41) Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything -Jennifer Keishin Armstrong. 2016. Audiobook. A joyful ride through the making of the show that enabled Jerry Seinfeld to keep dating women young enough to be his granddaughters. I liked this and it’s sometimes cool to surround yourself with an atmosphere of celebration, but I would have enjoyed some more poking about than we got here. I guess what I’m really in the market for is a critical biography of Larry David, the guy who is genuinely funny and interesting and therefore the opposite of his creative partner. I love the show Seinfeld and will continue to rewatch it, but, based on this read, we’ve got another fandom where I’m grossed out by the fans. The ruiners of all things good.
Seinfeld was a cousin of another 90s show, Roseanne, where the writing and supporting cast was so much stronger and appealing than the star. The stars may have shaped their show's humour, but beyond that they were never the draw.
Hell, yes, great comparison. Though, as much as I love Julia Louise Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and the early work of Michael Richards, they almost all add together to add the same value to their show as John Goodman brought to anything he did. Laurie Metcalf, too, for that matter.
New audiobook:
David Pietrusza, 1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon. This is purely for entertainment purposes. I've read about the 1960 campaign upteen times, but it's a helluva fun political story. Still, in the cast of characters, I've already caught two errors—Pat Nixon's name is Thelma, not Patricia, and the Checkers speech was not teary (maudlin, certainly, but if he'd actually gotten weepy his career would have been over in the context of the times). So, I'm wary about his fidelity to the evidence.
If a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump its booty. - Jimmy Carter to Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, 15 September 1978
Up next for audiobooks:
Phil Tinline, Ghosts of Iron Mountain. I'd never heard of this hoax until I came across a review for this book. The gist is that in the late 60s, a fake secret government report was "leaked" that concluded world peace would cause the American system of government to collapse, so war must be a permanent feature. It was anti-war satire, but it took a life of its own, contributing to anti-government conspiracy theories ever since.
Finally got this at the library. Still very early in to have a full opinion, but it makes me hate the Kennedys even more. The writing voice makes it easier to read. More conversational than dry. I like that.
Up next for audiobooks:
Phil Tinline, Ghosts of Iron Mountain. I'd never heard of this hoax until I came across a review for this book. The gist is that in the late 60s, a fake secret government report was "leaked" that concluded world peace would cause the American system of government to collapse, so war must be a permanent feature. It was anti-war satire, but it took a life of its own, contributing to anti-government conspiracy theories ever since.
Finally got this at the library. Still very early in to have a full opinion, but it makes me hate the Kennedys even more. The writing voice makes it easier to read. More conversational than dry. I like that.
Journalists do tend to write more appealing narrative histories.
If a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump its booty. - Jimmy Carter to Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, 15 September 1978
45) Darkness On the Edge of Town - Brian Keene. Paperback. KP. 2010. Keene is gifted at getting real, whole seeming characters into fucked up situations and watching the chaos unfold. It’s a timely book, this one, at least six years ahead of its time. With comparisons to be made to Stephen King’s Under the Dome, a novel that wasn’t published while this was being written, this has a small town completely cut off from the wider world. The Simpsons also made a film out of the idea. Wonder what was in the air at the time that made people fearful of getting trapped and forced to deal with their shitty neighbours without the institutions that they’d always relied on? The darkness speaks and seduces and turns people into aggressive psychos. In one way, I do respect the book’s concision but there’s a feeling of a story half told here. We’re just starting to heat up when the protagonists head off into their almost certain horrible death. But it’s a good journey getting there.
46) What's That Lady Doing? Guilt, Shame, Blame and Other Funny Stories - Lou Sanders. Audiobook. 2023. A really miserable memoir from a lady who is a good comedian. Sanders is going to grow as an artist and a comic, but this honest and interesting book doesn’t quite succeed as something to kick back and laugh about. Richard Pryor’s book wasn’t that funny either, but that was a literary masterpiece in its way, rough hewn genius. Which, sorry Lou, this ain’t quite. It’s mostly just about unhappy times and she leaves the in depth stuff about putting an act together or building up her career to another day, which I’d have liked more of.
47) Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett. Paperback. 1988. The elevator pitch here is Macbeth from the witches’ point of view, with a dash of Hamlet sprinkled in for good measure. Loved it, felt like the writer really is getting into his stride here and the characters are expanding into new dimensions.
