Overheard in America

I’ve been in San Francisco for the last three days or so, exploring the various sights and sounds of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the trams and other postcard sites, and a fine city it is too, far nicer than Las Vegas, the only other US city I’ve visited.

Beyond this, though, I overheard two excellent pieces of conversation that I felt compelled to share (they’ve already appeared on Twitter, as live, and now here in more detail).

Walking out of Chinatown, I passed a chap on crutches, a phone tucked under his chin and wearing a bright green hoodie, the combination of which already made him stand out. As I passed he said, in his response to the other end of the call:

“You talkin’ about Ray Rakey, who played big bass and was my old high school teacher?”

This sentence just sounds so quintessentially American – the name, Ray Rakey, has musical, creativity connotations, like Big Bones Billy, or Sloppy Sue, and then the idea of him playing the big bass, (presumably the double bass?) - "...and Ray Rakey on the big bass!"... - and, more than that, he was this guy’s teacher too. Was he really called Ray Rakey, or was this a sobriquet of wonderful origin in a story of bizarre twists?

The second was not specifically American, but was just hilarious and my favourite overheard for a while: I was sitting in Yerba Buena park enjoying some sun when three dudes wandered past, all in hats and sunglasses, long baggy shorts, colourful t-shirts: a staple look. The one in the centre responded to a comment from a friend, which I didn’t hear, with:

"One review said, 'not that good', but then another review said, 'quite good', so, well, I dunno."

He sounded so forlorn as he reached this conclusion, so confused between the two voices of the ‘experts’ attempting to guide him in his understanding of this - what - film, book, TV show, restaurant? – that it was almost touching. 

What was even better though was the delivery, which started off rapidly, so up until the ‘quite good’ he was chattering away, then as he his the ‘so’ he realised the dilemma he had encountered and was forced to concede that, alas, he didn’t not know what to believe. A situation I am sure we can all identify with.

Booker books and the Kindle

I decided to join the modern world recently and read two of the Booker Prize shortlisted books I picked up during an enjoyable sojourn in Cornwall.

The Sisters Brothers: This didn't win, but it was very good. Set in the Gold Rush era of the US and charting the journey of two murderous brothers, one with a conscious, the other without, it was a lyrical tale of odd characters and beguiling set pieces that was both engrossing and readable. Sometimes it felt like you were reading a movie script such as the short but elegant descriptions and brief dialogue and I wouldn't be surprised if it was turned into a film if the book achieves enough commercial success.

The Sense of an Ending: The winner and you can see why: dense, cleverly structured and very well-written, it's a sad reflection on memory and the damage people do to one another without ever knowing how or why. At times it read a touch like a man just thinking about life rather than a story, but the plot is sufficiently engrossing (and actually pretty dark) to keep you hooked throughout.

Both of these books, it should be noted, were also beautifully produced, with lush page textures, aesthetically pleasing fonts and great cover designs, a testament to the beauty of books over Kindle and their ilk (one of which I own and enjoy using). It made me think that books and e-book readers are not rivals at all but complementary systems of reading and it's merely a matter of preference to which device you choose for which book.

For example, before these two books I read the Steve Jobs biography, which in hardback is a huge, weighty brick of a thing, but I downloaded it to my Kindle and it was a joy to devour as it was so easy to carry around and read on the tube as I rattled around London. But the real books described above were improved some 10-25% (if you can quantify such things) but having the physical, well-designed thing in my possession to touch and hold.

One of my favourite books of all time, the non-fiction Leviathan by Philip Hoare was a similar such book, my love of which was undoubtedly enhanced hugely but the sheer beauty and craft of its physical design. Reading it on a Kindle would have been a hollow experience.

Freedom? Yeah, right

As promised, I downloaded and read Freedom by Jonathan Franzen over the last two or three weeks and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It's a strange story considering it runs for some 600 pages: in essence nothing more than a bunch of people's lives, how they mess one another up, and they all reach some sort of vague conclusion of happiness, or something like it, come the end. It would be hard to sell it to a commissioning editor if it wasn't Franzen and his name behind it, I suspect.

