WHAT ARE YOU READING?

[Curt McGirt]

Man, how good of a movie would The Field of Blood make? I've gotta read that. 

...aaaaaand it's in at the library! I'll go tomorrow. 

In the meantime I might make a marathon of it to get through The Chronicles of DOOM by S.H. Fernando Jr., a biography of the supervillain, the man of Metal Fingers, King Geedorah himself, DOOM. After awhile it turns into "so-and-so was X, Y, and Z. They were working at X and met DOOM, here's what happened" which is pretty funny, it's like detailing the lives in brief of a murder victim before the run into they Zodiac or something. And if you know anything about hip hop there is such a cool sense of this national culture web that intersects everything and leads to these incredible albums coming out. 

And yeah, he was pretty fuckin' crazy. And pretty fuckin' normal too. 

[Curt McGirt]

It was REALLY REALLY GOOD. If you like the albums it gets into them so in-depth they're picked apart not just song by song but sample by sample and, in cases, lyric by lyric. But, it never comes off gratuitous or pedantic. You have to take in mind that DOOM was a very solitary and private person so what we take is what we're given, and piecing together everything is the fun of it. I think he'd be approving of the book, and maybe even proud. 

Now, can his widow PLEASE let the fucking rest of the DOOM x Ghostface material out of storage so somebody can compile a record out of it?!?!?!

[Curt McGirt]

Yes! I got The Field of Blood. Looks to be only 200 someodd pages (with like another 100 of footnotes) so I should be able to get through it before time is up. The other two aren't challenging either, but should be a lot of fun: Life Itself by Roger Ebert, his memoir (which is interesting not only because it's him but because I live in his hometown), and an awwwwwwesome coffee-table hardback called David Cronenberg - Clinical Trials. 

The photo doesn't do it justice. It's a foot long, weighs a little over two pounds, the writing on the front and back is embossed silver, the photo is glazed or whatever you call it, and the cover is that rough-scratch old book style. It's a definite tome. The photos are full-page and full color (I came across a GIANT image of the Fly in full form) and the writing is tiny and meticulous looking. It's a meditation on all his films individually and separated into different sections: Individuation and Psychotherapy, with separate chapters including three or four films apiece in each. There's some interview material as well it looks like. Really, really cool. 

[Cobra Commander]

Just finished SHEMP!: The Biography of The Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard, The Face of Film Comedy by Burt Kearns. 

this book goes through the life and times of Shemp Howard. Breaking into entertainment, touring with Ted Healy, working with Moe and Larry before leaving the act to go on his own for nearly 15 years, working with various studios and the movies/short subjects he was in, coming back to Columbia just in time to rejoin the Three Stooges because Curly was no longer able to perform, a bit of a rundown of his time in the Stooges and how short subjects were declining, and even before the final shorts where Joe Palma was a Fake Shemp, they were reusing material to complete shorts by the end... with a certain amount of the author touching on how he feels Moe's version of various stories is wrong, some dispute over if Shemp died of a heart attack or a cerebral hemorrhage, the possible impacts of the Stooge company stylings on the three different members of the group who died (or could have died) from brain-bleeds. Along with talk about how they probably talked up Shemp being afraid of some things more than he actually was. But there was also some talk about Shemp and 30s/40s Hollywood and his legacy as a performer.

27 chapters, 238 pages

[Pete]

6 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

Just finished SHEMP!: The Biography of The Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard, The Face of Film Comedy by Burt Kearns. 

this book goes through the life and times of Shemp Howard. Breaking into entertainment, touring with Ted Healy, working with Moe and Larry before leaving the act to go on his own for nearly 15 years, working with various studios and the movies/short subjects he was in, coming back to Columbia just in time to rejoin the Three Stooges because Curly was no longer able to perform, a bit of a rundown of his time in the Stooges and how short subjects were declining, and even before the final shorts where Joe Palma was a Fake Shemp, they were reusing material to complete shorts by the end... with a certain amount of the author touching on how he feels Moe's version of various stories is wrong, some dispute over if Shemp died of a heart attack or a cerebral hemorrhage, the possible impacts of the Stooge company stylings on the three different members of the group who died (or could have died) from brain-bleeds. Along with talk about how they probably talked up Shemp being afraid of some things more than he actually was. But there was also some talk about Shemp and 30s/40s Hollywood and his legacy as a performer.

