Nerd Do Well

Nerd Do Well
by
Simon Pegg
read by
Simon Pegg

I don't much go in for autobiographies. Well except for anything by Frank McCourt. Or "Bossypants" by Tina Fey. Or the Bill Clinton book. Okay, so maybe I do go in for autobiographies, but they're a small proportion of what I read or listen to. Okay, I admit that I liked the Hillary Clinton book, too, the one where she reads it. I guess Sarah Vowell's books are as much autobiographical as they are historical. Okay, maybe I am a fan of memoirs, at least by savvy sophisticated authors; I liked John Stewart's book too.
I've been a long-time fan of Simon Pegg, so even if I wasn't a fan of this form, there is a good chance that I would have checked it out, especially knowing that he was reading his own book. I heard interviews with Pegg on NPR when this book first came out and expected I was going to mostly hear about first breaking into television and how much he hated the new Star Wars movies, and probably a couple of silly jokes along the way. Well, I did get all of that, but in less depth than I was expecting, but the trade-off was that he told a lot more about himself than just those brief moments. In actuality, this book was much like Fey's "Bossypants", both in scope and in voice. From the outset, Pegg makes it clear he's not going too deep into his personal life, nor is his goal to talk ill about anyone else he's met along his path. He remained true to his word. There are two notable differences from the format that Fey took,though, one brilliant, one not so much. The first and brilliant difference is the story of Simon Pegg superspy and his android "man" servant in their efforts to save the world from annihilation. Very funny. If this was a movie - a James Bondesque spoof type film, I would so be all over watching it - especially if Pegg wrote and starred in it. The other, not-so-brilliant difference, is that Pegg doesn't share any of the non-positive times of his life. I don't know what kind of hardships the man has gone through, one could hope that they were few and far between, but other than mentioning that it took him a while to get how the whole stand-up comedy thing worked, we get nothing. From a writer as talented as Pegg, I expect that he could make any incident either touching or funny (or both). It would have been nice to hear a little more on the years it took him to break into the business. What was he doing while he was waiting for his various breaks? He mentions being lucky to get some or most of his opportunities, and luck implies that what he was doing wouldn't have gotten him the success he now enjoys without some type of intervention. I think the success would be more appreciated by us fans if we understood better how it was deserved. Now, I'm not saying that I want to hear how the man was down-and-out, addicted to smack, ready to kill a junky for his next fix - I have no reason to believe he lead that kind of life at all, I just want to know how he dealt with rejection of scripts or how it took him years on the comedy circuit to get noticed, that kind of thing.
I guess the short-comings of the book really set me up to get his next book where he promises to fill us in on what we missed out on in this book. When, that comes, I will eagerly await the audiobook, hopefully read by Pegg and to hear the further adventures of Pegg and his android "man" servant.

The Partly Cloud Patriot

The Partly Cloud Patriot
by
Sarah Vowell
read by
Sarah Vowell

As with all of Sarah Vowell's books, this history book is more memoir than history lesson. With the help of some of her friends doing voices of famous historical figures (Conan O'Brien as Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Colbert as Al Gore, Norman Lear as her friend Kevin, etc), Vowell visits existing presidential libraries to try and figure out what Clinton should do about his library - this book was published right after Bush took office).
Vowell goes on to recount Gore visiting a school before the Presidential election in '00 and starting out in San Francisco selling antique maps. Both are important in showing how she became the person she is, revelling in her nerdiness.
I do have one point of contention with Miss Vowell. She claims to be 5'4" tall, but I ran into her, almost literally, at Wordstock in Portland a couple of years ago and what struck me, other than "Oh my god! I almost crushed Sarah Vowell!", was how short she was. I am 6'2" and have and have had lots of friends who are right around 5' tall, I feel like I can safely say that Vowell is much shorter than her claimed height.
There are wonderful musical interludes throughout the story. Most are purely instrumental, while some have vocals. All are by the band They Might Be Giants. The "It Could Be Worse" song written by They Might Be Giants is brilliant. It's based on a part of the book, where Vowell explains how she makes herself feel better in times of woe.
The partly cloudy partriot that the book is named after, Vowell reveals to be herself. She explains essentially that she's a patriot, and not a Patriot. The former love their country, even when things aren't how they like it, maybe even especially when things aren't how they like it. But the latter case - Patriots with a capital P - are the kind of demagogues that make her embarassed to be an American; the kind of people who say things like, "Love it or leave it!" and proclaim that anyone who doesn't think exactly like them is not a patriot. Vowell totally rocks this. She is talking about Liberals and Conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, specifically the election and Supreme Court case that but George W. Bush in the Whitehouse, but her argument extends the other way, to the people on the left, and she is clear that she means them too.
I always love hearing a book read by the author. It is so much more real, somehow. Vowell doesn't have a beautiful voice, but she does have a sincere one. I've heard her enough times - on This American Life, in The Incredibles and three other audiobooks, that I couldn't imagine listening to one of her works without her reading it to me.