Yet, the characters are wonderfully defined, their backgrounds and histories real and well imagined, their interactions with one another laced with enough disappointment and anger to help you identify, care and empathise with them, or be repulsed, sickened or shocked.

There are some weighty themes going on too. Environmentalism, vapid consumerism, the endless waste of the west, the me-first culture of North America, all clearly targets of Franzen's own world view given voice in the character of Walter Berglund.

While probably not quite as good as The Corrections, which had more humour infused throughout while I found the character of Joey hard to believe in places - flying to Paraguay to buy scrap truck parts for a contractor with a $300,000 loan sitting over his head, aged 20? - Freedom is certainly worth most of the heavy praise it generated on release.

The Corrections

I've heard a lot about Jonathan Franzen, mainly since Freedom came out last year and garnered absolutely rave reviews from all and sundry. Since then I've been itching to read some of his works, but decided I would plump for The Corrections first as a) it was written before Freedom so chronologically makes more sense and b) it was given a 1% better rating over Freedom by a trusted friend who's read both.

So I downloaded it to my Kindle in 12 seconds or so, which was cool, and began my digital odyssey. It is a great book, as I'd been lead to believe, full of wonderful writing, clever set pieces, wit and characters that are wholly real in their contradictions, lack of resolve and general hatred at everything, everyone and themselves.

If that sounds depressing then in one respect it is, as you're treated to the inner monologues of people that are by turns deeply unhappy, dysfunctional, self-loathing, and riddled with disease.

Yet there is more to it than this, with characters displaying humanity too, realising their errors, trying hard to rectify them, perhaps failing, perhaps growing, but all immensely human.

It also offers a view of the world as it's changed from the middle of the century towards the end of the century, as the US shifted from a manufacturing world, to a service world, from a world of make do and mend to unashamed rip and replace, a world where money sloshes around with ridiculous ease yet never seems to end up in the hands of anyone but a few wealthy individuals, where random violence and illness are never far from the surface.

Perhaps the only bit where it falls down is the way the character of Chip seems to so nonchalantly travel to Lithuania to get involved with gangsters when he's a university academic. The coolness with which Franzen describes his life there seemed slightly unrealistic, but it's a minor point in an otherwise absorbing tale of how family life, and the structures that support it, can never be erased, forgotten or changed, no matter how hard you try.

Freedom next, at some point in the next month or so.

Thoughts on the end of The Sopranos

Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky.

So, that was why everyone was so hung up on the end of The Sopranos. Did Tony die or did he not (he, did if you ask me)?. And, the oddest thing, I felt so sad when I realised that. A man who cheat, stole, murdered and much more - it did me in. The idea, unseen, of his death, of his family’s grief, actually made me upset in a way little other, if no, literary or cinematic work that attempts to manipulate that in you has before.

Of course, 83 episodes of following a character around and you’re bound to reach a state of like, respect even, for them – even if they are the head of a ruthless mafia crew in the suburbs of New Jersey. You can’t make a character that’s nothing but evil: the character has to have empathy, understanding, insights, abilities (to take control, to save the day, to outsmart all his rivals) that endear you towards them, and be set up in a situation where you at least understand the way they behave, even if it’s abhorrent.

Tony spends his life surrounded by grief, by misery, stuck in a world where an emotional response is lower than a murderous one – Johnny Sack never recovers respect after crying at his daughter’s wedding when the feds come to take him back to prison having spent just six hours at the event. The hook for The Sopranos comes by sticking Tony in counseling to see the toll a life in the mob can take and its impact on a standard family, while countering this with the extreme violence of the 'work' he's in.

Life is a stress of unimaginable strain, one that obviously causes human responses to close down: horror, fear, respect for life all seems to be dulled, or missing. It reaches like tentacles, the wives seems unaware - although clearly aware - of where the wealth comes from, the children too aspire to the status of their fathers (mostly) fully aware of the awe they too could command in that position: but most end up dead.

