Every day when we wake up, we quickly take stock of our surroundings. Is light pouring through cracks in the bedroom curtains? Where is the end of the bed, so I don’t bang my foot against it in the dark again? How long do I have to snooze before I absolutely must get ready for work? These are the types of questions that plague many people each morning. Yet for others, those unlucky enough to be living under the rule of a corrupted and violent government, the only question each morning is more like, “Will I live to see another day?” History has shown many times before how the oppressed can quickly become the oppressor once power sinks its claws in and Zimbabwe, under the rule of President Robert Mugabe, now stands at the pinnacle, waving a flag boasting leadership and unity on one side, but the other a desperate cry for help. Which one will the world respond to?
The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe is a harrowing travelogue by Peter Godwin, detailing his trip back to his homeland after an election, which should have ousted their despotic leader, but instead unleashed a paranoid and chaotic fury unlike anything seen before. Peter moves in and out of danger, trying to document as clearly as he can the abuses and tragedies inflicted upon the people who dared to challenge the status quo and spoke their mind in this fledgling democracy.
The set up to this barbarism was a recent national election for Zimbabwe in 2008, where Robert Mugabe, the country’s longtime president, lost to Morgan Tsvangirai in bogus political theater gone wrong (or right, depending on which side you were on). Mugabe and all of his generals had the opportunity to walk away with plumped up golden parachutes and immunity from any number of crimes they committed during his reign. Instead, the madman showed his true colors, not the green, yellow, red and black stripes of their flag, but rather the green of greed and the red of rage towards those who voted against him. With the assistance of his generals, already hardened by previous extreme civil wars, and brutal war veterans who saw Mugabe as the savior and bringer of their true freedom, he set about intimidating, torturing and killing anyone who spoke out against his legitimacy as the one true ruler. Untold numbers have already died in the struggle for true democracy there and even more are living with the physical and mental scarring left behind by roving gangs of power-hungry war vets and brainwashed youth who have been taught torture and death dealing as a civil trade.
Godwin does an amazing job detailing out these horrors, while posting them up against the background of the natural beauty and serenity Zimbabwe can hold underneath. The country, itself awash with the blood of wars between the tribes and now overflowing once again with the bodies of its people, still manages to capture a sense of timelessness and purity in their countryside and jungles. Godwin tries to show that side of his home and prove that keeping those people and their traditions alive, outside the despotism of Mugabe, is truly something worth fighting for, possibly dying for.
The examples and scenarios of intimidation and murder unleashed by Mugabe go far beyond the pale of human rights abuses, causing the international community to balk at recognizing him as the true leader. The opposing party (known as the MDC) has refused to give up and endured years of assassinations and trumped up prison stays in conditions rivaling those in medieval times. Today, you will find a GNU (Government of National Unity) set up in Zimbabwe consisting of members of Mugabe’s cabinet and those of the MDC, but Godwin pulls back the sheen of stability to show the fallacy of this tenuous brotherhood of man. Heads of the opposition only agreed to stop the continued bloodshed and in hopes of staving off outright civil war, but with a new election coming around the bend, people are once again worried they will be targeted for their votes. Towns loyal to the MDC fear they will once again be burned, looted, pillaged and their women raped by roving gangs of Mugabe conscripts.
The Fear was the nickname given by the people to the blanket of intimidation laid over the country by Mugabe and the book reads like something from hundreds of years ago when countries were conquered and re-settled by vicious landlords. Yet, when you let it sink in that these horrible actions are being carried out even to this very day, it chills even the most disconnected reader. It is an eye-opening look into a world many of us would never know, or care to know, exists, but once you see it, you will not be able to look away. For those who do read the book and want to help the cause, there are various ways listed out on Godwin’s website.
The End of the Page recommendation: The Fear strikes deep with painfully detailed examples.
Posted 3 months, 3 weeks ago at 11:10 am. Add a comment
The guy behind me is staring at me, right? I totally feel it.
Rating: 9 out of 10
It is expected now for any member of the political beltway or those who report on it (and other daily news events) to grace the shelves of our local bookstores (or the front page of our eBook apps) with a tell-all/biography/memoir. Most are pushed on them by overzealous managers and agents trying desperately to cash in on their popularity with various demographics, but every now and again one journal will come to fruition from a much more real and meaningful purpose.
