In this week’s New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg does a good job of summing up in a few short paragraphs what I was wrangling over at length the other day: the malfeasance of this administration, most especially its main perpetrator, the wrongfully appointed Dick Cheney.
Last week the LA Times had a good piece on my favorite working film director, Werner Herzog. Click here to read it.
I’m not sure precisely what compels me to go back over and over again to Herzog’s films, as I do. They’re simultaneously spellbinding and somewhat inept: While he continually dwells too long in scenes that don’t matter, or elides important parts of the narrative flow, or provides you with what seems like exactly the wrong shot, his films nevertheless have a raw immediacy — a power — that is almost entirely lacking elsewhere. Most movies just don’t interest me; all of Herzog’s do. Including especially:
All of these films are in some way a mess. But that chaos is what gives them life, and what makes every scene flawed and astonishing.
Over on Slate, Troy Patterson dishes Oprah’s interview with Cormac McCarthy, missing the entire point: Whether you like her or not, who else with this much mainstream power shines so much love on book reading? Be glad.
“Life is pretty damn good and we should appreciate it more.”
It shouldn’t be surprising that that is the key takeaway from the author of “The Road,” the novel more than any other in the past year (perhaps in the past 10 years) that I’ve been thinking about, talking about, dwelling on, and recommending to friends, in his interview today by Oprah Winfrey. The bleakness of the post-apocalyptic “Road” is a reminder and an inspiration to recognize the value of what’s here now (and, with luck, to preserve that value). I remember in the immediate weeks after reading it thinking throughout every day that nothing I would face that day could be truly troubling by comparison. And isn’t that the strength of literature: to make you feel life anew?
I should also take a moment to profess my abject love of Oprah. This is probably only the third time I’ve watched her show, but every time I’ve been struck by her obvious genuine interest in the interviewee and the subject. (Want to see the exact opposite? Check out a man named David Letterman.) Some years ago I saw her interviewing a man who had written a book called “No Bad Boys,” about helping troubled youth; this author (and psychologist) was saying that he didn’t believe in “bad boys,” but in boys who needed help. As I watched that profile and his work with some of these boys and Oprah’s questioning, at one point I was reduced to tears. Sentimental? Sure. Heartfelt? Absolutely. I don’t believe in bad boys either, and I was glad to know that someone out there was doing something about that.
Maybe part of my love for Oprah, even given my limited exposure, is her determination to fix little corners of the universe. I too think things are fixable, or at least improvable. Oprah has no room for cynicism, and neither do I. She loves books and wants to talk about them with their authors. In a mainstream way, who has done this since Johnny Carson a long, long, long time ago? No one. It’s fashionably cynical to dismiss Oprah as a sentimentalist, but like her or not, she’s creating new readers for writers like Cormac McCarthy.
In this interview, McCarthy responds in style. He’s not a press hound — this is his first television interview ever, and one of very, very few interviews in his career — and that self-protectiveness may have contributed to his simple, matter-of-fact humility and wisdom, present throughout this interview. With regard to his seemingly odd punctuation style, which some have slammed as an affectation, he says, “I believe in periods and capitals and occasional commas. That’s it.” That style, he says, is “to make it easier to read, not harder.” Disagree if you will, but his books are beautifully written and quickly read.
If you missed the interview, it’s online at Oprah’s website. Here’s the link. If you’d like to see a talented contemporary novelist untrammeled by his recent success and wealth, one who acknowledges debts to forebears remembered (Faulkner, Joyce) and forgotten, watch this. To do so you’ll have to join Oprah’s free online book club (which you can later quit if you like), but is that so much to ask? You can always quit later, and all she’s trying to do is share her love for books she admires. Just like the rest of us.
Over on the wonderful website of late lamented “Cracked” magazine, they detail the 20 best “unnnameable” character actors of all time. (They look pretty recent to me, because if you’re truly talking about character actors, how could you leave out the delightful Shemp Howard, who brightened every B movie he was ever in?)
I’ve met #19 and #1 several times (#1 is a major Democratic activist I’ve run into frequently in well-heeled back yards), the seemingly identical brother of #6 was my student (and is a very fine writer), and #17, who was in a play of mine, is a terrific actor who is great to work with.
And I direct your attention to #11, who has even followed me onto the “Cracked” website.
The LA Times’ Charles McNulty remembers his lunch with Charles Nelson Reilly and reflects on why theatre people loved him.
Among other powers, the Silver Surfer can channel cosmic energy to restructure matter.
In this case, he’s changing U.S. quarters into a hefty fine and possible jail time.
So it appears that gypsy moths are once again going to devastate the clan homestead in southern New Jersey. And somehow the state and the township couldn’t work out in time who might pay to eliminate this infestation, until it was too late.
It further appears that this is the big news from my home town paper, the one I served as a classified ad salesperson (in high school) and editor (after college).
Twenty years after I moved across the country, some things still haven’t changed.
Newsweak (cq) has a web-only interview with Gore Vidal, one of the last remaining great American writers of that generation.
How fitting that the only other survivor is his arch nemesis, Norman Mailer. (Philip Roth, who is still doing astonishing work and having a remarkable late-career revival, was born in the following decade.)
I know that Vidal would like to be remembered as a great writer. But he isn’t one. An entertaining figure? Certainly. An entertaining writer? Sure. It’s hard to remember why I read so many of his novels, once upon a time, except they were so much fun. But “great”? I don’t think so.
“Creation” is the novel he says he wants to be remembered by, and that is the one I intend to reread. I remember it as being epic, and although I don’t trust Vidal’s opinions (as when he came down on Aaron Burr’s side) I’d like to relive his origin of so much of our philosophy. Even if I don’t agree with the characterizations.
This seven-minute clip seems to be from a documentary I haven’t seen (yet).
Vonnegut’s mordant humor is well-served by his wry reading voice.
I really miss this guy.