Zoetrope: All-Story Vol 16 No 2

This issue of Zoetrope was another good issue. As part of their normal format there are new stories and the last story is a classic one that has been turned into a movie.

Hallelujah, Family! by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
This story is about multi generations of dysfunctional family told in short bullet points. It was kind of hard to follow at first but when I straightened out who was who really liked it.


Extinct Anatomies by Daniel Alarcon
Loved this short story about a man who while overseas, got dental work done by his cousin. In order to distract himself from the pain he had vivid sexual fantasies with the dental assistant.


Short Life Of Trouble by Sam Shepard
Fantastic little play between 2 long time musician friends one of them interviewing who I assume to be the more popular musician. Great dialog and read really well.


The Plum Tree And The Hammock by Janet Frame
This story is about 2 family neighbors and a plum tree with the roots on one side and the best fruit leaning over the fence into the neighbors property told from the point of view of one of the young daughters. It brings up a good point, who owns a tree with roots on one side of a property line and the majority of the branches on the other?


We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
This classic was the inspiration for Total Recall and was amazing. The twist at the end was so good and I never saw it coming although in hindsight I probably should have. It's the second Philip K. Dick I've read in Zoetrope and it's convinced me I need to buy a book of his collected short stories. His imagination and storytelling skills are crazy good.


Art by Sfaustina
I'm not sure what I think about the art, here a couple good examples from the magazine

East, West By Salman Rushdie

East, West by Salman Rushdie

This is the first book I've read by Mr. Rushdie and enjoyed the collection of short stories. It's organized by having 3 each under the sections East, West and East, West. I've always thought of Salman as one of the great intellectuals of our day so I was pleasantly surprised by some playful stories. All of them were deep & often profound but they were all fun in their own ways. I loved the story The Prophet's Hair a story surrounding the luck that falls on whoever owns a strand of hair of the Prophet Mohammed. Another one of my favorites was Chekov And Zulu as spy story and he left what I think is the most profound story for the end The Courter. Great collection of stories!

Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore

Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore

This is the second book I've read by Christopher Moore and while this one wasn't quite as good as Lamb but it was still great. It's a story revolving around impressionist artists living in Paris in the late 19th century. The book includes a lot of full color pictures of paintings done by characters in the novel and in some cases the paintings themselves play a part in the plot. I won't give away any more of the plot and will only say that the book is hilarious from start to finish. During dinner last night I was getting quite a few looks from other patrons as I kept laughing out loud.

The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai

The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai

I've been a fan of Makkai's short stories since I first encountered her work in the 2008 Best American Short Stories anthology. I was excited to see that she had published her first novel and even more excited when I saw that she was going to be in town at Longfellow Books to do a reading & signing this Thursday. The book is about a young children's librarian who accidentally kidnaps her favorite patron, a 10 year old boy when he runs away from home and she puts off driving him back home until it's a little too late to not be considered kidnapping. Loved the story, it had a lot of themes interwoven in the book that came together nicely, had very poignant moments and hilarious moments. It was extremely entertaining even when dealing with some serious issues. The reading was amazing, I love to hear authors read their own books as it gives an insight into how they wanted it to sounds. Rebecca is upbeat, gregarious, smart, funny and charming. Absolutely loved it and she signed my Best American Short Stories 2010 that already includes signatures by Karen Russell, Jennifer Egan & Richard Russo. I was lucky enough to have a quick chat with her when she signed my book and got laughing pretty good, so happy I got to go to the event and read the book!

Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

**FULL WARNING, MAY INCLUDE SPOILERS DEPENDING ON YOUR DEFINITION**

Went to see the new Batman movie and I was really excited. Loved the first 2 and unlike the mass populous wasn't concerned about terrorists (tragic but statistically unlikely). I love a dark, pissed off Batman filled with ragie justice. After taking a night to think it over I'm pretty disappointed. The last half of the movie was kind of tough. Basically Batman gets his ass handed to him and his comeback is just so unrealistic it's distracting. Bane's voice is also super annoying and hard to understand. Couldn't blame the mask either, Darth Vader was always clear and awesome sounding. Speaking of voices, another thing I didn't get was why Batman still spoke in his crazy low voice when in the suit to people who knew he was Bruce Wayne. The plot left a lot of questions and didn't feel like it tied together all that well. On the positive side, the acting was all great, there were some fantastic twists, lots of cool action sequences, great batman toys & Anne Hathaway looked amazing in her cat suit especially on a Batbike. They also threw in a scene where you could think that she may be bisexual, I'm assuming that and her sexy scenes were done on purpose for all of us nerds (Thank you Mr Nolan!). In the end I think I would have liked this movie a lot more if I hadn't had all the crazy high expectations, no way it could have lived up to them. Sure parts weren't realistic but it's Batman, so what the hell am I complaining about? Definitely entertaining and worth checking out.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino translated by William Weaver

This book is unlike anything I've read and is far, far outside my comfort zone as a reader. I was given it by a friend who loves Calvino and it's not hard to see why as the book is written in beautiful prose. This is a short book that is essentially a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan describing cities that Polo has visited or Khan imagines. The cities are all fantastical and sometimes includes current technologies so the tales transcend time and place. Calvino is extremely philosophic and lyrical in his writing with the book packed with profound thought/observations. I really enjoyed the beauty of the writing and philosophy but part of me wished for a plot as nothing really changed from beginning to end. One of the things I struggle with as a reader is that I'm not particularly strong at breaking down books because as I'm breaking down each page I'm losing focus on the overall story. If this was broken down into short stories I'm sure I would be absolutely raving about how good they are but as a short novel I can't take the leap from individual pages being amazing to the book being amazing. Overall I liked the book because its strengths are really strong and I'm glad challenged myself with it.

