You will never see George W. Bush on the Daily Show. This is because he does not have a book to sell.
Call me jaded and cynical, but I think that Jon Stewart was not even that interested in helping this dictator sell his book. I think he brought him on the show because he is a controversial World leader. I don’t watch television, but I am curious as to whether this is showing in reruns in the midst of all the present turmoil.
I stopped buying magazines sometime late last century. I found that a free paper could fill the void just as easily. I really didn’t have any interests that were well served by any magazines that were available to me. That is hard to believe given the ridiculous number of magazines that fill the shelves in any metropolitan area.
Anyway, we were guests at a Thanksgiving dinner and the host gave my son a copy of WIRED. I was leafing through it and I have to admit that I am impressed with it. I wonder if being focused on IT creates an attitude of continuously trying to justify having a print edition? It has to be about more than killing trees, right?
Hey, I wonder if anyone has a magazine devoted to tree killing enthusiasts?
If you are ever looking around for proof that men and women are wired differently, Romance Novels are just the ticket. I have an aunt who spent her entire working life as a librarian. Occasionally, we would get a box of books that she had skimmed from the pile that was slated for destruction/recycling. Many of these were Romance Novels.
I had free access to piles and piles of romance novels for decades and I have never read one.
I read the back covers. I did the age old adolescent trick of opening used books to the spot that opened most easily. That’s how you find the dirty parts. It worked for 1984 (that was more fraught than it was titillating). I may have read a few pages here and there out of curiosity, but I never actually dove in to a romance. I understand the concept of vicariously enjoying romance and these novels effectively accomplish this.
I read the Westerns and the Science Fiction and the Memoirs. It was rare for me to read a mystery. It may be that I stayed away from the genres that were notoriously habit forming. As a consequence, I am not in the habit of reading books at all. I read 3-4 books this year and that was really surprising to me. I started obtaining books to have with me when I was held up in airports and I find myself binging on them after my trips.
I do not have any aversion to the concept of romance. I sat on a bench at a lookoff just last evening watching the sun set with my love. There was also a long walk.
One of the most intense romantic moments involved me sitting up in bed playing guitar and singing and having my lover embrace me from behind and press her face between my shoulders. The song is a bit emotional and at one point there were tears running down my spine. I am including the words below. They were written by an Australian Poet.
The colours of the setting sun
Withdrew across the Western Land-
He raised the sliprails, one by one,
And shot them home with trembling hand ;
Her brown hands clung - her face grew pale-
Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim!-
One quick, fierce kiss across the rail,
And, ‘Good-bye, Mary!’ ‘Good-bye, Jim!’Oh, he rides hard to race the pain
Who rides from love, who rides from home;
But he rides slowly home again,
Whose heart as learnt to love and roamA hand upon the horse’s mane,
And one foot in the stirrup set,
And, stooping back to kiss again,
With ‘Good-bye, Mary ! don’t you fret !
When I come back ‘ - he laughed for her-
‘We do not know how soon ’twill be;
I’ll whistle as I round the spur -
You let the sliprails down for me.’She gasped for sudden loss of hope,
As, with a backward wave to her,
He cantered down the grassy slope
And swiftly round the dark’ning spur.
Black-pencilled panels standing high,
And darkness fading into stars,
And, blurring fast against the sky,
A faint white form beside the bars.And often at the set of sun,
In winter bleak and summer brown,
She’d steal across the little run,
And shyly let the sliprails down,
And listen there when darkness shut
The nearer spur in silence deep,
And when they called her from the hut
Steal home and cry herself to sleep.And he rides hard to dull the pain
Who rides from one that loves him best….
And he rides slowly back again,
Whose restless heart must rove for rest.Henry Lawson (1867-1922)
I often think that people using the Internet should be called browsers. I have a Bachelors Degree in Animal Science, so I am well acquainted with the original meaning of browser. It is an animal that spends much of its waking hours traveling along biting off small selected portions of a number of different plants.
