Sway by ? - A Book Club Debacle, June 7 2009

I can't remember if I voted for it or not, but I know I was into the nomination for Sway by brothers Ori and Rom Brafman. Sway's full title is Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior and indeed it did go on to expose the serious lapses of logic which lead us to make detrimental choices. Sometimes financially, sometimes fatally.


I loved this book and I couldn't wait to get to book club to discuss it at length. As someone who always tries to challenge their thought process (though not always being rational) in an effort to do the right and best thing, this book was right up my alley. Only a few weeks ago when told by my health insurer that I could select a doctor online, I told the customer service person to give me anyone because I felt I'd be too easily swayed by the pictures of the doctors and otherwise had no other way to figure out who was better. This says more for my action to avoid being swayed rather than my ability to overcome it, but at least I'm aware of it and aspire to be objective and not be ruled by baseless preconceived notions.


So with that kind of thinking, I made sure I made it, having worked all day, going to a Dodger game and then heading more or less straight to book club. Upon arrival where I found host Daniella with Mike, Summer, Chris R, Megan, Andrea, Sohrab and Dana I was quickly ushered aside and advised by Daniella of the terrible screw up. I think she had hastily listed a book titled Sway in her nominations to Lisa. Lisa replied with the appropriate Amazon links for approval and Daniella, being busy at the time, approved them without checking. In neglecting to do so, she approved the wrong book in the case of Sway and unfortunately that was the one that won! The Sway she meant was a novel by Zachary Lazar which encircled 1969 era Rolling Stones, Charles Manson clan and Kenneth Anger. Upon reading reviews today, it seems like an interesting read, but alas, it was not read by the group.


It's too bad really because Daniella was well prepared with films to supplement the discussion such as Anger's film Invocation of my Demon Brother in which Manson follower Bobby Beausoleil stars and Mick Jagger provides the (painful) soundtrack. I'm sure this would have been more poignant had we read the book which contains all three people in the story, but alas, as we did not, we could not be swayed into appreciating it, from what I could tell.

We also watched parts of Gimme Shelter which documented the incident at Altamont in 1969 where a guy was killed by a Hell's Angel during the Rolling Stones' set. Again, it was relevant to the intended book, but failed to spark any "a-ha!" moments as we hadn't read it. At least we all knew about the incident and, I hesitate to say 'enjoyed' watching it, but we got something out of it. We all remarked at how well everything was documented as though they knew something was going to happen and more importantly they captured that tripped out guy really getting into the Stones and it was extra funny because he looked like Mike.

As I arrived late since I was at the baseball game before the meeting which started earlier than usual, I missed pretty much all talk of Sway by the Brafman brothers, though apparently everyone really liked it. I managed to squeeze in my doctor selection story to which Dana attempted to sway us into seeing her dentist, Dr Wong, to which Mike included his story of seeing an overly familiar dentist, selected on the basis of his proximity to his home, only to have the dentist repeatedly run his fingers through Mike's hair and at one point go in for a nipple tweak. Apparently the dentist did not appear overtly gay, though curiously his office was staffed entirely with men. While watching the Mick Jagger film, Performance, at one point one girl tweaks another girl's nipple at which point I slapped Mike and said "It's your dentist!" and this might have been the closest marriage of the two books called Sway.

I'd have a picture of a nipple being tweaked right here, but I'm at work and can't be searching for that sort in imagery. Just know that I wanted it to be so.

Might I suggest future hosts fish out the Amazon links to avoid such a debacle from ever happening again? It was still a good book club nonetheless and we got to see boobs and a few dongs on TV which is always a plus.

Next month's meeting will be hosted by Lisa at her happy new digs and the book will be The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

Ablutions by Patrick deWitt, May 11 2009

Chris R, as he is now known due to his sharing his name with a character from The Room, hosted this May meeting and chose Casita Del Campo for the location. I was most delighted by this as I have an insatiable fondness for both margaritas and Mexican food.

