by the House, the Senate having previously done so. Lincoln's fear is that with the war coming to an end that the Emancipation Proclamation might be somehow reversed as an executive order under the War Powers Act. He himself admits to the plausibility of it being reversed due to the murky process by which he was invested with such powers.

One would think this would be an easy thing, the North after all was against slavery. However Democrats, still in sympathy, with their Southern brethren, and if not for slavery against anything that might indicate an equality between the races had consistently held any thought of the amendment at bay. With the war coming to an end Lincoln has a limited time frame. He knows he needs to have the law passed before it can be used as a negotiating point for any Southern delegation.

What follows is a legislative battle that most folks today would not have presumed taking place in that long ago time. We have visions of Lincoln being all powerful, at least in the North, when in actuality he was not a popular figure to some, we think of the North holding hands and freeing the slaves in unison, this also was far from the truth. What transpired was bare-knuckled politics. A lobbying group was contracted by Secretary of State Steward to try to convert the necessary lame-duck Democrats ( those who would be leaving office in March of 1965) to change their previous votes. Nothing was above these men. Bribery, Patronage, even blackmail if necessary. It becomes evident that in the case of the thirteenth amendment one must hope that the end justified the means because it was not a pretty process.

In the end Lincoln who, while it had been attempted to insulate him from the dirty politics of the lobbyists) worked hand in hand with them in gaining the votes necessary. Lincoln was a consummate politician. He knew what buttons to push in almost every case. One gets a strong sense of his personality and also the exasperation of those around him. Always quick with a story, sometimes frustratingly so to those who revered him, and wished him to be more forceful he ran the country like I sometimes think I parent. Trying to show examples that deliver the message in a nice way but never being afraid to deliver the message as poison if need be.

Spielberg's direction is flawless, the soundtrack is elegant and the acting is the best you will find.

Daniel Day Lewis might well earn another Best Actor Oscar. None of us ever saw Lincoln in the flesh or even on video but one cannot walk out of the theater without feeling like you saw a genuine glimpse of the man.

Sally Field is wonderful as the harpy wife Mary Todd Lincoln. With stresses all her life the death of her son in the White House two years ago is a sadness that never leaves her.

Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens continues his string of improbable rolls. It has been a long way from Woodrow Call to this but Jones never misses a step.

Hal Holbrook, still alive, I did not know, plays Francis Blair, a pivotal Republican, not in office, but controlling a large block of votes who Lincoln must win to his cause and then manipulate the events and timing of the bill to stay the course and not lose his support.

Everything about this movie is first rate. The only caution I can provide is that because the movie centers on just one short time period, primarily on one piece of legislation, and the battle to get that bill passed, for those without much of an interest in politics, the process as it were, the movie can get long. For those of us who love history, are political junkies and appreciate a beautifully filmed movie it does not get better than this.

My highest recommendation for this movie.

Everything Must Go

I have watched quite a few movies lately as I have been consistently under the weather and have not reviewed any of them. We will attempt to begin the process of correcting that with a review of the under appreciated Will Ferrell movie from 2011 Everything Must Go.

Based on a Raymond Carver short story Why Don't You Dance. When one says based on, in this case they mean that there is an ever so slight similarity, mainly that both lead characters have a yard sale of their belongings. The story which I had recently read is much shallower in depth and understanding than the movie.

Will Ferrell plays Nick Halsey a salesman who is also an alcoholic. As the movie begins we see Nick being fired from his job for an incident that occurred on a business trip in Denver. After vandalizing his Supervisor's car on the way out of the parking lot and then stopping to buy beer on the way home Nick arrives home to find out that the locks have been changed and his belongings are all over the yard.

Nick settles in to his easy chair in the yard. The next morning when he goes to get more beer he returns to find his company car being repossessed. Life is getting worse. Soon the police show up and Nick when confronted with trouble has them call his sponsor in AA, a Frank Garcia, who is a detective. The detective comes by and gets Nick a three day ticket for a yard sale which will buy him sometime to figure things out.

