Ghost of Jersey Past

Tom Perrotta's new novel Ghost Town is evocative, haunting, and nostalgic—each concise chapter is a set piece on grief and adolescence . . . and Ouija boards—and the story is especially moving if you grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey . . . while the book is set ever so slightly before my time, the narrator is thirteen in 1974, and I was only four years old then, so I don't quite remember the early 1970s— the songs on the radio are "Kung Fu Fighting," and "Rock the Boat," and "When Will I see You Again"-- which I vaguely remember, but I certainly can't name the bands that played these hits; I also appreciate that this is a different version of New Jersey than when I came of age; the fictional town of Creamwood seems to be inspired by Perrotta's Union County hometown, Garwood, a factory town full of Cape Cods and split-levels, and—in the early 1970s, the town was segregated in a de facto fashion . . . while my middle school experience in Central Jersey was at the start of the incredible diversity that Jersey is now known for-- there were mainly Italians, Irish, Hungarians, and Jews in my town-- which we considered "white" people-- but there were also Indian and Asian and Black and Hispanic families in my neighborhood; not so much in Creamwood, which is pretty much all white, but the narrator, Jimmy Perrini, starts to question his town's tacit racism and-- after his mother dies from cancer-- he's pretty much left on his own and starts to have some experiences with his hippie cousin and his hippie cousin's racially ambiguous wife Nilda and her Black cousin Hector-- while the plotting of the novel is pretty formulaic, it builds up to a big climax and all that, Jersey is in the details; I love the moment where Jimmy is riding around with burnout Eddie Fitzpatrick in his Chevy Vega, and Jimmy says he likes Jethro Tull, and Eddie says—which are my sentiments exactly—"I might like them a little better if he shoved that flute up his ass."

Time Travel, Dinosaurs, and an Orgy = Kind of Boring

Despite containing a paleontologist orgy, plenty of dinosaur action scenes, evolved avian future inheritors of the earth, and a multitude of time travel paradoxes, I couldn't quite finish Michael Swanwick's sci-fi dinosaur time travel novel Bones of the Earth-- the story is Primer meets Jurassic Park, and is mainly concerned with the dissemination of scientific papers and information through the time continuum-- people come from the future and give hints (often to themselves) as to what research will be fruitful but everyone tries to avoid outright changes in causality-- or else The Unchanging, the future creatures who gave humans the gift of time travel, wil take it away; the book did make me think quite a bit; for example here's a paradox not exactly investigated in the book, but alluded to: say you have ten gold bars, and you take one-- so now there's nine in the box-- and you go back one hour in a time machine and then put that one gold bar into the box containing ten gold bars . . . so now there are eleven gold bars, so now the box that you take the gold bar from has eleven gold bars, not ten-- where did that extra bar come from? did you break the law of conservation if mass? could you keep doing this to infinity and flood the world with gold? causing massive inflation or something . . . apparently someone named Novikov thought about this, and came up with the Novikov self-consistency principle . . . anyway, I can't quite recommend this novel-- it's dry at times, despite the sex and dinosaurs, and often, the characters make long-winded expository speeches about various scientific theories and ideas-- Swanwick developed this from a short story, and it shows: six theropods out of ten.

Supine Straightening

At night, my wife likes to get into a "made" bed, but I usually go to bed before she does—I'll go upstairs to read my book while she watches an episode of "Below Deck," and I usually remember that she likes her side of the bed to be neat and organized and flat and tucked in AFTER I've gotten into bed and set up a bunch of pillows so I can comfortably read my gigantic Kindle Scribe, and I will tell you, it's really hard to MAKE the bed once you are already IN the bed.

Sunrise: A Mystery Town Wrapped in an Enigma Inside of a Riddle

Like a set of three Matryoshka dolls, the three narratives in Téa Obreht's novel Sunrise nest inside of each other, and each story has its own set of secrets-- it's a gothic Western tale inside a Jonathan Franzen story of familial relations and disillusionment inside an episode of Alone (complete with tragically inspirational backstory) and so if you're looking for a page-turner that's a bit more meta than most, this is the book for you: nine Bulki bars out of ten.

