I see that The Sessions is being nominated for some awards from minor groups. I hope this movie is nominated for many more awards, including the Oscars and, yes, even the Golden Globes. I’ll take Golden Globe nominations, because the more nominations this film gets, the longer it will be in theaters and the more publicity it will get. This is good - not just because it’s an excellent film but because I want people to see it.
I want people, many people, to see The Sessions, because it is one of the very few mainstream, non-documentary feature films that gets it about disability. Not since 30 years ago, when I saw Coming Home, which literally made me see that I could be sexual, have I been so turned on and encouraged by a mainstream movie dealing with living with a severe disability.
This film is breathtaking - literally - and not just because it puts living with a severe disability in your face. It is about Mark O’Brien (John Hawke, wonderful), a poet and journalist living in Berkeley in the 1970's who, having polio, spends much of his time in an iron lung and gets around by being pushed on a gurney and who wants to lose his virginity and, with the blessing of a cool, only-in-Berkeley Catholic priest (William Macy, better than ever with long hair), hires a sex therapist/surrogate (Helen Hunt, absolutely luminous) to help him do so. The film is based on an essay that O’Brien wrote about the experience.
If this sounds challenging, like “yikes!,” that because it is. From the time we see O’Brien being washed by an attendant that he doesn’t like, this is a hard film to watch. It just gets more real, painfully and brutally so, such as when the surrogate undresses O’Brien, prone and rigid, for the first time. As I said and as with Hunt’s full frontal nudity, this is in-your-face stuff. Definitely not like the all-too-glib, feel-good French film, Intouchables, that was all the rage earlier this year.
But this isn’t your standard sad, dreary, tragic-crip story. Yes, this is a man who can’t even use a wheelchair and has to suck on an oxygen tube, but he is brimming with life, love, wonder, curiosity and a sense of humor and adventure, if not mischief. (After all, hiring a woman so that he can fuck, not to mention consulting with a Catholic priest about it, is pretty gutsy and outrageous, while also remarkably naive and innocent.) Sure, that O’Brien is rejected when he makes romantic passes to his female attendants is morose, but it is frankly the way things are (believe me, I know).
At the same time, the movie, which was written and directed by a guy who has polio if I’m not mistaken, does a reasonable job at not making O’Brien too much of a brave, inspiring hero-crip. Although, as I said, what he does is pretty gutsy, and I guess it’s hard not to be inspired by him and his story - heck, I am (can you tell?)! There is some melodrama - there is a power outage one night, shutting down his iron lung, and he can’t call anyone on the phone (Why didn’t he have an overnight attendant? Did he not have enough funding for one? Mmm....perhaps the movie can be even more real....) - but it is again frankly the way things are.
Since seeing this film a month ago, I have also been even more aware of how I get around and how people see me in the world. For example, I whine about feeling trapped when it rains, but what about always being on a gurney? (The film opens with archival footage of O’Brien getting about on a motorized gurney, but, as explained in a voice-over, the motorized gurney was taken away because, even with a bunch of mirrors, he had no idea where he was going and caused “terrible accidents.”) And I both really see and am okay with sticking out when I zip around town in my chair with an attached computer that speaks and plays music even as I am more comfortable tilting back my chair and letting my body dangle when I’m out at talks and concerts.
There are several other things I love about this movie. I love it that it’s set in Berkeley, a city that I’ll always have a very soft spot for, even as I no longer want to live there or can take being there for more than a couple days. I love it that O’Brien has a very strong and pure Catholic faith and that he talks to Jesus and Mary and has a cool little icon sticker on the front of his iron lung. And I love it that his cat, that scampers in through an open window and brushes past O’Brien’s face at the beginning of the movie, is just like my cat Irie and that in the film’s last image, after O’Brien has died, the cat is perched on top of the iron lung, waiting.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Friday, November 23, 2012
Something black
“Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is kicking off its Black Friday deals earlier than ever, as more stores open their doors for holiday deals even before shoppers have polished off their turkey dinners.”
