Stuff I’ve Been Reading -- The 2017 Backlog - Part 1

I meant to restart the column in June/July as a 10 year anniversary and retrospective of my original series of columns which I dutifully wrote for more than a year, but I don’t think anybody ever read. Instead, I just read and I read and I read. But I never wrote. So first I have to try to look at the bigger playing field and make some sense of what happened last year. What did I read and why? Why? Well I’m always reading. I set a few goals in GoodReads and when I met them, I started setting more goals. My friend Andreas had mentioned that he read 100 books a year, so that sounded like a good goal. You might be saying it sounds too lofty or perhaps unreachable, but I had been quite the reader in my youth, reading around 1,000 pages a day for my History Degree, but my reading output had dimmed in recent years, with streaming access to nearly every movie in history and the vast improvement in long form interconnected television dramas and comedies that left one stuck to the couch for days at a time. To fight this ennui, I thought, why not restart the polysyllabic spree -- restart the book column. That will get you reading. As it turns out, I only did half of it. I read the books, but I didn’t write the column. That leaves me with 86 books to review. No problem.

Books Read
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
The Greatest Salesman in the World, Part II: The End of the Story
Be Here Now
The Way I Am
Life Interrupted: The Unfinished Monologue
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
The Misanthrope
Ernest Hemingway on Writing

Comic Books, Art Books & Graphic Novels
Rick and Morty, Vol. 2
Deadpool, Volume 8: Operation Annihilation
5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth and Other Useful Guides
X-Men: Curse of the Mutants
X-Men: Prelude to Schism
Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Deadpool Killustrated #1
Copper
Hipster Hitler
X-Men: With Great Power
X-Men: First to Last
de Young: Selected Works

Rick and Morty, Vol. 2 - Big fan of the Rick and Morty cartoon show, I ventured out into the Rick and Morty comics, grabbing the first two collections. Quick reads, I think I recall one about Morty becoming a stockbroker and doing very well. I think Rick was helping him with some time travel. Fun read.

Deadpool, Volume 8: Operation Annihilation - The cover jarrs my memory to life. I think this is the one where Deadpool fought Hulk. At least wanted Hulk to kill him. For some reason, Deadpool wants to die, and when he realizes he can’t, he wants it even more. Highlights are of course the scene where Hulk really smacks him good, killing Deadpool for a short time where in Death mocks him saying that his healing factor is already drawing him back and even after his herculean efforts in pissing off the Hulk, he still… cannot die.

Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity - Very much enjoyed this short book by David Lynch about his life, the creation of some of his art and his positive experiences with Transcendental Meditation. I purchased it in the basement of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, the home of Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg and it will always be a special place for me. As I look now at my dirty pool I think of Lynch’s thoughts like vibrations across the water, you never know at the beginning of your creation how they might influence someone at the end.

The Greatest Salesman in the World, Part II: The End of the Story - Of course the sequel is never going to be as good as the original, but there was still lots of valuable information and positive insights in this short book that in part was about selling but in other parts was about Jesus Christ. The first book, more secular in meaning always danced around the Christ issue, while this book came out and said Christ was a follower of the salesman. What’s neat about Mandino’s idea of the salesman is not that he is negative, confusing or tricking the people into buying, actually that he is positive and makes commerce happen through his magnificent “deals’. I can’t help but being reminded of the President and his so-called deal making ability. I wonder how he would stand up to the King of Kings. I doubt he could carry his loincloth.

5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth and Other Useful Guides - Always been a fan of The Oatmeal and his internet comics, but never read any in dead tree form. Picked this up from the Goodwill and was surprised to see it was signed by the author himself -- you might have to pay more to find an unsigned one. Clever collection and a quick read.

Be Here Now - Another magical book that I purchased from the basement at City Lights. Purchased this one first, actually quite a while ago. Loved it immediately for it’s simple brown paper pages and the powerful messages written on them. Originally bought as a good flip through book-- flip through and read a few pages, I was inspired by reading the David Lynch book to actually slow read Ram Dass’s work and examine it page by page. A very important book in 60s history it shows Ram’s transformation from a man of Harvard to a man of the world. Interesting to see the connections between Christianity and world religions and how Dass simplified them, perhaps to better fit in an advertising age. Still an interesting book.

The Way I Am - I’d always wanted to know more about Eminem, other than what I’d learned from his lyrics and his semi-autobiographical film 8-mile. The book filled in those details and also reminded me of what -- not just a complex and brilliant artist -- but what a complex and brilliant human being Marshall Mathers is as well. His love for his deceased friend Proof is expressed honestly and provides a pathway to understand what drives him. I was also impressed to see samples of his lyric sheets and learn more background to how he composes his rhymes, focusing on complex schemes that rhyme entire lines not just single words while still expressing both political and personal messages. Good book, but I still think there’s more to know. Something about the magazine style in which the book is presented lets me know it’s more for fans than for students. There will likely be another Eminem autobiography someday.

