The hookah smoking caterpillar is giving you the call

Apparently if you smoke tobacco, you should invest in a hookah as it filters out some of the toxins. And it makes you look all decadent and shit. Hard to take it around to the bars and places where one might smoke though.

Kavalier and Clay goodness

I know all y'all are down with some Kavalier and Clay so I know you will want to spend some time over here at the Amazing Website of Kavalier and Clay. Haters beware, there is lots of talk about the comics, but you can find other things as well, such as references to related short stories or pieces. Such an awesome book, but I am much less into the comics, so there are no tears in my beer concerning news the comics are fairing poorly. The man himself is telling us to give it another try so maybe...

I just picked up the graphic novel talk of the town, so I am going to be busy comics wise.

Goddam you, my friend

If Joe Queenan is to be believed I have brought untold woe and misery upon my friends' heads. They shake their fists and curse my name. What have I done to earn this opprobrium? Given scads of books as Christmas gifts. He is really railing against poor book selection or pressing favorite books upon people who don't share your tastes. Fair enough. Remember that Queenan is a professional curmudgeon. On his book covers he looks pretty sullen. Check this, and this. Here he is smiling, but that is because he is about to laugh at you. If he were writing a column about giving money to help Rwandan mountain gorillas, he'd come out with "That's nice man, that's really nice, but where were you when the Hutus were killing the Tutsis in Rwanda, where were you then?"

If you need to buy some books for kids

Powells has many of the Toot and Puddle books on sale. These are some of the best childrens's (2-6 or so) books out now. The title characters are a set of pigs living in Vermont. The first book features post cards from one of the pigs trip around the world. The art is great, the stories are sweet and both parents and kids love them. At seven bones you can buy a few and look like a crackerjack gift giver.

A few amusing gifts

Two of the books I received for Christmas are pretty amusing. The first is Modern Drunkard, which is a guide to being a lush in our puritan society. You can get a taste at the website, I thought this typical night at a bar was amusing. It's hard to tell how tongue in cheek the book is, I hope for his liver's sake that the author is kidding. I also got a memoir titled Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. With a title that great, it doesn't matter what it is about, you just have to read it.

The sounds of old T. Rex

I speed read Tyrannosaur Canyon over the last few days. Finding a technothriller that isn't garbage is so nice. They can be such fun, but they are nearly always overhwhelmed by cliche. I was trying to analyze why this one works when so many fail. The plot is interesting for one. It starts out on the moon in 1972, but quickly switches to today's New Mexico. Thrillers have secrets at their heart and successful writers slowly reveal each secret and when all is revealed they have to create some form of excitement to keep the reader engaged. Preston does a good job with it. The author uses cliffhangers in short chapters which keeps the pace lively. He also doesn't mind killing people off which keeps the book from getting A-Teamish. If you like technothrillers this will satisfy, but I doubt this will convert the wary.

I am superman and I can do anything

I'm all for putting aside a book that doesn't click in the first 100 or so pages. That happened in the last few days with Still Life With Crows by Preston and Child. The authors tend to write books about nasty killings that appear supernatural but are later explained in scientific terms. This worked really well in Relic and others, but the steam is running out in this one. The recurring main character Pendergast is simply unbelievable. His knowledge is deep in too many places, his senses are too powerful and he is always smarter than every other character. It just gets a little boring. He is also a deadly combatant, of course. He is even more cartoonish than James Bond whose knowledge was generally limited to weapons, women and wine. It was all the easier to put this one down when I have Plot Against America waiting. I should say that I generally like these authors, but this one just felt a little weak and the inherent ridiculousness of Pendergast's character was too obvious in the weak and uninteresting plot.

There go the gun click

Nina Gordon has a brief cover of NWA's Straight out of Compton which should entertain. Not as good as her Veruca Salt era cover of the Sex Pistol's "Bodies," but what are you going to do? Guess you'll have to buy that one.

It must be the devil, trying to make you go astray

I watched the Exorcism of Emily Rose and it didn't work for me. The ads led me to expect lots of horror like the Exorcist, but it is mostly a courtroom drama with wierd mildy scary interludes. The opening shots reference the Exorcist, but don't reach the Exorcist's opening creepiness. Remember the fighting dogs, the broken clocks and then the really scary demon statue? You don't get that.

I also didn't like the theological message of the film. It was pretty medieval, and concerns martyrdom. It seemed out of place today and I didn't work for me. I should ask some Catholics what they think. Maybe they would be down, but I wasn't. This wasn't my biggest problem, but it didn't help.

Also if you are watching 40 year old virgin, the ending is sweet so be sure to wait for it.

He was a rebel jew, he was a re-bel jew, let him in

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah. I hope there are plenty of books and piles of candy for all. Here is South Park's Jesus vs. Santa Claus to help you start a debate on the state of the holidays.

