Roaming the dial

Book: Radio On: A Listener's Diary

Author: Sarah Vowell

Published: 1996 (St. Martin's Griffin)

Pages: 228

This is exactly like reading a smart person's real diary, in that it's repetitive, sporadically brilliant, half-assedly organized, deeply personal, well-written with highly crafted opinions, and, an ultimately aimless record of what was going on inside the writer's head for a fixed period of time.

Things I Know for Sure About Sarah Vowell's Relationship to Radio After Reading This Book:

1. She hates Rush Limbaugh because he says awful things and has way too many listeners who worship him for it.
2. She hates NPR because it's boring.
3. She loves Nirvana, Hole, and Hank Williams.
4. She has a good grasp on why she likes this music.

Things I Suspect But Never Confirmed Because They Lurked In the Details But I Tried to Pay Attention Because They Seemed Important for Context Of Which There Was Precious Little

1. She lives in Chicago.
2. She teaches art. In a museum? Or used to work in a museum?
3. She worked in college radio and gained swank connections through that because she's able to talk to radio people and go right into their studios without any explanations (to the reader at least).
4. She visited these radio people to get more perspective for her book and to sub for shows--still at the college station?--but not to actually, like, ask them anything about their jobs and how that relates to what she's writing.

Things I Wanted to Know But She Never Tells Me

1. How did she come up with the idea for this book?
2. What was her recording methodology?
3. Why did she sometimes write about music magazines or tapes she listened to without tying them back to their/her relationship with radio?
4. What would she think about the satellite and Internet streaming radio and podcasts that have exploded since she published this?
5. Wait--so, she's traveling again now? 
6. Why did she do this? Seriously, I'd love to know because I get the feeling the reason would be fascinating in an idealized early-twenties social adventure kind of way. I love reading about those; I need road trip ideas! And I also need context to figure out what she's trying to say. I bet it's really cool but I just don't know because she's not telling. 

Who constants the reader?

Book: Watchmen

Writer: Alan Moore

Illustrator: Dave Gibbons

Published: 2008 (collection; DC)

You guys, this is totally a gateway drug.

It’s a first taste of humans who decide to become superheroes because of their principles and not because they have powers. It’s a first look at how corruption erodes even the best of intentions, how disillusionment leads to fast decay, how maybe the world is just too far gone to be worth saving anymore. It’s a first insight into how humans struggle so mightily to do the right thing only to see it crumpled under the weight of suspicion and nuclear war.

I like Rorschach’s absolute commitment to justice. It’s his kind of psychopathic slavery to black and white right and wrong that highlights how fluid justice actually is. I like Dr. Manhattan’s gradual detachment from the world, I like that the new Nite Owl has a bit of a gut, I like the Comedian’s explosively disillusioned reaction to Vietnam as a shaper of his general world view, and I loved the parallel to the real world in the pirate story the kid at the newsstand was reading.

SPOILER ALERT: I love Veidt's reasoning. Let’s blow up something so everybody gets too scared to fight anymore and bonds together! It reminds me of when the Emperor in Star Wars outlines his plan to take over the Galactic senate in some violent way and then goes, “And then we shall have peace” making the creepiest face to ever go along with that sentiment. But Veidt really does believe he’ll bring peace with war, and it’s such a fatal flaw in a guy who’s convinced himself and everyone else that he’s perfect and therefore assumes the weight of making the ultimate decision for mankind, like a parent who doesn’t trust a child to understand the “lesser of two evils” concept. Brilliant dissection of how much sacrifice is worth saving the remainder of the world.

I didn’t like Lorie. She was whiny. But even she stood up for herself.    

This is my favorite example of how comics and graphic novels tie words and pictures so closely together. It’s absolutely uncanny how closely Gibbons reflects not only Moore’s words but the irony, cynicism, and double meanings of them. I’d love to sit in on one of their work sessions to see how they bring everything together so freakin’ well.

  

Moore gets progressively weirder from here, sometimes with Gibbons in tow again. As far as I remember, V for Vendetta has the same tone and saving-a-corrupt-humanity-from-itself-with-terroristic-measures plot and the same lack of interspecies sex scenes, so that’d be a Recommended Next if you’re looking to ease into Moore and get away from superheroes.

