Capitol Book Share

We're back now with regular reporting following the five report blast that was the Final Countdown.  Some of you responded with delight at the refresher on all your favorite Arrested Development characters, moments, and jokes.  Others did not understand the reports and did not respond.  But now, back to a more standard Report.

You may recall that several weeks ago in the Report "Reading By Flashlight," I solicited quick book recommendations from any interested contributors.  Several of you contributed your suggestions, some serious, some less so.  Regardless, with summer reading season upon us, I thought I would send out these recommendations now.  

Grendel by John Gardner - A crash course in philosophy from the perspective of one of the Western canon's most famous baddies.

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad - A book about politics, terrorism, and the politics of terrorism written a century ago but still, especially in light of the Boston Marathon bombing, painfully relevant.

The Old Testament - This first of an exciting and controversial trilogy is jam-packed with familial violence, familial sex, and plain-old conquering, with a little bit of legal mumbo-jumbo thrown in.

The Talmud - Really fun, if you can get past the ancient Hebrew.

His Dark Materials by Phillip Pulman - Whether or not you love or hate the glaringly apparent religious over and undertones (that only became apparent to me later in life), at a young age this trilogy taught me unforgettable lessons about imagination, fantasy, love, loss, and the power of storytelling. I've returned to it every so often ever since.

Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys - Simply and clearly drawn, with a quiet magnetism, it follows a teenage girl and her Lithuanian family as they are deported to a Siberian work camp at the outset of World War II.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls - It made me more furious than any other book.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery - One of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I cannot think of how to describe it and except to say READ IT.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace - A sprawling, difficult, and dense novel about tennis, addiction, and entertainment, but ultimately worth the work, rewarding readers with humor, heartbreak, and an unbelievable sense of accomplishment.

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides - The tragic and fascinating story of the suicides of the five Lisbon sisters, told from the reflective and collective perspective of the boys who loved them. 

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon - A perfect summer read, particularly for recent graduates, as it tells the post-graduation summer adventures of Art Bechestein.  Chabon's prose isn't as polished here as it is in his later work, but the web of character relations more than compensates.

And if any of those recommendations don't satisfy your literary interests, feel free to make use of the Summer Reading Flowchart to decide on a book.  Remember to choose carefully, though.  As these profiles in the New York Times indicate, your summer reading choice could change your life... Or at least serve as a potent source for nostalgia later on.

Read on!  And let me know what you choose!

“When I remember that dizzy summer, that dull, stupid, lovely, dire summer, it seems that in those days I ate my lunches, smelled another's skin, noticed a shade of yellow, even simply sat, with greater lust and hopefulness - and that I lusted with greater faith, hoped with greater abandon. The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments." - Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Reading By Flashlight

Today, according to the Children's Bookstore I walk past on the way to work each day, is World Book Night.  Apparently, the worthy goal of this project is to "spread the love of reading, person to person," accomplished by distribution of World Book Night paperbacks to "light and non-readers."  What an excellent program, and the books they've selected this year are excellent, as well, and a lot of them suit the mission.  The Phantom Tollbooth is a dominant title in the formation of my own love of reading and wordplay (and Michael Chabon's!); Good Omens, Me Talk Pretty One Day, and Bossypantsare perfect laugh-fests; and Looking for Alaska and The Lightning Thief are sure to bring teen and pre-teen readers into the literary fold.  The one exception I can see right off on the list: My Antonia could prove a major turn-off... Though that's my high school memory of the book speaking.

Given this booky day, I dug into the dusty link archives to share a literary link to inspire you all to read beyond the Report today.  First up, a beautiful site that archives inscriptions found in found books.  As a huge fan of inscribing books as gifts, I really enjoy this project.  I find sharing a book with someone and inscribing it with specific reason to be such a thoughtful gesture.  Of course, not all the inscriptions here are like this.  Some are notes written by the book's owner as a declaration of optimism or a careful barb in a sibling rivalry.

In light of the mission of World Book Night, I'd like to compile a list of book recommendations to share with the readership, so I'm proposing another interactive project.  Any one who wants to share a ONE SENTENCE recommendation of a book (or two or three...), send them in, and one day next week I'll include them in a Report.  It's as close as we can get to anonymously, digitally inscribing books to each other.  Plus, it's great timing as we begin to move toward Summer Reading season.

I'll kick things off with a book about books: Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Shadow of the Wind: This suspenseful Spanish novel features a mystery about books and the most frightening villain I've ever read.

Finally, there seems to be some sort of vehicle making its way into the banner.  Looks like the Report is going on a road trip this week.  Stay tuned for more...

As Marcel the Shell would say, READ ON!