X-Men: Curse of the Mutants, X-Men: Prelude to Schism - Bought a few recent X-Men books off eBay and tried to pick up with the once great franchise which I had so enjoyed in the 90s. The films, which started out decent and kept getting worse and worse lay heavily on my mind as I attempted to understand the characters downfall and demise by reviewing the fantastic work fo the ComicsExplained YouTube channel. The X-Men had been wiped out of the Marvel universe because the rights to their movies had been sold to Fox. They said it was some sort of anti-mutant virus or maybe the fact that Cyclops is a dick, but it was likely just a licensing deal. Maybe this will all change now that Fox has been sold to Disney, but I didn’t get a lot out of these X-Men books other than to see a once great franchise sadly limping to the exits. Wolverine frozen in a block of adamantite. Cyclops, gone evil and betrayed everyone, almost becoming the new Magneto, but still just a dick.

Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - These graphic novelizations of 60s history and classic literature have become all the rage recently and it’s probably my fault because I keep buying them. From the History of the SDS, to Gonzo: The History of Hunter S Thompson, these graphic novelizations allow a quick overview that is easy to read and digestible to all. While the original text and the film for Fear and Loathing are established classics, the Graphic Novel takes the formula out on the road and shows that a book this good works in any medium. Remniciant of the time HST & Steadman actually collaborated on their own graphic novel, far far ahead of their time, the fantastic -- Curse of Lono. (Which at one point I digitally scanned the rare copy from the library, only for Taschen to produce a beautiful and large format version years later. Needless to say I still own them both.)

Deadpool Killustrated #1 - This was actually a treasure. It doesn’t really matter what it is, you know if the title is something like “Deadpool kills his way through…” it’s going to be good, but I didn’t expect them to be so excellent at parodying the style of each book of classic literature the protagonist enters and then murders. It was just laugh along meta-meta-meta fun. A quick read and an excellent buy.

Copper - I found this book in the bargain bin at the discount supermarket of all places. I recognized the style from a few viral internet comics and immediately snapped it up. It sat about half read for a few years until I picked it up and completed it to try and get more books on the board for this competition, which I didn’t even end up writing until now. Copper is the story of a boy and his dog in a fantastical world.

Hipster Hitler - Another long enjoyed webcomic, obviously a guilty pleasure or dark humor. Do you have to be sick to laugh at a “Panda/Panzer” joke? Maybe. Perhaps it was years of Red Meat comics mixed in with Peanuts that lead us to this bizzaro future where a fashion conscious fuhrer choses Hugo Boss once more and takes on the posers because he likes Juice? I guess you had to be there, but I wouldn’t pass up on a collection of Hipster Hitler comics.

X-Men: With Great Power, X-Men: First to Last - Ok, so I have no idea what the first one was, another generic X-Men adventure, but the second one details another bizarro plot from Marvel in which the old X-Men come forward in time to realize what a dick Cyclops has become so that they can fight against him. Which I guess is a thing you could do. If you wanted to. If you’d run out of stories and frozen Wolverine in adamantium or whatever, sure. That’s a thing you could do.

de Young: Selected Works - How do you read an art book? Page by blistering page. You buy ‘em, you read ‘em. It hasn’t worked so far, but it continues to be the goal of this column. To read them all. It was great to read this love letter to the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park in my beloved San Francisco. I visited the museum often and it was great to be reminded once more of the permanent collection that I often walk through on my way to the new exhibit, but reading page after page of summaries of artist’s lives can be a bit of a drag.

Life Interrupted: The Unfinished Monologue - It’s so sad to say goodbye to Spaulding Gray, master of the spoken word, actor in David Byrne’s classic Talking Heads film True Stories, among other great films (How High, The Killing Fields, but mainly How High and True Stories), but mainly monologist. Speaker of truth, whether personal or embarrassing, he lived his life even though he was afraid of it and probably did better than most of us. Sometimes reading can be like making a psychic connection with the author and it’s always been true with Spaulding’s monologues and so it is true with his last book, which of course lies unfinished like DFW, HST, Hemingway and so many others.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - I always think that old lit is going to be distant or difficult. It took me forever to get to Dostoyevsky and I’d say for my tastes we still haven’t hung out enough. Great lit can be like spending times with friends and that’s what it was like reading Marcus Aurelius. A stern teacher and stoic, he’ll lecture you a few times, but much like the Art of War, it’s similar lessons explained differently.

The Misanthrope - Back in the day I used to buy these Dover Thrift Books to pad out my cart and get it over $25 or later $35 for free shipping. It always works out because I always end up reading them because they’re small and since they’re public domain classics they generally are worth the time. I recall this one as far more accessible than I thought it would be. Mainly a play about a jerk who is rude to people, but in the end is the most rude to himself.

Ernest Hemingway on Writing - The blank page. The white bull. A nice collection of quotes and stories from Hemingway about writing and how to write. Not really a help manual written by the man himself, but more of a clip show version of Hemingway. A best of.