zBouillabaise

zBouillabaise is back!

1. zkids

Everyone else here has kids that are good at cool things.  I have little to brag about though, my kids have little talent.  zson's lone God-given gift reared its head at a Cub Scout meeting about 5 years ago when they had to try to use flint and steel to make a fire.  He went from kindling to roaring inferno in about two strikes of the metal and 15 seconds of puffing.  None of the other kids, or their parents, could do it so he went around starting fires for everyone else.  So he has a future in arsonry and insurance fraud.

And zdaughter's secret skill surfaced recently!  She went to a laser tag birthday party, winning all five rounds with the most confirmed kills in each round.  She was named MVP!  Now she's convinced that she's a Mandalorian.  So she has a future in warfare and bounty hunting.  Here's an action photo from my basement.

2. I read a book

I read a book and you should read it too.  FOGTB the DLC's wife wrote Grown Women and it's phenomenal.  I can't believe I know anyone who can write so much so well.  The novel spans a forty-some-odd year arc of time in the lives of a family of four generations of women and the dysfunction between them.  Their relationships get hectic but the end made me smile.  I'll let the Daves write a proper analysis after they read it.

3. zcats

zcats have a YouTube channel.  There's a lot of snuggling and slapboxing involved but I foresee lots of ping pong ball content soon.  I can't embed any of the videos because they're all "shorts," whatever the hell that means.

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day 2

On the second day of Gheorghemas 

Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Two books for your Gheorghemas wish list
And a doofus to lead this country

I assume you're all working on your Gheorghemas wish lists.  For Day 2 of Gheorghemas, I'm channeling my inner Dave and recommending two books for you to include.  But I'm not Dave so my list will be fun and reflect the spirit of Gheorghemas.

First is Ghostface Killah's forthcoming biography titled "Rise of a Killah."  According to the publisher, the book "is intense rather than comprehensive," which I guess translates to "it's short."  It isn't available until May 14, 2024, but Gheorghemas often drags on for several months (and in fact Gheorghemas 2015 is still ongoing as the twelfth day hasn't published yet) so it will be a timely gift nonetheless.  I, of course, will opt for the digital audio version, nah mean.   Hopefully Jack Urbont and Andrew Coffman will enter appearances.

Second is "The Ananda Accords" by Zeke Springer.  I've known Zeke for over 20 years and I'm stumping hard for his self-published first novel.  It's a sci-fi thriller about a peace mission gone wrong.  Go get it on Amazon.

I read two books!

I read Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead a while ago because Dave suggested it.  It was great so I read the sequel, Crook Manifesto, while on vacation.  It was great too, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, other times chillingly evil.  Both books read like screenplays and Dave said Netflix should turn them into a series.  He's right.  We're currently figuring out who to cast but we agree on Eddie Murphy for the lead.

via GIPHY

I polished Crook Manifesto off in two days and followed it up with Underground Railroad, another SoD (and maybe OBXD) recommendation (from 2016, I need to keep up).  It was not at all laugh-out-loud funny but it was often chillingly evil.  I am not eager to write about literature given the much greater qualifications of the Daves on staff here.  However, I am comfortable opining that Underground Railroad is an incredible piece of writing.  Each chapter is either a new setting with a new vibe or an eight page backstory of a secondary character.  The main character rides the underground railroad (which in this novel is literally a railroad under the ground) to different destinations.  As the first stationmaster tells her, "The problem is that one destination may be more to our liking than another .... You won't know what waits above until you pull in."  Sometimes it reads like Brave New World, other times it's like Blood Meridian, there's a chapter like The Lottery through the eyes of Anne Frank, a smattering of Sula and maybe Beloved at the beginning, then it feels like Animal Farm for a few minutes and then it hits your stomach with a crowbar at the end.  But throughout it's a horror movie, just nonstop dystopian misery.  It's a must-read.

Book. Worms.

