books

The Friday Five | May 15, 2020

This is a collection of things that I’ve been enjoying, doing, or thinking about through the week. Since it’s been a little while since my last gratitude post, I thought this would be an opportune time to share some things that I am thankful for right now.

Please note that some obvious things (family, food, shelter, etc.) aren’t going to be on the list below. It’s not that I’m not grateful for them, it’s that there wouldn’t be room for anything else if that’s all I focused on. So let’s just take those as a given, okay?

FATAL FLAWS. This might seem like an odd one to start off with and probably deserves its own post at some point. Before the pandemic, we’d been in the process of discussing how our business needed to change and/or adapt for the near and far futures. Along the way, we identified some flaws in our business model along with one potentially fatal flaw (to scalability and expansion that is). Now, as we’re hurtling towards week nine of lockdown, it turns out that the fatal flaw has been our saving grace. Just a reminder to approach things from multiple angles.
TOM ROBBINS. Being caught shorthanded with fresh books to read was an example of a problem I’ve been trying to look at from a different angle. The positive being that I dove back into the work of Tom Robbins over the last couple weeks and was reminded how much I love his writing. It’s also been a flashback since I remember clearly the time in my life when each one was read and in some cases, the location. That’s not to say fresh books aren’t on the way, but it’s been a fun spin down Memory Lane.
BLATANT FOOLISHNESS. Another positive of not having many places to go is that I’ve been able to spend every Sunday night recording a fresh episode of the Free Range Idiocy podcast with my friend Tim. We have no aspirations of fame and fortune (which is good being one out of a billion podcasts in the universe), but it’s an excellent opportunity to spend a couple hours laughing our way into the new week.
NEW MUSIC. Throughout my life, I’ve spent a lot of time looking backwards with music instead of looking at what’s coming next. From my elementary school years spent listening to The Beach Boys up until now when I’m more likely to be pulling an old Verve jazz record out of my collection instead of prowling the new release section of iTunes or Spotify. However, the last couple weeks have given me some good excuses to look at the present and even the future, so here’s a couple of recommendations… The new Lettuce album Resonate is absolutely outstanding … Ditto with new Fiona Apple album Fetch the Bolt Cutters (but you probably already knew that one) … And here’s one to look forward to – Maceo Parker has a new album coming out in June, but hit us all up with a new version of his song “Cross The Track” as an appetizer.
PASSION PROJECTS. I suppose the podcast would count in this category, but here I’m specifically talking about the poetry project I’ve been working on. Same as with the podcast, I have no illusions about this book taking the world by storm, becoming a bestseller, or catapulting me to a level of recognition that results in me being taught in a class some day … but … it is fun and it is something to do. Sometimes, that’s enough.

If you’ve enjoyed any of this, I’m glad. Feel like sticking around for a bit? Check out some of my more recent posts below.

Risk Management

I’ve been pondering this section of Another Roadside Attraction enough to commit the page number to memory for reference. Considering I don’t memorize numbers easily (or for fun), that means… something… right?

“You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked? Have you ever risked disapproval? Have you ever risked economic security? Have you ever risked a belief? I see nothing particularly courageous in risking one’s life. So you lose it, you go to your hero’s heaven and everything is milk and honey ’til the end of time. Right? You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences. That’s not courage. Real courage is risking something you have to keep on living with, real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking one’s clichés.”
Amanda speaking to an FBI agent in Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins, page 251

Comfort Reading

As I’ve said in some recent post which I can’t be bothered to go looking for at the moment, this pandemic-stay-at-home thing has caught me woefully unprepared in terms of my to-read pile. Where I’ve normally had four or five books waiting for me, I was almost empty-handed when COVID came a-knockin’.

That being said, I’ve finished up the last book that was in the pile and decided to go backwards. Journeying back to the source you might say. Which yes, is a bit of clumsy foreshadowing.

The Friday Five | April 10, 2020

Here’s a collection of some of the things from this week that I’ve enjoyed, been inspired by, want to share, or are grateful for.

The Off Camera channel is well worth your subscription

Trying to fail. I think there’s room in life to not take something lightly while also not taking it seriously. Willem Dafoe’s idea of trying to fail – trying to make a bad painting or act poorly in a scene – is a way of gaining perspective. It’s a form of play – goofy, glorious, unpretentious play. We all take ourselves way too seriously from time to time and to me, this is a great remedy for that. At the very least, it’ll make life interesting for a moment.
Hanging out with an old friend. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve intentionally made time to practice saxophone, but I made a point to start back on it this week. My chops are about as weak as I remember them being, but the joy of playing came back pretty quickly. Alto sax was my first musical instrument, starting back in third or fourth grade, so it’s been like reconnecting with part of my past too.
Westworld. It’s pretty rare when you’re in the third season of a TV show and it’s still surprising you on a moment by moment basis, but this one is doing the trick. If you’ve never seen it, I’d suggest getting on the train for this one. Even though I like having some space in between episodes, this is pretty damn bingeworthy as well. (Not to be too self-promotional, but we’re recapping Season 3 of Westworld over at Free Range Idiocy and you can check out the first one here)
Wrestlemania 36 Boneyard Match: The Undertaker vs. AJ Styles. Now, I didn’t want y’all thinking I was getting too sophisticated or anything, so this seemed like a good one to toss in. In case you don’t know, WWE has been holding matches in an empty arena because of social distancing, which also put a big crimp in their plans for Wrestlemania, which was supposed to be held in Tampa’s 70,000+ seat Raymond James Stadium. Instead, they went cinematic with a couple matches, and this was one of them. It’s not a standard match or high art, but it was a lot of fun.
The Education Of A Coach by David Halberstam. A really good profile of Patriots head coach Bill Belechick, but also of his father Steve, who was a legendary coach and scout in his own right. Reading it today in post-Brady New England, it actually lends some perspective into where the team might be going and what motivates a person who has already made a damn good case for greatest NFL coach ever.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this. If you’re new around these parts, here’s some of my most recent posts to check out.