Bruce Springsteen: More Youthful Unintentional Irony

Bruce Springsteen, just like my son Alex, produced some fantastic unintentional irony when he was a young man (and I learned this from the fascinating book Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run by Peter Ames Carlin) because while Bruce was writing and recording songs about being sprung from cages and driving down Highway 9, songs about offering Mary redemption and escape beneath the dirty hood of his car, about two lanes that could take her anywhere-- car-centric anthems like "Thunder Road" and "Born to Run"-- and stories about the Magic Rat driving his Dodge over the Jersey State line to meet a barefoot girl in "Jungleland"-- while he was making this seminal rock album, Bruce could NOT really drive a car-- he was so obsessed with music and his guitar in high school that he never learned to drive, and he didn't get his own vehicle-- 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible-- until after the album's release, in 1976 . . . so perhaps that's why the album is so romantic about cars: Bruce hadn't experienced road-rage, maintenance costs, and traffic yet; if he had, he might have had a very different tone towards automobiles and the Magic Rat might have caught the PATH over the Jersey state line.

Typical Beach Report

A solid Wednesday night get-together to start OBFT XXXIII— Billy, Cliffy, Charlie, Paci, Swaney, Vicki . . . uh . . .Ethan, Jason, (sorry to ruin the rhythm) and, of course, Whitney and Elaine; we went to Aw Shucks for oysters— it was national oyster day— and some other bar for drinks; Charlie and I stopped at 7-11 for tobacco products— I wanted to try Zyn and Charlie wanted to by some traditional Copenhagen— and we were so confused by the array that the lady gave me my coffee for free . . . this is the second time in Norfolk that my general befuddlement has been rewarded by a free cup of coffee; then we went back to Whitney’s place and chatted about old man things: knee replacements, hip replacements, GLPs-1s, retirement, how annoying pets can be, King Crimson and Frank Zappa and jazz, etc and I tried the Zyn and it really worked— major nicotine rush— and then we left for the beach fairly early, the BBQ stand at The Border Station wasn’t even open yet, so I just got coffee and peanuts— but at least the lid fit on the coffee cup, because my drive from DC to Norfolk was marred by a faulty 7-11 coffee lid . . .  I went to sip my very hot coffee while driving on I-64 and the top popped off and hot coffee exploded all my hands, shirt, shorts, legs, and car— yikes— but that is forgotten (and so is the back up trying to get through the I-664 tunnel into Norfolk) because now I’m at the Martha Wood, enjoying the water and the ocean breeze and the rocking chairs on the porch, reading a completely bonkers James Elroy book called Widespread Panic.

Reading, Icing, Rinsing, Repeating . . .

I am still laid up and moving slowly today-- waiting for the cortisone shot to work its anti-inflammatory magic on my left knee-- I went for some x-rays this morning to make sure it isn't anything more than arthritis (and the x-rays were quite taxing, I had to lie on a cold metal bed and twist my leg this way and that way-- then the machine got finicky and they had to take a few shots over again, then I had to sit-up, holding the digital sensor board behind my knee, and freeze in that pose) and I've recently finished two novels, quite opposte in tone: The Keeper by Tana French, the third in the Ardnakelty trilogy, is dark and claustrophobic and insular, a Chicago cop retires to what seems to be an idyllic pastoral Irish village but then he learns that the town and its inhabitants have been entangled with the land and each other for centuries and you shouldd not mess with the locals . . . and by the third book, Cal Hooper has nearly become a local and he really gets involved in the town, a mysterious suicide, a woman, a once feral child, and the baroque relationships, hiearchies, and gossip mill that fuel much animosity and loyalty-- it's the usual Tana French, masterful, brooding, smart, and evocative . . . and then for something completely different, I read Volume 1 of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower, which can only be described as witty, delightful, and faux-Victorian-- it's mildly historical fiction (with lots of Shakespeare references) from the point-of-view of Emma Lion, once an upper-middle-class Victorian woman, but now thrown into difficult financial straits by her annoying fop of a cousin Archibald, who has spent much of her inheritance before she could manage it . . . it seems Emma will have to navigate all sorts of social and fiscal quandaries in her london milieu, but she'll do it with verve and aplomb and plenty of witty repartee and banter-- I'll certainly read a few more of these to take my mind off my knee.