27 chapters, 238 pages

But how was it?

[Cobra Commander]

Just now, Pete said:

But how was it?

I thought it was interesting to good... the author had his points of view and kinda kept touching on some of the mythology and how Moe's probably not 100% reliable as a storyteller... there are probably limits as to how much new stuff one can find out about Shemp considering he died in 1955 and pretty much everybody he worked around is either dead or really old... also there's already people who put the work in to figure out stuff like "where the Three Stooges toured to do live shows in the 30s/40s/etc" too

in a way, Shemp got sort of a tough break by dying a few years before the Stooges hit syndication

[Johnny Sorrow]

I absolutely loved the Shemp book. And I'd say that the author clearly had an interest in debunking all of Moe's bullshit and basically pointing out all the ways Moe was an asshole who enjoyed belittling his brother after his death. 

[JLSigman]

Read two parts of Marvel's Blood Hunt - the collected main story, and a collection of side stories. Short and to the point (ha ha), and I'm guessing only important because of what Doom does and how that leads into this year's theme.

Read Babel: The Arcane History by R. F. Kuang. It was good in parts, but never really felt like it was taking place in the 1830's, and I would have loved more info about how the magic system worked.

 

Now reading Goddess of the River by Vaishnavi Patel, a retelling of parts of the Mahabharata from the river's point of view. Very good so far.

[The Unholy Dragon]

On 2/13/2025 at 8:43 AM, JLSigman said:

Read two parts of Marvel's Blood Hunt - the collected main story, and a collection of side stories. Short and to the point (ha ha), and I'm guessing only important because of what Doom does and how that leads into this year's theme.

It's one of those pet character crossovers. It does a lot of things...for every character Jed MacKay has written the last couple years.

It's actually got some mid-term consequences for Miles Morales, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Moon Knight, and Blade which isn't too bad overall for that kind of thing.

[JLSigman]

There was a X-Men Epic Collection for "God Loves, Man Kills" and damn humanity still sucks 40 years later

[jaedmc]

6 hours ago, JLSigman said:

There was a X-Men Epic Collection for "God Loves, Man Kills" and damn humanity still sucks 40 years later

I actually just bought my first Epic Collection(I didn't know they were a thing) and am halfway through X-Men: Brood Saga. I'd never really read those peak Claremont years.

It's fucking weeeeird. This is when Storm was bitten by DRACULA, and Illyana Rasputin was pulled out of a pocket dimension where she was raised by an Evil Wizard. And then you've got Scott Summers at his sulkiest, being an asshole to Corsair after learning he's Scott's dad.

I'm gonna have to go back and read the other collections up until then.

[SirSmUgly]

I left town for the President's Day weekend and bought two books, both of which are very good reads. 

• Theresa Runstedtler, Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA: '70s NBA is an under-chronicled period for the league, which is a shame. People pretend the league didn't exist until Magic and Bird were drafted, but this book is a very well-researched look at how black NBA players, shaped within the era of civil rights and labor rights that they came up in during the '60s, in turn won a series of labor battles that modernized the NBA and gave players more control over their careers (and I'm very much fine with the modern player-controlled NBA in comparison to any other period where owners had more control than they do now, which might be a minority opinion). It also covers the misreported and misrepresented "cocaine problem" that this era of the NBA is still known for. I've read statistical studies that show that criminality isn't particularly more common in a random sampling of, say, NBA or NFL players than it is in society at large, and this book is clear about how the media was able to center Bernard King and Spencer Haywood and their drug and alcohol issues as emblematic of the whole NBA.  Anyway, this is a fine book for NBA fans who enjoy learning the history of the league. 

 

• Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Warming Up Julia Child: The Remarkable Figures Who Shaped a Legend: If you were to ask me whose life I would like mine to be almost exactly like if I could choose, it'd be Julia Child's. She got to live in Paris and Marseille, learned to cook in the French way, made close friends, and had the support of those friends (and her amazingly supportive spouse Paul -  I can say that this is incredibly important to one's success in life because I also have a supportive spouse, though she's not named "Paul") to help her craft and publish a seminal cookbook and then go on to also develop and host a seminal cooking show. Julia Child is just an incredibly impressive person, you know? Even being this impressive doesn't get you as far as you can go as being impressive and having the support of people who care about helping you express your impressiveness. Anyway, this book is also a wonderfully researched work that delves into the archives and uses letters from Paul, Julia, Avis DeVoto (friend of the Childs and editor/shepherder/publisher go-between), Simca Beck (co-author and great chef in her own right), and everyone else who helped Julia achieve so much as a chef, a writer, and a television personality. The big takeaways that I have from this book are that 1) people who are very individualistic underestimate what they are able to achieve only with the help of a supportive community and 2) everyone should write more letters because when people were regular letter writers back in the day, they were much more engaging and used lovely language more often than I see in today's writers - including myself. 