Dispatches From The Edge: A Memoir of War, Disaster, and Survival is a touching remembrance from CNN superstar Anderson Cooper. Covering portions of his childhood and the darker moments of his youth, it also details heart-wrenching details of his reporting on Hurricane Katrina and the wars in the Middle East. Filled with honest and frank recollections from not only the front lines of some of our most recent calamities, Cooper also pushes his investigations internally to find out what drives him to consistently drop himself into some of the worst places on Earth.
The first thing that grabbed me about this book was the random similarities I didn’t expect to share with Anderson Cooper. His father passed away when he was ten years old, mine when I was five. It had a dramatic effect on each of our lives. He mentions his inability to fully process the emotional impact of that event, and the later suicide of his older brother, as key reasons for his apparent addiction to placing himself in the literal and psychological cross-hairs of the worst spots in the world.
Some of the most interesting parts, including those about his personal life, are when Cooper reveals many of the things he saw that never made the news, things deemed unworthy of CNN coverage. One scene talks about when he was in the Middle East passing out over 200 gallons of water to locals with the help of our armed forces. No one died that day, no IEDs went off, so no one ever heard about it. Cooper sadly admits the old adage that still holds sway over all news coverage, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Another story mentions gruesome and horrific details about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The utter lawlessness committed not only by the locals taking advantage of the chaos, but law enforcement personnel who devolved just as much into primitive gangs of roving warlords. Some of those stories were snuffed out early on because it was deemed too dangerous in risking a possible backlash against all authority, which very well could have happened, but it doesn’t make the reality of it any easier to swallow.
Cooper also eloquently covers his tenuous balancing act between being an unbiased reporter and an opinionated celebrity. Once he made it out the other end of some incredibly dangerous job hunting tactics, landing in the spotlight of CNN forever altered his ability to reach millions of people and also his struggle to keep his sanity. He now was given access to people and events ranging from awe-inspiring to nightmare-inducing. With great skill and strain he has always come from those places knowing he had to wrap those images into a coherent story meant to inform, educate and enhance the world discussion. The Achilles heel for any reporter is to somehow deliver that information without bias and political overtones, which Cooper has managed to do time and time again, making him one of the most respected in the business.
In the last couple of years, Cooper has begun to step out of the middle ground and reposition himself as a true fact finder in a much more aggressive sense. Under the moniker, “Keeping Them Honest”, Cooper began bringing on politicians and other notable news makers when he felt something they were preaching about was demonstrably false. No longer fulfilled by calmly reporting the facts to his audience, Cooper decided to drive the falsehoods out into the light during live interviews. The only down side is if he brings on someone from the right side of the political spectrum and corrects them, Cooper becomes labeled a liberal activist, and if the guest is more left leaning, Cooper becomes labeled a political tool for the right. It seems like a no-win situation for him, but he is taking it in stride, sticking to what he believes is meaningful for people to know and that is what keeps him cemented as one of the best in the industry. Dispatches tries to ride that thin line as well, pointing out the inequities in the reporting that most of the country saw, while not coming down as an outright attack on the media as a whole.
The End of the Page recommendation: Dispatches From The Edge is a harrowing and heartfelt look in front and behind the lens of one of the most notable newsmen in the business, Anderson Cooper.
Posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago at 9:07 am. Add a comment
Just wait until I draw in the thought bubbles. It’ll blow your mind.
For those of you unacquainted with fundraising and self-publishing your own projects, there are a few amazing websites out there which lend a helping hand in organizing and evangelizing your future piece of awesomeness. Kickstarter is one of those where you can list a project and create donation tiers, teasing out bigger and better prizes for people who donate more and more green to the project. There is a wealth of these needy creative ventures out there and for anyone with a few disposable bucks and a desire to feel like you have truly helped the world become more interesting and imaginative, please dive deep into this site at your absolute soonest. Here, I’ll even point you toward one worthy project right now…
In a bleak futuristic world, in which the United States of America has split into multiple countries, a small band of civil rights revolutionaries must save their leader from the clutches of an evil government.
The manuscript has been written, rewritten and rewritten some more and the authors have now connected with renowned Darkhorse Comics and DC Comics veteran artist Brian Ewing for the soon-to-be-impressive cover artwork.
Lend a hand to help another piece of imagination get out there into the hands of readers everywhere. Who knows, if you donate enough, you could even get yourself free copies of the book, maybe even the original cover art itself! Check it out.
Posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago at 10:09 pm. Add a comment
Boo! Scared you, didn’t I? Now send me money and I’ll tell you how I can protect you from people like me.