--Evan

“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” -Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Cadence of a Summer Day

Before we dive into today's topic and you figure out why an April Morning Report has a summer title, I wanted to thank the readership for all the positive feedback on last Thursday's Whole Milk Marriage Report.  This issue brought in record views to the blog and a huge amount of reader feedback and support, which meant a great deal to me.

But now, to this week's business.  Though the title may not have given it away, the custom banner certainly did.  Yesterday, along with being April Fools' Day and the day I finished Infinite Jest (Suck it, Otter 21!) was the opening day of the 2013 MLB season for most teams.  The day was enjoyed by baseball fans across the country, though in some cities more than others, with Boston, DC, and Chicago among the cities briefly enjoying a 1.000 Winning Percentage.

While some readers likely find baseball boring to watch, it is my favorite sport to watch, either at a park or on TV.  Physically going to a game is steeped in Americana and tradition in a way that no other sporting event can boast.  And televised baseball can work to serve almost as a soundtrack to one's day, playing out in the background as life unfolds around it.  Even though the first trip I ever went on as a wee baby was to Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, I can't speak as eloquently about it as true, long-term, full-time fans of the game could, but I can pull a quote that I think captures something about why I like the game so much: “The fundamental truth: a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day."  That, my favorite sentence from my least favorite book by my favorite author (Michael Chabon'sSummerland), captures it for me.

For other people, though, it's something else.  For photographer Don Hamerman, it's the aesthetics of the ball.  Others may be drawn to the history of the game's famous firsts.  Still others the oddball trivia of old baseball cards.  Some the poetry.  Some the comedy.  Some people even look to the game as religion, telling the story of how "In the big inning God created Heaven on Earth."

So, whether you subscribe to MLBtv to watch along at work, or you haven't seen a game in FOR-EV-ER, baseball is here.  Even those who don't watch can look forward to the summer days it heralds.

Odd Jobs and Random Tasks

Following on yesterday's report, one reader provided an interesting essay on why some book-to-movie adaptations fall short of our hopes.  (Hint: It's got something to do with the "master" part of masterpiece.)  We'll see if Baz proves up to the test by making something Great this summer...  Another reaches further back into literary canon and provides another Fleetwood Macbeth quote, this from Duncan's ghost's monologue: "I know there's nothing to say.  Someone has taken my place."

As today's Report headline suggests, we're tackling the working world today.  (Sorry for those who thought we were discussing diminutive Bond villainsand their Austin Powers parody counterparts...)  Specifically, we're taking a behind the scenes look at 15 different jobs, from dominatrix to paramedic.  The stories these men and women at work tell provide interesting glimpses at what actually goes on in worlds we may not know about.  Trust me, it's worth pushing through the shocking disturbingness of the dominatrix profile to get to the rest, though hers is probably the only place you will hear "I can be in my dungeon for up to seven hours" today.  The Undertaker's perspective proves HBO's Six Feet Under did its research, while the five year unpaid intern suggests maybe something about the intern system is broken and/or illegal.  Plus, if you don't feel like reading, you can just check out the cute little graphic representations... Though in real life I've never encountered a cab driver who looks like Travis Bickle.

Finally from our continuing Coincidences series, an extended story (to make up for a short report) about a college interview:

Georgetown was the first of my college interviews. I remember feeling incredibly nervous as I pulled up to the house of my alumni interviewer, a local judge who lived in the next town over. I was wearing a newly acquired navy suit skirt (the first time I actually had use for such an item of clothing) and uncomfortable grown- up shoes. I rang the doorbell, hesitantly. A dog started barking wildly from inside.

"Come on in", I hear, " I just need to put the dog away." As I open the front door, I see the alum interviewer struggling to gate off the kitchen in order to keep some large animal inside.

"Oh, that's fine, I don't mind. I love dogs. We have a brown-and-white Brittany Spaniel at home named Molly."

The interviewer stopped trying to wrestle with the dog. He looked a little taken by surprise. I took one step closer, peered  in the kitchen, and saw none other than a brown-and-white Brittany Spaniel.

"Her name's Molly", he said.

It's an odd world!  It's also Nathan Fillion's birthday!  If you don't know who that is, maybe you've seen him at the gym?  No, he doesn't go to the gym. He's just naturally like that.

For the Record Books

I had been sort of planning to continue March Madness tournament coverage this week, but after Friday's embarrassing rout of Georgetown, I'm gonna keep quiet on that topic for a while longer.

Instead, let's talk about adaptation.  Not the Charlie Kaufman film that features a rare good performance from Nicholas Cage.  (For more Nicholas Cage performances, try Nicholas Cage Roulette - "C'mon, Kick-Ass, c'mon Kick-Ass. Damn! Face-Off!")  The practice of adaptation, while often criticized as a sign of creative stagnation, is nothing new in the storytelling world.  Book to movie, comic book to movie, movie to novel based on the motion picture, book to musical to questionably cast movie musical, book to movie to video game, video game to cartoon series, comic book to cartoon series to video game to more modern video game... There is no shortage of examples for all of these, but there is a notable exception to the world of adaptation: The record-to-book or film divide really hasn't been crossed.