Over the course of the next few days Nick develops a relationship with a young boy in the neighborhood who is apparently unsupervised for much of the day and a new neighbor across the street who has just moved in and is waiting for her husband to arrive. Along the way we learn more about Nick's relationship with his wife and his sponsor and how even that is not as simple as he might like it to be.

The movie did not do well, being a change of pace for Ferrell perhaps people did not get what they expected. That said Ferrell was cast perfectly in the role. Exceptionally believable as the typical frat boy turned professional but still drinking his life away, this man suddenly hit in the face with reality and the world of grown ups and not knowing how to handle it except to do what he has already done, crawl deeper into his immature ways and drink it away. Ferrell provides depth here one does not expect. One wonders if he ever will get a chance for a serious role or if he is so typecast that can never happen for him. If so it is a loss for as funny as he can be one gets the sense that there is much more talent in Ferrell than we expect in our physical comedians.

This is an interesting, sweet in its own way, dark in another way movie. It is not in anyway like any of the broad comedy one expects from Ferrell. Be warned and enjoy it for what it is.

Judges Judges Everywhere

As I have discussed before our house is doing it's part to keep every singing competition afloat. From Monday to Thursday from Christina to Brittany and back again my wife loves singing shows. Kids need to have their homework done, dogs need to be fed and walked and husbands need to be quiet before the eight o'clock hour strikes.

I do not mind the shows, some performers are better than others but overall it is fine and if she gets enjoyment out of it I am fine with that. What is hard for me sometimes to watch are the judges. I know I have commented on this before so I am not going to revisit their contradictory advice and things of that nature.

I do however want to give a brief rundown of my perceptions of these people we invite into our homes each week.

Starting with The Voice first on the list would be Adam Levine. Truthfully Levine comes off as extremely likable and surprisingly genuine. He is a very good singer, gives solid advice and his back and forths with Blake Shelton seem real and not forced.

Blake Shelton also seems genuine and likable. One gets the sense that Shelton knows that this ride will be over soon, he will be supplanted by the next young gun in the Country line and he is determined to enjoy it. We never really see much more than extremely generic advice from these folks, they are rarely negative, and their exchanges with each other comprise the biggest part of their contribution to the show.

Ce Lo Green is just an odd duck but he is harmless and surprisingly talented. With Green more than any other judge it becomes apparent that he has a great deal of advice for his team members. Christina Aguilera, when I have commented in the past, has been bitchy and generally not nice quite often. This seems to be a bit less this year, she still is a prim a donna but overall she too has been nicer this year.

Overall The Voice is a good show, its singers are good, the premise of picking the team members without seeing them is interesting, and the fact that no truly terrible singers are allowed to audition make the show less exploitative than it's counterparts.

The Fox series X Factor in it's second season added two new judges. Demi Lovato and Britney Spears. Simon Cowell remains Simon Cowell and with that he can be nasty and cutting but this behavior has modified a great deal since this Idol days. LA Reid might be the most pompous man on television but he does know his stuff. I do not find him anything but there on my screen, to me he is not a draw or a reason not to watch. For better or worse the two girls are what brings the audience or drives the audience away. Brittany Spears has been the subject of much comment. In our house we always comment on how she looks that night. It is not always a positive picture. Still an attractive woman, still a talented singer Spears looks extremely uncomfortable in her role. Last week we noticed that in many of her exchanges with her team members she seems to physically recoil from contact with them. Who knows what is up with Brittany.

Still Spears seems like Einstein when compared with Lovato. If I hear her comment one more time that a performance is boring I might have to grab the remote from my wife's hand. It is not her fault. She is in no way a realistic judge. Everything she has sung has been overproduced by mentors, her helping and judging other singers is just a ridiculous notion. I do not know her, she is probably a fine person, she is, however , doing nothing in this show to shine a positive light on her personality or intelligence.

And just think, we are just six weeks from American Idol.

