Brancaccio is the guy who does “Marketplace” on NPR. Now, I like NPR a lot, but I do think that Marketplace has strayed from the core ideals of public radio–the peace corps, Kennedy mourning, peacenik hippie ideals I think of when I think NPR.

I mean, when the boomers went from hippie to Yuppie, it was hypocritical. And NPR’s new concern with the rise and fall of the Dow the NASDAQ seemed part of that trend.

But even so, when I saw the book, I had enough affection for NPR and hippies to check it out.

Brancaccio starts off with an anectodal premise: What do you do with a surplus of money? After graduating from journalism school, he worked for a while and he and his wife managed to accumulate a little surplus–$17,000 to be exact.

They talked it over, and thought the thing to do with the money was for him to fulfill his life dream of being a foreign correspondent. They moved to London to try to make that happen, and just as they were about the run out of money, he hooked up with some radio journalism. It took him on the path to what he does now, hosting “Marketplace.”

Now THAT is something I can respect. It’s a crisis for the hippie-types to find themselves with more money than they need. And it’s the sort of crisis that requires some action to be taken.

The book is really enjoyable. It’s as if the author is taking a walk around the problem, looking at it from different angles and seeing what it’s all about.

He takes a series of road trips to talk with people about what they have chosen to do with their extra money. Some people spend it on shopping, some invest, some go back to school, and some quit their jobs.

His writing is really insightful, not preachy at all, thank god. The book asked a lot of questions I’ve asked myself and gave a few new perspectives. I’m glad I read it.

Okay, I’m packing and painting like a maniac. Boy…So I am packing some books right now, and I found my copy of the Iliad.

THIS is the BEST translation. Let me tell you. I bought this copy in the Royal Museum in London. What better place, I thought. What a good souvenir. The british have long been mad about translating greek classics.

So, I had this unread copy. I read a little bit, but I didn’t read too far until I had to take the classics class at my univerisity. The teacher had a copy of the Iliad at the bookstore. I thought I would use the one I already.

Then, at a study group where we were getting ready for the quiz, I read a piece from my book. The other students dropped their jaws and said, “Whoa! That’s not what my books says at all!”

THIER translations were totally opaque. THey all passed around my book and said I was lucky.

SO, if you want to read the Iliad like it was meant to be read, all exciting and interesting, get this translation. It’s really great.

And the Iliad is a good book to read.

By Hermann Hesse

Heard good things about this guy, but I never read him. A friend gave me this book, and so I had to read it.

Not the most readable. It seemed to wander a lot. Not surprising, since it was about a dude wandering.

The book was one of those philosophical tales, where the author has a serious point to make. He tells a tortured story to make his point.

Camus, Voltaire, Rand, they all did this.

Narcissus was this thinker monk, a man who left the world and lived in the cerebral realm.

Goldmund was a young man who was an artist and lived in world of his senses.

Of course, Hesse had to make them friends so that the worlds could be juxtaposed.

Anyway, it was completely worth it for one part:

“That may be so,” said Narcissus. “Niether of us can ever understand the other completely in such things. But there is one realization all men of good will share: In the end our works make us feel ashamed, we have to start out again and each time the sacrifice has to be made anew”

And to understand that part, you have to read the whole book. But that bit is really really profound. I want to always remember it, which is why I am blogging about it.

I’ve read excerpts of this, and always wanted to read the whole thing. I got it on tape and listened to it while driving. I was incredibly interested by the introduction, which lay out the time line and some historic background for the McCarthy era.

Lilian Hellman was famous for standing up to the House Unamerican Activities Committee. What they did was pull people in and get them to tell on all their friends as proof of their own innocence. “Innocence” in this case meant their ideological agreement with the government.

I find this idea reprehensible. So did many people at the time. It was wrong for the government to insist on one set of ideas.

So Lillian Hellman was subpaenaed to testify before the HUAC, and she said that she would not plead the 5th if they didn’t ask her any questions about other people. The remarkable thing was that she didn’t go to jail for contempt, which others had done.

She talked about what it was like to live at that time. One thing I learned was that, even when Daschell Hammet, her longtime friend and one of the first to be blacklisted for his political ideas, was not only blacklisted and jailed, but when he did manage to find some money, the IRS found some loopholes to take all his earnings for the rest of his life. I hadn’t realized that the IRS was in on it too.

The introduction tells us that Hammet based Nora from “The Thin Man” on Lillian. Once I knew that, I could catch the tone of the stories she told. It was a story, about a certain time. Lots of things happened, and there were huge ripple effects of this repressive ideology.

