THERE IS NOTHING FOR YOU HERE by Fiona Hill

I read most of this memoir over Thanksgiving weekend because it's overdue and I have another book, Yours Cruelly, Elvira, due tomorrow but I have a feeling I won't be able to renew it, and my library is holding a novel, The Perfect Nanny, until today (I can't pick up holds if I have an overdue library book).

There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century is good — I give it three stars out of five. Interesting reading about her growing up in northeast England, pretty much the equivalent of America's flyover states, or as Chris Hedges likes to call it, "a sacrifice zone." Fascinating how far she's come from being a coal miner's daughter to being embedded in the deep state. Remarkable how many luck breaks she got growing up from educational opportunities to applying for grants to cover room and board.

A couple things turned me off. First, she uses the word populist as a pejorative and not once did she refer to Trump as a fascist wannabe. And, second, she strikes me as belonging to the corporate wing of the Democratic Party with its myth of meritocracy; if I was a betting man, I'd say she voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Makes sense: if you get a Ph.D. from Harvard, you're most likely going to embrace the Matrix. I kinda give her pass, though, given her quasi-poverty childhood.

THE STRAYS by Emily Bitto

Wow, what a debut novel! I give it 4.5 stars out of 5. I've always been infatuated with Australia, so I opened this book a little biased. It's mostly set in 1930s Melbourne at a commune for avant-garde artists. SPOILER!: I probably would have given it 5 stars, but the two sisters running off with the one artist seemed a little cliched and predictable. But that's a minor quibble. First, Nancy Tucker's First Day of Spring, and now this novel. Is 2021 the year for debut novels by women? (Yeah, yeah, yeah, a kind of a cheat 'cuz Bitto's book came out in 2017.)

ABBA: Voyage

Hard to believe it's been 40 years since ABBA's last album. I was a little hesitant to purchase Voyage because pop stars don't age well. Boy, was I wrong. I'm keeping 5 of the 10 songs on this allegedly final album:

• "I Still Have Faith in You": The formula still works!
• "Don't Shut Me Down": Love that sound around the 40-second mark.
• "Just a Notion": Apparently it was written during the Voulez-Vous sessions. My, how it shows! It's got the energy and imagination of youth.
• "Keep an Eye on Dan": Another up-tempo number.
• "No Doubt About It": Ninth track, but I end the album/EP here with the misheard last line of "This is where it ends".

Props to the Swedish pop stars for putting out this album. Nice epilogue to their catalog, since their previous two albums, Super Trouper and The Visitors, sounded pretty forced.

WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams

I tried reading this back in my twenties but couldn't get into it, so I picked it up recently. About halfway through, I stopped reading it for a few days because I started researching getting a rabbit by reading stuff online and watching The Bunny Lady and Lennon the Bunny's YouTube videos. Though I'm probably gonna have to wait until I move into a new apartment in July because rabbit piss or poop attracts mice, and I got enough problems with those rodents as it is (one of my glue traps ensnared a mouse Thursday night — didn't see it until 10 AM, Fri. morning, as it crawled across my carpet).

Anyhoo, I give the novel 2.5 stars outta 5. I didn't care for the campfire tales the rabbits told. The rest of the story was OK. I dunno, after the Watership Down warren escapes from General Woundmort, if I wrote it, the final act would have had something different instead of Woundmort tracking down Watership Down and attacking them. Glad I read it, though. . . .

Silence Is a Dangerous Sound: A Tribute to Fugazi

Took a while for me to get through this comp. I bought it back on Sept. 30 and didn't listen to it for the fifth time until the other night (I had been listening to it only when exercising). I'm keeping 7 out of the 44 tracks. Main reason is that Fugazi's versions in a lot of instances are better than the covers. Still, I don't regret buying it. The 7 tracks I'm keeping got a good flow. Here's what I'm keeping:

1. "Bad Mouth" by Authority Zero: Standard cover but a rocking way to kick the comp off.

3. "KYEO" by Dowsing: Love Fugazi's version but I bought two of Dowsing's albums, so I have to keep this song

8. "Target" by Batteries: I own almost everything by this bis side project. This rendition is traditional with Batteries' unique twist on it.

18. "Runaway Return" by Chamberlain: I didn't care for this song when I heard it on Fugazi's Steady Diet of Nothing, but Chamberlain make that riff stick in my head like an unforgettable jingle.

21. "Brendan #1" by Seas, Starry: They rework this instrumental where it sounds almost nothing like the original. That's a good thing.

33. "Suggestion" by Jonah Matranga: Pretty cool mellow, electronic rendition of this crowd favorite from Fugazi's 13 Songs.

44. "Arpeggiator" by Ripcord Records: Nice electronic cover of this instrumental. Glad I downloaded the album when I bought it the day it came out. Looks like they've since taken that song down.

