Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings won the Booker Prize and got good reviews, or at least the type of review that explains what the book is about without really critically addressing it, which is obviously a type of "review," but is more like an abstention.
That kind of thing is some fuckery: those readers unlucky enough to read things for pleasure are shortchanged the knowledge they need to decide whether to read the thing in the first place. But no matter.
Here's what I would say you need to know: Killings is audacious, rich, wide-ranging and a complete fucking chore to read. And then there's this — which is a complete spoiler but no one is going to finish the thing so what would it matter? — which is that after 686 some-odd-bombocloth pages there's no fucking goddamn ending, and then the acknowledgements talk about how a lot of the great research one of James' four (!) researchers did will appear in the next book. Next book? Call me old fashioned, but I like to see A STORY RESOLVE IN SOME WAY, SHAPE OR FORM AFTER 686 MOTHERFUCKING PAGES. This ending is truly an elliptical "to be continued"; it's clear in the final part that the main female character is going to intersect in some way with the main male character BUT THE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING BOOK ENDS BEFORE THAT HAPPENS. Seriously. Seriously. Seriously, what the fuck?
Add to that that the book is written in a first-person active voice from the perspective of like 15 or 20 people — think As I Lay Dying times three or four (literally) — and you see why IT'S SUCH A FATIGUING SLOG.
So you know what? The best way to combat an overlong book is to not allow it to invade your mental space any more than it has to. So, the end.
Posted: December 13th, 2015 | Author: Scott | Filed under: Books Are The SUVs Of Writing | Tags: Book Club, Spoiler Alert
June 1, 2015
Sort of like beheading videos or celebrity dick pics: the civilized approach demands a refusal to participate.
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June 2, 2015
In other words, the best part of the summertime ESPN late afternoon lineup editorial output.
Such a sucker for non-traditional walkup music.
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June 4, 2015
Basically, no one gets children's music right; I have a funny feeling children are just being polite when listening to it.
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June 5, 2015
Because who doesn't want to spend his or her Friday evening listening to a bunch of really stale gay slurs?
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June 6, 2015
I would like to believe that I would do the decent thing and take my children camping for the first time if only to use these blasted sound puzzles for kindling, but I fear I will stoop to continuing the cycle of violence by passing along these crazy-making nightmares to unsuspecting future parents.
Seriously, you shouldn't get Googletonic top SEO fuckery for subscription-only content. I don't care how wonderful your "foolproof baked fried chicken shortcut" is, or whatever it was I was looking up. Fuck the internet.
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June 8, 2015
Totally forgot who this was: turns out, it's a fellow named "Chet," which, I now know, is a diminutive for "Chester." That he's a rapper, too, is just icing on the cake.
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June 13, 2015
Birdman was overwrought ridiculousness and I haven't done an Oscar pool in years. On the other hand, Kenny Mayne is a real enigma.
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June 14, 2015
Totally didn't happen. Would have been AWESOME . . .
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June 15, 2015
Just a thing I noticed in the course of doing actual work; Bing is weird, right?
The Blackhawks. And it seems they keep the band in business (listen around 4:00, expanded on around 6:00 or so).
Just got really, really tired of nypost.com crashing and then learning that it's basically a purposeful tactic.
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June 16, 2015
Often heard in connection with attempts to apologize for matters of race, class and gender before launching into an opinion about said topic, e.g., "It's fucking ridiculous that here I am, a goddamn white man, talking about the meaning of [X], but . . ."
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June 17, 2015
At some point it seemed that having "every right" to think, do or say something was maybe a little hyperbolic.
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June 18, 2015
I still don't understand what "Google Plus" could possibly mean.
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June 19, 2015
It causes my serotonin levels to crash, and makes me feel generally gloomy, like I'm missing out on something truly wonderful happening to a large, boisterous crowd somewhere who is better dressed, better paid and better buzzed than I am.
Actually, not really.
First, she's fucking ridiculous and I'm not at all unhappy that it took me four years to learn why. Also, always curious about that one letter.
Really, 667 would have looked great in the record books, whichever one will take him.
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June 20, 2015
Only two of my very favorite things of all time: zoos and the theme from Caddyshack.
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June 23, 2015
Another in a long line of frustration dreams.
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June 24, 2015
Not excited about eventually replacing the laptop because SOME PEOPLE like to use it as a percussion instrument.
Before the record industry destroyed internet radio there was (if I recall correctly) a weird site called "Spank Radio" or some such that had a single playlist that streamed the same songs in the same order. This song was on there somewhere and has been stuck in my head for fifteen years and it wasn't until this exact moment when I heard it again. I still had those pleated pants until fairly recently. Here's a funny article from the last millennium: "A website isn't worth its bandwidth these days if it doesn't offer some sort of RealAudio, Liquid Audio, Windows Media Player, Winamp, or MP3 option."
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June 25, 2015
Seriously, "ballpark.org" is great — has to be worth something, right? Like a mortgage company looking to attract first-time home buyers or, I don't know what.