Sure, there's Fantasia and sequel, which provided beautiful depictions of classical compositions and an iconic Mickey image, but that's the only feature-length film example I can think of.  In terms of shorter pieces, there's Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf," originally released as song-and-book to teach kids the parts of the orchestra, and since adapted into films.  In that same spirit, pseudonymous author Lemony Snicket has created the song-and-book combination "The Composer Is Dead," which seems to be a more interesting and humorous teaching tool.

Luckily, the Internet is working hard to rectify this situation.  First, artist Christophe Gowans has developed a series of book covers interpreting whatfamous albums would have been had they been released as books.  If the covers alone weren't entertaining enough, he's written up small descriptions of what each book would be.  Highlights include the Queen murder mysteries, Beach Boys board book, and a classic aviation safety booklet.

In the other direction is the Coudal Partners produced "Booking Bands" project, combining famous books with famous bands.  The full list merits thorough giggle-filled examination, and stands out as a piece of collaborative wordplay genius.  But some of my favorites include "Abba Karenina," "Anne of Al Green Gables," "A Christmas Carol Channing," "Neutral Milk Hotel New Hampshire," "Fleetwood Macbeth," and "The Five Village People You Meet In Heaven."  (Should that last one happen in real life, you're probably actually in some sort of Hell.)  Bonus Points for anyone who can produce some sample lyrics from some of these bands...

And finally, on a more serious note: the 33 1/3 series is a series of books written about albums.  I've only read one of these books, in which The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle writes brilliantly on Black Sabbath's Master of Reality.  Still there are many on the list I hope to one day check out.  Particularly If You're Feeling Sinister, Tusk, and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

That's plenty for today... Tomorrow we'll talk jobs and share a few more coincidences.  

As Fleetwood Macbeth would say, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow."

We're Back!

After a two month hiatus (and you thought The Daily Show writers took long breaks...) we're returning today with an aptly named report, obviously referencing the greatest celebrity-voiced animated dinosaur film of all time.  Things went offline for a while starting in December, when I was hit with some all-day, all-week panels, working weekends, and non-stop extended workdays that had me too pooped to 'port.  Then I went on a Christmas vacation, came back, and frankly was just lazy for a while.  At least about Reporting.  Outside of the reporting world I've been busy learning GRE words ("covey - a group of partridges," I'll definitely need to know that to go back to school) and making my way through Infinite Jest (Otter 21, you won't be disappointed for long).

Still, in that time, we missed some genuinely excellent reporting opportunities.  I intend to make-up for a few right here, right now.

Christmas
Just think of all the custom banners we could have had, for starters!  Snowflakes, a rising Ornament "O," a snowman head "O," letters made of presents... So many possibilities!  We could have thrown rocks together at the Old Granville House, sung a carol every day of December, talked up Rankin Bass, hated Uncle Jamie, and torn apart Christmas Shoes.  And of course I would have been sure to tell you what Christmas is all about.

Fiscal Cliff
Remember that? I wouldn't have tried to explain it or link to any relevant article that did... But I would talk about Fiscal Clifford the Big Red Dog.  And offered excerpts of the classic "Fiscal Cliff" episode of The Cosby Show.  You know the one -- To get the kids to clean-up around the Huxtable home, Cliff starts paying them allowance to take care of the messes that pop up, but the kids expose a flaw in his system and start an elaborate system of making messes for others to clean and pooling the cash rewards.  Obviously Cliff catches on, and everyone learns a valuable lesson about responsibility and honesty.

New Year's Eve
I missed out on a great chance to work through a list of my favorite things about 2012.  I could have counted down to my favorite movie (Argo), my favorite book (The Fault In Our Stars), my favorite cute animals... So many possibilities.  Instead I'll take the opportunity to retrospectively and self-servingly pick my Top 5 Morning Reports of 2012:

5.  Game On! -- The Report that started it all obviously merits a mention...  And it helps that it includes a Gingrich-biting penguin.
4.  Halloweek - Great Pumpkin Special Report -- A beautiful reader-submission reflecting on family, tradition, and memory.
3.  Vote Your Heart Out -- A double custom banner, plus links to videos from some of my favorite TV shows.
2.  100 Years of Oreo  -- Long-form humor on one topic, which is unusual for the Report.  Plus, I foretold Oreo's coming out for gay rights!
1.  Mourning Report: King of All the Wild Things -- A reflection on Maurice Sendak that features an interview that inspires me every time I hear it.

I hope those selections represent some of your favorites, too.  And I hope 2013 brings many more reports to choose from.