Come the end in that amazing final scene, Tony is sat, back with his family again, having presumably won through again, this time a civil war between the families of New Jersey and New York, to retain his status, but he has learnt nothing, never realized it can never end without death or jail, and it looks like death for our hero.

It’s bleak, relentlessly so: family members are killed off for behaving incorrectly, for being stuck in impossible positions between loyalty to loved ones and the FBI demanding information or the risk of jail, for aspiring to a position already occupied.

Tony cheats death once, but he will not do it again. We know this, we cannot see a way out for him, we will it – why, he’s despicable? – but we know it will not work. Then, the end, nothing, blackness, a shock cut to black, the music abrupt, ending, dead.

The realisation of what Meadow sees as she arrives, of what the others must experience: it’s setup and foreshadowed with wonderful writing, setting and camera work: sat in a glorious boat on a beautiful lake discussing the end, which comes as is expected.

Writers’ know what they’re doing, it’s premeditated, planned and executed like a hit.

Back from Vegas to Europe and its history

I spent a few days in Las Vegas again last week, man that's a strange place. They really want you to shrivel into a prune given how cold and continuously they put the air con on for.

I lost $20 on a single spin of roulette (oh, high stakes!) when it landed on 00 which made me realise gambling is for mugs – I put another $20 to try and win back this $20 and lost this too. So I was $40 down, which is what I won last time I was there in October so I quit while I was, even.

I also flew in a private jet, from Cary in North Carolina to Vegas, which was quite something, far better than any normal plane, obviously, with plush leather seats, unlimited food and booze (nice stuff) and masses of leg room – coming back to the UK on a nine hour flight wedged against a window and a bizarre couple with no video on-demand service from Virgin Atlantic was not pleasant by comparison.

Still, I had a nice time and interviewed a man who is worth about $8bn which was enjoyable - he was a nice guy and gave some interesting thoughts on the market in which his company plies it's not insignificant trade.

I also finished reading a book I've had on the go for about a month called In Europe in which the author traveled around Europe in 1999 looking at the history of the continent and the current lifestyle of the place now – via Ireland, Ukraine, Greece, Portugal and everything in the hinterland.

It was an excellent read, full of in-depth personal stories of tragedy and insight set against the grand conflicts of the 20^th century in Europe which dominated and shaped its journey through the time.

Viva Las Vegas

I am in Las Vegas. I’ve been here for 60 hours and have been married twice, won and then lost £2m and wrestled a tiger. No, not really.

I did go for a walk down the Strip though and that is a strange place indeed. Gaudy, bright, too bright, a custard pie in the face of the desert, in short, , it’s a bizarre place. New York New York and Paris are impressively accurate to the real thing (at least for Paris, never been to NY NY) while some of the other buildings are just massive.

Unless you have enough money to gamble a lot, I can’t see what else you could do here other than sunbathe perhaps – there’s nothing much to do that I saw.

The amount of people trying to offer you little call girl cards was unreal too, about six on each street corner, all brazen, wearing shirts, women too, and offering to everyone, even middle aged couples wandering around – why? Do they ever take one?

Anyway, that’s my indepth, one wander down the Strip review of Las Vegas.

Ill leave you with this Facebook update joke I made (which is true, and got six, yes six, "likes"): I am in Las Vegas. I sat next to a northern couple on the flight over and I hoped the man would say to his wife, "Eey oop lass, Vegas", when we landed. But he didn't."

The Wire continues

So season two of The Wire (it's not about wires, I have now worked out) and it's easily already one of the best television shows I have seen (and I've seen lots).

Showing the many and varied links between all sorts of competing forces in Balitmore, and by extension the rest of the world – Greece, Russia, Le Harve in France – it's a fascinating piece of both story-telling and a representation of reality.

Twelve hour long episodes really gives the writers huge amounts of time (essentially four three hour movies) to develop characters, storylines, and setups, so they can fully explore and mine themes throughout the show.