Breaking Up With A Book

I quit on a book this weekend and picked up another one.

That might not seem like a lot on a cosmic scale, but it’s kind of a big deal for me. After all, I’m the person who has had several books in the last couple years where I’ve held off judgement until the last chapter hoping for redemption and also damn near hate-read a book just because it was by an author I like. It’s safe to say that I have a lot of patience with books, probably to my detriment.

But on Friday, I finally took some advice I read awhile ago and dropped my current book and picked up another one. The result? I’m tearing through the new book like a man possessed.

Five For Friday

Trying something a little different and we’ll see if it sticks. Here are five things from this past week that I enjoyed or am grateful for. Hope you find something in here that you enjoy as well!

The Tim Ferriss Show #409 with guest Brene Brown – Striving versus Self-Acceptance, Saving Marriages, and More
Rediscovered my love for Flogging Molly and in particular their album Within A Mile Of Home while blowing off some steam in between projects.
I’m an absolute sucker for a good Larry Bird trash talk story.
Finishing up a book that’s been around about as long as my love of poetry, Hotel Insomnia by Charles Simic.
Released another episode of Free Range Idiocy where I got to talk to Tim about the movies we’re looking forward to this year and which ones we’re not. As always, a good time was had by all.

Character Study

If I’m remembering correctly, I first spotted Shopgirl while spending one glorious holiday season working at Barnes & Noble. I mean, my brain could totally be making that up just because I was surrounded by books, girls, and a shop for several hours a day, but that doesn’t sound nearly as catchy for a opening sentence does it?

So, I first spotted Shopgirl while spending one glorious holiday season at Barnes & Noble. It was a little odd because I didn’t think of Steve Martin as a writer, so I made a note to myself that it would make an interesting read at some point. Which is why I immediately went out and spent the next 20 some odd years avoiding the book.

My 2019 Reading List

It’s strange how you can love something and yet completely neglect it. After spending most of my formative years playing music, I dropped it completely for some time before picking it back up. I’m not sure why I did it, although the excuses more than likely revolved around a lack of time, lack of space, and not having a reason to practice. All completely wrong, of course.

Same with reading, which is why I began setting a yearly reading goal a few years ago. It’s not so much about the number of books as it is a way to keep me motivated and aware of reading as always being an option. I could sit on my phone… or I could read. I could pop in this movie I’ve watched 100 times… or I could read.

So here’s a list of what I read in 2019. Maybe you’ll find something interesting or see an old friend.

STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST by Austin Kleon (non-fiction – creativity)
BEASTIE BOYS BOOK by Michael Diamond & Adam Horovitz (non-fiction – music)
STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER by Tom Robbins (fiction) **
ART & FEAR: OBSERVATIONS ON THE PERILS (AND REWARDS) OF ARTMAKING by David Bayles & Ted Orland (nonfiction – art)
GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD by Michael Chabon (fiction)
LUKA AND THE FIRE OF LIFE by Salman Rushdie (fiction)
FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury (sci-fi)
ON WRITING by Stephen King (non-fiction – biography – writing) **
THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner (fiction) *
B IS FOR BEER by Tom Robbins (fiction)
ANANSI BOYS by Neil Gaiman (fiction)
EE CUMMINGS: A LIFE by Susan Cheever (biography)
THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE by Neil Gaiman (fiction)
GET SHORTY by Elmore Leonard (fiction)
WHEN THE WOMEN COME OUT TO DANCE by Elmore Leonard (short stories – fiction)
DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON by Ernest Hemingway (non-fiction)
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway (fiction)
TIETAM BROWN by Mick Foley (fiction)
SHAME by Salman Rushie (fiction)
THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH by Michael Chabon (fiction)
WONDER BOYS by Michael Chabon (fiction)
NO WALLS AND THE RECURRING DREAM by Ani DiFranco (autobiography)
COLLECTED POEMS by ee cummings (poetry)
ADJUSTMENT DAY by Chuck Palahniuk (fiction)
THE PARTLY CLOUDY PATRIOT by Sarah Vowell (non-fiction / essay)
THE FOUR HOUR WORK WEEK by Tim Ferriss (non-fiction / self-improvement)
THE ALCHEMIST by Paolo Coelho (fiction)
A SLIP OF THE KEYBOARD by Terry Pratchett (non-fiction / essay)
GOOD OMENS by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (fiction)
THE AUTOGRAPH MAN by Zadie Smith (fiction)
AMERICAN GODS by Neil Gaiman (fiction)
ALL YOU NEED IS KILL by Hiroshi Sakurazaka (fiction / manga)
MANHOOD FOR AMATEURS by Michael Chabon (non-fiction / essay)

* = partial read ** = re-read

Is There Something On My Face?