As the site’s media grump, I’m about up to here with national reporters gathering vital information on our

leaders and our systems, and stowing it for months awaiting some blockbuster book release. The latest addition to the library is from a pair of New York Times reporters, Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns. Their upcoming book, “This Will Not Pass,” is a deep dive into the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s actions during his last days in office, the Jan. 6 insurrection, and the early days of the Biden administration. 

It’s undoubtedly well reported and sourced, and it’s already caused ripples within Republican circles. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that sections in which he was reported to call on the President to resign after Jan. 6 and was critical of Trump were false. After which audio was leaked of him saying exactly that. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell reportedly told advisors post-Jan. 6 that “the Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” referring to Trump’s second impeachment trial, and “if this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.” After which McConnell and most of his Republican colleagues voted not to impeach. 

Look, I’m guessing that Martin and Burns didn’t get information in real time. It likely took months to gather documentation and to verify from sources. But they certainly knew about it long before the book’s pub date. And I’d argue that they should have reported what they could ASAP. It’s not only their job, but their duty – to citizens and to the republic at large. 

This wasn’t some insider policy debate that the principals are trying to massage, or an innocent what-I-saw-at-the-White House travelogue. This was a president trying to subvert a free and fair election and to remain in power, enabled by one of the nation’s two major political parties. You report that when you know it, not when you have 400 pages of material. Hell, the book subtitle spells out its importance: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future. 

Burns and Martin have plenty of company. ABC national correspondent Jonathan Karl’s “Betrayal” came out late last year. In it, he quoted Attorney General Bill Barr that Trump’s repeated claims of election fraud were “bullshit.” Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker co-wrote two books, “A Very Stable Genius” and “I Alone Can Fix It,” the latter about Trump’s final year in office after he sat down with them for an interview at Mar-a-Lago. 

And then there’s Bob Woodward, the Post editor and investigative Hall of Famer who’s written three books about Trump, two himself and the most recent, “Peril,” with fellow Post reporter Robert Costa about the 2020 election, Jan. 6 and the Biden inauguration. I’ve banged on Woodward in this space, when
his book “Rage” came out in the fall of 2020. Trump admitted that he knew COVID was far more serious than he let on during the winter and early spring of 2020, but downplayed the severity because he didn’t want it to hurt him politically or tank financial markets. Once COVID death tolls began to spike, Woodward could have reported what he knew and perhaps affected pandemic response decisions and potentially saved lives. Instead, he sat on the information until the book came out. 

It isn’t as if Trump lies, dysfunction and competence are revelations. There was plenty of daily reporting in the past five years. I’m under no illusion that any of it will change minds. Most of us have reached conclusions about Trump and the present state of our politics. But anything that further opens the curtain to the words and actions of our leaders is not only valuable but necessary. The nation’s framers thought enough of a free press to preserve it in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The press should hold up its end of the bargain, and not just to make a buck from a book.

TV Made Me Read

A friend recently suggested the series "Babylon Berlin" from Netflix.  It's great.  Much like Peaky Blinders or Boardwalk Empire, it's about shell-shocked WWI veterans assimilating back into normal life (but in Berlin, not Birmingham or Atlantic City).  One of them is a cop investigating a murder which spirals into a whole kerfuffle.  

I'm halfway through the third season and, like most modern TV shows, you have to give it a few episodes to set everything up but once you do it pays off.  Turns out Berlin was pretty wild in the 1920's, lots of booze and prostitution with a little cocaine and fluid sexuality to boot (Das Boot?).  Despite being a relatively straightforward procedural it occasionally veers off into Teutonic Lynchian weirdness, which I enjoy greatly.

It's also very literary, with aspects of The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises coming through.

Any excuse to use that video again.  At some point I thought to myself "This must've been a book originally, there's no way a television scriptwriter came up with this" and sure enough, it's from a series of books by a guy named Volker Kutscher.  So I got the first book and started reading it.  So far so good.  Check out the show or the book unless you're Dave, in which case you already read the books.