From the same Los Angeles Times article earlier this month regarding Wal-Mart stores opening at 8 p.m on Thanksgiving with the guarantee that items, purchased at sale price, will be shipped to customers if supplies run out: “Last year, a woman in Porter Ranch pepper sprayed fellow customers, and a 2008 stampede in Long Island killed one worker... ‘If they get the word out that if a store runs out, people shouldn’t panic and they can still get the deal, that will help with the crowds,’ said Ron Friedman, a retail expert at accounting and advisory firm Marcum in Los Angeles. ‘That is a smart move to prevent what happened...which really gave Wal-Mart a black eye.’”
Then there was this from a Times story earlier this week about how “picking a smart strategy - and the right Black Friday hours - is crucial” for small, independent stores as “goliath retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Toys R Us Inc. and Target Corp. advertise deals that launch as early as 8 p.m on Thanksgiving”: “Anton at Body Basics has dreamed up a ‘flash sale’ plan for Black Friday involving back-to-back 10-minute discounts on select items. Sales associates will walk through the store toting cardboard signs stating, for example, that between 1 and 1:10 a.m, Hello Kitty pajamas are 30% off... Once the 10 minutes are over, clerks will start another quicky sale on, say, cotton T-shirts or slippers. ‘It’s to get people excited about shopping,’ Anton said.“
In the paper yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, there was this in a front-page article about the Los Angeles Police Department preparing for Black Friday crowds, noting that Chief Charlie Beck says, “We are not in the optimism business”: “The LAPD has talked to other retailers about creating ‘time-specific entry passes’ that would stagger the number of shoppers who are inside the store at any given time. In a flier the department is handing out to store managers, officials note that ‘this process has been very successful at many of the major theme parks...’ The LAPD has also suggested that retailers avoid stacking sales items on pallets ‘to mitigate crowd aggression.’”
‘Nuff said, as my friend Chris would say. Except that I’ve also read in the last couple weeks that there’s a protest, as in a strike and boycott, afoot against Black Friday so that both store workers and shoppers can enjoy a holiday on Thanksgiving at least. How about stores being closed on Friday, in addition to Thanksgiving, to prepare for “Black Saturday” (not to mention “Black Sabbath”)?
From the same Los Angeles Times article earlier this month regarding Wal-Mart stores opening at 8 p.m on Thanksgiving with the guarantee that items, purchased at sale price, will be shipped to customers if supplies run out: “Last year, a woman in Porter Ranch pepper sprayed fellow customers, and a 2008 stampede in Long Island killed one worker... ‘If they get the word out that if a store runs out, people shouldn’t panic and they can still get the deal, that will help with the crowds,’ said Ron Friedman, a retail expert at accounting and advisory firm Marcum in Los Angeles. ‘That is a smart move to prevent what happened...which really gave Wal-Mart a black eye.’”
Then there was this from a Times story earlier this week about how “picking a smart strategy - and the right Black Friday hours - is crucial” for small, independent stores as “goliath retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Toys R Us Inc. and Target Corp. advertise deals that launch as early as 8 p.m on Thanksgiving”: “Anton at Body Basics has dreamed up a ‘flash sale’ plan for Black Friday involving back-to-back 10-minute discounts on select items. Sales associates will walk through the store toting cardboard signs stating, for example, that between 1 and 1:10 a.m, Hello Kitty pajamas are 30% off... Once the 10 minutes are over, clerks will start another quicky sale on, say, cotton T-shirts or slippers. ‘It’s to get people excited about shopping,’ Anton said.“
In the paper yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, there was this in a front-page article about the Los Angeles Police Department preparing for Black Friday crowds, noting that Chief Charlie Beck says, “We are not in the optimism business”: “The LAPD has talked to other retailers about creating ‘time-specific entry passes’ that would stagger the number of shoppers who are inside the store at any given time. In a flier the department is handing out to store managers, officials note that ‘this process has been very successful at many of the major theme parks...’ The LAPD has also suggested that retailers avoid stacking sales items on pallets ‘to mitigate crowd aggression.’”
‘Nuff said, as my friend Chris would say. Except that I’ve also read in the last couple weeks that there’s a protest, as in a strike and boycott, afoot against Black Friday so that both store workers and shoppers can enjoy a holiday on Thanksgiving at least. How about stores being closed on Friday, in addition to Thanksgiving, to prepare for “Black Saturday” (not to mention “Black Sabbath”)?
