Life styles

I think of biographies as coming in three flavors: traditional pop bio, usually of actors and politicians and historical figures, which cover the surface of the subject, presenting a mix of facts and gossip and written with a light tone; academic bios, usually of writers or scientists or, well, academics, which are done with lots of research and footnotes and written in a more serious fashion; and autobiographies and memoirs, which cover anything the subject wants us to know. Lately I've read three biographies and I seem to have stumbled on a fourth type: the biography which tells us more about the author than the subject, and in which style seems to be the main concern.

The first and most traditional one, Unknown Pleasures, is by Peter Hook, the bass player for the legendary punk group Joy Division (pictured above; Hook is the bearded one), which after the suicide of the lead singer, Ian Curtis, metamorphosed into the techno band New Order.  Hook sticks here mostly with the tightly circumscribed time frame of Joy Division’s existence from 1976 to 1980. He spends most of the book describing the daily doings of the band: the gigs, the offstage shenanigans (which were much less gloomy and dangerous than one might expect given Joy Division’s dark image), the recording sessions at which their somewhat sludgy sound was meticulously created. There’s very little insight into psychology or intention or even the music and lyrics they were performing.

The most interesting thing he says is that he and the other members had no idea that Curtis was so far gone that he might be a serious suicide risk—because they never paid attention to Curtis' lyrics. I certainly would not hold them responsible for trying to save him, but for a band that was taken seriously for their "authenticity," I find this an amazing revelation. Granted, Hook didn't sing the words, but the fact that none of them had any idea what was going on in the songs lyrically is astonishing to me. Hook's style is very informal and chatty, and sounds unforced, so it's a fast read. He does present occasional flash-forwards to contentious moments in New Order's career—one of the running threads in the book is the collapse of his friendship with bandmate Bernard Sumner—and that makes me wish that he'll write a sequel.

The most frustrating one of the three is Hopper: A Journey into the American Dream by Tom Folsom. The actor (Blue Velvet) and director (Easy Rider) Dennis Hopper would seem to be a fascinating subject for a biography, but Folsom doesn’t even begin to bring him to life on the page. The author thinks he's Tom Wolfe, but he has a long way to go. This is less a biography than a disjointed collection of drafts and sketches for chapters of a book. Folsom's concern is more for flashy word choice and shifts in typography. The shame is that Folsom seems to have had access to some interesting interview subjects, but almost completely wasted his chance to tell Hopper's story and get at what make him tick—Folsom seems to think that, like Charles Foster Kane, Hopper has a core moment or memory or incident that he never forgot and that may have ruled his life, but Folsom is unable to get near it, except that it may have been somewhere in Hopper's Kansas childhood. The chunk of the book on the making of The Last Movie is compelling, but nothing else in the book is worth much.

Finally, there is Vera Gran: The Accused by Agata Tuszyńska. Ostensibly the subject of this book is Gran, a Polish singer of the World War II years who managed to escape the Warsaw ghetto and wound up facing accusations of collaborating with the Gestapo. Her career never quite recovered, even though she continued to sing professionally into the 1980s. If she has a claim to pop culture fame, it's because one of her accompanists in the ghetto was the man on whom the movie The Pianist was based. The author got to know Gran in the years before she died in 2007 at the age of 91 and much of this book is simply the transcribed rants of her bitter, contradictory and not always lucid mind. Tuszyńska is a poet and this book, like Folsom's book, becomes more an exercise is authorial style than a biography. To her credit, she does touch on complicated issues like memory, survival, and the nature of collaboration with the enemy, but in an abstract fashion that pushes Gran away from the center of the narrative. The author is sloppy about setting up context, and skips over huge chunks of Gran's life that apparently do not fit her thesis. The fuzzy focus and the constant intrusion of the author into the story make this collapse into confusion before the end. Perhaps this should have been marketed as a personal memoir rather than a biography, though it would still be an unfulfilling read. Surely a woman who survived the Warsaw ghetto and a wild, often drug-fueled actor who embodied the 60s zeitgeist should have been more interesting to read about than a bass player in a 70s band that only produced two albums. Authors, get out of the way and put your subject in the spotlight.

One-hit wonder

The Fifth Estate is pretty much the definition of a one-hit wonder band. They had exactly one song make the Billboard pop chart, "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead," which just missed making the top 10, and, as British music critics say, they never troubled the charts again. But, as with most such bands, there is more to their story than that one hit. As someone who delights in finding obscure 60s pop gems, I bought the recent 2-disc release "The Fifth Estate: Anthology Volume 1: The Witch is Dead." I would recommend this to other fans of oldies mainstream pop, though giving over 2 whole discs with the promise of at least one more in the works does seem excessive.