And so we came to the end (of a series)

Book: Mockingjay

Author: Suzanne Collins

Published: 2010 (Scholastic)

Pages: 390

Let's get straight to the ending! That's all I ever wanted from this trilogy anyway.

I liked it. I thought it was mildly shocking in a way that made sense. I loved how it leaned hard on the theme of "who exactly is the bad guy here?" that this book spent like 300 pages developing. There were enough broad hints about SPOILER ALERT NO SERIOUSLY I AM ABOUT TO DESTROY ALL YOUR SURPRISES District 13 President Coin that Katniss shooting her instead of Snow was an inspired last-minute instinct.

But the lead-up to it reminded me of watching Doctor Who and noticing that they're just now getting into trouble when there's 10 minutes left in the episode. These storylines can go two ways: a rushed ending or a two-parter. Obviously the two-parter scenario is ideal because it means I have a built-in excuse to watch more Doctor Who, but Mockingjay made me considerably more nervous because there was for sure nothing else after I finished it.

And it manages to wrap up in a timely fashion by one of the most annoying tropes I've noticed in this series: Katniss getting seriously injured and whisked away to treatment in the middle of the action. She, and consequently we, hear about the most interesting bits of battles and such through second-hand pure exposition.

I thought the whole point of her being the Mockingjay was that she would be put in exactly the right place to witness and show everything as it was happening. I expect that from all my protagonists, guys.

I did love how the rebels were aware of and could use media manipulation just as well as the Capitol. That's been my favorite part of the series and really put the focus on the ambiguity of each side, like, if they use the same propaganda techniques--if they both use propaganda at all, how can we tell which side tells the truth? How can we tell if there's a truth at all? I totally couldn't, and I never fully trusted those District 13 bastards anyway.

But oh my god did I want there to be so much more of a psychological showdown with President Snow! He showed how good he is at being creepy with flowers--flowers, y'all! And then when Katniss didn't shoot him, I was all, "OH SNAP [regrettably, I really do say this out loud; am trying to train it out of myself] they're going to psyche each other out SO HARD for the COUNTRY!"

Nope. He dies choking and getting crushed like two minutes later, and she hears about this from...say it with me now...her hospital bed. 

Now we get to talk about Peeta and how every time I hear someone say his name out loud, I think of Elaine and her "Stellaaaaaaaah!" He felt plot-device-y in this one. And my apologies; I reread Catching Fire while waiting to borrow Mockingjay, and holy crap is there for sure some teen love angst going on there. I missed it because Collins is so dang good at plot. I forgive her so much for that. And honestly, Peeta and Katniss bonded in blood. Twice. They know the most horrible experiences of each others' lives, and they know what the other went through, and they know just exactly how much they both need a little peace. Gale sounds like he's hotter than Peeta, though.

So what'd you guys think of how this series ended? How'd you think the series worked as a whole?

Blood and roses

Book: Catching Fire

Author: Suzanne Collins

Published: 2009 (Scholastic)

Pages: 391

I read this entire book in one non-moving Sunday when I woke up at 7am without any provocation. To compress the frustration I feel at my body for adjusting to an early-bird work schedule, I made it sit still and plow through this second book in the series. 

As far as punishment being something unpleasant, this failed miserably.

It's a great ratcheting up of the tension that was sometimes lacking in the first. It's a good, paced-out reveal of the governmental underpinnings and the revolutionary unease that I wanted to see more of in the first. It's an awesome rebuilding of the Games--remember my complaint from last time that the first described Games arena could've been in my old back yard? Yeah, well, they fixed that. With water. And specifically sectioned torments. And really effective use of--how much can I reveal without giving the whole shebang away? I sort of assume that everyone's read this before me, because that's generally just how these things work in my reading habits of waiting until entire series is out/at the library/in really cheap paperback. 

Mild spoilers ahoy, okay?