A Walton Family Thanksgiving

In the first half of the nineties CBS returned to Waltons mountain for a Series of television movies. The Waltons, of course, had been a staple of the networks lineup in the seventies and the timing of nostalgia made the movies a good bet to garner a dependable audience.

The first movie in that series was A Walton Family Thanksgiving centering on the family as they gathered together for the holiday in 1963. As any history buff knows this year also coincided with the Kennedy assassination which allows the series, while catching us up with the family members, to show their reactions to the events of that fateful time.

One thing must be said, most child stars do not become great actors and actresses. The young people who played the children on The Waltons certainly are of that group. It would seem that a good portion of them have done no acting whatsoever, not a bad thing, they have moved on and lived there lives, it does however mean that the acting in this sort of a reunion show will be stilted.

Everyone that is remembered from the series makes an appearance. Ike and Corabeth, their daughter Amy, Verdi the black person on Walton's mountain, even Yancy Tucker. With the exception of the departed Will Geer the whole cast returns.

One has to put away the calculator to make this work. The characters of the show, primarily the children, are played younger than they would be in a direct timeline from the original show. At one point even John thinking of Grandpa says to himself Pa, you have been gone 15 years and it seems like just yesterday. Actually on a strict timeline Zeb has gone been gone about twenty years.

Watching Ben try to cry about baby Virginia (somehow she died) or Jim Bob show sadness after a rebuke from Mary Ellen, it is clear that great acting will not be on this show.

Still Ralph Waite is extremely likable and I cannot tell you how much seeing the very old Ellen Corby ( she reminds me of my Mother who died at 88 a couple of years ago) and the show just works.

When we were young it was the family we as kids made fun of while we secretly wanted to be a part of. I grew up a country kid and I could understand a bit of the life these people led and knew that it was a blessed existence if only a life that was lived on a television screen.

As the episode ends and all the family troubles that the children have been struggling with are resolved , as John Kennedy has been laid to rest, as John Boy sits out front with his lady friend and they all say goodnight like they have on every episode one thing becomes clear. For this person, me, this sometimes sarcastic, usually cynical ( though I try not to be as much) person one thing is clear. I still would like to be part of that family. That is why bad acting will make not a hoot of difference to anybody who grew up with this show.

It is a chance to revisit not only our own childhood but for many of us a childhood we dreamed about whilst in it. How many chances do you get to do that in your mid forties.

Pete Townsend on David Letterman

Pete Townsend was on David Letterman last night promoting his new auto biography. I have to say that with a reputation as being a bit of a hard case I was surprised to find him very charming, demonstrative, and overall an excellent interview. Letterman himself seemed surprised to see Pete so willing to tell stories and anecdotes including a very funny discussion of Keith Richards and his inadvertent origination of the Townsend windmill guitar move as well when Keith Moon blew up his drum kit and set Pete's hair on fire, literally.

Who fans, Stones fans, even just David Letterman fans should get online and view this clip.

Fall TV Update

My daughter has always been one who was willing to try new foods. When she was six or seven she would take a bite of something and exclaim how good it was. She would proceed to tell her older brothers that they should try it too. She would keep eating and almost always by the mid point of her serving one noticed her starting to pick at it. Eventually at the end of the meal a good portion of the new food she had treated like the greatest thing since sliced bread would still be on her plate.

When I asked her about this the answer was inevitably a variation on " It was good Daddy, I just got full."

I think that in a sentence sums up not just what I find with most new shows that I originally like and have high hopes for but how the great proportion of people end up when it comes to new shows. What starts out as exciting and promising soon just turns into another vegetable dressed up to look more new and different than it really is.

In the fall I felt that The Last Resort, Vegas and Revolution were well on their way to success. Interestingly the show that I had the least hope for seems to be the only one I am still with, the only show whose ratings are successful.

The Last Resort was the show that started out with the biggest bang. It's original episode was explosive but eventually it became soon apparent that the series just could not maintain the bar it had set. When the show had to develop a plausible plot line about the crew of a nuclear submarine forming their own nuclear armed nation entity it just could not be done. Soon enough ABC was preempting the show and the shows ratings faltered even more. Being placed against the X Factor and The Big Bang Theory it was felt that an audience, a different audience could be carved out. It just did not work. With low ratings and high expenses per episode ABC has cancelled the show and the three episodes sitting on my DVR have been erased. There is no need to invest in a show that is doomed.

