Yesterday, I walked through a fabulous book fair! Rows after row of little tents full of a wide assortment of books, all sorted by subject. Books! And more books! On a lovely, if slightly rainy, Saturday afternoon. So why the sad face?
I’m in Amsterdam. They were all in Dutch.
I have to admit that I requested this book based on the title. Angels, Vampires and Douche Bags is a title with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations.
The book separates the people in our lives into three categories. Angels are the people who love you and take care of you. Vampires are the people who are sexy and seductive but ultimately bad for you, and Douche Bags are the people who make your life more difficult. Things can also be in these categories. The whole prospect is kind of muddled and unfocused. It just didn’t quite work.
Unfortunately, a lot of Carla’s humor didn’t work for me, either. For example, there’s this:
“I’ve always wanted to adopt, and I have given serious thought to adopting an older child. But so far, the only thing I’ve adopted is a British accent after a few glasses of Veuve Clicquot.”
Huh? Maybe if she said a French accent, since Veuve Clicquot is a French champagne, but British? Maybe I just don’t get it, but I didn’t laugh.
I also didn’t care for some of her assumptions about women. In her chapter on how dogs can be Angels, she says:
“Of course, dog is man’s best friend, but I would argue that a dog is more accurately a white woman’s soul mate. Trust me, white women have an unholy dependence on canines. I think it’s because we have no inner compass: no barometer or gut feelings. Every other ethnic group seems to have this gift.”
What the? I don’t own a dog and my intuition works just fine, thank you. She missed the mark even more with this, from her chapter on the importance of girlfriends:
“I know every man’s fantasy is to watch two women together. Sadly, this fantasy doesn’t work in reverse. No woman ever wants to see two men together.”
One, it’s not every man’s fantasy – plenty of my gay friends would dispute that rather vehemently. A couple of my straight male friends with more…varied tastes would dismiss that as too vanilla to be of interest. And if she thinks a fair number of women aren’t turned on by the thought of two men together, she obviously hasn’t read a fanfiction site, seen women standing in line for Brokeback Mountain or talked to any of my friends. Not every woman’s thing, certainly, but sweeping statements like that are downright insulting when they don’t describe your views, and she managed to insult me more than once in a short span of pages.
I wanted to give Carla the benefit of the doubt. I checked out some videos on YouTube and other sites. I checked with some of my Canadian friends, and got responses similar to my own. One described Carla as the “Canadian Sarah Silverman” – relying heavily on the “I’m a cute girl saying really smutty things” vibe. I get that from some of the videos.
For me, this one was not a winner. There were a couple of things in the book that made me laugh, like her Kabbalah Drag Queen Name (YumYum Kippur), and I chuckled a bit watching her videos. Comedy is a subjective thing, and this didn’t work for me. Want to give it a try for yourself? Post a comment with your own Jewish Drag Queen Name and your email – I’ll pick one to send along my copy of Angels, Vampires and Douche Bags.
My copy of Angels, Vampires and Douche Bags was a review copy, provided free of charge.
This book really took me back to my heavy metal roots. I was a fan in high-school and college, saw a lot of head-banging bands play live, and still have the hard rock/alternative stations programmed in the car radio. Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir is a look behind the scenes at how a scrawny kid from La Mesa, California became a rock and roll god. It’s full of great backstage stories and plenty of gritty truth about how Dave Mustaine got to where he is today. It’s a must-read for heavy metals fans.
The book is well-written and easy to follow. There is a ghostwriter involved, Joe Layden, and my guess is that Joe is responsible for a lot of the polish on this prose, but Mustaine’s ego and personality are evident throughout. There’s a lot of interesting history: he was raised by Jehovah’s Witnesses, began selling pot at a really young age and kept selling it to make ends meet when his mom moved out, leaving him with the rent and bills to pay. They cover his early bands, his musical influences, and how he came to really love music:
“When I held a guitar in my hands, I felt good about myself. When I played music, I felt a sense of comfort and accomplishment that I’d never known as a child. When I replicated the songs I loved, I felt an attachment to the musicians who had composed them. And when I started writing songs of my own, I felt like an artist, able to express myself for the very first time.”
