#FridayReads, August 17–‘Somebody Owes Me Money,’ Donald E. Westlake & Essays by Nicholson Baker

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#FridayReads, August 17–Somebody Owes Me Money, Donald E. Westlake’s enjoyable 1969 mystery narrated by Chet Conway, a wise-cracking cab driver. One day Chet gets an unusual tip from a fare–rather than a couple extra bucks for the ride, his customer offers a tip on a horse race: bet on Purple Pecunia to win. Chet does place a wager with his bookmaker, and the pony comes in, but when he goes to collect his winnings, the bookie’s been murdered. Chet wonders, who am I supposed collect from? Much delightful hilarity and chaos ensues, including a budding romance with Abbie, the daughter of the murdered man, and many clashes with rival gangs with an interest in the dead bookie’s clientele. A great reprint of a classic mystery, from the fun imprint Hard Case Crime.

Also reading Nicholson Baker’s new essay collection, The Way the World Works. He’s been one of my favorite writers ever since I read his first novel, The Mezzanine, in 1988. I met Baker when he won the 2001 National Book Critics Circle nonfiction award for for his book, Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper and we’ve emailed each other periodically since. His attention-grabbing funny and frankly sexual novels, such as House of Holes, are what he’s best known for nowadays, but I really relish his essays, such as the 1997 collection, The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber. Not to be overlooked is Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, a remarkable book of aggregated content not Baker’s own that approximates a pacifist history of the decades between World War I and World War II. In the new collection Baker–always a writer fascinated with the physicality of things and the visceral and corporeal in everyday life–examines airplane wings, coins, earplugs, and ereading devices.

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Disgrace is No Biggie, to Glenn Beck

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TPM’s Casey Michel has an excellent report today on the declining reputation of right-wing author David Barton, at least in the estimation of serious historians, even ones that are observant Christians. As reported last week by Publishers Weekly, Barton’s latest book, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed about Thomas Jefferson, with a Foreword by Glenn Beck, has been discredited for “factual inaccuracies and historical misrepresentations,” with Christian publisher Thomas Nelson pulling 17,000 copies from distribution and canceling publication. According to an August 10 Publishers Weekly story by Lynn Garrett, “Nelson confirmed it has severed its publishing relationship with Barton and reverted the rights to The Jefferson Lies to him. ‘Thomas Nelson does not expect to publish his works in the future.’”

Unfortunately, Michel, who wonders near the end of the TPM story if “Thomas Nelson’s decision will merely gird Barton’s supporters, rather than hurt his reputation,” already needs to update the article. Publishers Weekly reports today that Barton has bought all the recalled copies from Thomas Nelson and is “in negotiations to publish a new edition of the book with Mercury Ink, Glenn Beck’s publishing arm in partnership with Simon & Schuster.” According to Publishers Weekly, Barton added, “the new edition ‘will not include any substantive changes.'”

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Reading Tom Morello’s ‘Rage’ Against Paul Ryan

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Musician and activist Tom Morello was a special guest at the annual Sidney Hillman Foundation Prize ceremony honoring advocacy journalism and activism last May, the first time I ever heard him in person, either speaking or singing. He’s a determined battler against entrenched, monied interests in our society and political culture, and also skilled at rousing a whole auditorium to sing along with him, as we did on “Union Town” and “This Land is Your Land.”

I wrote about the Hillman awards and Morello in May, a presentation that also featured Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, and Ta-Nehisi Coates and so am glad to see today that Tom’s directing his voice against the Romney-Ryan ticket. Upon learning that the right-wing VP nominee is supposedly a fan of Morello’s band, Rage Against the Machine, Morello’s published an opinion piece in Rolling Stone. Here’s a selection from the opening of his column:

Paul Ryan’s love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. . . . Ryan claims that he likes Rage’s sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don’t care for Paul Ryan’s sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage. I wonder what Ryan’s favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of “Fuck the Police”? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings!

I recall when “Born in the U.S.A.” was released in 1984, after learning that Ronald Reagan, running for reelection, supposedly liked his album, Bruce Springsteen drolly remarked, “I wonder which song is his favorite.” I urge you to read Morello’s whole article, which pulls no punches, as he ends it by wondering if elected whether Ryan may

My hope is that maybe Paul Ryan is a mole. Maybe Rage did plant some sensible ideas in this extreme fringe right wing nut job. Maybe if elected. . . . He’ll fill Guantanamo Bay with the corporate criminals that are funding his campaign – and then torture them with Rage music 24/7. That’s one possibility. But I’m not betting on it.

Here are some more pictures from the Hillman Prize night, shots of Morello and others.

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Romney & Ryan Stoking Racial Resentment

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Republicans should be careful, though they probably won’t be.

Stoking racial distrust and animus–as they’re gleefully doing over Joe Biden’s ‘chains’ remark this week, which I covered in a post titled Why Mitt’s Trying to Beat up on Joe Biden–may yield blowback. Their latest move is giving Artur Davis a key speaking role at the convention–he’s the African-American pol who lost his gubernatorial race in Alabama and then left the Democratic party. He’s this election season’s Zell Miller–a Southern DEM who’s claims to have been spurned by his party, only for the right-wing there’s the added benefit of him being black, so they can try and bash the president with added zest.

I recommend Jamelle Bouie’s Plum Line column yesterday that charted Davis’s political evolution.

In this over-heated political climate, with rampaging shooters targeting people every week, I fear the consequences of Republicans zealously making low information voters angrier than they are already, especially among those who believe that President Obama is ‘foreign,’ as Romney repeatedly intones to campaign crowds.

 

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