Dave's Not a Doctor . . . and He Could Never Play One on TV

I survived my visit to the sports doctor (Dr. Navia) and my prediction was half correct: after some poking, probing, and prodding, she decided to give me a cortisone shot but said there was NOT enough fluid to warrant draining the knee (hooray!) and I'm getting some x-rays tomorrow and going for a follow-up in September, to see if I need the hyaluronic acid shots—but for now, I need to ice and rest, and hopefully the cortisone will do the trick (and I could never play a doctor on TV because I couldn't even look at the tray with the needles on it, let alone the actual needle going into my knee—this is why I don't watch The Pitt . . and I was already stressed out by the time Dr. Nadia got to me because I was reading the end of the excellent new Tana French novel, The Keeper—book three in the Ardnakelty trilogy—and some bad, rather visceral medical shit was going down . . . next time I go to the doctor, I'll be sure to read something lighter while I wait).

Doing Things Right is Exhausting . . .

 

I installed three strands of string lights in my backyard today—my old string lights frayed and fell apart, most likely because I didn't install them properly: I haphazardly draped them and twisted them and nailed them and screwed them and stapled them to whatever surface was available—but this time I bought the highly rated, heavy-duty Feit LED string lights from Costco (quite affordable if you buy three 48-foot strands) and I installed them by the book, with C-cup hook screws—which was tedious and tiring (and my right forearm was a bit sore at pickleball, from all the screwing) but I think these lights will last longer than the last batch (and, once I got done, I went batshit crazy and ordered three more strands, and I'm going to install a guide wire across the back of my yard, from tree to tree, and light up a long stretch high in the leafy canopy . . . why? because the internet told me to . . . and this should be good for late night cornhole).

Big Day, Already (Dave Finishes a Book, Installs a Ceiling Fan, and Prepares to Be a Soccer Fan)

 

I woke up early this morning and finished a massive tome (900-plus pages) I've been reading for two years: Reaganland: America's Right Turn (1976-1980) . . . this is the final installment in historian Rick Perlstein's series on the rise of the American conservative movement and while the books are exhaustive (and exhausting) they do remind you that there's nothing new under the sun— the playbook was the same: savvy conservative politicians harnessed anxieties about women and race and sexuality and crime and the lack of Christianity and family values in America . . . and the same tropes: scandals such as Hunter Biden and Billy Carter; optimism (make America great again!) instead of tightening your belt (and wearing a sweater) and absurdities—Carter's killer rabbit!-- and pretty much everything Reagan said about pollution (trees cause more pollution than automobiles?) and nuclear weapons (nuclear proliferation is none of our business? all the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk?) but despite Reagan's lack of policy and factual knowledge, Carter was no match for "the Teflon President," who could really deliver a speech and galvanize the corporate elites, the Southern whites, the evangelical Christians, and generally disaffected voters who were sick of inflation, high gas prices, the hostage crisis, and how the counterculture movement was bleeding into the suburbs . . . and not only did I finish that epic history, but I also finished the third Thursday Murder Club  Mystery (The Bullet That Missed) and I successfully installed a ceiling fan—alone! -- which is a crazy procedure; for a decent amount of time the fan housing and blades were hanging from a thin metal cable while I connected all the electrical wires and the remote receiver . . . but, unlike my plumbing debacle, the fan and the light now work like a charm (and neither leaks water) and really, my day has just started . . . now I'm off to play pickleball, then I'm going to acupuncture, and then we're headed out to watch the USA play Bosnia AND Herzegovina—it seems ridiculous that they have to play two countries at the same time.

This is Thriller Time

It's nearly summer, and so I'm taking a break from Robert Caro's twelve-hundred-page bio of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, and consuming some thrillers . . . I recently finished The Dry, by Jane Harper, a grim, tautly written, well-paced murder mystery in a rural Australian town full of Bogans (Aussie rednecks) and regret, and now I'm reading the second Thursday Murder Club book, The Man Who Died Twice, and then I've got Anthony Horowitz's sixth Hawthorne installment, "A Deadly Episode," waiting for me on hold at the library . . . so I'm turning pages, happy and intrigued, and learning absolutely nothing.