Movie Review - Goon

Goon is the only movie I can think of that I've watched twice in two days since I was a kid. I'm a little biased because I'm such a huge hockey fan but I think this is the best hockey movie since Slap Shot and I bet I'm not alone. Seann William Scott was amazing playing the main character Doug Glatt who's a lovable idiot who kicks a lot of ass. Doug's best friend Ryan played by Jay Baruchel is a wisecracking hilarious ahole that's the perfect caricature of a lot of massholes I grew up with right down to the lines shaved into the side of his head. The love interest Eva is played by Alison Pill a small town girl who's adorable in a very real sense. There are basically 2 story lines in the movie, Doug's rise to becoming a great minor league enforcer & a love story with him and Eva. Doug's rise to the top involves a showdown with Liev Schrieber's charater Ross Rhea an aging enforcer at the end of his career and he's awesome. I think Liev is one of the most underrated actors in the game and that includes his portrayal of Rhea. Some of the things that make the movie great are just how dumb Doug is, the play between how nice & polite he is and how brutal he is in fights, great plays on a lot of stereotypes and small things like Liev's character smoking getting ready in the locker room while rocking an amazing mullet. The hockey scenes were pretty realistic and well done. George Laraque, one of the best enforcers in his day played a small role and was a great touch for NHL fans. The fights themselves were mostly over the top and insanely fun to watch.

There were a lot of great jokes that are way too inappropriate to repeat here but my favorite is in a scene that starts with Eva running up to Doug crying and Doug says in all sincerity "What's wrong, did you just watch Rudy?"

Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser

Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser

I was excited to read this book, I a huge fan of Millhauser's short stories and novellas and while I enjoyed this book it didn't love it as much as I'd hoped. The story is about a son of a cigar shop owner who by hard work and big dreams ends up building hotels in New York at the turn of the 20th century. There were 2 main parts of the plot, Martin's assent into building bigger and more elaborate things and then a love triangle between him, his wife who is silent and distant and her homely sister who he respects and makes his business partner. The first aspect of Martin's building had a ton to do with New York at the turn of the century and America's crazy industrial growth during that time. The way it was written about was fantastic as the descriptions and content made you feel like you were there. The other part with the love triangle was interesting but not captivating. Another thing I really liked is that Martin Dressler himself was kind of a jerk, bringing an extra dimension to make him seem more real and less of a character. I guess the reason I didn't love it is the end just kid of faded out, there was a definite climax but it wasn't particularly engrossing to me. That said it was extremely well written and a must for anyone who's interested in New York City in that time period.

In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders

In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders

This is the second collection of short stories by Mr. Saunders and he's truly an original voice. Quirky, smart, silly at times, dark at others, always hilarious and I would assume the biggest writer of "wonk" in the history of the world. Previously I've listened to Joshua Ferris read "Adams" on the New Yorker Fiction podcast and it was my favorite story in this collection. I probably loved it so much because of the podcast but the extra insight I learned added a ton to my enjoyment when I read the story this time. It's a good representation of his style and humor with a ton of sophistication snuck just barely under the surface. If you've never read a Saunders story you should and this collection is a great place to start.

Movie Review - Brave

Went to see Brave this weekend with Sky and Heather. I love Pixar movies and this one was really good. Visually the movie was unbelievable, especially the landscapes and details. I'm pretty sure you can see all the individual strands of fur on all the animals in the movie. The story essentially revolves around a young Scottish princess Merida voiced by Kelly Macdonald, her mother Elinor voiced by Emma Thompson and explores the mother/daughter dynamic in a true fairy tale. A lot of the funniest lines were by the father Fergus played by Billy Connolly who was a Scottish King renowned for fighting off a giant bear. I won't give away too much of the movie as there is one big twist about a 3rd of the way through that I don't want to ruin. All in all I enjoyed the movie and while it isn't in my top 5 favorite Pixar films it's not far off. I'm not sure I'd recommend it for young or sensitive kids as there are quite a few scary scenes involving a killer bear but those were some of my favorite scenes.

Like a lot of Pixar movies there was a short before the feature, this one is called La Luna and is a really sweet story. It's about a young boy with his father and grandfather who learns the family business involving the moon. Again I don't want to give away too much but it is a quick little feel good story before the main event.

The Proxy Marriage by Maile Meloy

Obviously The New Yorker has been putting out some ridiculously awesome fiction for years and I've been absolutely loving my subscription. I wanted to single out the short story The Proxy Marriage by Maile Meloy that was in the May 14th issue. If this story doesn't get shortlisted to every 2012 anthology I'm going to be shocked, it was so good! This story is about a boy who falls in love with a girl in high school but she has no idea. He continues to be in love with her as both of their lives take them on different paths but they keep coming together when they come home from various things to take place in proxy weddings where they stand in for marriages between soldiers stationed oversees and their women back home. I think we can all relate to loving someone who doesn't feel the same way and for me this brought up some seriously strong emotions. The writing was fluid and Maile's ability to jump forward in time between sentences was extremely well done. Sad at times, uplifting at others this is a story I'm going to remember for along time. I have a collection of her short stories and reading this one just bumped it up on my reading list.

