A Three Dog Life, A Memoir, By Abigail Thomas (2007)

This work by Abigail Thomas is a true story; her story of a chapter in her life. Maybe it is summation of a life of experience. These kinds of stories are not hard to find. I am sure they are not as well received as this one, with its awesome lauds from everything newspaper to author Stephen King. However, for me, it’s a little different. It turns out that Thomas lived about three blocks away from me at the time of this book. We shared the same streets, and shopped at the same Market in the Columbia University area of Manhattan. Although, I have no memory of this woman, I am sure that I must have past her on the street or even waited in line with in the Westside Market.

OK, so this book seems a little more real to me. Got it?

The story focuses around one event and its aftermath. Thomas’ husband was hit by a car returning home after taking their beagle Harry for a walk. Rich sustained massive brain damage. He lost short term memory and control of much of his mental functionality. He was emotionally all over the place sometimes going into unexplainable rages and paranoia.

Abigail’s life changes immediately. She has to handle what happened to her husband while handling what happened to her. The book in many ways is a story of adaptation, which seems to be a strength of the author. If you ever had to adapt to a sudden and traumatic change in life, you can easily relate. What she is does best and what is best about the book is her ability to document the process honestly and with great sympathy.

At the start of the book, she starts out with one dog, Harry. By the end she has three. I think her favorite is Harry the beagle, but I am biased. I am sure that I have seen this beagle as I noticed every beagle on the street, so I am sure that I must have noticed a neighborhood beagle on Broadway or Riverside Drive.

The title of book is taken from an aboriginal saying that during especially cold nights the more dogs sleep with you. Anyone who has an indoor dog know that on cold night dogs will get in bed with you, roll into a ball, and lean right up against you. If you have a beagle, you know that the beagle will do the same but take up most of the bed or couch.

I liked that Thomas is a true dog person. She gets them. This is evident in all of her little insights about the personalities and skill sets of her dogs.

In some ways, her book it is quite frightening and lonely. It frightening what her husbands goes through, and what she goes through with her husband. Rich is healthy individual who had a terrible thing happened to him and lost everything except his wife. You sort of know that he is going to die soon. It hangs over everything. It is a lonely experience to go through her loneliness, until you realize that she seems excel in loneliness.

In many ways, she is a happier and stronger person after this tragedy; one because she learns how to rely on herself and she learns to find comfort where she can find it. She, of course, finds comfort in her dogs. Who wouldn’t? She finds comfort in her Husband in his new life. She moves to Woodstock to be near the facility that he now lives in.

Although as I fell deeper into the book, more annoyed I got with Abigail. I found that the book lacked insight and wisdom. In sometimes, I wondered if she liked her husband better after the accident, whom she related to more as dog than as a human being. She is definitely woman who prefers solitude; more immersed in her own thoughts than with other people. She seems to come to terms with after a life time of fighting, and feeling bad about it. It’s not uncommon, I have met people like this, and I think she is one of them.

My favorite passage is when she describes how she used feel unnerved that there was something else going on and she wasn’t there, and now she hopes they are having a good and don’t call her.

Maybe it’s a story of depression and loss. There are hints of sweetness and strength which are certainly not mutually exclusive. It is certainly a powerful story, well written, and very touching.

Be Kind, Rewind (2008)

Who would have thought Mos Def and Jack Black would be a comedy duo? I guess it is in the long tradition of rapper being film stars that Mos Def must follow.

Be Kind, Rewind is the first good art film to arrive in 2008. It is written and directed by Michel Gonfry. Gonfry is the great French director who started in music videos and moved on to film; like Spike Jonze. He made my favorite film of 2006, The Science of Sleep.

He did another great job with this one. It is interesting, funny and really really sad. The film starts off slow and finish to a rousing finish without a happy ending. Instead, it has the poor will inherit the earth kind of thing going on.

The story of the film is that Mr. Fletcher, a kindly old man (played by Danny Glover) runs a video rental store in a depressing part of New Jersey with ultra-nice guy Mike (played by Mos Def). Jerry, a crazy guy (played by Jack Black) owns a nearby business, is always hanging around. One day, when Mr. Fletcher is away scouting other video stores because the city is set to demolish his building due to urban redevelopment and building code violations, Jerry erases all the videos. So, in a last ditch effort to keep the store running, Mike and Jerry shoot the movies themselves; starring them, just two guys with a video camera in the great state of New Jersey. Along the way, they pick up Alma (played by Melonie Diaz) in a dry cleaners store. This is when the movie picks up speed. The chemistry between the three in one of the best part of film, and something I haven’t seen in film yet.