Til tomorrow, eat in the Cherry Orchard with your Three Sisters and your Uncle Vanya -- It's Anton Chekhov's birthday!

By Its Cover

Ahoy, and happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

In today's Report we venture away from the aww-inspiring world of cute animals to tackle more literary concerns.  Don't worry, though, we're not going to get too deep into books here.  In fact, we won't go any further than the cover.

First up, an entertaining post on a blog run for and by parents (not sure how I ended up there...) features a slideshow in which a mother shares book covers with her six-year-old daughter.  The six-year-old then offers her summary of the contents that the book must contain based on the cover and title.  Some of the quotes read true to the contents in a vague and poetic way.  Gatsby is, indeed, "good and evil and he's trying to get rid of the ghosts."  "It doesn't really have a story" rings true for Catcher.    Others miss the mark entirely.  But how awesome would a prospecting Jane Eyre be?  And "a blob of purple that lives in [a] house"?  Please don't read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to your "kiddies."  I'm also hoping the mother in question corrected her daughter's comment, "I would not read a book about just a tree."
 
It should come as no surprise to readers that book covers hold such an influence on opinion.  If they didn't, where would we get our overused cliché?  Perhaps no one knows this quite as well as cover designer (and novelist) Chip Kidd, seen here giving a humorous TED talk about book cover design.  Kidd is yet another name you may not recognize whose work you definitely know.  (Covers for Jurassic Park, The Road, 1Q84...)  And yet he actually downplays the cliché, having said: "I'm very much against the idea that the cover will sell the book. Marketing departments of publishing houses tend to latch onto this concept and they can't let go. But it's about whether the book itself really connects with the public, and the cover is only a small part of that."  And in a world of online book buying and tiny-covered e-books, he may be onto something.  But I still love my McSweeney's editions of books for the brilliant visual and tactile design of the physical books themselves.
 
Along with talking like pirates, we wish a happy birthday to Jimmy Fallon today.  No doubt whatever song we sing to wish him a happy birthday will be parodied by him shortly thereafter.

ReKindling the Readership

I mentioned and linked at length yesterday to Michael Chabon's work, which I have just spent the summer reading.  I am proud to own copies of all his books, many of them signed by the author, whom I have met twice and will see several more times on his book tour this fall for Telegraph Avenue, but whom I am not stalking, contrary to what some people may say.  Of course, I read all of these books in their physical form, rather than on a Kindle or iPad (which I do not own, but would be open to receiving as a gift).  A special preview of Telegraph Avenue, however, nearly led me to purchase the book in that format, as a special edition of the book exists with accompanying audio tracks, images, videos, and so on.  However, thanks to the thoughtful gift of a friend, I do not have to make this decision, and a beautiful copy of the book is sitting all shiny nearby as I write this.  Which is good, because now when Chabon signs it later this month, I don't have to worry about rendering it useless.  (Seriously, GoogleImages? Nothing for this? Has no one's toddler written on their Kindle screen?)
 
But it got me thinking... When is a book no longer a book?  I recently discussed the flexibility of novels with a friend, wondering if there was a difference anymore between a collection of interwoven short stories and a novel.  Faulkner's Go Down, Moses seems to straddle the line.  But I don't just mean novels, I mean books in general.  When we can click and watch a movie, listen to a song, hear a sample from the audiobook... Are we still experiencing books?  It's an interesting transition, from the written page to the written retina-display touch-screen with special interactive features.
 
Even more interesting, though, are the two transitions from e-book to print that I found today.  The first is a print-on-demand art book, which collects 56 images of broken kindle screens and reproduces them in print.  While certainly cheaper than purchasing and breaking 56 original Kindles, I'm confused as to why anyone would buy this.  It calls to mind the title of another print book sitting on my couch right now... But Is It Art?  Perhaps the knowing smile and partial face of Agatha Christie knows the answer to that mystery...
More impressive, I think, is the project that aims to explain the modern e-book to a member of the analog past.  It's the 19th-Century Kindle for Charles Dickens!  Normally, I would be opposed to someone gutting a book, but this is so freaking cool.  And it created a bunch more little books to make up for taking apart old ones.  Though I have to imagine those little ones are abridged.
 
As an exciting piece of news today, the trailer for this November's film Lincoln premieres later today.  While this is not the movie I'm most looking forward to this Fall (Looper and Cloud Atlas and The Master are fighting for top billing there), I'm intrigued by the trailer, if only to see the great double-named Daniel Day-Lewis transform into another amazing role.  You can't see the preview until 7:00 tonight, but there is some leaked footage of Day-Lewis here.  Okay... Maybe not.  But I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Mr. Method-Actor spent months of preparation actually installed in Disney's Hall of Presidents, replacing the existing audio-animatronic.
 
Wikipedia tells me it's International Chocolate Day.  Act accordingly.