March 2011
Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro
You’ll only be familiar with The Hammer’s work if you’re from Southern Ontario or Rochester (or Florida, apparently!), but YouTube can help a girl out pretty easily.
He was the greatest. The greatest.
A Totally Fab Comment Left On Kathryn Lopez's...
Ms. Lopez longs for the day when telling people, including hormonal teenagers, to just wait for marriage to have sex, actually worked, and when people didn’t have sex unless they wanted to procreate. I can see how you might believe that. Unless, of course, you had ever read Shakespeare, or Tolstoy, or Steinbeck, or Chaucer, or Sophocles, or Dante, or Boccaccio, or Hawthorne, or...
A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village...
Oh, you guys. I’ve already talked about LOVING this memoir, loving it, but I’m reminding you now because Rotolo just died at 67 from lung cancer.
It’s a fantastic book. And she was a mega-cool woman. Please pick it up this week, okay?
February 2011
“Enough, Randy Newman. Enough.”
– Me, just now. Finally.
Just So We're Clear.
The Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviewer is rooting for ‘True Grit’ across the board.
And also for Natalie Portman, or, failing that, the special effects people who made her look like a fucked-up swan.
The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
Okay, so, remember how I was talking smack about shitty fan-fiction? And so, obviously, you would assume that I would come down with great fury upon a series of novels in which the GLORIOUS SHERLOCK HOLMES might have found GOD-FORBID LOVE in his later years? Love with a spunky young polymath lady upon whom most female readers could easily project their own finer qualities?
You would be wrong! ...
Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley
WHAT was Margaret Mitchell’s estate thinking? And then, right, to get all indignant about “The Wind Done Gone,” which, whatever, it’s not shitty fan-fiction, at least!
“Scarlett” sucks BALLS. Mammy dies! They go to Ireland for NO REASON! Rhett isn’t even sexy any more!
Why didn’t she just stay in Savannah and chill out with all her Robillard...
Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
Never liked it. Annoying.
Kind of liked Cate Blanchett in the lead at BAM, but mostly she just played Katherine Hepburn in it, and I like Katherine Hepburn.
Maybe you could just rent “The Philadelphia Story” instead? Kinda similar, but at the end, instead of shooting herself in the head, the heroine gets marrrrrried!
That is the worst thing I have ever typed as a feminist. ...
Email From My Mother
Subject: Deadwood
Well I finished the cock-sucking first season and maybe tonight I’ll start the fucking cock-sucker Season Two.
Jeez the language and the damn violence is shocking. I wouldn’t have lasted a cocksucking day in fuckin’ 1876!
Love, Your Mother
The Chris Farley Show: A Biography In Three Acts,...
This is a surprisingly beautiful biography.
No, I mean, really. I was moved, and stuff. The format is basically identical to that of “Live From New York,” another book that’s much better and more entertaining than it has any right to be.
There’s also this great line, which I’m paraphrasing, in which one of Farley’s SNL costars says:
“We were all...
The SNL Backstage Special
I was actually really happy to see that they treated the Sinead O’Connor incident with respect. She engaged in one of the most genuine, personal moments of political expression I’ve ever seen on the show, and was treated bizarrely shabbily as a result.
If you haven’t read this old Salon piece, it’s great for context.
Industrious Husband Is Out of Town
…so I’m watching SUBSTANTIALLY worse television programming than usual, and it’s beginning to take its toll on me.
Have you seen “Infested!”? Nice people move into their dream home, discover it’s full of, like, fucking airborne box jellyfish and shit? And they can’t get out of their mortgage? And their lawyer starts suggesting, like, Indian burial...
Other People Do This Too, Right?
Walk around the house singing current pop songs with the lyrics slightly altered to replace most nouns with the names of your cats?
itsfrantastic asked: Lazy! I'm supposed to read Paradise by Toni Morrison for class, and I've never delved into any of her work before. Have you read it? What did you think?
Savage Inequalities: Children In America's...
Shit. Shitfuck. Fuuuuuck.
Shit.
Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust
Oh, yes. Okay. Um. Another year, another getting-three-chapters-into-“Swann’s Way”-and-enjoying-it and then…drifting off? Possibly into “Sex Lives Of The Hollywood Goddesses”?
BUT BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME, let us remember THIS little factoid:
Marcel Proust whiled away the first half of his life as a self-conscious aesthete and social climber. The second half...
Death In Venice, Thomas Mann
“Death In Venice” is my favourite. I lurrrrve “Death In Venice.”
HAVE YOU READ IT? It’s a time investment of two hours, max, and then you can slink around for days feeling all decadent and Old World-y. Promise!
Also, I don’t know if you like Gustav Mahler, which I very much do, but the protagonist (old guy, not Tadzio) is loosely based on him. Truth!
