Sandra Day O'Connor: kiddie author

God help this country, given what the wingnuts on TV, blogs etc. have in store when Barack replaces David Souter. Souter was supposed to be a conservative...and then flipped the script. Sandy was a conservative without being a wingnut. Or a neocon in fake ass swadling clothes. Without being an Alito, or a Roberts, or a Clarence. (n.b. Scalia's in his own little Delta Quadrant of the galaxy so I don't lump him w/that crew). Thus, by measure of the new GOP, she was scum. And she knows that--and railed against it--click here. And suffered their ire. I wonder if she even voted for fellow Arizonan McCain? Probably...with a shrug.

She's also glad to be retired. Now she's penned a not half- bad children's book about an Arizona tomboy (Lonee Love said "that's what we called lesbians back in the day" hahaha Okay, Sandy's married) who finds a stray coyote pup and names it "Slim Pickens," and a little doggy named Susie. No mawkish bullcrap or cliches, seriously. It's a good book. And Finding Susie (Knopf, May, 2009) portrays a sweetness and narrative style I don't think can be duplicated by, say, Clarence Thomas...lol. Good job Madame Justice. Too bad you couldn't have stuck around...

RIP J.G. Ballard

Sounds esoteric as hell but one of my favorite memories of my late mother is our spending a rainy afternoon watching Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Ballard's novel "Empire of the Sun," on HBO a couple of years ago. My father was napping, of course. My then fiancee was back in DC hanging with her Howard girlfriends. I'd just come for a visit basically. In her unrepentent Brooklyn accent she said, "Christapha, woo-tch this movie with me. It's based oo-wn a book, right?" Yep. The film featured a little boy actor named Christian Bale, who was 11 when principal photography begain. This was "serious" Speilberg: "Schindler's List," "The Color Purple," & "Amistad" vintage. And semi-autobiographical: like Bale's character, Ballard was a Brit colonial (though older in real life) captured by the Japanese in the morass and tragically unknown World War Two front that was China and interned till after the atomic bomb ended the war. A few weeks after we saw the movie I got my mom Ballard's novel; she took it to Delaware for her beach reading but never got to it. As of this past season it's still there sandwiched between her old Ludlum tomes. Oh she understood who Ballard was, his import. But here's what she told me. She said the looks on the child's (Bale's) face in different shots, scenes, were enthralling, haunting enough. Reading the book would "spoil that." As an author that was troubling to me, but hey, it worked for her and I respected that.

Ballard wasn't a touchy-feely writer. He was the anti-Jodi Picoult, and with all due respect to my fellow Princetonian Ms. Picoult, thank God for that. If you ever want those bitter-sour-salty areas of your tongue assaulted to submission, taste his novel Crash, which was also adapted for film (Holly Hunter, James Spader were in it...it's not the one which won Best Picture starring Don Cheadle). Crash was about people who used car wrecks and accident injuries--both watching the mishaps, being in them--as sexual fetish. That was Ballard, all the way. I think Mom saw that one on Starz or Encore. Ballard's short story "The Sound Sweep" inspired the Buggles' iconic (and oddly prophetic) 80s pop song "Video Killed the Radio Star." In 1981 it was the first video ever played on MTV. I was home on Christmas vacation, with Mom, and likely saw the second, which had to be Haircut 100 or Duran Duran and I recall Mom asking "Christapha, whut that hell is that?" Perverse alright. MTV no longer plays real videos and Mom's dead. Would have made a great subject for Ballard's next dark study, had he not died.

Darkness wasn't what my mother and I shared in our love of Empire of the Sun, of course. Ballard's mezmerizing story, whether on screen or paper, was the key. Well, okay...not the key--the vehicle. She and I were the key. As sticky-uncomfortable, as Ballard's work was, there was always something more human, more hopeful than any of the sugar-coated crap or romances which constantly outsold him at Barnes & Noble. Funny, therefore, how it was over his stuff was what Mom and I shared a unique moment. I still joke with my wife, whenever I reminisce about my mother, through my warbling the notes of the soundtrack's song Exultate Justi by the Ambrosian Boys Choir. Okay, it's strange, but it worked. Just like Mom and I. Just like Ballard.

