David J. Schow’s detailed Introduction gives us the basic arc of Charles Beaumont’s writing career. Beaumont was a workaholic and wrote over a 100 short stories until he died in 1967 at the age of 38. Ray Bradbury wrote this insightful comment on Beaumont for The Magic Man (Fawcett, 1965): “Some writers are one idea people. Other writers, far rarer, far wilder, are pomegranates. They bust with seed. Charles has always been a pomegranate writer. You simply never know where his love and high excitement will take him next.”

I’ve read some of Charles Beaumont’s short story collections back in the 1960s. But most of you will recognize Beaumont for his stories filmed for The Twilight Zone: “The Howling Man“, “Static“, “Miniature“, “Printer’s Devil“, and “Number Twelve Looks Just Like You“, but also penned the screenplays for several films, such as 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, The Intruder, and The Masque of the Red Death.

The Carnival and Other Stories (Subterranean, 2022) opens with a “deal with the Devil” story, “The Devil, You Say?” I enjoyed Beaumont’s comic pastiche of the Mike Hammer novels in “The Last Caper.” And I was amused by “The Love Master” and “Genevieve, My Genevieve” that were published in Rogue, a men’s magazine that featured “spicy” stories. What you will find in any Beaumont short story collection is a variety of stories, all completely different. If you’re looking for a master short story writer, the prove is in The Carnival and Other Stories. GRADE: A

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: The Return of the Magic Man by David J. Schow — 7
• The Devil, You Say? — 23
• Elegy — 51
• The Last Caper — 61
• Mass for Mixed Voices — 73
• Hair of the Dog — 87
• The Quadriopticon — 103
• The Love-Master — 129
• A World of Differents — 139
• Anthem — 147
• Mother’s Day — 163
• The Trigger — 177
• Genevieve, My Genevieve — 193
• Buck Fever — 207
• Dead You Know — 219
• Mourning Song — 227
• Something in the Earth — 241
• Insomnia Vobiscum — 253
• My Grandmother’s Japonicas — 257
• Appointment with Eddie — 269
• The Carnival — 287
• The Crime of Willie Washington — 305
• The Man with the Crooked Nose — 321
• The Wages of Cynicism — 333
• The Child — 337
• The Life of the Party — 359
• Beast of the Glacier  — 367

I enjoyed the first season of Foundation (you can read my review here). I loved Isaac Asimov’s trilogy when I was a kid. When I reread The Foundation Trilogy decades later, I was surprised by how chatty it was. The folks behind this TV series have transformed Asimov’s cerebral classic into more of an action series. The first season set up the galactic Empire setting and now in the second season, the Foundation has to deal with a mutant who can totally disrupt the Plan to spare humanity thousands of years of barbarism.

Hari Seldon’s (Jared Harris) entire Plan of Psychohistory to reset the Empire after an anticipated Dark Age is predicated on the movement of the masses, not on individuals. Nevertheless, that notion is challenged throughout season 2 when the Plan meets its second Crisis Point.

Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell), Hari Seldon’s former student, becomes obsessed with stopping a threat from 150 years into the future called The Mule. Goal and Salvor (Leah Harvey) try to connect as recently united mother and daughter, even as they attempt to follow Seldon’s instructions for establishing a Second Foundation to stop the Plan from failure.

Llobell and Harvey are compelling as Gaal and Salvor as their characters’ journeys stress each of them. Hari Seldon gets a bigger role this season as the Plan is threatened. Harris engages the audience as more of Hari’s backstory is revealed. Hari Seldon struggles with the consequences his actions have on the people dedicating their lives to a future they’ll never see but only dream about. 

I’ve watched the three episodes (of 10) that are available right now (new episodes drop on Fridays) but I’m totally hooked! GRADE: INCOMPLETE (but trending towards an A-)

Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men covers artwork from 1500 to the present and introduces the reader to Artemisia Gentileschi, Frida Kahlo, Wilma af Kline, Tracey Amin, Kara Walker, Elisabetta Sirani, Marie Denise Villers, Lady Butler, and dozens of women artists.

