Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins

Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins Rabbit Fur Coat

I remember reading a lot about Jenny Lewis a couple years ago. I think Elvis Costello was saying good things about her record Rabbit Fur Coat and I planned on checking it out.

This week I finally got it. I wish I'd heard it sooner.

I've been listening to it without skipping anything (except "Rabbit Fur Coat", but I'll probably give it another chance tonight). You know how when you listen to a new album and a couple songs jump out at you and even after only a couple listens will be playing in your head when you're walking around at night or at the grocery store? Here, that would be "You Are What You Love" and "Rise Up With Fists!!". I can't get enough of them. I want to play them over and over- especially the former as it fits in perfectly with what's going on with me now- but I'm afraid I'll get sick of them. I think this CD will be in my player for a long time.

Kathy Griffin's book

Kathy Griffin just put out a book, the story of her life, called Official Book Club Selection.

As long as you don't expect it to be as funny as her stand-up or TV show you'll be fine. Last week I read Chelsea Handler's Are You There Vodka, It's Me, Chelsea and that was more of a humor book, though not very well written. Yes, there was a certain conversational style but someone should've cut out all the "obviously"s. Still, she wrote it herself and I laughed at certain parts; some phrases were very surprising and original. She knows how to tell a story.

So does KG, both in her act and on paper, though the styles of telling are very different. I have a feeling that KG wrote this book herself, the same as any author, and an editor polished it.

There is a lot of detail about all the hard work that went into her success and not as many celebrity stories as I'd expected. Luckily, she tells the entire "Seinfeld" story, which I had heard only pieces of before. The most surprising thing is when she tears into Steve Martin- only a couple pages but one of my favorite parts of the book. The Brooke Shields chapter is, as they say, worth the price alone. Everything about Brooke, Andre Agasi, Brooke's mother, and Suddenly Susan comes out. I've never seen that show but I got choked up reading about the suicide of David Strickland.

The chapter that comes the closest to what you'd expect from a book by KG is the chapter "Fanning Flames in Hollywood,and Yes, I'm Talking About Dakota".

KG had a red carpet running-joke about Dakota Fanning checking into rehab and it angered Steven Spielberg and the studio behind the upcoming War of the Worlds. One of her agents told her later that she wouldn't have gotten in so much trouble if, instead of Fanning, she had said Haley Joel Osment or the kid from Jerry Maguire, because their careers were just about over. She said that comment showed the true heartlessness of Hollywood.

I think the reason the joke hit so close to home for Spielberg is because it wouldn't have been the first time this kind of thing happened. Remember when Drew Barrymore was in ET and Spielberg was like her second father. Once the movie had made its millions and Barrymore was into drinking, drugs, and rehab at a ridiculously young age. Maybe he sent her flowers or some notes of encouragement (maybe), but I don't recall her making her comeback in any of his films. I just remember the Amy Fisher TV movie and Poison Ivy.

The reason most people will buy the book are for the chapters about her ex-husband Matthew Moline and all the money he took out her ATM while she was sleeping. She broke the news on "Larry King Live" and it's all here in detail. Nobody could've yanked the book from my hand when it came to the part where she had to question the two people, other than herself, who knew her PIN number: Moline, and her assistant Jessica.

KG's book is interesting, well written, and there are some lessons in there too if you want them.

Bonus post!!!

It breaks my heart to see (1) next to the month of August here at RJ Battles. That would go for any one of the twelve. But this past August was such a good time that it seems like a real shame that there's no real record of it.

There's a lot we could've talked about: The White Stripes, Daniel Craig as James Bond, The Picture of Dorian Gray, growing plants under glass, annoying co-workers- there's so much more.

We can still talk about it I guess. The cold weather is coming, and I'm going need someone to talk to when it's snowing outside and the sidewalks are empty and my computer screen is glowing like a warm fire and I'm holding a cigarette and a cup of hot chocolate and I hear reindeer hooves on the roof blah blah blah

Anyway, we'll talk about it later.

Answered Prayers

All summer I've been waiting for the return of the UMass daily. I love their horoscopes. I re-printed a bunch of them here a couple months ago. If you haven't seen them look them up. If you have read on. They were so much fun to read and some day I hope to search the UMass library archives so I can read every entry from the 08-09 year- I started reading them in April so I missed a lot.