Anyway, the arena is amped UP to Death by Tropical Island and they manage to punish Katniss for her rebellion by pulling some convoluted strings in the next Games to get her in them and of course Peeta jumps in there with her, somewhat unnecessarily, but whatever, they work well together in a survivalist way. 

They are still each a little bland for me to care about his declarations of love and her confusion, but like I said about the first one, at least when Katniss's thoughts go around and around, it's about survival and not manufactured torment over something that won't matter in a week. IN A WEEK SHE COULD BE DEAD.

My absolute favorite scene is when President Snow comes to visit Katniss at her winner's house and he pretends it's to congratulate her but it's really to intimidate her and she notices he smells like blood and roses. That is her first whiff of a rebellion that's raging out of control and that he holds her responsible for and oh shit, she's going to have to nut up or shut up in a huge, world-changing way.

...And then the rebellion kind of puts her up as a martyr without asking first, and it's sort of awkward and terrifying to her to see mockingjays flashed all over the place out of her control, and neither one of us (her as a character or me as a reader) ever gets even a quarter picture of the rebellion, which is annoying but I think will be address in Book 3 after the return of Gail and his announcement at the end of this Book 2. 

Side note: Still no annoying love triangle angst! Woo! But, again, I think that is going to get segued the hell into it in Book 3. Sigh. BUT I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS (to everything else).

From grey to red and back again

Book: Fifty Shades of Grey

Author: E.L. James

Published: 2011 (Fifty Shades, Ltd—I believe we have our first self-published contender)

Pages: 514

Surely there is a less clunky way to string together good sex scenes.

I think it involves a protagonist who has an actual life and personality, a Dominant who spends more time getting her into his Red Room of Pain (the one brilliant turn of phrase from our resident, you know, English major) than dwelling on the limits contract (sexy!), supporting characters who are there for more than just asking the protagonist about her new mysterious boyfriend, and way less manufactured drama.

Surely there was another reporter on the school paper who would be eager to go interview the famous guy so the editor wouldn’t have to send her inept English major roommate and holy hell, how does the English major and the school paper editor SHARE A LAPTOP? The sheer amount of typing, not to mention the research, dear fuck—

Okay. Sorry. Getting sidetracked. In my defense, the book does too, by having the girl agonize everything to death, no matter what the guy did or said. He was almost as bad, and seriously nobody does anything in here for any real reason, but it all gets to wear it’s going. Eventually. And then in the end SPOILER she walks out, also for no more reason than she’s had the whole time she’s tried this stuff and liked it.

The sex is good. Less…themed than I thought it was going to be, but whatever. It’s hot. I wish they didn’t talk, though. She actually does say “Argh” during sex as an indicator that she's enjoying herself. On separate occasions. Maybe they could adapt this novel (trilogy!) as a mime show.

Not all of them have a moral.

Book: Preacher: Gone to Texas

Writer: Garth Ennis

Artist: Steve Dillon

Published: 1996 (DC, fancy paperback edition)

Pages: 199

So now I know what a face without a jaw but otherwise unharmed looks like. Also, can a guy (different one) survive with the skin of his face peeled off? I want to say yes. All he’s missing is covering and some small nerve endings, right? And do all angels have Mohawk-shaped hair they leave flowing instead of spiked? Why do the scientist/peon angels have to wear sweatsuits? What exactly are the removable pointy metal bits used for on the priest’s shirt collar? And can the journalist please keep his fedora on? I mean, it’s ugly, but the one time he took it off it looked like something has been chewing on his hair.

 This pales, of course, next to the hard-drinking curse-spitting easy-going Irish vampire and his ingenious use of his regenerative abilities. I mention him first because he’s my favorite. There’s the preacher who’s lost his faith and then been possessed by the unholy union of archangel and she-demon; he’s looking for literal God, who has abandoned heaven. And Tulip, the preacher’s ex, who has abandoned her no-firearms rule but not her piss and vinegar about getting dumped and stranded five years ago.

Oh! And poor Arseface, the son of a Texas sheriff. He shot himself because Kirk Cobain did, but Arseface survived with a giant crater where his mouth/nose/eyebrows used to be and a fierce protective instinct for the father who scorned him. He doesn’t have much of a role…this time. We leave him yelling “From now on I will be Arseface!” to the sky in the best supervillain tradition, somewhere roughly ¾ of the way through the actual story.

