What I'm Reading: Chomp

Chomp is a YA novel by Carl Hiaasen, and I have to say, I adored this book. It follows Wahoo Cray, a young man (maybe around 13) whose father is an animal wrangler. That is, they keep all sorts of wildlife in their backyard in a small town on the outskirts of Miami, and whenever a TV or movie company wants to film a commercial or movie with wildlife in it, they call Wahoo's dad. The Crays have a very large but tame (-ish) alligator, a huge boa constrictor, monkeys, all sorts of birds, and so on. Wahoo himself is missing a thumb because one time when he was feeding the gator, Alice, he wasn't careful and she took off a little more than she was supposed to.

Unfortunately, there was a freak deep freeze in southern Florida and a frozen iguana fell out of a tree and knocked Wahoo's father unconscious. That was months ago, and ever since he's had horrible headaches and doublevision and they've been unable to take on any TV jobs. Since they're behind on their mortgage, Wahoo's mom has flown to China to teach Chinese lessons to visiting executives, leaving her son and husband to fend for themselves. When an offer comes in from a nature show offering big money, Wahoo tells them his dad will take the job, planning to do most of the work himself.

The nature show is a reality TV series about Derek Badger, a supposed survivalist who is dropped into various remote, tropical settings every week and has to rely on his wits to survive. In reality, Derek is a nincompoop with a fake Australian accent who relies on his crew to make him look good and takes a helicopter back to a luxury hotel every evening after filming is over. His one asset that makes his TV career possible is that he's willing to eat anything. The Crays' agreement to supply animals for an episode set in the Everglades sets in motion a series of events that will challenge all participants in unforeseen ways.

Last year I read an anthology called Grit Lit collecting "Rough South" stories. In a lot of ways, Chomp reminds me of a kid's version of one of those stories. In my review of that book, I said that most of the characters were "folks with a tendency towards drink, violence, and short-term employment," and that's the case here is well. Although the younger age group it's aimed at necessitates a brighter style of storytelling than the stories in Grit Lit, this book has an awful lot of backwoods drunkards and layabouts up to no good. In Chomp, that makes for a lot of very funny scenes.

Chomp has a great voice, a definite and unique setting, and tons of great humor. My son (11 years old) has read it and really liked it, and I think anybody from his age on up to adult would enjoy it as well.

Place Names in Rock Lyrics: Rip This Joint

For this feature we've previously done Sweet Little Sixteen, Dancing in the Streets, Night Train, Rock'n Me, Pop Muzik, Girls, Girls, Girls, Fire Down Below, Truckin', Everywhere That I'm Not, Mess Around, Back in the USA, Back in the USSR, and America.

The next song is Rip This Joint, from the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street album. The lyrics sound to me like the Stones are ready to go on tour but have some trepidation US authorities will let them in to play:

Mister President, Mister Immigration Man,
Let me in, sweetie, to your fair land.

I know they sometimes had some trouble with local police in the US (if you can believe it). I'm not sure I remember hearing about trouble with US immigration, but maybe they did, or maybe it's just rhetorical. In any case, once they get in, they have an expansive list of cities they want to play:

I'm Tampa bound and Memphis too,
Short Fat Fanny is on the loose.
Dig that sound on the radio,
Then slip it right across into Buffalo.
Dick and Pat in ole D.C.,
Well they're gonna hold some shit for me.
Ying yang, you're my thing,
Oh, now, baby, won't you hear me sing.
Flip Flop, fit to drop,
Come on baby, won't you let it rock?
Oh, yeah!

From San Jose down to Santa Fe,
Kiss me quick, baby, won'tcha make my day.
Down to New Orleans with the Dixie Dean,
'Cross to Dallas, Texas with the Butter Queen.
Rip this joint, gonna rip yours too,
Some brand new steps and some weight to lose.
Gonna roll this joint, gonna get down low,
Round and round and round we'll go.
Wham, Bham, Birmingham, Alabam' don't give a damn.
Little Rock fit to drop.
Ah, let it rock.

