Department of Book Reports: The Long Goodbye

Revisiting The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler's penultimate Philip Marlowe novel (pay no attention to the last Marlowe novel, Playback, which isn't very good), is to be reminded of how great an American novelist Chandler was. He transcended genre in perhaps no other way, with perhaps he exceptions of Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick. I think The Long Goodbye is his greatest achievement, though there are Chandler enthusiasts who prefer The Big Sleep or Little Sister.

The plot is straight forward enough. PI Philip Marlowe has been aroused late at night by his friend, Terry Lennox, who asks Marlowe to drive him to Tiajuana, as he is in trouble. Marlowe has met and developed a friendship with Lennox over the course of several months, during which he has learned that Terry is alcoholic, war-scarred and prematurely white-haired, and married to a rich young woman. Or recently re-married to her. Marlowe take Lennox to Mexico, and upon his return, is taken into custody by the LAPD for criminal assistance. Marlowe refuses to divulge anything to the police and is only released after Lennox's confession to his wife's murder and subsequent suicide emerge. Marlowe resumes his life and is asked by a New York publisher to help one of their best-selling novelists escape from a self-inflicted and alcoholic-induced writers block. The writer is Roger Wade, and he, too, is married to a beautiful woman, Eileen. The two cases do not seem related at first, but, as these things go, they are.

But more than a plot with twists and turns (I think of the famous story of William Faulkner trying to write the screenplay to The Big Sleep and calling Chandler in the middle of the night to find out who has killed a certain character, and Chandler not knowing; but they were boozehounds, so who knows?), Chandler was as good a prose stylist as there was in 20th Century America. To wit:

From now on I wouldn't tell you the time by the clock on your wall.

Next morning I got up late on account of the big fee I had earned the night before. I drank an extra cup of coffee, smoked an extra cigarette, ate an extra slice of Canadian bacon, and for the three hundredeth time I swore I would never again use an electric razor. That made the day normal.

I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between the stars.

Chandler is also critical of the Hollywood milieu, and the rich as well. There's no sneaking admiration as a F. Scott Fitzgerald might have fawned (the rich being different than you and me, but they have great, lavish parties). They are no different than the mobsters who dog Marlowe and warn him off the Lennox case. In fact, both the rich and the gangsters are quick to remind Marliowe of how much clout they can and do exercise. But more than this, The Long Goodbye is a mediation on friendship: how far does it extend, what can we be reasonably expected to do, and what can we do when that friendship is abused and betrayed. The Long Goodbye belongs on the same bookshelf as anything by Hemingway, Steinbeck or Faulkner. If you haven't read Chandler, do so.

Which brings me to the film adaptation of the book, released in 1973, and directed by Robert Altman from a screenplay by the science fiction writer Leigh Brackett, who also worked on the films of The Big Sleep and The Empire Strikes Back. Ask any Chandler enthusiast how they liked the movie and almost to a person, it is loathed. I'm not sure why. The movie deviates from the story in places, especially in the ending, but the main themes remain. And it is as well done as anything Altman ever directed. The social satire remains. Only it is a Philip Marlowe who has been transported to a 1970's LA, and lives in an apartment next to a commune of brownie-eating young women who do their Yoga exercises on the porch only partially clothed. Marlowe still drives a '48 Lincoln, but he tries to adapt. "It's all right by me", he keeps telling everyone he encounters. Only it isn't ok and his dislocation is such that, while he does try to help his friend, it seems the only one he can love is his cat. Who abandons him. Beautiful movie, with a great performance by Elliot Gould, Sterling Hayden as the author, Henry Gibson as a quack head-shrinker and ex-baseball pitcher, Jim Bouton as Terry Lennox. And, oh, it has one of the most shocking scenes in cinema history, featuring director Mark Rydell as a gangster dogging Marlowe.

The Long Goodbye is still in print from Vintage Books ($14.95) and available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Medium Raw

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain (Harper, $26.99) Ten years after Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain is back with another brutal culinary tell-all. The sub-title A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook sums it up well. Many of the chefs he talks about fare well, he admires those who work hard and are honest with their audience. Teevee personalities and celebrity chefs are dished and dissected.

In the chapter Go Ask Alice, Tony serves up the back story to Alice Water's now famous crusade to "revolutionize" the White House kitchen and garden and why her hypocrisy was so offensive. He takes her to task for not having voted in 40-some years, but having the nerve to dictate a kitchen & staff she had not bothered to consider. He asks if her ideal world were to be realized, who would be willing to get up at 5am to gather those delicate local vegetables that all might eat organic, regional food in season?
But even by the end of this rant, he concludes that the world is a better place for her bringing attention to the way our food is produced and consumed.