I’m sorry this is scattered. It’s how my brain ran through this comic, and let me tell you, it was a hell of a good time. This is volume 1 in a decently long series, but it ended neatly and with an open wink: “There are a million stories in this naked city. Not all of them have a moral.”

Excuse me while I go paste that over my writing space now.  

A very Batman Christmas

Book: Batman Noël

Author and artist: Lee Bermejo

Published: 2011 (DC Comics)

Pages: I don’t know. This was really thin, a single edition one-off rather than a giant omnibus.

Batman as Scrooge? After spending twenty minutes to absorb this whole book, I’m still not convinced about that parallel. I understand Bruce Wayne is rich, and I totally understand that Batman gets crusty and cynical around Christmas (me too, big guy. Me, too.)—but at heart he’s a good guy. He wants to keep his employee working during Christmas because there are some badass clowns still on the fucking loose out here, no time for beer-can ornaments and moppets with giant wet eyes, they’ll understand when they’re still alive on December 26, come on let’s GO!

And how exactly was Bob working for Batman so Batman had enough authority over him to try to keep him working on ANY day? I thought Batman worked alone.

Anyway, get past the first few pages and you’ll shiver your way into a grim, snow-covered Gotham City that shows Batman how he has to change and start seeing all sides to people’s criminal behavior because sometimes it’s not actual criminal behavior and all that such. …But isn’t Batman also the original “morality is grey and that’s why I wear black” superhero? Doesn’t he know all this shit already? I think I’m writing myself out of any conviction I originally had in this storyline.

Well, it looks super cool, anyway. Grim realism was made for Batman and his scowl and trail of shadows and Catwoman’s absolutely liquid catsuit. And of all the eleventy billion and seven adaptations of A Christmas Carol, this is for sure my second favorite (first favorite obviously being A Muppet Christmas Carol).    

Written vs. spoken humor

Book: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

Author: Minday Kaling

Published: 2011 (Crown Archetype)

Pages: 222

This is a very gently funny book compared to what I thought it would be. I mean, it’s not like I watch The Office, but I hear things and most of it is snarky. Which I love, and which Kaling is not, at least not on the page.

She tries to be, in a way that instead underscores her earnestness and makes her look like she’s grasping for quirk in a fairly well-adjusted life. Some of her stuff is interesting and some of her stuff is funny, but it’s rarely both. The section on her first struggling years in New York City glossed over the exact things I wanted to know the most: how did she survive while not making money from comedy? I don’t know. She doesn’t say. Day job, yeah sure, but what? Office drone? Lap dancer? Kosher butcher? From what it sounds like, she and her girlfriend roommates just generated enough awesome to power through their rent until their one-act about being Ben Affleck and Matt Damon got into circulation.

I did enjoy reading about her childhood and her first job interviews in the TV industry. There was enough natural weirdness in those anecdotes that she didn’t have to dress them up, merely present them. Her observational humor was the exact opposite, a lot of form without substance.

I get the feeling that Kaling, the, you know, TV and stage writer and actor, is so used to the rhythms and extra padding (inflection, facial expressions, body gestures) of spoken humor that she forgot or didn’t realize that written humor needs a whole new set of scaffolding to make it work. 

Healing story no. 1 billion and seven

Book: Left Neglected

Author: Lisa Genova

Published: 2011(Gallery Books)

Pages: 322

There’s a certain kind of matte-finished book jacket painted with still life that’s supposed to be vaguely symbolic of the story within but mostly reminds you of when your mother dragged you to a bunch of interior design stores because she was redecorating her living room and wanted your input. It’s generic trying to disguise itself as profound. In my experiences, these book jackets do their advertising jobs well; the stories tend toward premises that look cool but are slathered with all the intellectual complexity and emotional subtly of a Hallmark Channel movie.

That is how a book about a workaholic recovering from a rare brain disorder becomes boring.