Vegas the CBS entry seemed like a sure thing and in fact it is doing well in the ratings and with Dennis Quaid and Michael Chilkis there is no reason to think the show will not be around well after this season. The show with all its promise however has lost this viewer. The payoff of a slight advance of the long term storyline that one receives each week while sifting through a tedious murder mystery is just not worth it. The series might well have been a different show on a cable network. It is not that one needs to extra blood, violence, sex and gore of the cable version, it is just that the weekly story-lines might not have to be so prevalent in a cable series. For that reason this show has lost this viewer.

Revolution continues moving strongly toward it's mid season break. This weeks episode was a little contrived, coming through a Philadelphia subway tunnel suffering from a lack of oxygen the main characters experienced hallucinations but the payoff at the end of the episode was well worth it. A great choice this week too with the featuring of some Led Zeppelin music as well. The ratings have slipped a little recently and one wonders if the show will continue to maintain if not expand it's audience, NBC needs to be sure to not have the upcoming break go too long as viewers have short memories but this series still offers something worth watching each week. As show after show falls off my radar as the season digs in Revolution remains strong with The Walking Dead as the only two series that are must see each week.

The experience of these three shows does however explain in a nutshell why it is so difficult to launch a series and have it be successful on network television. It is a terribly divergent culture, incredibly competitive and with viewers with more options and shorter attention spans than ever before. Instead of bemoaning the number of series that fail perhaps we should stare with wonder that any ever succeed at all in gaining a loyal viewership.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Some books age well. This classic by Erich Maria Remarque is a novel that does just that. Perhaps it is because the experience of war, of combat, the soldier in the battle never really changes that much. The weapons can change but the experience of killing your fellow man has much in common.

I was telling a friend of mine that I would think that one of the most rewarding courses to take and or teach would be a wartime literature course. Comparing the works of Hemingway, Mailer, and recent efforts by Tim O'Brien, Denis Johnson, and Kevin Powers with the book of Remarque would be very rewarding.

In this book we meet the narrator Paul Baumer. Baumer, at the onset of World War I joins the German army at the age of eighteen. Encouraged by a schoolmaster to join with his classmates Paul and a group of friends join the army with all good intentions. Like many young men they join for reasons of patriotism, the glory of the Fatherland, and expect glory and thrills.

By the time we join the characters in the book they are no longer besot with these images and ideas. The book was controversial upon publication, the book was burned by the Nazi's in Germany, it did, after all, not glorify war. Speaking of war as meaningless and as something that nothing good comes out of we see Paul and his friends decimated by the war.

At age 20 he has been in the military two years and seen his friends die, he has seen troops gain and lose, gain and lose, the same land over and over. To him the enemy becomes the leaders in the military. He begins to realize that the French troops on the other side of the lines are no different than he. They are young men and boys, husbands and fathers, men who have been taken out of their lives and told to kill men and boys, fathers and husbands who they have no grudge with.

Paul is given a leave and at home feels completely out of place. He is told by a neighbor in town that he only understands his little piece of the war, that the real strategy and goal can only be seen as a whole. In effect his ambiguous feeling is only because he does not understand the war that he is living every day. His father, seeking to connect, asks about the battles. Paul cannot share, it is not something a man talks about.

Paul is injured and we see scenes of the hospitals, the overworked nurses and nuns, the doctors who amputate constantly and Paul imagines thousands of hospitals just like this across all of Europe and wonders why.

After seeing his friends die one by one Paul knows that peace is about to happen. In the fall of 1918 no one wants to be the last one to die. With peace on the horizon Paul lets up his concentration and the inevitable happens. We are told that on that day the war is so meaningless, that so little matters that the only bulletin on the condition of the war that day is that the situation is All Quiet on the Western Front. His death, any death has really meant nothing.