Rating: 9 out of 10
There are many things that connect us all, no matter where we live, what color we are and which God we believe in. One of the deepest and most integral of those connections is fear. We all have it, whether it’s worrying about the spread of Communism, the shortage of scientific breakthroughs toward a cure for cancer, or maybe just late night jitters about the foul-smelling thing hiding underneath the bed. Most of it can be boiled down to a simple phrase, “fear of the other“. While some fears can be debated and argued as being justified, the underlying problem with fear is that once someone or something knows what your fear is, it can be used against you as a weapon. People throughout history have made their livelihoods based on that fact alone and it is on proud display here in the present day inside the formation of the Tea Party movement and the outlandish opposition to Barack Obama.
The Backlash by Will Bunch is a well thought out and deeply researched journey into the heart of the fear that sprung forth like snakes-in-a-can upon the inauguration of our new President. While many progressives and liberals clamor from the sideline, poking fun at the Tea Party and their growing membership, Bunch takes the honorable mission of tracing the movement to some of its more humble beginnings and the people actually at the ground level. What he discovers is real people with real fears who are being co-opted by big business and private interests in order to stop the change promised by the new administration.
One of the first things most people were introduced to when they saw the Tea Party crash onto the political scene was their fascination and fervor for protest signs and costumes. While this might have increased their news coverage, it also quickly devalued their message. From the subtle to the incredibly overt, racist slogans and imagery littered the reports of the fledgling movement giving an overall impression that everyone involved had the same color-coded mission, to purify the White House, and by extension, the country as a whole. On one side of the cable news spectrum (MSNBC, CNN, BBC, etc…) the Tea Party was characterized as rednecks that time had obviously left behind, while the other side (championed by Fox News) raised them onto the pedestal of patriots and grassroots revolution hailed as “real America”. The problem here is that neither description is true, but labels are sticky and even removed they can leave a nasty residue behind.
Another factor behind the proliferation of the “real America” illusion was those pundits and political commentators who saw the Tea Party as the lightning-in-a-bottle moment they were waiting for. Once they grabbed onto the coattails of fear inside the Tea Party, people such as radio/TV/internet phenom Glenn Beck wove those coattails around and around into each other until the fear escalated into paranoia, which in the ratings world is a wonderful thing. Beck had actually boiled it down to a simple equation, the bumper-sticker solution to all the fear in the country:
On his November 23, 2009 show, Beck went back again to the theme of a looming economic meltdown and recommended to his listeners what could just as well be a mantra of the right-wing movement in this new decade: “The 3 G system” of “God, Gold and Guns.”
Beck skyrocketed in popularity and influence, like many of the voices from the outer right-wing fringe, preying on the fears of people feeling like their country was forgetting about them. He wheeled out his chalkboard day after day, giving his viewers something familiar from their childhood, a symbol of learning which they all believed would never lie to them. Beck littered the surface of the chalkboard with various historical people and moments, drawing incredibly slippery and weak connections between them to prove any conspiracy theory he imagined that morning. Worse than that were those occasions where he blatantly misrepresented the views of historical figures to grant his own ideas more credence. Bunch illustrates that nicely in this section:
“Beck – and probably many of his listeners – would be turned off by many of the views of the real Thomas Paine. For one thing, while Beck has tried to argue that America’s true roots lie in Christianity, the real Thomas Paine was a Deist who loathed organized religion, writing in “The Age of Reason” that all churches “appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
You can be sure that particular quote from Paine never graced the esteemed surface of Beck’s chalkboard.
This is the thrust of Bunch’s message, that much of the Tea Party is being towed along by puppeteers and plagiarizers, purposely mis-informing them to wean the money from their wallets and the devotion from their hearts. The fervent devotees of the Tea Party should not be written off as a joke, especially since some of them actually won seats in our government during the last election. They should be listened to, but filtered through a lens of mis-appropriated fear. If we do not try and understand where they are actually coming from, people like Beck and his cohorts will continue to wield them like a bludgeon against the wall of this country until its inevitable collapse.
The End of the Page recommendation: The Backlash by Will Bunch is a staggeringly human look into the real fear behind the so-called grassroots revolution of the Tea Party and how it has been co-opted, controlled and ultimately, how it will be condemned.
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 4:36 pm. Add a comment
You’re serious? She’s going to write more of these books? But, I got other stuff to do, like, umm…food shopping!