Perhaps the most scathing chapter is Alan Richman is a Douchebag, where he writes of their long standing feud, and how Richman came to write an ugly review of the restaurant Bourdain used to work at 10 years earlier. But that is not what makes Richman a douchebag in his eyes. It is the snarky review of the New Orleans food scene soon after Katrina which draws his hatred. The article isn't available online, but the responses to it sure are.

Bourdain is equally unflinching in self-examination. He realizes how lucky he has been, and that the path through his early addictions surely brought him to this place. He is giddily happy with life now, and the reason for that is his two year old daughter. Parenthood will change all perspectives. He revels in being un-cool while utterly, devotingly doting on this miracle in his life. I recommend his "Black Ops" chapter Lower Education to any parent wishing to counteract the insidious propaganda of McDonald's on young minds.

Anthony Bourdain also has a challenge for all you would be foodies. Answer this question on his website and you might just get picked by him to be published in the paperback edition of Medium Raw:
Medium Raw is available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: The Backlash

With Glenn Beck and his minions marauding around D.C. this weekend, I wanted to point out a new book by Will Bunch entitled The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama (Harper $26.00). The book will be released on Tuesday, August 31st, so I haven't had a chance to read it yet. However, I know and loved Bunch's previous book, Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy ( Free Press $16.00).

Bunch shows us in The Backlash that the these Right-Wingers : Think Obama Isn't an American Citizen. They think Obama wants to put Americans into Concentration Camps. They think Obama is the Anit-Christ.

I am very anxious to read this book. It will be available, of course, at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.


Five years ago, Hurricanes Katrina and Ike highlighted the importance of protecting the environment in order to protect communities. Louisiana’s natural lines of defense – barrier islands, swamps, and wetlands – disappear at the rate of one football field every 45 minutes, leaving communities more vulnerable to future storms. Now, BP’s crude is clearly making matters worse. Gulf Restoration Network is working with event organizers throughout the country to build a nationwide call for a commitment to restoring and protecting the Gulf.

We'll be screening the movie at Lacamas Hall in Second Life, Monday 5pm (PDT or SLT) one of nearly 200 similar events throughout the country, locals will come together in support of the Gulf of Mexico’s people, places, and wildlife to commemorate the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Catastrophic wetlands loss leaves New Orleans and other coastal communities more vulnerable to hurricanes like Katrina, and now BP’s oil disaster continues to impact an already imperiled ecosystem.

Defend the Gulf Movie Screening and Discussion, featuring a compilation of short films designed to educate and inspire that includes the world premier of “Terrebonne,” a family drama set in Louisiana's swamps, a hilarious mockumentary by the creator of Mr. Bill, the compelling and award-winning home by Matt Faust, GRN's Gulf Tides series covering the BP oil disaster, and more.
For more info: www.healthygulf.org

Department of Book Reports: An Ocean Between Us

An Ocean Between Us, by Evelyn Iritani (Morrow, 1994)
We all know that saying about History repeating itself, and this book from 1994 shows several examples. Evelyn Iritani uses 4 stories to explain Washington states' fascination with all things Japan, and it has really had some resonance for me. She starts out with a story from 1834, when three sailors are ship wrecked off Neah Bay. I had never heard this story before! They were on a cargo ship, the Hojun-maru, limited to Japanese waters when a storm damaged their ship and carried them across the Pacific on the Kuroshio current. Taken as slaves by the Makah tribe, they were rescued by Dr. John McLoughlin, only to have his dreams of bartering them to open trade with Japan denied by the Tokugawa shogunate. They are given 30 coins and left to finally find lives outside Japan.

Next, looking at the early Yellow scares, leads us into the WWII internment of West Coast Japanese. It is here the Fear of the Other is closely echoed in today's treatment of the Mexicans in Arizona and elsewhere. Little was known of the actual attempted attacks by the Japan Army, their successful balloon campaign that killed a woman and 3 children in Blye,OR. Across the ocean, the Ohkuno Island Toxic Gas Factory employed school girls to build elaborate paper mache balloons that could drift across the Pacific with bombs as their payload. Following up with these students, Iritani tells us of the 50 year later reunions of these school girls and the families in Oregon.

In 1990, a Chinese tanker collides with a Japanese fishing boat, the Tenyo-maru and seventy thousand gallons of crude oil are spilled off the Olympic Peninsula. The local folks volunteer to rake up tar balls on the beach and send oiled birds to Seattle for re-hab. The fines in this case were leveled against the Chinese government, not the polluting fishing company company, leading the Makah to distrust the Japanese.