In attendance were Chris R, Lien, Dana, Emily, Megan, Jan, Lisa, Mike, Summer, Mitch, Sohrab and me. I think that's it and I'm about 90% certain about that Mitch character who was too far down the table for me to get acquainted with. So it was a great turnout but not so hot for readers. Redeeming myself, as I promised in the previous post, I read the whole thing. Consisting of just 165 pages and given that I spent money on the dang thing, I was determined. Only Summer, Megan and I read the whole thing while Chris R read the first 100 pages.

Chris R was not too thrilled by the style of the writing which was a series of notes about people and events that didn't really go anywhere. Perhaps if he'd read to the end he'd have liked it more as the notes did eventually come to a head on most things. As the character was a quietly raving, Jameson fuelled alcoholic, I think the random segments really took us along with the disjointed ride that would be his life. I don't think Summer and Megan liked it that much, but I didn't catch a much of what they said as they were half way down the table, it was a bit noisy due to us being seated outdoors and the margarita tainted my usually decent attention span.

Prior to book club, Lisa sent out an email that Patrick deWitt was going to be doing a panel on the Sunday of the two day LA Times Festival of books in case any of us wanted to go. I emphatically I replied that I would be there that day but would NOT being seeing our author as I was going to see a panel with Michael J. Fox and attempt to live out my dream of meeting him after 23 years of being a fan. I was successful and stood up at the table to present my important tale to the group.

Somewhere on the UCLA campus, Patrick deWitt is talking about 'Ablutions' and I really couldn't give a rat's ass as I am busy meeting Michael J. Fox. (picture from the Wire Service)

For once, we are behind on our nominations and voting, but I hope it comes soon! I guess it shouldn't make much difference since I am always reading at the last minute anyway.

10 months of catch up

It's been almost a year since I posted and I am truly sorry. Perhaps part of the guilt stems from the fact that for most of the second part of last year, I was a poor book club member and rarely if at all read the books. I somehow managed to maintain my reputation as a good member, and why I am exposing these facts to you now is beyond me.

August '08 brought us to the Standard Hotel, hosted by Summer. A perfect location as apparently a lot of Spook Country by William Gibson was set there, but unfortunately no-one got through the whole thing. It was okay though because it was a lovely night and we drank lots of sangria and had good eats by the pool. All was well until the end when we were sitting in the lobby and I got scolded for taking pictures of the chick who sits in a glass case behind reception. Assholes.

September's meeting was hosted by Dana and the book was In Defense Of Food by Michael Pollan. I was in Vegas for work and missed this one which is too bad since I bought the book. I don't know what they ate, but I hope no-one spoiled the party and brought Ding Dongs. I still plan to read this book and not just because I have since learned that this book was written by Michael J. Fox's brother in law.

October was hosted Lien and once again, I managed to slide under the radar for my poor form of not reading. There was a huge turnout for this one as I imagine the promise of screening a Bruce Lee movie to accompany his book Artist of Life is a good motivator. I was terribly late which was lame since I lived across the street at the time, and as I drank wine on an empty stomach I don't remember much after the first 30 minutes or so.

November, again I missed. Not sure why this time. This month's book came about by nominations from those of us with high attendance (though not necessarily great reading records). Lisa, myself, Mike, Summer, Chris and Tom each nominated a book and that list was put out and ultimately Tom's choice of Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse won. This meeting was held at the Red Lion and hit some chaos as the planned destination turned out to be riddled with a weekly trivia night. I can't recall why I didn't go, but something must have been up to miss the 2-year anniversary of book club. Clearly this blog tells you little to nothing about the books we read, but hopefully you are enjoying learning how one thrives in a book club without the aid of books. The week after this, once we knew about the trivia night, Summer, Chris, Sohrab and I went back for trivia.