12 years ago, when I looked out my window and saw a white-tailed deer having a bite of the MacIntosh apple tree that the previous homeowner had spent much money on…the voice in my head said “CAN I HELP YOU ?” The imaginary deer voice in my head said “NO THANKS, I’M JUST BROWSING.”
Anyway, I was going to talk about how we often skip over and miss some very good bits of the Internet as we are browsing. The thing I noticed today for the first time was Google Books. I don’t know how I managed to be oblivious to it up until today.
Given my recent history with regard to reading, it is a Herculean achievement for me to read two books in one summer. I was so pessimistic with my follow through that I reviewed the first book on this blog before I had even finished it. I’m repeating that bad habit with my recommendation of In Sicily by Norman Lewis. The candor and the insight about the Mafia is astounding. Where passive, trifling entertainment like The Sopranos romanticizes family business to the the Nth degree, Lewis places the violence and bravado squarely in reality.
The history and tragic sociology of Sicily is revealed in a somewhat non-linear fashion. There is a time line, but it is the time line of Lewis’ experiences in Sicily. The historically significant revelations are brought to light as Lewis tells of how he came to have the information. The source of his insights are often as illuminating as their content. I have some travel coming up shortly and I think I will save the last chapters for the airports. I just wish I had a pinstriped suit to wear while I read (not really).
I am a North American living in Europe. It’s not very often that I find myself browsing through the Magazines at the local bookseller, but today I did just that. I find myself getting slightly embarrassed by the naked breasts on the covers of the glossy tabloids.
CompareMagazines.co.uk is a site that helps you with comparison shopping for magazine subscriptions. Whether it’s Fashion magazines or Women magazines that interest you, you can look for deals on this site.
The Men magazines cover topics like um, cars and stuff. You might want to consider a Time magazine subscription so you have something businesslike to put your car magazine inside while you are reading it.
And if you have never been able to decide between a Vogue magazine subscription and a Cosmopolitan magazine subscription you might find the savings online allow you to afford both.
I saw a link to the London Review of Books classifieds. Everybody seems to find these things worthy of comment.
There has been coffee table book recently produced that is dedicated to the compiling and commenting on these oddities. People obsessively read these for the personals ads, even though they aren’t looking for a partner. I suspect that many people actually write these as a creative endeavor rather than a means to an end. I decided that since I wasn’t looking at them with any purpose beyond entertainment in mind, I might as well go back in time to look at the old ones. Here is the Archive.org page for the London Review of Books classifieds. Fill your boots.
I’ll see you at the LRB singles night. I’ll be the one breathing heavily and stroking my thighs by the “art” books. Asthmatic, varicosed F (93) seeks M to 30 with enough puff in him to push me uphill to the post-office. This is not a euphemism.
I had the misconception that there already was an Encyclopedia of Misconceptions. I thought that the 1975 World Book Encyclopedia that sits in my parents’ bookcase served quite well in that respect.
The new project is actually kind of interesting. Here is a link for those of you who want to jump right in and contribute a misconception. If you want some back story, check out Global Nomads Group.
These guys pulled off a live video conference between Bishop Desmond Tutu and several US classrooms.
Find this book and read it. Be advised that the parts that lull you into a state of near boredom are a device. The Life of Pi is an ideal book to spend a summer day or two reading
I am being very unprofessional by reviewing a book before I have finished it, but I am just a blogger, so who cares. This book draws you in with passivity and then it pounces. I have a lot of empathy for Pi.
Edit: I finished the book. It has some very surprising changes.
I think these books are a great idea. Identity Direct has My Adventure Books, which are custom printed using a child’s name, age and other details.
I am a parent of teens and I can remember which books held a child’s interest for a long time and which ones didn’t. I think a book that has a popular character and a personal element should span the transition from when parents read to their kids and when the kids start reading for themselves.
There are books with pirates for kids that are already kinda meh about Elmo.