Oscar (1991)

This is the story of "Snaps" Provolone (Sylvester Stallone) - a gangster who makes a promise to his father as he lies on his deathbed to go straight and bring honor back to the family name. Fast forward a month later and the majority of the movie is taking place on one very eventful morning.
This film was adapted from the play of the same name. You can tell right from the beginning by the way that director John Landis has decided to have his actors behave in exaggerated manners. And if there was any doubt, when Tim Curry comes on stage, er, screen, you know that it is an adaptation.
The comedy of this movie stops short of slapstick, which had it gone that route would have been funnier than what we had which was confusion of several black bags that keep being mistaken for each other, as well as the identity of a young woman who was pretending to be Provolone's daughter. Actually, as I think about it, this plot is rather reminiscent of something that Oscar Wilde might try to pull off, and I wonder if that's the joke - the play and this movie are both an homage to Oscar Wilde. Well, I'll go so far as to say that this movie was as entertaining as any of the productions of Wilde's plays that I've seen. Is that a qualified compliment? That is for you to figure out, and I'm guessing you know the answer to that.
I thought Stallone was going to be the weak link in this film, but he did a good job. Everyone did a good job. It's unfortunate that doing a good job meant being so annoying in the case of Marissa Tomei's portrayal of Lisa Provolone. The character was totally written to be annoying, so I can't really blame her for pulling it off.
What would have made this movie better is if it had Joe Piscopo in it...I know that there is some movie that came out around the same time with Piscopo as a mobster from the same era. It wasn't a very good movie, but perhaps the two together would work?

The Dukes of Hazzard (2005)

Just some good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm. Man, I don't know if I would go so far as to say that I loved this show as a kid, but I certainly watched often enough. I'm not old enough to have caught it when it originally aired, but I did see it in syndication. For a while it was on at either five or six pm every afternoon. What did I watch it for? Well, Catherine Bach as Daisy Duke didn't hurt matters, but I honestly wasn't that attracted to her. She seemed old and unhappy. I guess I would be too if I were the only woman on a set full of men, and I always had to look sexy while they were just fat and/or old and/or creepy. Was it the storylines? Wait, there were storylines? Plural? Every episode followed the same formula. 1: Duke boys have some fun. 2: Duke boys get hassled by the man 3: someone uncovers another plot by Boss Hogg 4: Uncle Jesse figures out a way for the boys to use the General Lee and Daisy to use her feminine wiles to thwart Boss Hogg and the police 5: big car chase with at least one amazing jump by the General Lee and at least one police car getting totalled.
Now, towards the end of the series they began to play fast and loose with just how many Duke boys there were, how many friendly deputies there were and just how much of a caricature of their own characters Hogg and Coltrane could be, but that as much proves the rule as anything.
Don't get me wrong - no one twisted my art to watch the show. This was the early and mid eighties, where I was watching the A-Team, Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica. All three shows were just as formulaic and ridiculous as the Dukes of Hazzard. I guess I can count these as guilty pleasures of my youth. Now, I can wish that I had spent that time reading or writing, but I didn't know any better then. I hope that I know better now. I probably don't.
Now, I watch CSI and NCIS and Criminal Minds. Um yeah. Oh wait! I watch a lot of BBC too, like Midsomer Murders...crap it's formulaic and predictable too. All these shows are. Damn it! Not only have I not leanred anything, I can't stop using exclamation points!
I probably shouldn't have watched this movie based upon the above. Just like I shouldn't have watched the A-Team movie, but I actually kind of liked that - it did have Liam Neeson. And this had Willie Nelson, which seemed like a good idea, but what the hell did they do to Uncle Jesse? Making moonshine and being a badassed war vet, I get that, but most of his lines were dumb jokes. I don't understand. Everybody else in the movie did an adequate job. This movie was as much a spoof of the series as it was an homage to it, and Jessica Simpson worked those Daisy Dukes in a way that Catherine Bach never did, not to mention that Hazzard county Georgia seems to be full of hillbilly guys and smokin' hot babes (to borrow from the movie).
I got exactly what I expected. That's obviously not surprising, but it's not necessarily bad, either.

