I spent the morning and the first half of the afternoon reading George H.W. Bush by Timothy Naftali. His depth of research and his thoughtful style show why he is exactly the right director for the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, as it requires a careful attention to detail, truthful detail. He gets it.
In the latter half of the afternoon and well into this evening, I read Chester Alan Arthur by Zachary Karabell.
Karabell starts his examination of the life and sudden presidency of Chester Alan Arthur from the perspective of an author who seems like he still hasn't grasped his subject, like he's mulling over everything he's read just to be sure he's got it right, and we're witness to that uncertainty. It seems like that. But then, once that frustration wears off as to Karabell's method (and it disappears quickly), it becomes clear that Karabell is not only exactly the right person to write about Arthur, but he loves the subject and he loves the time period and all that was contained within. He gives context to every movement of Congress in that time, explaining clearly tariffs and the spoils system and patronage. His bio says that he taught at Harvard and Dartmouth. It feels like this book is hopefully what it feels like to attend one of his lectures.
I especially treasure the final paragraph in his epilogue, which is generally rare among presidential biographies:
"For those who want presidents to be heroes, and, failing that, villains, for those who expect them to be larger-than-life figures, Arthur's tenure in office isn't satisfying. The nature of our expectations would have to change dramatically for Arthur to be reevaluated as one of this country's best presidents. And yet, in spite of what Shakespeare wrote, some men are neither born great, nor achieve greatness, nor have it thrust upon them. Some people just do the best they can in a difficult situation, and sometimes that turns out just fine."
Friday, May 6, 2011
Bored Yesterday
I spent all day yesterday and well into the evening reading about President Benjamin Harrison. My intent with the American Presidents series from the Times Books arm of Henry Holt and Company is to not only pull out what little information there might be for what I need for my three books, but also to learn basic background information before I go in deeper through other books.
I've enjoyed most of the books, especially the Nixon book by journalist Elizabeth Drew, as that not only was a complete mind twister, but also made me sympathetic for those who lived through that time. There were depth charges unleashed upon this country all over its collective body by a president and his advisors who thought themselves to be king and court.
I couldn't stand yesterday's work by professor Charles W. Calhoun. Some professors can write great books because they not only know their subjects so well, but they can convey that context and enthusiasm with clarity and thoughtful writing. Most professors have spent so much time in academia that when they do write their books, they forget about the other people in the world that might read them who don't exist solely in a college or university setting. This was one of those books.
I'm not interested much in economics. I skim through the business section of The Wall Street Journal Weekend every Saturday. But I can get interested through good writing and this wasn't good writing. Calhoun's chapters are an accurate telling of how boring Congress can be, but Harrison deserves better than that. Calhoun goes through bill after bill and tracks it through Congress, the fights that went on, the vote count, and who won in the end. There are times when Harrison just disappears.
It took me all that time because I was so bored by it. I couldn't close it and move on because I might have missed something that I needed (Only in his postpresidential life and then it only related somewhat to what I want to write about). Today, I was going to start reading Chester Alan Arthur by Zachary Karabell, but it's about a decade behind Benjamin Harrison, and I need a break. My favorite time period is from FDR to Obama. So next for me is George H.W. Bush by Timothy Naftali, director of the Nixon Presidential Library. I want to see if his writing is as good as his management, as he has made some great improvements over the past few months.
I've enjoyed most of the books, especially the Nixon book by journalist Elizabeth Drew, as that not only was a complete mind twister, but also made me sympathetic for those who lived through that time. There were depth charges unleashed upon this country all over its collective body by a president and his advisors who thought themselves to be king and court.
I couldn't stand yesterday's work by professor Charles W. Calhoun. Some professors can write great books because they not only know their subjects so well, but they can convey that context and enthusiasm with clarity and thoughtful writing. Most professors have spent so much time in academia that when they do write their books, they forget about the other people in the world that might read them who don't exist solely in a college or university setting. This was one of those books.