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June 28, 2015
I'm pretty sure Rachel McAdams' dad on True Detective was at the same yoga retreat Don Draper spent the early 1970s at. It sure looked that way. [Factcheck: yup.]
Posted: December 3rd, 2015 | Author: Scott | Filed under: Too Much Information | Tags: Annotated Twitter, Children's Music, Cuss Words, Esalen, Kenny Loggins, LinkedIn Spam, The Internet, The Internet Is Free Motherfucker!, Valuable URLs
After Halloween our neighbor rang our bell and forced a gallon-sized Ziploc of candy on us, saying she had no willpower. A day later I had two more gallon bags of the stuff from her. The three bags are now ensconced in the upper shelf of a kitchen cabinet in an opaque black bag waiting to be taken to some break room somewhere; no goddamn way is that shit getting anywhere the boys, that's how rattled I was after Saturday night.
It occurred to me that it's been years — like last millennium years — since I've eaten any of these things. I think I know what they're like, but it's worth circling back; maybe candy has changed since then; who knows?
Milky Way: It's like chocolate, caramel and nougat, right? I had to Wikipedia "nougat": whipped up sugary something or other, I guess? So basically sugar two ways covered with milk chocolate? Weird — I think I used to like them. Paired with bourbon, it tastes like plastic.
Kit Kat: "Crisp Wafers in Milk Chocolate." Well, when you put it that way. I always liked the moderating influence of the individual wafers. It's like string cheese. The taste is funny — even though I'm sure the wafer is just a wafer and obviously the milk chocolate is milk chocolate, there's something so distinctive about Kit Kat; it was the one thing I absolutely knew what it tasted like already. I didn't miss them in the slightest. Pairs moderately well with bourbon.
Milk Duds: I have bad memories of these. Yup: cruddy chewy caramel with not nearly enough chocolate, one of those sad, stupid Depression-era names (like "Bit-O-Honey" or "egg cream") and asinine fucking boxes. Bourbon makes the fucking things seize up on your molars; squeaky-toothed shit candy.
[Eight to go and feeling kind of ill.]
Snickers Peanut Butter Squared: New to me, this is basically brilliant candywork. Balanced salty-sweet flavor and nougat that shimmies up your back teeth and lays there, coating, just coating. Mmmm. I forgot to drink bourbon, but whatever's left of the candy is now tasting like softly alcoholic panty hose, a not unpleasant sensation.
Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme: First, what's with the single apostrophe quote thingies around "n"? Oh OK, I see now, and honestly, as much as I try to respect prescriptive grammar rules, this is a fucking idiotic thing to feel strongly about. I don't think even that detour was enough for my blood sugar to stabilize. First thing: this candy bar looks ridiculous, like a kiwi filmed in black and white. It's white chocolate then? White chocolate and crushed vanilla wafers? It's not good, that's for sure. One thing, though — it's great with bourbon, for what it's worth.
Butterfinger: I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers the Bart Simpson commercials more fondly than the candy itself, which is a hateful chocolate-covered peanut-asbestos brick. Also pairs quite nicely with bourbon.
Crunch: First, what a dumb name. All the better to match such a thoughtlessly designed logo. Candy itself is not bad, but tastes different than I remember, like there's some spice in there — clove, maybe? Is it because of this? I can't evaluate the bourbon pairing because I feel like shit.
[Three to go and feeling like shit.]
Whoppers: Full disclosure: I love malted milk and I love these; they taste exactly like I remember. What's more, they pair wonderfully with bourbon, almost like cotton candy. Also, it looks like in general these have fewer calories per serving [factcheck: no, they actually have more — in general 100 compared with 85-95 for others].
Mr. Goodbar: I used to think that Mr. Goodbar succeeded in taking two perfectly good things — chocolate and peanuts — and making the combined product completely unappetizing. Time has not softened this impression: incredibly, it tastes like there is somehow too much of both the chocolate and peanuts. Also, the underside looks like something in one of the kids' diapers. And the color scheme and logo is ridiculous, and best saved for novelty T-shirts and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Also, quite good with bourbon.
Baby Ruth: Part of this was inspired by realizing that I always disliked Baby Ruths and wondering if my superrefined adult palate could school me in ways my former self couldn't. Nope. It combines the chewiness of a Milk Dud with the treacly sensation of nougat and pure Goodbarian peanut filler. Oh, and it hardly has any chocolate. Don't taste anything anymore.
100 Grand: Thought I would hate this because I never liked them in the past, but it's not terrible. Sure, it's got that boring caramel chew-ever thing, but the crispy part is fun and it seems like there's more chocolate than others. That clove flavor is back — Nestle, is that you? — and its mostly not that terrible with bourbon, but after 11 of these, who can really tell?
In summary: totally not worth it.
Posted: November 4th, 2015 | Author: Scott | Filed under: Those Who Can't Do Review | Tags: "Fun Sized" Is Sexist, Apostrophe Pedantry, Bourbon, Caramelization Is For Onions, Halloween Candy, Phantom Clove