So the place names in this song are:
Birmingham
Buffalo
Dallas
Little Rock
Memphis
New Orleans
San Jose
Santa Fe
Tampa
Washington, DC

And lots of cities new to our list: Birmingham, Little Rock, Memphis, San Jose, Santa Fe, Tampa

_______________________________________________________________________

And here's the master list:

Notes: The city that has been mentioned most often is New York, with New Orleans in second and Los Angeles and Philadelphia tied for third. The biggest cities we haven't heard from yet, at least in the United States, are Cleveland, Kansas City, and Seattle. Odd to me that Memphis, a huge blues city, has been mentioned only once.

Atlanta x3

Baltimore x3
Baton Rouge
Birmingham
Boston
Buffalo x2
California

--(northern) California
--(coast of) California
Chattanooga

Chicago x3
Dallas x2
Delaware (Bay)

Detroit x3

Ft. Lauderdale
Georgia (country)
Houston
Las Vegas
Little Rock

London

Los Angeles x4
Memphis

Miami
--Miami Beach
Moline
Moscow

Munich
New Jersey (turnpike)

New Orleans x5

New York City x6
--Queens
Nova Scotia

Paris x2

Philadelphia x4

Phoenix

Pittsburgh x2

Raleigh

Richmond
Saginaw

San Francisco
--Berkeley
San Jose
Santa Fe

St. Louis x3

Tacoma
Tampa

(heart of) Texas
Tokyo
Ukraine

Vancouver

Washington, DC x3

What I'm Reading: The Republic

Last year, I read Five Dialogues by Plato and reviewed them on this site. This year I've revisited Plato's Republic, which I read in college. In this most famous of Plato's dialogues, Socrates, who is always the main character in Plato's works, makes a proposal to some friends: he can demonstrate that a virtuous man is always happier than an unvirtuous man. Some of his interlocutors scoff, saying that virtuous men may be happier because society esteems them, but if they were able to be unvirtuous without anybody knowing, they would do so in an instant.

To demonstrate his point, Socrates builds a perfectly virtuous city, with the idea that by examining a larger entity (a city), it may be easier to spot virtue and its effects and then transfer those lessons to a smaller entity (a man). This conceptual building of the city takes up the bulk of the book. By the end, Socrates has described a city guarded by a well-educated warrior class, and led by a philosopher-king. He then compares this city, which he demonstrates to be the happiest of all cities, with four other types of cities in order of their happiness: first, honor-loving cities ruled by warriors; second, money-loving cities ruled by merchants; third, democracies ruled by the people; and finally the unhappiest of cities, despotisms ruled by a tyrant.

Then, he compares each of the type of cities to different types of men: philosophers who love knowledge and truth correspond to his perfect city; followed by honor-loving warriors, money-loving merchants; undisciplined democrats, and tyrants.

Thus, he demonstrates to his friends' satisfaction (if not quite the modern reader's) that each succeeding type of city is less and less happy. Correspondingly, he also shows that philosophers, who with their love of knowledge and truth are the most just of men, are also the happiest, and each succeeding type of man is less and less happy.

What I found interesting is how he believes the guardians and the philosopher-king in his perfect city should be educated. He thinks as children they should receive training in poetry and music, elementary mathematics, and physical training. Those who exhibit the right temperaments will move on as teenagers to three years of vigorous physical training followed by ten years of mathematics (!), at which point they'll be ready to be guardians. Those guardians who might advance to leadership roles will then receive five years of "dialectic" training (i.e. making and weighing arguments), followed by ten years of studying what we would call political science. Only then, in their mid-forties, would they be ready to lead a city.

If this sounds simplistic, it is not, for Socrates also anticipates all sorts of counterarguments and negates them. One counterargument I found impressive was his explanation of why an unjust man may appear to others to be successful and admirable. He compares such a man to a runner who gets a fast start in a race, and appears to spectators to be far in the lead. But as time goes on and the lead runner tires and falls behind, so the unjust man finds his way is not so easy as creditors, friends, and neighbors discover his true nature and gradually stop interacting with him.

Like the Five Dialogues, this book is pretty easy to read, at least on a line by line basis. Socrates' language is straight-forward and conversational, as indeed, it is supposed to be a conversation among he and his friends. The simplicity of the language frees your attention for the consideration of his sophisticated arguments.

