No Pictures: Clearing House

The Big Short
By Michael Lewis, 2010

Michael Lewis books always remind me of really long magazine articles, which is kind of why it takes me forever to get around to reading them. I keep expecting them to turn up at a doctor's office, for free. Then again, Esquire is really the only magazine I can think of that had articles that might be comparable in lengthy readability to what Michael Lewis does, so maybe I'm being unfair. Guess who cares? Nobody, much less me.

The Big Short is the Lewis barn-burner from earlier this year--I actually bought it like a Harry Potter book, day-of-release and all that, and I read it pretty much overnight. It's a fun book in the way all of his books are, full of powerful people cursing and threatening to eat each other's children, all while they reap massive amounts of money off of other powerful people. Lewis got some criticism from the MSNBC/Huffington Post circuit due to what they perceived as an obsession with "creating heroes" out of his primary protagonists, but those remarks don't really make sense based off of Big Short's actual text. The men he describes rarely come across as people you'd want to hang out with, be inspired by, or learn anything from personally. Across the board, they're either social misfits with severe emotional disturbances or sociopathic assholes consumed with greed, and there's little in the text to make one think any of that has changed. (And why would it? If you're a greedy prick who thinks everybody else in your industry is stupid, and you go out and model a business on that belief, and you make billions of dollars when it turns out that you happen to be completely right, why would you start holding the doors for elderly women? Wouldn't you just knuckle down and find out where the rest of the idiots with too much money are?)

A big part of the appeal of The Big Short has to be that it's a cracking piece of populist take-down. While it doesn't do the best job of explaining the ins and outs of some of the financial machinations that the various players used to buttfuck multinational banks and their scumbag employees, it guides you through a laundry list of dishonest morons, points out how far down the exploit-the-poor highway they went, and then packs out the numbers on how horribly they got creamed by a small club of antisocial cynics. It's one of the rare pieces of financial journalism where you really do get exactly what you want, which is some evidence that smart people can punish stupid criminals where it hurts. Even though it ends with most of the major slimeballs getting away with bonuses and cushy fallback jobs, and even when there's no way you'll forget how completely screwed up the economy still is, you still get to spend a decent portion of the book watching the bad guys lose, over and over again. There will never be a time when that isn't a turn-on.

I know a guy who wrote for the Financial Times--I used to take care of his crazy dog when he went out of town, it wasn't like he respects me as a human being, and he shouldn't--so I asked him what he thought of the negative reviews that The Big Short got from the various financial publications. He hadn't read them, but he emailed me a week later and said "all of those articles are written by people who were in various stages of writing this exact same book, and none of them would've done it half as well as Lewis, so you can basically discount every single thing they have to say." So there's that.

The Big Sort
By Bill Bishop, 2009

This is another book that was on my radar for a long time, but I didn't actually pick it up until quite recently. Beyond the homonym, it's similar to Michael Lewis in that it's very reminiscent of a magazine article, specifically, this magazine article, which was written about...this book, actually.

Unfortunately, the book isn't written very well. That's a shame, because this is probably one of the most important books I've read in a long time if we're talking purely subject matter. But it's really a data collection in search of a stylist. The Big Sort is Bill Bishop's name to describe the way in which American citizens have spent the past two decades "clustering" into like-minded neighborhoods and voting districts. He spends a bit of time explaining how he "discovered" the phenomenon--loosely described, it was through the growth of "landslide" voting districts--and then he attempts to illustrate statistics with anecdotes. (Most of these anecdotes are interesting, including the one that focuses on comic book creators in Portland and consists mostly of an interview with Jeff Parker.)

Clustering is nasty, nasty business. When it gets started, the negative results increase exponentially--Democrats become extreme "Death to Republicans" liberals, Republicans become permissive of racist support in hopes of driving up their numbers, whatever bugs you about people you disagree with, clustering makes it far worse. As discussion becomes non-existent, actual human beings turn into hateful stereotypes, weirder psychological roads get paved, facts bail out in place of fear, and "venting" becomes something given far more respect than it deserves. There's a lot of value in Bishop's description of this change, a lot of which is tied up in his fervent need to document reality, but its still a really difficult book to read, if "engaging writing" is a decisive factor.

