30. Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story by C. David Heymann

Category: 50 Books

30. Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story by C. David Heymann

How many books has C. David Heymann written about the Kennedys?

This book was fun to read and I’ll tell you why. I’ll give you two big reasons:

1. It’s one of the few Kennedy bios that isn’t the size of a door stop. It’s a quick read and informative and you don’t often get such a thing with a Kennedy book.

2. It’s dishy.

My God, the dish. Look, there are many of pages where he quotes Truman Capote, okay? This is some juicy gossip here, folks. And? Heymann presents it in such a way that it’s not shameful or trashy. In fact,  you’re almost glad that Jackie and Bobby were able to have each other to cope with the loss of JFK.

Another plus? Heymann doesn’t walk you through a bunch of stuff you and everyone else on the planet Earth already knows. There’s no, “Jackie was born in…” blah blah blah early history cakes, nay. In fact, the affair supposedly didn’t start until after JFK was killed. So it’s not a bunch of rehashing.

I’m not saying it’s highbrow or anything. But it was compelling and dishy and a quick read. I’d recommend it to people who love to read about the Kennedys (any Kennedys) as well as people who’ve never read a Kennedy (any Kennedy) bio. I’m not saying it wouldn’t help to have an idea of the players and in-laws and other hangers-on, but everyone is pretty much explained anyway.

I will add this, this was a great book to decompress to. I’ve been reading far too much mystery/murder/swedish crime fic lately and this McDish-a-lot was just what I needed.

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29. Every Dead Thing by John Connolly

Category: 50 Books

29. Every Dead Thing by John Connolly

This was the first in a series. It’s not new, I think it’s from 1998 or 1999. It’s the story of Charlie Parker, a P.I. and yes, his nickname is Bird. He was a cop but then his wife and daughter were murdered and he is not a cop anymore. This is all on the jacket flap.

It was a good story, but it read kinda like it was two different books. In the first half I was constantly confused about the timeline. It seems to take place right after the murder of his wife and daughter, but the more you read you can tell he’s been off the force and working freelance for a awhile, so, that was confusing. By the second half of the book that timeline is moot and the story gets moving.

I liked the book because it wasn’t just straight-up mystery/forensic clues, there was also a bit of supernatural goings on as well (in the form of a morbidly obese voodoo priestess in New Orleans. I mean, how can you go wrong with that character?).

I plan on reading the second book in the series. It gets three Cansecos for the first half being so confusing.

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oh, i can “turn” a phrase…

Category: dribblings

…turn it into MAGIC.

i get phrases stuck in my head. they just stick there in a loop. sometimes it’s a bit of a song. other times it’s quote from a movie/tv show. sometimes it’s two phrases that have nothing to do with each other that get hitched up or melted together in my head, and they become one strange and very, very, very useless phrase.

one was so long and useless that i had to call up my best pal, laura, and tell her about it.

“hi!”

“hey! so anyway, i have to tell you something.”

“okay.”

“i have this phrase in my head. i can’t get it out.”

“okay.”

“so i’m thinking if i say it out loud to someone else it will… i don’t know… lose it’s power.”

“okay.”

“but i have to warn you, it’s a stupid phrase. it makes no sense. it’s… well, it’s embarrassing.”

“okay.”

“right. so here it is: “contributing to the delinquency of this fully armed and operational battlestation.””

“oh. wow.”

“i know.”

“that is quite…”

“useless. i know. but i can’t stop saying it over and over in my head.”

“you know who would like that?”

“who?”

“chris.”

“*gasp* hey, you’re right!”

and blah blah blah blah.

since then i’ve had two more stupid phrase combos in my noggin. none quite as long as that one though.

one was: “speak now or for amber waves of grain.” the other one must have been even more stupid because i’ve forgotten it.

*****

in other really useless junk in my brain:

last night i dreamt that i won an award for discovering that the numbers between the numbers on any given sudoku puzzle (yes, that’s right. the numbers between the numbers. the sudoku fractions. on the lines? yes. THOSE “numbers”. and WHAT THE HELL DID I EAT LAST NIGHT?) right, where was i? an award. i won an award for discovering that the numbers between the numbers on a sudoku puzzle (the lines, basically) all held values of ectoplasmic polarity.

what the hell is ectoplasmic polarity?

shit. i’m inventing science IN MY SLEEP, BITCHES.

