Ski Weekend Pictorial

After years of too little rain and snow, we had almost too much of both during our January ski weekend.  Our arrival at Serene Lakes on Thursday afternoon was greeted with blue skies and snow covered roads.  The weather later turned stormy, but that didn't bother us.

After a day of skiing Sugar Bowl, shoveling the back deck (thanks, Tom!), or lazing around (thanks, Peter!), we sat down to enjoy Tom's world-famous mountain lasagna.

The following day some skied Mt. Rose in the rain while the sensible ones stayed indoors.  We met up later at George's beautiful new home in Montreux.  The living room was picture perfect....

...but the blue tape on the dining room floor highlighted that everything else was not quite perfect.  The headaches of new construction gave us plenty to commiserate over as we enjoyed Stephenie's excellent white lasagna.

As for A Nation of Sheep, we let George try to convince us that Lederer's 1961 screed is as relevant today as it was leading up to the Vietnam War.  When he was finished, we turned back to Stephenie, her lasagna, her conversation, and the excellent Bandol she poured.  Thank you, George, for letting us visit and spend time with your infinitely more interesting wife. I'm sorry, George, that wasn't fair.  I should have also acknowledged the pleasure we took in the company of your well-behaved dogs...!

Love Requited, at George's

Acknowledgments

George deserves kudos on several fronts.  First, when his proposed titles were challenged, he promptly offered us an alternative that met with our approval. Second, the title he proffered had so much personal meaning that he had us close to tears when he recounted why.  Finally, his eggplant parmesan would have joined Fermina Daza and her mother-in-law in gustatory harmony, and his chess pie might well have convinced Dr. Juvenal Urbino that dessert is better than the game itself.

The Book

If One Hundred Years of Solitude put Gabriel Garcia Marquez on the map, Love in the Time of Cholera cemented his stature as one of the greatest novelists of the 20^th century.  Our 7.9 rating confirms how easily we were persuaded by the exquisite storytelling that is the hallmark of Garcia Marquez’ writing.  Set in a fictional city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, Love in the Time of Cholera tells the compelling if convoluted story of unrequited love, with Fermina Daza at the middle of the triangle formed by her husband, Dr. Juvenal Urbino, and her first love, Florentino Ariza. 

Despite our collective thumbs up, our individual reactions were anything but uniform.  Indeed, many were quite cryptic—according to my paltry notes. Here are some examples:  the book “wrote itself” according to Larry, who nevertheless labored to finish it; the female protagonist wasn’t sufficiently endearing and neither were the long paragraphs (Jack); the plot benefited from “parallel male characters” (Doug, to whom I do no justice with this paraphrasing); the book “mesmerized” Roy until he reached the halfway point (or was it the halfway point of his family vacation in Southeast Asia?); the repeated use of symbols fascinated Stan, who still puzzled over the significance of the birds and refused all of our explanations; and, finally, the book seduced Glenn from the very first paragraph, even though he’d read it before. As for me, yes, I spiked the ratings with a 10, but I had to.  The characters are unforgettable, but it was the extraordinary dialogue—with all of its insight into human relationships—that had me from the beginning.

Next Up

Jack gave us the chance to step further back in time and read one of the few American novelists who compares closely (and favorably) to F. Scott Fitzgerald.  We'll see in July if John O'Hara deserved the accolades he received upon the publication of his first and arguably best novel, Appointment in Samarra.

2013 Redux

In June we gathered at Roy's, ate well from his table loaded with food from Sol, and discussed Michael Ondaatje's second-most famous novel, The Cat's Table. Recalled from a much later vantage point, Ondaatje's narrator describes his journey as an 11-year old from Ceylon to England.  Ostensibly an account of 21 days aboard ship, the novel proved to us to be so much more.  Ondaatje gave us a beautiful examination of wayward youth, lost innocence, misplaced recollections, and the pain of  friendships also misplaced. With no one dissenting, we happily awarded Ondaatje an 8.1 for a story so well told.

July arrived and, instead of simple afternoon cocktails at Doug's, we dined and discussed Dave Eggers' A Hologram for the King.  Surprisingly, we were to a man slightly underwhelmed by a novel that otherwise boasted so many of the elements necessary for our approval.  Eggers' protagonist, Alan Clay, an American businessman in his mid-fifties, has bottomed out financially and is desperate to redeem himself with a sales commission on a deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  The product:  a holographic telecommunications system.  The client:  King Abdullah.  The setting:  a speculative city waiting to be built in the desert. With a huge nod to Waiting for Godot,  Eggers' story of ambition and failure, of a father's love and a spouse's betrayal, of a disappearing old economy and a mystifying new economy unfolds in a series of reflections and diversions as Clay waits and waits for the King to appear for a promised presentation of the hologram. We found Clay alternatingly pathetic and sympathetic, and perhaps because none of us has suffered so keenly the emotional toll of middle age, we couldn't quite forgive Clay his inability and unwillingness to move ahead.  A mildly pessimistic novel tempered our optimism and produced merely a solid rating (6.5).  Like Eggers' protagonist, our rating could and should have been better.