I'm not interested much in economics. I skim through the business section of The Wall Street Journal Weekend every Saturday. But I can get interested through good writing and this wasn't good writing. Calhoun's chapters are an accurate telling of how boring Congress can be, but Harrison deserves better than that. Calhoun goes through bill after bill and tracks it through Congress, the fights that went on, the vote count, and who won in the end. There are times when Harrison just disappears.
It took me all that time because I was so bored by it. I couldn't close it and move on because I might have missed something that I needed (Only in his postpresidential life and then it only related somewhat to what I want to write about). Today, I was going to start reading Chester Alan Arthur by Zachary Karabell, but it's about a decade behind Benjamin Harrison, and I need a break. My favorite time period is from FDR to Obama. So next for me is George H.W. Bush by Timothy Naftali, director of the Nixon Presidential Library. I want to see if his writing is as good as his management, as he has made some great improvements over the past few months.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A White Guy's Cinco de Mayo
Taco Bell for dinner for us four, gotten by Dad and Meridith on the way home from work.
Cheesy double decker taco.
Mexican pizza. (For nostalgic reasons, since I had it sometimes when I was in school, though I'm aware it's obviously not the same.)
Part of a burrito that location offered for free in honor of Cinco de Mayo.
No tequila.
I'm good.
Cheesy double decker taco.
Mexican pizza. (For nostalgic reasons, since I had it sometimes when I was in school, though I'm aware it's obviously not the same.)
Part of a burrito that location offered for free in honor of Cinco de Mayo.
No tequila.
I'm good.
Gone with the Wind: 75 Years Old
NPR posted an article featuring Pat Conroy's preface for a new edition of Gone with the Wind, published to commemorate 75 years: http://www.npr.org/2011/05/04/135990428/pat-conroy-marks-75-years-of-gone-with-the-wind.
My exposure to Gone with the Wind was not as expansive as Conroy's, but it's been no less special to me. I was in 6th grade at Pompano Beach Middle in Pompano Beach, Florida, 1995-1996. I loved the library there because it felt cloistered from the rest of the school. It seemed to vociferously reject the thunder and noise of students' voices simply by the vast silence it contained. But most importantly, its shelves were always inviting. Whatever you found on the shelves would gladly invite you in. If you didn't like what you had, then that book's neighbors would always offer up what they had.
I remember most fondly a yellow-colored edition of Gone with the Wind that had the title in that famous font, and Tara shown below it. Years later, I looked for that edition, because I loved the heft of it, all that promise within its pages, promises that continue to be delivered flawlessly today. The epic scope, the drama, the traits of each character so vividly revealed, and the Civil War rendered so personal through Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. In 6th grade, I could have all this? School was always made better because of that kind of offering.
A few months ago, I went searching for that particular edition. I found it on abebooks.com, but a July 2007 trade paperback edition from Scribner attracted me more because it had a preface by Pat Conroy. I had just read extensively about Pat Conroy's early life with Gone with the Wind through his mother because it had been included in his book My Reading Life. And even though my fond memories lie with that edition from 6th grade, I much preferred an edition essentially blessed by Pat Conroy.
Now Scribner has the 75th anniversary edition out, and thankfully, that NPR article has Conroy's new preface, so I don't have to buy it again. I wouldn't want to. I want to make a new history with this edition. It has the heft, it has the promise. And it has me, at 27. That's how it should be.
My exposure to Gone with the Wind was not as expansive as Conroy's, but it's been no less special to me. I was in 6th grade at Pompano Beach Middle in Pompano Beach, Florida, 1995-1996. I loved the library there because it felt cloistered from the rest of the school. It seemed to vociferously reject the thunder and noise of students' voices simply by the vast silence it contained. But most importantly, its shelves were always inviting. Whatever you found on the shelves would gladly invite you in. If you didn't like what you had, then that book's neighbors would always offer up what they had.