The Black Minutes
By Martín Solares, 2010

While it's told in the same sort of shifting perspective style that quite a few other authors use, The Black Minutes is squarely located in the sorta-intellectual niche of the crime/corruption genre. It's rough at times, maybe a little too convinced that revealing the ending (the good guys fail!) near the first chapter isn't going to hurt its chances, but this is a genre that can get pretty far on the strength of style, and Solares has plenty of that. As has become the standard in these King Ellroy times, the unbridled extreme violence comes and stains the brain about midway through the book, warping most of the sloggier parts into a decent cool-down period. I'd like it if the thing had been a bit more of the New Crime Classic its getting pushed as, and even though it fails to be that, it is pretty fun in the end.

Zen Mediatation Plain and Simple
By Albert Low, 1989

This book is pretty hilarious. It spends the entire first half being really prissy, getting in all these passive aggressive jabs at "other" books about mediation and "other" teachers of Zen, most of which boil down to how none of these "other" books know how important the specifics of sitting on a cushion are, and then, right there in the middle of the book, it switches its directions on breathing in the course of two pages. On the left page, it says "count 1 on the intake of air, count nothing on the out, then count again on the intake", and the right page says the exact opposite. Which isn't a big deal, of course, seriously, nobody is ever going to consider that a big deal...except that the author can't go one page in the entire book without talking about how fucking important it is to get the details right, oh jesus in heaven won't you just get the details right, if you don't get them right I swear I'll just scream myself hoarse about These Details! It's like the guy is standing there getting all OCD on you about meditation, and the whole time his wet penis is rubbing along the top of the metal teachers desk.

Lethal Injection
By Jim Nesbit

Although this is basically a crime novel--the State executioner decides to investigate whether or not the condemned man is guilty, drugs and violence follow--it's a lot more Coetzee than it is Thompson. The guy who writes it seems to be one of those writer's writers, in that he's more often mentioned by people like James Ellroy and David Peace than he is talked about by Amazon reviewers, and if you check out his website, he apparently supplements his income by building entertainment centers and bookcases. It's the sort of thing some people might call a shame, but only if you're operating under the belief that being a published author immediately translates into a full time paying gig.

There's something special about this book, but it's hard to put a finger on what that is. It reads quickly, and the twisted, nasty people that fill its chapters are somewhat familiar, and you can vaguely see the end of the book coming. It's larger than that though, poetic and unique, with a weirdly perfect mix of bisexual cravings and mythic, meaningful violence. People bite each other, they burn, there's a physicality to the way each character handles the actions they take. It's a hard book to spoil--there really isn't anything here that surprises, plot wise--but its still something I'd like to leave alone, for whatever that's worth.

On Film
By Stephen Mulhall, 2001

This is one of the few (possibly "the only") books in Routledge's Thinking In Action series that got itself an extended second edition, so maybe you want to sit up straight. Despite it's brief length, it isn't the easiest book to blurb out. You could say that Mulhall is writing a smart version of one of those "The Philosophy of the Matrix" books where a bunch of pop theorists describe why Cornel West shows up in the third movie while a couple of Klosterman wanna-be's use five dollar words in an attempt to conceal IGN style genre worship, but that description doesn't really do Mulhall's experiment justice, and it's still only half-accurate if you skip the opening introduction entirely. Mulhall's idea is actually far more interesting than just exploring the sexual and political dynamics of the Alien movies, as he puts it in the opener, he genuinely believes that these kinds of films--genre films, especially sci-fi--aren't just about philosophy, but are philosophical arguments. He loses track of this in some of the supplementary sections (as each of the Alien films have a different director, he stops to focus on their other movies as well, meaning the book also deals with Blade Runner, Terminator 1 & 2, Se7en and City of Lost Children), but overall, his stuff on Alien is smart, succinct and relatively unique in its concern.