December's book was Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant. I did not attend again as I was in England and was busy dancing on stage with Supergrass during their Christmas show. Never have I been so glad to miss book club. Having said that, I am proud to announce that I went ahead and read this book in January, quelling rumours that had begun to surface that I was a complete boob. I had heard of this book before book club, hence my enthusiasm for it, but I was a little disappointed by it, if memory serves. His tone was a little annoying and I didn't see him really presenting any worthwhile solutions to the problem of red state folks being more or less duped into voting against their own interests. It made things seem kinda bleak, but I guess if they are, they are.

Sohrab hosted his first meeting in January with Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kauffman and again I missed it. I was on my way there, but got tied up catching up with a friend I hadn't seen in a while. Kaufman passed away just two months after this meeting, aged 92.

February was skipped for lack of a host, which brings us to March which was hosted by me. It was a delight to host in my lovely new apartment and I was able to comfortably accommodate the crowd of twelve or so. The book was Naked by David Sedaris which, due to it's ease of reading and existing popularity, may have won the award for the book most read at a meeting. Most had read all of it and the remainders had at least read some or listened to the audio recording. The book was great and reinforced my love of David Sedaris which began last year after someone nominated When You Are Engulfed In Flames. I read it even though it didn't win (see, I'm not so bad)

Mike hosted in March at his condo and sadly there was no rec room use nor end of meeting hot tubbing like the last time. We did close watching some gems on YouTube on the big screen, but before that, we did talk about the book, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

I liked this book a lot, but it seemed the general consensus was that a lot of what he said was obvious and that in the years after the book's first printing, some of Gladwell's fact were debunked. This made me feel like a bit of a dolt, but I still think there is a lot to be drawn from it. I will say that upon searching for an image for this blog, I stumbled upon Gladwell's picture. May I just say that if had seen his picture before I read the book, I'd surely have doubted his credibility about pretty much anything.

Malcolm Gladwell

So that brings us up to date! I shall now resume regular blog entries...at least that's the plan.

Nicholas and the Gang by Rene Goscinny, July 14th 2008

This month's book club was hosted by Mike H in Echo Park and for a change of pace, our book was the children's book Nicholas and The Gang by René Goscinny. Goscinny is also the author of the famous Asterix series. In attendance was Mike H, Mike L, Summer, Lisa, Andrea, Chris R, Dana and myself. There were an additional five people there, but since three were guests of Mike's and two were brought along with Dana, I'm not sure they count. Don't get me wrong, they count in the grand scheme of things, just not at book club.

Asterix, The Gaul by René Goscinny

The food theme was supposed to be French, so I brought brie and a baguette while Summer brought some delicious French pastries from the French bakery on Vermont. Someone else brought French wine. Mike H provided us with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, something frequently consumed by Alec in the book, and I turned many heads with my declaration that I had never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Seriously, I felt like I'd made an unsavoury racial slur or something! It's not a staple in Australia, but I must say, I am new fan! (though I still prefer Vegemite.)

As it turns out, the book was quite hard to find with some bookstores claiming that the book was not even out yet! Skylight claimed to have three copies of which I was lucky enough to nab one. Dana got another and the whereabouts of the third copy shall remain a mystery as Mike H suffered multiple fruitless searches there for it. Dana read most of it which left only me as having read the whole thing. I also borrowed a copy of the first book, Nicholas, in the series from the library, so I came along having read two of the books, thus solidifying my reputation as a book club goody-two-shoes. I'd like to remind everyone about the The Brain, The Music and Ecstasy meeting from last year at which I was the grand loser having read all of two pages.

Lisa came to the table having read Nicholas Again while Mike H had previously read the first three (Nicholas, Nicholas Again and Nicholas on Vacation) but was yet to (and unable) to read Nicholas and the Gang. Given he nature of the book, it hardly mattered. Nicholas is more or less a series of self contained stories of just five or so pages each about the inadvertent naughtiness the French school boy, Nicholas and his friends get up to. All the stories are told from Nicholas' perspective which makes them really fun. The books were written in the 60s and have only recently been translated into English, according to Mike H. There was no huge loss for not having read the series from start to finish, though if one didn't read the first book, they didn't know how the teacher, Mr Goodman wound up with the nickname, Old Spuds. Instead you'd be teased with something like "I'll have to tell you sometime how that he got the name" sort of thing. Quite simply, Old Spuds is always saying "Look me in the eye..." and potatoes have eyes, hence "Old Spuds".