I remember most fondly a yellow-colored edition of Gone with the Wind that had the title in that famous font, and Tara shown below it. Years later, I looked for that edition, because I loved the heft of it, all that promise within its pages, promises that continue to be delivered flawlessly today. The epic scope, the drama, the traits of each character so vividly revealed, and the Civil War rendered so personal through Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. In 6th grade, I could have all this? School was always made better because of that kind of offering.
A few months ago, I went searching for that particular edition. I found it on abebooks.com, but a July 2007 trade paperback edition from Scribner attracted me more because it had a preface by Pat Conroy. I had just read extensively about Pat Conroy's early life with Gone with the Wind through his mother because it had been included in his book My Reading Life. And even though my fond memories lie with that edition from 6th grade, I much preferred an edition essentially blessed by Pat Conroy.
Now Scribner has the 75th anniversary edition out, and thankfully, that NPR article has Conroy's new preface, so I don't have to buy it again. I wouldn't want to. I want to make a new history with this edition. It has the heft, it has the promise. And it has me, at 27. That's how it should be.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Hey, How 'Bout It?
Want a total, inescapable, completely twisted mind fuck?
Read about Richard Nixon's presidency. I just did, and I'm still recovering. All for research, but holy....shit. I knew the basics, the reasons he resigned, but wow. As is occasionally said somewhere in the world, "Who needs fiction?"
Read about Richard Nixon's presidency. I just did, and I'm still recovering. All for research, but holy....shit. I knew the basics, the reasons he resigned, but wow. As is occasionally said somewhere in the world, "Who needs fiction?"
Just One Goal
There are many things I love about being a former film critic and also a former member of the Online Film Critics Society. For one, I don't spend hours on one movie anymore because I used to watch a movie and then write a review, and that took a while, too.
I don't have to be so plugged into the awards season which is pretty much just the same shit every year. The same hype, the same "serious" themes, the same feeling like I have to watch every single film that's sent to OFCS members lest I feel so out of the loop. It took me three years before I began to question what use this had for me. It doesn't. I enjoyed the occasional camaraderie in that group, but I wasted a lot of time towards the end of the year, time I could have used for myself, time that I am using now as my own writer. However, I'm still waiting for an award-winning film about a one-eyed, one-legged hooker who reads to children and also helps her pimp learn to read. It'd be like Stanley & Iris, but with a lot more sex scenes.
That's not to diminish the pride I felt for the independent films I reviewed. I loved a lot of them. I was quoted on the DVD cases of a few of them. When I started reviewing movies, I wanted to be Ebert. Who wouldn't in that line of writing? But I realized two things: First, I would never be Ebert. There is only one Ebert. After the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times left in 1967, he was there at the right time. But most importantly, he loves movies. I think I was only obsessed with movies. I didn't have that awe-inspiring love he has for them.
Second, there are many film critics who are quote whores. They'll give a fawning review to anything to be in Hollywood's good graces, to get that swag and those interviews, and to feel that they're in the rarefied circle, even for only a few minutes. I never operated like that. When I was quoted on those DVD cases, I was happy that those were films I truly loved and supported, that I hoped would be seen by a lot of people. Funnily enough, the first DVD case I was on was for a documentary called Cinemania, about obsessive movie buffs, moreso than I was at that time in 2003.
When you're young, make sure you get as close as you can to what you want to do. I didn't entirely know at the time, and it's possible you won't either. I was toying with the notion of working in commercial aviation, and that became the hope of working at McCarran International in Las Vegas, on the ramp, next to, and possibly inside, those planes. This was when I was also writing movie reviews. That and aviation were the two major things in my life. And without those movie reviews, I would never have gotten the opportunity to co-write What If They Lived?, because Phil Hall and I wrote for Film Threat (separate reviews and features, but we were there at the same time. He's still there), and we served on the Governing Committee of the Online Film Critics Society at the same time. All those years I spent writing movie reviews from 14 years old on were never a waste, because they led to that book. And it's because of that book that I realized what I want to do: I want to continue being an author. At last count, I have ideas for six books, three of which I'm doing research for right now, and two novels. All I truly seek now is a decent job to pay the bills (and I know I'll enjoy that job, too, as a campus supervisor, because I've got the experience), because I'm doing what I want now and what I love. Every day I get to read about the lives and administrations of these presidents while searching for the information I need for those three books. And it's going to take some time before I'm even ready to write any of those books, because my research has to be solid. I've found now that I love reading a lot more than watching movies, and that's really as it should be, since I started reading when I was 2, and I was 7 when I had an inkling that I might really like movies, when I copied by hand onto a sheet of posterboard a review of Bebe's Kids from the Orlando Sentinel, when we lived in Casselberry. For me, this is as it should be.