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MARTY couldn’t handle my job.

Category: dribblings

so this guy comes in today and he hands me a bag of books and says, “i’m here to return these.”

i say, “okay.” and reach for the bag.

he says, “i need the bag back.”

“sure.” and i hand him the bag.

he’s dressed in all black and has black hair. i’m not saying he was goth, but he was not unlike goth.

the books in the bag are all christian fiction books. upon seeing the books i know that they were checked out to an old lady who i usually refer to as The Bane of My Existence. she’s kind of like my new Crazy Margaret, only she’s not bonkers, she’s just annoying. she’s annoying because she acts helpless (“i can’t find any books; can you help me?”) and she only wants to read amish fiction.

by now she’s read ALL of the amish fiction we have. and STILL she’s all, “i can’t find any books. can you find some books for me?”

“i can, but they won’t be about the amish because you’ve read all of our amish books.”

“are you sure?”

“yes.”

“but you’re always so helpful. help me find some more books. i like books about the amish.”

“here are some christian fiction books. these are very popular.”

“but are they amish?”

“… no.”

“but i like amish books best.”

and so it goes. it’s usually a 20 minute ordeal. and when she leaves my head errupts into a flaming brain volcano. i don’t like this lady, and yet, i carry her books to her car. i do this because she has an injury, and i am polite. but i get no points at all for it. and when i get back inside the library i remind my coworkers and myself that, “God put that woman on this earth to test me.”

“what’s he testing you for?”

“i don’t know. i used to think it was about patience, but now i think it’s about how i shouldn’t enable amish fiction.”

“maybe you should go take a break.”

all that to say that here’s this guy retuning The Bane’s books.

Son of Bane says to me, “these aren’t mine. they’re my mom’s.”

“okay.” and i start checking them in.

“i wish she wouldn’t read that trash.”

“…”

“i told her all she reads is trash.”

“i wouldn’t call this-”

“i told her she should read The Count of Monte Cristo if she wants to read a romance book.”

“… right.”

“The Count of Monte Cristo is a great book.”

“yes. it is.”

“it’s better than that trash.”

“well, it is a classic.”

“yeah, but all she reads is that amish trash.”

“well, you know, she likes it. let her read what she likes.”

“i don’t like it.”

“…you don’t have to.”

“it’s nothing against the amish.”

“…”

“i’m catholic. i’m a good catholic.”

“oh.”

“but i don’t like all this amish love story trash.”

“yeah.”

“but i guess i don’t really fit in here. in this state.”

“wha- oh.”

“yeah, i don’t fit in at all.”

“well, i guess um, it is difficult to… fit in… sometimes.”

“yeah, it’s especially hard when I’M GAY.” (emphasis his.)

“ah. that… that is a toughie.”

“AND catholic.”

“right. how’s that working out?”

“i don’t know.”

“well, all of the books were returned. your mom’s card is clear.”

“oh. okay. thanks.”

“have a good evening.”

“okay.”

i’m not sure if he was trying to shock me or what. maybe he makes it a habit of coming out to strangers?

you know how some people say, “you can’t judge a person until you walk a mile in their shoes.”? well, you should work a shift at the circ. desk sometime.

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kelly and jaimie’s excellent norwegian adventure

Category: dribblings

this weekend Kelly and I went to the Unclaimed Baggage store in Scottsboro, AL.

it was meh. it’s not like it used to be. anyway, Kelly goes up to pay for her items and the cashier looks at one of the hoodies and says, “i think this is from Norwegia. That’s the Norwegian flag.”

kelly’s response is, “um, Norwegia?”

“yeah, i have some Norwegian in me.”

“… okay.”

does anyone know the capital of Norwegia?

so not only does the US suck at math and science, but I assume we’re failing geography too?

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MARTY, get to work on this blog!