Crisis Averted! Miraculous!

I was midway through Jane Harper's fantastic (and very grim) Australian thriller The Dry when I realized the Libby Kindle loan had expired and so I put my Kindle on airplane mode so that I wouldn't lose the book, but that didn't work-- it disappeared from my Kindle and I still need to solve the mystery . . . did the drought drive Luke Hadler mad, leading him off his entire family (except the baby) or is there another culprit . . . luckily, Highland Park library had a copy of the novel in the library . . . when the fuck does that happen? so I just biked over there, unperturbed by the heat because I was on a mission, and not only was the novel on the shelf, exactly where it was supposed to be, but I also borrowed the second Thursday Murder Club mystery-- which I thought was on hold but was actually sitting on the shelf, so now I've got a couple of actual bona fide library books to read (and thus I'll have to wear my progressive glasses) but still, this is rather unprecedented and definitely a minor miracle.

The Ten Year "Affair"

The Ten Year Affair by Eron Somers is not for everyone-- as with many books that I like, the Goodreads reviews are split-- which I find a better indicator of something interesting than if the vast majority of people like the book . . . and this book was well-reviewed by actual literary reviewers, so fuck gate-keepers and all that, but sometimes they know what they're talking about . . . anyway, the novel is about a millenial couple who move to a suburban town in the Hudson Valley and have various millenial child-rearing problems and social interactions, and the narrator-- Cora-- is in a mainly sexless marriage witha depressed but very nice husband, begins to imagine an affair and splits her life into two timelines, very Sliding Doors, until it gets messier . . . the tone reminds me a bit of Halle Butler . . . but not quite as futile-- anyway, give it a shot, you'll know if you like it by page two.

Eight Arms and Nine Brains

Ray Nayler's sci-fi novel The Mountain in the Sea is not an easy read, but contains plenty of (sea) food for thought-- the novel takes place in the near-ish future around the Con Dao archipelago in the South China Sea, where octopi have evolved the capability to use tools and a symbolic language-- and while there are some thriller and sci-fi tropes (there's an android, an AI powered fishing vessel, and plenty of international intrigue) the bulk of the narrative is philosophical, concentrating on trying to understand the perspective of a different, decentralized consciousness (Nagel's famous essay "What is it Like to Be a Bat?" is referenced) and really the book is like the film Arrival . .  except that the aliens aren't from space, they are from a foreign watery place right here on earth, but the communication problem is just as intractable.

Martha Wells Kills It With Murderbot

Network Effect, the fifth book in Martha Wells "Murderbot Diaries" series, is longer and more complicated than her earlier novellas-- it's definitely "hard" sci-fi, replete with malignant code, memory wipes, killware, infectious alien remnants, future legalese, hostage protocols, wormholes, surveillance drones, futuristic space-opera content, and many other specific and developed sci-fi tropes-- but none of that matters all that much . . . at it's heart it's another story of Murderbot, the rogue and existentially curious Security Unit cyborg, learning how to "network" and have relationships in a world not governed by its governor module-- and the relationhip between Murderbot and the AI that runs a deep-space research and survey ship-- nicknamed ART (Asshole Research Transport) by Murderbot, is especially poignant . . . and often awkward and humorous-- brilliant voice, brilliant sci-fi, brilliant Martha Wells.

Back to School (without Rodney Dangerfield)

A LONG day after a short Spring Break . . . the first day back to school is always shocking and exhausting-- but I still managed to teach three senior English classes, walk a few laps around the track with Brady, attend the faculty meeting, and run to the library during my off period (I took out an absurd book-- the 1300 page comprehensive account Capitalism: A Global History by Sven Beckert-- perhaps because I finally finished Stalingrad . . . I did read a regular book between epic historical tomes, Liz Moore's Long Bright River-- which I read in two days, a gripping page-turner-- highly recommended).