Compared to 12 years ago, up until I decided I was done with writing movie reviews when I finished writing What If They Lived?, my movie-viewing goals have become much simpler. I only have one. I want to see every single movie that Maury Chaykin has been in. I've liked him ever since I saw him in Entrapment smoking that long, thin pipe, completely unselfconscious in being bare chested, letting it all hang out. I saw a few episodes of Nero Wolfe, and plan to watch those again along with the rest I haven't seen (It also inspires me to try that series of novels again), but I want to see everything else, every guest-starring role, every supporting role, every major role.
After that, I don't know. I'll probably go back to seeing every opera I can on DVD that has English subtitles.
I don't have to be so plugged into the awards season which is pretty much just the same shit every year. The same hype, the same "serious" themes, the same feeling like I have to watch every single film that's sent to OFCS members lest I feel so out of the loop. It took me three years before I began to question what use this had for me. It doesn't. I enjoyed the occasional camaraderie in that group, but I wasted a lot of time towards the end of the year, time I could have used for myself, time that I am using now as my own writer. However, I'm still waiting for an award-winning film about a one-eyed, one-legged hooker who reads to children and also helps her pimp learn to read. It'd be like Stanley & Iris, but with a lot more sex scenes.
That's not to diminish the pride I felt for the independent films I reviewed. I loved a lot of them. I was quoted on the DVD cases of a few of them. When I started reviewing movies, I wanted to be Ebert. Who wouldn't in that line of writing? But I realized two things: First, I would never be Ebert. There is only one Ebert. After the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times left in 1967, he was there at the right time. But most importantly, he loves movies. I think I was only obsessed with movies. I didn't have that awe-inspiring love he has for them.
Second, there are many film critics who are quote whores. They'll give a fawning review to anything to be in Hollywood's good graces, to get that swag and those interviews, and to feel that they're in the rarefied circle, even for only a few minutes. I never operated like that. When I was quoted on those DVD cases, I was happy that those were films I truly loved and supported, that I hoped would be seen by a lot of people. Funnily enough, the first DVD case I was on was for a documentary called Cinemania, about obsessive movie buffs, moreso than I was at that time in 2003.
When you're young, make sure you get as close as you can to what you want to do. I didn't entirely know at the time, and it's possible you won't either. I was toying with the notion of working in commercial aviation, and that became the hope of working at McCarran International in Las Vegas, on the ramp, next to, and possibly inside, those planes. This was when I was also writing movie reviews. That and aviation were the two major things in my life. And without those movie reviews, I would never have gotten the opportunity to co-write What If They Lived?, because Phil Hall and I wrote for Film Threat (separate reviews and features, but we were there at the same time. He's still there), and we served on the Governing Committee of the Online Film Critics Society at the same time. All those years I spent writing movie reviews from 14 years old on were never a waste, because they led to that book. And it's because of that book that I realized what I want to do: I want to continue being an author. At last count, I have ideas for six books, three of which I'm doing research for right now, and two novels. All I truly seek now is a decent job to pay the bills (and I know I'll enjoy that job, too, as a campus supervisor, because I've got the experience), because I'm doing what I want now and what I love. Every day I get to read about the lives and administrations of these presidents while searching for the information I need for those three books. And it's going to take some time before I'm even ready to write any of those books, because my research has to be solid. I've found now that I love reading a lot more than watching movies, and that's really as it should be, since I started reading when I was 2, and I was 7 when I had an inkling that I might really like movies, when I copied by hand onto a sheet of posterboard a review of Bebe's Kids from the Orlando Sentinel, when we lived in Casselberry. For me, this is as it should be.
