Tag: humor

Up the Down Staircase

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Kaufman, Bel. Up the Down Staircase. New York: Avon Books, 1964.

I admit it. I left work in a hurry. I didn’t clean up my desk and I didn’t pack my books. So, I had a weekend with nothing to read. True, I had some loose ends to finish up (Close Range turned out to be not my thing), but determining that didn’t take all weekend. Desperate for something that would be a quick read I found Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman. Funny! I was supposed to read this sometime in May. Oh well. It ended up being a July 11th read.

In the spirit of every new-to-the-business, green educator, Sylvia Barrett is no different than all the rest. Every first year teacher can claim Up the Down Staircase illustrates his or her career. When Sylvia begins her first term in New York’s Calvin Coolidge high school she has nothing short of big dreams and great expectations. Within days she discovers her classes, her students, fellow teachers and the entire school administration are nothing like she imagined. Getting through to the students is an exercise in swimming in quicksand. Getting through to the administration is like screaming into the wind. In both situations Sylvia plods through with humor and grace. What makes this book such a pleasure to read is how the story is communicated. Through “intraschool communications,” homework assignments, suggestion box missives, and letters to a friend Sylvia’s teaching triumphs and tragedies come to life.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Teachers and Teaching Tales” (p 230).

Tattoo Machine

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Johnson, Jeff. Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink. New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2009.

When I first requested this book it was one I felt inadequate to review. In the world of tattoos I have just one. One small, no bigger than a quarter, simple black and white outline of a sleeping cat. It’s not even in a dangerous place of pain. It’s snuggled on the fatty flesh of my hip. No tender skin of an ankle, inner arm or neck was sacrificed to the needle. I am largely unqualified to even begin to understand the culture of a tattoo, let alone the artist behind one. That being said, I wanted to request Tattoo Machine as a place to start. It’s if I’m saying to Jeff Johnson, “Okay. I’m game. Tell me your story and maybe I’ll learn something breathtaking in the process.” For the simple act of getting a tattoo was enough to take my breath away.

Johnson’s style of writing is very tell it like it is. He’s straightforward to the point of unflinching. Drugs, sex, rock and roll are frequent guests to the party but the guest of honor is all about getting and giving tattoos. Johnson reconfirms the stereotype that tattoo artists are seen as dangerous, on the edge kind of people. EMTs are wary of teaching them CPR. But, the unavoidable truth is that there is another side to tattoo artists. Artists such as Johnson can be well-read, intellectual, funny and yes, even sensitive. 

My only real complaint? Johnson includes an incredibly helpful lexicon of commonly used words and phrases in the world of tattooing. However, that dictionary comes after he has already written a chapter or two using the secret, somewhat strange language. The dictionary should come first.

ps~ Can I say I am disappointed I didn’t get any temporary tattoos with my advance proof? That would have been so cool!

Saint Mike

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saint mikeOster, Jerry. Saint Mike. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.

I love it when a book has me scratching my head and asking why in the first chapter. In Saint Mike it actually took the last paragraph at the end of the first chapter before the “huh?” kicked in, but just imagine this: two knights jousting in a field. At the end of the battle one of the knights unscrews his sword to reveal a vial of cocaine. After a good snort he gives it to his jousting mate and tells him they’ll get breakfast afterwards. The kicker is, the scene is neither here nor there in the overall description of the book as described by Nancy Peal in Book Lust, “When Susan Van Meter’s federal narcotics investigator husband is found murdered…she leaves her research position and takes on the task of tracking down and bringing to justice the murderer” (p 6).
I enjoyed every page of Saint Mike. With such a heavy plot (drugs, murder, avenging wife, federal agents) I didn’t expect such playful, witty, sexy language. Granted, there are some really weird scenes (yes, the armor comes back and someone dies by the sword in the most unusual way, but that’s all I’ll say about that). Overall it was an entertaining, fast read.

Favorite scene: I urge every parent of a child on the verge of becoming a teenager to read pages 12-14. Susan is trying to get her daughter up for breakfast, “The sound of drugs and drug paraphernalia and semiautomatic weapons being thrown out the window” (p 13). It’s hysterical.
Favorite line: “Rita tossed her head like a fandango dancer. “It is not just the penis that is flawed; it is the whole organism.”” (p 15).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Action Heroines” (p 5).

Snobs

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Fellowes, Julian. Snobs. New York: St. Martin Press, 2004.