I liked the book’s traditional chronological approach to women artists over the centuries. Hessel points out a number of “firsts” achieved by women artists: Lavinia Fontana is considered to be the first woman in Western art to paint female nudes in 1595; Alma Thomas is the first African American woman to achieve a solo exhibition at the Whitney in 1972; “A Lesbian Show” was the first all-lesbian art show in the U.S. (held in New York City in 1978).

If you’re interested in Art History, you’ll love Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men. With over 300 images, this book is a feast for the eyes! Do you have a favorite female artist? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Part one: paving the way c.1500-c.1900

Chapter 1: Painting herself into the canon — 19

Chapter 2: Looking to a heroic past — 52

Chapter 3: From Realism to Spiritualism — 69

Part two: what made art modern c.1870-c.1950

Chapter 4: War, identity and the Paris avant-garde — 110

Chapter 5: The aftermath of the First World War — 156

Chapter 6: Modernism in the Americas — 188

Chapter 7: War and the rise of new methods and media — 208

Part three: postwar women c.1949-c.1970

Chapter 8: The great era of experimentalism — 236

Chapter 9: Political change and new abstractions — 262

Chapter 10: The body — 298

Chapter 11: Weaving new traditions — 312

Part four: taking ownership 1970-2000

Chapter 12: The era of feminism — 327

Chapter 13: The 1980s — 355

Chapter 14: The 1990s — 374

Chapter 15: Radical change in Britain — 392

Part five: still writing 2000-present

Chapter 16: Decolonising narratives and reworking traditions — 414

Chapter 17: Figuration in the twenty-first century — 432

Chapter 18: The 2020s — 452

Glossary — 460

Timeline —462

List of Illustrations and Photographic Acknowledgements — 500

Acknowledgements — 505

About the Author — 507

INDEX — 508

Stephen Hough is considered one of the world’s leading pianists, winning global acclaim and numerous awards through his hard work and talent. This moving memoir of his unconventional Life tells how Hough grew up in an unmusical home in Cheshire and defied the probabilities to make it to the main stage of Carnegie Hall in New York at age 21.

Hough describes his early love affair with the piano which shriveled away after a teenage nervous breakdown and degenerated into failure at school and six-hours a day of watching mindless television.

Hough’s writes about his supportive, if eccentric parents: his artistically frustrated father and his housework-hating mother. Hough’s education was challenging. There were the teachers who encouraged and inspired Hough–and others who hit him on the head screaming, “You’ll do nothing with your life!”

The heart of Enough for me is Hough’s struggle in finding his way back to the piano after abandoning plans to become a Catholic priest. Hough then flourished at the Royal Northern College of Music and the Juilliard School. Enough ends with Hough beginning his career as an international soloist. If you’re in the mood for an inspiring story of a young boy who beats the odds to become one of the best pianists in the world, give Enough a try. Do you enjoy piano music? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Prologue — 1 