Stories: All New Tales edited by Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio

Stories: All New Tales edited by Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio

This collection from 2010 was chocked full of stories from all kinds of amazing writers. The majority of them had some component of either horror, science fiction or something similar. The book started out extremely strong and ended extremely strong with only a few stories in the middle that didn't quite have the imagination or wow factor. The thing I love about the book most is that it was all extremely well written without being pretentious at all. Some of the stories that stood out to me from an outstanding collection are;

Blood by Roddy Doyle. This is a story about a man's unexpected urge to eat raw meat then blood. Great start to the book and a fun story.

Wildfire in Manhattan by Joanne Harris. This one is along the same lines as Neil's book American Gods. It's basically about gods fighting in Manhattan.

The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman. This one's got at lot going on but surrounds a sojourn to a magical cave filled with gold. Lots of twists and interesting character/plot reveals throughout.

The Stars Are Falling by Joe R. Lansdale. A man returns to his family after war to his wife who thought he was dead. Not to give to much away but there's some attempted murder and some actual murder going on.

Juvenal Nyx by Walter Mosley. Man meets woman, woman is a vampire, man becomes vampire.

Weights and Measures by Jodi Picoult. Very sad story about a couple who looses their young daughter. Only really bummer in the book but it was great.

Mallon the Guru by Peter Straub. Really short story that's 100% intrigue and leaves everything to the imagination. Both infuriating and amazing.

Catch and Release by Lawrence Block. Creepy story written in the 1st person by a serial killer. Bad bad man.

Loser by Chuck Palahniuk. Truly original writer.

Therapist by Jeffery Deaver. This is about a therapist who sees who he perceives as a young woman in dire need of his help. The story starts there and has too many twists to ruin

The Cult of the Nose by Al Sarrantonio. A man tracks down a cult who he sees in famous pictures of disasters identified by wearing a fake nose.

The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerphon by Elizabeth Hand. I believe this is the first of many pieces I'll be ready of hers. Fantastic story with lots going on but has one theme of dealing with loss. Finding new artists like this is one of the reasons I love anthologies.

The Devil on the Staircase by Joe Hill. Written in an exploitative manner where the text is in the shape of stairs. The devil is literally on 1 of them.


I'm leaving out a bunch of great stories but these were my favorite.

The Wind Through The Keyhole by Stephen King

The Wind Through The Keyhole by Stephen King is a new dark tower novel. The dark tower series is complete with the existing books 1-7 and this book is essentially 2 stories that Roland tells his traveling companions set between book 4 - 5. It was ok, I had a hard time getting into it and don't think I'll remember much about it as time goes on. I really wish I had liked it more but it didn't have any real wow moments. If you're a dark tower fanatic it's kind of worth it but if not I'd recommend skipping it

McSweeney's No. 40

I love McSweeney's and I've been really excited for the 40th issue to come out assuming some amount of fanfare. Oddly enough no fanfare but a solid issue. This issue includes 2 books, the primary book seen in the picture about and another hardcover called In My Home There Is No More Sorrow, Ten Days In Rwanda by Rick Bass. The primary book has a bunch of awesome pieces by some of my favorite authors and a collection of writing about the Egyptian Revolution from last year. The issue started off with a great letter section and included the following;

Notes From A Bystander by Said Syrafiezadeh
This is a bit of non fiction about a son of a protester and his experiences at Occupy Wall Street. Cool little piece.

All Together Here by David Vann
Cool little story about a dysfunctional family. The family includes a grandmother, her two loser daughters and their 2 teenagers. The story is told from the point of view of the teenage boy who has a crush on his female cousin. A great little story that got a lot accomplished in a short number of pages.

The Sisters by Kevin Moffett
Moffett is consistently one of the top McSweeney's contributors. This story is about two lonely sisters who have lived their whole lives living alone with only single transient man coming in and out of their lives at a time. Creepy at times, touching at others, extremely well written and another winner.

A Good One by Etgar Keret
Keret is a master at his craft. This one was included in his recent book and is typical magic from the first word. I can't say enough good things about him.

Topsy Turvy by Jason Jagel
This was a comic insert that bothered me because it made the book a little awkward to hold and it made me feel like an idiot as I don't get it.

Adventure Story by Neil Gaiman
I think this is non fiction, either way it's great. It's a short little accounting of a story between Neil and his mother about an interesting stone figure he found that belonged to his dad.

Big Windows by Nathan C. Martin
Only 3 pages and one of the saddest stories I've read. Just crushingly sad but also filled with it's own hope.

Scientific American by Adam Levin
I liked this story. It's about a couple who moves into a new home that has a wall that has a nocturnally reoccurring crack in a wall that fills with gel. That's just the starting point, kind of philosophical and fantastic.

Egyptian Revolution section
This section was a nice collection of writing. My favorites were translated copies of handouts that were given to the demonstrators about things like how to dress & use a trash can as a shield.