So, while I'm many years behind the curve, it's definitely worth watching if you haven't see it already.

Also I went to see The Social Network t'other day (i.e. Facebook the Movie: Zuckerberg's revenage) and really enjoyed it. The story was excellent and well told while I particularly enjoyed the dark, menancing soundtrack that hovered in the background throughout. More of my thoughts here.

The Wire

I am finally watching The Wire.

I know, I know, I am only five years behind the curve, but, in my defence your honours, I was always wary of watching such a well received show on the variously poor TVs I have owned. I now live with a good friend who has an excellent TV and together we have made a pact to watch the show, and we are now just embarking on season two.

There isn't much I can say, I think, from what has probably been written about the show already but 100 journalists and more, mostly from The Guardian (har har) but it is one of the most engrossing shows I've ever seen in the way it slowly, subtly, pulls out threads and strands of plotlines over sprawling, hour long episodes.

Also, some of the scenes are so much like a cut-scene in Grand Theft Auto it's uncanny; the music, the camera angles, the dialogue all match up perfectly.

Brave new worlds

This morning, in the queue to vote, I got caught up in some electoral confusion as the ballot officials managed to get their numbers confused (how do those people get those jobs? any security / criminal checks? Who's in charge of dispensing the boxes? I digress...). As I stood there, watching the three of them recite a list of arbitrary numbers to one another, I said to the chap behind me, "We need that electoral reform, eh?", he nodded, said,"Yeah..." and that was that.

Elections are funny things. This was my second, but the first of much significance. I remember my Dad refusing to tell me who he voted for in the 1997 Labour landslide and I invested a lot of meaning in this, this sacred act of voting meant that even my own Dad wouldn't, or as I viewed it, couldn't, tell me who he had voted for.

Now, everyone bangs on endlessly about why you must vote Labour or Lib Dems, but just not Tories, for all kinds of reasons, in openly public arenas such as Twitter and Facebook. Yet, place people in a box, with a piece of paper and a pen(cil), and all the online posturing goes out the window. I imagine a lot of people may vote very differently from how they act/talk in public, where they are acting in an effort to keep up of appearances with, or an unwillingness to disagree with, the views and ideals their chosen social networks / friendship groups talk about and promote.

The Americans must find out one month sprint election process very odd, when set against their eight month effort which begins with primaries in various states for leadership choices within their own parities, before moving on to the epic cross country traversing they must endure between NY and San Fran.

Imagine, DC (Cameron, not Washington), might have to travel, at most, between say, Plymouth and Newcastle. Barely a stone's throw in the US. Such a small country.

Whatever happens tonight and into tomorrow, there was a definite sense today that, even if only seen through the highly distorted leftist view of Twitter, people realised today was a day that could shape all our lives for the next four or five years time. Especially for those, like me, who will be going through some (potentially) highly transformative years in our lives, as we move out of post student years, and on towards our 30s, and the ideas of mortgages, housing, children, schools, education (x3) and all the other trappings of the endless momentum of time.

The age of Auster

In September both my housemates urged me to read The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. So I did. And thoroughly enjoyed it; a strange, hyper-meta-fiction work that subverts the crime fiction genre, while also being very compelling and confusing in equal measures. A cheap airport thriller it is not. After that I read Man in the the Dark, also lent by my housemate, and enjoyed that too.

Glancing down a list of other books by Auster I spied one called Music of Chance. I went into a book shop and, not only found it straightaway, but next to it was another Auster called Leviathan - it was clearly a sign. I read both of these while on my flights to and from Slovakia (see post below) and returned home eager for more. I found The Brooklyn Follies for £2 in a charity shop, and then bought Mr Vertigo, Timbuktu, Moon Palace, and The Book of Illusions from Amazon, while someone at work lent me Travels in the Scriptorium. I finished the last of these - Moon Palace - last night. Ten Auster's in two months.