This was well worth checking out. I can’t help but think there are cautionary lessons for now.

No, that’s not the swimmer. It’s a pathetic guy who can’t get over the Smiths. He takes us back into the teenage world of the 80’s when the Smiths could explain everything and save the whole world.

He writes about a poor little rich boy who can’t make sense of his life without following the counter-culture movement with religious fervor.

If you ever suddenly threw out your whole wardrobe because of a new album, you will identify.

If you’re like me, though, you will feel slightly sick to your stomach at the shallow angst of a Long Island jewish kid who knows so little about what’s important in life.

Which is not to say I didn’t like the book. It really grabs you. The story starts when the guy is already an adult, working for a rock magazine and trying to retain his hip youthfulness.

Through a series of convoluted yet rapid leaps, he comes to the conclusion that his whole life will start to make sense if he can get the Smiths back together for a reunion performance.

And more important than getting his life to make sense is getting the girl of his obsessions to be his.

If you were a fan of the Smiths, you should read the book. Like I said, despite it’s stomach turning quotient, it is very readable.

Continue reading →

Hemingway. I read Snows of Kilimanjaro when I was 12. I don’t remember much about it, but it freaked me out. It seemed very stark and mean and not nice.

I read it because my big brother had the book from a college class he was taking. He’d given me the Shakespeare plays, which I’d LOVED. Honestly, i think Shakespeare is very good for precocious readers. The tone and concept are fine for a young age.

But Hemingway was a different story. I was horrified by him. Therefore, I have not read anything by him since.

My alma mater, San Jose state university has a guilt list. They say “Any English Major Who Hasn’t Read These Has No Right To Joy.”

They deny English majors any right to joy; the list is HUGE. Shame on them for making beautiful books into something to feel guilty about! But, the fact is, it a good resource to turn to when I am looking for a suggestion about what to read next.

In this case, I thought I would try Hemingway again. Farewell To Arms. He is sad and horrifying, but I’m an adult now and I can take sad and horrifying in stride.

He’s also very MASCULINE. He doesn’t talk about how he feels much, just about what he does, what he says, where he’s going. He’ll say what he’s thinking a little bit.

That book was okay. I’m not sorry I read it. It was not as great as I might have hoped. But it made me wonder some more about WW I. The Great War. I’ll have to do some reading about it.

THis, of course, pleases Chris tremendously. He will happily talk all about it. Especially the ships.

This book was wonderful. Top to bottom, all 811 pages of it. I was only disappointed by it being over.

Russian stories don’t distance you from the people in them. I heard someone criticize them once for never using two-dimensional characters. Oh, man, no way! I love getting to know all those people in the books. It feels like I got to know a huge set of very interesting people. Anna, Karenin, Levin and Kitty were the main heroes, but everyone had their foibles and their adventures.

I loved the story, and I loved how Tolstoy told it. Basically, Anna Karenina falls in love with Vronsky, one of those fairy tale loves. Only problem is, she is already married. And she has a baby boy.

It was so great. to hear all the perspectives about the situation of women, and how faith comes into play with such a choice.

I just wish I could have really known these people Such smart, earnest interesting people.

Like I said, I only wished it had lasted longer.

This book tells the story of Okuni, the woman who started the tradition of Kabuki dancing. I know nothing about Kabuki dancing. I couldn’t pick a Kabuki dance out of a line up. I’m sure I would have gotten more out of the book if I had known about Kabuki.

But even so, the story is a really great story about staying true to yourself and to what you know. I mean, a lot of stories are out there about “Doing the right thing.” But when it’s an asthetic choice, there are not such strong guidelines. The difficulty of staying true to what you FEEL and know in your heart to be beautiful and right, that is worth a lot.

Beauty and dance are very important in life. They are the sorts of things that make life worth living. Okuni’s life is inspiring, to stay true to herself and her art.

I have the written version of this and I also havea recorded performance. It’s a play, so it’s nice to have both. It’s a different thing, reading a play versus seeing it performed. Both have merit, but in different aspects.

Dylan Thomas is a poet, and his play is appropriately abstract. It’s basically taking a day in the life of a Welsch town (remember, Thomas is Welsch) and writing about all the characters and dreams in it.

I reminds me of Spoon River Anthology, in it’s scope of characters. But the people move in and out of each other’s lives throughout the day. It is a very sweet look at what could be describes as the author’s hometown, showing the foibles and meannesses as well as the aspirations of the people who inhabit it.

t’s a little confusing, but I think if you let go and flow with it the experience is very uplifting. I think it shows a love for the brotherhood of humanity and a great sense of humor.