Rating: 6 out of 10
Let’s hit this head on, since a ten year run on any film franchise deserves the respect of not beating around the bush.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 begins the final chapter of our lightning-branded fated friend and his cadre of dedicated compatriots. His arch-enemy, Voldemort, is out in the open and gathering his armies and weapons together, while the Potter team is trying to ready themselves for the inevitable battle to come. The stress of staring death directly in the face threatens to break our heroic trio apart at the very time where their bond needs to be the strongest.
Sure, the description above is a decent hook to get you interested, but it’s a terrible summary of a film because it doesn’t relate a complete story, which of course is because this movie is not a complete story either. After shuffling shoulder-to-shoulder out of the theater on opening weekend my first impression was that of resentment and anger against Warner Brothers splitting this final book into two films. I am a huge fan of the original books and I understand how much material there is in the final book (757 pages worth, to be exact), but in their effort to cover every little detail from the source material, they failed to take into account that some of the book might not be worth filming. It feels like the decision to split into two movies was made more about profits for WB and not for the enhancement of the overall experience for the fans. Honestly, I wish they would have ended this series with a much bigger bang, going out with a Lawrence of Arabia-styled epic 3 1/2 – 4 hour marathon movie (intermission included). Sure, they would sell less tickets because you could only screen it a few times a day, but it would go down in history as one of the most successful epics in film history and that should’ve been enough to make the studios proud. Alas, pride in the finished product is mostly less important than profits.
*Mild Spoilers ahead – but if you haven’t already read the book, do yourself a favor and do it now, I’ll wait right here… *
Friends of mine can corroborate this: when I finished reading this book seventeen hours after buying it on day one of release, I said, “When they make this movie, please let them drop the damn tent section!” Yes, in the book it is more needed to show the strains in our famous trio of young heroes, but even in those hallowed pages the section read very slowly and drawn out, which I knew would only be exacerbated by filming it. The little light-hearted moment of Harry and Hermione dancing in the tent felt incredibly forced and only there because they needed to break up the morose, moody whining that had already gone on too long. It was a weak attempt at solving a much bigger problem.
As for the overall structure of this offering, it suffers much more than the previous filmed chapters because it literally holds onto the ‘Part One of Two’ description to a fault. Even if you are making a film that is a piece of a bigger whole, each piece must be able to encapsulate an enjoyable movie experience on its own, which this film fails to do. I knew it would end in a cliffhanger, setting up the final battle in Part Two, but I at least hoped we would feel something had happened in the first part to whet the appetite. This turned out to feel more like a 2 1/2 hour trailer, teasing us for the end of the Potter road.
Now, after taking a breath and calming down, let me recount some of the quality points on display here. Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, all grown up and matured, felt oddly stagnant in their roles, but Rupert Grint got to stretch his acting chops a little here and prove that he was more than just a comedic foil for tension-breaking asides. There is a sad lacking of Alan Rickman, as the supremely calm Professor Snape, but again, we can expect a lot more of him in the final piece. Rhys Ifans makes a nice addition to the cast as Xenophilius Lovegood (loopy Luna’s father), but he also gets a disappointingly small two scenes to play in. Although I was disappointed in his small number of scenes, it was during one of those scenes we were treated to a really interesting animated mini-movie while Hermione recounted the story of the Three Brothers, which finally announced what the Deathly Hallows were (nearly two hours into the movie).
The artistic tone and visuals continue to hold up the world and don’t fail to make you feel like you could walk out and lift cars in the parking lot by pointing at them and waving your hand around. With all the jumping tent sequences, there were many incredibly picturesque locations, which assisted in really blending the real world together with the fantastical wizard palaces and ornate decorating of the Ministry of Magic. Yet, trying to think forward into the final piece of this decade-plus-more puzzle, I imagine we will get less pretty locations and much more crazy spell-casting visuals and magical monsters, mostly centered around the much-loved Hogwarts School of Wizardry (C’mon, who wouldn’t want to go there?)
The End of the Page Recommendation: If you haven’t read the books or at least seen all the previous movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part One will do nothing for you. Yet for those devoted fans who know every inch of the back story, this is mainly a teaser for a finale that I hope will live up to expectations.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 8:00 am. Add a comment
When not acting as a book cover, this image has a side job on anti-smoking campaigns.