Of these my favourites were Timbuktu, Mr Vertigo, Leviathan and Music of Chance. Timbuktu is told from the perspective of a dog, Mr Vertigo is about a boy who can fly - what's not to be intrigued about? Travels in the Scriptorium was my least favourite - a poor man's New York Trilogy - and the rest a mixture of the very good and some slightly flater moments - The Book of Illusions, for instance, starts off very strongly but fades off somewhat towards the end.

There are a lot of reoccurring themes, motifs and plots elements in a lot of these works. Many character come into money in different ways (inheritance mainly), eliminating Auster having to worry about what his character do to get by, instead having them spend time in long, strange periods of isolation, often retelling, or writing, stories, or spending time sat in rooms writing in notebooks. In both Moon Palace and Book of Illusions the central character spends a great deal of the novel - almost a third or a half - hearing the life story of another central character - thus the books are essentially two stories bound up in one.

Furthermore character names and historical figures crop up all the time too - Zimmer, Blume, Quinn, while Nathaniel Hawthorne and other Hawthorne family members are frequently referenced. There is always a section in which a character either goes to live in France, or has lived in France in the past - something Auster himself did - while they are almost always set exclusively in and around New York. Lots of characters start off intending to destroy themselves - "I was looking for a quiet place to die" - first line, The Brooklyn Follies - only to find themselves in a strange, quirky story which ultimately saves them - not in a Hollywood happy-ever-after way, more in a dark, life-goes-on way. Sometimes these repetitions of plot are irritating, and other times they are not. It's hard to explain that but although each time it happens it's easy to reference to the other book(s) where it happens it's more important when read within the context of the book and the story as to how noticeably it sticks out as another Austerism.

Auster's writing style is one thing I am a great fan of. There are some wonderful descriptions in each and every book - some sentence are so intriguing or well-written it make you stop and re-read them; often they are so evocative as to conjure up another entire story, as if they could be the first line of another complete novel. He has an uncanny ability to philosophise on ideas of chance and fate (in his characters voices') without it sounding trite or clichéd but fresh and original. There is also a great emphasis placed on detail for details sake, rather than merely to fill paragraphs with descriptions. Indeed, since reading Auster I have rediscovered my creative writing bug and written one short story - and put online here - and have a couple of others bubbling away on my Google Documents.

So yeah, Paul Auster. There you go.

Where was I?

Talking about planes. That's what I was doing. Sounds made up but it's true. Just about how great it would be to own a private jet so you could fly to London from Cornwall, rather than taking the train. Why we were actually talking about this though is beyond me now.

Then a call from across the common room and on to an entire afternoon of confusion, bewilderment. And this was for people in Cornwall so far removed from the epicentre. Yet the same reaction for people in Times Square, Beijing, Kiev, no doubt.

There were so many ridiculous things that happened that afternoon. We had to go to geography and on arriving I informed the teacher of what was taking place. He was disinterested and refused to put the television on. I urged him this was massive news, we should watch, so he relented and put it on silent. Half-way through learning about central business districts we noticed that the Pentagon had been hit too. Still nothing registered on the geography teacher.

The next day, as confusion still reigned, our English teacher scrapped his lesson plan to look at the Iraq war, and poetry inspired by it, to give us some context of maybe why the day before had happened. His understand was stark contrast to that of Mr Geography.

Strange days.

Office Politics

BBC2 showing the entire first series of The Office was an enjoyable treat and, as a convert to the American version (which is five seasons strong and still going at 100+ shows) it was a good reminder of just how different the two shows really are despite sharing a title and the same plot lines (in essence).

It would be fair to assume the American version would be an inferior remake but the two are very different and seeing the British one again was a reminder of why. While the American one is incredibly funny and full of pathos, like the British show, it is a fair warmer, more likeable place and the office itself seems like a nice place to work, despite some eccentricities. The Slough branch of Wernham Hogg looks like a soul destroying, grey, dreary place to work. Scranton in Pennsylvania has a sense of small town charm to it; their office looks warm, in temperature and in colour, while the corporate head quarters in New York, full of good looking, if idiotic, people. Even the bars in Scranton are fine, nice even. Chasers in Slough looks utterly grim.