After my post about All You Need Is Kill the other day, it only seemed appropriate last night to give Edge Of Tomorrow another watch for a little compare and contrast action to see if my preference for the movie over the book would hold up.

Overall, it did. To me, a movie is the superior way to tell this story. The repetition of the same sequence comes across better and does the job more quickly than it can be done in print – there’s less heavy lifting to convey the point. As a bonus, it also allows for some moments of humor that don’t come across in the book as well for me – Cage getting taken out by the truck on the battlefield and then on the base before correcting his timing. Let’s the pressure off just enough while also communicating the repetitive nature of his situation.

More than that, the change in the main character comes across much better visually than in the book. The accumulation of all those reps through the day begin to hang on Cage like an extra layer of grime and the look in his eyes changes from the salesman at the beginning of the flick to the hardened veteran by the end. Maybe other people got that from the book, but it works better for me visually.

Then there’s all the things that were changed from book to movie… which is just about everything. I like the idea of Cage being the marketing guy who is brought low rather than just another recruit – it makes the journey that much more significant. Having the story focus on a single battle that has higher stakes works much better for me. Giving the Mimics an intelligence beyond that of a an engineered virus and adding the idea of the Omega worked better for me as well because it gave the story some kind of closure – a single goal as opposed to “we just gotta kill em all everywhere”.

Oddly enough, some of the negatives from the movie were also present in the book. The explanation of the Mimics on Earth was never that well explained, but then again, I didn’t feel it was really that good in the book either. Bill Paxton’s SergeantFarell always seemed one-dimensional to me and I wished there’d been more of him, but reading the book and seeing a failed attempt at fleshing that character out made me realize that it makes sense for him to be exactly who he is in the movie. The ending of the movie felt a little too cute sometimes, but the book’s ending was so lackluster that I really enjoyed the ending of the movie.

So, to sum up, if you thought the movie was okay… maybe try reading the book. It’ll make you appreciate the movie some more.

All You Need Is A Good Movie Adaptation

It’s rare that I enjoy a movie more than the book. After all, taking all the details of a well-written novel and compressing them into about ninety minutes is a nearly impossible task. And that’s before taking into account the mechanisms that work really well in print which don’t translate at all into motion pictures. Throw in that the special effects inside your head are always a bit more vivid than the screen and it’s a recipe for disaster.

As with anything in life, there are always exceptions. And I ran into one this past weekend.

I was in search of coffee and something to pass the time with while waiting for my daughter’s ballet performance Friday afternoon. On a whim, I picked up Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s book All You Need Is Kill, which is the source for the Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt movie Edge of Tomorrow. Over the next two days, I devoured the book and realized about two thirds of the way through that there was no way, barring a last-minute save by the author, that I was going to like the book better than the movie.

Thinking it over, I think it’s similar to why I prefer John McTiernan’s version of The Hunt For Red October more than Tom Clancy’s book. The movie leaves out a bunch of stuff that might be interesting to the hardcore audience but that, if not outright boring, would be not as interesting to the general public. An author certainly has to worry about losing his audience, but I tend to think that readers are more patient by nature than a watcher. That’s not to say superior, it just has to do with the initial buy in. Someone going to a movie is setting aside a couple hours to be entertained and then can get on with their life. Someone picking up a novel is making a much longer commitment. Every minute on screen is precious whereas pages come a little cheaper.

There’s also the matter of inner monologue and dodgy dialogue between characters. The thoughts of a character can be incredibly valuable and inform the reader about who that person is… or they can show just how thin the character really is. Same with dialogue between characters that makes a reader roll their eyes. It happens in both mediums, but I think readers will forgive a bit more just because of the investment.

Overall, I thought the book was good and the concept was really good, but it just works better as a movie. Some of the ways that they showed the main character’s progress throughout the day was illustrated so much better on the screen than the page. Also, there was a clarity to the goal that felt lacking in the book – even when the main character succeeds, I wasn’t totally sure why. The movie had a resolution to it whereas the book says “and then we kept going”.

Maybe it has to do with seeing the movie first. Reading the book, I couldn’t help hear the sergeant speaking in Bill Paxton’s deep Kentucky accent because the book never fleshed out the character enough to make me think any differently. It also doesn’t hurt that I think Tom Cruise was perfect for the role – he pulls off the smarmy jerk that you still want to root for really well.

Which is sort of what I want from this kind of story anyways. Give me a couple interesting characters, some decent spectacle, and hang it all on an interesting premise. It’s not the book’s fault that it should’ve been a movie the whole time I guess.