C.S. Lewis: "The Weight of Glory"
"I am trying to rip open THE INCONSOLABLE SECRET in each one of you -- the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence."
Leonard J. Arrington: Brigham Young: American Moses
I keep tossing this aside and coming back to it. I have several reading itches I need to scratch, like good plague and virus reading (I love a fun germ) and my trash thriller/mysteries, and 19th Century fiction, and historical accounts of Latter-Day Saints. I must clarify, I am an unafilliated Christian, neither Mormon-basher nor true believer. I find the fundamentals of Morman faith utterly unbelievable, not to say laughable, but my interest in religious history in general brings me back to Mormon studies again and again because it is historically accessible, unlike mainstream Christianity or Islam, the sources of which are lost in time. Brigham Young is the second-most influential figure in Mormon history next to Joseph Smith, the founder of the faith. I can turn to multiple sources for a historically-defensible biograph of Joseph Smith or the very origins of the LDS church. This book is the closest thing to an accurate history of Young, yet it was written by a devout Mormon. I feel great portions of Young's life in this work have been, if not whitewashed, at least granted enormous charitable impulse. Yet other works are so anti-Mormon in bias, such an obvious axe to grind, that I cannot believe them either. It's time for an outsider without agenda to write this biography. In the meantime, I continue to muddle through.
Tami Hoag: Kill the Messenger
OK, so I need some trash reading, and I like mysteries and thrillers to cleanse the palate between Deep Works. I have my favorites, like Michael Connelly, who has never written a bad book. Tami Hoag, judging by this, one of her latest, may become another. Like Connelly, she writes a completely undemanding page turner that is more than a dumb police procedural or woman-in-peril formula. It ain't literature, but this was fun.
Chris Ware: Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
A perennial favorite, and one I re-read every year or so. This incredible, multilayered, seemingly inscrutable yet abundantly accessible work changed my mind about the graphic novel. This is a story that could not be told in words alone. His artwork is not standard overblown comic book fare at all; it is precise and architectural. Ware's artistry is not only visual, it is historical, narrative, deeply psychological and completely unique. He plays on the tropes of the old "comix" and the hyperbole of the back-page ads for X-Ray Specs, blends that with the voice of innocence and amazement of the Chicago Exposition of 1893, and then, in a perfect hat trick, adds our current post-modern nihilist, isolated and lonely existence of the 21st century to bring it home. I cannot describe the plot, because the plot, as cathartic as it is, is only one vehicle for what you experience. Be prepared to be confused and overwhelmed and moved to tears in this journey from son to father to generations past.
Dorothy Dunnett: The Game of Kings (Lymond Chronicles, 1)
It's about time for me to begin my decennial re-reading of the Lymond Chronicles. I've actually read this, the first volume of the six, so many times that I've worn out two paperback versions. I make it all the way through all six every ten years at least. This series is a splendid addition to any Desert Island Reading List. If you like your heroes tortured, your buckles swashed with erudition, romances long on intellect yet short on the formulaic ripping of bodices, and sagas so sweeping all beaches would be free of sand, this is your meat. Recommended companion: The Dorothy Dunnet Companion Vol. I & II -- a concordance for this and Niccolo, her other series, which I find less compelling. Yes, she's such a reference-intense, not to say dense, writer that two volumes of clarification ARE necessary.
Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything
I'm working my way through this slowly, no reflection on my fascination with the scientific subject matter or my perennial delight with the author's superb diction. My pace is restrained only because I want to enjoy this at length. Bryson is one of my favorite wordsmiths, but in this new context, he not only entertains but enlightens. I'm a closet science geek, but some areas have escaped my enthusiasm until this book. I mean, geology, really. Now it's sexy.
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics)
This has a post all its own. A brilliant, courageous work, shamefully relegated to the "gothic" or "romantic" pile. This is the work that started a thousand imitators, all of which pale in comparison to the language, the intelligence, and the iconoclastic bravery of the original.
Elvis Aron Presley - January 8, 1935 - August 16, 1977
"Rhythm is something you either have or don't have, but when you have it you have it all over."
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Here It Is, Your Moment Of Zen:
Richard Pryor
December 1, 1940 -- December 10, 2005
"When you ain't got no money, you gotta get an attitude."
Hall of Fame sportscaster Vin Scully turns 78 today, but the memories of his golden voice are ageless.
I can never hear Scully speak without remembering the summer of 1965 and Jesse Gee. Baseball was not a feature of my childhood until about 1963 when Jesse arrived in our household. Her official title was "housekeeper", but she quickly became much more than that, a confidant to my mother and my friend and source of inspiration. Jesse had no children of her own, and quickly adopted me. Sundays, she took me to her church in Downtown LA and once I heard the gospel choir, I understood the power of the human voice raised in praise. She was the first African-American I met, and when I was very young, I had a secret yearning to lick the inside of her wrist to see if she tasted like chocolate, the forbidden fruit of my junk-food deprived family. (My mother was very health conscious; I was denied sugar due to her fears of diabetes, the scourge of her side of the family.)
Jesse followed the Dodgers with demonic fervor. Spring, summer and fall, a transistor radio stayed at her elbow as she went about her day. I had no idea what a "hiiiiigh liiine driiive" meant, but when Vin Scully said it, and Jesse reacted to his smooth tones, I knew something more important had happened than the umpteenth repeat of "Hard Day's Night" on my station of choice, KRLA. One June, Jesse was given the assignment of watching the house and me when my parents were on vacation in Mexico, or the Bahamas, or somewhere beyond my grasp of My Little Town. During these times, I was spoiled outrageously. Dinners were along the lines of smothered pork chops (yum) instead of broiled chicken breast and brown rice. We ate well, giggled during "Let's Make A Deal", and wore tennis shoes she brushed to an immaculate white with shoe polish. Vin Scully was the musical counterpoint to all our activities. One afternoon, we walked to the produce market at the corner and she bought a bag of bing cherries. We sat on our front porch, ate cherries languidly, spitting the seeds onto the lawn. Jesse always won the distance competition. I was more of an incompetent shot-putter with the seeds, simply glad that they cleared my chin and made it on the lawn at all. I remember that afternoon as endless, as we shared a wordless companionship, and Vin Scully announced the play by play. I couldn't follow the game, but simply listened to the inflections, the crowd noises, the occasional crack of a bat. The tinny radio could not disguise Scully's long, warm vowels that blended seamlessly with the sweetness of the cherries and the setting sun painting our faces with golden light.
Ray Bradbury, 85.
". . . that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain."
from: October Country
My mother's best friend Alice turned me on to Ray Bradbury. She casually handed me Something Wicked This Way Comes. Since she had already started me on Shel Silverstein (heady stuff in the late '60's), her recommendation carried great weight. His writing was so poetic, but still accessible to a nerdy 9 or 10 year old. Alice also introduced me to My First Love. We were little geekettes together at 13 and 14. Our first conversation, an absolute symphony of awkwardness and hope, lost its faltering quality when we discovered we both loved Bradbury. He was the catalyst. From there, we discovered Vonnegut, then Brautigan, but those are different birthdays. Happy 85th, Mr. Bradbury.
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