Yesterday I was walking by the newspaper box on the sidewalk and spotted the first issue of this school year and actually smiled when I saw it.

When I got home, sitting on my bed and eating a hot slice of pizza, I jumped straight to the last inside page and there they were. I had only read the Airies entry and I knew that last semester's horoscope writer was gone, graduated. I'd give an example of the new writer's horoscopes but there's no point. I don't see any attempt to anything at all with the horoscope forum. He (or she) has had all summer to think of something to write that might be worth reading.

Sure, it's too soon to judge, I know that. But there are no time restrictions on disappointment and that's what I'm feeling now. I haven't picked up today's paper yet but I'm curious to see if there'll be any improvement.


Last night, after watching Magnolia* for the 5th time, I started reading Truman Capote's Answered Prayers, his incomplete (or unfinished- whatever you want to say. Some people think he had more to write, others believe he may have written more and destroyed it) final novel. It was great fun to read and I finished this morning in bed over coffee and cigarettes. It's too bad there isn't more- not that I care about any plot or want to see what happens. What makes it fun readinmg is the small touches- certain phrases, funny remarks, economical descriptions. It isn't really one full story, just many small full stories, and that's what makes it good.


Be on the look out for my upcoming review of Magnolia. It'll show up here at RJ Battles later this month.

August

I never give people music to listen to because everyone's got different tastes and it's always awkward when someone has you listen to something. Still, this past weekend I gave my friend the Liz Phair WCSE CD that I'd just bought a few days before; I'd already listened to it about 6 times- at home and on headphones- and I wanted a break, plus I thought it would be something differnt that she could listen to in the car.

Anyway, I like it a lot, maybe even more than Whipsmart.

I've been writing a short story and I'm thinking of putting it up here, at RJ Battles, serialized, like Bonfire of the Vanities in Rolling Stone. Before it was published as a book, it ran in the magazine- as he was writing it. He said that it forced him to continue on with it and stay on schedule. He'd already non-fiction books like The Painted Word and The Right Stuff. Bonfire was his first novel. I don't know if my short story will be better than BotV- I haven't read it yet. I like the novel he wrote after, A Man in Full, but I also skipped over a lot.

Library books (that's a boring title, who would want to read that?)

Usually when I go to the library I take out a couple books on paintings. I look through them and pick out ones I like.

Last week I got:
Scenes of American Life put out by the Smithsonian, and
Only In America by Pierre Rosenberg

In SoAL most of the paintings are related to the Depression or the Works Progress Administration. They'll show WPA artists ina group studio, or coal miners walking home. Most are done in a way that datestamps them to that period.

One artist, Paul Cadmus, does a golf scene in that 1930s style that looks like colored pencil. It's the same style used on the booklet illustration for the Aimee Mann The Forgotten Arm LP.
As Kathy Griffin said Anna Nicole Smith said: "I don't like it".

There are some bright spots. "Skating In Central Park" by Agnes Tait, realistic but a little like American folk art. And Tyrone Comfort's "Gold Is Where You Find It"- a painting of a man drilling in a mineshaft.

The other book, Only In America has some good pictures but the text is annoying.

As the author says, the book is made up of 100 paintings that are unique to American collections and have no match in Europe.

Along with each selection there is text and it almost always says something like, "Why would I choose this painting over _____ by the same artist?" or "How could I include this over that...?"

It's filled with excuses, and who cares. It's clear- anyone would have some different opinions about which pictures to include and there'd be a lot of reasons as to why.

It's funny. Even the book's Introduction is titled "Why this book?"

Twilight

Twilight (2008)

I was in the library's DVD scetion right after they re-stocked and I saw Twilight. I'd never read any of the books and never had any big desire to see it but I got the feeling I should take the opportunity.

For a PG-13 movie, it was good. I wish it was an R rated movie; I was watching it praying for a sex scene but I'll have to be content with the mountaintop scene.

Seeing it doesn't make me want to read the books, though. I've heard they're fun and "addicting"; I also heard Stephen King called them poorly written. I just liked the movie because of the leads- they made it good. I'll definitely see the sequels.