This seems like an odd choice for a Christmas season pick. After all, this is supposed to be peace on Earth, goodwill towards men time. With a name like Snobs it doesn’t seem to fit, but this is in honor of one of Nancy Pearl’s gift choices for the holidays.

Edith Lavery is middle class society with big upper class ambitions. When she inadvertently meets the Earl of Broughton, Charles, it is with an admission ticket to tour his home in her hand. Little does she know, but the introduction, with her good looks, is also her ticket to upper echelon snobbery. Soon Edith works her way into the aristocratic family by marrying Charles. As his wife she discovers the high life isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be and finds herself becoming bored. The real trouble begins when Edith’s wandering eye settles on a less than successful actor. Things turn from bad to worse when it’s more than Edith’s eye that starts to wander. What makes this hungry-for-status story so funny is the wicked clashes of culture. Julian Fellowes seductively pokes fun at all types of cliques: actors, the fashion world, the genders, society, but none are funnier than the English.

Sarcastically good lines: “To an outsider it seems a vital ingredient of many marriages that each partner should support the illusions of the other” (p 5).
“…Mrs Lavery was passionately snobbish to a degree verging on insanity…” (p 12).
“Edith rolled her eyes. ‘She’s beside herself. She’s afraid she’ll find Bobby in the shower and it’ll all have been a dream” (p 40).
“At least he seemed to feel that something momentous had taken place, even if her body had never left the station…” (p71).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “A Holiday Shopping List” (p 114).

December Was…

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img_0030December started off being my fresh start. New houses, new atttitude. It would have been a return to charity walks (or runs?) had a little thing called house hunting not gotten in the way! December ended up being a really, really difficult month. Lost another house, craziness at work, mental health taking a trip south, a passing of a friend and coworker… Here are the books I read escaped with. It may seem like a lot but, keep in mind, I cheated. I was able to read the first two in November.

  • The Quiet American by Graham Green ~ I read this in three days time…in November. Was really that good!
  • A Dangerous Friend by Ward Just ~ Another book I read in just a few days time, again…in November.
  • Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver ~ probably one of the best court-room dramas I have ever read.
  • I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away by Bill Bryson ~ funny, but repetitive!
  • A Family Affair by Rex Stout ~ very strange yet entertaining.
  • Lincoln’s Dreams by Connie Willis ~again, strange but entertaining!
  • Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella ~ okay. I’ll admit it. This one made me cry.
  • ‘Sippi by John Oliver Killens ~ powerful – really, really powerful. That’s all I can really say.
  • Snobs by Julian Fellowes ~ silly story about what happens with you combine boredom with good old fashioned English snobbery.
  • Choice Cuts by Mark Kurlansky ~ really interesting, but a bit dry at times (no pun intended).

For LibraryThing it was the fascinating Honeymoon in Tehran by Azadeh Moaveni (really, really good).

Confession: I started Le Mort d’Arthur and couldn’t deal with neither volume one or two. Just not in the mood for the King, no matter how authoritative the version.

So. 11 books. Two being in the month of November and nine as the cure for what ailed me.

Edited to add: someone asked me to post “the count” at the end of each “— Was” blog. What a great idea. I will be starting that next month – something new to start 2009 with. Thanks, A!

I’m a Stranger Here Myself

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BrysonBryson, Bill. I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away. New York: Broadway Books, 1999.

I was skeptical of this book. The premise is Bryson has been away from American soil for twenty years (living in England) and the book is supposedly his running commentary on how different everything has become. Right off the bat I wanted to ask, “What? They didn’t have ATM machines or public pay phones in England? Not even by the time Mr. Bryson left?” I have to admit, it never crossed my mind that England could be twenty years behind the U.S. in such things as technology and invention.
In actuality, Bryson’s book was, in a word, delightful. I thoroughly enjoyed his opening essay about the differences between English and American postal services. However, for the most part the comparisons ended there. It was more about how nonsensical America could be with it’s rules and regulations. It reminded me of Robert Fulghum with his humorous observations.

Favorite funnies:
“Going to a restaurant is generally a discouraging experience for me because I always manage somehow to antagonize the waitress” (p 13).
“It is all immensely complicated, but essentially it means that practically every team in baseball except the Chicago Cubs gets a chance to go to the World Series” (p 25).
“He converses as if he has heard that someday he will be billed  for it” (p 93). Sounds like my father!