48) Woody Guthrie: A Life - Joe Klein. Paperback. 1980. The best book I’ve read this year, bar none. I couldn’t quite believe how in depth we got here, for details you’d have expected to be washed away in the sands of time and memory but Klein had some decent boosts to his writing process, including the full co-operation of Guthrie’s second wife, an organised lady who had bundles of papers including some surprising full on erotic notes. I sure have learned a lot about the libido of the man who wrote This Land Is Your Land. But so much more besides, these people live and breathe on the page and Klein is a good enough journalist and biographer to not pretend to objectivity. The wife who helped so much to get this book to the level it’s at is shown in a not-always-complimentary light. Guthrie is flawed from the off, an occasionally infuriating guy who doesn’t treat his children or partners with the consideration due to them. He was a real “I’m going out for a pack of cigarettes and also to hop a hobo train to New York City.” kind of husband and father. That rambling freedom is what gave those songs of his so much of their power and the understanding of the world that his experiences gave him, tied to some surprisingly in depth reading, makes him the writer of the early part of the twentieth century that any songwriter has to reckon with. He was surprisingly pro-Stalin for quite some time, too. His sickness coming in and defining the remainder of his short life is tragically and beautifully rendered. An image I’ll never quite shake is, post-Dylan’s success, all the young wannabe folkies turning up to his hospital where he had lost the power of speech and communication, and playing their songs at him or just staring at him in his wheelchair. His visiting wife had to shoo at least one of them away saying, “He’s not an animal in the zoo! He has feelings, you know!”
The music isn’t given quite as much space as the biography, which is fair because this is about the man not his work. Strongly recommended, oh yes.
Only dead men stomp on the brake pedals in the city of nerves
) Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker - David Mikics. Audiobook. 2020. From the Jewish lives series. Bit of a useless run through of the artist's career with little added that you couldn't find on Wikipedia. It's worth reminding yourself of his canon, but there'll be better, more passionate, interesting, and challenging ways of doing so. Don't recommend.
50) Rum Punch - Elmore Leonard. Audiobook. 1992. A relisten with relish. I was able to enjoy this as a novel and not just mentally compare it with the Tarantino adaptation that followed this time round. I pictured the characters as written, rather than the actors who'd go on to play them.A realistic and satisfyingly unsatisfactory ending tops off a caper with real stakes that arise out of people being flawed and fallible. The journey there made me smile.
51) Pyramids - Terry Pratchett. Paperback. 1989. The ideas are truly starting to flow here and I feel like this was a novel that needed to be a series. The pace is off because the story is crammed into a space that doesn't allow it to breathe.
52) Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film - Patton Oswalt. 2015. Audiobook. Didn't work as a memoir for me, no details on any one film to give any excitement to the medium. It's a book about Oswalt racing to go and see as many movies as possible and then marking them off in his little books. The only lesson to be drawn is that movies shouldn't be the organising principle of your life. No laughs either. Occasionally his style, which is smarter than 2000s-internet-epic-bacon Maddox's Best Page on the Internet but shares some significant DNA with those prosists, sparkles. Occasionally it grates.
Only dead men stomp on the brake pedals in the city of nerves
) Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker - David Mikics. Audiobook. 2020. From the Jewish lives series. Bit of a useless run through of the artist's career with little added that you couldn't find on Wikipedia. It's worth reminding yourself of his canon, but there'll be better, more passionate, interesting, and challenging ways of doing so. Don't recommend.
Having you ever seen Room 237, the documentary about the many fan interpretations of The Shining? Straight-up wackadoodlry. It's the kind of stuff that makes me less interested (if only slightly) in Kubrick, frankly.
If a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump its booty. - Jimmy Carter to Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, 15 September 1978
) Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker - David Mikics. Audiobook. 2020. From the Jewish lives series. Bit of a useless run through of the artist's career with little added that you couldn't find on Wikipedia. It's worth reminding yourself of his canon, but there'll be better, more passionate, interesting, and challenging ways of doing so. Don't recommend.
Having you ever seen Room 237, the documentary about the many fan interpretations of The Shining? Straight-up wackadoodlry. It's the kind of stuff that makes me less interested (if only slightly) in Kubrick, frankly.
Yeah, it was a great watch, if a bit too long. Didn't diminish my thoughts on Kubrick but I did take a mental note not to start getting into the weeds on interpretations. There is a part of me that admires those more fucked up imaginative takes, though.
Only dead men stomp on the brake pedals in the city of nerves
