Aw, fer fuck's sake
Guenter Grass has come out as a member of the Waffen-SS before he was taken prisoner. Finally, the Entnazifizierung of Germany is complete and a hero takes a fall.
Yow.
I share the disappointment (!) of his biographer.
The "One Book" Meme
Mark at The Elegant Variation may hate blog memes, but I love 'em. I think they make me look smart. Feel free to do this one, too.
One book that changed your life - The Magic Mountain -- complex, poignant, austere. There is no trickery in this book, it's just flat-out magnificence from start to end. One of the only novels I've ever read where the passage of time is more real inside the narrative than outside of it.
One book that you’ve read more than once - Gravity's Rainbow -- I read it the first time because somebody I looked up to told me it was worth the effort. I read it the second time because I knew it was worth the effort. As fucked up as it is to admit, this book, more than any, wired my brain to its current method of reasoning.
One book you’d want on a desert island -- Don Quixote -- because I still haven't read it.
One book that made you laugh -- Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson isn't thought of by most people as a "funny" reader, but this book is hilarious.
One book that made you cry -- White Noise -- I know, this book is supposed to be funny, and it is. But it was also the first book I read that dealt with the pathos of middle age and it knocked me for a loop.
One book that you wish had been written - Blood Meridian -- This book is so hard to forget, passages from it often come whispering back to me in the middle of seemingly unrelated activities. Not sure when I'll get around to reading it again, but it's a remarkable thing.
One book that you wish had never been written -- Can I say the entire Left Behind series without sounding anti-Christian? I can? Good, then that's the one.
One book you’re currently reading -- The Snowman's Children -- This book is crawling up inside my consciousness.
One book you’ve been meaning to read -- Middlesex -- it's beautifully written (at least the first few pages I read through) and it's been on my shelf for a long, long while, but I still haven't gotten around to it. Maybe this fall...
The Last of the V8 Interceptors (or Shooting Fish in a Barrel)
Wherein Our Hero Kicks Some Anti-Semite Ass
Peter demands blood and I must obey. Who is Peter you ask? Is he the voice in my head that tells me secrets about Kelly Ripa that I shouldn't ought to know? That's between me and my Zoloft, Sugartits.
So, am I surprised that Mel Gibson went all Hutton Gibson on that poor sheriff who pulled him over? Hell no, I'm not. So why are you? Hate is learned easy and unlearned hard. And if you haven't got a reason to unlearn it, you never will. If you were expecting him pull an Ingo Hasselbach and repudiate his beliefs, well you haven't been paying attention to what he says and does, starting with the goddamn christ movie. Remember, what he said back then, "Some of my best friends are Jewish," (which is of course code for, "I don't know whom I hate more, the Jews or myself")?
My only problem is the timing of the whole episode. The LA Times is running a daily attrocity exhibition of the Israeli incursion into Lebanon on the front page and it makes some people condone the sentiments expressed by the star of "Bird on a Wire" as being political, rather than racist. So let me be clear, not all Jews support the attack on Lebanon, and not all Jews support the continued refusal of the Israeli state to deal fairly with the Palestinian people.
I was, however, delighted to hear that he pulled the old, "You'll never work in this town again!/Don't you know who I am?" routine while in lockup. Note to my huge celebrity readership (and that means you, Mike Lookinland), if you ever find yourself resorting to either of these gambits, you've already lost.
Update
Looks like Mel has
issued a statement saying that he isn't an anti-Semite, after all.
In that case, never mind, we take it all back. And of course we'll help you with your recovery. Because if we don't, it's all our fault, right Mel?