Wirral to Thelwall  

Ridgeway 5 

Third finger 6 

A short walk from the Beatles 8 

Upstairs and downstairs 9 

Grandad and the pet shop boy 11 

Salted sugar 12 

Transparent machismo 13 

Vicious Henry 14 

Bianowig 16 

Where my caravan has (not) rested 17 

Lollipop 19 

Uncle Alf and Auntie Ethel 21 

Orange lipstick 23 

Crane’s and consumption 25 

A complicated character 28 

Hideous ferns 30 

Mompou: The young boy not in the garden 31 

The most important record I owned 33 

Heterosexual nocturne 36 

Could this be the new Mozart? 37 

Pink stilettos in Criccieth 38 

All Saints Drive 40 

The long garden 42 

Choccie 44 

Coffee and being powsh 45 

Fatty foods 47 

Eating on Sundays and Jean Sheppard 49 

Chubby Cheeks 51 

Empress 54 

Colours of springtime 56 

All things bright and beautiful 57 

Pulling up my socks 58 

Circumcised 59 

Dogs 62 

Doris Cox and her knickers 64 

Parents’ bedroom 65 

Pills and potions 67 

Irby 68 

Metal guru 70 

Beloved neighbours 72 

Chetham’s  

Naughty boy 77 

Random teachers7 9 

Shit in a bottle 85 

Cecilia Vajda inside our bones 87 

Latin and the greenhouse effect 88 

Isador 89 

Steele more 91 

The wise man with the pipe 93 

Can I learn some passionate Chopin? 98 

Philharmonic Hall and three piano recitals 100 

Not Paderewski 102 

No witnesses 105 

Lennox Berkeley’s umbrella1 07 

Knee up 109 

My purple bedroom and my wasted years 112 

David Bowie 114 

Yes, I pulled down his trunks 116 

Whatever you do, don’t turn out queer 118 

My mother’s lady friends 121 

Jimmy Savile – twice 123 

Bell bottoms 125 

Not the Knot Garden! 126 

Cello, drums and flute 128 

Henry Miller, my favourite writer 129 

Dover Road 131 

Bibles and badges 136 

Bloody hell 138 

My gregarious mother 140 

The late Mr Hough 142 

Red roses 144 

Eileen, anything more to add? 146 

The pink moustache 150 

Heads up: Three tricks my father taught me 151 

Posthumous poet 151 

The pianos I’ve owned 152 

The Dream of Gerontius 154 

On stage 156 

RNCM  

Leaving Chetham’s 161 

A fabulous zigzag run 162 

Doors opening 164 

One of the greatest men I’ve met 168 

Composing and orchards 173 

A screech in the library 174 

Devon and the Tiber 176 

Living as a priest in Manchester 180 

A vocation to be a pianist 182 

The Eighth Day 185 

Pickering Arms 187 

Harry’s infallible left hand 188 

Hazel 190 

Dad the hippie 191 

Norman Baker 194 

Tinkle of glass 197 

All aboard to Juilliard via Pimlico 199 

Juilliard  

Across the Atlantic 203 

Bill’s blue-eyed confidence 205 

Eline overlooking the river 209 

Cockroaches and Proust 213 

Madame Borsuk 215 

Friends and the cafeteria 219 

Random teachers at Juilliard 221 

This just isn’t your piece, dear 225 

Attending concerts in New York 230 

Smoking and showing off on the fourth floor 235 

Chita, Katie and Olegna 237 

Eating in the early years in New York 239 

Closets and bars 241 

Wisdom teeth on edge 243 

The late Glenn Sales 244 

Competing before Naumburg 245 

After Naumburg 248 

Epilogue 253 

Diane enjoys Jim Gaffigan’s brand of stand-up humor so we watched Gaffigan’s latest “Special” on AMAZON Prime Video. It’s 104 minutes long…mercifully. I knew we were in trouble when Gaffigan opened with Covid-19 and diarrhea “jokes.” Then he moved on to making fun of the people–baristas and customers–at Starbucks. There was a pointless story of Gaffigan and his family taking a hot air balloon ride in Mexico.

After watching Jim Gaffigan: Dark Pale I belatedly read some of the audience reviews (which I should have done before I wasted my time watching this). Here’s a sample:

“The opening with the Covid references was not a good start. Timing wise maybe it made more sense when it was filmed but not now. I got about 10 minutes into and was sadly disappointed. Always bragged to everyone about this comedian who doesn’t need to swear to be funny and that part holds true but the material didn’t work this time. This should gave been tested before audience’s before it was released to TV.”

"Used to be a huge JG fan, have watched all specials and saw him live, he was amazing. But this…this was an utter disappointment. Turned off after 30 minutes.  Don’t waste your time."

