Ready Player One – Cline and Spielberg
(“Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline) (2011) (We bag Spielberg at the bottom). Ready Player One begins with an aphorism – “‘Being human totally sucks most of the time, Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.’ Anorak’s Almanac, Chapter 91, Verses 1-2.” If this reminds you of a Bokononism, you are right. Our 2040’s teenage hero Wade Watts names a spacecraft “The Vonnegut”, after one of his favourite 20th century novelists. Readers have complained that this novel is so crammed with 1980’s American pop culture that it is dull as an episode of Family Ties. Well, that’s the point. If you find…
Continue Reading →Wagner by Michael Tanner
Science has proved that books on Wagner’s life and works would more than fill the Grand Canyon. It is therefore necessary to be discriminating (in a good way) as to what reading matter on the Maestro you choose to buy, beg, borrow or steal. Michael Tanner is a perceptive opera critic of good standing, an unapologetic Wagnerite, and his little book on the subject of Wagner’s work is a lucid and concise presentation of his views on Wagner’s raison d’être and the dimensions of his achievement. Despite tending to present difficult concepts in convoluted, laborious language (the hallmark of the professional philosopher,…
Continue Reading →“This time I know our side will win”
Paul Henreid (10 January 1908 to 29 March 1992) Henreid crept through Hollywood in a long career, but he stands tall in two divine Hollywood soapies made during World War II. After declining to sign the Nazi loyalty oath and skipping his native Austria, he became becalmed (like Victor Lazlo) till he obtained papers as an émigré to America. He repaid them with interest in two films: Casablanca, where his rousing of the orchestra in Rick’s Café to play the Marseillaise in defiance of gathered Nazi and Vichy officers was one of the greatest propaganda tools in film history, and Now, Voyager, where he…
Continue Reading →Being Nixon
Being Nixon – A Man Divided by Evan Thomas (2015) Sentimentality – which friend and foe agreed Nixon had in spades – was probably the trait that betrayed him. The Peter Sellers of politicians, Nixon (9 January 1913 – 22 April 1994) never got comfortable with his own skin, so he posed as – machismo, family-man, kindly, bold, psycho, sucker and reclusive seer, etc., those personas he schmaltzily thought would play with the silent majority, or make him feel better. In this very balanced and readable book, Mr. Thomas gets fairly close to the enigma of ‘Tricky Dick‘ without vituperation or high-falootin’ prose. Nixon’s life is…
Continue Reading →Rock ‘n’ Roll is Where I Hide
(image thanks to 'Australian Musician')
Songs in Our Heart # 69 Rock ‘n’ Roll is Where I Hide (by Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes) (written by Dave Graney; released August 1995) [One of the coolest songs ever, a never-ending, ascending masterpiece of groove with a brilliant lounge-lizard sound.] Graney is a pretty flamboyant ghost, a Rider on the Storm, and this song strikes us as akin to his confession – you think he’s just another singer, but he’s so much more, and he’s going to release your soul!
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