This week’s books include:
City of God, by E. L. Doctorow.
Okay, I’ll admit it. Doctorow is one of those authors I’ve always heard about but never read. Not Billy Bathgate, not Ragtime, not The Book of Daniel. City of God is my first experience. I’ll let you know what I think.
Desperation, by Stephen King.
Another confession—yes, I’m reading Desperation because I saw the movie on ABC last week (and because I usually like King’s work).
Collected Stories, by Rudyard Kipling.
Third confession—no, it’s not what you think, I’ve read Kipling before. But I haven’t read a lot of his short stories, including “The Man Who Would Be King” (I saw a made-for-television movie based on the story and I’m thinking its not going to be the same).
A footnote: I read recently that Winston Churchill referred to Kipling as the greatest writer of the English language. I decided to see what all the fuss what about.
Dead On Arrival
Wednesday, May 31st, 2006Director: Craig R. Baxley
Starring: Andrew McCarthy, Bruce Davison, Diane Ladd
NR – 780 minutes
About the time I hit college, there were a few movies everyone in my crowd was watching again and again. For the guys, it was a little David Lynch gem called Blue Velvet, starring Kyle MacLachlan and Dennis Hopper. Why I don’t know—maybe there was some adolescent male need to see a severed human ear—but inevitably the movie turned up when the guys got together. To quote the tagline: “It’s a strange world.”
For the girls, it was any of a number of Brat Pack specials by Joel Schumacher and John Hughes, including St. Elmo’s Fire and Pretty in Pink. Like Blue Velvet, these movies probably filled a different adolescent need, one that centered around the acceptance and security offered by the ideal teenage romance. We ended up watching St. Elmo’s Fire and Pretty in Pink a lot more than Blue Velvet; not because we liked these movies, but because we liked the girls and the girls categorically refused to watch David Lynch’s little weird-o-rama.
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