I Think Many of You Already Know This, but Pappyland is Fantastic and You Need to Read It

One benefit of my 35 days of sobriety (which ended Saturday night) was the ability to read every night with a clear head, even if I am now a full-time "readers glasses" guy, a new enough phenomenon to disappoint me and remind me of my own mortality. I have been happy to get back into the reading routine that I followed for the first 40 years of my life, which became more sporadic and less productive after 2-3 scotches over the last 5+ years. 

Around 10 PM each night, I head upstairs, put the electronics down, put my Warby Parkers on, and dig into a book. While I'm not eating books like Dave does, I have been chugging through them in 2021. I recently finished Zucked, written by veteran venture capitalist (and former Facebook investor) Roger McNamee in 2019. It is as timely today as when it came out. It describes how Facebook amplifies negative news and disinformation, allowing it to bounce around echo chambers because negative news holds peoples' attention more than positive news. Zuck and Sheryl Sandberg surely don't like the book, but the message matters. Worth a library rental.

But I'm here to recommend Pappyland. If my scotch-impaired brain serves me correct, a few of you have already promoted Wright Thompson's book in prior comments (Mark? Rob? Both? More?). I ordered it through my town's library, it arrived and I promptly devoured it. It's a simple read. It was ironic to me to read a book about the history of Kentucky bourbon and Pappy Van Winkle while abstaining from alcohol. It made me think about the full bottle of Johnny Walker Blue sitting on my bar more than once. 

The book is about the history of Pappy, but also about the dynamic of kids and their fathers - how kids deal with their father's legacy, how they communicate with their parents and how they pass on their values and legacy on to their children. 

Thank you to you gents who gave the written nudge for me to dive into this fine prose. I learned a lot about bourbon and a little about myself. For you guys and gals that haven't dug into it yet, I highly recommend you do. Wright Thompson is our type of dude. 

More zman Boulliabaise

I've been to lazy to write any posts but I've had lots of ideas. Here are a few.

1. Colin Quinn: The New York Story is on Netflix and it's funny. New Yorkers will love it and people from outside New York will understand why New Yorkers act the way they do. It's worth 60 minutes of your time.

2. You should watch The Chi. Sometimes it's like The Wire, other times it's like What's Happening!!, at all times it's good. It's written by Lena Waithe (from Master of None) and it stars Kima from The Wire, Ronsel from Mudbound, Mister June from True Detective, and a kid who is Rerun's spiritual successor.

via GIPHY

3. Malcolm Gladwell! Eddie Alterman! Autonomous cars? Keep an eye out for "Autonomy," coming soon to iTunes.



4. You should read The Bulwark. It's a website full of good writing by smart people who maintain a pre-2016 conservative worldview. Bill Kristol is the editor-in-chief. I estimate that 90% of the articles involve grinding axes against Donald Trump and his bootlickers. There are also well-reasoned think pieces addressing things like flaws in Elizabeth Warren's Medicare for All plan and Middle East policy. These pieces are thoughtful and respectful. Taken together with the other left-leaning stuff I read it's a decent approximation of the Washington Post op-ed section 15 years ago. I miss that.

5. You should sign up for The Dispatch. It's a daily email newsletter written by a couple of guys who defected from National Review when it went full Trump. You can sign up here for free. It's completely self-funded by the authors and by donations from readers. Bare bones, no pictures. It's like The Bulwark only it covers a broader range of stuff.

6. You should listen to Roy Ayers. He's been buried in my iPod for years without getting any run. zson wanted to listen to something he never heard before so I put it on. Everybody sampled him. His shit is dope.





7. X Clan still holds up. Speaking of sampling Roy Ayers, I haven't listened to X Clan in over 20 years until this weekend and they still bang.



This song was oddly prescient ...

Maltese Millennial Falcon

I work with a bright young enthusiastic guy who likes to talk about politics and international affairs. He handed me a copy of "Shortest Way Home" by Pete Buttigieg and told me I had to read it. So I did. You should too.