ALONE IN A DOME by The Copyrights

After picking up Teenage Bottlerocket's Sick Sesh!, I was a little hesitant to check out this other new release on Fat Wreck Chords because TBR only had 5 great tracks out of 12. It's good to be wrong. Alone in a Dome is the best thing they've done since 2008's Learn the Hard Way, and it's a marked improvement over their previous album, the inconsistent Report. Every song on Dome is awesome, and the sequencing is spot-on! I don't buy everything The Copyrights put out, partly because a lot of their songs sound the same, especially with the singer's voice, but Dome mixes thing up enough. $8 well spent . . . I just wish the lyrics came with the digital download at Fat, or were over at Bandcamp!

The Thrill of It All

Kicking myself for getting rid of my old cassette of Roxy Music's Greatest Hits. Found out yesterday that the version of "The Thrill of It All" only appeared on that comp. Doh!

Fugazi's "Guilford Fall"

A song that's been in my head this past week, the demo of "Guilford Fall" by Fugazi. I listened to the final version on a later album, which seemed overproduced to me. The demo is so much better. Weird how it's been on my mind lately; in the past it was never one of my favorite tracks off the Instrument album.

Gob Memory

Piggybacking on that Roxy Music post from the other day, about two months ago I had the beginning of Thatcher On Acid's "Gob" stuck in my head, but I couldn't place it. I kept thinking it was a song off the comps C86 or Can't Stop It! Australian Post-Punk 1978-82, or off Trans Am's Sex Change. Wow, I really missed the mark. Glad "Gob" popped on my iTunes shuffle during work.

Oh, and off-topic: I had a Carlsberg on Sunday night as my beverage after dinner (97% fat-free hot dog, mixed vegetables, and French fries). I know I'm playing with fire because I had a drinking problem from 1988 to 2012, but the plan is to only have one after a meal, not get drunk, and drink only imports, like Carlsberg and Foster's. At the moment, I'll probably only drink one after dinner with French fries (hot dogs and crab cake).

Quip #9

Ask a stupid question, get a sarcastic answer.

THIS IS WHAT AMERICA LOOKS LIKE by Ilhan Omar

Don't think I've ever even read a political memoir before, but after hearing Ilhan Omar on The Majority Report podcast on Friday, October 15, I thought would pick up her book, This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman, which just came out in paperback. Fairly easy read. I absorbed most of it in two sittings: last Sunday and yesterday (Saturday).

The beginning was interesting with her upper class upbringing in Somalia before it turned into a failed state. I did get a little annoyed when she talked about being in a Kenya refugee camp and mentioned they found ways to avoid malaria, but she didn't give any details, though that may be more fault of her ghostwriter.

Upon her arrival in America, she goes into how conservative she is some ways. For example, wearing leggings in high school because her faith says don't show skin. And since a teenager she's always hidden her hair, even to the point that there are no photos of her in the book, past childhood, without some type of head covering. I dunno, that seems to clash with her progressive politics; then again, most people are complicated.

Fascinating to learn that that Somali community here in the States is split between the status quo and progressives. Crazy how when Omar was running for office in Minnesota, Somali elders practiced political dark arts on social media. Explains why right-wing attacks in Washington, D.C. don't faze her.

Near the end of the book, she seemed to recycle stump speeches from the campaign trail. Obviously, I speed-read those sections.

Overall, glad I picked up this paperback. Don't think I'll read another political memoir for a long time. It's basically a 250-page press release.

I give Omar's book three out of five stars.

Roxy Memory

Memory is so weird. The music around 1:30 of Roxy Music's "Bitter Sweet" was stuck in my head yesterday, but I couldn't remember the song. I thought it was on their first or second album. Had to go through my Roxy Music collection to find out. Mystery solved!

GOD'S POCKET by Peter Dexter

I heard about this book in March of '20 over at Billy Penn's "10 underrated Philly books to devour in the quarantine era". I'm convinced the cover designer didn't read the book or jacket copy — worst book cover ever.

Anyway, I give this 1983 novel three out of five stars. Even though it's set in a South Philly neighborhood, it reminds me of people I grew up with, especially in high school, with kids coming from Fishtown and Port Richmond. Dexter nailed Philly's white working class back then . . . . how they only leave the neighborhood for work, and how row homes are passed down from parents to children.

A couple complaints:

• The newspaper columnist, Richard Shellburn, seemed unbelievable. Even back in the '80s, I don't believe columnists had their own offices (my impression is they were all thrown in the bullpen), and they weren't as popular as Dexter makes Shellburn out to be. Maybe back in the mid-20th century that was the case, but by the '80s, TV had captured the public's imagination. I dunno, part of the reason it irritated me is because newspapers are now on hospice. Dexter made a decent living working for newspapers during the end of its golden age, and he seems to shit on the institution. Guess I shouldn't be surprised because Dexter strikes me as a self-centered opportunist.
• There was forced plotting with Mickey. I was confused for a long time why the dead body of his stepson, Leon, was in the funeral home's backyard. And it struck me as absurdly unrealistic when Mickey was selling his truck, and the potential buyer took it for a drive, with Mickey chasing it on foot, and the truck getting into an accident.

Nonetheless, it's a good novel. Nice way to spend a week. I probably won't read anything else by Dexter. Will be interesting to see if any of the novel stays with me, or if I'll forget all about it like a paint-by-numbers mystery yarn.