A brilliant book, as relevant today as it was eighty years ago.

Cathedral by Raymond Carver

Continuing my journey through the short stories of Raymond Carver this collection would win my vote for the best of them.

Carver's characters continue to introduce us to flawed characters, characters who steal and cheat, drink to excess, and who find themselves disillusioned and challenged beyond their means.

The beginning story Feathers features two couples having a dinner party. Strange story points such as a mold of crooked teeth, the world's ugliest baby, and a peacock with the run of the house. Carver write with vigor and vulgarity too, certainly one of the more modern writers in that regard but this story was strong.

In Chefs House a separated couple has a rebirth in their relationship when the man is fortunate enough to rent a small ocean side cabin. He quits drinking, and their days together are simple and happy. Their hope for the future is bright but it all fades when the Chef advises that his daughter will need to rent the house. With this news reality sets in and the husband reaches for a drink.

A Small Good Thing is another take on the story The Bath in a previous effort. Unlike the first version this story expands and has the parents of the injured boy confronting the baker of the birthday cake. This ending is far superior to the other and is quite moving.

Careful becomes the only story I have ever seen centered on Earwax while Where I'm Calling From is another strong story centered on two men who form a friendship while they are in an alcohol rehabilitation facility.

Fever is the story of how a man, abandoned by his wife with his two kids comes to grips with taking care of his life. The Bridle tells the story of a farming couple from Minnesota who after losing their farm end up landing at a hotel in Arizona. How their presence ripples those staying at the hotel makes for an interesting story.

The last story is the title story. In Cathedral a man suffers a visit that his wife has engineered with a former employer of hers, a blind man. Uncomfortable at the prospect of a blind man in his house , his attitude changes when, like it seems all Carver characters they over-imbibe in alcohol.

Seriously Carver's characters need to go on a serious wagon.

The stories in this collection were all of a better level than some of his others though the number of standout stories were smaller. Consistently good rather than excellent and mediocre. One has to decide from themselves which they prefer.

Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone by Hunter S Thompson

About a year ago a collection of the writings of Hunter Thompson for Rolling Stone, edited together by Jann Wenner was published. Considered the father of Gonzo journalism Thompson wrote with a style all of his own.

This collection of his writings centers mostly on his infamous Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972. Following the election from Muskie to McGovern, Nixon to the seeds of Watergate this was Thompson at the peak of his writing.

Reading Thompson is like looking through the looking glass. When he writes that as the campaign progresses reporters all self medicate themselves to be able to live with the constant array of bullshit that is part of a Presidential campaign one has to wonder if for once we are hearing the truth.

If one takes a real look back to forty years ago and pictures Thompson's writing through the prism of what reporting looked like at that time one gets a sense of what a revolutionary he was.

The candidates themselves, Nixon, McGovern, all seemed to have a sense that Thompson was different. Surely they thought he was crazy, but all in all one guesses that talking with this crude example of reportage was if nothing else a novelty.

I enjoyed this section of the book immensely as well as I did like his later writings on Watergate, Nixon, and the election of Jimmy Carter. His later writings on subjects such as a late infatuation with polo, and a crazy story about a supposed encounter with Judge Clarence Thomas ( pre Supreme Court nomination) in the Nevada desert when the judge's limo crashed into a hard of sheep and overturned and out came tumbling the judge with a couple of matching hookers. Thompson write this story at the time of Thomas confirmation hearings and said he realized in watching that this was the judge he had met years ago but I, in reading it, could not bring myself to think it anything close to a true story. If it was shame on us all for putting this man on the bench but that questioning, in the end, became the problem with later Thompson reporting. That is, where does the unfiltered truth end, and the exaggeration and Gonzo begin.

I read the book through but would not recommend it. What I would advise someone who wants to gain the full Hunter experience is to have them read just Fear and Loathing on the Campaign in 1972. This is Hunter at his best, when he was on that fine, almost indistinct line between genius and crazy. It is not a line one can stay balanced on for long.