Pete Buttigieg (pronounced "boot-edge-edge," apparently it's the most common last name in Malta) is the mayor of South Bend. He was the valedictorian and senior class president of his high school in South Bend, then he went to Harvard and Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, then he worked at McKinsey and volunteered on various Democratic campaigns. He eventually came home to South Bend and became the mayor. This all happened in the first 29 years of his life.

He turned 37 in January and he's running for President. If he wins he could, in theory, become a retired two-term president by the time he's 45. I'll be 45 in twenty days.

Buttigieg is openly gay. He came out after he became the mayor and was reelected with 80% of the vote. Notably this happened in Indiana while Mike Pence was governor. Apparently Buttigieg just gets shit done and his constituents dig it.

I enjoyed his book so much that I listened to some interviews with him and he's really damn impressive. He's progressive but pragmatic. His approach reminds me of a good mediator--start any negotiation with areas upon which both sides can agree, work through those areas to build trust and cooperation between the groups, and then build on that success to address more contentious issues collaboratively.

For example, everyone agrees that we need freedom, democracy, and security. Different people might view those three concepts differently, but if we can find niches in those areas that both sides of the aisle agree on we might make progress in ways that please a lot of people.

Buttigieg has a some hints of Marco Rubio to him. His delivery is really smooth and not clearly rehearsed, but once you've heard him a few times you'll hear the same lines again and again. He also has Rubio's youthful appearance and gameshow host haircut. Buttigieg has at least 50 IQ points on Rubio though and he seems genuine.

When asked how someone so young could have enough experience to be President, Buttigieg notes that he has more government experience than the current President; more executive experience than Mike Pence; and more military experience than any president since George H.W. Bush (he was deployed in Afghanistan for 7 months as a reservist).



His time at McKinsey taught him how to mine data and he's a Millennial so he naturally embraces technology. So, for example, he worked with Notre Dame to develop Wi-Fi enabled valves in the sewer system and now the St. Joseph river doesn't get flooded with Golden Domer shits after a rain storm. He also addressed South Bend's abandoned house problem through smarts, creativity and lots of elbow grease, resulting in the remediation or demolition of 1000 houses in 1000 days.

Ultimately I think he's too young to get the nomination but I think he's a great VP pick--smart, young, mid-western, full of energy and ideas. Like a gay Paul Ryan circa 2008, only he cares about other people and has principles beyond tax cuts for the uber rich. Biden/Buttigieg 2020 rolls off the tongue and I would love to watch him debate Pence.

In fact, I'd love to watch him debate anyone and in order for that to happen he needs to get donations of any size from 65,000 different people. I encourage you to spend a buck to get him on the main debate stage. We're all better off with more smart people running and sharing ideas.

Don't take my word for it, read his book. Or listen to this old podcast if you're too lazy to read.

Some Distractions, Alternatively Titled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet"

We've had some excellent serious writing here of late. I, of course, am neither excellent nor serious. Rather than let the state of our democracy drive me insane, or succumb to my cycle of bitterness, I find diversions to preoccupy my brain. Here's some stuff for you to try.

I've spilled many pixels here before about bringatrailer.com. Check it out when the world's bringing you down. There's an almost-perfect (I'd prefer Laguna blue) Honda S2000 around the corner from me. Find a convertible and buy it. Then drive it with the top down as much as possible. Convertibles make people happy. There's a good looking Mini up for auction right now too.

Another cool car site is petrolicious.com. Not only are the authors into cars, they're into photography and design in general. They product tremendous pictorals and even more magnificent videos. Ever wonder why I lust after Alfa Romeos, or why I'm always trying to figure out how to pay my mortgage, feed my family, save for zkids' college, and buy a Giulia Quadrifoglio? Watch this and make sure the volume is up:



Ever heard of a Porsche 959 and wondered why it's such a big deal? Watch this:



If you spend enough time on petrolicious you'll probably see an article or two about watches, which might lead you to hodinkee.com. I'm not saying that I've become a watch collector or that I have an even halfway decent understanding of how watches work, but if I have 10 minutes to kill I'd rather read about some crazy $100,000 watch than a 2000-word think-piece about Trump's latest tweet.