I don't think I would recommend this to somebody looking for light reading (although as I say above, it is not actually that hard to read), but for those willing to think about ethics, virtue, and how we order our society, this is arguably the most basic text in Western literature on those topics. Actually, the book has much the feel of a late-night bull session in a dorm room, so for the right kind of person, I think the Republic might be not only thought-provoking, but even fun to read.

Ranking Captain America: Civil War

Last night my son and I went to see Captain America: Civil War. Let's how this stacks up against other comic book movies I have reviewed.

I have previously ranked the Batman movies, the Superman movies, the other DC movies, the Avengers movies, the X-Men movies, the summer 2015 comic movies, the Spider-Man movies, the non-Marvel and non-DC comic movies, and the Man-Thing.

As ever, my ranking system is
Green=excellent  Blue=pretty good  Black=Okay  Red=avoid

This one was pretty good. Not as good as the first Captain America movie, maybe a little better than the second. I read a review that said it was a relief to have some smaller scale fights after the huge, city-spanning explosion fests of many recent super-hero movies. I'll go along with that. A lot of one-on-one or two-on-two hand-to-hand combat scenes. And in the movie's big set piece, a battle between two groups of superheroes on a runway at the airport in Berlin, there was no world-saving at stake. Just a well-choreographed, fairly clever fight between two groups with different goals.

Calling this a Captain America movie is a little bit of a misnomer. It does carry forward some of the themes of the second Cap movie, but it's really an Avengers flick. Iron Man has almost as much screen time as Cap, and most of the others show up as well, along with Avengers newcomers Spider-Man and Ant-Man, who bring much needed levity.

A fun movie, not great but quite watchable--at least for those who've been keeping up with all the Marvel films. I'm not sure how this would play for someone watching it cold. There are a lot of references to things that've happened in earlier films, a lot of baggage between characters that explain their motivations but aren't spelled out. So maybe not one I'd recommend for everyone, but only for viewers who like superheroes and have been keeping up with developments in the Marvel film universe.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Here's the master list of all comics movies I've rated so far, in order from best to worst:

Crumb
American Splendor
Iron Man
Heavy Metal (1981)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Avengers
Superman (1978)
Captain America
Batman Begins (2005)
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
Spider-Man (2002)
X-Men 2: X-Men United
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Superman II
Batman (1989)
Ant-Man
The Dark Knight (2008)
Iron Man 3
The Wolverine
Sin City (2005)
X-Men: First Class
X-Men
Avengers 2: Age of Ultron
Swamp Thing (1982)
Spider-Man 3
Iron Man 2
Watchmen (2009)
Batman Forever (1995)
Superman Returns (2006)
Thor 2: The Dark World
Incredible Hulk (2008)
Mystery Men
Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Man-Thing (2005)
Superman III
Supergirl (1984)
Thor
X-Men 3: Last Stand
Hulk (2003)
Fritz the Cat (1972)
Batman and Robin (1997)
Batman Returns (1992)
Superman IV

Amazing Spider-Man (2012) (Haven't seen)
Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) (Haven't seen)
Batman (1966) (Haven't seen)
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (Haven't seen)
Catwoman (Haven't seen)
Constantine (Haven't seen)
Deadpool (Haven't seen)
Green Lantern (Haven't seen)
Hellboy (Haven't seen)
Judge Dredd (Haven't seen)
Man of Steel (Haven't seen)
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) (Haven't seen)
V for Vendetta (Haven't seen)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Haven't seen)

What I'm Reading: Roundup

Prince Valiant Volume 1: 1937-38 Absolutely beautiful over-sized hardcover of the first two years of the Sunday-only strip Prince Valiant. Drawn by Hal Foster, who brought an unprecedented skill and dedication to his work, this was an influence for decades on comics artists.