 

[Curt McGirt]

Man, Julia Child got to fight the Nazis as a spy. That rules. (Hey kids, you can do it now too, here's your chance!)

The drugs in the NBA talk reminds me of how every social studies book in every grade of my schooling had the Len Bias story in it. "NOT EVEN ONCE, KIDS! *snort*" They could have told us the story of Gary Webb instead, but you know...

[JLSigman]

Had a long delay at the doctor's office, ended up reading both volume in "The InSpectres", which was pleasantly not bad. A literary League of Gentlemen without all the rape.

[SirSmUgly]

On 2/25/2025 at 12:54 PM, Curt McGirt said:

Man, Julia Child got to fight the Nazis as a spy. That rules. (Hey kids, you can do it now too, here's your chance!)

The drugs in the NBA talk reminds me of how every social studies book in every grade of my schooling had the Len Bias story in it. "NOT EVEN ONCE, KIDS! *snort*" They could have told us the story of Gary Webb instead, but you know...

That Len Bias death, along with a series of books that I read at the library (I think they were part of a series called True Life or True to Life or something like that?) scared the hell out of me when it came to drugs. These books covered all sorts of topics (and are probably the reason that I so desperately want to visit Peru and Macchu Pichu; the book on Peru enthralled me as a four-year-old kid). Some of these books covered drugs and had science-focused explanations of them, from caffeine to heroin. 

Bias dying + the book on heroin explaining that doing it once was enough to trigger a crippling addiction in some people scared the shit out of me as a very young child. Even now, I won't even take most pain pills if they're prescribed to me. The extremely rare codeine acetaminophen is about as far as I'll go. 

(As for Gary Webb, though there's been one movie on him, someone still needs to make the definitive Oscar-contending movie about his investigations. It would be the new All the President's Men. The times we're living in are ripe for another Alan Pakula-style Paranoia Trilogy). 

And yes, Julia Child was an amazing person. Working for OSS to beat the Nazis, then turning herself into a great chef after that. What's so inspirational about her is that she shfited gears in her late thirties and early forties and did a totally separate cool thing after having helped to beat the Nazis. What I find inspirational about her is that she's proof that the possibilities in our lives are endless and that it's never too old to shift gears and try to achieve cool shit. 

Edited February 27 by SirSmUgly

[JLSigman]

Since all the books are out, I am starting in on Tad Williams "Last King of Osten Ard" series. Will be re-reads of the first two, then into the stuff I haven't read yet.

[Curt McGirt]

Library day:

The Message - Ta-Nehisi Coates (been wanting to read some of his stuff for awhile)

Born With A Tail -- The Devilish Life and Wicked Times of Anton Szandor LaVey, Founder of the Church of Satan - Doug Brod (self-explanatory)

The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard

If anyone can offer suggestions, are there any particular stories out of the Ballard that are worth starting with? It's an enormous book and I'm a little intimidated. 

[SirSmUgly]

On 2/27/2025 at 11:07 AM, Curt McGirt said:

 

If anyone can offer suggestions, are there any particular stories out of the Ballard that are worth starting with? It's an enormous book and I'm a little intimidated. 

Concrete Island has an excellent concept and is a brief novella, though honestly the concept is probably better for a short story. It's an appropriate story for our times, though. 

High-Rise is a better novel, I think, so I would start there too (as is the film version). 

[Curt McGirt]

I've read about half of High Rise before. Don't know why I never finished it. Probably just got too depressing for me. 

[Teflon Turtle]

I'm back to reading a bit more lately. The public library in my city was closed for a few months due to a move/remodel. The stupid thing is, I have a backlog of books at home that I've bought that is going to take me years to get through, and I barely made a dent in it. ADD, ADD, ADD. Anyway, while the library was closed I tried using their eLibrary service to get through as much of the original Hellblazer series as I could. I made it about 50 issues, and I'm torn on whether I want to try and continue. 

