Talk Talk

No reviews for eight days and the run of foreign authors comes to an end. My focus has been off a bit as of late as some personal issues and scholastic issues served to distract me. I'm sure this played a part in my inability to finish a trio of books.

I started a collection of essays by Umberto Eco called How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays. They were all parody and satire. The funny ones seemed to last about three pages. The unfunny ones dragged on and on and just abused the same humor points until what was only moderately funny to begin with, became completely void of entertainment. Think the "Banana/Orange" knock-knock joke taken way too far. So I stopped in the midst of some 20-30 page essay that was going nowhere except where it had already been.

I then turned to Nick Harkaway's novel, The Gone-Away World which takes place in post-apocalyptic Australia. Had read good reviews of it but I have trouble getting into futuristic novels and so I quit after a little while.

Thinking maybe I needed a change of pace, I went with American Robert Hellenga's book, The Sixteen Pleasures. This book adds credence to the theory that men cannot write decent books from a first person female perspective. Jay McInerney still is the only author I have found who can pull it off. One of my co-workers and I like to talk books and she reads a lot of female authors and thinks the reverse is true, too. Women can't write as men. Seems reasonable to me.

What to do, what to do? I decided I had to go with someone I knew I would enjoy. So I went with T.C. Boyle's novel, Talk Talk. I read two books by Boyle last year; his novel The Women and his short story collection The Human Fly and Other Stories. These were my first experiences with Boyle but were plenty enough to make me enjoy his writing style.

Talk Talk is just as exquisite from a writing standpoint. Awesome, descriptive prose. In fact, it is so much so I have to complain. More than the other two books (at least that I recall), Boyle goes into smells a lot in this book. I just don't know that I need to know what everything smells like. Worse, he goes into armpit smell way, way too much. After awhile it felt almost fetishist.

Way, way too much is the other complaint. Like The Women, the book seemed overly long. Unlike The Women, I think it could have been edited down without losing something.

Talk Talk begins with a deaf woman, Dana Halter, running late to a dentist appointment. She runs a stop sign and a cop pulls her over. Next thing you know, she's arrested and put in jail as there are warrants her for her arrest all over the country.

It turns out that her identity has been stolen. Dana and her boyfriend Bridger, a computer graphics specialist in the movie business, are able to get some information on the thief who stole her identity and begin to track him down.

The story goes from coast to coast and jumps back and forth from Dana and Bridger to the thief. It is a very stressful story not only from the standpoint of the identity theft but also the treatment of Dana in a world of those who can hear. The police in this story are unhelpful and often cruel which is why Dana and Bridger go after the criminal themselves.

The bad guy is made human but is never likable. He has a fiancee and he cares for her child. He has a daughter of his own but has not seen her since he was put in prison. He wants to have a good life but goes about it the wrong way.

Boyle's level of detail is really good. I've not been around the deaf much but it seems Boyle's depiction of life and the difficulties in communicating are on target. He certainly did his research on identity theft.

A very good book and certainly worthy of a star. The high levels of stress, the unsatisfying ending, and the obsession with smells (and it has nothing to do with Dana having acute olfactory abilities to compensate for her lack of hearing. Everyone in the story smells stuff) prevents if from being a two-star book for me.

The writing is good enough that I certainly feel comfortable putting Boyle in the top echelon of my favorite writers.

Apocalyptic weather

Looking out the window, it is easy to see we have snow. A couple feet of it. It's the weather report that freaks me out, though:



Freezing fog?!?!?! Is that like a wall of ice? And what about the fact that the windchill is warmer than the air temperature? This despite the fact that there is no wind! Is this the result of some supernatural apocalpytic essence from the Hellmouth that opened up? What's next? The Saints in a Super Bowl?

Winners of the Damon Rutherford Card Design Contest

Well, Robert Coover's birthday came and went and I had two entries into the contest to design a card of the character Damon Rutherford in Coover's novel The Universal Baseball Association.

There are a few explanations for why I had only two entries:
1. No one wanted to be bothered to read a book and find out about Rutherford.
2. I have far less traffic than I thought.
3. The cards designed by Mark and Matt were so good, everyone else was frightened off.
4. Sean Casey, jerk that he is, organized a boycott of the site.




I'm going with reason #3. I liked both designs. They each had their merits. So Mark and Matt will be getting a baseball novel or two and some baseball cards. Congratulations and good work!

Tim Wallach TTM

I always liked Tim Wallach. And as such I probably overrated him. In my mind, the best third basemen of the 1980's were clearly George Brett and Mike Schmidt. Right behind them was Wade Boggs. But then you had some solid third basemen of which I think Wallach was the best: Wallach, Lansford, DeCinces, Bell, Gaetti. You had some guys who peaked in their seventies and still played in the eighties like Nettles and Cey but over that decade, Wallach was one of the top guys at the hot corner.

