The Life, Music, and Times of Carlos Gardel

Reissued work; saw on New Book cart, and took. Read of him until 1925. Born in Toulouse, France, in 1890, he moved to Argentina with his mother, his father long gone. Fascinating to read of the development of his career, from a somewhat anti-social youth to a man dedicated to a singing career.

Originally published in 1986. A work in Spanish, from 1999:
Carlos Gardel, su vida, su música, su época. Simon Collier; traducción de Carlos Gardini. Buenos Aires : Editorial Sudamericana, 1999.

The Visitor

Brennan, Maeve.. (2000). The visitor. Washington, DC : Counterpoint.
Read of Maeve Brennan's name for the first time in a recent book review*, which took me to her writing: mostly she wrote a column for The New Yorker,as "The Long-Winded Lady". This book was mentioned in her biography, and I went looking for it.

Dark and brooding, it is so typically Irish it is almost difficult to accept and say that. I found it difficult to read more than a couple of its small pages every day, yet would not stop reading. A daughter returns to her father's ancestral home, where her grandmother, her father's mother, makes it clear she is not welcome. The grandmother still holds a severe grudge against her son's mother, who left Ireland for Paris, many years back. She tells her granddaughter to go to Paris and make her life there. The latter, Anastasia, is bitterly disappointed in that.

*: review by Rob Nixon of “The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears” by Dinaw Mengestu.

The deeply felt pain in Mengestu’s novel is offset by the solace of friendship — whether it’s a friendship that hovers on the verge of romance, a friendship between an adult and a child or, above all, the friendships that steady the daily lives of fellow immigrants. Mengestu brilliantly summons up the tribe Maeve Brennan once called “travelers in residence” — men and women suspended between continents; suspended, too, between memory and forgetting.

The US vs. John Lennon

Surprisingly engaging after all these years. One of the talking heads was G. Gordon Liddy, an done of the great revelations, to me, he made was just how obsessed Tricky Dickie Nixon was with Lennon. Recent (in the past ten days, or so) releases of Nixon tapes continue to show just what an idiot and a criminal he was – yes, he was a crook.

Roberto & Me

Processing books for RFID in Children's, I came across books by Dan Gutman, which caught my eye. This one I took, read, and enjoyed. A kid can travel through time by holding baseball cards; he goes to the year of the card. Sort of Back to the Future, toned down for ages 9-12. He travels back to warn Roberto Clemente to not get on the fated airplane. Clemente talks with him, does a little preaching, and sends him off. That part was fun enough. But when the kid's great-grandson comes from the future to take him to the year 2080, to show him the effects of global warming, it got a little preachy. Still, for 9 year old boys, I suppose it works.

Where are they buried?how did they die?

A fun read, strange as it might seem. Used it to try and find Dizzy's grave in Flushing cemetery. Couldn't.

Between the folds

In the obituary of Eric Joisel, , saw mention of this film. Interloaned the DVD, and watched (most of it; it did get tedious toward the end). His origami pieces were quite amazing. One of the artists interviewed spoke about practicing technique: the more one practices, the more one innovates, the more advances can be made; and he made an analogy to Rachmaninoff.

City Island

Pretty good film about a 3rd generation City Islander who is a corrections officer (García), an aspiring actor who will not tell his family he smokes (he hides in the upstairs bathroom, sticking his head out the dormer window, and reads whilst smoking) or that he is taking acting classes. His wife also sneaks cigarettes. His daughter is a pole dancer -- that is, she ad lost her scholarship, and is pole dancing to make money to get back to school. His son is a typically gruff, nearly-anti-social teenager who surfs the web for porn.

In prison Vince comes across a young man whom he comes to recognize as a son he created but never knew (it's a long story). In acting class he is paired with Molly (Emily Mortimer), who has her own dark secret. Why she has an English accent is never cleared up, but she spurs Vince on to go for a casting call.

The movie works, if one wants it to, and believes it works. It has its good moments, its weaknesses, and great shots of New York.

Flash of genius

Interesting. Nicely done. Took a lot of guts, and money, to challenge Ford Motor Company for breaking his patent.