In the final story, we look at the take over of Port Angeles paper mill by the Daishowa company, and the conflicts that occur in a small town during the craze of Japanese Management circles and a time when it seemed their powerful economy was allowing them to buy any old American thing they wanted. The contrasting stories of union activist Dave Hoglund who tries to balance the new company's work styles and Yutaka Mochizuki, who tries to balance bringing his family to this strange new land. In this case, the new management was able to put money into long neglected facilities, that ultimately benefitted the workers and the town. Ironically, the mill was powered by cheap electricity from the salmon-decimating dam on the Elwha, now scheduled to be removed.

Throughout this book, I kept seeing much of the hysteria that is too prevalent now. I hope we will move past today's angst, and our better sides will prevail. In today's Washington state, kids adore Japan and all its trappings. I saw kids in Seattle studying Japanese and dutifully practicing their kanji . Our own son went to Tokyo with 2 other students for a field trip. I always found Chinatown & Japantown to be the most vibrant shopping districts, with the best Fruit & Veg stands, anywhere. Far from being a feared, reviled part of the populace, Japan has conquered the kids hearts and minds. And that is a good thing.

UPDATE: I was afraid I may have engaged in a bit of hyperbole in writing this book report. And then I saw this.

Here's something you all may be able to help us with. I'd like to rent this storefront, and have a tiny little bookstore. Thing is, I need some opening moneys. Rent is cheap, and I do think it can be recouped. But what's most exciting is a chance to have a bookstore in our local community. Much as I love the internets, there is nothing that replaces putting a book into someone's hands. I'd really like it if you bought a bunch of books, but if you're able to, and so inclined, a donation to our paypal will get you our undying loyalty.

I'm trying to figure out a bookstore membership format, that will get you a discount on orders. I'm fully aware that bookselling is a dinosaur in our current society and job force. I'm just crazy enough to love and want to continue doing it.

Please order your books from Jackson Street Books.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: A History of Western Philosophy

A History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell, 1945, Simon & Schuster, NY, New York
A book report by jcricket

A good many years ago, an essay entitled "Why I Am Not a Christian" immediately got my attention. That was my introduction to the expressed thoughts of Bertrand Russell.

The same mind has produced many great works, including our selection for today, A History of Western Philosophy. Russell, a twentieth century philosopher, logician and social critic, gives us one of the best one-volume tomes ever produced of our reverence for the human mind. It's one of the best perhaps, because Russell, of all people, understood that blathering on and on in multiple volumes about how much he knows would bore a thinking person to tears. Or, at least into closing the book in exasperation and then using it as a conspicuous prop to impress visitors.

Instead Russell, as he does in all his work, uses that famous British sense of understatement and his dry wit to give us human insight to the Western Philosophical Greats and the institutions whose foundations were built by them. That he knows when to shut up and move on makes this an unusually entertaining history of ancient, catholic, and modern philosophy.

At the time of publication the book was panned by many of his contemporaries as being biased towards philosophers with whom he had an affinity, as being vulgar, and of being not historical enough. Russell himself said "I did my best but am not sure at all if I succeeded. I was sometimes accused by reviewers of not writing a true history, but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write about. But to my mind, a man without bias cannot write interesting history - if indeed, such a man exists."

And in the capable hands of Bertrand Russell, an interesting history it is:

Of Plato and Aristotle,
"Aristotle's metaphysics, roughly speaking, may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do not mix easily."

and of Gregory VII,
"After he became Pope, he believed himself to be the mouthpiece of St. Peter. This gave him a degree of self confidence which, on a mundane calculation, was not justified."

While it definitely qualifies as a scholarly work, A History of Western Philosophy cannot be accused of being "dry" reading. As a matter of fact, Russell's style is THE centerpiece of any of his works. If you can't lay your hands on a copy of AHoWP, then really anything written by Bertrand Russell would bring the same smile to your lips at the turn of a phrase or the candid humanity with which he interprets of the lives of history's Larger-Than-Life characters.

And of course, it is always recommended that you peruse your favorite Indie bookstore for your literary passions (in this case, the works of Bertrand Russell).

Order books from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: In which the nice book lady cusses

We've been living without a car since Rocky blew up our Cavalier last Thanksgiving. We had bought bikes for fun when we first moved out here, and those became our main mode of transportation for the last 10 months. Sure, it was unpleasant a few times this past winter, biking to the post office to ship out book packages. We were soaked to the bone and had to pedal against 45 mph winds. But we got home, dried off and had some soup to warm up. In more pleasant weather, biking has been a joy, you can stop at anytime to chat with folks walking their dog or stop by the river and watch herons and otters fish for their lunch. We would have missed all that in a car, even at our town's 30mph speed limit. And, I found it even easier and more urgent to talk to folks about getting out of their cars. Overwhelmingly, I'm told "but we have to drive here where I live! You can't get by without a car here!" Well, I'm calling Bullshit today. You can. Not only that, you must. I'm sorry that you're forced into a job that is 40 miles from your house. I'm sorry the nearest grocery is 5 miles away. We may not be able change that right away, but we can change how you get there.