Friday, November 9, 2012
Conversational equity
Last week, I got the chance to visit with a friend I get to see one or two times a year. It was particularly sweet that we were able to get together two times during the week. Sure, we e-mail a lot - thank God for e-mail! - but there’s nothing like face-to-face conversation.
I have been thinking about how one of the things I enjoyed about these visits is that they were a true interaction. I savored, deeply savored, that my friend and I both shared. I got a lot out of being able to talk about dealing with recent wheelchair problems and about being anxious about the upcoming holidays, and I also got a lot of out hearing my friend talk about needing more time alone and an aging family member’s diminishing abilities causing concern.
I know that this sounds like nothing and even idiotic (after all, converse and share thoughts is what people do), and I can’t say why I noticed it so much this time, but, to me, it’s a big deal. And one that I crave and love.
Too many times, because of my disability and need for assistance, I get the feeling when I talk to people that the focus is on me, that it’s all about me. One reason I say this is that whenever I approach people who don’t know me or who are not easy with my speech, before I can use my speech device, they ask me what is it that I need - if they don’t walk away, not wanting to be asked by me for help.
When I just want to ask how they are doing, if they liked the movie, if they want to talk about their dying aunt.
I know that I stick out, but I don’t want it to be because I need help or always ask for help. I know I am unusual - and I even enjoy being unusual - but, still, I long to be just one of the guys. The visits last weekend, for some happy reason that I don’t know, were a precious reminder that I’m making progress toward this goal.
I have been thinking about how one of the things I enjoyed about these visits is that they were a true interaction. I savored, deeply savored, that my friend and I both shared. I got a lot out of being able to talk about dealing with recent wheelchair problems and about being anxious about the upcoming holidays, and I also got a lot of out hearing my friend talk about needing more time alone and an aging family member’s diminishing abilities causing concern.
I know that this sounds like nothing and even idiotic (after all, converse and share thoughts is what people do), and I can’t say why I noticed it so much this time, but, to me, it’s a big deal. And one that I crave and love.
Too many times, because of my disability and need for assistance, I get the feeling when I talk to people that the focus is on me, that it’s all about me. One reason I say this is that whenever I approach people who don’t know me or who are not easy with my speech, before I can use my speech device, they ask me what is it that I need - if they don’t walk away, not wanting to be asked by me for help.
When I just want to ask how they are doing, if they liked the movie, if they want to talk about their dying aunt.
I know that I stick out, but I don’t want it to be because I need help or always ask for help. I know I am unusual - and I even enjoy being unusual - but, still, I long to be just one of the guys. The visits last weekend, for some happy reason that I don’t know, were a precious reminder that I’m making progress toward this goal.
Monday, November 5, 2012
The theater of politics
Yes, like everyone else, I can’t wait for this election to be over. Even though I am not at all sure I will like the outcome, and even though the election may not be over when the votes are counted.
And I too wish the campaigning had much more substance. I yearn for the debating to focus more on issues and less on personality and ideological pot-shots. Like everyone, I am disheartened by all the billions spent, by all the ugly sound bites, by all the half-truths and words taken out of contest.
But I have a confession to make. As sick as this messy, brutal campaigning makes me, I am fascinated by it! Sure, it’s like not being able to take one’s eyes off an accident, but, as a lover of the theater, I love watching the drama. As I recently told a friend, I like drama up on a stage - not in my life (although, yes, the result of an election may well cause drama in my life). I eat it up.
What’s more, like all good dramatists, like all good theater lovers and artists, not to mention good writers, I am fascinated by human behavior. And isn’t politics all about human behavior? Politics, after all, is people getting power, how they get power.
I often hear people say that they are bored by politics. How can they be bored by the way people use words and facts and, yes, twist words and facts to get power? It may well be ugly and even obscene and sickening, but it is definitely never boring.
I also, as I realized recently, read many articles in the newspaper not for the news content, which I more often than not already know, but to see what people say about it. I am fascinated by what people say and think and all the more so when they don’t say and think what I say and think. I am interested in what makes them tick. I know too many people who aren’t interested in this, who don’t want to even know what “the other side” are saying and thinking - which is exactly why things, including elections, are in such an gridlocked, polarized mess these days.
One more thing: If Romney wins, I’ll move to London or, far more likely, just keep being weird - and weirder.