The complete Nicholas series

For those of us who read it, we enjoyed it a lot. The writing was really fun and playful and had a great enthusiastic schoolboy tone to it. We went over all the characters which we came to rely on as we read, such as Alec who is fat and always eating, Cuthbert the teacher's pet who wears glasses, Geoffrey the kid with the rich dad who buys him cool stuff that none of the other boys have and Matthew the boy who comes last in all his school work. There was some debate as to the amount of girls in the book as Lisa found none in Nicholas Again. The rest of us were acquainted with Mary Jane, the girl next door who Nicholas initially just tolerates, but ends up thinking is alright after she makes a most excellent soccer kick. Dana told of the story where Mary Jane was the only girl at Nicholas' party and all the boys swore they would ignore her, but in the end, they all ended up jumping over each other to impress her with various tricks and feats. In the last story of Nicholas and the Gang, Nicholas is forced to attend Mary Jane's birthday party where he is the only boy, is forced to play girly games and watch the girls pretend to feed their dolls. When he is finally collected by his mother to go home, he starts crying when asked how the party was. His understanding dad takes him to a cowboy movie that night to counter the estrogen overload suffered by poor Nicholas.

After that, we went on to talk about our other favourite books when we were kids. Chris' favourite was The Story of Ping about a duck who gets separated from his family, Mike L might have initially said The Giving Tree but then changed it to Choose Your Own Adventure books which I heartily seconded. Mike H chose Absolutely, Positively Alexander, while Summer spoke highly of The Magic Catalogue which was a book posing as a catalogue of magical items for everyday use. Lisa stuck firmly behind Dr Seuss books, and I couldn't decided between Tikki Tikki Tembo (which Andrea also liked but could not choose a favourite) The BFG and The Monster at the End of This Book starring Grover from Sesame Street. Lo and behold, but the only Little Golden Book Mike had in his home was that very one, so I proceeded to read it to the group with as much Grover-ish conviction as I could muster. Mike also read from the book entitled That's Disgusting where a little girl gleefully sticks her finger up a cat's but, vomits onto the table, molds things from cat feces and defecates in the bath. The bottom line being, THAT'S DISGUSTING!

The rest of the evening was spent being entertained by the antics of Mike's kitten, Tilly and some time admiring his older cat Logan who is quite a handsome specimen. No-one seemed to tire of watching Tilly roaming around with that bouncing raspberry in her mouth.

Tilly and Logan

Next month's book is Spook Country by William Gibson and will be hosted by Summer in Los Feliz!

Black Postcards by Dean Wareham, June 8th 2008

It's been a while since the last book club blog entry. I was about to apologise until I was remembered I was the only one willing to do it, so to hell with all of you.

So yikes! June hits and it's the first entry for the year. I suppose there have only been two other meetings this year and I missed one of them and dropped the ball on the other one, so hopefully this sees us back on track.

So this month was hosted by Chris Rogers at his new apartment, much my chagrin (it was previously across the street from me and I had big plans to get loaded and stumble home) In the end I was driven by Lisa so the option for heavy drinking was still available, but it turns out I might not quite be the drunkard I though I was.

In attendance was Chris (of course), Lisa, Mike, Lien, myself and first timer Andrea. Hats off to her for making it despite her deep felt shame over not reading the book. As it turned out only Chris and I had read the book, so our new, disgraced recruit was in good company with the others.

Chris opened the discussion by giving an overview of the Black Postcards by singer/songwriter Dean Wareham on his life and times with the bands Galaxie 500 and Luna. He read from the first page which everyone found quite titillating. Wareham quotes an interview with his former band mate who expresses shock and horror over an incident where it seems that Dean has arranged with the sound and lighting people to have a spotlight on him at an opportune moment during an LA show with bigwigs in the audience. When I read this, I thought I was up for a rollicking good time of famous rock n' roll cuntism, but alas, he was never that conniving as the story went on.

