First meeting of our fourth year!

This January meeting marked the first meeting of our fourth year of book club! I remember when this book club was just a twinkle in Lisa's eye!

To keep things simple for the new year and perhaps also to get a good kick start on the yearly book, Moby Dick by Herman Melville was chosen and was the sole focus of this first meeting.

The meeting was held at The Griffin in Atwater, a perfect place for a event without a specific host and also easier for new people to check us out without feeling threatened by going to a stranger's house. The Griffin isn't too crowded on weeknights and has lots of good nooks to set up a group of people.

I'm proud to say that I arrived with the best copy of the book there, though since it's from the library, I daresay I wont be flashing it about at our twelfth meeting. It was hard cover embossed with gold lettering and a picture of the whale and with gold edged pages made of paper like that used at the time of the book's original publication, according to a note in an early page. I guess they didn't want the effort to go unobserved. The condition leads me to believe I may be the first person to check it out. I forget who it was, but someone said they had a similar copy from the library and it was marked inside as having belonged to Leonard Nimoy! May the force be with you! Oh wait...

In attendance at this meeting was Chris R, Emily, Randy, Mike, Summer, Lisa, Jason, Tom and myself. It seemed that more than half the group had read Moby Dick before, but from what I could tell it was always commissioned by a school curriculum. While Lisa seemed a little weary of it from having examined it that way, as had another friend of mine who I talked about it with, it was still enjoyed and revered by others, while complete Moby Dick novices like Summer and myself were revelling in it in ways we never expected to.

We only had to read the first 15 chapters which came in at 50 - 70 pages depending on which edition you were reading. As I had not read the book before, I tried to reign in discussion of later plot points as I am very much anti-spoiler, especially as I am thoroughly enjoying the book. Lisa says it's common knowledge how it ends, but I don't know, so I asked not to be told. This sounds like a futile goal, but I am going to do my best to survive the year without finding out! Tom and Lisa tried to point out that it's about the journey, not the ending, so I'll try and recover from my neurosis.

Melville's approach to writing the book was briefly discussed as it seemed he was a guy with a regular job who found the time to write and set out to write a novel which resulted in the now classic Moby Dick. Apparently the book was not so well regarded in Melville's lifetime and received its infamy much later on. I also learned that the etymology contained at the beginning of the book that I skipped over was actually written by Melville and is part of the book. If you are yet to start, do read that too! I have to go back to it now.

We discussed for a time the apparently gay relationship between Ishmael, the narrator of the story and his curious islander bosom friend, Queequeg. From sharing a bed, engaging in pillow talk and embracing in bed, it takes platonic male relationships to a whole new level if that is in fact what it is supposed to be. What seems overtly gay to us now, may have just been an honest friendship between two lonely seamen over 150 years ago. It may also be that people did not see it as gay because they just avoided thinking about such things at that time.

For next month we are to read through to chapter 27, just before the chapter entitled "Ahab" which seemed like a good opening for the March meeting.

Next month will be hosted by Emily and Andrea in Little Tokyo on February 8th. The book will be Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981 - 1991 by Michael Azzerad.

Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote, December 14, 2009

This was the last book club of the year, but also the first one as we begin our fourth year of book club! I remember back when book club was just a twinkle in Lisa's eye, so it's exciting to see that not only did she get it up and running, but that it has lasted so long! I'd like to take this moment to thank book club for getting me back into reading. I keep track of all the books I've read on Goodreads.com apparently I've read about 1/7th of all the books I've read in my whole whole life just this year! Aye carumba! While that makes the rest of my life an embarrassment, I'm proud that I've turned that around. Maybe I need a new book club because I ALWAYS read, bitches.