Of course, it was also about “strutting and getting laid and trying to become famous.” There’s a lot of sex and drugs and rock and roll in this book and not all of it is pretty. It’s amazing to me that someone could function at all, let alone at such a high level (at least when it came to music), doing the amount of drugs Dave and his bandmates were doing. After all, this is a guy who got kicked out of Metallica because of his drug use and volatile behavior. That’s really saying something.
Dave covers his contributions to Metallica, his abrupt dismissal and the grudge he has held ever since in great detail. It has to be a little embarrassing to admit that one of the driving forces behind your career was the desire to show up the guys who kicked you out of their band. No doubt there was fault on all sides, but you can’t help but have some sympathy for him. He paints a pretty balanced picture of Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield, in my opinion, telling the good and the bad, and over the years he seems to have mellowed a bit on the topic.
He also talks candidly about the drugs. The drugs – holy cow, the drugs. Pot and quaaludes, coke, heroin, crystal meth, mushrooms. It’s amazing a body could survive all that. He talks about multiple stints in rehab and how little good it did sometimes:
“You see, I’ve learned more about getting loaded, more about how to get drugs, more about mixing drinks, and more about how to bed the opposite sex in Alcoholics Anonymous than anywhere else on earth.”
I didn’t realize until I read the book that Dave had found his way back to God in recent years, but he talks about his faith and how he practices it. He’s a devoted family man, he wants to teach, do some solo albums, spend time with his wife and kids. At the end of a long, bumpy, drug-addled journey, he sounds like he’s doing okay. I found it fascinating to read the story of how he made it.
My copy of Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir is one I bought for myself. I stood in line for about 2 hours, on a day that Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cleveland was full of a lot more black t-shirts and long hair than ever before. I was excited to meet a legend – you simply cannot be a fan and be cool about something like that. I’ve seen the man play live and been absolutely blown away, but I never expected to see him on the New York Times Best-Seller List.
Tired of hearing how eBooks are going to destroy the publishing industry? So am I. It’s a ridiculous idea to me – why would buying something that you use to read books be a bad thing? I think it opens huge opportunities for interactive books (kids would love this), textbooks, plus quick and easy access. So I was pleased to come across a couple of articles recently that seem to agree with me.
First, from the Wall Street Journal, The ABCs of E-Reading. Here’s a shock: people who buy e-readers spend more time reading and buy more books! Really? Gee, who would have guessed that.
It makes perfect sense to me. Americans love gadgets. Whether it’s fancy coffee makers or micromini video cameras, we love electronics that do handy things in cool new ways. Kids who grew up with video games are going to be far more receptive to an e-reader than to a boring old paperback. Add in the convenience of carrying a thousand books in your pocket? Awesome! Since I travel so much, I could cut down the weight of my suitcase by about 10 pounds a trip.
The article also notes that people with e-readers spend more time reading. Makes sense to me – give me an easy way to haul my book around and I will read on the tram, at lunch, in line at the bank, etc. I was also interested to see that, according to this article, hardcover book sales are up 10%. I don’t know what has caused it, but I’m happy about it.
Now, if they want to kill the excitement over e-readers, here’s the way to do it: ads in books. I know publishers are always looking for profits, but this would be shooting themselves in the foot. No way I would buy a book that had ads in it.
It’s Wednesday and I have some words!
One of the problems with biographies and comedy books is that they don’t have a lot of new vocabulary for me. I have a list that I still need to post from The World Without Us, but I don’t have the book with me here in Amsterdam, so that list will have to wait.
This week, I’m reading The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai
1. Bilingual aphasia – Aphasia is partial or total loss of the ability to articulate ideas or comprehend spoken or written language, resulting from damage to the brain caused by injury or disease. In bilingual aphasia, the patient loses the ability to communicate in one of the languages they use.
“But the severity of the damage, coupled with the temporary loss of one language and preservation of the other, leads me to believe that Mr. Li would be well served by someone who specializes in bilingual aphasia.”
2. Operculum – the most posterior portion of the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe in the brain.
“Left frontal lobe. Operculum. An unlikely open head injury.”
3. Lexical – concerning the vocabulary, words or morphemes of a language; concerning lexicography or a lexicon or dictionary.
“…the damage was excessive, almost unthinkable in the way it zeroed in on the areas responsible for lexical retrieval, fluency, syntactical processing.”
What new words did YOU learn this week?