        
The five Connecticut musicians got their start in 1963 as The Decadents, then changed their name to The D-Men and eventually released a handful of singles that got some spotty airplay but never hit the national charts. By 1966 they were called The Fifth Estate, and according to the album's liner notes, they recorded "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead" because they took a bet that no one could make a hit out of any song from The Wizard of Oz. One member who was studying Renaissance music and who had just built a harpsichord interpolated a section of music in the middle by 17th century composer Michael Praetorius, and it's that move that, in that brief era of "baroque pop" ("A Whiter Shade of Pale," "Walk Away Renee," "Eleanor Rigby") probably made the song a hit. Their record company wanted lightning to strike twice and pushed them to do another baroque version of an old song, "Heigh Ho" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but it didn't hit the charts and the band folded soon after, though the surviving members have just released a new album.

If you're hoping to hear more songs like "The Witch is Dead," this album will disappoint you. But if you like the sound of Beatlesque garage-band pop, this has much to offer. One reason why the band didn't hit it big may have been because they never settled into one groove. Many of the songs have a mid-60s Beatles sound, especially "Don't You Know" and "Love is All a Game," but some sound more like the Monkees or Paul Revere & the Raiders ("Heartache Heartbreak," "Morning Morning"). There are half-hearted attempts at blues ("Strange Blues") and a rewrite--at least lyrically--of Petula Clark's "Downtown" called "It's Waiting There for You."

Later songs have some slightly more sophisticated arrangements ("Someday Maybe, Someday Soon," "Night on Fire"). They even make a stab at a humor/retro sound (think "Winchester Cathedral" or Tiny Tim) with "No. 1 Hippie on the Village Scene" and "Lost Generation." Almost everything on disc 1 is worth listening to, and most of the songs I've named above are ones I'll be pleased to add to my iPod playlists.

But the set has its problems. Disc 2 consists of demos and live recordings of mostly poor quality. There are a couple of interesting songs but I can't imagine ever listening to the second disc again. The liner notes are good but there is no list of songs with information (date of recording, album name, etc.) as most archival CD sets contain, only a numbered list of song titles--and on disc 2, the order of cuts is listed inaccurately. Overall, a worthy purchase for 60s pop fans, but I doubt I'll keep an eye peeled for volume 2.

A Dickens Christmas mystery; or, my problem with e-books

First, the book: The Christmas Carol Murders by Christopher Lord. It's Christmastime in quaint Dickens Junction, Oregon, where all the stores and businesses have names out of Dickens novels (yes, there's an inn called Bleak House), and just at the peak of tourist season, representatives from something called Marley Enterprises arrive, looking to buy up all the town square properties and set up an Ayn Rand wonderland—Rand's philosophy of selfishness being the opposite of Dickens' message of charity—and soon someone starts killing people in rather spectacular ways. Simon Alastair, who owns a bookstore called Pip's Pages and has been the driving force behind the town's reputation as a haven for lovers of Dickens, starts investigating at the same time as he tries to stop the locals from selling to Marley. He also gets in a little flirtation with a hunky reporter named Zach who is town to write an article on the Junction.

This is a first novel and as such, shows promise. Simon is a good central character and the ingredients for a nice "cozy" mystery series are in place: small town, colorful characters, amateur sleuth. But I had a hard time keeping track of the characters because most of them don't come to life, or aren't differentiated enough from each other. Unlike some online reviewers, I had no problem with the gay content—Simon is "out" and not presented as a stereotype (though his buddy George gets saddled with the requisite campy personality), and though he and Zach do pair up during the novel, there are no sex scenes at all, straight or gay. But the murders are surprisingly gory and graphic. In a Silence of the Lambs-type thriller, these would fit right in, but here they break the delicate cozy atmosphere. In addition, I suspect the author didn't play fair with those who try hard to follow the clues and figure out whodunit before the end. I'm not typically one of those readers, but the solution seemed to come out of nowhere. Still, I might give a second Dickens Junction novel a shot.

Next, my e-book problem: I read the e-book version of this novel, and I admit that may have prejudiced my opinions. I find that e-book reading feels more ephemeral than print book reading. I like the heft of a book. I like looking at and feeling the texture of the cover. I like knowing exactly how far I have to go. I like flipping back through the book when I pick it back up after a night away, or a week away, or longer. I like writing little notes in the margins or underlining things. I like having a stack of books on my nightstand—OK, to be honest, I like having stacks of books around my bed, and bookshelves filled to overflowing. My partner likes the search and notes function on the Kindle, but when I'm flipping back, I'm not usually looking for a certain name or term, but just to refresh my memory. I don't mean to be seen as agitating against e-books, but I have done enough e-reading now to realize that it just won't take the place of the print book experience for me. I do like the fact that I can get older public domain titles easier and cheaper on my Kindle (Fu Manchu books by Sax Rohmer for a dollar a piece!), and I will certainly take my Kindle along when I travel, which isn't that often, but for now, I remain an old-fashioned book boy (or, just an old curmudgeon, I guess).