Category: dribblings

i don’t paint much anymore because it’s hard to work it in my liberry shedule.  but today i helped my dad and mark paint. they are working at this house deep in the nether regions of southside. it’s an area of southside i’ve never seen before, and i don’t know a single person who could afford to build/buy over there. and it’s not even riverfront.

anyway, it’s a new house but the part i was painting is an unfinished basement type situation that they are turning into a “media room”. basically they’re building a theater area. this is the second one of these i’ve painted in the last 3 months. it must be THE thing to have now. i hate it because black walls and ceilings are very disorienting. it’s just me? well. whatever.

but it’s all new construction and there is a crew there at work. meaning: i’m the only girl on the scene.

i hate being around a construction crew. you’d think i hate it because i’m usually refered to as Girl, but that’s not even the main reason. i hate it because it’s loud and it’s full of meatheads. today, the meatheads actually called me Painter instead of Girl, so that was nice. however, other than that, it was typical meathead contract work. all of the regular characters were there:

1. The Contractor. He’s usually an asshole. He does NOTHING physical and he just barks at the workers and tells them their work is crap. And the one i worked with today was a dick. he treated his workers like dogs. i thought for a minute he was going to tell me that i was painting something wrong and i actually had a whole stream of curse words and swears ready for him. Lucky for him, he left me alone.

2. The Whistler. you know it. there is at least ONE of these on every crew. they whistle. loudly. it’s usually a tuneless whistle. no real song at all. at one point i thought i heard a few notes of “Little Brown Jug” but it quickly went back to a nothing song.

3. The Singer. oh yes. it’s not bad enough to have Whistle Guy butchering your eardrums with sonic warfare, nay, there’s always a singer as well. sometimes The Whistler and The Singer are the same guy. It was not so with this crew. on this crew The Singer was much like The Whistler in that the songs he sang were not songs at all. it was things like, “gotta FIIIIND that bucket!” and his favorite (i’m assuming, because he sang it the most): “pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, up, up!” to the tune of the William Tell Overture.

4. The Whipping Boy. there’s usually one guy, most likely he’s the New Guy, (the new guy may not be that new, he may have worked on the crew for a year or more, but still, he’s the New Guy.), and he gets blamed for everything. the Whipping Boy on this crew’s name was Marty. i know this because i heard Marty’s name being screamed across the two rooms we were working in apporximately once every 30 seconds.

“MARTY. get in there and hold up that chair rail.”

“okay.”

“MARTY. where are the nails for the nail gun?”

“they’re over by-”

“bring them to me, MARTY.”

“okay, i’ve got the chair rail first-”

“MARTY. get a bucket.”

“MARTY go cut that trim.”

then, MARTY made a fatal mistake. he miscut the piece they needed, and they jumped on him like a pack of lions on a wounded antelope.

“MARTY how could you DO THAT?”

“MARTY, i gave you the right measurements, MARTY.”

“you know what this means MARTY. three strikes and you’re out, MARTY.”

and i wanted to jump in and defend him because it was easy to see that the reason MARTY miscut the piece is that when he was given the measurements for the piece, before he could get to the saw 3 people called him over to do three separate things, and THEN he went and cut the piece to small. if they had left the poor idiot to finish one task before yelling out another 2 tasks, everything would have been fine. and i SO wanted to point that out to the dickhead contractor.

but i didn’t. not because i’m a coward, heavens no. but because i knew that if i, the Girl Painter, had stepped in to defend MARTY, it would have been like cutting off MARTY’s penis. and for the rest of his life, with that crew, any time MARTY would get in trouble SOMEONE would be all, “whats the matter, MARTY, your Girl Painter not hear to defend you?” or something neanderthal like that.

so i remained neutral, an observer, like the camera operator on a nature documentary. i watched the meatheads eat one of their own. i’m not proud, mind. i’m just telling you how it was.

5. The Guy Who Questions Everything. he is a menace. he’s always asking questions, but not actually doing much work. on this crew he was also:

6. The Guy Who Yells Out Measurements. This guy is an ass because he knows at any time someone is trying to keep two measurements in their head long enough to make it to the saw and cut the piece the right size. he knows this, and STILL he keeps yelling out measurements to things that aren’t even ready to be cut yet.

it was five hours of that shit.

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dragon tattoos

Category: dribblings

they sent the dragon tatts! there’s about 15 of them. if you’d like one, submit a fake swedish crime fic title/author to fleegan at gmail dot com.

the first 15 wins!

if you win i’ll email you back and ask for your mailing address.