ABC of Reading
By Ezra Pound, 1934

Hey, this is a horrible book. It's outdated too, as its mostly about how important poetry is and how useless the Chinese are when it comes to creating art and literature. (And if you read between the lines, he actually means all Asian cultures when he says Chinese, because he was a racist jagoff who figured that all those Eastern countries were the exact fucking same. And even if you don't read between the lines, he still straight up says "China: waste of time".) I guess it's possible he had some good qualities, and I'll still read that copy of Cantos at some point since I did already pay for it, but this piece of trash is going out with the garbagio. More because it's boring and obnoxious than because it's racist though, because the boring pages way outnumber the racist sentences. 

Maxims and Reflection
By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, olden days

If the words in here were written today, they would've appeared on a blog, and few people would've read it. If it was written today by someone who carried with them comparable successes to the one's that Goethe himself delivered, quite a few people would've read them, but it still would've been on a blog. 

It is boring, is what I'm trying to get at.

 The Gay Talese Reader: Portraits & Encounters
By Gal Talese, 2003

There's something about the way he looks at you from the cover, right above the lowercase words "portraits & encounters", that makes you think this is going to be a night in with a non-fiction Decameron. Maybe its because his name is oft-attached to the moment when the Kinsey Report become lyrical, maybe it's just because class doesn't age, whatever the reason, this collection has a quality to it that's probably best described with words like "sumptuous" and "lyrical", a kind of intellectual eroticism.

But it that at all, at least, it isn't just that. This is just an anthology of a man's best known pieces, essays like "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold", "Joe Louis: The King as a Middle-Aged Man" and "The Brave Tailors of Maida." It is, all of it together, a striking dive into other people's lives, made even more attractive by how little of it seems possible. Near the end of the book, Talese succinctly lists the things about non-fiction that he believes matter most: excellent pay, no tape recorders, no phone interviews, plenty of time. It's hard to believe that sort of writing will ever flourish again. For now, at least, a printed document of the time when it did is available. That will have to do.

Even Less Involving Section (hence the title "Clearing House")

L.A. Noir
By John Buntin, 2009

This is basically the non-fiction James Ellroy, although its probably not as extreme as actual non-fiction James Ellroy. Passes the time, but you can't really get off on the violence, because it all really happened.

Hip: The History
By John Leland, 2004

Nowhere near as bad as expected, so who knows what one might think if they go into it without a "i'm certain this will be horrible" preconception. Pretty informative section on blackface entertainment, although the Tosches book "Where Dead Voices Gather" covers the same ground, better.

An Afghanistan Picture Show (or, How I Saved The World)
By William T. Vollman, 1992

Nothing like the rest of the Vollman catalog, which might please those who agree with that "these literary people are terrible" list that the Huffington Post put up. Good book, pretty dated, way more interesting than that Photographer comic, which covered the same topic.

Liar's Poker
By Michael Lewis, 1989

This book has been so thoroughly incorporated by popular culture that I spent most of the time reading it convinced that I must have read it before and forgot about it. Interesting, kind of shallow.

The Black Ice Score
By Richard Stark/Donald Westlake, 1965

The one where he teams up with African nationals, hence the title. Parker as planner is always great, Parker as girlfriend-having teacher/trainer a bit less so. Nice slaughterhouse ending though, so if you grade these books on a violence continuum, this one will end up near the top five.

The Audacity of Hype
By Armando Ianucci, 2009

Not as hilarious as Thick of It, but way better than his sketch comedy show. 

The Resistance: Ten Years of Pop Culture
By Armond White, 1995

Oh, you know its good. Stuff on Tupac, ice-cold acid baths for Spike Lee, weird Spielberg love letters, aggressive, fuck-grammar sentence constructions and a whole essay on what's wrong with Mississippi Burning--this is way more valuable a piece of work to have around than a hundred books full of stuff one agrees with.