So last night's meeting on Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote was hosted by Dana, who had recently docked herself of a large quantity of hair. She still looked as adorable as ever though. Also in attendance was Chris R, Lisa, Jason and myself. Only Dana and I had read the whole book recently, while Chris R had read it in high school and refreshed his memory on the Wikipedia page before the meeting. Lisa and Jason read the first chapter and called it quits. For consumption there was delicious corn bread and black eyed peas in keeping with the Southern setting of the book. I had wanted to make some Southern greens, but blew it in the end by just bringing a tap-and-unwrap chocolate orange. Lisa brought candy cane minty Joe-Joe's which were a smash.

Dana and I traded off explaining the book to the uninitiated. It tells the story of Joel Knox, a boy whose mother has recently passed and was living with his aunt until a letter arrives from his father who had left him and his mother soon after he was born. The letter summons Joel to come and live with him, so the story opens just before Joel's arrival at his father's house. When he finally arrives, after much anticipation to meet him, he is not immediately introduced and is instead left building relationships with his father's wife Amy, her effeminate cousin Randolph and the hired negro help, Missouri who prefers to be called Zoo. Joel is there for quite some time where all mention of his father (who apparently resides in the house) is kept at a minimum and is shrouded in mystery until slowly Joel learns about his father as well as himself. The gay themes in the book were extremely controversial at the time of publication in 1948.

The conversation we had was good because it really helped me appreciate the book more. There were a few important things that had been subtly mentioned and as a result I had missed them, so it was good to have those things cleared up. I didn't realise it, but Capote was only 21 or so when he wrote the book which is a real accomplishment given the high quality and eloquence of the prose. In talking about the events of the book, it gave a new life to a lot of what was going on. I must say this is the first book in a long time where I thought the discussion helped bring the book to life. Perhaps I just hadn't been in the right frame of mind when I read it, but I certainly benefited from the meeting. This may make the book sound dull, but it really isn't and I highly recommend it!

We then moved on to our yearly book, City of Quartz, the final chapter! Lisa was the only one who read it and gave us a synopsis. It talked about the city of Fontana outside of LA and the artificial boom it experienced after the depression, being touted as the next big orange industry, or something like that. It ended up being a failure and apparently is a lasting joke as a result of the depressed economy it generated.

We followed that up with a discussion about the next yearly book, which has yet to be decided. There was talk of doing a novel, perhaps some classic that one wouldn't otherwise read. Chris R threw out Moby Dick but we are still open for nominations. As there was no solid host for January, we agreed with Lisa's suggestion to have a very casual meeting in January at a bar or something and discuss the first chapter of the yearly book. That might be a good way to kick start people on the project!

Possibly stemming from the controversial picture of Truman Capote featured with a suggestive pose that caused an uproar at the time of publication of Other Voices, Other Rooms, we ended up talking about the Roman Polanski rape case with a myriad of opinions being expressed. From that, onto Oscar nominations to Golden Globes to Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globes to a Ricky Gervais stand up bit about a son accidentally receiving a blow job from his father through a glory hole and from that just to simply glory holes. The meeting concluded with a pitiful book swap between Dana, Chris R and Lisa.

Controversial picture of Capote. His suggestive expression, which he claimed to be caught by accident, caused an uproar as it appeared on the dust jacket of the first printing.

See you next month! There should only be one chapter to read so it should be pretty cruisy!

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, November 9, 2009

I was unable to attend book club the last two month due to lots of travel, so it was good to be back. This month Summer led us into the world of culinary delights (and also horrors) with TV chef Anthony Bordain's Kitchen Confidential, apparently his first work of non fiction after a few offerings of fiction prior.

In attendance at this meeting was Summer (host), Tom, Chris R, Lisa, Meghan, Sohrab, Mike, Dana and myself. We got things started by discussing some of the grossest things we had eaten. I can't remember what Tom said, but he professed a fondness for liver. As a child, Lisa was tricked into eating turtle soup. Summer willingly consumed alligator and Sohrab was also tricked, but into eating tongue. I observed tongue in my fridge, destined for a curry and flatly refused to eat it. The grossest thing I ate, which wasn't that gross, just sad, was kangaroo meat, which I only did because it was offered to me by Mike Patton of Faith No More and Mr Bungle. Lisa, Meghan and myself all being vegetarian quickly realised that we easily avoided the gross-out factor one eliminating meat.