The strip still runs today, although unfortunately today's newspapers don't provide artists with the full-page canvases they had in the 1930s, when the Sunday comics were entertainment for a whole family and one of the main draws of the newspaper. According to the introduction, Hal Foster wrote over 1,000 pages of notes on the details of Prince Valiant's life, from childhood to death, and when he turned the strip over to an assistant in 1980 shortly before his death, was still working from that original plan. I wonder if the artist today, Thomas Yeates, who has done the strip since 2012, still uses those notes?

This was a Christmas gift. Provided I can find the funds and the time, I will definitely be getting Volume 2 at some point.

Squirrel Girl Marvel nowadays has a whole little corner of their universe dealing with the humorous adventures of quirky, lesser-known characters. She-Hulk, Patsy Walker (i.e. Hellcat), and Howard the Duck all have or have recently had fun series, and the creators seem inclined to let them interact. In fact, several of the characters hang out with each other in a building in Brooklyn where She-Hulk's alter ego, Jennifer Walters, has her law office and Howard the Duck has a detective agency.

Squirrel Girl is my favorite of these titles. SG is Doreen Green, a computer science student at Empire State University (where Peter Parker used to attend college). She can talk to squirrels and even has a squirrel tail she uses to help her fight bad guys (and when it's tucked up in her pants it gives her a bodacious booty). Doreen really prefers talking it out with villains and seeing if their are ways they can achieve their goals without using violence, but she's willing to take 'em on physically if that doesn't work out. It's really hilarious and appropriate for kids ages 5 to 100.

Mirror I recently started picking up this series drawn by Emma Rios, one of my favorite artists. It's set on an asteroid inhabited by humans who have been doing experiments on animals to breed warriors (or something) for a big war in space. But that's just the background, the emphasis is on the relationships between the humans and their intelligent human-animal hybrid creations, some of whom rebel against their human masters, some of whom fall in love with them, or serve them for their own reasons. Really, each character has his own unique motivations. Gorgeous, highly intricate artwork and interesting character work.

What I'm Reading: Game Time: A Baseball Companion

Game Time is a collection of essays by Roger Angell, who covers baseball for The New Yorker magazine. I believe most or all of these essays appeared in that magazine. They range from the very beginning of Angell's career in the early 1960s to 2002.

The essays are uniformly of high, even literary, quality, with an emphasis on personalities, lives, and relationships, rather than action on the field. I notice that even when he does cover action on the field, or over a season, it comes out like a story. It's a joy to read, although when reading a lot of essays back to back certain New-Yorker-ish tics come to the fore. For instance, everything is always fine: it was a fine game, so-and-so is a fine player, it was a fine play at third. And the reflex to get deeper, to figure out what it all means, on one or two occasions in the book becomes almost comical. But all in all, the writing is superb (or fine, even).

I think my favorite essay is one titled "Distance" from 1980, which is mainly about Bob Gibson, a once-fearsome pitcher who had at that point been retired for five years. Gibson was the most dominant pitcher in baseball in the late 1960s, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals who did not hesitate to plunk batters crowding the plate. He was African-American and grew up poor in an era when blacks got little respect, so he carried himself with a certain pride than many interpreted as stand-offishness. Angell caught up with him in Omaha, his hometown, where he had opened up a popular bar-restaurant after retiring but lost none of the old prickliness.You can sense the difficulty Angell had in interviewing such a reticent man, yet he succeeds in giving the reader a detailed and moving look at an athlete past his best years, who never really had a place in life except on top of the baseball mound. He also succeeds in making us sympathize with Gibson, quite a feat for a man who previously had a well-earned image as a cold and emotionally austere man.

My least favorite essay was called "One for the Good Guys," about the New Yankees late-season surge in 1996 that brought them to the World Series against Atlanta for their first Series appearance since 1978, and what a great group of players they had, and how well-deserved it all was, and how the city and country fell for them, and barf barf barf. Fortunately, this appears to be a one-season lapse on Angell's part, and for most of the rest of the book he avoids Yankees boosterism.

Now Angell has a number of books, most of which appear to be collections of already-published essays like this one. I would imagine they are all of similarly high quality. Game Time would be a great read for any baseball fan with literary leanings, though probably any of the others would be just as good.

Peanuts in Real Life

I must have the exact conversation presented in this May, 1956, Peanuts strip at least three times a week: