I Just Finished Reading...

[bendk]

Quote Originally Posted by Zaharoff

Bukowski, Charles -

I was really into Bukowski in my 20s when I drank. He did a great job narrating this documentary for HBO. I used to watch it a lot. Read some of his books and had VHS tapes of his interviews. Not too long ago, I saw a parody of the early HBO documentaries that was hilarious. They deserved it.

The Best Hotel on Skid Row Los Angeles, California - YouTube

[Acutely decayed]

The Passenger

I thought it was very good and recommend it

I have yet to read Stella Maris

[Zaharoff]

Harsch, Rick - Wandering Stone: The Streets Of Old Izola

Part travelogue, part history and anecdotes of the small Mediterranean town in Slovenia off the turista radar. For better for or for worse.
A working class town, rough from the fringes to the core, plagued with motor cars, indifference, and thoughtless modernization.
Mine is the 2nd edition, and photos and comments do not always correspond. Adapt.
Literally packed with photos – black n white – so work your imagination to envision pastel colored buildings amidst bold blue skies.
This book should appeal to travelers who routinely trek beyond the familiar destinations. Say Vulcano, rather than Capri or Stromboli.

[Ascrobius]

Zohar Complete Set - Translated by Daniel C. Matt


I finally got a hold of all of the books of The Zohar, which I have read various bits of over the years. It's very difficult to acquire and super expensive as a set, but I went to an estate sale and bought a complete set for 100 dollars, which is a steal. I also have digital copy (in PDF form), but I always prefer a hard copy over a digital copy. More of a project for me than anything else, it's about 8000 pages in terms of all the volumes, and I am about 2000 pages into it. I also acquired all the volumes of The Babylonian Talmud, also part of a research project I am currently working on with a few colleagues.

[Acutely decayed]

Stella Maris - which is good, but I am pleased I read the passenger first - see the effect before the cause... then again...

[Zaharoff]

Gould, Glenn (editor Tim Page) - The Glenn Gould Reader

Culled from an untold amount of essays, interviews, liner notes, this collection ranges from insightful, to controversial, to funny.
Many of the musical explorations in the first section were beyond me. Pages of staves and notes support explanations, but those are best for sight-readers.
Gould’s essays on Schoenberg are passionate and persuasive, even though I still have limited appreciation and understanding of this composer.
His position towards Beethoven is far more dismissive, which I gather is genuine and not merely provocative posturing.
Recollections of Stokowski and Rubinstein make for highly entertaining reading.
Other essays are completely off the track. Praising the combo of Petula Clark and Tony Hatch while pooh-poohing the flash-in-the-pan group, The Beatles. Thing is, for me, Pet evokes Swinging London better than any other artist.
The stray interviews with himself prove laugh out loud funny.
Gould also crafted radio plays of which I was unaware. Owing to his articles on “The Idea Of North” and “The Latecomers” I now intend to track these down and give a listen.
Altogether an engaging book and certainly not just for Gould fans or Classical enthusiasts. Gould’s predictions of recording and editing techniques are downright uncanny in their accuracy.

[Zaharoff]

Brossard, Chandler - The Wolf Leaps

His pale face looks out of place in the Harlem bar. A tourist, slumming? Or a prospect? One of the hookers sizes him up, approaches. After a few comments, he follows her to a grimy room. Money is exchanged and the bed soon squeals. And at that point, the priest develops a taste for dark meat.
Back at the parish house, the wife of our Episcopalian priest contemplates her miserable existence. Awful neighborhood, disgusting residents, not to mention her husband, a male with “needs”. How happy she had been in the days of her all-girls school, with soft female companions. Sappho beckons.
Then there is the pimp, sweet talking charm to the friendly waitress. She’s wasting her life on her feet all day when she could earn so much more on her knees or on her back. He’d pocket half, and promise her it’s for them, their future. Just have to coax her away from her family, her boyfriend. Easy.
Chandler’s style is lean, not a sentence wasted. Not surprisingly, after this novel of adultery, lesbianism and prostitution was written in 1962, publishers shunned it. When it was finally published in 1973, few in white bread America bought it.
Headlong rush down grubby Harlem backstreets.
Latest edition by Corona\Samizdat is probably your best bet.

[Zaharoff]

Radić, Vesna - Tendrilopolous

Rado abandons wife Branka for the English rose, Margaret. Accompanies her to England where he dies under suspicious circumstances.
The two women, Branka and Margaret, exchange a flurry of letters.
Asking, accusing, venting, flirting, libeling, competing, threatening.
This novella is uproariously funny, along with vulgar, graphic-pornographic, crude, and yet somehow sweetly revealing.
Vesna Radić is a self-confessed pseudonym, although the writer strikes me as a construct. I wonder if behind the façade is a male hand, or hands. Time and again, a clipped phrase, a chopped sentence, had me thinking, “only a guy would phrase it that way”.
Nevertheless, this is a hilarious read, a shaggy dog in and out.
Another one of a kind absurd gem from Corona\Samizdat.

[Zaharoff]

Garton, Ray - Vortex

Our author must have been on a fueled bender with this one.
The famed horror novelist (author with looking glass) rehires his usual private eyes to check out spooky goings on up around Mount Shasta.
Situations and tropes are hurled into the blender.
A ravenous beast, the lost continent of Lemuria, telepathy, mercenaries, the Illuminati, the secret academy, a megalomaniac.
One turns pages, waiting to see what Garton will add, and you neglect to hone in on the plot.
Because the plot is as watery as a bowl of guppies.
Worst cliché he adds is children in danger, a sign of the truly stunted imagination.
Sheer folly.
Resembles a pitch for a cheap FOX Horror film.

[Zaharoff]

Kiernan, Caitlín - The Ammonite Violin And Others

Generous collection of stories that first appeared in Kiernan’s (still ongoing) Sirenia Digest. Most seem to have roots in fable, once upon a time, old wives tales. Deep roots, at that.

“Bridle” touches upon Irish myth. Not the Silkie, but the Kelpie. Harnessed to the obscure pond in the city park. Restraint leashes yearning. A trapped force, making promises and threats.

The Silkie takes stage in “For One Who Has Lost Herself.” She is downtown Manhattan, amidst chaos and rabble. She seeks, she has a claim, for a possession that has been stolen from her, something precious. This is a deeply satisfying work, encompassing quest and bitter life lessons.

“The Ammonite Violin” is conte cruel. The obsessive collector, ever hunting, raking, seizing if necessary. Repulsive, yet he does pay so handsomely. He has a unique violin constructed, then hires the abandoned musician. As with many stories here, loss is spliced with tear-stained discovery.

We eavesdrop in “Scene In The Museum (1896)”. The uncomfortable exchange between an old woman, curator, now blind, and a wharf prostitute, who sees more than she reveals, yet still permits herself to be exploited. Listening, overhearing, often incurs the same cost as observing, witnessing. Ask Odysseus, ask Orpheus.

With each issue, Kiernan tightened her lens, selecting works that would best serve Sirenia. Stories grow in strength and clarity, making this a choice ADULT collection to track down.