Once I was able to get physical books from the library again (much more to my preference, by the way. I prefer physical media for everything, reading material very much included), here's what I've been working on:

Down with the System by Serj Tankian. I am not the biggest SOAD fan in the world, though I do like their music. If you'd have asked me five years ago if I'd have been interested in reading a book by Serj Tankian, I'd have said "eh, maybe? or not?" But, I recently saw him on a few Youtube interview shows and found out he was a really thoughtful, interesting dude (previously, my only real non-musical exposure to him was on an episode of Parts Unknown). The book is a rather quick read, and well-balanced in the sense that it doesn't really function as a day-to-day-diary of SOAD tour minutiae or anything like that. Rather, Serj gives you a brief history of the Armenian Genocide so you understand his background. Some time is spent on his early life, but not much. Ultimately, the book is about how the legacy of the genocide informed Serj's path through music/art and how it intertwined with his work in activism. You do learn a little bit about the inner workings of SOAD and those parts are interesting. However, it becomes clear that Serj is one of those artists who both does art for its own sake and does it to communicate a message. While he admits it's great that he has been able to make money off of artistic ventures, he's pretty forthcoming about how much of what he's done post-System hasn't been as lucrative, but has been equally if not more meaningful to him.

Music is History by Questlove. Questlove is another guy who I have a lot of respect for musically, but didn't know much about him personally. There's a Parts Unknown connection again, too. The book has been on my list for a few years now, and I decided to go for it. It is formatted in a year-by-year concept going in order from the year Questlove was born (1971). Each chapter begins by outlining some major events that happened that year, then adds a song that was either released in that corresponding year and/or that he discovered in that year (if he stumbled on it a while after release), and then ties it to either current events of the era - musical or otherwise - or a more general concept about history. This entails the "doing" of history: who gets remembered, what gets remembered, how we go about remembering it. His sense of humor comes across pretty well, I think, and the book feels pretty conversational as a result. But, you also get the feeling that the dude has so much musical knowledge in his head that all wants to come out at once, that some chapters are unfocused or hard to follow even though they're quite brief. I'll admit that I'm reading this one mostly on lunch breaks, so the problem could just as well be with my focus level as it is with that of the book.

One of the things that really geeked me out is that there is a decent amount of time spent talking about Bill Withers' Live at Carnegie Hall album in the chapter dealing with 1973. I snagged a copy a while back and it blew me away to the point that I now have to restrain myself from just talking about the album unprompted to anybody within earshot. Music is History helped ease that tension for me a bit.

Edited March 6 by Teflon Turtle

[Dolfan in NYC]

I don't think I need to tell y'all what my politics are, but even without doing so...

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is an incredibly informative and alternately infuriating breakdown of the history and factors leading to the current immigration crisis.  It's really a great book. 

Just finished Douglas Preston's The Lost Tomb.  It's a collection of pieces he wrote for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and other publications about real life mysteries and murder.  It's a very fun read.

Next up is either The Infernal Machine or There Will Be Fire... (Feeling my Irish roots.  *note - my family is Colombian*) 

[Contentious C]

I'm trying to read Station Eleven because 1. Mackenzie Davis plays one of the main characters on the limited series adaptation; 2. I love Mackenzie Davis; and 3. I should read more stuff I guess, and why not read this before watching it.  But goddamn if it isn't way too on-the-nose right out of the gate about what a knife's edge we live on.  Just horrendously fucking depressing.  If you've ever heard the Sleater-Kinney song, "Jumpers", there's a section like the end of that song that is just the mother of all gut punches.

On the bright side, the pandemic we actually had after 2014 wasn't as bad as that - not directly at least.  Who knows how long it'll be before the collective insanity it instilled in us reaches a point where Iran or North Korea fires an ICBM into the upper atmosphere, wrecks all our satellites into space junk, and then makes the book a reality after all, though.

[JLSigman]

Terry Brooks is mostly retiring, so Delilah Dawson will be writing more Shannara books.

https://reactormag.com/terry-brooks-shannara-delilah-s-dawson/

[Contentious C]

Given the quality of those books, it's difficult to claim he wasn't retired to begin with.

[Lawful Metal]

Just finished The Ritual by Adam Nevill.  I did not expect a debate on what constitutes Trve Norwegian Black Metal, but here we are.  Loved both halves of the story - really bleak stuff.  Ready to watch the movie!