So there you have it: Jim Gaffigan: Dark Pale is an unfunny waste of time.  Beware!  GRADE: F

No, this is not the best-selling James Patterson. This James J. Patterson writes thoughtful essays on Myth, Life, and Literature. This slim book collects some of Patterson’s thoughts on Moby Dick, Henry Miller, and Philip K. Dick.

“Do Conservative Dream of an Electric Jesus?” is a snarky take-off on Philip K. Dick’s classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which later inspired the cult movie, Blade Runner. Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckar, a cop assigned to hunting down rogue replicants and killing them. Like all PKD works, the reality of the Future warps and spins in unpredictable directions.

I confess I’m not a big Henry Miller fan. I read some of his books because they were supposed to be “hot” but the sex scenes were tame and all the verbiage around them made the book tedious to me.

I’m a huge fan of Moby Dick, the real Great American novel. There’s nothing like it in the Canon. Patterson writes about Nathaniel Philbrick’s Why Read Moby Dick (2011) in a way that makes me want to reread both Melville’s great novel and then read Philbrick’s book on it.

If you’re in the mood for unconventional essays on a variety of subjects, Junk Shop Window provides clever takes on a wide range of topics. GRADE: B

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction by Nathan Leslie — 1

Part I: The Memory of Tomorrow

Hermes and the Bathtub — 7

The Memory of Tomorrow — 13

A St. Patrick’s Day Schmazzle — 21

The I Behind the I — 31

Do Conservatives Dream of an Electric Jesus? — 39

Digby at the Swan — 49

The Band That Time Forgot — 87

Part II: The World of Yesterday

Who’s a Good Boy? — 79

Hermes at the Spouter Inn — 87

While Writing Roughnecks and Reading Moby Dick — 103

The World of Yesterday — 113

Stirring the Pot on Henry Miller — 133

Hermes at the Kakistocracy Hotel — 151

I’m the Guy Who (Almost) Killed the Guy Who (Almost) Killed Albert Einstein — 161

Acknowledgments — 167

Works Cited — 170

It’s hot, humid, and buggy here in Western New York so it’s officially Summer. Here are two compilation CDs you’re unlikely to find because they were issued by Warner Brothers Canada in 2002. Somehow, these copies made their way over the International Border to the United States.

You might wonder how songs became “Summer Songs.” I’m guessing that most of these songs were hits during the Summer. But, I have to question some of the choices. Why include “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?” instead of “Summer In the City”? A least “Help Me Rhonda” by The Beach Boys is included. What would Summer be without Beach Boys music?

Summer Fun 2 has some odd choices:

Sea of Love — The Honeydrippers

Every Time You Go Away — Paul Young

Chuck E’s In Love — Rickie Lee Jones

Is She Really Gone Out With Him? — Joe Jackson

None of these songs strike me as “Summer Songs” although I like them. Do you have a favorite Summer Song? How is your Summer going? GRADE: B- (for both)

TRACK LIST for Summer Fun 1:

1	Van Morrison–	Brown Eyed Girl Written-By – Van Morrison	3:03
2	Tommy James & The Shondells–	Mony Mony Written-By – Gentry*, Bloom*, Cordell*, James*	2:55
3	Sonny & Cher–	The Beat Goes On Written-By – Sonny Bono	3:25
4	The Turtles–	Happy Together Written-By – Gordon*, Bonner*	2:55
5	The Rascals–	How Can I Be Sure Written-By – Brigati*, Cavaliere*	2:50
6	Classics IV*–	Spooky Written-By – Buie*, Middlebrooks*, Cobb*, Shapiro*	2:47
7	The Four Seasons–	Sherry Written-By – Gaudio*	2:07
8	Dion (3)–	Runaround Sue Written-By – Dion De Mucci*, Ernest Maresca*	2:50
9	Donovan–	Mellow Yellow Written-By – Donovan Leitch*	3:39
10	The Lovin’ Spoonful–	Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind? Written-By – John Sebastian	1:57
11	The Beach Boys–	Help Me Rhonda Written-By – Brian Wilson	2:44
12	Spiral Starecase–	More Today Than Yesterday Written-By – Patrick Upton	2:48
13	The Searchers–	Love Potion #9 Written-By – Leiber / Stoller*	2:08
14	The Happenings–	See You In September Written-By – Edwards*, Wayne*	2:31

