That while riding down a multiperson circular raft down a jumbo-size outdoor waterslide, you will probably not, most of the time, be able to tell what is going to happen to you next. Especailly if you've removed your glasses.
That the biggest drag associated with elevated waterslides that involve multiperson rafts is the appalling inefficiency of the conveyor-belt technology that is supposed to circulate the rafts from the bottom of the ride to the top.
That higher gas prices seem to mean that traffic is worse than ever.
That small children can be entertained thusly: (1) Dig hole in sand, (2) Pronounce aforementioned hole your "cooking pot," (3) Explain to children that its purpose is to cook them, (4) enjoy hours of delighted shrieking and scampering.
That although it is unlikely, it is quite possible to witness the invasion of a temporarily closed drinking establishment by a confused, possibly sick opossum.
That a confused (and possibly sick or maybe just drunken) opossums when viewed through the glass window of a mostly darkened beachfront bar -- especially if it stares back at you, reared up on its hind legs like a pale, long-snouted homunculus -- strikes a certain combination of fascination, revulsion, and dreamlike fear into the heart.
That an uninsulated beach "house" (*cough*TRAILER*cough*) gets mighty damned hot during the day.
That if you can honestly tell me those dark spots amid the waves out there are dolphins, you've got better eyesight than eye do, dammit.
That you probably have better eyesight than I do.
That if you take two children and two fat books on a week's vacation to the beach, in company with a large team of supplementary adults who express plenty of willingness to help manage the kids, you will return from that vacation having read exactly 23 pages of one of those two books.
That if you insist on packing the car, because of your superior car-packing skills (a sort of automotive patrimony, handed down from your grandfather to your father to you) which allow you to make use of every cubic centimeter of your tiny car's available cargo space, you should be very careful not to leave that one bag behind, with all of the electronics, including in very particular particular your better half's laptop, you should understand that you have reaped only and exactly what, in your pride, you have sown.
]]>In only one historical case in U.S. presidential elections did the winner of the election come in second in the electoral total. Who was the President elected under these circumstances? Who was the electoral vote leader? Bonus: name the winner and loser (this time with straight electoral totals) of the following Presidential election.
First correct answer to each part to comments wins a pair of tickets to the upcoming off-off-off-Broadway musical production of Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here. No Googling or rigging the electoral vote in November. One guess at each part per comment, but comment as often as you can stomach it. See you in September.
As the quadrennial contest approaches (at least within certain North American borders), the Wombat's ramblings through political history trivia become more frequent (not to say frenetic), perhaps as such activity serves to both distract from the stomach-churning ups and downs of the presidential race, and, simultaneously, to sate the Wombat's need to feel in some shallow way connected to all of these doings.
So, the first in what will probably be an irregularly repeating Quiz series with bent toward American elections. Onward to our tripartite head-'sploder:
1. In the 1980 U.S. presidential race, Jimmy Carter carried only six states (plus the District of Columbia). What were they?
2. Electorally, the single worst defeat handed to an incumbent U.S. President running for re-election occurred when which President ran for re-election?
3. This last question is not really about an election per se, but it plays into the career of the president sometimes regarded as the worst holder of the U.S. executive office; as drafted by this man -- not yet President, still a high-level diplomat -- and two others, what was the goal of the infamous (and ultimately unsuccessful) Ostend Manifesto? Bonus: Who was the future, largely derided, President who helped draw it up?
First correct answer to all three wins all the electoral votes on Seeley St., plus the funny little dead-end Temple Court that sticks off to the west, just before the park. No Googling or consulting The Big Book of Bad Presidents. One guess per question in each comment, please, but consider the comments a ballot box open for enthusiastic stuffing.
]]>What's the film? For a bonus point, who was the lead actor?
First correct answer posted to comments gets their own copy of the pseudo-fatwa-spiked book The Jewel of Medina. Click here to get a taste of the metaphor-loaded prologue that fear may keep out of bookstores. No Googling or involving Larry Hagman in any way. One guess at each part of the question per comment, but comment as often as you like.
So, here is a list that contains books that (a) were published either in hardcover or in paperback since I started my current position, (b) I read all the way through and (c) I unequivocally recommend to you. This list doesn't include rereads, or older books/classics I read for the first time (unless they are underappreciated gems getting a fresh pub this year for the first time -- see the several NYRB classics titles below). And the absence of lots of well-regarded books from this last year shouldn't be construed as anything other than the fact that I was too busy, lazy, or stupid to read them -- yet.