And I too wish the campaigning had much more substance. I yearn for the debating to focus more on issues and less on personality and ideological pot-shots. Like everyone, I am disheartened by all the billions spent, by all the ugly sound bites, by all the half-truths and words taken out of contest.
But I have a confession to make. As sick as this messy, brutal campaigning makes me, I am fascinated by it! Sure, it’s like not being able to take one’s eyes off an accident, but, as a lover of the theater, I love watching the drama. As I recently told a friend, I like drama up on a stage - not in my life (although, yes, the result of an election may well cause drama in my life). I eat it up.
What’s more, like all good dramatists, like all good theater lovers and artists, not to mention good writers, I am fascinated by human behavior. And isn’t politics all about human behavior? Politics, after all, is people getting power, how they get power.
I often hear people say that they are bored by politics. How can they be bored by the way people use words and facts and, yes, twist words and facts to get power? It may well be ugly and even obscene and sickening, but it is definitely never boring.
I also, as I realized recently, read many articles in the newspaper not for the news content, which I more often than not already know, but to see what people say about it. I am fascinated by what people say and think and all the more so when they don’t say and think what I say and think. I am interested in what makes them tick. I know too many people who aren’t interested in this, who don’t want to even know what “the other side” are saying and thinking - which is exactly why things, including elections, are in such an gridlocked, polarized mess these days.
One more thing: If Romney wins, I’ll move to London or, far more likely, just keep being weird - and weirder.
Friday, October 26, 2012
A super sad true chair story
A few weeks ago, I wrote here about reading Super Sad True Love Story, a novel by Gary Shteyngart. Well, I have a super sad true wheelchair story!
It is about my new power wheelchair - yes, the one that I got in June and have written about here, the really cool one (a Quantum Edge 6) that is so agile and has an awesome tilting seat, the one that I ended up waiting nearly eight months for after a prescription was botched and nearly six months after my old wheelchair broke down. So this story is partly sad even before it begins.
The super sad true wheelchair story starts on a Sunday morning in late August, when I went out the door at the end of meeting for worship. I heard a man say my name. I looked back and saw that in his hand was a wheel from my chair. I looked down and saw that the rear left wheel had fallen off. This was most surreal and definitely ended worship, at least for me!
I got a ride home, and, the next day, called the wheelchair place and pushed to have the wheel fixed in the next few days. I was leaving on a trip on Thursday, and, after all, I had just had the chair for two months. The wheel shouldn’t be falling off - ever, and especially not after two months.
The wheel was fixed in time for the trip, and all went well while I was away, but on the day after I returned, it was apparent that the wheel was coming off again. I called the wheelchair place, and a technician came out a day or two later and declared the chair “unsafe to drive.” (Really?) When I called the wheelchair place to find out the next step, I was told that the wheel was bent, that it was something I did and that, since this wasn’t under warranty, a request would have to be sent to Medi-Cal - a process that we all know can take months.
A few days later, feeling quite low, I called the saleswoman, who had raved about how great the chair was outdoors, and told her what was going on. A few hours later, literally, I received an e-mail from the wheelchair place saying the wheel is under warranty. Mmmmm.... Someone’s face got saved.
Then, over the next few weeks, it turned out that the wheel was on “back order” - there were no wheels? really? MAKE ONE! - until early November. But, two weeks ago, a wheel was “found” - actually a wheel from the demo. Again, someone’s face got saved.
A few days later, a technician - a very nice, super polite man (not your usual mechanic - I’m just saying...) - came and replaced the wheel. The next morning, for the first time in a month and a half, I got into the chair and left to go to a memorial service for Karl Benjamin, the famous artist who taught at Pomona College here. I was 20 feet from the house and in the middle of the street, and the left motor began cutting out. My attendant was out at the time, and, by turning the chair off and on several times, I managed to get back to the house. I didn’t get to the memorial.
I immediately sent an e-mail on that Saturday and then called the wheelchair place on the next Monday, when it was again implied that I had bent the wheel and was lucky to be getting a new one under warranty. The same nice technician came and discovered that the motor has a short - nothing to do with how the wheel was attached, like I wondered. I immediately felt a sense or relief, that I wasn’t crazy, that it really wasn’t my problem. This was last week, and the technician, who seemed genuinely ashamed, couldn’t say when the new motor would come in. I will call again on Monday.
Too bad there isn’t a lemon law for wheelchairs! I asked.
I have left out some twists and turns here, including being told by a disabled friend last month that these six-wheel chairs really aren’t good for rough outdoor use, but you get the drift. I have also been trying to get a mount so that my Vmax speech device with fit onto the other power wheelchair I’ve been able to use (and may well need to use more than I had in mind in the future), but that’s a whole other sad, dreary story - right in time for Halloween!
It is about my new power wheelchair - yes, the one that I got in June and have written about here, the really cool one (a Quantum Edge 6) that is so agile and has an awesome tilting seat, the one that I ended up waiting nearly eight months for after a prescription was botched and nearly six months after my old wheelchair broke down. So this story is partly sad even before it begins.
The super sad true wheelchair story starts on a Sunday morning in late August, when I went out the door at the end of meeting for worship. I heard a man say my name. I looked back and saw that in his hand was a wheel from my chair. I looked down and saw that the rear left wheel had fallen off. This was most surreal and definitely ended worship, at least for me!
I got a ride home, and, the next day, called the wheelchair place and pushed to have the wheel fixed in the next few days. I was leaving on a trip on Thursday, and, after all, I had just had the chair for two months. The wheel shouldn’t be falling off - ever, and especially not after two months.
The wheel was fixed in time for the trip, and all went well while I was away, but on the day after I returned, it was apparent that the wheel was coming off again. I called the wheelchair place, and a technician came out a day or two later and declared the chair “unsafe to drive.” (Really?) When I called the wheelchair place to find out the next step, I was told that the wheel was bent, that it was something I did and that, since this wasn’t under warranty, a request would have to be sent to Medi-Cal - a process that we all know can take months.
A few days later, feeling quite low, I called the saleswoman, who had raved about how great the chair was outdoors, and told her what was going on. A few hours later, literally, I received an e-mail from the wheelchair place saying the wheel is under warranty. Mmmmm.... Someone’s face got saved.
Then, over the next few weeks, it turned out that the wheel was on “back order” - there were no wheels? really? MAKE ONE! - until early November. But, two weeks ago, a wheel was “found” - actually a wheel from the demo. Again, someone’s face got saved.
A few days later, a technician - a very nice, super polite man (not your usual mechanic - I’m just saying...) - came and replaced the wheel. The next morning, for the first time in a month and a half, I got into the chair and left to go to a memorial service for Karl Benjamin, the famous artist who taught at Pomona College here. I was 20 feet from the house and in the middle of the street, and the left motor began cutting out. My attendant was out at the time, and, by turning the chair off and on several times, I managed to get back to the house. I didn’t get to the memorial.
I immediately sent an e-mail on that Saturday and then called the wheelchair place on the next Monday, when it was again implied that I had bent the wheel and was lucky to be getting a new one under warranty. The same nice technician came and discovered that the motor has a short - nothing to do with how the wheel was attached, like I wondered. I immediately felt a sense or relief, that I wasn’t crazy, that it really wasn’t my problem. This was last week, and the technician, who seemed genuinely ashamed, couldn’t say when the new motor would come in. I will call again on Monday.
Too bad there isn’t a lemon law for wheelchairs! I asked.
I have left out some twists and turns here, including being told by a disabled friend last month that these six-wheel chairs really aren’t good for rough outdoor use, but you get the drift. I have also been trying to get a mount so that my Vmax speech device with fit onto the other power wheelchair I’ve been able to use (and may well need to use more than I had in mind in the future), but that’s a whole other sad, dreary story - right in time for Halloween!
Friday, October 19, 2012
True but strange
A few days ago, I read in the Los Angeles Times that some people calling the L.A County Registrar of Voters had been getting a recorded message saying that the deadline for registering to vote in ext month’s election has passed, even though the deadline is October 22, this coming Monday. It turns out that the phone system can handle 24 callers at a time and that the overflow callers had been getting the post-October 22 message. This message was reportedly removed the previous afternoon.
The Times said it is unclear how many people had gotten the wrong message, and who knows how many of these people read this small article inside the second section of the paper - why wasn’t it above the fold on the paper’s front page? - or got the news somewhere else. At least one can reasonably assume that this was just a technological snafu and not another attempt at voter suppression. (I got my permanent absentee ballot last week, but it seemed awfully late, and I had called a few days earlier and was assured it was on the way.)