In My Home There Is No More Sorrow by Rick Bass

I'm torn about this one. Ok I lied I'm not torn at all I just don't want to sound like an asshole especially because of the cool stuff I learned about the genocide & the silver back gorillas. I just don't like the author, he was insufferable. The book is chocked full of white, not poor guilt (the author goes to great length to explain he is both white and not rich). I would have liked the book if he wasn't such an insufferable idiot. At one point he meets a local professor at a writers workshop he and his wife are putting on. After meeting the profession for literally 5 minutes this is what he writes;

"He seems to me like a man who is aware of two seemingly paradoxical facts, that we are all extraordinarily tiny in the world, specks or motes so insignificant as to essentially be as invisible we are momentary - and second, that despite this insignificance, this diminution, we are, and he is, nonetheless immersed squarely in the matrix of history and keenly aware of its movements."

Holy shit, that's a god damn ridiculous thing to say and a perfect illustration why I hate him as a person. For Christ sake it's OK to love Berkenstocks and thinking that you're saving the planet by recycling more than your beer bottles without all that preposterous crap! I still won't like you but I'll respect you for being true to who you are.

Ultimately it's a shame because I love the content of the book just not the writer and his self serving bs ramblings. The true joy to the book was in the last 30 pages that are writings from the workshop the author put on in Rwanda. The poems included are absolutely amazing and individually out shines almost everything in the entire issue.

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

I've wanted to read this book for a while now, obviously Catcher in the Rye is a classic then a beautiful barista told me that her favorite short story was in her and then my favorite book store Longfellow Books had it used for $1.97! I loved the book, the style from Catcher is strongly there in all 9 stories and as you can see from the picture I had a great time reading part of the book on a shore path in Southern Maine.

The book starts out with the barista's favorite A Perfect Day For Bananafish and from what I can tell is Salinger's most famous short story. I think that's justified as it was amazing. Loading with intrigue it centers around a young recently married couple on vacation in Florida. The wife has a phone conversation with her mother back home and her husband tells a sad story about bananafish to another young vacationer on the beach. Sad and impossible to forget.

The rest of the stories are all classic Salinger, the language is all his, the banter between characters is amazing and his delicate handling of working his way to the point of the story in an indirect way is crazy good how it comes together, often on the last page.

Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut is a good little story where 2 former sorority sisters get together for a visit in CT.

Just Before the War with the Eskimos is about a young girl, her friend she plays tennis with and that friends brother. This one more than all the others reminded me of Catcher and I wonder if the tennis friend is a character in that book.

The Laughin Man is about a group of kids who participate in a kind of after school program and the mentor of that group. The innocence of relationships between adults and kids in those days is a sharp contrast with all the recent bad news stories in the last few years.

Down At The Dinghy, loved this story surrounding a young affluent mom and her young son who likes to run away all the down to the dock at their lake house or the local park when they're in New York. This one was probably my second favorite story in the book.

For Esme- With Love And Squalor was a story about a young American soldier training in Europe who meets a really young woman on a day off. This one has a Lolita feel despite anything directly sexual. I'm probably way off because of the age I live in but that's how it feels to me.

Pretty Mouth And Green My Eyes is a story about a conversation about an older man who's sleeping with a young woman and a call from a college who's concerned his wife left a party to have an affair. You're not sure if the girl the older gentleman is sleeping with is the other man's wife until the very end.

De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period is about a young man dealing with the recent death of his mother faking his way into a job as an art instructor at a mail away art school.

Teddy is about a family on a cruise ship and was a great little story. Teddy the main character is an extremely brilliant 10 year old philosopher. Another interesting story that leaves you thinking.

After finishing the book I'm glad I took my time with it mostly reading one or two stories a day. I think if it was rushed through too fast the stories might not have time to bang around in the back of the brain enough.

Movie Review- Prometheus

Went to see Prometheus with some friends last night and I'll paraphrase my new friend Alex that there were a lot of cool things in an OK movie (he was a bit more critical). The movie has been getting a ton of hype as the first space horror movie for Ridley Scott since Aliens and maybe it was just a bit too much pressure. The effects were great, acting all top notch especially Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron & Michael Fassbender but the plot needed some serious work and the movie didn't engage you into caring much about the characters good or evil. It's really strange about how the movie didn't develop the characters enough as it would have made the most powerful scenes that much better rather than just passively watching the effects and action. As to the plot itself, we were all siting about talking about the movie afterwards and we think that maybe what happened is that it got over edited where some of the connect the dots stuff were taken out without them thinking it through. Lot's of confusing stuff, for example at one point a character intentionally contaminates another character with this alien liquid that he knows is bad but none of us could figure out why he did it. I still have no idea what the point was besides creating some action that's fun to watch. That is just one of many examples but I don't want to give too much away from the movie.

On an unrelated note, I'm pretty sure that George Lucas is a little upset with Ridley because the main score of the film was really reminiscent of that iconic Star Wars music. To further hammer home the similarities, in one of the first scary scenes with alien life forms, an alien comes out of this sludge like stuff that looks eerily similar to the alien in the death star's trash compactor scene. I'm not sure if they're intentional homages but either way they were distracting.

I know I've been crapping on the movie and have really only said good things about the acting and the special effects but believe it or not despite the plot issues & lack of characters you're emotionally wrapped up in the movie was still fairly entertaining. This should have been a shitty movie but it wasn't for at least the 1st showing, I think if I were to ever see it again I'd absolutely hate it.