Nonetheless, without that little teaser ever coming into fruition, both Chris and I reported great enjoyment of the book despite me never having heard of Dean Wareham, Galaxie 500 or Luna and Chris believing them to be a boring band. It's a good rock n' roll also ran story detailing some of the trials and misadventures of an almost successful band. Since we all in the club tend to be music fans, it prompted a lot of discussion and questions and general understanding of the plight of the protagonist.

Chris recalled the hilarious story of after a show one night in Majorca, Spain, Dean hooked up with a hottie he'd been eyeing from the stage. She was hanging around after the show, so he went home with her, and rolled around with her for a while. The following morning, she asked him if he would like her to sing him her favourite song. He said "sure", only to have her whisper in his ear the lyrics to "More Than Words" by Extreme. Gah!

The book conversation wrapped up soon after and we went on to tell Andrea more about book club and the frequency of reading. Funnily enough, further discussion (somewhat) ensued on the topic of Music, The Brain and Ecstasy from our December meeting and previous blog entry. Lien talked at length about an HBO documentary she saw about a deaf couple who excelled in life, raised a family but then went for cochlear implants in their 60s. I was really impressed that we got through the whole conversation without anyone mocking deaf talk. I must admit, I came close. I also checked in on Lien's ear attack which she had experienced before that other meeting and was delighted to hear that it was much better, though she still can hear some ringing in certain circumstances.

We also discussed learning French, broken English, boxing and cunts, pussies and bitches. I think that, not despite all that, but because of it, Andrea is willing to come back.

Next month will be hosted by Mike Hensel and the book will be...Nicholas and the Gang by Rene Goscinny which should be available at Skylight soon!

Until next time...

Music, The Brain and Ecstacy

Drew hosted this meeting in Hollywood and managed to collect a record breaking number of attendees with 11! The book this month was Music, the Brain and Ecstasy by Robert Jourdain. An appropriate scene was set with Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains The Same screening on the TV. Somewhere close to 9pm, some semblance of a discussion began.

In attendance were Drew, Lisa, Mike, Mike, Marco, Lorisa, Patrick, Tom, Lien, Chris and myself. Lorisa brought Cameron, but I think he was just tagging along which I don't think counts! I wasn't allowed to count my friend who was visiting or my husband when I last hosted, so I'm not letting anyone else get away with anything. In any case, Drew's night is the clear winner. A trophy should be presented at the next meeting, though it probably wont.

Unlike my heroics of last month in which I read the whole book, I shamed myself this time around, having read only two pages. I was hoping to learn a lot this time around by listening, but the general consensus seemed to be that the book was rather technical, thus rendering it difficult to summarise.

There was some discussion as to the causes of hearing loss and various tales of ear damage followed. Lien was presently suffering some ringing from an accidental loud burst of noise from a website while she was wearing headphones. Chris told of a co-worker who also received and ear injury with headphones, lost his balance and wasn't fully recovered for a good six months. The book stated that hearing loss through aging starts to present itself around the age of 40, which resulted in Lisa declaring that a good time to die.

Drew said he chose the book as, quite simply, he had wanted to read something to explain why we respond to music as we do. This was the only thing he found, and while people who had read it agreed the author was very thorough and well researched, I got the idea that it was sadly a bit too technical for easy grasping. Mike said while he didn't finish it, he had to re-read parts to fully understand it, but would always be glad he had done so.

I was disappointed to learn that the author spoke little of rock and pop music. This startled me as that is the very music that makes me giddy and ecstatic. Still, from the sounds of it, there is a lot to be learned from it. I will keep it in my "To read" list. Winding up the book discussions, we were excited to hear that Tom had auditioned for the role of Klaus in a stage version of "Pest Control".