No, WAIT! I have it!
Donald Glover IS the Swiss prostitute recommended by Martha Stewart!
Donald Glover Is Not Real
He is obviously a robot created to send the ladies of my generation into a tailspin of love and adoration and mutual-pop-cultural-nostalgia.
I had still maintained a faint hope in the possibility that he was of-woman-born, until LeVar Burton showed up on Community last week, and Troy made this face:
Thin Privilege →
Not to be all, “oh, I’M thin, but I TOTALLY have awareness of my privilege,” because, Christ, that’s alllll the movement needs, but I was in Whole Foods a while back, and, having just returned from skiing, I was very ME WANT FOOD, and pulled a quart of full-fat chocolate milk out of the dairy section, popped it open, and proceeded to stand there, mainlining it like a...
notentirely asked: add /archive to your tumblr url: http://lazybookreviews.tumblr.com/archive and you get an automatic archive.
Sex Lives of The Hollywood Goddesses, Nigel...
(picked up on a tip from a reader, who clearly understands my soul)
Selznick had long lusted after Joan Fontaine and lured her into his office. When he showed her his couch, Fontaine asked: “Scarlett?”
Selznick said no, Melanie - Scarlett’s sister in the picture. Fontaine shook her head. On the way to the door, she suggested he try her sister Olivia de Havilland. She got...
Confessions: Animal Hoarding
As you know, I am usually FULL OF THE SYMPATHY for the hoarders on these shows, and find it mega-aggravating when the crew pretends to be ZOMG SHOCKED that the house has a lot of stuff in it, as though this wasn’t their raison d’etre.
I find the people who hoard animals more difficult, because, you know, their kitties have horrible respiratory infections and their mastiffs are biting...
The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
In general, anything that Jay-Z uses to refer to Beyonce, I’ve used with Bella.
Boo.
My Boo.
B.
My Girl, B.
But, then, I also call her ‘Boo-regard,’ and ‘Boo-Bear,’ and, if she’s being a pill, ‘BeelzeBells,’ and stuff, so we do branch out a bit.
Is Bella named after the surly useless heroine of ‘Twilight’?
Yes. I have nothing to...
Be The Pack Leader, Cesar Millan
Horses have hierarchies, but as a predator relating to a prey animal, it’s not too difficult to make it clear to your horse that you’re the leader.
I mean, if you can walk next to a row of horse-eating garbage cans without fleeing, you pretty much look Like A Boss.
My mare, love her, is a gargantuan pussy. She’s also just…gargantuan, at about 16.2, and has no idea that...
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
The only reading material more depressing than the “wet houses” article!
No, I mean, FOR SERIOUS.
My dad and I read it constantly, because it’s also really good, but you do want to set yourself on fire afterward. And then, you know, the novel is semi-autobiographical, which makes EVERYTHING WORSE.
Did you know this guy’s poor mother was told childbirth would cure her...
This Super-Depressing But Also Probably Necessary...
Yeah.
Since it costs an absurd amount to keep people in our unbelievably shitty systems of jails and prisons, and rehab costs even more, and to deal with the small population of middle-aged to elderly men who are going to drink themselves to death, having been through treatment eighty times already, and down to mouthwash, St. Paul has a handful of “wet houses,” which provide warm beds...
Craigslist: Salt Lake City
Oh, honey. I’m wishing you tons of luck, but I have not seen this girl in the greater Salt Lake Area. Also, hair smells like whatever shampoo you buy: truth.
Looking for My Dream Girl - 54
The woman I’m looking for would have a tantalizing body of passionate proportions, skin glistening of light brown, darkened eyes like moon lit pools. She would have dark hair which smells of...
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin,...
I will never complain about televised sporting events cutting into “Family Guy” again.
Anonymous asked: When I was about 15, there was this article published in the NYT Style section about a group of gay men in the 1950s (ish) who had some secret club or country house or something. One of the men in the picture looked EXACTLY like my grandfather, so much so that once my mom realized it actually could have been him -- he was a young man in the 50s, and he did live in New York -- she decided it...
jelizabethl asked: Stop what you're doing right now and go read March by Geraldine Brooks. IT IS FANTASTIC.
For The Relief of Unbearable Urges, Nathan...
I was reminded of this TOTALLY FAB collection of short stories (totally, totally fab) because I’m watching last week’s “Grey’s Anatomy” (why am I still watching this fucking show?) and there’s a kid with a broken femur who APPEARS to be NAMED “Nathan Englander,” and I was all, oh, my God, is there some poor sad Iowa graduate working on the...
“I know Principal Flutie would have said, ‘Kids need understanding. Kids are...”
– Principal Snyder, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, Agatha...