The New Yorker June 4 & 11 The Science Fiction Issue

I just finished reading this issue and my god was it amazing. As I've previously mentioned I have a huge crush on their fiction editor Deborah Treisman and she continues to impress. Just an amazingly talented, smart, beautiful woman with great taste in all things literature and the voice of an angel. This issue is chocked packed with great fiction and interesting articles about science fiction. Sam Lpstye wrote a good little story called The Republic of Empathy that bounced around from different characters points of view. Jonathan Lethem wrote a really short story about 2 exclusive internets that I'm not sure I fully get. There is an article by Anthony Burgess about his book Clockwork Orange that was interesting. Margaret Atwood wrote a quick piece that makes an eloquent point about science fiction genre. Overall I had 3 favorite pieces in the magazine;

Monistro by Junot Diaz


Junot Diaz writes another fantastic story. This one is about an apocalyptic outbreak of a strange illness that started in Haiti and a coming of age story about a young boy in the DR on the other side of the island. The dialog style of Diaz is fun and thinly veils a great sophistication in his writing.

Quests by Karen Russell


Karen Russell is my other great literary crush, funny, beautiful & original. This quick article joins Atwood's to discuss how science fiction gets the shaft as not being taken seriously as a genre. She tells about how she was reading science fiction books when she was 10 as part of a school program to get a free pizza after reading 5 books. Funny and insightful. Can't wait for her new collection of short stories to come out!

Black Box by Jennifer Egan


I'll be absolutely shocked and will loose a lot of faith in the world if this story isn't included in every year end anthology about the best short stories in 2012. It's a story about a woman who volunteered to be a spy for some future or alternate US who has been modified Bionic Woman style. I don't want to give away too much but it's one of the best stories I've read this year by far for the style, writing & plot.

A Dance With Dragons by George R R Martin

Well first off I'm pissed that I don't have any more books from A Song of Ice and Fire to read and based on what I'm reading it seems like it'll be another few years before the 6th book comes up. This book was another amazing one in the series and unlike book 4 it focused on a lot more on characters I'm bigger fans of. Going into the series most everyone that I talked to said the first 3 books were the best and the last 2 were a lot slower but I didn't think that was true at all. Action packed from start to finish but my only complaint is that there was a ton of buildup to a couple epic battles that will apparently happen in the 6th books which made the book feel like it just stopped rather than ended where it was planned. Oddly I'm not left with a jilted feeling I just want to keep reading! Probably the best sign that the book and series are great.

My Turn At Bat by Ted Williams with John Underwood

My Turn At Bat: The Story of My Life by Ted Williams with John Underwood

I'm not an avid reader of non fiction but I absolutely loved this book. While a lot of non fiction tends to lose my interest as they tend to sound like textbooks going from one point or isolated story to another without any sense of narrative transition, this book has the tone of a conversation over drinks. Ted Williams was a far more interesting man than I would have thought before reading this book. Having grown up in Massachusetts and being born in 1977 I would always hear about how Ted Williams was the greatest batter to ever play for the Sox but had no idea of all the animosity between him the sports writers and the jerk big mouth fans. He clearly took all the crappy things people said about him to heart. Too bad too, as great as he was on the field and what he did in the service should have been more than enough for him to be beloved no matter how prickly his personality. Again having grown up in Mass I more than understand how big of an ignorant bunch of Aholes there are floating around so I'm unfortunately not surprised with how he was treated. I also love that he got mad about the personal attacks in the press, good for him for defending himself & holding a grudge when someone attacks him from the protection of the newsroom. I also love how he is both humble, cocky and self aware all at the same time it's refreshing to read about his brutally honest descriptions of fair & unfair situations. I also think that his descriptions of his love for milk shakes & fishing are down right endearing.

While it's hard to narrow them down, some of my favorite quotes coming out of the book are;

(Talking about how it's not as hard to hit 0.400 as people think) "Now it seems that Don Mattingly & Wade Boggs have a shot and I wish one of them would do it so people would quit bugging me about it and I can fish in peace."

"I know I am just one of a multitude of athletes who have gone to see kids in hospitals, to see sick kids. Peole in the public eye are always asked to do these things and they do them gladly. I don't think you should get a Silver Star for it. It's something you should do without having people rave over you."

2 great ones from his hall of fame induction speech;

"Ballplayers are not born great. They're not born great hitters or pitchers or managers, and luck isn't the big factor. No one has come up with a substitute for hard work. I've never met a great player who didn't have to work harder at learning to play ball than anything else he ever did."

and

"I hope that someday Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson will be voted into the Hall of Fame as symbols of the great Negro players who are not here only because they weren't given the chance"

How great is that? Here is arguably one of the guys with the reputation for being one of the biggest aholes of the game and he's advocating how bullshit discrimination is at the HOF speech in July of 1966 because it's the right thing to do. I'm a fan of this guy.