The meeting wound down kinda earlier than usual with a rival party and a Deerhoof show drawing people away. Those who remained after that somehow ended up in a discussion about starting up Street Wars. It's a game where each person is assigned a target and are required to go out and "assassinate" that person with a water gun. It goes on for several weeks and requires planning and stealth. I'm very much looking forward to this!

I now live in great fear that nothing as interesting as Guitar Hero, hot tubbing and street wars will come to pass at the next meeting which will be hosted by moi. Next month's book will the Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Levy with I consider to have a terrifying cover!

Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, November 12, 2007

The November meeting to discuss Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach was hosted by Mike and held an hour earlier than usual. I wasn't aware of the reason for the time change, but I busted my proverbial balls to make it there on time, only to narrowly arrive behind Mike who just made it in from an out of town trip (when you take over two weeks to write the blog, you forget things like where he was coming from, and such and such.)

Summer arrived soon after so the two of us played a horrendous game of pool while Mike set up. Mike's is a great spot for book club as the condo complex has it's own rec room and library! Soon after Lisa arrived, we started. The group seemed a bit thin, but we couldn't hold out any longer. As I was the only person to read the whole book, we started from the back and went over each chapter from last to first. The book covered a whole range of things from cadavers used for crash tests, determining causes of plane crashes, used by cosmetic surgery students, ammunition testing, the history or organ donation and the fascinating and sordid past of body snatching for early anatomists.

I continued filling the others in on what they had missed. Not quite my favourite, but perhaps the most curious being use of cadavers being for medicinal purposes and specifically the medicinal properties believed to be held in the honeyfied remains of old men. In some civilization which has escaped me, in a time not as long ago as you'd think, (though that also escapes me) aging men would go in strict honey diets. They would piss and shit honey until finally they died from malnutrition. Obviously. The honey body was then placed in a tomb, covered in more honey and sealed for a hundred years. After this time had elapsed, the men had turned into some kind of dried honey treat that was believed to have some super medicinal properties. How they arrived at all that is something I would very much like to know, but not explained in the book. In a desperate attempt to bring food themed with the book, I was hoping to bring some kind of dried honey treat, but I ended up at the Gelson's bakery on my way over and demanded "Something that has lots of honey in it." It didn't quite capture the images conjured in the book, but I tried.

I wonder how these guys feel about their poor showing in this book?

Eventually Drew showed up, and finally Lorisa, Patrick and Russell who thought it still started at 8pm. While I had been proud to be the only one who finished the book, my glory was diminished with Lorisa's arrival as she had done the same. I cling to what little glory I can get. Summer had read the most after Lorisa and I, so she took over the recap until she overlapped with Lisa. More proof that the blog needs to be written right away, because I can't remember anything new that came out from the discussions aside from the recaps, but there was stuff, I swear!

There was a lot of talk about what people wanted done with their bodied after they died. I think Russell was adamant that his organs were his and he wasn't giving them to no-one. I was keen on the fertilizer idea where a Swedish crackpot (I shouldn't say that, she seemed lovely) has big ideas to freeze bodies with liquid nitrogen, then shatter them into tiny pieces and use them as compost. Then you would actually feed a tree, rather than being a worthless pile of ash. Apparently just dumping a body as is to decompose is more of a hindrance than a help.

As I said, aside from going over what we read, I forget the little dalliances of opinions and stories that make book club such an utter JOY. If I can't be bothered writing the blog right away, I shall at least take notes next time. Apologies.

Once we were done and realising that the hours of condo conveniences being at our disposal were coming to a close, (the reason for the earlier time revealed!) we hot footed to the hot tub to conclude. In the hot tub it was revealed to be Patrick's birthday, a real champ for still coming to book club on this day. I took this opportunity to boast about the blog which I subsequently neglected.

*

Next month: Music, The Brain and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination by Robert Jourdain, hosted by Drew. Hideous cover, but sounds riveting.


*Not actual tub, nor actual book club member.