As a matter of fact, no one played more games at third base in the 1980's than Wallach. Three Gold Gloves, Five time all-star. And yet only received one vote for the Hall of Fame.

Wallach, after a lengthy career with the Expos, wrapped up his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and is now a manager in their farm system. Last season, he managed the Albuquerque Isotopes to a divisional title and he will manage them again in 2010.

Thanks to Mr. Wallach for signing some cards, responding politely to a couple of inane questions (really, I embarrassed myself and need to be a little more conscientious in my requests) and doing so quickly (10 days).

I Bipped a girl

Yes, I Bipped a girl. I'm not sure if there are any gender considerations with Bipping. Is it wrong to Bip a girl as it is to hit a girl? Is talking about how you Bipped a female the baseball card equivalent of conquest banter in the locker room? My own feeling is this is the 21st Century and we're all about equality. There are no gender differences in card collecting. So there.

As I mentioned yesterday, I oh so badly wanted to Bip people. So I had to make trade partners. I stumbled across Sarah at Rookie Card Collector. She, too, is collecting the 2008 Upper Deck X set so we exchanged want lists and we are both much closer to completion. I also had to Bip her, of course.

Along with the UDX cards, Sarah sent me a couple of Dunns for the collection.


I'd scan the X cards but I put them in the binder as soon as I opened them and I'm not taking them out again.

They were very much appreciated. Thanks, Sarah!

You Bipped my father. Prepare to die!

I have to hand it to Thorzul. He's brought some new ideas to the online baseball card community, the best (in my opinion) being the idea of Bipping.

My only problem, though, was that as a new member to the community, I had few addresses (well, one), for Bipping folk. So I had to make some trade partners.

Roy at A Paper Chase made a lot of sense. I've read his blog. Seemed like a nice guy. Fan of Troy Tulowitzki. I had recently acquired a Tulo jersey card. Roy had a Adam Dunn jersey card. We made the swap and included some other cards. And in my case, some of the cards I included involved a Bipping.

I think we both were happy with the trade, though. I got a bunch of Dunn cards I need:


But that Dunn jersey card is a bit of a pranking of its own. Check it out:



It says jersey on the side but do you see a jersey swatch? Me either. That's because it's hidden (since no one really likes looking at the jersey parts, right?):


That's one of the craziest cards I've seen. I like it, though, since it's a Dunn card. Thanks a lot for the trade, Roy!

Robert Downey, Jr. Ouevre #7 - Wonder Boys

Had to watch something to get the bad taste of In Dreams out of my eyes so I went with one of my all-time favorite films, Wonder Boys. Based on the Michael Chabon book (which I reviewed in October), it is about a writer/professor in Pittsburgh and one of his students.

The professor, Grady (Michael Douglas), published a critically acclaimed book, The Arsonist's Daughter, but has spent the seven years since trying to bring his second novel to completion. Now in excess of 2000 pages with no end in sight, Grady is overwhelmed and seeks solace in marijuana. On top of that, he is in love with the college's chancellor (Frances McDormand) despite both of them being married.

The student (Tobey Maguire), James, is a talented, despondent, strange lad with quite an imagination. Grady becomes an unlikely role model for the kid.

Having watched this movie several times in my lifetime, I tried to watch it this time with a very critical eye and I had a hard time coming up with much of which to be critical. There is a lack of consistency with the weather, especially in the final scenes. Drug use in the form of marijuana and pharmaceuticals is prevalent (along with language is why it is rated R) of which I'm never a fan.

The scene in the chancellor's bedroom with Grady and James is a little off (how does James get Marilyn Monroe's jacket from the closet and why is there so little blood when the dog is shot (how's that for a teaser?)?). And unlike other movies which I enjoy immensely, I don't feel the soundtrack adds anything. It's decent but doesn't stand out.

Other than those things, I like everything about the movie. It's well-acted. The dialogue is great. The characters are all flawed but likable. Terrific ending with all the loose ends tied up.

As for our hero, Downey plays Grady's editor Crabtree. He comes into town, supposedly for the school's annual literary celebration, but mostly to see how the book is doing. Downey is not well-regarded in the publishing community and is considered a washout. He makes his appearance early in the movie when Grady goes to pick him up at the airport. Crabtree arrives with a transvestite with whom he is very flirtatious until Crabtree sees James and becomes enamored with him.

Downey's character is quirky, funny, a tad on the conniving and despicable side. There's a lot of depth to him. He obviously could be a good writer (witness the bar scene) and despite being washed up, manages to hold onto a job. His sexual preferences aren't clear outside of variable. There's a lot to him that makes you wonder more about his past. The only reason I'm not giving Downey five stars for the role is because he's not a main character and is not on screen enough.

I just love this movie. I will be shocked if any other work Downey does approaches this.

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