There was eventually some specific discussion of the book which Sohrab, Dana and I had finished, Summer having read some of it. We shared a few stories and I could soon tell that I they got more out of it than I did as they knew all about Bourdain beforehand. I figured he was some sort of TV chef and thought his name sounded familiar, but since the only TV chef drilled into my head is Gordon Ramsay, I kept reading the book in his voice in a British accent, no matter how often he made it clear that he was American. Some of the anecdotes included Bourdain's wayward bread maker, the time he blew a job interview at a steak house and his admission to being a fuck up.

We devoured some decent eats for the event with baked brie, some fanciful zucchini concoction, and fresh bread. I made a pissy effort by bringing a 5 layer Mexican dip and some garlic bread that I bought at the store on the way over.

No-one had read this month's chapter of City of Quartz so there was little discussion of that other than for Lisa to inform us that according to the book, there are more Catholics in LA than all other denominations put together. As next month will be the last month of the yearly book, Summer proposed going for gold challenging us all to read the whole book by next month. While I admire her enthusiasm (an enthusiasm I believe to be placed in the fact that she only just bought the book) I daresay I will not be participating in the challenge.

We rounded out the night by watching an episode of Bourdain's show No Reservations in which Bourdain took us around the Pacific Northwest while he sampled their wares. Sohrab, exposed his poor knowledge of food by scoffing at the idea of a vegan doughnut by assuming they would taste like nothing. Last time I checked, sugar was vegan! The show contained the capturing of some clams which looked like dongs which had me in fits. I about peed my pants when the guy peeled it's skin off and it looked like he was peeling off a rubber. Oh boy! Life is good!

Dana will be hosting next month with Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote.

Dong clam

Twenty Thousand Roads by David Meyer, August 10, 2009

This month's book was Twenty Thousand Roads - The Ballad of Gram Parsons and his Cosmic American Music by David Meyer, a detailed biography of the life and death of the pioneer country rock musician. Tom was the host and held the meeting at Viva Cantina, apparently a hot spot for local country musicians and a place that Tom frequents. Sadly there was no music on this night, but the enchilada and lard-free beans were good so I was content.

In attendance were Emily, Meghan, Tom, Sohrab, Chris R, Me, Mike, Summer, Lisa, Randy. Unfortunately only Tom got through the whole book with it's whopping 450 pages (and over 100 more of supplemental stuff) I made it through 150 and was bummed because I had it all plotted out to read the whole dang thing on Sunday but an impromptu photo shoot was called and my day disappeared. Randy had not read the book however he was a Gram Parsons fan and had read at least one other biography, one of which written by his friend, Jessica Hundley entitled Grievous Angel.

Tom seemed quite satisfied with the book though he felt it could be considerably shorter. He wasn't particularly interested in the early beginnings of Parsons, but that was all I had read and I had enjoyed that all very much. My beef, if you can call it that, was that in that all that time (150 pages and he's just graduated high school) I felt the author wasn't quite tapping into Gram's personality and felt very detached. I suppose that made it honest since clearly he's trying to present his information for what it was: accounts from people who knew him. I'm told as the book goes on, he takes to more editorialising and makes his hatred for The Eagles loud and clear. My husband Gregg, a huge fan of Gram, ended up reading most of my book while I napped on planes and trains from Ireland to Prague to England. He told me that understanding Gram came together toward the end of the book and Tom concurred when I mentioned that. Gregg has read several biographies on Gram and thinks this one is certainly the best. The supplement the discussion, Tom brought a book documenting the work of a guy named Nudie who was the tailor to the country stars who did costumes for all the big names, including Gram Parsons.

While my husband is a big Gram Parson fan, so some reason I never really hear him talk about him or play his stuff so just 20 minutes before leaving for book club, I got a taste of his work from a playlist that Gregg made for me and I must say I liked it and would like to hear more. Tom was also really into his stuff and mentioned that in his youth he would say that he liked all music EXCEPT country but not that's turned around so much that he would say that was his favourite type of music. Funny how that happens.

