Review: The Coupe Next Door

I should be somewhat ashamed to say that the first book I read in 2019 is The Couple Next Door by Shri Lapena.   It is a plot driven page turner / thriller focusing on the unraveling of a kidnapping.   Although often compare to them, it does not in the same category of quality as Gone Girl or The Girl on The Train.    There is very little character development, and what there is does not seem real or particularly well crafted.  Because of this, the various twists just come out of nowhere, with some being guessed at from miles a why from first principles.

Still, I read it.

Review: The Favorite

The Favorite was the first movie I saw in 2019.  I'd heard good things about it, particularly the strong performances by  Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz.  Plus, hearing that Colman will be portraying Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown made this a must see.

Aspects of the film remind me Hillary Mantel's depiction of Thomas Cromwell.  Not the subject matter, but the idea of transposing modern language and thought onto the past.  There is apparently much truth to the portrayal.

I just listened to the Slate Spoiler Special and must disagree with the Dana Stevens.  I thought the movie was outstanding, and that the overly stylized directorial flourishes were both fitting and sort of the point.  Plus, the dance sequence was great!   I wish the spoiler special podcast had on an expert in  Queen Anne and the 17th century English sexual and court politics. 

The performances, the characters, the satire, and the ducks make this a highly recommended movie!

The last book I read in 2018

The last book I read in 2018 was The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell by Mark Kurlansky.  It was a quick and enjoyable read, perfect for a holiday or other vacation.  It especially hit my interests of history, New York City, and, of course oysters.  The focus on oysters, and the surrounding ocean more generally, is a great hook into pre-20th century New York City geography and culture.

A draft genome of the Pacific Oyster was published in 2012, with analysis showing an expansion of heat shock proteins (HSP) and cytochromes. 

Is this thing still on? Podcasting Done Right

Over the past few years I've become increasingly hooked on podcasts.  I listen while I walk, while I eat, while I do chores, and when I can't sleep.  Perhaps I'll have more to say, but want to highlight the recent episode of Slate Money.  In this episode (Episode No. 133: The Optimism Edition), the usual hosts (Cathy O'Neil, Felix Salmon, and Joran Weissmann) were joined by Laura Arnold to discuss various aspects of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.  Nothin too remarkable about that -- a post-Thanksgiving show focused on philanthropy seems pretty standard.  What made this remarkable was the presence of Cathy O'Neil in the discussion, and her ability to challenge the assumptions and highlight ideas otherwise skipped over, particularly in the realm of models related to the use of statistical models in the  criminal justice system.   O'Neil has real expertise in this area, and opinions supported by research and thought and contemplation.   This makes the conversation much more meaningful than so many other podcasts focused on some issue of the day that devolves into punditry.

Expertise is valuable.  Who knew?

Review: Hitch-22

Christopher Hitchens is best consumed in small doses. This makes him a wonderfully infuriating essayist. His memoir, Hitch-22, however is much longer than an essay and at times takes some dedication to plow through.

The memoir focuses on the upbringing and social scene that Hitchens became a part of. Following along is his stories of dinner parties and friendships offers a crash course in the names and personalities of the 20th century leftist public intellectual literati. Here is one example of the sort of banter associated with this set:

At all events there came a time when someone arrived late at a dinner party complaining of having been stuck at an airport with nothing to read but a Robert Ludlum-style novel. This didn’t seem worth pursuing until the complaint was refined somewhat: “ I mean it’s not just that the prose is so bloody awful but that the titles are so sodding pretentious … The Bourne Inheritance, The Eiger Sanction; all this portentous piffle.” Again, not a subject to set the table afire, until someone idly said they wondered what a Shakespear play would be called if it were Ludlum who had the naming if it. At once Salman [Salman Rushdie] was engaged and began to smile. “All right, Salman: Hamlet by Ludlum!” At once—and I mean with as much preperation as I have given you – "The Elsinore Vacillation.” Fluke? Not exactly. Challenged to the same for Macbeth, he produced “The Dunsinane Reforestation” with hardly a flourish and barely a beat. After this it was plain sailing through “The Kerchiefe Implication”, “The Rialto Sanction”, and one about Caliban and Prospero that I once knew but now can never remember.

The parts I found most interesting involved Salman Rushdie, Edward Siad, and Hitchens’s opinions on the war in Iraq. Of course, must also mention Hitchens and Martin Amis. This seems like a wonderful and true friendship. We get it. It is touching how Hitchens admires him, and knowingly compares his own literary abilities with those of his friend.

The parade of authors and poets and Marxist intellectuals gets a little wearisome at times. But still, few can do self-righteous rage of the intellectual liberal sort as well as Hitchens. Again, on Rushdi:

“When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine’s Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa, I felt at once that there was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship—though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn’t known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H. W. Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved.

The description of the friendship and then falling apart (personally and intellectually) of Hitchens and Edward Said offers a wonderful description of the nature of such intellectual relations. The chapter on him is great, and it inspired me to look up and read Hitchens’s essay after Said's death. It, as well as other writings revealed by Google, make me think that I may not actually understand what Said is really trying to say in Orientalism.

Some of these best parts of Hitch-22 have appeared elsewhere. Also, there is no denying the negative qualities of Hitchens (he can come across as an ass and a misogynist). But, anyone who enjoys or loves to hate his essays would get something out of Hitch-22.

Review: Crazy, Stupid, Love

You’re a double negative!

The plot is rather predictable, but Crazy, Stupid, Love was still a fair bit of fun. The beginning, with Steve Carell’s character (he has a name, but really, everyone will think of him as the Steve Carell character), jumping out of a car because is gripping in a sardonically tragic way. Some such moments hint that, despite appearances, this may be an unexpectedly deep or subtle movie. Then, instead, the predictably expected happens, followed by the expectedly unexpected. Expected doesn’t mean totally unfunny, but it does mean unimaginative and uninspiring. Hey--don't worry, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are amusing at times.

Review: Breakfast At Tiffany's

She's a phony, but at least she's a real phony.

I liked Breakfast at Tiffany's despite myself. I've managed to make it this far without seeing this movie. I'm not sure what I expected it to be like, but somehow my expectations were very far off. It was a lot of fun, and the images of early 1960s New York were wonderful.

Audrey Hepburn, a cat, and the early 60s. Plus, lots of drinking and smoking and not-subtle suggetions. What's not to like?