So I suspect that, had I read The Christmas Carol Murders in print, I might have had a different reaction. I read an e-book of The Age of Miracles last year and liked it quite a bit, but still was left with that nebulous feeling that I hadn't gotten the full reading experience out if it. This doesn't seem to be as important with non-fiction e-books, but I generally read non-fiction in a completely different mode, with less concern for narrative flow, atmosphere, and following a plot. I'm tempted to check out a copy of Lord's book from the library and read it again, to see if it alters my opinion. (I probably won't but stay tuned in case.)

Same old new season, part 2

Elementary: I am something of a Sherlock Holmes buff, though most real buffs would probably think me a pantywaist. I have not read all, or even most, of the Doyle stories; I enjoy more the homages and pastiches of other authors; my favorite incarnation of the great detective is Basil Rathbone. Yes, I know that Nigel Bruce played Watson as too much of a nincompoop bumbler, and many fans prefer Jeremy Brett in the British TV versions, but for me, Rathbone will always be the #1 Holmes. I don't like the modern updating from the BBC with Benedict Cumberbatch--part of the problem is the BBC series problem that most episodes are 90 minutes or more and feel padded because they should be 60 minutes. This modern version is under an hour and there is promise in the situation, but I don't care for the actors. Jonny Lee Miller is Holmes, a British detective living in the United States, who has just come out of rehab (nice touch). Lucy Liu is Watson, a woman being paid by Holmes' father to be his companion to make sure he stays out of trouble. Aiden Quinn, who looks better now than he did in his heyday, is the police captain with whom Holmes works. I didn't like the pilot, and I haven't seen any more, though I might drop back in on it to see if it finds a groove. But since my problem involves the lackluster performances given by the two stars, that seems doubtful.

666 Park Avenue: As above, there is promise in the set-up: Satan and his lovely minion (Terry O'Quinn and Vanessa Williams, above) own a grand old apartment building in Manhattan, and they make deals with various tenants; the tenants get what they want (talent, fame) but if they don't make good on their end of the deal, they are snatched away into Hell--or at least into the apartment building walls. I was looking for this to be an anthology series of sorts, with a different person dealt with in each episode, but while that may happen, there is a arc story which involves a nice young couple who has been hired to manage the building. My problem with that, as with American Horror Story last year, is this: why would this couple hang around for an entire season when they begin to realize what they've gotten into? A mini-series would seem to be the better outlet for that. The first scene of the pilot was nicely creepy: a musician playing violin on stage in an orchestra suddenly finds his fingers bleeding copiously, realizes that O'Quinn is watching from a box, and races out of the theater to his apartment, where O'Quinn makes him pay the price for his failure to carry out whatever he was supposed to do. But the show got boring pretty quickly after that and I haven't made a return visit.

Same old new season, part 1

I am not the person to make judgments on the new TV season, as TV series today are not made for me. I don't care for hour-long dramas in general (especially crime and medical shows), I never watch reality shows, and even sitcoms have to be just right for me to commit to watching (love Friends and Cheers and Big Bang Theory, don't like Two and a Half Men or Home Improvement). Still, here's my two cents on the few new shows I've sampled.

Go On: This was the most promising fall show for me: it's a sitcom with Matthew Perry, whom I loved on Friends and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I even liked him in the ill-fated Mr. Sunshine--he and Alison Janney were good, the rest of the cast, not so much. Here, he's the host of a radio sports show whose wife has just died in a car accident, and his bosses insist that he join a grief & loss therapy group. The humor comes from his cocky attitude (claiming he doesn't need help) and the interaction of the group members. Some of the set-ups are predictable, such as the potential for attraction between Perry and the therapist (Laura Benati); some are less so, such as the strange bearded guy (Brett Gelman) who spouts inappropriate remarks and non sequiturs with some frequency.

So far, all of the episodes have had at least one serious, sad moment, usually involving a breakthough that Perry has had in his grieving process. Julie White is very good as the lesbian getting over the death of her partner, though John Cho, as Perry's boss, has been mostly wasted so far, but I'll stick with the show for a while. I wonder how they'll keep him in the group for more than one season if he keeps making grief breakthroughs like he has.

The New Normal: A gay couple (Justin Bartha and Andrew Rannels) hires a young single mother (Georgia King) to be a surrogate mother. The three of them (and King's young daughter, Bebe Wood) get along fabulously but King's nasty bigoted grandmother (Ellen Barkin) is a constant thorn in everyone's side. What I like: the relationship between Bartha and Rannels is the closest thing on TV to a real gay relationship I've seen yet. They are affectionate, funny, and when they disagree, they talk things out without raising their voices. Much as I like Cam and Mitchell on Modern Family, they are far more loud and aggressive than most gay couples I know--and I realize that "loud and aggressive" is the default tone for all the couples on that show. Also, Bebe Wood gave an incredible performance in an episode in which she imitated the speech and mannerisms of Little Edie from Grey Gardens for the entire show--don't ask, you have to see it (it's called "Sofa's Choice").