Industrious Husband and I have 75% of all the Granada “Poirot” adaptations starring David Suchet, which we are super nerdy about, and opted for this, the Platonic Ideal of the English holiday mystery, to fit the specifications of our youngest niece.
Namely, that there be no murders. No murders whatsoever.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with this one; the adaptation is...
The Wall Street Journal Article About Men In Their...
I mean, it’s not that I agree with her. It’s pretty offensive. I mean, appreciating Star Wars does not automatically make you a Judd Apatow character, you know? And, you know, if smoking pot and watching Portlandia for a few years is wrong, who wants to be right?
But, you ALSO know, I didn’t marry a nice forty-year old man (with a good hairline) in a total cultural vacuum, or...
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket
Rory the Cat is a rogue urinator. She pees on our things when we have done something to displease her. This has always been her way.
We had enjoyed a relatively urine-free two years with her until yesterday morning, when she expressed her irritation with the presence of visiting children in her home by peeing ostentatiously on their carpet.
Her first such incident occurred the fourth day we...
One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others
Took the nieces to Park City for the day, where we ate a gargantuan lunch, followed by gargantuan cups of ice cream, then purchased:
Hats shaped like koalas and bears (if I spoil them, it’s their parents’ problem, not mine, you know?), Park City sweatshirts, sparkly purses, geodes that need to be opened with a hammer and will be ridiculously difficult to transport back to Michigan,...
Male Circumcision
Now, personally, I think elective cosmetic surgery on the genitals of an infant is mad sketch, and would never consider doing it. I mean, if your people have made some kind of covenant with God about it, that’s another thing, though, honestly, guys, God is not holding up his end of that bargain, so maybe you could start holding your foreskins hostage until he picks up the slack.
And I...
The New York Times Article On The Park Slope Food...
No.
Also, if I belonged to the co-op, I would do nothing but relentlessly stalk Peter Sarsgaard until I was asked to leave and take my 99 cent bag of organic apples with me.
But, for serious, guys, do any of you belong? Is it that crazy? Have you always been at war with Eurasia?
Anonymous asked: Have you actually read Rage, by Stephen King?
If you did, where did you get a copy of it, seeing as he doesn't allow it to be printed any more?
If you did, where did you get a copy of it, seeing as he doesn't allow it to be printed any more?
Anonymous asked: How's it going with the Dune contest?
Rage, Stephen King
So, I’m using a public bathroom, and they have an air-dryer, complete with this fatuous little sign from the manufacturer, reminding us that air-dryers are better for the environment and ‘more sanitary.’
And, you know, paper towel dispensers don’t NEED a sign, because they work, but I think they could drum up a lot of support with:
‘These paper towels will make your hands dry.’
Incidentally,...
THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR AND SIX MORE,...
This is actually the best. This one is the best. Right? The kid who gets forced to lie in front of the train? The guy with the fancy car who picks up the hitch-hiking pickpocket? The Mildenhall Treasure? FUCKING HENRY SUGAR? All of these things.
Yes.
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Okay, so, I’ve been thinking about it, and 80% of my obsession with the British Royal Family is that the Queen was so open and welcoming to Sophie’s information and made sure the BFG was able to eat breakfast with her in style, even if it involved ruining various historical objects.
TRUTH.
The Witches, Roald Dahl, Pt. 2
Okay, so, I thought it would be fun to rent the old Anjelica Huston adaptation for the nieces, but was reminded of the TERRIBLE ENDING, in which our hero becomes NOT A MOUSE, and is restored to his human-ness by grateful other-witch.
THE REASON this is so awful, obviously, being that one of the most wonderful and magical aspects of Dahl’s book is the marvelous and fabulous cigar-smoking...
Visit Scenic Salt Lake! →
Should you wish to participate, (AND WHO DOESN’T WANT TO VISIT MY MOUNTAINOUS HOME?), I recommend voting for #5, Jason West. He keeps my friends’ knees from disintegrating.
Although, honestly, I don’t want to encourage him to keep jumping off 150 ft cliffs. Conflicted!
The Witches, Roald Dahl
I read the entire book to my eleven year old niece this morning! And did all the voices, not that I’m bragging. Except the Grand High Witch is technically Norwegian, and I think I gave her more of a generic Eurotrash treatment; whatevs.
Katie had NEVER READ “The Witches.” I had stocked their guest room with alllll the Roald Dahls, and Katie woke up at six and read herself...
The Westminster Dog Show
I’m kind of dying right now because I have a lovely Facebook friend who works for a pit bull rescue, and is generally fostering about nine of them at a time. And, of course, because this is what you do when you work for a pit bull rescue, she has about six different daily status updates showcasing a dog who is about to die unless I adopt him.
And I’m not anti-pit at all. My friend...