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lustin the chapter, “Bill Bryson: Too Good to Miss” (p 36).

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

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Atkinson, Kate. Behind the Scenes at the Museum. London: Black Swan, 1996.

November is writing month and to celebrate I decided to read something from Nancy Pearl’s chapter called “First Novels” (Book Lust p 88)…in two days!
Behind the Scenes at the Museum was honored as a Whitbread Book of the Year and received such words of praise as remarkable, impressive, entertaining, quirky, colorful, humorous, ambitious, unusual, lively, provacative, promising, witty, enchanting, sassy, astounding…I could go on (and on). With reviews using words like those how could I not expect to love it, want to love it?

From the very beginning Behind the Scenes draws the reader in. Told from the point of view of young Ruby Lennox…(before she is even born) there is humor and sarcasm. Her voice reminds me of the wise-alec baby on Family Guy (sorry, the name escapes me). Ruby is omnipresent, giving the reader insight on every thought, feeling, dream, nightmare her family has.
The alternate chapters (told in third person) give the backstory of Ruby’s mother’s life during the second Great War. The writing is not as humorous, nor as witty as when Ruby gets to speak. Over all the reading is a rollercoaster of ups and downs, twisting you through life’s crazy moments.
Favorite lines:
“She walks out, saying nothing, but inside, a silent Scarlett rages…” (p 22).
“…but how can time be reversible when it gallops forward, clippity-clop and nobody ever comes back. Do they?” (p 210).

All and all I wasn’t as wowed as I thought I would be. Maybe it’s because Ruby’s story isn’t the main focus after all. While she tells the story it’s more about her mother, Bunty, and the generations of women before her. It’s interesting to note there is always a war going on in some capacity and Ruby seems to always be walking in on her father having sex with someone other than his wife!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “First Novels” (p 88). But, I said that already.

Carry On, Jeeves

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IMG_3756
Wodehouse, P.G. Carry On, Jeeves. New York: A.L. Burt, 1927.

This book just feels good in my hands. Published 10 years before my father was even born, it even looks its age. I guess I just like old books.

Carry on, Jeeves is a series of stories about how Jeeves acts as man-servant while repeatedly saving the day for Bertram Wooster. Each chapter sets up a different dilemma “Bertie” and/or his friends face and how Jeeves cleverly resolves every one of those dilemmas. There is a formula to these moments of crisis: someone is usually misleading a family member (usually an aunt) to think he is wealthy, in another part of the country, worth marrying, not worth marrying, etc. Jeeves’s solution is to mislead the “aunt” with a lie or two.  The lie is the smallest of gestures and usually something humorous happens – like the plan backfiring. While the general plot seems repetitious, Wodehouse’s style of writing is very funny. Side note: Bertie and Jeeves always seem to get into curious arguments about fashion.

Lines I liked: “I strained the old bean to meet this emergency” (p 47).
“I’m never much of a lad till I’ve engulfed an egg or two and a beaker of coffee (p 89).
“If this was going to be a fish-story, I needed stimulants” (p 167).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “P.G. Wodehouse: Too Good To Miss” (p 235). What I find hysterical about Pearl’s entry is her first sentence: “If you can ignore his somewhat rummy behavior…” (p 235). “Rummy” is a word Wodehouse uses over and over and over in Carry On, Jeeves.

Last Lecture

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Pausch, Randy. The Last Lecture. New York: Hyperion, 2008

This was not on any Book Lust or More Book Lust list. That isn’t to say that it shouldn’t be. Indeed, if Nancy Pearl ever sets up to write a third volume of Lust, I would hope she would include The Last Lecture. When I first heard of it I was reminded of Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom To crudely sum up Tuesdays, Mitch’s college professor, Morrie Schwartz was dying of Lou Gerhig’s disease. Upon hearing this, Mitch set out to rekindle his Tuesday meetings with Morrie. What came of those meetings was a great book and a heart warming movie.

Imagine Morrie writing his own book. He knows he is dying and is desperate to leave the world with a gift; the gift of inspiration. This is how I think Randy Pausch saw The Last Lecture. Dying of terminal cancer and given only months to live, Randy saw an opportunity to leave his words of wisdom on the minds of former students and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon. His message “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” went beyond academia – it went much deeper than that. It was his meaning of life and he wanted to share these thoughts with family and friends as well. The lecture, delivered in September 2007 was peppered with outrageous stories, touching photographs and a wry sense of humor about his illness. It was a huge success. It led to the book The Last Lecture (which became a national best seller). 