Leon said Cheryl was a flight attendant for U.S. Air and lived in the Northeast, which Mickey recognized for the classiest thing Leon could make up.

p. 15

To get an idea how big Philadelphia was, all you had to do was go to the Northeast and try to find a street sign. Going the the Northeast was like going the hospital, you forget all the little things they do to you, you forgot how slow time moves until you're there again.

p. 139

Existenz

I watched this movie Sunday night for the first time. I wanted to watch Crash because I just finished the audiobook, but it's not available here in the States to rent online legally, so I went with Existenz, another Cronenberg flick from the '90s.

Interesting film. I give it 2.5 stars out of 5. A little campy, but the Grade A acting saves it — Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Willem Dafoe, oh my! Since it's about video games and virtual reality, I thought it was going use technology of the time (1999), but it was a different timeline or the near future, which was a nice touch. I can see why it never really made an impact. Tough to follow The Matrix, which came out the same year.

Right-wing Propanda

I saw on Google that Mark Levin's American Marxism is one of the bestselling books of 2021, which is a frightening fact, so I read this piece over at Jacobin. This part blew me away:

There is something particularly American in not wanting to understand the people you set out to destroy. . . . For the early Puritan, the forest was a site of Satanic evil; for the anti-communist, Marxism was a kind of witchcraft, to be burned — or perhaps electrocuted — rather than incorporated or co-opted. 

CRASH by J. G. Ballard

I give this audiobook two out of five stars — rating probably would have been lower if the author wasn't Ballard. I saw the movie way back in the '90s, and while I didn't love it, Cronenberg's film has always stayed with me (plus the soundtrack is amazing with that haunting guitar riff).

Quite honestly, for most of the audiobook, I only half-listened. Because it's only about seven hours, I figured I would power through. Ballard's a deep writer, so there is more to the pornographic language, but it was a bit much for me. I guess you could say that Crash is the quintessential horror novel, since it's so ugly. That's what horror is all about: entertainment that makes you cringe.

One cool thing about listening to Crash is that for the novel I'm working on I'm going to change the protagonist's name to my own. I liked how Ballard named the narrator after himself. Ballsy.

Oh, and I've been jamming out to Flesh For Lulu's "Crash". Great song, even though it's got nothing to do with the book (predates the film).

Babylon Berlin

Finally finished watching the third season of Babylon Berlin. Glad I didn't stop watching it around episode four, when I thought it was starting to drag. The last few episodes were awesome! I liked how they wrapped everything up, especially with the Nazi Benda. Now I can cancel Netflix (nothing else I really want to watch, especially since most of its content is geared towards teenagers and twenty-somethings). I got plenty of other stuff to watch, like Dublin Murders and the Penny Dreadful series set in 1930's L.A.

Goodbye Gyro!

Wanted to document this. Ate my last gyro Sunday night. It wasn't sitting too well that evening, but Monday was tortuous. Never had food poisoning like that. Not only was my stomach upset, but I had a headache, felt achy, and my joints was creaky. Monday night's dinner didn't help: dr. Praeger's Spinach Cakes were a little too greasy (the french-style cut green beans were fine, but I couldn't finish my brown rice); took a great amount of effort not to throw up.

Monday was made worse by my goofy apartment building shutting off the air-conditioning a few days ago — you can only have the A/C or the heating on, not both. It was bad timing for me. It was sticky and in the 80s all day in my apartment, even though it was high 70s outside.

Tuesday I ate light. Two pieces of toast for breakfast; craisins for mid-morning snack; chicken noodle soup for lunch; banana for mid-afternoon snack; Gordon's fish fillet, french green beans, bulgar wheat, and hot green tea for dinner; and cherry yogurt for dessert.

Sunday's gyro was worse than one I got about three years ago in Manayunk. At least with that one, my stomach was only rumbling until 1 AM that night.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, double-shame on you.

THE SCAPEGOAT by Sara Davis

Back in March, I read a review of this debut novel in The Washington Post. Sounded interesting, so I bought the hardback. Read most of it yesterday (while marketed as a novel, it's more like a novella with a blank page between most chapters). I give it 2 out 5 stars. Her prose is good enough where I didn't feel the urge to skim sentences, but I just didn't get the plot, though I'm pretty sure she was more concerned with theme and metaphors. I went on Goodreads and a few reviewers mentioned the word Lynchian; that tracks — this is the type of story David Lynch would be attracted to.

Oh, and why did Davis have her protagonist read a Swedish mystery without mentioning who the detective is? I'm 99% sure it's Wallander. I dunno, seemed like an odd choice to withhold that name.

B&N book purchases

Because of an article I read, "Book Publishers Warn of Supply Chain Delays for 2021 Holidays", I picked up these books (I also bought them because my library has been pretty poor lately with holds — I reserved one book back in March; I cancelled that hold last month).

The Age of Decadence: A History of Britain, 1880 to 1914 sounds interesting from The New York Times review. Clocking in around 900 pages, should be a nice long read, though it's probably less with the photos and footnotes. Looking forward to it.

The Last House on Needless Street has been out in the UK for at least six months. Was finally published here in the States in September. Stephen King's blurb plus a Guardian write-up made it sound purchasable.