The Amateur, by Edward Klein: Just started it, already worth it

May 22, 2012

There was nothing worth listening to on a short segment of my 90-minute drive today, so I did what I normally don’t do: switched the radio to AM talk during non-Rush hours. I stumbled upon a local channel interviewing Edward Klein about his new book, The Amateura nonfiction journalist’s work about, er, Fred-6.

It’s fascinating, and I hate using that word (except I use it all the time).

Klein’s interview prompted me to buy the book, and what’s interesting about his talking about it and about reading the work in question is this hastily-assembled maxim: The more people get to know Fred-6, the less they like Fred-6, especially Donkeys. 

I’m not that far into the book yet – I just bought it a couple hours ago – but I suspect that The Amateur is what the media wanted Game Change to be: an inside-DC account of what the American electorate hath wrought.

Also, as I was telling Xtina: “When Bill Clinton is the most magnanimous, deep-thinking person in a book about American politics, you know there is a fan, there is shit, and the two are fighting like dogs.”

More/less. Buy it – read it – enjoy. /brex


RE Craig Sager’s Suits

May 22, 2012

An excellent piece of observational writing about a subject anyone watching the NBA Playoffs can understand – Craig Sager, his unbridled happiness to be doing what he’s doing, and those wild, wild suits. As a man who dons a pin-striped blue-white seersucker suit at least once a year, I can say with ease that I wish I could pull off some of Sager’s get-ups:

It’s true that prolonged exposure to him might impair your vision. But even more now than he did five years ago, he imparts a kind of joy — in being on TV, in being alive. That’s ultimately what these clothes are. They’re terribly, terribly alive. And Sager is so happy and comfortable in them. The only man who could wear nonsense of this caliber and seem as remotely full of mirth is Payne Stewart, a star who played golf in attire that most other men would wear only as the entertainment for their 5-year-old’s birthday party. But Stewart was always kind of pleased with himself. He was so … put-together. What I love about Sager — what I think we all begrudgingly love — is that this is the only self he has, and it feels utterly, inarguably true. He spent some of March Madness in a marbled suit with the brackets printed on his black necktie. Would anyone else dare? Should they?

via Craig Sager’s Suits and Sideline Sartorial Disasters – Grantland.


Drop dat bass

May 21, 2012


The Great Fred-6

May 20, 2012

Among AmLit dorks, I ride the short bus regarding The Great Gatsby, considered one of the three or four best American novels ever written.

I really liked the teacher who presided over my reading of it in 1991, and I enjoyed it, but it never grabbed me. The curious thing about good lit is that lines can be drawn, dots can be connected, and at some point, shiz gets real. In the last week or so, I”ve read a few pieces connecting these dots, and this chunk from Mark Steyn’s latest brings it home. To wit, time to re-read TGG:

In a post-modern America, the things that Gatsby attempted to fake – an elite schooling – Obama actually had; the things that Gatsby attempted to obscure – the impoverished roots – merely add to Obama’s luster. Gatsby claimed to have gone to Oxford, but nobody knew him there because he never went; Obama had a million bucks’ worth of elite education at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard Law, and still nobody knew him (“Fox News contacted some 400 of his classmates and found no one who remembered him”). In that sense, Obama out-Gatsbys Gatsby: His “shiftless and unsuccessful” relatives – the deportation-dodging aunt on public housing in Boston, the DWI undocumented uncle, the $12-a-year brother back in Nairobi – are useful props in his story, the ever more vivid bit-players as the central character swims ever more out of focus, but they don’t seem to know him either. The more autobiographies he writes, the less anybody knows.

via Mark Steyn: Eternally shifting sands of Obama’s biography | obama, ever, white – Opinion – The Orange County Register.


Oil Sands: A pictoral essay at Business Insider

May 20, 2012

For me, this is beyond fascinating. A great piece of photojournalism.


DMB’s back on tour…

May 20, 2012

I took in Dave Matthews Band’s return to touring in Houston on Friday night, and it was pretty damn boring. I’ve been reviewing messages over at the Warehouse forums to see if I was off-base, but most people seem to agree that the show, while having a few highlights, was for the most part mailed-in. Highlights for me included #41, Crush and my first time to hear Grace is Gone live, so that was rokken. Had a good time, but the song-choice was misguided.

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The Warren saga just keeps getting funnier

May 16, 2012

How Oklahoma history plays into Elizabeth Warren’s Massachusetts Senate battle is a bit surreal, a bit bizarre, and a whole lotta funny. The moral of this story could be learned with a healthy dose of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler,” for Warren’s sake particularly the part about knowing when to fold’em. Instead, she won’t admit she’s wrong, so she gets to deal with legit, apolitical critiques like this. Good times, very good times.


RE SSM in political theory and in fact

May 15, 2012

This post (via Instapundit) popped up on my Reader and reminded me of something. Like my other pieces of late, it tries to address the paradox of increased support for same-sex marriage versus its continual defeat at the polls.

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Inforama: Dr. Dre/Snoop Venn Diagram

May 14, 2012


Goodreads fun

May 14, 2012

Here’s my list over at Goodreads – I found this by accident and decided to join up. I rated about a hundred books I’ve read and added to the top of my list what I’m currently reading and/or read recently. It’s an exercise in narcissism for the most part, but it’s fun. Feel free to add Brex if that’s your thing.


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