After a bunch of thugs liked their rendition of Ghostbusters, all three of them start making sweded films. “Sweded” means that they made there own versions of the film. Just like previous Gonfry movies, this wear his stamp comes in with brilliant homemade looking props and art. The film really gets fun and funny here. It picks up a warmth and joy. Then the Gonfry takes it all the way. A harsh reality folds in and never leaves. You are left feeling “Well, at least they tried.” : ( I left feeling really sad.

It really had a Chaplin feel to it. Everyone in the movie was poor and ethnic. They lost every time. The “Man” was always after them. Still, they persevered. It was shot in very urban industrial parts of town; in poorest of areas.

Nevertheless, you have not seen this before. Maybe you have lived it. Maybe you recreated films in your backyard growing up with your video camera. I did. It was like beautiful homage to that.

I have a feeling that a couple years from now and going forward Be Kind, Rewind will be one of those college and hipster cult movies that will be studied and copied into culture.

Busting Vegas by Ben Mezrich

The full title is Busting Vegas: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees. This is a true story that reads like a thriller. My heartbeat increased and I was on the edge of my chair for the minor cliffhangers. It seems fantastic and realistic at the same time.

Busting Vegas is not the first book by Mezrich written about MIT to kids taking on casinos black jack tables. Bringing Down the House which is another book on the subject has been made into an upcoming movie called “21.” While we are on the subject, Busting Vegas is not the only book by Mezrich about Ivy League kids. Ugly Americans is another book on my list.

“Make money playing blackjack” is all it took. The story focuses around Semyon Dukach who was a MIT student. He comes from a poor background as a Russian Jewish immigrant. Semyon finds this flier on campus; “Make money playing blackjack.” The flier said to attend a meeting. It is lead by a guy named Victor (maybe not his real name). Victors makes teams of students. They go to Indian Casinos and practice Victor’s methods for beating the house. Victor then takes those who he thinks would be the best at taking on high stakes gambling and puts them into an elite team. Once the new team is assembled he teaches them the Three Techniques. These techniques are quasi-legal. It’s not card counting or anything that has been seen before, and they really work. Armed with fake IDs and personas they fly down to Vegas. They quickly make mad money. In minutes they are up thousands of dollars. Even though part of the act is to make a scene, the Casino get wise to the kids are winning every time they bet big.

Now the ugly side of Vegas shows its head, Semyon and his buddy are separated. His buddy gets the crap beat out of him in a windowless casino back room, and Semyon is taking to coffee with a British consultant who tries to get a picture of his new enemy.

The casino’s are now on to them. Everywhere they go, the network of Gambling industry identifies them and this British consultant is tracking them. Nevertheless, they travel all over the world, sometime making enormous amounts of money and sometime just getting away with their lives.

Eventually there is too much heat and problems in the group. The team eventually disbands with their lives, but just barely.

It is fair to say that these types of teams and veterans of them are still hitting the Casinos today.

I found the book a bit like a Harry Potter book, in that it starts out a bit slow then by the end you can’t put it down.

I loved this book. It was exciting and I recommend this book to anyone.

27 Dresses (2008)

This is really a delightful movie. Yeah, it’s chick-flick, but a really good one. 27 Dresses could have been a summer release. I am really not sure why it isn’t.

What I really like about this movie is how it is two stories, kind of like T.V. in that way, except that it is perfectly interwoven together. The first story is the underdog story. Our heroine Jane (even the name is plain), played by Katherine Heigl, is the girl who does everything for everyone else; basically she is taken advantage of by everyone in her life. She has become a wedding planner/fixer for her friends at no charge. She loves Weddings and is a big sap. (Watching this I think, I am starting to understand Women’s obsession with weddings. I think it is big dress up party with lots of planning, where the woman can be Princess for the day. If you have any thoughts on the matter, please leave a comment) While at one of her crazy New York Weddings she meets this guy, who is really annoying to her. This is the second story. There is a little Jane Austen thrown in here. So, as you guess it, he is annoying till she loves him.