Rating: 8 out of 10
In the world of fiction there exists a plethora of dynamic duos — Batman and Robin, Sherlock Holmes and Watson, Timmy and Lassie, but in the more narrowly focused world of quasi-real fact-bending narrative, there stands one couple towering over the masses, Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman. Originally just a marketing moment for one artist to help illustrate an article for a crazed, rebellious writer on the upswing, what sprung from the meeting of these two wild minds left an impression on the American literary landscape for generations to come. Millions have already turned the legendary pages of Mr. Thompson, while others have memorized the famous drug-catalog listing monologue from the opening of the film, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, based on Thompson’s most famous book of the same name. Yet, as with many famous duos, we are all used to hearing from the front man -Batman, Holmes, Timmy (Lassie was really never the big conversationalist), but now we get to see of those integral sidekicks step out into his own right and tell the world how things looked from his perspective, standing off to the right and half in the shadow of a highly intelligent, self-medicated madman.
The Joke’s Over is a vicious eulogy to a carnivorous collaboration of passion, friendship and art. Dangerous at best, suicidal at worst. Getting connected with Thompson, Steadman found himself plugged into a self-propelled generator of creative energy, one that would steamroll over most other people, but he held on, gnashed his teeth in and went for the ride. The partnership shuttled back and forth between being a connected pair of best friends attempting to take over the world to a pair of artistic geniuses desperately trying not to tear each other’s throats out. The ride through their friendship is terrifying, but the results they found are awe-inspiring.
When I first picked up the book I thought I was only in for more stories about Thompson’s eccentricities and crazy drug binges, albeit from a closer perspective, but what I got was only partially that. The unexpected side of the story is hearing about Thompson’s rage, paranoia and continued ability to try and destroy all the close relationships in his life. Being best friends with him is detailed out like a full-time job that only provides partial benefits, but when that one week of paid-vacation comes each year, it feels that much better due to the work you put in to get it. Steadman lists out numerous occasions when Thompson screamed at him, in person or via phone, fax and smoke signals, decrying proof he recently discovered showing that Steadman was only riding his coattails and subconsciously attempting to destroy the power of his literary ambrosia. But before you can feel our rage rising, decrying the treatment of someone who seems to be a soft-spoken, great friend, Steadman would share other messages, like olive branches across the deep, blue ocean that separated them:
[from Thompson to Steadman]
“…Keep in mind that I am always both ahead and behind you in the same moment (an eerie Truth that we both understood in our blood and which you have, in fact, explained more than once, in print…)”
As much as Steadman battled to understand and accept the tumultuous waves of their friendship, it seemed that Thompson himself struggled constantly not to burn the bridge that kept him connected to the real world and real people.
To be fair, even with the letters and reprinted faxes from Thompson, this is all from Steadman’s perspective and it is his autobiography about those infamous years. At times he paints himself the humble hero, while others creates a much sadder picture of an artist beat down and abused by his muse. Far from the wordsmith that Thompson was, a fact Thompson constantly reminded him of, the book is enjoyable, but suffers from subconscious reminders of a more powerful writer. For true worshippers of Steadman’s artwork, the book does raise its own value by detailing numerous other places beyond Thompson’s books where you can find his maddening and wild imagery (personally, I am looking into buying Steadman’s version of Alice in Wonderland. Now that should be a real trip down the rabbit hole.)
The End of the Page recommendation: An interesting look behind the scenes for the devoted followers of intangible excellence that sprang from Thompson and Steadman.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 8:00 am. Add a comment
Isn’t it amazing how lifelike my new puppet looks?
Rating: 8 out of 10
One of our history’s most prized and famous sayings is, “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” It’s oft repeated because the truth in those words is evidenced nearly every day of our lives. Sometimes you get something far less than you hoped for, which is a unique and terrible type of disappointment. Yet, on luckier occasions, you just might find something unexpected and surprising under that front facing disguise. On the surface this book seems to be about the dangerous mix of politics and religion, coming from the viewpoint of someone who was there in the beginning of this recent flare up of the religious right wing, but what you find in these pages is far less about politics and far more about family.
Crazy for God is a memoir by Frank Schaeffer, who grew up in a very conservative religious household, one that physically roamed throughout his childhood until they landed in their own commune for people to come and learn their holier-than-most viewpoints. What began as a evangelical camp for those looking to escape or rebound from the peace & love generation, Frank witnessed his parents become religious dignitaries at a level they never expected, causing internal strife about what they wanted to be, healers and teachers, and what they had become, weapons.