Currently available in paperback:
FICTION
The Yiddish Policeman's Union
Yes, it's Michael Chabon and it may be in a sense overpraised. But it may also be my favorite thing he ever did. Noir and alternate-history pastiche in a Jewish Alaska, carried off with heart and brio.)
Then We Came to the End/Personal Days
Two weirdly synchronistically similar (same odd use of first-person-plural narration) novels about the cubicle world. Oddly enough, both wind up quite satisfying.
The Ministry of Special Cases
A story of a family in Buenos Aires in 1976, when people with the wrong friends or books on their shelves were starting to get Disappeared. Riveting.
Spook Country
William Gibson's latest came out last year, and I finally got to it in its paperback form. Fragmentary remnants of the cold-war-era espionage world chasing a mysterious container collide with denizens of the digital art world. Probably his best work since Count Zero (although I liked Pattern Recognition almost as much).
Inverted World
Christopher Priest (the author of The Prestige) wrote this Twilight Zone-y conceptual dystopia back in the 1970s, and the awesome NYRB classics just brought it back to life in the U.S. Hyperbolas have never been so creepy; but if I tell you more it might ruin it.
The Steep Approach to Garbadale
This is an engrossing serio-comic family saga by the enormously talented Banks, who writes everything from space opera to psychological horror. The fact that he wrote this too fascinates me.
Rogue Male By Geoffrey Household
This is a taut little tale of suspense (in the resourceful-man-on-the-run-from-implacable-enemies mode) also brought back to life by NYRB classics. Best devoured in one gulp, with drink in the other hand, perhaps on an airplane.
Grifter's Game
First published in 1961, this is a nastily pleasurable little hard-boiled distraction by Lawrence Block, with a particularly powerful sting in the end. Charles Ardai's Hard Case Crime imprint does some great stuff, most of which I haven't had the leisure to explore.
NONFICTION
Born Standing Up : A Comic's Life (paperback is coming on September 2)
Steve Martin's memoir -- no surprise that it's entertaining, I guess, but it's worth saying: this is relevatory about the craft of comedy and performance, and equally so about a lost world of vaudeville types that Martin managed to connect with as a teenager.
The Gift: Art, Imagination, and the Power of the Creative Spirit
Lewis Hyde's classic (an oddball anthropological/philosophical/polemical tour de force on art and commerce and why our whole social order is pretty much backwards) sneaks in because a new paperback edition came out.
Names on the Land
Another classic revived by NYBR (can they do no wrong?)...George R. Stewart's look at the origin of American place-names, and the many weird and fascinating misunderstandings that produced most of them.
Hardcover titles -- not yet out in paperback
FICTION
Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories
Each of Stephen Millhauser's stories has a deliciously haunting quality, something eerie even when the sun is shining.
Lush Life
The latest from the incomparable Price, something between a police procedural and a Balzac-ian anatomizing of the hyper-rapid gentrification of the Lower East Side.
The Spies of Warsaw
Another from the best espionage writer living. Furst grounds all of his novels in the run-up to World War II. In this one, the French military attache in Poland on the eve of war is trying to do what he can to get the understanding of Nazi plans through to his superiors. No puppetmasters, no hokey conspiracies – but the question of survival (for the hero, for anyone) lends the story all the urgency it needs.
Nazi Literature in the Americas
I have Bolaño's The Savage Detectives on my desk, and I hope to read it soon. This came out from New Directions in the Spring – it's more compact than that book, which everyone says is great. This is a good one for you die-hard Borges fans; it's a compendium of brief, fictional biographies of crazy right-wing writers scattered througout Latin America. Somewhere between historical-political satire and dark meditation on the banality of evil; with a vertiginous sense that something terribly specific and devastating looms over all. I don't claim to understand what he was up to, but it's fascinating.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation
I don't have a lot to say here except that I really, really enjoyed it. If you're in the mood for some Middle English literature in a compelling new translation – Simon Armitage has taken care of it for you.
NONFICTION
The Discovery of France
I wrote about Graham Robb's wonderful book a bit (see the link), already, so I won't repeat myself. But look, just get it and read it. You'll learn a lot about the history of a big part of Europe and have a great time doing it.
Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters
I confess I didn't read all of the text in here about the director and studio that brought us Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, Ultraman, and that flying turtle one that makes friends with the boy. But the pictures are so worth it.
Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World (in paperback Sept. 30)
I also wrote on this one. I can't say this was exactly a pleasure to read, but the author was vastly informative about the way our bodies and our microbial buddies have evolved together. It won't make you stop taking antibiotics, but you'll think very differently about them.
Rapture Ready
This is cheating, because I know the author a little, but Daniel Radosh's book gets into the enormous and surprisingly varied world of Christian popular culture in a way that is both diverting and illuminating. And he has an attitude about it that doesn't leave you feeling icky, which I think is hard to pull off in a subject like this.
Mother on Fire (goes on sale next week)
Another one that's cheating, because Sandra Tsing Loh is making my life easier by agreeing to appear in a feature for us at work, so who knows how objective I am? But that's preposterous...because this book is more than worth your time – really funny and deadly insightful about the torturous neurotic process our culture's entitled 5% undergo when thinking about their children's education. Rambling and intense, but so is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and how many times have you read that?
These are not yet published – so I won't write about them yet, but when I do it will be to recommend:
Nick Harkway, The Gone-Away World
Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, The Ms. Hempl Chronicles
Amitv Ghosh, Sea of Poppies
And on my table to read next, with high hopes, are
Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
David Wroblewski, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
At what was nearly the height of the British Admiral Horatio Nelson's fame, in 1800, the story spread of a very unusual single combat the British admiral Horatio Nelson took part in quite early in his career, while he was a midshipman on the HMS Carcass in the early 1770s.
The tale bore an important similarity to a famous fight that the American explorer Jedediah Smith found himself in nearly 50 years later. Both have been represented by painters.
In what way were the two combats similar?
First correct answer posted to comments wins a Ssmoothiemoothie, which is a sampling of many smoothies, made into a meta-smoothie. The only flavor available is grey. No Googling or reading the protein-powder grounds of a smoothie in tea-leaf fashion to predict the answer. One guess per comment but comment as often as you like.
1. The author Diane Johnson is widely known as the author of trans-Atlantic comedies of manners such as Le Marriage, L'Affaire and Le Divorce, which was shortlisted for the 1997 National Book Award. When Le Divorce was adapted for the movies several years later, she did not join on the writing of the screenplay. However, she does have one screenplay co-writing credit -- an adaptation of a different novel, for a film released in 1980. What was the film?
2. British playwright John Osborne, the author of the famous play Look Back in Anger, won an Academy Award for his 1964 screenplay adaptation of what classic novel?
3. The formerly blacklisted screenwriter Waldo Salt won academy awards for adaptations of two novels, one by James Leo Herlihy and one by George Davis. Although they were by two different directors, they both had a male star in common. One film is considerably more well-known than the other. What were their titles?
First correct answer to all three wins two passes to the omnibus press screening for the following failed superhero movie projects: Green Lantern: His Ring Can Only Make Green Things, Power Man and Iron Fist Attempt to Mine the Last Vestiges of 70's Nostalgia, and Bat-Mite vs. Mister Mxyzptlk in the Museum of Giant Replicas. No Googling or saying Mister Mxyzpltk's name backwards. One guess at any part of any question per comment, but comment as often as you like.
]]>After the arrival of the American Commodore Perry in Japan in 1853, and the subsequent signing of the Treaty of Kanagawa, American envoys used a Japanese honorific when addressing the shogun, the military ruler who held power. This term found its way back to the U.S. and Britain --John Hay, President Lincoln's private secretary, later picked up on this and used it, humorously, in addressing Lincoln. And Sir Rutherford Alcock popularized the term in Britain by including it in the title of his memoir of service in Japan: The Capital of the [word]: A Narrative of a Three Years' Residence in Japan.
What's the word?
First correct guess posted to comments wins a rare set of Aleister Crowley bobblehead dolls, perfect for mounting on your home altar in the secret chamber in the basement. No Googling or using Enochian Magick to get the ascended spirit masters to give you the answer. One guess per comment, but comment as often as you like.