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don’t forget TUNES FOR TOTS ’09.

Category: dribblings

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28. The Ice Princess by Camilla Läckberg

Category: 50 Books

28. The Ice Princess by Camilla Läckberg

spoiler alert. but i’m doing you a favor.

I’m shocked. The cover of this book boasts that this is an international bestseller. The back of the book says, “Ice-cold suspense from Sweden’s new Agatha Christie.” This book was not very good. Normally I’d say that maybe there was something lost in translation, but I don’t think that’s the (whole) problem.

And now a list of grievances:

1. It seemed like all the characters who were good guys were pretty/handsome. And the bad guys (or people you were supposed to dislike) were fat and ugly. There was this oversimplification that just felt lazy.

2. There was a subplot (Erica’s sister’s drama) that was never completed. Maybe there’s a sequel? Even still, there should have been SOME kind of mention at the end about it.

3. When one of the characters found a clue (Erica or Patrik) they would find it (in a trash can/drawer/whatever), look at it all, “A ha!” and then move on WITHOUT TELLING THE READER WHAT THE FUCK THEY JUST FOUND.  This happened three times. Now, I’m not a mystery author, but I know the damn rules. In fact, you’re probably not a mystery author either, and I bet YOU could even make a guess at some of the rules, yeah? One of the rules is No Evil Twins (unless of course the Evil Twin is made known at the beginning). Another rule? Only One Secret Passage. This book had neither secret passages nor evil twins, but it DID break the rule of When the Detective Finds a Clue He shares It With the Rest of the Class.

Now look, I’m all for breaking rules. You want to use an evil twin at the end? Go for it. No one will ever take you seriously again, but go for it. You want more than one secret passage? Fine. It worked for Clue, didn’t it? But I swear on a stack of Edgar Allan Poe books, if your detective finds a clue, and you don’t tell the reader what the hell it even is until much later? That’s bush league. That is hack. That is insulting to the reader and I have no idea why this book was an international bestseller.

4. This book had the slowest pace of any crime fiction I’ve ever read. A slow pace doesn’t have to be bad as long as the story, characters, events are compelling. In this story nothing was compelling.

5. The love story fell flat. I appreciated that there was an almost normal love story going on in the book. But it didn’t add anything to the book. (This is different from most of the Swedish crime fic and it’s desolation and despair.) So I was rooting for the love story, but it, like the character studies (from Grievance #1) seemed too easy and therefore came across as lazy. Plus, they have sex 5 times in one night just like in a boddice-ripping romance novel. But without all the steamy details, which is fine because hey, it’s a mystery, not erotica, however, when you write something like that and give no steamy details but you’re all, “then they did it! like, 5 times!” it’s like it’s written by a 9th grader or something.

6. There was a part where something may have been lost in translation, but not in a, “that sentence makes no sense.” kinda way, but in a, “I think they left out a whole paragraph somewhere.” This big reveal is going on about the lady who was murdrered and her past. It was very important to the story. Then the detective is all, “I’m shocked she had been pregnant before!” and see, the problem is, not in any previous part of the book was this mentioned, nor was it mention in the preceeding paragraphs, where, i think, a paragraph or two must have been left out. because his declaration just made no sense, nor would he have known about her previous pregnancy if he had not just heard it from the character who was telling of the murdered girl’s past. What a piece of shit.

Sadly, the book was slow and boring. And because the clues were withheld and paragraphs of info seemed to be totally missing, I have to call this a disaster. Perhaps it’s a much better read in it’s native tongue.

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27. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

Category: 50 Books

27. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

The second book in the Millenium Trilogy. I’ll not actually review this book until later. I’d hate to be accused of putting out any spoilers. I liked this one better than the first one because it was MUCH more exciting and Lisbeth had a bigger part.

The first half of the book gets two Cansecos because it was really exciting and well done.

The second half gets four Cansecos because it got to be a bit much and there seemed to be half a million coincidences, and while I understand I’m reading fiction, it was STILL quite a stretch in places.

The last 20 pages get 100 Cansecos and both of my middle fingers.

I’m going to let some time pass and then I’ll list my grievances.

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