When we hear of Greenland's ice floes breaking up, Russia's unrelenting wildfires, Mountain top removal "enhances the landscape" and that not even completely melted polar caps would convince the deniers, don't even try to tell me the ludicrous lie that the god-damned oil is all gone. 2015 is recognized as the tipping point, and that's less than 4 1/2 years away. Are we going to wait until then to do anything?

Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth (Macmillan, $24.00 ) is a hero of mine.

I wrote the first book for a general audience on global warming back in 1989, and I’ve spent the subsequent 21 years working on the issue. I’m a mild-mannered guy, a Methodist Sunday School teacher. Not quick to anger. So what I want to say is: this is fucked up. The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy.

And if he says it's fucked up, it is. But I find hope in the end there: Get Mad, then Get Busy. He has formed a global coalition, 350 (350 being the parts per million CO2 with which we can survive on this planet)

...Those demonstrations were just a start (one we should have made long ago). We’re following up in October -- on 10-10-10 -- with a Global Work Party. All around the country and the world people will be putting up solar panels and digging community gardens and laying out bike paths. Not because we can stop climate change one bike path at a time, but because we need to make a sharp political point to our leaders: we’re getting to work, what about you?

Oct 10, 2010. Will you join up? Sign in and add your name? Write letters? If you need help with crafting a letter, may I introduce you to Warren Senders, who has vowed to write an environmental letter every day, and asks you to steal his stuff and then reword it personally so you can contact your congress critters and senators. Warren reviewed Eaarth far better than I could:
While McKibben is constitutionally optimistic, he gives us some pretty strong medicine:

...no use underestimating the depth of change we'll need to deal with, especially since there's no end point in sight. As we lose the climatic stability that's marked all of human civilization, it's not as if we're going to land on some other firm plateau. The changes to our lives will be ongoing and large and will require uncommon nimbleness, physically and psychologically. Our focus will have to shift. As a culture and an economy, we've had the margin to afford a lot of abstractions. Abstractions in the supermarket aisle: Lunchables, and Cheetos, and the four thousand other incarnations of high fructose corn syrup. Abstractions in our relations with the rest of the planet : "the free world." Abstraction will grow harder; increasingly, we're going to have to focus on essentials: on actual food and on energy that comes from the wind and sun in our neck of the woods, not from that abstraction called "The Middle East."

"eaarth," p. 147-148

I've been inspired by the on-going series eKos over on dailykos.com

Get the eKos widget embed code!

One stop shopping for information and links in one handy place.

Last week, my cousin Larry gave us a car. A nice little '97 Saturn that will be fairly thrifty. Hoooo-ray!! right? Not really. I find myself kinda guilty and torn about being a car owner again. We have decided we will not become daily car drivers ever again. We are staying on the bikes. But, we will be able to drive to Oly or Seattle to join in the political things we've had to skip this past year. We'll be able to attend local events and meetings that run until after dark. And just maybe, the weather will be bad enough that we'll drive to the post office. But I can gaurantee it won't be very often.

I'll leave you with someone who always gives me hope: Pete Seeger.


Eaarth is available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Books on the Nightstand

So what do I do when I'm between books? Why, I pick up a couple of hefty tomes that will take me a month or so to read.

First up, H.L. Humes' 755 page opus, The Underground City (Random House $15.00). Originally published in 1958, this book was one of two novels that Humes wrote, the other being Men Die (Random House $13.95), which was came out a year later. The plot involves a cast of characters in post WW-2 France. An American, John Stone, is a former secret agent who's life intersects with the American Ambassador, and a mysterious man, Dujardin who has been sentenced to death for treason, among others. Alan Cheuse, the NPR book reviewer, provides the introduction,at describing his own encounters with Humes and his work. Cheuse implies Humes' style was sort-or Proto-Pynchonesque, with story threads of intrigue and paranoia.

Humes himself was an interesting man. He was, along with Peter Matthiessen, a founder of the literary journal, Paris Review, to which they soon invited George Plimpton to edit. He was also an early advocate of LSD, which apparently a large dose completely altered his mind. He also invented a "cure" for heroin addiction, that used medical marijuana.

The other book is Robin D.G. Kelley's Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (Free Press $30.00). It is long, critical look at that great Jazz master. Fortunately, although scholarly sound with notes and index, Kelley is a good writer and from what little of I've read, the text is fluent and without jargon. I'm an unabashed Monk fan; when I DJ in Second Life, you can pretty much be assured of there being a tune or two. Here's a tune for you:

What book is on your nightstand now?

These books and many more are available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.