1. We've heard about Ukraine, Slovakia, Austria...but the jury is still out on the other nations which border Hungary.
2. Still no word on the country with the biggest documented population of the Romani.
3. Thanks to Bootsy, we know about Clark. But who was "Pompey"s parent?
4. Swaziland it is! Anyone know what 2 countries are its immediate neighbors?
5. This continent-straddling nation is still a mystery to our players.
1. Name the countries that border Hungary.
2. What country has the largest documented population of Roma (the ethnic group often known as "gypsies")
3. The U.S. National Historic Monument called "Pompey's Pillar" is a sandstone pillar. It acquired its name from the classical nickname of the son of a famous Native American -- bestowed upon him by a famous man of European descent, who also gave the rock formation its name. Who are these two famous people?
4. Name the smallest landlocked nation in Africa.
5. What country's mythological founding patriarch is described here? "Hayk was a handsome, friendly man, with curly hair, sparkling eyes, and strong arms. He was a man of giant stature, a mighty archer and fearless warrior. Hayk and his people, from the time of their forefathers Noah and Japheth, had migrated south toward the warmer lands near Babylon. In that land there ruled a wicked giant, Bel. Bel tried to impose his tyranny upon Hayk's people. But proud Hayk refused to submit to Bel. As soon as his son... was born, Hayk rose up, and led his people back to the land of his forefathers, the land of Ararat. At the foot of the mountains, he built his home, Haykashen."
Best of five wins a copy of Bender Bondage: The Best of Futurama Slash Fiction, Vol. 5. No Googling or asking Globey, the talking globe from Pee-Wee's Playhouse. One guess at each part per comment, but comment as often as you like.
The website of a musician well-known in the 1960s contains a lengthy "tribute" to the life of an even more well-known figure from history, containing biography, chronology of accomplishments, and illustrations. In the explanation for his interest, the musician writes:
In the summer of 1981 I attended a weekend seminar on the problems of Vietnam veterans. The event was sponsored by the Berkeley Veterans Assistance Center and took place in the City of Berkeley Veterans Memorial in the civic center. It was a lightly attended event but featured movers and shakers in the veterans movement who would soon change just about everything for the better. One speaker was a Vietnam War nurse named Lynda Van Devanter, who was the first Vietnam War nurse to "come out" and speak for women in the military. As a member of the audience I was stunned at the realization that I was also guilty of ignoring women in the military in my writings.
Who is the musician? Who is the figure that this event moved him to research?
First correct answer wins a Bear Force One (warning, YouTube link, which may not be precisely appropriate for work, although there's nothing really graphic in it) 2008 World Tour pastel polo shirt. No Googling or calling up Lynda Van Devanter. One guess per comment, but comment as often as you like.
]]>My apologies: the city we were looking for -- which may or may not be named after Alexander the Great -- is Kandahar, Afghanistan.
]]>1. In the millennium an educational genius will write a book to be given to every young man on the date of his disillusion. This work will have the flavor of Montaigne's essays and Samuel Butler's note-books -- and a little of Tolstoi and Marcus Aurelius. It will be neither cheerful nor pleasant but will contain numerous passages of striking humor. Since first-class minds never believe anything very strongly until they've experienced it, its value will be purely relative ... all people over thirty will refer to it as "depressing."
2. Mrs. Lidcote, as the huge menacing mass of New York defined itself far off across the waters, shrank back into her corner of the deck and sat listening with a kind of unreasoning terror to the steady onward drive of the screws.
3. After her mother's death, Ruma's father retired from the pharmaceutical company where he had worked for many decades and began traveling in Europe, a continent he'd never seen. In the past year he had visited France, Holland and most recently Italy. They were package tours, traveling in the company of strangers, riding the bus through the countryside, each meal and museum and hotel prearranged.
Who are the three writers? Bonus: name the titles of any of the three stories.
First correct guess of each posted to comments wins an autographed copy of the Wombat's own first short work of fiction, "The Giant Egg" (Plot summary: Giant egg, mysteriously originating atop a mountain peak, is tumbled to the bottom by unspecified forces, resulting in a Paul Bunyan's-camp-style breakfast feast; illustrated). No Googling or programming your Lego Mindstorm kit to reconstruct the ideal reader of Montaigne, Butler and Marcus Aurelius. One guess at each part per comment, but comment as often as handsome does.