RIP, both of you...

More Proof Publishing is Dead: Publish the Dead!

I'm way beyond the biting the hand that feeds me worry. HarperCollins announced today that it is publishing two books by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton. He's dead, recall. They are dressing up two manuscripts found in a box, no doubt. One's about pirates in Jamaica. Yes, pirates. The other's "science fiction," coming out in late 2010.

No need to be creative, or develop anything new, okay? Sheesh...

RIP John Updike

Jesus. What have I been saying, lately with respect to Donald Westlake (click here for 1/6 post): about how the giants die? Read just a thumbnail bio here.

And Tyler Perry, Sistah Soulja, Stephanie Meyer, Karrine Stephens, Mitch Albom, Nicholas Sparks & Ann Coulter and on and on...will likely live forever. I should email Walter Mosely and remind him to watch his diet, get a colonoscopy, avoid USAIR flights out of La Guardia, avoid West Philly and peanut butter from Thailand, because I can't take this crap any more...

Asim & Ifill's Books: the first cut of history

Who said "Journalism is history's first draft?" Was it my boy Mencken? Oh well, here is history's first cut, by two journalists. Remember them--journalists? Real journalists...not pundits, blowhard "commentators," talk show clowns. Writer, Former Washington Post Bookworld editor, NAACP Crisis editor and now professor Jabari Asim offers What Obama Means. If Gwen Ifill were white and around in the late 60s she'd be called a "dean:" like Spivak, Chancellor, Smith, Severeid, Shore, Brinkley. Nuff said. I'm not cheezing here. This is Gwen. Her book is Breakthrough.
Now, if you recall, before the vice-presidential debates came the demand that Gwen be removed as moderator. This was from a slew of the same deranged wingnuts who were slapped down by Barack and Rahm the Terrible this week. How ironic. And allegorical. Maybe they had gwen confused with Donna Brazile? For Gwen's using the news and facts adduced through real journalism to frame the new paradigm of national politics Barack espouses. Yes, patriotism and progressivism. Jabari, on the other hand, offers a thesis controlling the internal transformative forces: what this means for "us folk" within the general polity. Yes, there's overlap here, even in use of primary source material. So? I'll posit that the distguishing contrast between the two works appears to be this global versus local view. Gwen shows the new paradigm for America using Barack as the vehicle; Jabari shows the new paradigm for black people and the changing nature of power, powerlessness and politics. The comparison: both are masterful, objective--something even the wingnuts should take a look at should they decided to build rather than urinate. Of course I think the authors should have gone a further in fleshing out the cultural aspect (you know I say culture affects crime, politics, education)...it's time Barack mounts the bully pulpit to denounce all bamma-dom and ghettofabulousness. That's my only criticism. But alas that's sociology, not history. Hopefully someone can build on this wonderful first cut and add this culture dimension as history settles itself.
Check back, fanboys & girls, for I hope to include interviews with the authors. In the meantime, buy the books. Give me your thoughts.

Donald Westlake RIP

One of the greatest crime/mystery writers of all time. Had dinner and drinks with him, Stuart Kaminsky and others in Charlottesville Virginia back in 06 and I thought I was eating with Zeus and Apollo. Yeah, it was like that. If you don't know who Westlake is, then damn it look him up. Not just for the Parker and Starke mysteries...but also stories and books which became movies (of which he also penned the screenplays), from Point Blank, Payback, The Hot Rock and The Grifters, to Martin Lawrence in What's the Worst that could Happen.

The old masters die, and we are left with the morons and brain candy specialists. Lord, who's next? My mother loved his stuff, as they were Brooklynites and there's that bond only that borough brings, whether you're black or white, Puerto Rican, Dominican or Jamaican. Mick, Polack or Guinea. The place spawns genius, Don. By the way, how was the trip to heaven? There's a caper story somewhere here...