James Marsden, Kevin, the guy, does a really good at playing a sensitive emotional guy who hides it over an abrasive veneer. Heigl makes her part believable giving a nebbish countenance throughout the movie. You can overlook how soooooooooooooooooooo beautiful she is and believe that she is this Cinderella type character. By the way, James Marden plays the Prince in Enchanted. The supporting cast is rounded out by Judy Greer; who looks really old; who plays Jane’s bitchy friend, and Edward Burns who plays Jane’s boss who Jane is also in love with.

The drama comes in when Jane younger sister comes in and goes after George (Burns). In the chick-flick storyline, there is “the bitch,” which is sadly Jane’s sister. The one, Jane has to stop the Wedding because of, but should Jane be with George or Kevin?

The movie works because it has a smart script and smart cast. It is another movie set New York City. Again, much of the same locations are used in this movie as they are in Enchanted, Cloverfield, and Definitely, maybe.


I think if you love Weddings, you will love this movie. It is always about Weddings and it leaves out the stressful parts. There are plenty of good puns and watch out for British humor. The title 27 Dresses are the 27 bridesmaid dress that Jane has, and are plenty of jokes about that.

I really liked this movie. I really didn’t expect to, but I did. I highly recommend it, especially if you are a girly girl : ) It’s really cute!

Definitely, maybe (2008)

Definitely,maybe is this year’s Valentine’s Day film. It is suppose to be a cute movie on how a divorced father tells his daughter how he met her mother. It all starts because in her school when he is picking his daughter up from school, a sex education class was taught. This starts a series of questions from the daughter to the father. The father, here played by Ryan Reynolds, makes the story of his romantic life a game for the girl played by Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin. Now, this sounds like a good story, except that this guy so doesn’t work.

Reynolds seems completely miscast. Although he does a good job with Maya, the daughter in the film, he is boring and unbelievable in his role of the nice single guy. Even if you try really hard to take him serious, because, you know, it’s a movie, you can’t. You are just watching a bad actor.

The women in his life are better. Abigail Breslin plays were role as a feminist daughter; a bit like Lisa Simpson minus the sweetness. She is rude and abrasive. The three girlfriends are written perfectly, and are a pleasure to watch. Sometimes I felt that Rachel Weiss is too typed cast as a selfish manipulative bitch. She was definitely the best actress here. She doesn’t seem like she is the character that she always portrays and that is a little distracting.

The movie is much too long. The parallels with the political Bill Clinton are just not necessary. I did mention that this is a period piece of the nineties? They take an hour to make five points that they could have made in 20 minutes. This movie could have been much better is they just edited it down. You start not to care after a while, and just hope that the movie would pick up the pace, then just end.

It wants to be a tearjerker. Through the film there are scenes you are suppose to cry at. You see them coming a mile away, and you feel so cheated when they come over and over again.; although, if you are feeling really bad about life, then you might appreciate them. If you do, please consult a doctor!

So what works on with this film? Hmm . . . let me think about that one. (time passing) OK, the soundtrack was great. It was early 90’s music, the new retro. Also Rachel Weiss, Isla Fischer ( Ali’g’s girlfriend), and New York City were good things about this film. It was funny. I have seen Cloverfield, Enchantment, and this one, and all three films are shot in the exact same places in Manhattan. I might do a photo essay just to prove it. Another funny thing is that with Manhattan prices so out of control, somehow New York City has been become this upper middle class setting for movies.

Anyway, wait till this is the hallmark movie of the week. Not a lot here that is worth your money.

D-Sides – Gorillaz (2007)

D-Sides because these are the B-sides to the Singles off of Demon Days. So, I guess these are the tracks that didn’t make it on the album. From the sound of it was probably a good thing. Demon Days was a perfect album and maybe the best of the decade. These tunes are in the same vein but not in the same league. With exception of Hong Kong, the rest of these songs are probably only great for Gorillaz fans, which D-Sides is a must have.

Must Download Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a beautiful Damon Albarn ballad which is done with someone on a traditional Chinese instrument where the strings are plucked with devices that are placed on each finger, which I think is called a Gu zheng.