Movie Review- The Avengers

I didn't make it to opening weekend for The Avengers but I was close as I just saw it on Monday night. I got a bit of a late start and while I wasn't planning on watching it in 3D I was too late for the standard showing. The movie itself was great and just what I was hoping for. It started off setting up a crisis that caused Nick Fury to get the team together then lots of inter squad drama and a good old fashion good v evil with the earth's survival hanging in the balance to finish it off. All the actors were great, the established actors from the recent movies set the bar high with Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor & Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury but I also really liked the job the new guys did with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill & especially Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Bruce Banner. The writing was also good with a fun plot that seemed to focus on entertainment rather than character development. Which is good because these characters are all well developed for the nerds and not really needed for non nerds. I don't need to watch Hulk coming to terms with why he's full of rage, I want him to smash things really hard! My only complaint is that I hate dark scenes in 3D as I have a hard time seeing it clearly and it tends to hurt my eyes. I don't have the same issue with brighter scenes with strong color contrast but there were a lot of scenes where I got a little pissed as I couldn't see exactly what was going on. Luckily the huge action sequence at the end was during the day so I could see it fine. My only non legitimate complaint is that the guy sitting behind me was a loud tool bag.

All in all my recommendation is to go see it and kick off summer with a fun movie!


PS. Scarlett Johansson & Cobie Smulders have pretty eyes

Suddenly, A Knock On The Door by Etgar Keret

Suddenly, A Knock On The Door by Etgar Keret was crazy, crazy good, complete game changer! I've read a few of these stories before in different publications or anthologies and have always been blown away by his work. His stories are typically short, funny & whimsical. The first story I ever read of Etgar's that's included in this book is What, Of This Goldfish, Would You Wish and it was so good & different that I stopped reading, put the book down just to let it linger with me a while longer. Now that I think about it, the authors I've found in the last few years who I absolutely love, quite a few of them have a certain amount of fantasy in their work. The likes of Karen Russell, Steven Millhauser, Tea Obreht, Rebecca Makkai & Etgar Keret strike me as being linked by their originality, humor and refusal to stay within logical bounds. I'm a fairly positive person and when I read I'm drawn to stories like the ones in this book as they contrast sharply with all the sad, depressing fiction out there. Not to say I don't like sad stories, that walking alcoholic wet blanket Raymond Carver is ridiculously amazing for example, some of Lorrie Moore's best stories are crushingly sad and this book has some sad stories mixed in as well but overall the whimsicality set the tone of the book for me. One of the most endearing stories in the book was how the main character always keeps his pockets bulging with anything he thinks he might need not to blow his chance at love with any ordinary looking stranger who has such an enchanting smile that she takes your breath away.

For people who love audio books MacMillian has an audio version of the book available and the list of who reads is a true testament to Keret's genius. Stories are read by Ira Glass, Dave Eggers, Nicole Krauss, George Saunders, Miranda July, Stanley Tucci, Michael Chabon, Rick Moody, Nathan Englander and more. I'm just an opinionated readers but good lord that's a list of who's effin awesome at reading if I've ever seen one! It's available directly from MacMillian for a good price here (intelligently, no one's offered me any money to post the link);

http://us.macmillan.com/book.aspx?isbn=9781427226945

Etgar's magic holds no bounds and in my opinion should be considered one of the masters of his craft.

A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin

After what feels like forever I finally finished A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin. Not because it's insanely long but I've been picking away at it since March reading other books and doing other things mixed in. Without trying to ruin anything this book deals with half of the characters/situations and I guess the 5th book deals with the other half running parallel from a timeline perspective. Overall I liked this one a little less than the previous books as it seemed like there was a little less action. It centered more on characters and less on these huge action/battle sequences. It also added a lot of characters from another area that they hadn't deal with a lot and it took a while to really get a grip on who's who. Plus for some random reason he introduces 3 insanely bad ass female characters right at the beginning and then never goes back to them. I'm guessing they'll come back up in later books but who knows.

All in all well worth reading as the series is unbelievably good.

Best American Short Stories 1991

This is the first book I've finished in a while. I've had a lot going on and haven't been reading much lately. I've been reading a fair amount of short stories in The New Yorker but I've watched a lot of hockey and baseball lately. This book had some amazing stories but I've been reading the book for so long it's hard to do a good review. I can honestly say that each story was really well written & interesting. Some of my favorites were by Lorrie Moore, Leonard Michaels, Alice Monroe & Rick Bass but honestly they were all great.

Loved the book and so glad I bought all the B.A.S.S. from 1990 to current.

Zoetrope : All-Story Spring 2012

I just subscribed to Zoetrope and this is the first issue. Last issue I was disappointed with the stories bu this one was amazing again. It included 3 new stories by Bennett Sims, Jim Shepard & Rajesh Parameswaran, a story by Ingmar Bergman about a film & included art from Wayne White.

The Bookcase by Bennett Sims
This is a story about a man who tells his favorite party story on This American Life and he ends up looking like a huge d bag. Great story and I'm a fan of Ira Glass in any form fictional, non fictional or cartoon.


Cretan Love Song, 1600 B.C. by Jim Shepard
Short little story about a family when the volcanic island of Thera blows up. There is a brief period between the blowing up and the destruction hitting the main character and this is when the entire story takes place.


On the Banks of Table River (Planet Lucina, Andromeda Galaxy, A.D. 2319) by Rajesh Parameswaran
Nice little piece of science fiction. A little bit of alien coming of age and a little bit of horror.


