Wecker’s debut novel is set in New York City, 1899. She spins a yarn about a golem, a clay creature brought to life by a Hebrew mystic, and a jinni, a creature made of fire. Both supernatural creatures find themselves hiding among poor immigrants in turn-of-the-century New York, an ambience rendered affectionately by Wecker. The novel unspools like a fable, gradually accumulating moral force as Wecker’s plot threads gather together in a complex design.
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine has already upset some of the Apple faithful, but it’s mainly because Gibney was rude enough to collect and repeat many of the unflattering Steve Jobs anecdotes that have been circulating for years. Unfortunately, the film overreaches – Gibney posits that Steve Jobs was/is Apple, and by extension Apple customers are worshipping a false god.
This collection is in the finest tradition of top-ten lists. Seemingly random and “aha-of-course” in equal measure. You’ll disagree and wonder how I could have possibly left out [your favorite theme song.] It’s probably because I’m a jerk, or because I have no taste.
I was born September 11, 1969, at 3:36 PM. I didn’t breathe right away, so one of the delivery nurses baptized me…A few years ago, someone approached me after church: “We weren’t sure you were going to make it; look at you now!” She’d been there when I emerged stubbornly, four decades earlier, in the hospital just across the street from the church where I was now a cantor.
Here’s the thing: would we be so quick to create vicious memes if Davis were a conventionally attractive, only-once-married citizen of irreproachable moral standing?
The other night, I stopped into Byrne Dairy on my way home from a theater job. I placed on the checkout counter two cartons of ice cream, two dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, and a 12-pack of Saranac Octoberfest, brewed just 5 miles down the road. “I can’t let you buy that if she’s here,” said the whippersnapper clerk, indicating 15 year-old Sarah.
Franzen is depressed about a culture that lives and dies by the memebite, but he’s not changing his approach. I think the problem is that he’s so perceptive about what people think, we read his books and assume he knows us. When his characters behave poorly, we take it personally – why would the author do that to us?
I stepped out of the car, into the cool pine air. The ground crunched underfoot, a combination of dirt, stones, tree roots and leaves. What I’d missed most of all: the unhurried silence. My heartbeat slowed, I breathed deeper, I was home.
Lost in The Flood frequently appears on “best-of” lists by Springsteen fans, probably because it presages the clichéd cinematic imagery of Jungleland; that song is saved by magnificent musicianship. Unfortunately, in 1972 Springsteen wasn’t yet working with collaborators who could muscle out his grandiose visions.
Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp reunites the entire cast of the original and ups the ante with a host of A-list guests, all willing to play on Showalter and Wain’s sweet slacker wavelength.
mossislandsounds.com 