Having an interest in politics and especially the dangerous mixing of that with religion, the title of this book grabbed me, but politics is merely the context for a much deeper story here, the one between Frank and his family. While finding himself imprinted with his parents views on God, the Bible and the true reason for living, Frank found himself at odds with himself. His internal voice did not match the outer voice he using to appease those around him. Eventually, as his parents find themselves in the middle of this religious revolution in politics, Frank breaks with the family’s creed and has to deal with the consequences.
While I was hoping for more insight into some of the backroom deals made to further the religious right and episodes of hypocrisy in the face of their proposed beliefs, what I got was a profile of a son watching his father lose himself in a movement far beyond his control. The memoir, while being from Frank’s perspective, is more about his father and the toll inflicted on him by the far-right conservative block he helped build with his teachings. It was almost ironic that it grew to something he couldn’t even recognize or control, because that seems to be the fate of almost all religions. I wonder day after day what the early prophets would think of the religions they helped start all those years ago.
In opposition to his father, Frank’s mother revels in the power and glory that the movement grows to and takes each and every chance to bask in the glory of the powerful people in her orbit. The relationship between his parents is another area where the story dives underneath the waves of religious fervor and shows the strain and tension wrought upon people when they are thrust from normalcy into celebrity. What they preach to their followers in the open air of their living room and lecture halls is utterly and totally tossed out the window behind closed doors. It became increasingly impossible for both parents to feel they were doing the right thing when the definition of that was in total contention.
Another chasm that opened widely between Frank’s father and the movement was his treatment of the gay lifestyle. He believed that you can be gay and still love God, but those that rose in the ranks of the religious right alongside him were aghast at the idea. Frank’s father relegated himself farther and farther away from the spotlight, which after many years had begun to burn. By this point Frank himself had turned against the teachings of his parents and while still having his own personal faith had come to the conclusion that his parents’ methods were far from anything he wanted to pass on.
The End of the Page Recommendation: In the end, Crazy for God will resonate less with the political and religious crowd and more with those who have ever had to break the tethers of their parents and blaze a trail in complete opposition to what they were brought up to believe.
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 11:55 am. Add a comment
Each font you see here can be yours! Sold separately, of course, per letter.
Rating: 7 out of 10
There are a few authors in the world that cause me to make a goal of reading everything they put to paper, or whatever medium they choose. Stephen King, Mark Danielewski and Dave Eggers are some of the top of my list, but included with them is a man who seemingly strives to be known as one of the most twisted and demented minds in the contemporary literary canon, Chuck Palahniuk. His written success was already on the path to fame and infamy, but the spotlight firmly became implanted on his typewriter after the release of the film version of one of his most famous stories, Fight Club. People began diving head first into his sordid tales of depravity, violence and regression of human tendencies to their most primal and animalistic. Palahniuk has mastered a way of detailing believably the worst choices people make every day and their sometimes grotesque ramifications. So, with a slightly nervous and queasy stomach, I took his newest tome off the shelf at my local bookstore and came home to test my nerves on Tell-All.
Tell-All is the story of a classic beauty from the golden age of Hollywood named Katherine Kenton and her relationships with her fans, her lovers and most importantly with her personal assistant, Hazie Coogan. Katherine and Hazie have been together since nearly the beginning of Katherine’s lunar career and Hazie has been the glue that held it all together, the captain that steered the glittering jewel in the tumultuous seas of Hollywood and the artist who used Katherine to not only create a star, but a mold a living legend. Now, a new young buck has slithered into Katherine’s life and Hazie must once again pick up the invisible shield and defend her creation from anyone or anything that would seek to tear her down off her pedestal.
The first thing I should warn returning Palahniuk readers of is this: this is not Fight Club, nor is this Haunted (which personally I don’t think will ever be topped for sheer shock and awe value), this new fable is more along the lines of Rant and Invisible Monsters (another highly underrated book). The violence is quiet here, a slow boil, and things aren’t always what they seem. Yet the twist of the story does reveal itself a tad too early for my tastes. In some cases, like many Hitchcock films, the twist was known to the audience from the beginning and the fun was watching the players stumble around it unknowingly, but here it happens to act more as a weight dragging down the tempo of the story.
