Books
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When I saw that video of Andrew Garfield, dressed in that drugstore Spiderman costume, speaking so frenetically about his relationship with the Wall Crawler, it got me thinking about my own times with the Web Head. “Being free of the body I was born into,” that’s what Andrew says Spider-Man meant to him and “every…
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I remember my first Amazon purchase. It was also my first Internet purchase. My curiosity was stirred by something I had read about Brion Gysin’s book, The Last Museum, and I wanted to read the book for myself. The problem was that The Last Museum was not available through the public library or in any…
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What’s great about Lisa Yee’s book, Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally), is not that includes a Stay At Home Dad (SAHD), an athletic football playing sister, or a possibly bi-racial family (as hinted at by the name “Ellis-Chan”). Though it is wonderful to read about a nuclear family that is more representative of what a family…
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Martina the Beautiful Cockroach by Carmen Agra Deedy. Illustrated by Michael Austin. The kids and I saw this book lying on top of a pile of picture books stacked on the floor of the Children’s reading area at our local library. We had sat down on the carpeted steps to kill some time. It’s not…
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Much like Cigano – the Gypsy – the narrator – I quit Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes only to return telling myself this time it will be different. I finally succeeded around page 140 (Chapter 15). Unlike Cigano I saw no grace or value in following Narcisa’s slow descent in the Crack addiction and madness.…
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When it comes to “druggie fiction” – stories about drugs and alternative lifestyles by addicts or people who talk like addicts – Jim Carroll’s Basketball Diaries and anything by Lydia Lunch set the bar for me. (I don’t include Burroughs, whose “Junky’s Christmas” is told above, because he is in a class all his own…
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http://video.tedxcopenhagen.dk/v.swf Hamlet was my introduction to the Danes; Him and Danny Kaye prancing around a Hollywood set as Hans Christian Andersen. According to the Gallup World Poll Denmark is the “happiest place on earth.” Forbes says this is because “good times probably have more to do with the size of your wallet…” and quotes the…
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In William Bee’s Whatever, an eager father tries desperately to engage his son, who has no interest in anything. Drawn with simple unsophisticated shapes and colors and told in simple single lines of text, the book works as a whole artistic comment on ennui. My kids, who have both been prone to complaining about boredom…
Vincent Young 