This may well have been just a freaky error, but it is hard not to think that it fall in line with other strange goings-on. Unfortunately, such doings as those below are nothing new and, unlike with the phone message mistake, stem from an extreme ideology or belief. (I thought I had one or two other example but seem to have misplaced them. Perhaps readers can suggest others - the more specific and detailed the better.)
*The mayor of Costa Mesa in Southern California, according to a report in the L.A Times a few weeks ago, requested an investigation of some of the city’s most prominent and long-running charities in an effort to get the homeless out of town. Mayor Eric Bever targeted two organizations, Share Our Selves and Someone Cares Soup Kitchen, comparing them to nightclubs that have become neighborhood nuisances and said the that it would go a long way to solving the problem of homeless people coming to Costa Mesa “if we managed to put the soup kitchen out of business.” The mayor will be termed out of office next month, and the director of Share Our Selves, in addition to noting that the mayor has never visited the center and that “(h)is message is old,” said, “Thank God he is going out the door.”
*According to the L.A Times last week, Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun, running unopposed for re-election next month, said late last month that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang Theory are “lies straight from the pit of Hell.” He also stated that the earth is 9,000. What’s even weirder and more disturbing, if not anything new, is that this man not only is a physician, he also sits on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. So this is our government’s idea of science. Yikes!
The Times said it is unclear how many people had gotten the wrong message, and who knows how many of these people read this small article inside the second section of the paper - why wasn’t it above the fold on the paper’s front page? - or got the news somewhere else. At least one can reasonably assume that this was just a technological snafu and not another attempt at voter suppression. (I got my permanent absentee ballot last week, but it seemed awfully late, and I had called a few days earlier and was assured it was on the way.)
This may well have been just a freaky error, but it is hard not to think that it fall in line with other strange goings-on. Unfortunately, such doings as those below are nothing new and, unlike with the phone message mistake, stem from an extreme ideology or belief. (I thought I had one or two other example but seem to have misplaced them. Perhaps readers can suggest others - the more specific and detailed the better.)
*The mayor of Costa Mesa in Southern California, according to a report in the L.A Times a few weeks ago, requested an investigation of some of the city’s most prominent and long-running charities in an effort to get the homeless out of town. Mayor Eric Bever targeted two organizations, Share Our Selves and Someone Cares Soup Kitchen, comparing them to nightclubs that have become neighborhood nuisances and said the that it would go a long way to solving the problem of homeless people coming to Costa Mesa “if we managed to put the soup kitchen out of business.” The mayor will be termed out of office next month, and the director of Share Our Selves, in addition to noting that the mayor has never visited the center and that “(h)is message is old,” said, “Thank God he is going out the door.”
*According to the L.A Times last week, Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun, running unopposed for re-election next month, said late last month that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang Theory are “lies straight from the pit of Hell.” He also stated that the earth is 9,000. What’s even weirder and more disturbing, if not anything new, is that this man not only is a physician, he also sits on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. So this is our government’s idea of science. Yikes!
Friday, October 5, 2012
Book marks
I don’t think of myself as one of those people with a stack of books on my night stand waiting for me to read. But the fact is that I buy two or three books at a time, usually at a bookstore, have them spiral-bound (so I don’t have to hold them open if they’re paperbacks) and then read them one at a time. I am definitely not of those people who read more than one book at a time. So I guess the books are waiting for me to read, but they aren’t waiting in vain.
I’ve recently begun to read Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, and I can tell you it’s a loopy hoot. Told through diary entries, e-mails and instant messages (so far), it seems to be a love story between a mis-matched young man and a younger woman, set in a not-too-distant future in which America is a shabby, militarized state and, among other things, everyone knows each other’s credit rating and communicates with and reads each other through devices, sometimes even when they are with each other in person. The novel is quirky and definitely different, outrageously funny even as it’s depressing, if not tragic - not unlike its over-the-top, half-joking title.
The really weird thing is that a lot of the books I’ve been reading lately have been quirky and definitely different, hilarious and off-the-wall, sort of sci-fi but not sci-fi (Mark Haskell Smith’s Baked, Christopher Moore’s Bite Me, etc.). I’m not complaining - I laugh out loud reading these books - and it’s nothing new (Alice in Wonderland, A Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Universe, etc.), but, after a while, it does feel like the weird and wacky, if not always hilarious, is the new normal.