What doesn’t falter is Palahniuk’s deviant ability to reach inside the characters and bring out their most wicked and base needs. Even though many, if not all, of the inhabitants of Tell-All and his other stories are deeply flawed people, he peels them down layer by layer with an almost meditative quality rendering each and every one recognizably human in the end. Hazie reflects that person in us all, the one who always stood by while their friend or family member soaked up the spotlight, in some cases, even the sun itself. Being forever relegated to the sidelines can darken a person, gray out their normally bright demeanor and inevitably tip their moral compass due south. Yet the choice is always there, as it is with Hazie, whether to protect the prize by keeping it away from all personal harm or protecting the image of the prize by destroying it before it is tarnished by time and heartfelt folly.
Palahniuk also continues to perfect his personal style of over-detailing brand names and creating a nearly encyclopedic rhythm to his prose with his incredibly verbose and seemingly heavily-sponsored descriptions. No one just wears earrings in this book, they wear Cartier chandelier earrings. He improves on this literary fingerprint in Tell-All by adding an excessive amount on name dropping, rolling out star after star of the silver screen (mainly from the time when the screens were still made of actual silver). For people who don’t know classic Hollywood legends, it can feel a touch redundant and meaningless, but there is a reason behind the madness and you can always rely on the fact that his research of whatever topic has brought him the very tidbit of information you just glossed over.
The End of the Page Recommendation: While this is not close to my favorite of his career, Tell-All certainly fills a stomach momentarily void of sordid stories. Yet, as always with writers like him, I found myself thinking on the last page, “What could he possibly come up with next to shock me?” I have no doubt he will find a way to answer that question, post haste.
Did you read ‘Tell-All’ yet? What did you think? Better or Worse for Palahniuk?
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 8:00 am. Add a comment
The Che-cycle rides only towards revolution! [insert inspirational road music here]
Rating: 8 out of 10
Everyone has heard the popular phrase, “Never judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” Well, many people throughout history have judged those gone before us, especially those who went on to change the course of history. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara Jr. was one of those people. After growing up in Argentina, he took a soon-to-be-famous motorcycle journey with his friend and compatriot, Alberto Granado, into the deep plains and undeveloped areas of Latin America. During that journey he witnesses abject poverty and suffering of the indigenous people. By the time he returned, seeds of political and revolutionary discourse were germinating in his soul and they would very soon sprout and give rise to the man everyone came to know only as ‘Che’. Even years after his execution by a one-man firing squad, scholars and modern-day revolutionaries alike have attempted to explain and understand who the man was, but very few of them remembered that famous parable above, and those who did remember, didn’t take it to heart like Patrick Symmes.
Chasing Che is a documentary tale of travel, both physical and intellectual, that follows Symmes as he saddles up on his own motorcycle (one a little more modern than Granado’s jalopy) and attempts to follow the exact route those two fellow travelers ventured upon so many years before. Symmes even attempts to limit any and all creature comforts to match whatever Ernesto and Alberto had during their original journey. There are new obstacles, to be sure, and detours must be made, but when they do arise, Symmes rolls with the punches and finds himself transformed into the same road-weathered traveler he is following years behind.
There are many great qualities about this travel journal, but foremost among those is Symmes’ dedication to the quest. At numerous points he could have taken a lighter path, called for more help or equipment or turned back towards more friendly locales, but he continually pushed through in search of the same physical places and people that Guevara and Granado touched on their way through. On more than one occasion, Symmes found himself in conversations of broken Spanish with heavily armed men– some government soldiers, while others were guerrilla warriors still trying to live out some of the mantras Che left behind. One wrong move could’ve landed him in a South American jail or worse, “disappeared” like many opponents of the various controlling regimes. Yet, I believe his saving grace through this was he not going after an ideology, he was going after a man. He made no proposition to learn, live and spread the teachings of Che. Instead what he was after was the true history of the man, good or evil, who would later become Che and change the face of global politics. That objectivity and balance allowed him access through gates many others would have failed to pass.
Two things struck me during the book. First, Symmes continually mentioned the inherent charity of the indigenous people with whom he crossed paths. Time after time he would ride up on his motorcycle, kill the engine a good distance away from a small shanty home and clap his hands twice (to signal that he was friendly and approaching the house). He would almost always find the family willing to give him a small piece of floor to sleep on, or at the very least against the side of the house, and possibly food if they had enough to spread around. The following mornings, many of his new-found landlords would refuse to accept payment, just seeming like it was their duty to help fellow travelers (which many of them are as well considering the great distances between villages and homes). Secondly, Symmes went in the end of his journey to the source, at least, one of the sources; Alberto Granado. Still living reasonably off his notoriety as Che’s wandering partner, Granado granted an illuminating interview and insight into those dusty days on the trail. Symmes had both of Granado’s and Guevara’s original diaries from the trip and he pointed out many of the disparate descriptions of places and actions between them, one moment standing out in particular where Granado and Guevara both credit the other for the heroic rescue of a small kitten. What came from that discovery was that the journey represented different transformations for each traveler. As for the kitten, Granado admitted to laying the heroic banner on Che because he was the one destined for it.