TRACK LIST FOR SUMMER FUN 2:

1. Listen to the Music — The Doobie Brothers
2. Come and Get Your Love — Redbone
3. It Ain’t Enough — Cory Hart
4. Dancing in the Moonlight — King Harvest
5. Still the One — Orleans
6. Fly Like an Eagle — Steve Miller Band
7. Sea of Love — The Honeydrippers
8. Moonlight Feels Right — Starbuck
9. Every Time You Go Away — Paul Young
10. Chuck E’s In Love — Rickie Lee Jones
11. Is She Really Gone Out With Him? — Joe Jackson
12. On the Beach — Chris Rea

Samantha Irby is American comedian, essayist, blogger, and television writer. Irby announces her bisexual nature in several of her articles and Life stories in We Are Never Meeting in Real Life and Quietly Hostile. My favorite article in both volumes is “Dave Matthew’s Greatest Romantic Hits.” Yes, Samantha is a Superfan of Dave Matthews music and presents her choices of Matthew’s 14 best romantic songs. Here’s a sample of Samantha’s unfiltered sensibilities and writing style (WARNING: R-Rated!):

#8: “Say Goodbye”

(might be too depressing to bone to, not for me though)

most romantic lyric, to me: “Lovers for a night, lovers for tonight”

“This song is so horny, and that’s hilarious because dude is literately saying, over and over again, ‘Hey, friend. I would love to bone you, I’m feeling wild, sexy sex sex, but just for tonight because tomorrow we’re saying goodbye.” Tonight? Lovers. 😉 Tomorrow? FRIENDS. 🙁

It’s so funny and honest and literally the way dirtbag men are in real life, which is a rare thing to find in a pop song as it is when some dude is unbuckling his belt on your couch. He will have his tongue buried in your asshole up to your fucking pancreas saying, ‘We’re just friends, right?’ He’ll be flipping you on the mattress like a pancake and pause with you in midair like, ‘I don’t want to be tied down in a relationship, this is just for fun, okay?’ It’s infuriating in practice but hilarious in song form, a man crooning about smoking you down and loving you up in his sweetest coo and then at the end being like…tonight only, though.” (p. 24)

Both books reveal Samantha’s fears and battles with depression and anxiety. Yes, there’s plenty of uncensored humor in these articles and Samantha tells the reader plenty about her Life in intimate detail. Some of you may find Samantha’s analysis of Sex and the City episodes (similar in format to the Dave Matthews romantic song article…and just as funny) hilarious and insightful.

Samantha doesn’t shy away from being outrageous about aspects of her Life. But if you’re in the mood for tales into a very different lifestyle and sensibility, I recommend reading We Are Never Meeting in Real Life and Quietly Hostile. They are very different from most tell-all books. GRADE: B+ (for both)

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
My Bachelorette application 3
A blues for Fred 18
The miracle porker 31
Do you guys pay your fucking bills or what? 40
You don’t have to be grateful for sex 53
A Christmas carol 65
Happy birthday 76
A case for remaining indoors 93
A total attack of the heart 104
A civil union 117
Mavis 128
Fuck it, bitch, stay fat 142
Nashville hot chicken 171
I’m in love and it’s boring 185
A bomb, probably 196
The real housewife of Kalamazoo 206
Thirteen questions to ask before getting married 220
Yo, I need a job 237
Feelings are a mistake 250
We are never meeting in real life. 262
ACKNOLWLEDGEMENTS 273