Compared to 12 years ago, up until I decided I was done with writing movie reviews when I finished writing What If They Lived?, my movie-viewing goals have become much simpler. I only have one. I want to see every single movie that Maury Chaykin has been in. I've liked him ever since I saw him in Entrapment smoking that long, thin pipe, completely unselfconscious in being bare chested, letting it all hang out. I saw a few episodes of Nero Wolfe, and plan to watch those again along with the rest I haven't seen (It also inspires me to try that series of novels again), but I want to see everything else, every guest-starring role, every supporting role, every major role.
After that, I don't know. I'll probably go back to seeing every opera I can on DVD that has English subtitles.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
These Movies are Mine.
Two weeks ago, for the second time, I Netflixed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the one with Martin Freeman, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel (Who's very nice to look at throughout the whole thing), and Alan Rickman as the voice of the clinically depressed robot, Marvin.
I'm not a Douglas Adams purist. In fact, I've only ever read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though I suspect I should read perhaps all of his works one day. I became hooked on the movie because of the absurdist comedy, particularly when the improbability drive is activated on the stolen ship, and the characters are all yarn figures, with Freeman's Arthur Dent vomiting multi-colored threads into a trash can. I love that before he does, after Marvin announces that the "Earth man" is going to be sick, Zaphod exclaims, "Hey, hey, do it in the trash can, Earth man, this ship's brand new."
But most of all, I always go back to this movie because of the scenes toward the end, when Slartibartfast (the truly unique Bill Nighy), who works for a firm that designs planets, takes Arthur to the site of Earth II, and we see a workman spray-painting some rock formations red, and another holding a large hose, filling the oceans. It's also the scenery that stuns me, being so high up in those man-made heavens, all that construction equipment about, and just whooshing through an experience that, had this movie been more popular, I think those special effects sequences would have become as important as the stargate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
A gross of $51 million dollars throughout its run doesn't make The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a major hit. It doesn't matter to me, because if I come to love a movie, that's enough for me. But that relatively minor gross, coupled with some of the gripes I read online about the comparison between the book and the movie, makes me embrace this movie even more. It's mine. I know there may be other fans of it, but it belongs to me.
I have the same feeling with Swing Vote, starring Kevin Costner, and My Blueberry Nights, starring Norah Jones. I love Swing Vote because of my passion for presidential history, and it's interesting to see Kelsey Grammer as the President of the United States. There's an especially affecting scene where Grammer's President Andrew Boone and Kevin Costner's Bud are sitting on lounge chairs, across from Air Force One on the tarmac, and Boone talks quietly about legacy, how he'll eventually leave office, build a library, and Bud will fade back into the crowd. It leads to a moment in the midst of all the craziness of attempting to get Bud's vote (since he's the one whose vote will decide who is the next President of the United States, with Dennis Hopper as the Democratic candidate Donald Greenleaf), in which Boone talks about his uncertainty about all of this with his advisor Marty (Stanley Tucci, continuing to make each role truly different). With that, and Madeline Carroll as Bud's daughter, who votes in his place when a drunk Bud can't make it to the bingo hall to vote, it's no wonder I kept checking the Wal-Mart site for two weeks, waiting for the wonderful news that my copy was ready to be picked up at that Wal-Mart that overlooks Six Flags Magic Mountain, since it wasn't sold in the stores. Every time I watch this, it feels like it's mine. I'm always enamored with the screenplay, impressed at how Kevin Costner still remains one of our most formidable actors, and I love imagining this fictionalized version of our country under a Boone Administration.
My Blueberry Nights reaches into my world. It's low-key, and even though it doesn't get into the Las Vegas pushed by tourism bureaus and newspaper articles and TV ads, that is Las Vegas. The Strip feels like that at times, despite all the lights and the shows and the blackjack tables and the slot machines. Jones and Natalie Portman go nowhere near it, but it does feel that ordinary. It's just another day in Las Vegas. And that's the Las Vegas I love.
