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.