Cries and Whispers by Ingmar Bergman
I liked this story a lot. Ingmar Bergman wrote and directed this 1972 movie and this is basically a concept piece and not part of the screen play or fully finished short story. I enjoyed the parts he wrote about how certain things should feel or give the impression of as much as the story itself.


Wayne White's art
I wasn't aware that I was familiar with Mr. White's work but the blurb about him said that he was the set designer for Pee Wee's Big House. After looking at his art I'm not surprised, he's zany and I have no idea what to think of any of his paintings. They all have huge words in the paintings usually out of some bright, varying colors.

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut was a great beach read. I love Vonnegut's way of looking at the world and his second book helped set the tone right away. This is a science fiction book with a great bit of social commentary mixed in. This is another book that I have a hard time summarizing without giving away too much so I'll skip it. He's just an original genius and I hope he's remembered as one of the best of his generation.

God Bless America by Steve Almond

God Bless America by Steve Almond

I first read Steve's short story that's included in this collection called Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched in The Best American Short Stories and loved it. Funny, sad, poignant, awesome. I then listened to his appearance on WTF with Marc Maron and laughed my ass off. This collection of stories continued the streak and was awesome as well. First Date Back was just stupid good, God Bless America was a great way to star the book, A Jew Berserk on Christmas Eve is my second favorite short story title of all time and lived up to it's name hype.

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

A Storm of Swords book 3 in A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

Good god was this an awesome book! As amazing as the first 2 were this one was even better. Plot twists, crazy action, fantastic characters and lots of old timey language. I've never read 1,200+ pages faster and never felt like I couldn't put down a book as early into the story as this one. While I would love to talk about what happened there are way too many plot twist to do so without giving things away. I will say this, don't get attached to any one character. Can't recommend this series enough and insanely excited for the HBO series to start up again.

Pastoralia by George Saunders

Pastoralia by George Saunders

George Saunders hast to be one of the most interesting original voices working today. His writing is funny, smart & different from anyone else. He's another author who I tend to gravitate towards when he's included in anthologies and this is the first book of exclusively his stories that I've read. While it was really short, I'm glad I read it as the stories were excellent. His use of language is interesting where he seems to break some of the most dark elements in his writing by using works like wonky or he'll say that someone bonked someone instead of punched which completely changes how it's read. The's a sillyness that comes through even when he's being most critical and dark that reminds me a lot of Vonnegut. The writing is completely different but both men have a way of infusing silliness into their stories without making them silly and it's a bit like magic.

Video Game Review- Final Fantasy XIII-2

I've been excited about this game since the middle of last year when I found out it was going to be released in January. I love the Final Fantasy games and loved Final Fantasy XIII. This sequel follows Lightning's sister Sereh and a mysterious stranger Noel as they go around fixing paradoxes in the space time continuum that was created somehow after the first game ended. They are also looking for Lightning who disappeared right after the first game with only Sereh and a couple other people remembering her at all. First off, I love the game play and the story is good for those who like Final Fantasy games. Personally I like linear games with some side quests thrown in but this game is wide open where you can do things at completely different times in the game and you need to trigger certain events to move forward. Still fun though. My absolute favorite part of the game is that to fight along with Sereh & Noel you can capture enemies through the game and use them to fight along with you. They can all be leveled up and you can infuse some of their powers into other monsters to make the ones your using that much stronger. Great game and while this and soon to be SSX will be taking away from my reading time it's been worth it.

A Clash of Kings By George R. R. Martin

Just finished the second book in The Song Of Ice And Fire series and this one was just as awesome as the first book. The characters are well thought out, the plot is fast paced, the writing excellent & it's extremely hard to put down. I think what makes it so addicting is that he basically has cliffhangers at the end of almost every chapter but because there is so much going on he may not get back to that character for 80-100 pages. So in that 80-100 pages there are probably 4 other cliffhangers that you want to get to to see what happened. I realized almost through the end of the book that I would put it down mid chapter more often than at a chapter end. Highly recommended reading for someone who's looking to be entertained.

The King in the Tree by Steven Millhauser

The book consists of 3 novellas, Revenge, An Adventure of Don Juan & The King in the Tree. All 3 novellas deal with love and all three were amazing. Revenge is about a middle age woman showing her house to someone interested in buying it. We find out that she's dealing with the death of her husband after he disclosed that he had been having an affair. The story is all her side of the conversation as she leads the person through the house. The second novella An Adventure of Don Juan is a story about Don Juan being unhappy with his life seducing married women in Venice so he decides to go north to England. He stays with an acquaintance, his wife & his wife's sister. Long story short he has a little bit of a hard time seducing the one he wants as the main conflict of the story. The third novella The King in the Tree is a retelling of Tristan and Iseult and is amazing. Millhausers prose along with his gift for dark whimsy are simply brilliant.

Movie Review- Safe House

Went to see this movie yesterday during opening weekend. Typically anything with Denzel Washington is at least going to be entertaining and Ryan Reynolds has been doing some great movies as well. The movie is about an ex CIA agent Tobin Frost (Denzel) who has turned traitor and is selling information to the highest bidder. He gets his hands on some sort of list and a nasty undisclosed group is doing a great job of almost killing him. To get away from them he turns himself into the American Consulate in South Africa where he's diverted to a safe house that is manned by Matt Weston (Ryan). As one would expect someone in the CIA is a mole and the undisclosed group breaks into the safe house. Lots of shooting, running, blowing stuff up, running away fro with cops through soccer stadiums, car chases, fights with shards of broken glass & good old fashion punching ensue for lots of fun. My only complaint was that there were only 2 options for who the bad guy/girl is in the CIA and Heather and I figured it out a little early. Overall though the movie was more about the action than mystery so I don't think it took too much away from the film. This one's not going to win any Oscars but it's a great way to spend a couple hours.

