Salon’s Allen Barra reviews Gore Vidal’s latest memoir and finds it as overstuffed as its author.

More than 20 years ago I was a fan of Vidal’s books. Then I grew up. Part of growing up was noting that while I understood and appreciated what Vidal was against, I couldn’t see what he was for. Now I know: nothing. Because it’s harder to be for something.

One thing Vidal is increasingly for is his self-image. Although that’s extremely boring to most of us, I don’t begrudge him the self-indulgence, partially because I’ve seen it in other aging men of letters who met with great success. Jerome Lawrence, for example, was not only the co-author of “Inherit the Wind,” “The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail” and many other famed plays, he was also a wonderful, kind man who put a lot of money and personal energy into helping future generations of playwrights, and who always told the same stories about himself. I felt less forgiving toward Athol Fugard, whom I met in 1990 and who seemed to be taking personal credit for ending apartheid in South Africa thanks to his plays. (My response at the time: “It seems to me that Nelson Mandela played a role in this too.”) More locally, many of us in my playwriting workshop have had personal exposure to a literary figure who for 20 years has perfected the art of turning every topic into a disquisition on his own recent relative success. You wouldn’t think that any — any! — subject could be related to the daily doings of this minor writer, but it can. I’m sure that if you were to win the MacArthur Fellowship it would turn out that he had once actually been MacArthur.

I haven’t noticed Philip Roth falling into this, and his work is as strong (or stronger) than ever. I like to think that his toughness is being rewarded on the page.

Fecal cube or pizza-delivery dessert add-on?

With the help of readers, Slate’s Seth Stevenson decodes some commercials so popular I’ve even seen them. (They must run Friday nights on Sci-Fi.) The ad agencies think they’re telling us one story, but under a different microscope dessert looks like free walking hashish.

When you speak in metaphor, there is no universal translator.

While I’m on the subject of the Edwards announcement, I couldn’t help noticing two more things:

1. The campaign put up then took down then put up its site, stepping on its own announcement. If you can’t even announce right, can you really run the country?
2. The story says, “He did yard work at the home of New Orleans resident Orelia Tyler, 54, whose home was completely gutted by Hurricane Katrina and is close to being rebuilt.” What would be the difference between “completely gutted” and just plain old “gutted?” Because the latter means “guts removed,” it’s an inherently complete operation. You can’t incompletely gut something.

Two-and-a-half years too late, John Kerry has a comeback: Maybe flip-flopping isn’t a bad thing.

(Regarding Mr. Kerry himself, I don’t foresee a comeback. More of a stayaway.)

In recognition of the holiday and as an admirer of Paul Auster’s work, I thought I’d share his modern Christmas fable (filmed as part of the terrific film “Smoke”), Augie Wren’s Christmas Story. And luckily, here’s a site where someone spent the time to type it for you: Augie Wren’s Christmas Story.

In the film, Augie (Harvel Keitel) relates the story to a fictionalized Auster played by William Hurt. The scene plays out much as this short story does, with the added touch that, as Augie tells the story, the camera pulls in closer and closer toward his mouth and finally his slight smile, raising doubt about the story’s veracity. Part of the point: Whether it’s truth or fiction doesn’t matter — in fact, it’s all fiction, and, as usual with Auster, it’s metafiction (fiction about fiction). As a fable, it’s an evocative and unforgettable story about the sometimes incredible generosity of the human spirit. And that’s what every Christmas story should be about.

Christopher Durang on the true meaning(s) of the holidays. For him.

Comics I loved in 2006:

• Grant Morrison’s All Star Superman: Volume 1 (All Star) mashed postmodern playfulness with 60’s Weisinger-era camp and Kirby’s early 70’s wild inventiveness to make for a wonderfully strange and fun comic
• Speaking of fun, there was no greater comic-book fun than Marvel’s X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl TPB
• DC’s relaunch of Jonah Hex, as in this collection Jonah Hex: Face Full of Violence, combines strong visual storytelling with a newly deepened psychological portrayal of the laconic gunman
• Horror novelist Denise Mina has scripted a return to form for Hellblazer
• I was sad to see Lucifer come to an end
• I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Marvel’s Civil War titles, especially Iron Man under the scripting of the Knauf brothers (whose work on HBO’s Carnivale I did not enjoy).
• Reginald Hudlin’s take on Black Panther reminds us every month that the character is not an urban Daredevil (as he was so often portrayed in the late 60’s and 70’s), but the king of a technologically superior African kingdom. When one roots for the Panther, one is not necessarily rooting for democracies such as our own.
• Finally, if the cover says “Ed Brubaker,” just buy it. Brubaker is writing three titles I rarely cared about (Captain America, Daredevil, and Uncanny X-Men), has made the first two absolutely gripping and is getting there with the third. His Captain America is caught in the shadowy byways of a spy agency war he doesn’t fully understand, while his Daredevil has been exposed and sent to a prison where every con schemes to kill him.

There were many other great comics this year. I’ve been reading comics for almost 40 years, and I don’t think they’ve ever been better.

Books I loved in 2006 (and if you choose to click through and buy any of these, you’re supporting the site — and thank you!)

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Everyman by Phillip Roth (a brilliant meditation on a life lived and died; not previously cited on this blog, but it should have been)
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Drop City by T.C. Boyle (and yes, it didn’t come out this year, but I read it this year).

I read something like 30 or 40 more books this year, but I can’t name one of them offhand. (Except the two I didn’t like:  World War Z and Brooklyn Follies, the first Pau Auster novel I wasn’t glad to be reading.)

Some say it’s The New Yorker (and actually, it seems to be The New Yorker that says that). I’m thinking it’s Cracked.

When I was a kid, Cracked was the lame humor magazine you read only if you were bored and somebody had left it behind, or if Mad was sold out, or if you’d already Mad. And once you outgrew Mad, while you might think fondly back onto it, you’d never even recall that Cracked existed.
No more. An old fan (a lawyer, to boot!) bought the magazine, quit the lawyering gig, and has relaunched it as something fresh and funny. Whereas the magazine was once written by failed advertising men, now it’s written by writers for The Simpsons and Comedy Central. Y’know: funny people. I keep it at my office and young or old, everyone who comes to visit me busts a gut laughing. (And at the magazine, as well.)

Click here to subscribe to Cracked. You’ll be glad you did. It’s just twelve measley bucks and your local mail carrier — especially the one I know personally — will look at you with new admiration. And isn’t that what we all want, to be admired by the mail carrier?

I know, I know — you don’t want to see the new Rocky movie either.

But you have to give Sylvester Stallone credit for honesty in this interview in Entertainment Weekly. Sure, we know he’s a has-been; what’s refreshing is that he knows it, too, and freely admits it.

This is so rare in Hollywood it would be enough to turn Diogenes into an optimist.