Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar. Does what it says on the tin. There are absolutely no surprises in this collection of Nashville performers with a monofilament of plot wrapped around them.
Author Archives: Craig
Cheap Review
Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, Shell. Non-fiction. As interested as I would like to have been in the history and effects of America’s quest for cheap, I was unable to finish this book. Shell is a correspondent for The Atlantic, and maybe her skills are better suited for shorter pieces. This work was riddled with editing problems on every level, from typos (some of which could have been thinkos) to badly structured paragraphs to an overall lack of narrative cohesion. The book could very likely have been dramatically improved through the services of friend-of-the-Collective Plot to Punctuation.
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox Review
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox. Okay. A friend of the Collective brought this documentary to my attention, and having enjoyed the Bronner labels for several years, I was interested enough to throw it on my Netflix queue. It’s a bit of a ramble, which is probably fitting for the topic, but does make it a little too easy to do other things while watching it.
Waxman Report Review
The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works, Waxman. Non-fiction. If I were to suggest a sub-subtitle for this book, it would be “It’s As Bad As You Think.” Waxman presents what appears to be a little-varnished (though frequently self-congratulatory) look at how legislation happens, and the old saw about law and sausage definitely applies—though I have slightly more hope that the sausage-making could be reformed.
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Alfresco Addendum
I enjoyed the second series of Alfresco more than the first, and suspect that that enjoyment is related to Fry and Laurie writing enough of it that they now share credit with Ben Elton. Emma Thompson seems to have been given one sketch per program, apparently to demonstrate that Bob Newhart’s telephone bits are harder than they look.
Also included on this disc is the three-episode run of Nothing to Worry About, which served as something of a pilot and is correspondingly rougher even than the first series. I still can’t recommend the series for any but historical purposes.
Manna from Heaven Review
Manna from Heaven, Zelazny. Yes. I don’t know how I missed this publication. I didn’t let Zelazny’s death prevent me from examining the appropriate section of the book store on every visit, but I nevertheless was unaware of this 2003 collection. Given the ongoing publication of The Collected Zelazny, it is of somewhat less interest, though the introduction (by Steven Brust) is unlikely to show up there, and it’s not clear whether the seldom-seen prologue to Trumps of Doom will, either.
The collection itself is not terrific, leading me to suspect that maybe everything Zelazny was willing to see republished was collected before his death. Still, it’s Zelazny (though the Amber short stories show some signs of less than full engagement), and even substandard Zelazny is worth reading, at least once.
Starlost Addendum
We finished with The Starlost last night, and I think the best part of the four discs was the seven-minute pitch reel included as an extra on the final disc. It was clearly made before shooting had started, as evidenced by the different name for Keir Dullea’s character and substantially different pilot plot described. They also laud Douglas Trumbull’s Magicam system, which apparently didn’t make it into production (neither did Trumbull), but might have made the miniature sets other than laughable (see the Wikipedia Starlost article for more detail—I’m pretty sure they mean “did not work reliably”).
Alfresco Review
Alfresco. Tolerable. Put together the amazing talents of Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Ben Elton, and Robbie Coltrane (and Siobhan Redmond, whom you’ve likely not heard of) in 1983, and what do you get? A sketch comedy show that, in 2009, is rather disappointing. I’ll get the second series, but mostly out of contractual obligation. I don’t know how to apportion the blame among youth (of the cast), Ben Elton’s domination of the writing (if the credits are to be believed), and age (of the work); I expect all of them play substantially in its failure to completely delight this audience. Nevertheless of historical interest.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull Review
Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Bad. I don’t hate this movie as much as it probably deserves, maybe because I spent a lot of time looking into its history instead of watching it. I don’t know whether it could have been good, but it hamstrings itself by not choosing a lane: it wants to be a beautiful wildlife documentary, and a voiced-over quasi-cartoon, and a fair capturing of Richard Bach’s monster best-seller; and in being unwilling to let go of any of those, it fails at all of them.
Shot before routine Humane Society supervision of animal treatment, the film reportedly was responsible for dozens of gulls’ deaths. Those sensitive to animal abuse should definitely take a pass.
Book of God and Physics Review
The Book of God and Physics: A Novel of the Voynich Mystery, Joven. No. To be completely fair, I didn’t give this book much of a chance. In my defense, after skipping an introduction and enduring a prologue, I had rather hoped Joven might, well, get on with the story. I was disappointed and not in possession of sufficient patience to hang on.
Mechanics: insufficient data
Style: Two pages of actual novel bored me out of the book. A random page (well, sentence) in the middle did nothing to persuade me I had judged too hastily.