Comments

[Uland]

You're a complete fucking moron to dismiss Ezra Pound in such a way. I have no use for your writing.
I get that you're supposed to be this kind of hip, snarky and smart guy, but once it's applied to real, non-trash culture subjects, it's revealed for what it is; a posture. And one that won't make sense much longer anyhow. You know what will make sense? The works of geniuses like Ezra Pound.

[Abhay]

I like those pieces by Talese on New York City-- not his book about the Bridge, but those more poetic ones that sort of zoom out with statistics, crowds of people, and then zoom in until it's... the ex-boxer giving massages to rich women on Park Avenue every morning between 9 am and 12 pm. Back and forth like that. Memorable pieces.

[Peter]

Ezra Pound a genius? I don't know about that.

[Marty]

Yeah man, you're not fit to suck the snot out of Ezra Pound's testicles.

Fuck Goethe though. That guy is a dick.

[NoahB]

Good lord, I haven't thought about the ABC's of Reading in probably 15 years, maybe more. And...I can't remember a thing about it. I know I read it, but...gone.

What's really funny about the Chinese thing of course is that in the Cantos, Pound includes occasional Mandarin characters. And what's funnier is that, apparently, he seems to be confused about what they mean.

[LurkerWithout]

Why do the haters keep calling Tucker hip as an insult? I mean in what definition of the word does it apply to him? Its been awhile since his YouTube bits, so maybe he has really wide egg-laying hips?

[Amy Lopp]

I honestly wasn't sure who the author of these reviews was until I read "garbagio".

[Lugh]

Ezra Pound? I guess people can be fanboyish about anything, really.

Anyway, On Film sounds interesting, I'm going to check it out.

[David Allison]

I love that on the internet, being hip means either loving Scott Pilgrim or hating Ezra Pound. Preferably both, if possible?

Honestly, that's hilarious. I could laugh for days!

Tucker's right though, by the way. There are a few genuinely beautiful lines in Pound's work, but who can be bothered sifting through the boring drivel to find them? Where's Wally is twice as fun and 75% less racist, so - yeah, damn I'm hip. Where's Wally bitches!!

It's my turn to be a fanboy asshole now, because seriously - no love for The Armando Iannucci Shows? It's not up there with The Thick of It, but it's still one of my favourite sketch shows of all time, just a real nice tone, focus, guiding personality etc.

Not read The Audacity of Hype yet though, so maybe I should stop yammering and go buy that?

[AComment]

affectless distance can be so sexy sometimes
as long as you judge the dosage
too much seems condescending

sometimes you seem a bit angry!
sometimes a bit sad...
but mostly you seem to maintain the presence of mind to write something a bit funny

actually i think i'm wrong, but i'm too hip to use the shift key so what do i know?

[mateo]

I'm supposed to be working, but I stopped by because I haven't been to the site in a while.

I really like the book reviews. I read most of the Michael Lewis books, because they are short and they make me feel closer to Tabitha Soren, who I LOVED back in the day. Would watch MTV on mute just waiting for the news.

Only read the Pound book of the above, though. Yeah, boring. Sorry defenders, it just is. The fascism thing doesn't really other me though, seemed like an almost adolescent posturing on his part, for me. An affectation of danger and uniqueness. Naive in retrospect. Calling him a genius is probably accurate, in the macro sense, but when put against the best of his era, and against his own fairly puffed up reputation, I don't know. A little much, in my book.
Tuck- your site is the shit. I don't know how all these people with their Haterade got in the habit of coming by to bitch. I hope it doesn't put you off your blogging. Fuck 'em. This site is free, ain't costing them anything. They can suck a nut and go read something enthusiatic elsewhere.

Who gets all pissy bc Ezra Pound don't get his props? Baffling.