My favorite shot, however, involves none of the actors, not those two, nor David Strathairn or Rachel Weisz or Jude Law. Well, not Jude Law in a moment of dialogue, but rather when he sprays the glass case where the pie is kept, and co-writer/director Wong Kar-wai has the camera positioned behind a pane of that glass so it looks blurry, and then it becomes clear again as Law wipes the glass.
What movies do you feel belong to you only?
I'm not a Douglas Adams purist. In fact, I've only ever read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though I suspect I should read perhaps all of his works one day. I became hooked on the movie because of the absurdist comedy, particularly when the improbability drive is activated on the stolen ship, and the characters are all yarn figures, with Freeman's Arthur Dent vomiting multi-colored threads into a trash can. I love that before he does, after Marvin announces that the "Earth man" is going to be sick, Zaphod exclaims, "Hey, hey, do it in the trash can, Earth man, this ship's brand new."
But most of all, I always go back to this movie because of the scenes toward the end, when Slartibartfast (the truly unique Bill Nighy), who works for a firm that designs planets, takes Arthur to the site of Earth II, and we see a workman spray-painting some rock formations red, and another holding a large hose, filling the oceans. It's also the scenery that stuns me, being so high up in those man-made heavens, all that construction equipment about, and just whooshing through an experience that, had this movie been more popular, I think those special effects sequences would have become as important as the stargate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
A gross of $51 million dollars throughout its run doesn't make The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a major hit. It doesn't matter to me, because if I come to love a movie, that's enough for me. But that relatively minor gross, coupled with some of the gripes I read online about the comparison between the book and the movie, makes me embrace this movie even more. It's mine. I know there may be other fans of it, but it belongs to me.
I have the same feeling with Swing Vote, starring Kevin Costner, and My Blueberry Nights, starring Norah Jones. I love Swing Vote because of my passion for presidential history, and it's interesting to see Kelsey Grammer as the President of the United States. There's an especially affecting scene where Grammer's President Andrew Boone and Kevin Costner's Bud are sitting on lounge chairs, across from Air Force One on the tarmac, and Boone talks quietly about legacy, how he'll eventually leave office, build a library, and Bud will fade back into the crowd. It leads to a moment in the midst of all the craziness of attempting to get Bud's vote (since he's the one whose vote will decide who is the next President of the United States, with Dennis Hopper as the Democratic candidate Donald Greenleaf), in which Boone talks about his uncertainty about all of this with his advisor Marty (Stanley Tucci, continuing to make each role truly different). With that, and Madeline Carroll as Bud's daughter, who votes in his place when a drunk Bud can't make it to the bingo hall to vote, it's no wonder I kept checking the Wal-Mart site for two weeks, waiting for the wonderful news that my copy was ready to be picked up at that Wal-Mart that overlooks Six Flags Magic Mountain, since it wasn't sold in the stores. Every time I watch this, it feels like it's mine. I'm always enamored with the screenplay, impressed at how Kevin Costner still remains one of our most formidable actors, and I love imagining this fictionalized version of our country under a Boone Administration.
My Blueberry Nights reaches into my world. It's low-key, and even though it doesn't get into the Las Vegas pushed by tourism bureaus and newspaper articles and TV ads, that is Las Vegas. The Strip feels like that at times, despite all the lights and the shows and the blackjack tables and the slot machines. Jones and Natalie Portman go nowhere near it, but it does feel that ordinary. It's just another day in Las Vegas. And that's the Las Vegas I love.
My favorite shot, however, involves none of the actors, not those two, nor David Strathairn or Rachel Weisz or Jude Law. Well, not Jude Law in a moment of dialogue, but rather when he sprays the glass case where the pie is kept, and co-writer/director Wong Kar-wai has the camera positioned behind a pane of that glass so it looks blurry, and then it becomes clear again as Law wipes the glass.
What movies do you feel belong to you only?
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