On the Shelf III

Dizzyheads Jen and Hua brought this to my attention. How many books can you identify?

Table-talk of Parkus Grammaticus for February 19

I. Parkian rarities: I've unearthed some blurbs from yesteryear, and am wincing/chuckling at some probably unconscious (but maybe not?) repetitions.

Tortilla Soup
This Chicano cover version of Eat Drink Man Woman is a must-see for Hector Elizondo completists and scopophilic foodies. Others will find it a revival so indifferent as to be perverse, with enough crypto-incestuous wish fulfillment to make a Freudian blush. (Park)

Atlantis
Disney's archaeological-quest caper begins gamely enough, but by the time the dependably multicultural crew reaches the sunken city, narrative drive has taken a back seat to the sort of spiritual gibberish that would make a Theosophist blush. At least it isn't a musical. (Park)

II. And here's a construction that mirrors that in the Tortilla Soup blurb—viz., specifying a very small part of the population as a potential audience:

Happy Accidents
Session 9 director Brad Anderson lays a low-key time-travel romance in a Manhattan of singleton simpering and significant street signs—the perfect date movie for unreconstructed Whovians and the Ouspensky-reading Marisa Tomei fans who love them. (Park)

III.

Finally, this one's for Powellians—really just an excuse to use that quote:

The Dog Show
William Wegman, the weimaraner's Boswell, opens an exhibit that sniffs out the ways in which dogs and literature go hand in paw. Watch for networking scribblers and shutterbugs on the make: As the late cat-fancying novelist Anthony Powell remarked, ``People who prefer dogs are essentially interested in power.'' Reservations required. Wednesday at 6:30, Bobst Library, Fales Collection (3rd Floor), 70 Washington Square South, 998-2596 (Park)

IV. Bookcase spotters: John Freeman has responded!

Weekend Table-Talk for February 16-17

I. Dizzies Team Member Devin on Dave Marsh's The Beatles' Second Album (at Hey Dullblog)—ouroboric and brilliant:

Dexter’s Capitol mutations, whatever their lack of propriety, decency, or respect for the art of the Beatles — something not even the Beatles were convinced existed at that early date — are lovable, explosive, crass, and exciting albums. Mutated or not, slick with stereophonic grease or not, they are the essence of pop as commerce and con game, gaud and gift, bang for the buck. But because Marsh so hates Dexter, he must make the case for hating Dexter’s mutations — though this is obviously counterintuitive to him, not least because here he is himself making money writing a book about how great one of those mutations is.

II. The Guardian profiles Mountain Goats' maestro John Darnielle:

Today, he is drinking warm ale and discussing his new record, Heretic Pride. It is, he explains, "a much more fun record than I've made in a long time", full of songs about Prince Far I, cheap motels, religious cults and swamp creatures. "Now, there's real kinship between your monsters and your pulp-fiction figures and your cult leaders and all these two-and-a-half dimensional creatures that you can then invest with all these things that you yourself bring to the table," he says with an exuberant thwack, then launches into a tale of Michael Myers and Sax Rohmer and HP Lovecraft and Michel Houellebecq, and of his days as a "scrawny little fella" when an ingrained iggishness prevented him from watching any slasher movies. "It is," he concludes, "a sort of cataloguing of my old obsessions."

III. Bookcase challenge II:


How many books can you ID? (That's NBCC prez John Freeman and agent Nicole Aragi.)

(From an old Bookforum piece)

IV. Dizzyhead Dennis reports from the Berlin Film Festival. (Um, not for us, oddly enough, but for the NYT.)

Personal Days—the online experience!

Refresh, refresh: Set a tab on your browser and visit the official website for Personal Days! (This is a holding page until a fuller-fledged version appears closer to pub date.)

* * *

I like Susan Dominus's new NYT column, Big City. In the latest installment, she talks to an aspiring 32-year-old novelist about how he bought an Upper East Side co-op for $14,000.

Dizzyhead challenge: How many books in his bookcase can you identify by the spine alone? (I can name five with certainty...I wish the photo could be blown up larger!)