Favorite quotes: “There’s a formality on academia that can’t be ignored, even if a man is busy with other things, like trying not to die” (p 4). So, right off the bat you know Randy Pausch views his cancer as something “to deal with” and not get bogged down by. This, to me, set the tone for the entire book.
“Open the encyclopedia. Open the dictionary. Open your mind” (p 22). While the previous quote may have set the tone for the book, this quote summed up who Randy Pausch was from the time he was a child until he last breath. He was a man who never wanted to stop learning. That comes across very clearly throughout The Last Lecture.

I strongly urge you to pick up the book, check out the website, even watch the dvd of the actual lecture. It may change how you view your world around you…it may even change your life.

Search for Baby Combover

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Kirby, David. “The Search for Baby Combover.” The Ha-Ha. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Univeristy Press, 2003. 41.

This is my third (and final) poem from The Ha-Ha that I had to read for the BookLust challenge. Later on, I will read a different book of poetry from David Kirby. But, for now “The Search for Baby Combover” is it. (see yesterday’s post for another Kirby.)
I couldn’t have asked to end Kirby’s collection on a better poem. “Baby Combover” is beyond delightful. It’s not a flowery prosey-prissy kind of thing. Instead, it’s inventive, sarcastic and wildly funny. It’s the story of a man who gets a knock on his door one night. His downstairs neighbor stands before him and proceeds to ask him to please refrain from (whoops wrong story) not move furniture around so late at night…because it wakes the baby. What baby? As far as our man is concerned he’s never seen a baby. Never heard a baby. So, he goes on to think the guy has invented a baby…It’s hysterical.

Here are a few of the best lines (and there are more so you might as well read the whole thing):
“…and I see he’s got something on his head, like strands of oily seaweed, something you’d expect to find on a rock after one of those big tanker spills in the Channel…”
“Baby Combover: the world’s first silent baby.”

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 189).

Elephant of the Sea

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elephant of the seaKirby, David. “Elephant of the Sea,” The Ha-Ha.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003. 46.

Crack me up. This poem is really funny. It’s one of those comments on culture and keeping up with what’s cool. It’s also about language. Words and meanings. A French man wants to buy an automobile just like his American friend’s. Right down to the manatee on the license plate – the “elephant of the sea.” The friend doesn’t get it. He’s imagining what the clerk at the DMV are going to say and how the whole incident will shape her future.
And this is just one poem. Everything David Kirby writes is great. He is like geek rock of poetry. He’s smart and too funny for words.

Favorite line: “‘I can have zuh elephant of the zuh sea on my matriculation?’ to a clerk who’s got this grin on her face like she’s either seeing God or having an aneurysm” (p 46). 

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lustin the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188). He’s also mentioned in Book Lust in the chapter “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p 138).

Blind Heron

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Tate, James. “The Blind Heron.” Shroud of the Gnome. New Jersey: Ecco Press, 1997. 11.

From just the title of Tate’s book I knew I would be in for a treat. I love 20th century poetry, especially when it has a sense of humor, a sense of the playful. Before I even got to “The Blind Heron” I read the table of contents and had a good laugh over some of the other poems: “Where Babies Come From” (made me think of that birds and bees talk – ahem!), “Restless Leg Syndrome”, “Shut Up and Eat Your Toad”, and “Sodomy in Shakespeare’s Sonnets”…I’ll have to blog about those at another time.
But, I will say this – Remember that scene in the movie ‘Tommy Boy’ when Tommy is trying to sleep at a motel. Richard keeps knocking on the door with different suggestive suggestions until finally, Tommy bolts out of bed yelling, “what kind of place is this?”? Well, that’s me with this collection of poetry. After seeing a poem called “In His Hut Sat Baba Jaga, Hag Faced” all I could ask was “what kind of poetry is this?!” The only answer: fun!

“Blind Heron” is clever and impish. Kiki is missing her cockatiel. Kiki is called a liar yet you, as the reader, are not really sure if that’s the truth. It’s more probable that you are only suppose to think of Kiki as a nontruth telling person because the poem concludes rather suddenly. Everything you thought you knew has been changed based on a confession.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 189).