Other goodies are We are Happy Landfill, and The Swagga ( or “Whoo” Song).

What disc really is is a good groove album, something to put on at the beginning of a party when people are arriving. Gorrillaz have always been a mixture of cool non-pop music presented through, you know the guy from Blur. This release is less hip-hop and more trance, reggae, electronic and groove with some cool vocals.

The second disc is just nine remixes, and most of them are the song Dare, which just reminds me you how good Demon Days is. The one cool thing that D-Sides proves is that the right songs got on Demon Days. Don't get me wrong. D-Sides is great, but not for everyone.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby

This is a great book, Very deserving the praise you will find on cover from the New York Times, Washington Post, and Financial Times lauding the book as one of the best books in a hundred year. The The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a gripping, heart-wrenching, tautly poetic prose, which you picked and really can’t put down. The story, if you can call it that, as it is not a straight narrative, is told in vignettes. I read it in a weekend, and mostly in one sitting. You don’t want to put in down, because it goes down so easily, but also because it is so sad that you don’t to carry that feeling with you for a long time.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly tells a true of an editor of Elle Magazine in Paris who has a stroke, which in a previous day would have surely left him for dead, but now days he is has a condition known as Locked-In syndrome. He communicates through blinking one eye. He composes the book by someone going through the alphabet until Bauby indicates which the right letter is by blinking. What you get is an internal world of person who is alert but has lost all functionality with his body, hence losing his ability to communicate to the outside world. His mind stays active. In his prose is the world of a man in complete solitude. His sentences are perfect pithily prose, but you also get a sense how much time he has spent inside his own head.

He describes his situation of having no control over his situation without frustration. I don’t know of any other record of someone in his condition.

If you have ever worked or volunteered in a hospital with a population with severe neurological trauma, you know that these people exist. They lay there alone or piled next to each other like a Victorian asylum to human misery; not quite alive and not quite dead.

The courageous part is that this man never lost his consciousness of everything and his spirit remaines strong; grasping on to life where ever he can get it. But you know he is going die. In his memories, he romantically shares the memories of his life; it’s tragic that a life could boil down to a few precious moments.

He knows he is dying. He doesn’t die in the book, but it is written on the cover that he dies a couple days after its French publication.

The book was a huge success internationally. It has been made into a movie that is out now, and is suppose to be very good. I am not sure if I am going to see it. I am still touched and sadden by the story. I am not sure if I want to go through that again.

In Our Nature – Jose Gonzales (2007)

The name Jose Gonzales just screams out SWEDEN. When Jose Gonzales is a Swedish dude who like Sia (who is somewhere on this blog) has branched out successfully from the group Zero 7, which is where most people have heard of him. Of course, you had to have heard of Zero 7 first. Well, even if you haven’t, Jose Gonzales’s In our Nature is a perfect little CD.

The album art looks like he asked Sia if he could use the same designer from her Color the small one or Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes. It is white and naturalistic.

The music is vocal and guitar orientated and nothing else. His voice is active and charged, but at the same time melodic like Joao Gilberto. There are 10 songs and they all work. It lasts for about 30 minutes. There are no throw away songs. It’s all good!

Gonzales whose parents are from Argentina before moving to Gothenburg Sweden maintains a bit of a Latin American classical feel. His vocals, melodies or energy certainly do not. He neither does he have that American folk singer feel too. His vocals are smooth and consistent; almost calming, but at the same time don’t put you to sleep. Still, they are very chill.

The lyrics seems conscious of the human experience and it that way you could say that is a throw back to the 60’s, but it isn’t. The sixties were an angry time. The music is looking for peace not just socially, politically, but internal. No more shock and awe for peace.

The music just goes by very quickly and enjoyable. You can put it on do something; feel calmer and it’s over before you know it. So, you put it on again, and the same experience. It sounds like a perfect C/D to put on a Sunday morning with that cup of coffee and the paper.

Even though the vocals are the lead in most popular music since the beginning of music, here the guitar offers the most emotion and the vocal are more in a support role. Tchaikovsky once said that guitar (classical) was like a whole orchestral in one instrument, and that is certainly true here.