The New Yorker

I was given a subscription of The New Yorker as a gift from Heather's sister this Christmas and was ecstatic. I've always been a big fan of the fiction as they consistently seem to have the best stories published in anthologies and I've read them off and on for years. So far all of the stories in 2012 have been great and a great way to break up the long book series I'm working through. Today I just found out that the subscription includes access to every magazine they've ever published online in their archive. I was a little disappointed by the piece published on my birthday in 1977 but loved that it was there. The best part of the issue was all the 70's ads, I'm pretty sure that was the decade ruled by pimps. As I mentioned in a previous post the fiction podcast is one of my favorite past times and having access to the archives will be a great way to explore some of the authors they choose to showcase especially those out of print. With all this awesome reading/podcasting going on Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor has firmly cemented herself as a legit celebrity crush pushing Kim Kardashian out of my top 5. (In no particular order it's currently Deborah Treisman, Shakira, Stacy Dash, Deborah Ann Woll & Sofia Vergara). If I were to participate in one of those dumb ice breakers where you're asked if you could have dinner with anyone who would it be, I'm pretty sure it would be her. I can't currently think of anyone who would have the same take on the world and would love to pick her brain about books.

Enchanted Night by Steven Millhauser

Enchanted Night by Steven Millhauser is a novella published on it's own that I checked out of the library. Over the past few years I've read a lot of Millhauser in anthologies or McSweeney's and without fail his stories are the ones I remember best. His prose is fluid & lyrical, the plots whimsical & dark, funny & poignant. This novella takes place one night in a small town where a lot is uncovered under moonlight. Quick, fantastic read!

Game of Thrones by George R R Martin

So after watching the HBO series and talking to a lot of people about how awesome the show was Heather got me the first 2 books from George R R Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire. So far I've finished Game of Thrones and have gotten about 150 pages through the second book and so far decree its awesomeness! Even though the series follows the first book closely there were enough differences where I'm glad I read the book. The direwolves are even cooler in the book, some of the love triangle stuff isn't as stressed and the action scenes are a little more savage and excellently described. The only bad thing is that it's so addicting that I'm not really doing anything but read it.

Book Review: The Best American Short Stories 1990

The Best American Short Stories 1990 edited by Richard Ford

So one day a couple of years ago I had a strong buzz going and decided to buy every Best American Short Story book from as far back as I could. Based on what I could find on Amazon used that meant from 1990 on. Long story short I bought them, lined them all up on a shelf and haven't gotten around to reading them. I heard Debra Treisman discussing on the New Yorker Fiction podcast that if you have a lot of writer friends it's hard to keep up. She made me feel a little better about my voracious appetite for reading and my limited time to do so. I'll end up reading them all and I'll keep plugging away probably when I'm reading other things. Apparently 1989 was a great year for short stories because this issue was packed full of fantastic stories from authors like Alice Monroe, Denis Johnson & Steven Millhauser. Millhauser is consistently one of my favorite short story writers and I loved this one as well. To sum up, If you see a used copy, buy it!

Movie review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Couldn't have sucked more. I was all excited from the preview and the movie started out really promising as it looked really cool. There was some mild lazy type action at the beginning, some crying in the middle and a whole lot of anti climatic slow paced who done it towards the end. When the lights went up 3 people in the theater said out loud that they had no idea what happened. If you like old fashion glasses, uncomfortably long pauses before speaking, the late 60's/early 70's, hints at stuff happening and absolutely no action this is the movie for you. It also helps if you're super smart and great with names to follow the plot. I don't know who had the great idea to take an insanely complicated boring plot and decide to make it extra hard to follow by calling the same person by their name/last name/code name all at different times so you had to figure out who they were talking about by context. So pissed, the previews looked amazing and the actors are all great. If someone put a gun to your head and said you need to watch this or bio dome just take the bullet...

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I finally caved and read this book after a lot of hesitation and it was ok. What convinced me to read it was the movie preview they showed at Sherlock Holmes that looks really good. Heather and I figured we'd both want to read the book before seeing the movie and I've been reading a lot of literature lately and figured I could use some lighter fun reads. I can see why this was so popular and why it'll make a really fun movie but the book was just ok to me. I would have preferred a slightly subtler hand at times but the overall story was good. My favorite books for teens read as adults were the Harry Potter series, the Tiffany Aching series by Terry Pratchett and a few of Neil Gaiman's books. What I loved about those and didn't love about this is that those books used simpler language but didn't feel dumbed down at all.

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

I've wanted this book for almost a year and finally got it for Christmas. It was amazing. Tea took her unbelievably good short story and flushed it out into a novel. The story revolves around a young doctor who lost her grandfather and is recollecting him through her memories and through 2 stories of his. The writing is fantastic, the plot is well paced, the characters are interesting and the whole thing comes together beautifully. I would highly recommend this book to any of my friends.