Then there’s John Irving, who can be quite weird and wacky and funny but is squarely grounded in everyday reality, down to the kitchen sink, being today’s Dickens. I did enjoy reading his reading his recent novel, Last Night in Twisted River, finding it a good, meaty read, but I have to say that he is getting tiring. I have enjoyed his books (The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, Cider House Rules, A Son of the Circus, A Prayer for Owen Meany, etc.), but they are getting to be the same. Irving’s novels, as rich and enjoyable as they are, are obsessive and cloying, taking an idea and hammering it, hammering it, hammering it to death. It recently occurred to me that Irving writes novels like Wes Andersen makes movies. Both are obsessive in their work, and both drive me crazy, despite, or maybe because of, their charm.
Having said this, I never get tired of Larry McMurtry, whose output I find astounding (something like 50 novels, many quite hefty, plus other writings, including the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain). Yes, he writes a lot about cowboys and the Old West, but he also writes novels like Terms of Endearment (the film covers only the last twenty pages) which are quite contemporary and sometimes remarkably female-oriented. His novels set in Hollywood are a lot of fun.
When I bought Super Sad True Love Story, I also found a huge McMurtry novel, published decades ago, that I never knew about called Moving On. At over 700 pages, it was a pain to lug around, but it was remarkable, even brilliant, in a laconic, meandering ways. Set mainly in Texas, with side trips to L.A and San Francisco and even Altadena not too far from here, it is about a woman in a stormy marriage with a man who tries doing everything from rodeo photography to graduate school in literature. I kept thinking of a cross between Lonesome Dove and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff?
I’ve recently begun to read Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, and I can tell you it’s a loopy hoot. Told through diary entries, e-mails and instant messages (so far), it seems to be a love story between a mis-matched young man and a younger woman, set in a not-too-distant future in which America is a shabby, militarized state and, among other things, everyone knows each other’s credit rating and communicates with and reads each other through devices, sometimes even when they are with each other in person. The novel is quirky and definitely different, outrageously funny even as it’s depressing, if not tragic - not unlike its over-the-top, half-joking title.
The really weird thing is that a lot of the books I’ve been reading lately have been quirky and definitely different, hilarious and off-the-wall, sort of sci-fi but not sci-fi (Mark Haskell Smith’s Baked, Christopher Moore’s Bite Me, etc.). I’m not complaining - I laugh out loud reading these books - and it’s nothing new (Alice in Wonderland, A Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Universe, etc.), but, after a while, it does feel like the weird and wacky, if not always hilarious, is the new normal.
Then there’s John Irving, who can be quite weird and wacky and funny but is squarely grounded in everyday reality, down to the kitchen sink, being today’s Dickens. I did enjoy reading his reading his recent novel, Last Night in Twisted River, finding it a good, meaty read, but I have to say that he is getting tiring. I have enjoyed his books (The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, Cider House Rules, A Son of the Circus, A Prayer for Owen Meany, etc.), but they are getting to be the same. Irving’s novels, as rich and enjoyable as they are, are obsessive and cloying, taking an idea and hammering it, hammering it, hammering it to death. It recently occurred to me that Irving writes novels like Wes Andersen makes movies. Both are obsessive in their work, and both drive me crazy, despite, or maybe because of, their charm.
Having said this, I never get tired of Larry McMurtry, whose output I find astounding (something like 50 novels, many quite hefty, plus other writings, including the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain). Yes, he writes a lot about cowboys and the Old West, but he also writes novels like Terms of Endearment (the film covers only the last twenty pages) which are quite contemporary and sometimes remarkably female-oriented. His novels set in Hollywood are a lot of fun.
When I bought Super Sad True Love Story, I also found a huge McMurtry novel, published decades ago, that I never knew about called Moving On. At over 700 pages, it was a pain to lug around, but it was remarkable, even brilliant, in a laconic, meandering ways. Set mainly in Texas, with side trips to L.A and San Francisco and even Altadena not too far from here, it is about a woman in a stormy marriage with a man who tries doing everything from rodeo photography to graduate school in literature. I kept thinking of a cross between Lonesome Dove and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff?
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