The silent function of libraries

Perhaps this will not be news to readers in more urban environs, but it was to me out here in the sticks. In this article on WorkingForChange, a recently retired librarian discusses the modern library and the homeless problem. It's a very moving article about society's inability to deal with the chronically homeless in any kind of compassionate or even cost-effective fashion. Rather than simply point fingers, the author suggests some changes that could be made, many of them not terribly expensive. It really makes you wonder why, as a society, we've allowed all this to go on.

When The Tigers Broke Free

Normally, I don't do this sort of thing, but someone sent me this on Craigslist, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head, so I decided to post about it since I haven't finished The Knife Thrower yet.

One thing I've always admired about Pink Floyd is their ability to make a whole statement with a song. Lots of songs sound like real chop jobs: one guy in the band has a melody, the other one has some lyrics, and they cram them together. The singsongy, 6/8 time of the vocal line plays up the fact that the story is told by a child. The snare drums and brass give it a militaristic feel, the choir and the slow timpani in the background give it the funereal aura. You can almost tell what the song will be about before the lyrics even start.

This song is from the movie The Wall, but it didn't make it on to the soundtrack for whatever reason. There has always been discussion and debate about exactly how much of the plot line of the film was inspired from life, but there's no question about this song. It's the verifiable tale of what happened to Roger Water's father, Eric Waters (and the rest of Royal Fusiliers Company C) at the Anzio (weird side note: spell check suggested maybe I meant "Nazi" here) bridgehead in Italy during WWII.

Even in 1979, when the song was written, the story of WWII was starting to take on a romantic, heroic glow. Yet Eric Waters died because of a foolish mistake, and the king for whom he died didn't even bother to sign his real signature to the scroll he sent the family, just a rubber stamp. Roger's mother hid all of Eric's effects in a drawer, rather than have to confront the facts of his death every day. And the death of a father he couldn't have remembered well haunted Roger that he wrote this song, probably a good 25 years after he found the drawer with the scroll, and you can still hear his resentment and grief in the last line of the song.

"When the Tigers Broke Free" isn't your typical Pink Floyd song. Most of Pink Floyd's lyrics are more metaphorical, and frequently employ bizarre, trippy imagery which sends your mind off on all kinds of tangents (probably why it's so often associated with drug users). This song is as straightforward as it gets, about as metaphorical as a coffee cup. Hell, he doesn't even put a simile in there. Yet, it still has the power to make you think, about the futility of war, the lies we tell ourselves about noble causes and heroic deaths, the coldness of those who send people to die in their wars, the effect it all has on those left behind. It's as if Monet had decided to paint a photo realistic painting, just to show he could. Or, to use a simile from our times, it's like when Michael Jordan decided to play baseball too, if he'd been any good at it.

The Sad Tale of Tatum

Well, I finished the first of my library books last night. The pitifully titled A Paper Life, by Tatum O'Neal, was an engrossing, fast read. I remembered her primarily as the woman on "Sex in the City" who wouldn't reimburse Carrie for the Manolos that got stolen at her baby-welcome party, so it was interesting to me to learn about her early career, and how she was the youngest Academy Award winner ever.

Her private life, however, was devastating. Both her father, Ryan O'Neal, and her husband, tennis player John McEnroe, were controlling, tempermental, abusive, jealous men. Since she was very young when she got married, she basically went from one to the other. It's become a truism that childhood stardom ruins the child for life. People cite Danny Bonaduce and Gary Coleman as prime examples. But in Tatum's case, her movie work was actually a positive influence: it got her away from her family, put her in contact with more sympathetic adults, and gave her some sense of self-worth. You can, however, feel her own sense of failed potential, as her childhood success didn't carry over to her adult years.

Tatum's book ends on a positive note. She says that she has worked hard to come to some sort of peace with her father, her ex-husband and her children, and that she is now clean and sober. IMDB shows her hard at work, too, mostly in television shows.

But the thing about celebrity autobiographies is that the final chapter hasn't yet been written. Danny Bonaduce's book ended much the same way, yet I recently saw a promo for a reality series that has him coming to terms -- yet again -- with his substance abuse problems. The Motley Crue book ends with three of the four original band members in stable relationships (all except Tommy). I don't know what happened to Nikki Sixx, but I did see that Mick Mars' girlfriend from the end of that book is suing him, and the girl with Vince on "Remaking Vince Neil" was definitely not the same woman he married towards the end of the book.

Yet after reading all this, I'm rooting for Tatum. I hope she goes on to some kind of success. Only time will tell, I guess.

Farewell

It's time for me to say goodbye (or attempt to, yet once again) to some books that are just cluttering the place up. Books that were assigned for class and turned out to be dull, books that I bought on a whim and it turned out weren't so great after all...out with the old, in with the new (hopefully). If anyone wants to take a gander, you can find them here, at my Amazon page. Happy shopping!