Fly me to the moon

I went to a talk with Buzz Aldrin on Saturday night in London. The applause he received on entering the room was quite moving, people just love the idea of someone who's been to the moon it seems and the crowd were a mixture of all types of people but mostly wizened old men and fathers and sons.

Buzz was promoting his new book, Magnificent Desolation, which he mentioned quite a few times, but it was all in good jest or fair promotion, and I've no doubt it's a fascinating read. He's 79 and so rambled a bit on some questions, but only in a way that you could sense he was remembering details as he went, feeling them necessary to back track on to drop in and add. It only took a sentence such as 'looking at the earth from the moon is just wonderful', to suddenly make you realise quite how unique an experience he has had and why the entire auditorium was packed out.

The audience questions, submitted earlier in the day via slips of paper, were more interesting than the hosts, who asked a couple of rather banal questions, or at least, the more obvious questions, but then I suppose they had to make sure they covered the basics. His mother's maiden surname was Moon (Marion). Weird eh?

At the end of it though, when you're listening to a talk from one of 12 men who have walked on the moon, it's just enough to be in the same room of them and have them talk about some of the experiences they have been through, to keep you enraptured.

As predicted

When Sarah Palin's daughter was found to be pregnant there was some nasty-taste-in-the-mouth, hypocricy, in some of the statements that were susbsequently realised, as I mentioned at the time. And of course now, under six months later, the 'loving and caring family environment' that Sarah Palin promised the child would be brought up in, is no now more, as her daughter and her boyfriend have split up.

Mashing it up

Internet wizardry: video of all presidents morphed.

Twitter feeds during inauguration that bring up the outline of the world: watch here.

Both of these found through Twitter.

On the road

Today is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the first motorway in Britain. Interesting no? Why do we call them traffic jams? What has jam got to do with it?

In Cornwall no motorway has dared come within almost 50 miles of its borders, the closest one being the trusty, almost cosy, M5 in Exeter, that leads on to the more workmanlike M4 towards London or Swansea, or upwards to the M6 and beyond...

Motorway service stations are one of the most horrific places you can go to; overpriced, sanitised, drab and soul destrorying. Yet I once knew someone who said they were his favourite places and loved visiting them to have dinner there. He was 20. Yeah I never got that either.

Despite 50 years of motorways in Britain and the roads stretching the length of breadth of the country (though not in Cornwall as noted, or almost the entirety of Wales - too hilly) there is no real 'road trip culture' that is so idealised in the US and to a lesser extent in Europe. Perhaps there is no comparison between saying "I'm driving from New York to Route 66 and on to Las Vegas" to "I'm leaving Reading on the M4 and heading for Taunton."

Anyone got any good motorway stories / thoughts to share?

Plan ahead

On Demand from Virgin is a fantastic television service. It's basically a big database of TV shows, music videos and films (these you pay for) you can access through your remote control. It contains all series of Peep Shows, entire seasons of shows like The West Wing, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip to name but a few. It also has Band of Brothers...well, kind of.

You see it has seven episodes. Which is fine. Except there are 10 episodes in the show. So this means having watched and been utterly engrossed by seven episodes of one of the best, if not the best television war drama ever made, you suddenly reach a dead end. Why would they negotiate a deal for seven out of 10 episodes? What could be the logic for that? Or do they have the final three but haven't got around to making them available?

I emailed the 'help' section on the website but was unhelpfully redirected to the basic television page of their website, which I had already checked, and then, to top it all, berated for not giving my unique customer number! They don't need that, they just need to inform me why they aren't putting up, or don't have the right to put up, the final three episodes of Band of Brothers.

Election night browsing

Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

The Crunch

This is the first feature I have read that has really hit home just how hard average people are being affected by the credit crunch.