Year: 2007
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Brief notes on items which captured more attention in the past
I choose to spend less time posting my wit and wisdom (?) here at clock. But some themes of interest remain constant. For instance… I had a lot to say about TimesSelect when it was introduced in September 2005. Two years later, when the wall came down, my first inkling came from this blog post.…
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Book: The Rascal King
Fifteen years after the author signed it, I finally finished The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley (1874-1958); An Epic of Urban Politics and Irish America. Read a little on Google Books if the topic interests you. The author, Jack Beatty, was a senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly during my…
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Book: The Blind Side
I’m always impressed when a well-done magazine excerpt sharpens my anticipation of a book, rather than removing the need to read the full-length work. I first read about Michael Oher in Sports Illustrated (Sep 25, 2006). Michael Lewis’s full book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game goes deeper and broader, to great effect. The…
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Movie: The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Looking for a bit of light fun on a Friday evening, our thoughts turned to The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Great call. After enjoying Steve Carell in Dan in Real Life recently, and laughing endlessly at Knocked Up this summer, it was a blessing to not have seen this Apatow film yet. Just moved Superbad to the…
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Movie: No Country for Old Men
No Country for Old Men is bleached with violence. But the menace remains, so the gore doesn’t deaden you to the story. I haven’t read Cormac McCarthy’s book, but the Coen brothers certainly know how to make a movie which doesn’t feel like anything you’ve seen before. The Texas countryside is beautiful, but blasted by…
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Dan in Real Life
Last week, we saw Dan in Real Life, with Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche. Metacritic only cites a 65 — but I enjoyed this film. Family story, with humor coming from small realities and inter-family dynamics that really never change once they get set early on. People grow up, but that doesn’t mean they change.…
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Movie: Michael Clayton
We went to see Michael Clayton a few weeks ago. George Clooney does a good job. The plot is more of a foil for a character study, though. Clooney’s struggles with his role as a frustrated lawyer in a “fixer” role, and his less-than-simple family life, pluck more interest than the case at the heart…
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Book: Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl jumped onto my list from the wife’s bookgroup. And I’m grateful. I didn’t love the book, yet it was a different read. I needed some fiction. The ending startled me, but also disappointed me. I didn’t see it coming…which is fine. Yet the twist didn’t feel true…
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Book: Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1969-1975
Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1969-1975 is a book I own for one reason: my cousin’s picture is on the cover. He wrote one of the articles, and he provided the picture because one of the editors asked if he had any photos from that period. Turns out he did, and it fit what they wanted.…
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Book: The Cobweb
Neal Stephenson’s website doesn’t even list The Cobweb as one of his works. The reason? It was originally published, in 1996, under his pseudonym Stephen Bury. But, after Quicksilver made him a NYTimes bestselling author, it was a no-brainer to re-publish under his real name. No mention of what Stephenson might be working on now……