What I don't like: Barkin's character and delivery are too harsh. In small doses, her nasty, fiery attitude is funny, but her role is too big and she unbalances the show. Perhaps to make up for this, the show winds up being too preachy. I want to like this, but if it doesn't strike a different tone soon, I will give it up.  I'll cover a couple more shows in a few days.

Funny as damnit

I discovered P.G. Wodehouse back in 1980, when I was living away from my parents for the first time. I had a job I didn't especially like, was living with a roommate I didn't especially like, had broken up with a boyfriend, and I didn't have a car. Things seemed a bit on the dark and gloomy side. Then I discovered Wodehouse through his novel Full Moon and found myself laughing out loud on practically every page. Within a couple of months, I had a better job, a car, and a new boyfriend with whom I eventually moved in. Clearly, Wodehouse changed my life!

I got on a bit of a Wodehouse jag, reading 3 or 4 novels and some short stories, and over the years I kept buying his books, and have accumulated over 20 Wodehouse volumes. But my guilty secret is that I that after that first rush, I quit reading him. He is a very witty writer, but his plots are all the same. In his most famous series, Jeeves is a valet to young rich gadabout Bertie Wooster and is constantly getting Bertie out of all kinds of scrapes, mostly involving wriggling out of unwanted engagements with young women. His other famous series involves escapades among the rich and the servants (and often, some prize pigs) at Blandings Castle. I would find myself laughing quite a bit, but then I'd get to page 40 and realize that the story was going in the same direction as all the others, involving characters I couldn't keep track of and didn't really like. Funny as damnit, as Bertie might say, but I'd get bogged down, close the book, and never pick it back up.

Last month, I bought a Wodehouse reprint (many if not most of his over 100 books, written between 1915 and 1974, have remained in print), Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, read it all the way through and enjoyed it. This time when I hit page 40, I realized that the plots and the characters don't really matter very much--what matters is, as a quote on the cover from Simon Brett says, the way Wodehouse plays with language. More to the point in the Jeeves books, it's the narrative tone of Bertie Wooster, a jackassedly unreliable narrator who gets everything wrong but who, thanks to the intervention of Jeeves, comes up smelling like a rose by the end.

Here is Wooster on his own image: "'Wooster,' those who know me have sometimes said, 'may be a pretty total loss during the daytime hours, but plunge the world into darkness, switch on the soft lights, uncork the champagne and shove a dinner into him, and you'd be surprised." Describing himself leaping in the air to get away from a snarling dog: "A cat on hot bricks could not have moved with greater nippiness." I now find myself wanting to say things like, "Well, I'll be dashed" and "Got to leg it home" and "She was what-the-helling all day" in casual conversation. My favorite Woosterism is using initials, sometimes confusingly. He refers to the Woosters' being able to "take the rough with the s." and it took me a minute to figure out the s. was the smooth. Pouring oil on troubled w. was a little more obvious.

Now that I've decided not to worry about plot or characterization, I may be at the beginning of another Wodehouse jag. I'm watching some of the Jeeves and Wooster shows from the 90s with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry (pictured above) and a colleague of mine at work who loves Wodehouse has decided to read some Wodehouse along with me, so we'll have our own little 2-person book club, laughing our a.'s off and ignoring the real world.

From Space Oddity to Major Tom's a junkie

When I was a teenager, David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust was one of my favorite albums. It was mysterious, it was science-fiction, it was gender-bending, and it rocked. So I was quite interested in a new book, The Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s by Peter Doggett. The format of the book is rather unusual: it's essentially a song-by-song analysis of Bowie's entire recorded output of the decade, presented chronologically, with sidebars for albums analysis and biographical information. Each song has a number (like an opus number) for easy reference, and Doggett includes a section in back covering most of Bowie's pre-1970 work as well.

Having recently read a decent Bowie biography recently (David Bowie: Starman by Paul Trynka), I was looking for this book to complement that a stricter focus on the music. Some of the individual analyses are interesting, and when he sets up the context well for specific albums (the Berlin albums with Brian Eno, for example), it can be downright compelling reading. But the book occupies a strange place, stuck between being a reference work and a narrative. At times, as with the Ziggy Stardust and Eno eras, Doggett does get a good narrative arc going, but at other times, particularly during Station to Station and Young Americans years, the story stutters along in fits and starts. He also misses, or maybe deliberately omits some well-known facts about the songs (like the origin of "TVC-15" involving Iggy Pop's girlfriend disappearing into a TV set). Interesting, but too quirkily hit-or-miss to be essential.