We declared a bye in August and reconvened in September at George's house for a fine German dinner, with schnapps from Roy and a drinkable Malbec (with an Urban label!) from Doug.  We had to decide whether we erred in selecting The Book Thief as our reading for the month.  Amid criticisms that Zusak's novel was written for young adults, boasts a female protagonist, and exceeded our 500-page limit, we nevertheless concluded that it was well worth the extra pages.  Set during WWII in Munich, and told from Death's perspective (yes, Death is the first-person narrator), Zusak's story centers on young Liesel Meminger, a girl whose poverty combined with her fondness of reading compels her to steal books.  With heartbreaking commentary on Jews, Jesse Owens, hunger, schoolyard bullies, bombs, Nazism, heroism and selflessness, and above all parental love, Zusak had us early in his story.  We all but admitted that our 7.7 rating would have been higher but for the book's YA designation.  Shame on us!

We met at Jack's in October and, with mouthfuls of tri tip and roasted autumn root soup, we dug into The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint.  Written by Brady Udall (to us baby boomers, better known for his relationship to Reps. Morris and Stewart Udall), Edgar Mint is about as bleak a novel as we've read to date.  Yes, there is redemption and closure (of sorts) at the end, and more than a little black humor en route, but Edgar's journey is filled with so much pain that the reader can only cringe as the obstacles mount. His story begins when, while living with his alcoholic mother, his head is run over by a mail truck.  He is taken to a hospital where his only solace is--you're not going to believe it--a urinal puck! Thence to an Indian reservation reform school where bullying and beatings are routine and supervision absent.  And then to the dysfunction of an adoptive Mormon family.  And all the while, in the background lurks the strange and seemingly predatory surgeon to whom Edgar owes his life.  We argued over the transitions between first and third person POV (Doug and Stan), we agreed that Udall is wildly imaginative (Paul and Larry), we found in Edgar the consummate survivor (John), and generally marveled at the co-existence of stereotypes and eccentrics in this coming-of-age/survival/nativist tale.  Udall really made us work for it, so we gave him a solid 6.8 for his and our combined efforts.

We bypassed November and met at Paul's in December. In recognition of Dashiell Hammett's role in the development of the noir genre (both book and film), Paul's menu went berserk.  Starting with a black truffle brie and black olives, then to an entrée of black rice, black beans, and blackened chicken, Paul had us wash it down with sips of Johnnie Walker Black. Dessert, naturally, featured blackberries.  Way to go, Paul!  As for Hammett, his The Maltese Falcon managed to stand up to the passage of time.  But since the entire genre has been co-opted, adapted, and reinvented many times over, the novelty was absent.  Dean felt it read a little like a Law & Order episode.  Moreover, the dry, potboiler writing felt stilted when compared to the sharp dialog we recalled from the movie.  Several of us (Larry, Tom, and Paul) found ourselves mentally toggling back and forth between Hammett's original tough-talking Spade and Bogart's archly classic cinematic version. All of us, though, enjoyed the 1920's San Francisco backdrop, from old street and hotel names to the city's colorful and checkered history as a port of embarkation to the far east.  As a quick read and a sentimental mood piece, we favored TMF with a 6.9 rating.

Just Men and Dogs at George's

Acknowledgments
Our dinner on Dec. 13 presented our host with a thematic challenge:  how to evoke the art scene of Patti Smith's 1970's New York without ignoring Mapplethorpe's enormous presence in her memoir.  With a little help from Armando, George succeeded quite nicely.  He presented us with a Coney Island menu (chili dogs and homemade Moon Pies) and a background soundtrack that was vintage Patti Smith.

As we reached for second helpings of Moon Pie, Armando set up an impromptu studio in the living room.  Backed by hot lights and a Hasselblad with a Polaroid back, Armando shot instant B&W head-and-shoulders portraits of all of us.  The more adventurous (or exhibitionist, in the case of Stan and John) pulled off their shirts.  The results: amusing, artistic, but hardly Mapplethorpe.  For that, Armando will need more capable subjects.  (Garth, where are you?)