I also stream the daylights out of ... electrons? I don't know what exactly comes through the stream but it winds up on my TV all the time. If you haven't watched Narcos on Netflix stop everything and watch it. It's the best show on TV now, better than whatever Game of Thrones became last season. I love this show so much I had a fantasy team named Plata o Plomo. It has Pachanga from Carlito's Way and the Red Viper from Game of Thrones. It's superbly done. Here's a trailer.



When you're done with that watch El Chapo. It's Univision's answer to Narcos and it's also on Netflix. It isn't quite as good as Narcos but after Narcos you need to keep watching Latin American drug lords do preposterous drug lord stuff. As opposed to whatever preposterous stuff our nation's leaders are doing.

And, of course, Twin Peaks. At a minimum watch season 1, the last three episodes of season 2, and season 3. Or just watch season 3 episode 8 over and over and over again.

I don't read as much as I used to or as much as I'd like, and when I do read I'm not overly confident in my abilities to write about it given we have Dave the polymath/English teacher/devourer of libraries writing in this space. That said, my approach is to pick an author and dive in. I can't say enough good things about John Updike. The Henry Bech books are a good place to start as they're pretty light. Then try the Rabbit Angstrom books--they're heavier. Tom Robbins is fun. David Quammen and Jared Diamond make science and natural history interesting and accessible. I'm currently trying to figure out Philip Roth. All are much more fun and enlightening than any of Devin Nunes' memos.

Things you should avoid: Facebook, Twitter, really anything that allows any moron with internet access to draft an overly reductive hot take and blast it to thousands of people in a matter of seconds. That shit won't make you happier. Or curate those feeds carefully.

Parenting Trials and Tribulations - Amazon.com Edition

Been a long Tuesday for TR: a 12.5 hour workday that started with me leaving the house to 8 degree weather at 5:30 AM, all kinds of work stuff that was annoying to me (and is totally irrelevant to you), and a frenzied rush to the train home amid subway delays (the Shuttle train, no less!).

Anyhoo, as I prepared to deboard my train at my station at 8:10 PM, I got this text from my wife:

"(Boy #2) is starting to act up. I asked him what book he wanted to read and he said the 'my penis is fat' book. So that's where we're at. I didn't yell but told him I was going to tell you. He seemed scared."

Welcome home, husband! There is nothing resembling dinner around, and you need to explain to a 6 y/o boy that, regardless of his genital attributes: 1) there is no readily available literature on the topic, 2) he should not be requesting a book of that ilk in the first place, least of all to his mother, and 3) last but not least (as it regards my son), when you respond to your mother with a comment like that, my boy, things will end badly for you.

There was some denial, some stern lecturing, some tears, some children's shows wiped from the DVR, some hugging and then some apologizing from the little guy.

And then I had some suboptimal dinner. And then I went on the internet. Turns out there doesn't appear to be any pertinent literature on that topic available on amazon.com.

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Seven

On the seventh day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me:

Seven books for reading
6.9 Non Sequiturs
Six All-Star Nods
Five podcasts for listening
Four posts zman meant to write but never did
Three French Hens
Two in-state rivalries
And a dork with a split personal-ity

This is year three of my "seven books for reading" post, so now I've got some big data to evaluate. In 2013, I read approximately twenty-three books. In 2014, I read approximately forty-six books. This year I split the difference and read approximately thirty-three books. It's much easier for me to figure this out these days . . . thanks to T.J.'s gentle encouragement, I've finally learned to use the "labels" feature on Blogger.

It's always hard to choose the seven best, as all the books I finished were pretty damned good . . . that's why I finished them. I'm a finicky reader, and I start more books than I finish. Here are the seven most memorable.

1) Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel (Carl Safina)

The most significant and groundbreaking book on the list. Comprehensive, and a bit of a bear to get through (especially the first two sections, which focus on elephants and wolves) but I promise it will be worth it, and you'll never look at your dog in the same way again.

2) Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art (Carl Hoffman)

The title says it all. Rich kids and cannibals mix like oil and water.

3) Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic (Sam Quinones)

Astounding journalism. America does a lot of drugs. Mexico produces a lot of drugs. God is in the details. The book inspired this song.

4) The Cartel (Don Winslow)

I can't get enough of Don Winslow, and I can't get enough of the Mexican drug trade. Part fact and part fiction, the sequel to The Power of the Dog, and a perfect companion to the previous book.

5) Big Little Lies (Liane Moriarty)

The Australian version of Mean Girls . . . except with mean moms.

6) Dancing With the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro on the Brink (Juliana Barbassa)

An honest and dynamic portrait of Rio . . . if you've seen City of God, you'll love this book.

7) City of Bones (Michael Connelly)

I'm choosing this particular Michael Connelly novel over all the other ones I have read only because it features the La Brea Tar Pits. I've read a number of his Harry Bosch crime procedurals and they're all fantastic (I'm in the middle of Trunk Music right now).

Before my list of all the books I finished, I'll give you something more interesting and less annoying: here are a few of the books I didn't finish . . .

1) Walter R. Borneman's 1812: The War That Forged a Nation

I really wanted to finish this book and become an expert on the War of 1812, but I couldn't read more than two paragraphs in a row before falling into a very deep sleep.

2) The Witches: Salem, 1692 (Stacy Schiff)

I was really excited to read this book, and I've never been so disappointed. After a beautifully written start, about how alienated and lonesome the Puritans were, strangers in a strange land, living in small dark smoky houses, describing events as if they were on a "low grade acid trip," this book devolves into fragmented declarative sentences of historical minutia, with no overarching structure or theme. I think Schiff's research possessed her soul and destroyed it.

3) Purity (Jonathan Franzen)

Another one I was excited about, but I'll never read Jonathan Franzen again. His characters are wooden, repetitive and despicable, and while he writes great sentences, I'm not sure he knows shit about human nature. I'd rather spend my time reading well-researched non-fiction.

4) Sy Montgomery's book The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

Well-written and fascinating, but just too much octopus.

Here's the list of the books I finished in 2015:

Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art (Carl Hoffman)

Big Little Lies (Liane Moriarty)

The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2014 Edition)

The Happiest People in the World (Brock Clark)

Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How to Teach It to Everyone) (Elizabeth Green)

The Fifth Witness (Michael Connelly)

City of Bones (Michael Connelly)

The Drop (Michael Connelly)

The Black Ice (Michael Connelly)

The Concrete Blonde (Michael Connelly)

The Last Coyote (Michael Connelly)

Skeleton Road (Val McDermid)

Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story (Jim Holt)

When to Rob a Bank and 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-intentioned Rants (Levitt and Dubner)

The Husband's Secret (Liane Moriarty)

Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic (Sam Quinones)

How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where and Why It Happens (Benedict Carey)

The Next Species: The Future of Evolution in the Aftermath of Man (Michael Tennesen)

The Son (Jo Nesbo)

The Cartel (Don Winslow)

What Alice Forgot (Liane Moriarty)

Breakfast of Champions (Kurt Vonnegut)

Joyland (Stephen King)

Tell No One (Harlan Coben)

Dancing With the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro on the Brink (Juliana Barbassa)

Finders Keepers (Stephen King)

The Hand That Feeds You (Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment)

Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (Rick Perlstein)

The Captive Condition (Kevin P. Keating)

Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel (Carl Safina)

The Dick Gibson Show (Stanley Elkin)

A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen)

Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No one Has the Time (Brigid Schulte)

Dave's Definitive List: Seven Movies That Are Better Than The Book

Last week in English class, a student told me she was having trouble reading Hamlet on her own. She had been absent for an extended period of time due to mononucleosis and the class had finished the  play without her, but she still needed to write her final Hamlet essay. And I'm not the kind of teacher that offers to stay after school and help. Instead, I advised her to watch the movie. The girl sitting in front of her, who was eavesdropping, was appalled. "You're telling her to watch the movie instead of reading the book? And you call yourself an English teacher?"