Before we got stuck into Gram Parsons, City of Quartz by Mike Davis, our book-to-read-over-the-course-of-a-year book, made a promising appearance as usually only Lisa and Chris R have read their chapters. I have given up on that and try to focus on the monthly book. It does sound good though and this chapter in particular seemed to capture the interest of the gang as it discussed LA's public spaces and Sohrab went into detail of there are pretty much no places to gather in downtown LA. Interesting! Hopefully I'll get to this book someday because I really am interested in the city.

As usual, by the end of book club the conversation deviates far from the book/s. I am not ashamed to divulge that we ended up discussing dog balls and I don't mean the kind you play "fetch" with.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, July 13 2009

After searching since before our book club was even born, Lisa finally landed herself a new apartment, a fabulous treasure in Echo Park, as so she was able to host in her own home. Oddly enough, though she now has a home that can accommodate our group, the meeting was held outside. It was a wonderful night and the outside area is so awesome too that I had complaints, and I am prone to coldness year round.

This month's book was The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a book I wasn't sure I wanted to read, but only based on the fact that it has the sort of cover I don't like. But, you know what they say about the covers and books and judgement. In attendance this month were Lisa, Mike, Summer, Meghan, Andrea, Chris R, Tom and myself. Since I am writing this a month after the fact sorry if I left anyone out or included someone who wasn't there. I'll tell you who WASN'T there and that was Sohrab. We were a little disappointed since there is a character of the same name in the book and...I dunno, I guess we were hoping he could give us some personal insight on the region in which the book is set and what it's like having a name like Sohrab in America and people thinking you just said "Rob".

The book is set in a few different times, opening with a short, San Francisco, early 2000's chapter that seems to forge the way for a reflection into the main character's childhood in Afghanistan in the 70s. I think most of us were struck by how little we knew about Afghanistan and were surprised to learn that apparently they had once known far less restrictive times than the Taliban and war torn period we've come to know as the country has come more into our consciousness.

The cultural lesson aside, I think we all really enjoyed the book. I was late so I missed some of the initial discussion, (and knocked over my own bottle of beer just to heighten my disruption while I was at it) but I got the idea everyone quite liked it. If I am not mistaken, Summer totally hates another one of Hosseini's books, though perhaps she was talking about a different author. I brought up the fact that after I read the book, I looked it up and found reviews that seemed to reduce it to the likes of a Da Vinci Code type phenomenon. I found this a little disappointing as it brought into question my ability to critique a book, but I think we generally agreed we didn't give a fuck, because the story was enjoyable, emotional and engaging.

Lisa put the seal on a great night with some regional dish she cooked up that was quite delunckulous. With the addition of hummus and baba ganoush it was a satisfying feed.

Once the book discussion was concluded, the conversation shifted into talks about various teachers we had had after Lisa divulged she was soon to be placed in her first job as a qualified teacher. We then moved onto pressing issues of the day such as Michael Jackson's passing which had been just three weeks before.

Lisa had brought the film version of The Kite Runner but since it was about two hours long, it didn't seem like anyone was willing to stick around for the whole thing. I for one don't fancy watching just part of a movie, so I voted "no". The following Monday, Tom and I returned to Lisa's and the three of us watched the film over beer, wine and popcorn. As we had all just recently read the book, we were all too aware of how much was missing from the story. Because of this feeling, I try to avoid reading a book close to a movie viewing (an important policy as a Harry Potter fan) but in this case, as we were all wrapped up in book club, I couldn't resist. The little boy who played Hassan was just the cutest thing ever and I started crying as soon as I saw him, not able to bear thinking of the future events of the story happening to this sweet little imp. Aside from the shock of the missing bits of story, it was a damn good film adaptation.

Hassan (left) and Amir (right). Hassan is so cute, it made an already painful story more painful.

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.