Score at the library today!

I visited the larger of the two libraries near where I live and work today (and learned that it was named one of the top four best small libraries in America, WTG!!!!) and scored a nice balance of sleazy nonfiction and more serious fiction. On the serious (or at least mind-improving) side, we have On Beauty by Zadie Smith (I liked White Teeth!); The Knife Thrower and other stories by Steven Millhauser (I was hoping for the one with "The Illusionist" in it, but this'll do -- "The Knife Thrower" was a great story); and Loon Lake by E.L Doctorow. Sometimes I like him and sometimes I don't. We'll see where this one fits in.

On the sleazier side, we have A Paper Life by Tatum O'Neal; Salad Days by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; and Lana: The Lady, the Legend, The Truth by --aw crap -- Lana Turner. I didn't realize that last was an autobiography. I was hoping for something a little more objective about her (actually, I really wanted a book about Frances Farmer, but no such luck.) Will I get through them all by April 16th? Upon further reflection, will I even want to? Stay tuned to this blog, readers, for the answers to these and more questions!!!!!

I said SLEAZE, not snooze!!!!

Shortly before my vacation, I posted about my desire to find some good Hollywood sleaze at the library to take on vacation with me, and my frustration at finding the bio section filled with books on Jimmy Carter and Mother Teresa, when I was looking for something more along the lines of Mommy Dearest or The Dirt (Motley Crue's autobiography, and an EXCELLENT read: wall-to-wall sex, drugs, fistfights and general drama, not a boring paragraph in the entire 430-page book. Highly reccommend this one.)

I was pleased, then, to light on another book I'd picked up and replaced on the shelf for several years: Julia Phillips' You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. Julia Phillips was the producer of The Sting, and probably some other well-known films, too. I'll never know, because I'm about to throw in the towel with this one. She's promised great things, 125 pages into this 500+ page potboiler. she cuts back and forth a lot between her rise to the top and her life post-glory days, hinting at the breakup of her marriage, her descent into drugs and possibly alcohol abuse, the mysterious disintegration of her career.

But her writing style is so annoying I don't know if I can keep at it. It's like reading the diary of a ten-year-old girl. You know how they seem to have that utter inability to censor, how they keep sidetracking their own stories with irrelevant background and details ("So Ashley had this sleepover planned and we were gonna eat popcorn and watch the new Mary-Kate and Ashley movie, and Ashley totally disinvited Melissa to her sleepover, and Melissa was like "whatever, I'm going to sleep over at Beth's house that night anyway" but I don't like Beth very much because she said that my purple Trapper Keeper was ugly when I think she was just jealous because she doesn't even have a Trapper Keeper, because her dad won't buy her one but I kinda feel bad for her because her dad sounds really mean, but I still don't like her...") This is essentially how this book reads. I keep waiting for her to get to some kind of point, and I fear she never will.

She jumps around chronologically not just between past and present, but within the past as well. One minute, she and her partners are working to get The Sting produced, the next minute it's done, then suddenly you're back before the partnership was even formed. She introduces hundreds of characters, most of whom have only a walk-on role in her tale, which makes the book even more confusing.

Also, her ability to recall the most mundane details makes me suspicious. If she had as many substance-abuse problems as she claimed, how could she remember what SOMEONE ELSE ordered at a dinner that happened over 20 years ago, or what color dress her business partner's wife wore that night? You've got to think she's taken extreme creative license with this stuff, which makes you wonder: what else did she take license with in this book? And why bother? Who gives a shit that her partner's wife showed up in a devastating blue floor-length Armani when she's not mentioned for the rest of the description of the dinner? Where the hell was her editor? The book probably would've been shortened by a quarter if they'd cut out all such extraneous information.

I think this is a terribly self-indulgent book. With biographies, or autobiographies, it should be damn obvious within the first 50 pages why this story needs to be told. And yes, like with the Motley Crue book, "to entertain" is a legitimate reason for a story to be told. Years ago, I read Lillian Gish's autobiography, which was completely absent of Hollywood sleaze but a fascinating look into the beginning of movie-making.And I Don't Want to Live This Life, by Deborah Spungen (mother of Nancy Spungen, who was murdered by Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols) was a tragic tale of a child who the establishment utterly failed, and the toll this took on her life and her family's life. The authors of all three tales had real stories to tell, and each told them well. So far, I don't see what Julia Phillips has to say.

More inappropriate language in children's lit!!!

What is this world coming to? Paul Rudnick takes aim at the big "scrotum" controversy in this year's Newberry Award winner, The Power of Lucky in
The New Yorker. Here's my previous post on this topic.