Normally, an insubordinate comment like this from a student would require some sort of disciplinary action, but not in this case. Why not? Because this particular girl is a passionate reader and a frequent participator in class discussions. Not only that, she's extremely short. So short, that like Rob, she gets away with murder. She was so frustrated on her last Hamlet quiz that by the time she got to the bonus question, which she did not know, she wrote: I don't give a shit. Expel me. She knew that because of her diminutive stature she could get away with it. She did. I laughed.

I said to them both: "The movie is the book . . . it's not a novel. It's a play." The girl who needed to make up the essay was fine with this.

"Which one should I watch," she asked.

"The Kenneth Branagh," I said.

The other girl wouldn't give up: "She can't just watch the movie! You made us read it first!"

I explained to the short, contrary girl that I wanted the class to imagine how to act and direct the scenes before they saw a film interpretation, but that it wasn't absolutely necessary to understanding the play. In fact, I admitted, if you just need to comprehend Shakespeare, you're far better off seeing professionals do it on a stage. The script is simply Shakespeare's blueprint for making a play.

I asked her if she read the screenplay for The Hangover before she watched the movie. She remained unconvinced, questioned my dedication to my profession, told me I had no respect for literature, and then went back to eating her salami sandwich. (Each and every day, this tiny little girl eats a salami sandwich in my class; I allow snacking as long as there is no sharing of the food. In my experience, snackers are generally better students: they are planners and they keep their glucose levels up, which is what your brain needs in order to think-- but apparently our principal does not believe this, as he recently made an announcement reminding students and staff that there should be no food or drink other than water in the classroom. Rumor has it that there has been an invasion of mice. I told salami-sandwich girl she would have to be discreet with her sandwich, and if the principal walked in, she'd have to stuff it into her purse ASAP. Again, how do you tell someone that small that they can't eat?)

Despite her arguments, I still believe that a play is written to be performed; you don't need to read it first in order to appreciate it. But this debate opens an interesting can of worms. We have limited time in our lives. Sometimes we have to choose whether we are going to read something or watch it. Sometimes we don't have the time and the patience to do both.

Occasionally . . . miraculously . . . a movie or TV show perfectly captures the tone, theme, and plot of a book so perfectly, that you could say that it is a substitute for the written version. You could either read it or watch it, but you don't need to do both. HBO's Game of Thrones is an example of this. The books are excellent, the show is excellent . . . and the show is like the books. Take your pick. You could probably make the same argument for The Walking Dead. Great comic books, great show. I'd say the same about Watchmen, but then Alan Moore would come to my house and tear me to shred with his talons, so I won't.

Generally, the movie doesn't live up to the book. There is no bigger cliché than: "the book was better." The Hunger Games recently disappointed me in this fashion, but I can't say I was surprised. Igor recently explained why book to movie transformations rarely meet expectations:

Characterization, back-story, and thorough explanation are almost always the elements of a book left behind when transferred to film. Even The Shining, which Kubrick made one of the most truly terrifying cinematic creations out of (and gave me nightmares), couldn't approach the level of bone-chilling detail, explanation of paranormal activity, and contextual understanding for characters both major and bit that came through in King's book.

The most interesting and controversial category is when the movie is actually better than the book. And we're not talking about gimmes, which this stupid list is full of. Yes, I believe you when you tell me that Full Metal Jacket is better than The Short Timers.

This stupid list also makes the bold claim that There Will Be Blood is better than Upton Sinclair's Oil! It goes out on a limb and says the same about The Princess Bride, Wild at Heart, The Prestige, and Requiem For a Dream. None of these are classic works of fiction. None of these are must reads. So my comment is: So what? I'm certainly watching The Princess Bride before I read it, and I'm not feeling like I missed anything.