A Short Sentence about a Long Book

I am on a train so I will keep this brief, to avoid getting trainsick: I just finished Vadily Grossman's epic and enormous novel Stalingrad . . . and I will be taking a break before I tackle Life and Fate.

Too Much Music For One Sentence: Prog Rock vs. The Cars

I just finished the highly entertaining The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock by David Weigel-- or I found it highly entertaining; it might not be a book for general audiences-- and while the start of the book covers bands that you might know, from Procol Harum to King Crimson to Yes, Genesis, Soft Machine, and-- of course: Emerson, Lake, and Palmer-- you might be surprised by the extent of the cross-pollination within the scene and the extent to which record companies funded and allowed for absolutely wild, bombastic, innovative music to be made and published-- including lots of solo efforts (Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman made a 40-minute progressive synth rock opera based on Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Center of the Earth? and it was a commercial success?) and then the book moves along to Rush and Marillion and Dream Theater, and finally to the remnants of prog rock-- how the old bands fell apart (or learned how to craft singles like Genesis) and how there are some remnants of prog rock in bands like Porcupine Tree and The Mars Volta-- and the book certainly got me to listen to some "new" music from long ago (or rather recent music, such as Porcupine Tree) but Weigel also details how punk rock and new wave put an end to prog rock as the darling of the critics and ended any radio play that these epic songs were getting . . . and I am also reading The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told by Bill Janovitz and you can see why people were so excited for this new music-- it's tight and catchy and skillful but also forward-facing and progressive, and The Cars first album is a perfect example of this-- 1978 was when prog rock was starting to decline and artists like Blondie and Elvis Costello and The Talking Heads and Devo and The Police released great albums (and there was also a slew of great rock albums: Van Halen, Some Girls, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Dire Straits, Shakedown Street) and while Rush did release "Hemispheres" in 1978, a prog rock classic-- pop music was trending toward shorter songs-- and this was partly fueled by punk rock, which gained popularity in this same time frame . . . "Never Mind the Bollocks" came out in 1977 . . . anyway, I prefer the new wave stuff and what it spawned to most prog rock (although "Close to the Edge" by Yes is a masterpiece) but Weigel's book got me to listen to some pretentious but exciting musical experiments, and it's usually good to open your mind to new music (except when Hitler got really into Wagner).

A Physicist Would Think Those Wings Need to Be Bigger, But It Was the 1970s and Everyone Was on Drugs

 

You may be familiar with Roger Dean's artwork from the various Yes album covers, but I also learned (from the fabulous book The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock by David Weigel) that Dean designed album covers for the Caribbean-African funk band Osibisa, and Dean's flying elephants are much groovier than Dumbo.

Dave Gets It Done in the (Relatively) Balmy Weather

I didn't have to proctor any midterms today-- which is a wonderful day to take off from school because you don't have to leave any plans-- and I am proud to say that I've had a fairly productive day, here are the things I've ALREADY accomplished . . . and it's only 3:30 PM:

1) I went to TWO, count them, TWO grocery stores— SuperFresh for cheap produce and ShopRite for everything else, including some weird shit that my wife requested: protein pancake mix? coconut water coffee creamer?

2) I got some audio recorded for my top secret audio project;

3) I took Lola, who was going stir crazy, for a hike in the Ecological Preserve-- I now realize the key is to drive her to wherever we want to walk; she can't walk on the salt-covered roads-- the salt, or whatever chemical is used to melt the ice-- lowers the temperature of water below freezing and then it gets into her paws, even if they are waxed, and makes them hurt (plus I heard from a couple people that when your dog licks this stuff off their paws, it can give them the liquid squirting shits)

4) I shoveled off our back porch and liberated our grill from a snowbank;

5) I went to FedEx and shipped my son's broken laptop somewhere for reapirs;

6) I took a nap;

7) I made lunch instead of going out for food because . . .

8) I've started Vasily Grossman's epic masterpiece, Stalingrad, and I was trying to read the paperback, but the font is too small, so instead of getting a massage today or going out to lunch, I treated myself and bought the Kindle version of the book so I can enlarge the font . . . this is a good book to read in the cold weather, but not the paperback version (which is all the library had).