Left neglect is where a person ignores the left side of their world because a part of their right brain is damaged. Fascinating, right? And rare, and rich with weird physical and psychological challenges, right? Not according to this account of an overworked mom who prattles on about her busy by reciting from a big business trope list without bothering to add her personal details. When she gets into a car accident that literally slows her down to about a quarter of her normal speed, the author lapses into healing family clichés about staying slowed down for good.

I just…y’all, these books wear me out. They make me feel guilty for wanting a sick person to be much more interesting, then they make me question my guilt issues because I’m feeling guilty about a fictional character, then they make me reassert my true hatred for said character because everything works out in the end because she willed it to be so through family rifts and financial crises that in any other universe would require more than her wanting to fully heal. It’s not that this isn’t realistic (although it isn’t). It’s that the dramatic obstacles melt like cotton candy, without any effort, and leave just as saccharine an aftertaste. I HATE cotton candy.

Points for the subtle title pun, though. 

Katydids

Book: The Book of Human Insects

Author/artist: Osamu Tezuka

Published: 2011 (Vertical; this edition), 1970-1971 (Play Comic; original serial run)

Pages: 364

Trying to get a handle on what’s so good about a revolutionary is difficult when said revolutionary ushered in the movement that became the norm over the next forty years. Style taken for granted and even expected now blew people’s hair off when it first came out. But how does a style stay fresh through its process of mainstreaming?

Wait, I’m supposed to have an answer for that. Um. Sex and violence and blackmailing that all revolves around a pretty young girl who manipulates her way through most of the artistic talent spectrum while recharging at her childhood home next to a wax figure of her dead mother will always cause compulsive page-turning. Especially if there’s an insect metamorphosis structural metaphor that’s obvious but never explicated mentioned (I love you a little for that, Mr. Tezuka). Especially especially if the characters are all drawn so uniquely and the sound effects are either onomonopias or stage directions, depending on what makes the story clearer.

Yes! That is why Tezuka still reads completely unique. Uh huh.

I mean it could be that I’m still a noob in the comic world. But y’all, the point is I liked the story and I connected with the emotions and I kept turning the pages (taking a break when they discussed the Japanese steel industry and flinching twice when the young girl gets slapped by a man—once because she stole a life’s work’s honor from one and once because she wanted to get rid of another’s child, which—I understand the first instance a lot better even if my kneejerk reaction is “Gah let’s not hit women”) until I hit the lonely, lonely end.

And ultimately, that’s the best measure I have as your Constant Reader.  

Superheroes through one good eye

Book: Marvels

Writer: Kurt Busiek

Artist: Alex Ross

Published 2008 (as collection, Marvel)

Pages: Guys, comics don’t number their pages. Let’s just get over that now.

This is more dreamy watercolors from Alex Ross, this time depicting the rise of the Marvel universe in New York City with a focus (heh) on how it affects the citizen as seen through the photojournalistic lens of Phil Sheldon.

I use the word “dreamy” because Ross’s art is blurred just enough around the edges to give me a sort of warm fuzzy feeling when I’m looking at it even when he’s showing me a massive two-page spread of carnage wrecked by the superheroes who are supposed to be protecting the damn city, not tearing it apart. *shakes cane*

That’s what most of the conflict is about—whether or not the superheroes who emerge are actually good or just another agent of chaos (albeit well-meaning). Public opinion sways with how the big battles go; Phil himself leans more toward the thankful side with an “oh hell no!” streak about mutants, which surprised me considering how obsessed he becomes about documenting all the others so they’ll be better understood.

The writing is good in this one. Phil’s internal monologues sound like things people actually think to themselves, and he’s not overly perfect by any means. This might be a result of him being a normal guy instead of, like, Spiderman or someone, but I don’t really care because it makes for good outside observation on just exactly how these heroes are received. Good call making him a photojournalist too, because that way he can be everywhere the plot needs him to be without any unnatural torturing of his own storyline.

I never did get a full answer out of him, though. He just keeps questioning his and everybody else’s views about the superheroes until he retires, and then he puts it down like he puts down his camera. Maybe the resolution lies deeper in the Marvel canon.