The stupid list has fifty movies that are better than the book, and there's generally no explanation as to why this is so. They have essentially listed any movie based on a book that isn't a piece of crap, without qualifying their opinion. The movie version of The Talented Mr. Ripley is decent-- a reasonably good thriller-- but it barely scratches the surface of Patricia Highsmith's masterpiece.

Trainspotting, Bladerunner, and The Maltese Falcon . . . these are at least debatable-- but on the stupid list there is no debate until the top ten, and even then it's superficial. As much as I love the Coen Brothers, they are no match for Cormac McCarthy and his crime novel No Country For Old Men. And James Ellroy may be the best crime writer of our generation, so though L.A. Confidential is good, it's not better than the book. It doesn't replace reading James Ellroy. And they have the balls to say that Apocalypse Now is better than Heart of Darkness. Philistines. Both are great works of art, but they are both incomparably great. You need to consume both of them. I am wondering if the people who made this list actually read any of these books . . . or if they watch so many movies that they don't have time to read at all.

So which movies are definitely better than the books upon which they were based? And we're talking about classic books, highly recommended books. Good books. Books you might actually read. And this means that you have to choose. Book or movie, and you can never go back and read or watch the other. So, with everything on the line, which movies sincerely supersede the book?

7) The Godfather, of course. No insult to Mario Puzo and his excellent, though melodramatically written novel, but seeing is believing . . . and Coppola's The Godfather looks like a documentary, despite Marlon Brando's wacky performance. You never forget the scenes, the characters, and even the quality of light in the film. A no-brainer.

6) One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. The book is great, but dated, and the psychedelic narration gets tiresome. Jack Nicholson and Danny Devito actually act in this movie-- they haven't become typecast as cartoon versions of themselves yet, and that makes it unmissable.

5) Lord of the Rings. Nothing puts you to sleep quicker than reading Tolkien's masterwork. It is epic, but rather tedious, with jests, but no jokes. One of my students created the perfect metaphor to describe reading it. Peter Jackson's adaptation is epic and entertaining . . . there's no comparison.

4) A Clockwork Orange. A weird, fun, and challenging novel, but Stanley Kubrick used it as a blueprint for one of the most visually arresting films ever.

3) Jaws. Peter Benchley is really good at writing about sharks. I enjoyed his non-fiction book Shark Trouble: True Stories and Lessons About the Sea as much as Jaws. But that stupid mechanical shark coupled with the most memorable theme song ever (a meme song?) will always trump Benchley's writing. Plus, you can't beat Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper.

2) The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic story of Puritan America suffers from an overload of Gothic bombast, but Demi Moore brings a wonderful sensibility to Hester Prynne's alienation . . . HA! JUST KIDDING! The movie version is horrible . . . atrocious . . . an insult to the original . . . but you do get to see Demi Moore wear a funny hat and get buck-naked in an old bathtub.

1) Lord of the Flies. William Golding creates an archetypal story of what happens to civilization when the rules are stripped away, but to get to the meat of the story, you've got to wade through pages and pages of monotonous description . . . tendrils and creepers and vines, oh my! When I taught this thing, we skipped chapters. The black and white movie, however, is perfect. Watch it and I promise you will wish you never read the book.

So what have we learned? First of all, books are great . . . I'm the first one to admit that. But if you get a first rate director, the proper casting, some truly inspired acting, and a tight script . . . and these come together in exactly the right way, then there's no question that a picture is worth a thousand words . . . nothing is more memorable than a great movie. And that's coming from an English teacher. And think of the time you'll save!

A Tale of Two Dogs

My friend and illustrator extraordinaire, Jen Hill, aka Jenny Elegance, will soon release her first children's book. Here's a preview:



You may recognize Jen's work from another book she illustrated. She has a damn fine blog too.

If you like to read books to your kids or need something to give someone else's kid, get some here.