Another factor I found interesting is Symmes was on his travels during the exact same time the government and others were in a desperate search to exhume Che’s body from the hidden dumping ground the Bolivian soldiers left him in. Another writer, Jon Lee Anderson wrote a book entitled, “Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life” (which I have also read and highly recommend), and in his research for that book he interviewed and received confessions from the very people responsible for hiding Che’s body. It had been many years since the action, so the location information was not entirely specific, but both books ended up tying together in the same place and moment, which made for even more interesting reading.
The End of the Page Recommendation: For those interested in learning more about the man behind the mythology and who that is staring back from the hipsters t-shirts and messenger bags, you could do far worse than starting here. As I said earlier, Anderson’s book is another great find, but a much thicker and in-depth read.
It’s OK. Relax, boy. They said ‘The Hills’ is being canceled.
Rating: 7 out of 10
In the last decade we have been increasingly spoiled by legendary quality in the animated film world. Pixar exploded onto the scene and suddenly changed our Sunday afternoon trip to the movies with our little ones from a chore to a joy. Parents all over the country were now dragging kids along to see cartoons the kids hadn’t even asked about yet. “Trust me, son. You haven’t seen Toy Story 1 or 2 yet, but you’ll pick it up quickly. Now stop running around or we’ll lose our place in line.” Those wonderment wizards behind the screen also took notice of the change in demographic and began to layer their fare with subtle and intelligent adult humor, making it possible (and now possibly common) to see a grown man or adult couple walking into one of these movies without a single child in tow. I applaud this shift in content because I believe it helps remind us all to be a kid ourselves time and again.
How to Train Your Dragon is the newest effort from Dreamworks Animation, the studio once saved from going under by their imaginary friend Shrek. This tale, based on a popular children’s book of the same title by Cressida Cowell, surrounds a scrawny, accident-ridden viking named Hiccup (voiced expertly by Jay Baruchel) who stumbles upon a legendary dragon that no one has laid eyes on and lived. Finding he doesn’t have the heart to kill the dragon, he becomes the proud owner of a dangerous new pet and a planet-sized secret. Oh, his dad is chief of the village as well and their main chore in life is killing dragons. It’s like sprinkles on top.
While this colorful concoction doesn’t match up with headliners like Shrek, Kung-Fu Panda and Monsters vs. Aliens, it provides enough chuckles and consistent story flow to find itself placed above other Dreamworks outings like Flushed Away, Over the Hedge and Shark Tale. The main character of Hiccup is endearing in his self-deprecation and feels perfectly suited to the delivery of Baruchel. Also, if the animation studios have learned anything, it is to make any animal or magically living item into the most adorable thing imaginable. Dreamworks went for the gold here with their rendering of the dragon we all come to know as Toothless. They instilled him with a number of feline qualities, making him instantly loved by all cat owners in the crowd. They also have perfected the shifting of eye sizes (small for suspicion and huge for sugary-sweet cuteness) to the point where it almost feels like manipulation. I could have railed against being used like that, but I had already melted into my seat and mixed into the popcorn box below.
Other voice talents that held up their ends are Gerard Butler as Hiccup’s overly heroic Dad, Stoick, America Ferrera as the young competitor/love interest named Astrid, Jonah Hill as Snotlout (who to me sounded and looked on screen a lot like Jack Black), Kristen Wiig as Ruffnut, one half of a brother/sister twin pairing, and lastly Christopher Mintz-Plasse as the role-playiing stats nerd, Fishlegs.
The End of the Page Recommendation: How to Train Your Dragon provides enough chuckles to make it worthwhile, but the big screen is not totally necessary. Matinee pricing should be a safe bet. Oh, 2D is fine as well (skip shelling out the extra cash for 3D on this outing).
Posted 1 year, 10 months ago at 2:36 pm. 2 comments
by Luke Goldstein
DandyID
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