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

I like it! — 3

The last normal day — 9

David Matthew’s greatest romantic hits — 22

Club Street diet — 36

My firstborn dog — 50

Body horror! — 64

Two old nuns having amzing [sic] lesbian sex — 78

QVC, ILYSM — 100

Superman!!!!!!! — 117

I like to get high at night and think about whales — 150

Oh, so you actually don’t wanna make a show about a horny fat bitch with diarrhea? Okay! — 152

What if I died like Elvis — 189

Shit happens — 214

Food fight — 229

O brother, where art thou? — 235

How to look cool in front of teens? — 248

We used to get dressed up to go to Red Lobster — 266

Please invite me to your party — 282

Acknowledgments — 289

Netflix brings the South Korean  Extraordinary Attorney Woo to a wide audience so viewers can follow the life of a young autistic attorney, Woo Young Woo. Woo lives in Seoul with her father who worries about his brilliant but very different daughter.

We see Woo struggle to deal with her mental health and the challenges of working with her fellow attorneys. Extraordinary Attorney Woo effectively shows how Woo adjusts to adulthood as an autistic person who just wants to fit in. But the series also demonstrates the inner mind of Woo–who loves whales–and how she struggles to overcome the cruelty some people display toward people with autism.

Woo struggles with interpersonal relationships. She often finds herself hyper-focused on particular topics like the fine points of the law which leads to overlooking how other people feel when she only has her goal in mind. This series portrays Woo’s flaws as natural flowing from her autism. But Extraordinary Attorney Woo celebrates her quirks and mannerisms that make Woo…extraordinary! If you’re in the mood for a heart-felt and dramatic legal series out of the ordinary, check out Extraordinary Attorney Woo! GRADE: A

“As a student, I realized that I had no aptitude for science, that foreign languages did not come easily to me, and that the study of economics turned my eyeballs to isinglass…. In literature, I adored much poetry but felt I could not draw intellectual breath for long on its high plateau; the drama…was for me a form that always felt a touch artificial. But, the novel, the novel from the very beginning…lit my fire and continues to light it today. The novel took me to places I hadn’t known existed, but in which I was delighted to find myself; it expanded my world like nothing else I had known, or, for that matter, still know.” (p. 19)

Joseph Epstein waxing poetic about his love of novels parallels my own love affair with books. Sure, I read some poetry and plays from time to time. But, my go-to delight is to sit down in a comfortable chair and read a wonderful novel.

Epstein examines dozens of novels in this slim volume. He notes that: “The novels of Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, and John Updike, so popular and widely written about in their day have already begun to lose interest. ” (p. 70). In the following chapters, Epstein adds Thomas Pynchon, Saul Bellow, and Vladimir Nabokov to that list. Then he turns to: “Here are six novelists and short-story writers whom I feel I do not need to read again:

• Graham Greene, whose combination of leftwing politics and Catholicism has never worked for me.
• Alice Munro, whose stories of infidelity in provincial Canada have always seem to me of limited interest.
• George Orwell, whose great work was in the essay, and whose novels, apart form the famous and politically useful Nineteen Eighty-Four, fail to come alvie
• Toni Morrison, with whose novels I have never had any luck, and have concluded are more for teaching than reading
• Jonathan Franzen, who seems in his fiction to write about people to whom he can feel superior
• S. Y. Agnon, four of whose novels I’ve read, always with high expectation, never with satisfaction, though I am told he is a writer who must be read in Hebrew in which he wrote. (p. 116)

As you can see from these examples from The Novel, Who Needs It? Epstein has some strong views on various writers. It might not come as a complete surprise to learn that Epstein considers Leo Tolstoy the greatest novelist (I disagree).

Reading a novel is a subjective experience. The huge variation in novels makes it practically impossible to generate a list of the Best Novels. Instead, we all have a list of our Favorite Novels, books that speak to us (but probably not everybody). The Novel, Who Needs It? has a simple answer: I do. And, I’m guessing…you do, too! Do you have a favorite novel? GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

The Novel, Who Needs It? — 1

Acknowledgements — 127

Bibliography — 129

Index — 133