A few influences I noticed in the art:

• I’m definitely not imagining the Nighthawks panel, where Ross paints a couple of his main characters into that famous café for dinner.
• I’m almost positive I’m not imagining Bea Author being painted as one of the guests who talks about how ugly the Thing is during a sculpture opening.
• I might be imagining the faces of Paul McCartney, Jimmi Page, and Keith Moon being in a couple of the medium-angle crowd scenes. I do like my classic rock. 

The story of a beastlet

Book: Marley and Me

Author: John Grogan

Published: 2005 (HarperCollins)

Pages: 289

Anytime an author writes about a pet, I go “Awwwwwwww…” without thinking, okay? And then I reach down to scratch my own furry bundle of neuroses behind her ears, maybe feed her a piece of sandwich because that’s really all she wants in life.

So I didn’t go into this book objectively at all. But I still wasn’t impressed.

It’s a good portrait of life with a dog. Grogan knows how to place the right amount of importance on ordinary things to make them important details in the story he’s telling. But it’s really obvious that he used wry jokes to gloss over some of the tougher details that might’ve made this less generic. He and his wife seem to lead a fairly (but far from completely) charmed life in which Marley the overzealous lab wrecked playful havoc, which sounds adorable on the page but probably was a pain in the ass to deal with in real life.

The biggest example that jumped out at me was their professional lives. They were both newspaper reporters in Florida, and he does wax nostalgic about it, but he never gave me any sort of picture of the office or work he loved so much except near the end when he confessed to using his work gathering column ideas as an excuse to wander around the state while getting paid.

That DOES sound like an awesome job. Tell me more about it, and tell me anything—anything at all!—about how you dealt with such a time-consuming bundle of puppy while both of you were working full time. I got none of that, except about how his wife Jenny would come home for lunch and play with the dog then, prompting me to wonder what their hours were. And there is one sentence—ONE—that talks about how Jenny struggled to balance raising two young children and a dog while downshifting her work to part-time and home-based.

I just spent more words on their careers than Grogan did.

Anyway, it was cute and read like the wind after my two weeks of struggling with cardiovascular biomechanics, but it wasn’t original. That’s a bit of a cardinal sin around here.  

Painted to save the day

Book: The World’s Greatest Super-Heroes

Text: Paul Dini

Art: Alex Ross

Publication: 2005 (DC Comics) in collection form

Pages: not numbered

The main thing I took away from this collection is probably the least significant aspect of it: Wonder Woman is hot.

But stay with me; my appreciation stems from the gorgeous artwork that Alex Ross hand-drew and painted for these stories, which originally appeared as separate comic tabloids that tell stories of famous superheroes’ human sides. The oversized paper and the entire omnibus collected in a hefty hardback that put a dent in my stomach sucked me right into their worlds. Everything looked fantastic and dynamic and photorealistic at the same time, idealized yet in a way that seems entirely possible to achieve.

And then I read the words. Blunt, heavy-handed, overly quippy and exposition-tastic. I didn’t like them. Is going from reading a novel to reading a comic just something like going from driving a car to riding a bike—both fine modes of transportation that have to be handled with different aspects of awareness to get to the same place? It kinds of feels that way to me.

In this specific collection, Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel all seem to be playing out personal PSAs by using their powers in very noble efforts they find doomed from the beginning but still worth pursuing. I got conflicted between thinking why don’t they just use their powers to help in ways they know will have more permanent, practical effects and wanting to give them hugs when they didn’t make as much differences as they wanted to.

I also liked the virus storyline of the Justice League American section, plus the character management that it juggled. Although two maybe-trivial questions: 1. Why is Hawkman’s wife called Hawk Girl? They seem pretty equal in all other aspects. 2. I don’t understand the Green Arrow’s concept. I mean I do—Robin Hood, basically. But why arrows?  

But Wonder Woman was pure awesome. I loved her conflict between knowing she could fix these warring countries and her shock at realizing how she came across as arrogant when she just wanted the best for humanity. And I loved how she actually learned how to deal with that, too, in a way that let her use her powers in ways that showed people her true good intentions.

All she wanted to do was save the world. And be a little taller than Superman. She kind of beasted him both ways in this collection.