The Book
Patti Smith's highly-acclaimed memoir of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and her own coming of age as an artist in New York City in the 1960's and 70's was an unusual choice for us.  Written by a woman and mostly about a woman, it very nearly violated our cardinal rule (its focus on Mapplethorpe saved it from disqualification).  And while she won the National Book Award for Just Kids in 2010, Patti Smith was known to us as a rocker, not a writer.

Perhaps with these reservations in mind, I came to this book with a bias that I couldn't shake.  My distaste only grew as I recoiled from Smith's incessant name-dropping, her simplistic writing style (like Paul, I hated its staccato rhythm), and her tedious invocations of Rimbaud and Baudelaire as inspirations for her own nascent artistic sensibility.  So imagine my surprise when I showed up at George's and learned that everyone else found plenty to like in Just Kids.  

George and Dean were enthralled by the 1970's New York art scene described by Smith.  For his part, Doug felt that her name-dropping was simply part of the bohemian currency of the era.  Like Dan and Stan, he was drawn to her memoir partly out of a fondness for her music as a teenager in the 1970's--a style of music he contrasts with the "vapid, corporatized" rock music of today. 

Even those of us less attuned to her music found something to like in Smith's narrative.  Terry was impressed by her and Mapplethorpe's single-minded devotion to their work, Armando admired her strength and resilience as an artist (and was reminded of working in a music store and constantly re-stocking her debut album, Horses), and Paul (who joined us from Kansas City!) found the modest lives of 1970's rock stars, sans entourages, appealing.  For John and Larry, the strength of the book was its devotion to Smith's and Mapplethorpe's relationship as young artists.

For her story (but not for her writing), we awarded Patti Smith a 6.1, which puts her only a little below average in our ratings.  While I'm tempted to accuse others of praising Smith's memoir out of nostalgia or sympathy, my own rating (a 1) was a little unfair.  To make up, here is a stock photo of Smith:

Patti Smith, then

Next Up
We leave for our ski sojourn in the Sierras in January and return to a new selection of titles in February.   Until then, good reading!  [Ed. Note:  With no snow in the mountains, we've reversed course:  Jack has kindly agreed to host in January and we'll see if February delivers enough snow to make a weekend out of it.]

Back to Waco, by George!

Acknowledgments
George had warned us that the food theme for Steve Martin’s memoir would be geographic, so none of us was expecting any funny stuff. Last Tuesday, he delivered on his promise, and served up pulled pork and slaw right out of Martin’s hometown of Waco, Texas. I’m not sure where Stephanie’s chocolate-laced pecan pie hailed from, but I’m sure Steve Martin would have approved.

In my sampling afterwards, I heard universal acclaim for the pulled pork. Indeed, Garth fell off his vegetarian wagon in order to partake! For our next meeting, Stan may have to put him on a diet of carrots and pureed bitterroot.

Our acknowledgments would not be complete without commenting on the three ferocious canines that greeted us at the door. In particular, we were absorbed by the Pug Gymnastics orchestrated by Stephanie in the back yard. An appearance on David Letterman is imminent, I'm sure.

The Book
I’ll confess that I groaned when we rejected Cormac McCarthy in favor of Steve Martin’s sawed-off memoir. My bad attitude persisted as I read the book and found myself underwhelmed. I was heartened to discover that most of you felt the same way, if for different reasons.

We were all impressed by Martin’s exposition. Stan summed up our feelings when he described Martin as a fine technician. His prose was carefully wrought and he took us through the 1960’s and 1970’s with a clear sense of direction. But while we got an A-to-Z recitation of what it required for Martin to develop into an accomplished comedian, the personal Steve Martin was never on full display. Even his callow years at Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm were less about the wonder of growing up and more about specific magic tricks, his stagecraft, and a few of his fellow travelers. To his credit, George fell on his sword and apologized for proposing this pleasant diversion from our normally meaty fare (again, glad to have you aboard, Garth).

Steve Martin had his defenders, though. Chief among them were Jack and Stan, who both admitted that their admiration for Martin determined their rating for the book (each an 8). Notwithstanding these victims of Martin’s cult of personality, our overall rating was a middling 5.8 (which includes Jeff’s absentee vote of 6).

Our dinner discussion was bracketed by viewing clips from Martin’s Tonight Show and his SNL appearances. Thanks to Glenn and Tom for the content, and to Larry for bringing a phonograph, which proved so unnecessary in this age of Youtube and digital downloads.

Next Up
For our next selection, Stan offered up two wildly different products of the counterculture era: Dickey’s Deliverance and the Autobiography of Malcolm X. Neither got us too excited, but his third choice did. We picked Blindness by Jose Saramago, a past winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. When we meet next at Stan’s, let’s come in dark glasses and consider what it means to live in a sightless world.