Old school thrillers

I am reading Eric Ambler's State of Siege. Ambler is cited by Alan Furst as one of his critical influences. Ambler has a similar smart and nuanced approach to politics. This book is set in a recently decolonized SE Asian state where atrocities occur on a regular and almost casual basis. The main character is an Englishman in the capital at the wrong time. He tries to survive as various faction's fortunes wax and wane. It's a short book, but it paints a rather dark picture of how post colonial politics operate. Try it.

Double your candy pleasure.

Two candy items of note today.

Joanna sent this Sugar Savvy article on salted butter caramel. I was highly dubious on the salty/sweet combo when it comes to caramel, but I tried some at Sahagun and it was a delight. The salt in the caramel really is a delight. The Sugar Savvy site now has a candy librarian where you can submit questions on candy, like is dark chocolate increasing market share vs. milk or is it just more available?

Brack sent note of Hometown Favorites, which is in the town next to our mutual hometown. They stock hard to find candy and other food items. There is a $20 minimum order, but unlike a lot of other mail order candy stores, they do sell individual items. So if you read Candyfreak and want to try the Twin Bing, but don't want to buy a case of them, this is your place. You can get Valomilks at the store too, but you can also get those at Cracker Barrel.

Venice

Through double-gifting, I have come into a copy of the City of Falling Angels. It's written by the Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and concerns Venice. One of my favorite afternoons of all time was spent on the Punta Della Dogana. Nothing spectacular happened, the view was just so great that I sat there reading and enjoying the view. I also like the city's atmosphere, the languor and the sense of decayed opulence. I'm not sure if books like Death in Venice or Dead Lagoon feed off of the city's atmosphere or help create it. My tentative answer is both, the writers come because of the culture or atmosphere, but their books inform everyone's views after they are written.

Math is hard

I finished a good scifi read on the long plane ride east. It was Nancy Kress's Probability Moon. Like many scifi writers, Kress has a theme to which she returns in most books. Her hot topic is evolution and human genetic change (natural or manipulated.) In this book, Earth people crossing the stars (she avoids violating relativity, don't worry) find a society where any violation, in thought or otherwise, against the societal moral code causes crushing headaches. So there is little crime, but also limits on diverse approaches to problem solving. The plot hinges on an anthropological study of these people that takes place in the middle of a war that Earth is losing. At the very end, when I was most tired, she got the most difficult in her use of quantam mechanics. But don't let that scare you, it wasn't that hard. Not as hard as this for example. If you really want some headaches check the related wiki.

Huge leap forward

Metric is going to open for the Rolling Stones? Yikes, that is a leap from the Doug Fir. Same link also has a mp3 of Sleater-Kinney playing Mother. The world needs more Danzig covers. Or maybe some Misfits covers, forget the Danzig covers.

Timewasting with upside

Sometimes wasting time has an upside. I applied for a job at the National Defense University, but my resume with filled with all this dot-com stuff so my future boss was concerned. She googled me, saw all my Amazon reviews that covered security issues and decided I was serious. So web activity didn't get me a book deal, but a job is pretty good too. Here is a timewaster than can turn you into a hero with the kids. It is an online lego design tool. You build something with virtual blocks, save it and Lego packages it up and sends it out to you. You can even become a lego design celebrity as those tricksy Lego people will make your design available to all. It's win-win I tell you.

How do I get this job?

This woman has the job I want. People come in and describe the likes of their friends and she recommends books and movies for them. Of course Amazon already does this very well, but as here stories illustrate, it is more fun in person.

Ways to spend your holiday cash

Well, this is more likely to be used for gift card redemption/holiday money/exchange purposes than gift giving, but check out the Food Section's holiday buying guide. I am rather taken by these high end marmalades. Then again citrus tasting is one of my favorite's at New Season's so that should be no surprise. ( via A Full Belly)

Yes I like candy too much

Sugar Savvy links to a chocolate shop with the winners of the chocolate awards. Take a look at the chocopedia, with reviews of lots of chocolate you won't be able to find at the store, so you will have to order from them. I don't feel so bad exploring high end chocolate, or beer for that matter, as the most expensive choices are still single digit prices. Wine on the other hand requires expense accounts, the lottery or an IPO to feel comfortable in exploring.

Snow crash can happen here

With the reissue of Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here and Harold Bloom's Democracy is Dead piece in the Guardian, you might get the feeling that some kind of authoritarian government is in the offing. I think this is the wrong model. A more appropriate literary model can be found in Snow Crash, where society has fragmented into subclasses that rarely interact and corporations have replaced or made redundant government function. While it is true that the Bush administration is to expand the state's military power and is alarmingly willing to use intelligence, it appears to be willing to let the rest of the state's responsibility wither. This takes the US not back to the authoritarian 30s, but to the 19th century when the American state limited itself to external affairs. The corporate cronyism sets the administration apart from the 19th cen and makes Snow Crash seem more prophetic.