Gentle would be the word to describe the feel. Gentle in its approach to bigger and non-gentle topics. I would say that In our Nature is one of the best albums of the decade.

iCon by Jeffery S. Young and William L. Simon

The full title is iCon Steve Jobs The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business. So, this is basically a book about Steve Jobs president and founder of Apple Computers, Next Step, Pixar, and the ipod.

I really can’t believe how over-the-top this book is. It could either be written by Jobs himself or maybe his mother. They say that the world of Apple is a cult of personality that follows Steve Jobs. There is some truth to this. I have only owned Apple/Mac. I have seen Jobs at an Apple keynote, which the only word that is sufficient “Mesmerizing.” I even paid full price for a crappy biography of Steve Jobs.

Still, this is just a non-stop uncritical laud of the computer guru. There is nothing here that you couldn’t of gotten by just following the news and an Apple press release. It is so sanitized that you could feed it to the I.C.U. I guess, I had holes in my knowledge of Jobs, so it filled in the gaps. I keep that in mind when I think I paid $17 for this, and I get paid in dollars. {It ain’t what it used to be}

There is almost nothing about the technical advances, war with Microsoft, or the brave new world of the “i” in front everything. I found the T.V. movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley” to be more informative, not to mention more entertaining.

Now, let me take a step back, there is a guilt saying anything bad about it for the same reason is why I am so angry about the flakeyness of this book. You see the Mac is the Jew of the computer world. Always fighting for market share, if not survival itself. Ruled by a brilliant yet impetuous G-d; that sometime flies off the handle. Totally over-represented in the computer world, and in the advancement in the industry. You will find Mac in top positions, and in the entertainment industry; and saturated in large urban areas like New York City. If you own a Mac you have had to perry an onslaught of attacks and ridicule personally from the Microsoft community; who even though have about 90 percent of market find Mac’s 3 percent so dangerous. By being put through this the Mac-users becomes a battle harden expert on the Mac with loyalty enviable to any company. With such a culture you know that when the Microsoft Operating System is a part of computer history that there will still be a Mac.

Sia – Some people have real problems (2008)

Last month Sia released her second disc in the U.S. It is her third or forth in the U.K. and Australia. Most of her fans, of course, came to know her through her vocals in the band Zero 7, which she shared the duties with Jose Gonzales, and others. Her first album,Color the Small one, was highlighted by the song ‘Breathe me’, which was used extensively by the HBO show “Six feet under.”

Here in, Some people have real problems, Sia continues with her slowcore, white girl soul sound, but now a tweeny pop sound comes in, and somehow it works. It is much better than Color the small one with the exception of the songs Sunday and Breathe me, wasn’t too much to write home about. This new one as a whole is better as a complete package, with a few strong tracks, but none as strong as the Zero 7-esque one’s that are mentioned above.

Still, there a few good tracks. My favorite is a wordy tune called Academia, which has a girlie “I am the Walrus” feel to it. Buttons is an unlisted and the last track has pop feel, and is the song that she opens up with in her live show. Electric Bird, Death by Chocolate, and You will be loved are all highlights of the disc.

It has a good flow: dark, slow, melodic. It is a chill album for those chill moments. Still it never is up to the quality of Zero-7, and is in no way a great album. I feel that I will forget about it soon as new and better stuff comes out. I like Sia, and this work is an improvement for her solo stuff, and it seems like record of transition.

I had the chance to see her in concert where she preformed most of the songs on the C/D. It did sound good live.

So, this is a good album but not a great album. Right now it is on my rotation of what I am listening too, but I am not that excited about it. For me it is completing with great outings by Radiohead and Jose Gonzales (who I am sure I will review soon), and that isn’t a fair, because those two works are probably in the best of the decade category.

Sia does deliver a heartfelt and definitely worthy work. The songs do grow on you. Still it never researches greatness. Maybe she will in her next.

Giants win the Superbowl

This evening the Giants won the Superbowl. It was a great game. In true New York City fashion things got a little wild on the streets. Along Broadway on the Upper West Side you could hear car honking their horns, people shouting. Even the NYPD got into it by flashing their lights driving by. Mcdonalds employees came out hugging people and offering booze. People were shouting from cabs. Of course, it died down about fifteen minutes later. Nevertheless, it was an exciting moment.