Monday, Monday

Saw BLUE MOON, which I liked very much, especially Ethan Hawke and Andrew Scott's performance. I am not sure people with no familiarity with the story (Rodgers and Hart) or music would enjoy it as much. 

Enjoying FIVE FOUND DEAD, which was included in locked room mysteries that Jeff forwarded me last week. Also HOTEL DU LAC for my book group

 Lots on TV including NO ONE SAW US (Netflix) THE DIPLOMAT (Netflix) SLOW HORSES (Apple) and THE LOW DOWN (Hulu) Finished TASK which had a spectacular ending. 

Really enjoyed Ben Stiller's doc about his parents. I was never a big fan of their very broad humor, but it was so well done in what it said about his family. He was honest in his own mistakes as well. 

Colder but still lots of sunny weather here.  

What's new there?  

Short Story Wednesday "Down at the Dinghy" J.D. Salinger (from NINE STORIES)

 https://www.scribd.com/doc/258614035/Down-at-the-Dinghy

The story begins with two servants alluding to one's worry that the child in the house will tell his mother than he used an ethnic slur regarding his father.

The child (4) has a habit of running away and his mother finds him down on the dock. She plays with him and cleverly gets him to admit what he heard said by the servant although he misunderstood the actual slur. But he did not misunderstand the meanness of it. His mother makes light of it, hoping I think that he will not continue to run away from things that frighten him. So much in so few words. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

TracyK 

Monday, Monday

                                                Out my window-11th floor

I have always been a David Strathairn fan, even in his most frightening movie, BLUE CAR. In this domestic drama (A LITTLE PRAYER), he's a father trying to keep his family together when his son seems intent on blowing it apart. I was able to rent it on Prime. 

Finished DAY OF THE JACKAL, which was very good. Still an episode left of TASK on HBO and enjoying SLOW HORSES.  Getting ready to begin THE DIPLOMAT.

Saw a great concert at the DSO with a trumpet concerto by Branford Marsalis.  

We finally got some rain.  The trees have a lot more color than this photo indicates

Reading Andy Green's book on the making of THE OFFICE. A nice break  

Highly recommend the Martin Scorsese doc  on Apple. Rebecca Miller did a great job with it. 

FFB-THE UNIVERSAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATON-Robert Coover

THE UNIVERSAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATION, INC, J. HENRY WAUGH, PROP., by Robert Coover

With the exception of CATCH 22, I don't know of another book that knocked me out in quite the way this one did when I was young(er). Written in 1968, it overflows with creativity, humor, and pathos. Maybe it's not forgotten, but I rarely hear it mentioned.

J. Henry Waugh is an unhappy accountant who entertains himself by inventing a game that he can escape to at the end of the day. Every action in the game is ruled by the dice. Waugh does not get to intervene. He is, of course, no more in charge of what happens in the game then he is in what happens in his life. He finds this out when his star pitcher is killed by a pitched ball. (Yes, his game even allows for such events; it's that complex) This fictional event has impact on Waugh's real life in horrible ways.

Cleverly, Coover allows the players, managers and baseball executives to come to life, making the book much less static than this might sound. Is Waugh a God? If so, he has little power over his invented world and even less over his real one. It is chance that rules Waugh's game and his world. Until....This is a great book.

Short Story Wednesday, Hard-Boiled edited by Bill Pronzini, Jack Adrian

                                                             H/T Todd Mason

"Graveyard Shift" by James Reasoner; "The Long Silence After" by Ed Gorman

Browsing in the Dawn Treader bookstore in Ann Arbor in January, I grabbed a book from the shelves entitled HARD-BOILED. It was an anthology published in 1995, edited by Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian, and published by Oxford University Press. I took it home and was delighted to find stories by two of our most faithful reviewers, but that isn't why I'm choosing these two stories today.

Although the stories are quite different, they share a theme: men attempting to redress the loss of a wife through criminal action. Though the outcomes are different, both stories are rich in atmosphere, tension, and character and a quality I love: uxoriousness. They rise above many short stories that depend almost totally on plot. Within a few pages, we know these men---or think we do. I highly recommend both stories as primers on how to write a short story as well as stories to be enjoyed.

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 The Jewish Book Fair began today at the Detroit Institute of Arts with Michelle Young talking about her book, The Art Spy, The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WW II Resistance Hero, Rose Valland who rescued much stolen artwork. The Festival goes on for a month. There must have been 500 people there. 

Also saw Secret Mall Apartment and Roofman. 

Watching Task, Low-Down, Baby Fever, Slow Horses. Has to be the best season of Slow Horses. 

Sad that the Tigers are out of the series although they never played well after mid-July. 

Still reading Black Cake, and trying to get started on Isola (Allegra Goodman). 

Very sad about Diane Keaton. Certainly one of my favorite actors.  

Still enjoying great weather. It's probably going to be gone with a thud.