It’s been a while since I had something I wanted to share on a Tuesday! It’s funny, I complain about how hard it is to keep up with the blog when I’m traveling, but when I take a little time off, my schedule really falls apart and it gets even harder. Anyway, today’s Teaser is from a book I finished on my flight yesterday: Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir
“I shared with him a bunch of stuff on the guitar, including the infamous Devil’s tritone, a complicated musical interval spanning three tones. The Devil’s tritone requires some dexterity, but it’s cool primarily because of the folklore attached to it. For a period of time in the Middle Ages, the Devil’s tritone was banned by the Catholic Church; supposedly, musicians who disregarded this edict were severely punished and sometimes beheaded.”
Now, that’s a lot of agitation over a bit of music! What’s teasing YOU this week?
There was a lot more hair in Joseph-Beth Booksellers on Wednesday, August 18th. Dave Mustaine of Megadeth (and formerly of Metallica) was on-hand to sign copies of his new autobiography, Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir
I bought 4 copies of MegaDave’s new book — one for me, of course; one for my cousin, Ann, who couldn’t get time off to come with me; one for the son of one of Ann’s co-workers (apparently Jared is a big heavy metal fan), and one for a former co-worker of mine, Don, who used to have long hair and play in a band before he had to get a regular job. I was able to get to the signing just by taking a long lunch. Dave was nice enough to say that made me a very good friend, before making a very odd comment (more on that later).
The signing was well-organized and the line moved very quickly. The speed was mainly due to the fact that there were no pictures and he was not signing anything other than the book — no Megadeath albums or posters. There was, however, the usual problem with people who don’t normally come to book signings: they don’t know how to behave themselves.
There was a couple in front of me, mother and son, who are perfect examples. The kid bought his book at another bookstore. Really bad form there, son. The bookstore has these signings to get you in the door, but mostly to sell books! Why should they let you buy the book somewhere else and then bring it here to be signed? And Mom? When your kid starts talking about how “gay” everything is, you should consider that a teaching moment. Otherwise, I have to assume that you think it’s okay for your kid to use language that demeans other people as a description for something as basic as the rules for a book signing. That’s really not cool.
And the guy in line behind me? The one who was annoyed because Dave wouldn’t sign his book again (he bought it in Connecticut, had it signed at a book signing there and then brought it here, hoping for another autograph), I would feel bad for you, because it shouldn’t be any trouble for him to sign it again for a fan. I would feel sorry for you except for the fact that you said several times that you bought the book elsewhere and then stole a line number here to get it signed. Also not cool, dude.
Dave is very…leathery in person. Considering what I’ve read so far, I’m not surprised – lots of drugs and hard liquor went into making that face. But he was pleasant and smiled, shook hands and let people take pictures, and that’s always a plus. He was a little odd, though. I mentioned that I was getting all of these books signed for friends who had to be at work, and said that I was lucky because my boss was on another continent (he’s headquartered in the Netherlands). Dave said they were lucky to have such a good friend, then looked at me very seriously and said, “It’s better than having a boss on another planet.” Then he nodded, shook my hand, and went on to the next person. A little odd, indeed.
The book is a lot of fun so far – I expect to finish it on my flight to Newark if my plane ever takes off (grumble, grumble). Look for the review very soon!
I talked in an earlier review about looking for simple recipes for this abnormally hot summer weather – preferably recipes that did not require cooking. Well, I believe I have found just the thing and the best part — it’s absolutely free!
A friend suggested I check out that Stone Soup Cookbook and what a terrific find! The cookbook is available as a free download, which makes it even better.
I did some reading on The Stone Soup blog and it is definitely one I will be going back to. Jules Clancy is a recipe writer focused on minimalist cooking: minimal time spent cooking, minimal number of ingredients, minimal amount of kitchen equipment. As much as I love preparing an elaborate meal, sometimes — especially in the heat of summer — I want something simple and quick.
The first recipe that really struck me was the Bocadillo with Jamon. This is basically bread and ham, very similar to the lunches we have at my company’s office in Amsterdam, and to the sandwiches I’ve had at Paris cafes. Very good bread, very good ham, and you don’t need dressings or fixings. And there are a dozen side salads in the book that would be a perfect accompaniment. I love the looks of the Chickpea & Parmesan Salad (and I have all the ingredients in the fridge!) and the Shaved Cabbage Salad with Parmesan and Balsamic. Simple and tasty.
Tonight, I plan to try the Veggie Laksa – a coconut milk soup with curry paste and Singapore noodles. I know that the Pasta with Pork Sausage and Crushed Peas will be on the menu soon, too. I love Asian food and the 2 Minute Noodles with Bok Choy and Oyster Sauce looks fabulous. I also think the Ricotta and Basil Open Omelette looks like a great brunch dish.
These are lovely, simple dishes, with clear instructions and no fancy equipment required. The photography is beautiful and that’s always a plus. And the recipes are all free! How can you beat that? So check out the blog, download the cookbook, and let me know what you’ve cooked!
If you wanted to completely change the face of American politics, what would you do? If you had nothing left to lose, what risks would you take? In Steve Martini’s The Rule of Nine
I was only a little surprised to read that Steve Martini introduced Paul Madriani, his likable criminal defense attorney, nearly 20 years ago. It seems like I’ve been reading these novels forever. He’s a great character with a great supporting cast — always important in any fiction series. The thing that makes a great political thriller, for me, is that it has to be a bold idea, but not so out there that it seems impossible. The Old Weatherman’s plan is bold and it’s crazy, but not so crazy that I can’t imagine someone trying to pull it off. I was actually disappointed in myself — it took me way too long to see where this novel was headed. Of course, I was distracted by a couple of murders, a mad dash across the country, a flirtatious weapons control expert, and the reappearance of The Mexicutioner. So even if I didn’t see where we were going, I really enjoyed the ride.
A Senate staffer is murdered and Madriani is implicated. The victim’s father, a powerful Chicago attorney, is not convinced that the FBI is doing enough to solve the case — he smells a cover-up. The tendrils of the investigation connect a host of characters: Madriani; his colleagues, Harry Hinds and Herman Diggs; lobbyist and weapons expert Joselyn Cole; assassin Liquida Muerte (aka the Mexicutioner). When it becomes clear that this case may have prompted Liquida to target people close to Madriani, it becomes a race to expose the plot before anyone else gets hurt.
In the background, there’s a plot. There are large amounts of money moving around. There are foreign locales, weapons deals, airplanes, murders and accomplices. There are enough shadowy, unnamed characters to keep you wondering who is telling the truth and who is plotting against the government — not everyone is on the up and up. That’s what I love about a good political thriller. I want a story that keeps me guessing, that gives me plenty of clues but never really spells things out until the big reveal. The Rule of Nine
My copy of The Rule of Nine
The other day, as I was browsing my cookbook shelf, looking for something that didn’t actually require cooking, it occurred to me that I have a lot of cookbooks that deserve a review. I’m a big fan of cookbooks — I like serious, gourmet cookbooks, ethnic cookbooks, theme cookbooks — all kinds of cookbooks!
Rock & Roll Diner (Menus and Music) 
O’Connor provides a cute introductory section. There are sections on the history of the diner, descriptions of formica and blue plate specials and a glossary of diner terms. Some of them are familiar (Adam and Eve on a raft), but others were new to me (like biddy board and splash of red noise). There are little biographies of the featured diners and a lot of regional features.
The recipes are a mix of classic diner food and some things I have never seen on a diner menu. There are at least 6 meatloaf recipes, pot roast and pie! Key lime pie, peanut butter pie, pecan pie, buttermilk pie…and when I think of diners, I think of pie.
There are also some oddball things. I mean, I’ve seen liver and onions on menus, but never Calves’ Liver with Cream and Blueberries (Empire Diner, New York, NY). Although they sound very tasty, Pumpkin-Ginger Flan (The Diner, Yountville, CA) and Creme Brulee (The Corvette Diner, San Diego, CA) are not what I think of as diner food. Maybe it’s a California thing.
I definitely plan to try the Lemon Bars (Bette’s Oceanview Diner, Berkeley, CA) and the Portuguese Kale Soup and French Meat Pie (4th Street Diner, Newport, RI) – a savory, rather than a sweet. And one morning soon, Gingerbread Pancakes (Jigger’s Diner, East Greenwich, RI) will be on the breakfast table. I only wish I had a tape player, so I could check out the diner music while I cook.
My copy of Rock & Roll Diner (Menus and Music)
Tags: diner food