White Dragon (2004)

This movie is a spoof of itself. A martial arts farce that plays at being a martial arts tour de force. Ultimately it is what many movies are - a love story with some laughs and some tears along the way.
Phoenix is a school girl concerned mostly with her looks who has a plan to meet Prince Tin-yang. Her plan works and she gains an invitation to come play her flute for him at the palace. But, before she can go, the infamous killer, Chicken Feathers murders the school principal and Phoenix's aged aunt reveals herself to be White Dragon and fights Chicken Feathers. She looses the battle and almost dies. Fearing that she will die and Chicken Feathers will never be caught, she passes her powers to Phoenix. And when she passes her power, it's just like a video game complete with sound effects and proper music, plus a life bar across the bottom of the screen to show Phoenix charging up.

The Whole Wide World (2003)

This could have been a brilliant bio-pic. Vincent D'Onofrio as the enigmatic Robert E. Howard and Renee Zellwegger as the school teacher Novalyne Price who befriends him, are well enough cast. But, I felt like I was watching a Hallmark movie of the week. That is not a good thing.
The first time Novalyne goes to Robert's house, there is a continuity snafu. From there it was all downhill. Novalyne goes into the house in early afternoon, stays for a few minutes before Robert offers to driver her around so they can talk. But, when they go back outside and its full dark. Also, in one scene Robert has five o'clock shadow and then the next the same evening, he is clean shaven.
D'Onofrio delivers most of his lines yelling or louder. That was a bit annoying. I have no idea about Howard's life story, but I hope he was more complex than portrayed in this movie.
Oddly, Zellwegger didn't get on my nerves so much, but only because D'Onofrio is annoying enough for both of them.
If you can avoid it, don't watch this movie.

The Thirteenth Tale

The Thirteenth Tale
by
Diane Setterfield

A young woman, Margaret Lea, the daughter of a bookshop owner, receives an interesting letter from a famous British writer, Vida Winter. The young woman is an amateur biographer, as she describes herself, "...a dilletante, a talented amateur". The writer is a famous recluse, but also recognized as Britain's greatest living author.
The two work out a deal for Lea to listen to Winter's tale and write it into a biography. The deal that Lea demands is that she be told the truth. Winter's deal is that she tell the story her way and not answer questions.
The story starts out with Winter recalling first her grandparent's life, then her parent's life as well as he rather wild and eccentric younger years with her twin sister. It is a story of mental illness as viewed by outsiders, and manipulation and sadism when viewed by insiders.
Lea takes a few days off to try and verify Winter's story. Lea travels first home and then to Winter's childhood home which had been badly burned and is waiting to be torn down so that a hotel could be built. Lea meets one fo the neighbors, whom she at first thinks is a ghost or another monster. He turns out to be an older man who runs his own catering business. The two strike up a new friendship over tea taken outside.
Eventually Winter reveals what she is going to of her story, but it is Lea's insights and discoveries that bring out the truth. Lea is able to unwind all of the mysteries before Winter succumbs to her illness. Based upon the discoveries she has made, Lea decides not to publish the biography she has written, but instead releases to the world the last story that Winter wrote - the so-called missing 13th tale, which Lea knows to be a version of Winter's own early childhood.
-----
What a splendid book. Or at least I think it is, I did not realize until the voice at the very end gave the credits that this was an abridged version. I try very hard to only listen to unabridged - and when I saw the entry for this item in the library's catalog, I assumed that the other library's would be as my own, where the thoughtful librarian only gets the unabridged audio versions. Alas, there may not be an unabridged version, but the story was still good, if not shorter.
Recently I have been reading a lot of fantasy and science fiction, and those are still my genres of choice. But, I have been feeling a bit boxed in - that this fantasy was too similar to that one, that this sci-fi was low on the sci and heavy on the melodrama. I decided to take a break from my genre pieces and so asked for recommendations. This book was the first of those, though I do have one fantasy book left to get through - book five of a five-part series (the last Percy Jackson book) - but I wanted to get started.
And what a start this book was. Writing a book about writer being interviewed by a biographer could have been all wonky or self-referential, but instead turned out to be a nice mystery to be solved by the biographer even as she saw the reflections of her own struggles and used what she saw as a catharsis to turn her life from one that she is not completely in control of into one which follows a path she is setting.
The nice thing about mysteries appearing in a non-genre piece is that they do not have to follow the genres rules. There were no cops, no private detectives, no one actively trying to solve a mystery, for only when the old woman reveals her story is there a mystery revealed. And the protagonist isn't trying to solve a mystery, even though she does, she is just trying to get as close as she can to the truth for her biography.
This book quite reminded me of "The Prestige" by Christopher Priest, not only by twins playing key roles, but by twins who had lost their sibling and felt their spirit. That seems quite an odd thing to be picked up by two novelists, both British, incidentally. Maybe there is some cultural phenomenon that I am not picking up on? Both books also have just a touch of the super-natural, but it's not in your face, it's the kind of thing that may be dismissed as the narrator's whimsey, and depending upon my mood will be taken either of the ways intended.