Summer Reading

As usual, there isn't much to do in Bellingham other than read.  These days I find myself starting two or three books at once, so actually sitting down and finishing the things feels good.  So what did I read?

Poseur: A Memoir of Downtown New York In The '90s by Marc Spitz

Just about everybody you'd expect (never take Chloe Sevigny to a hipster bar and expect to walk out with her), and tons of people you wouldn't (Peter Dinklage!) make appearances in this brutally honest tale of a junkie, playwright, novelist, and music journalist.  I breezed through it because even when it's dark it's still funny as hell.  Spitz died at 47 in 2017, even as the end of the book presents his life in fairly optimistic terms as having come to terms with his drinking and drug use fairly thick veils of darkness.

Meet Me In The Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll In New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman

Goodman actually appears in Spitz's book as a former girlfriend, and I had no idea about the connection before downloading these two.  The problem is, it's not really a book.  It's quite literally a cut-and-paste job of quotations from band members and journalists.  I pretty much decided to skip it when I figured out what was going on, but a few days later I used the search function to just focus on the bands I was interested in.  For better or worse, it's heavy on The Strokes.  But there are chapters focusing on DC-to-NY transplants Jonathan Fire*Eater (who later became The Walkmen).  Also, there's only one very small bit regarding Les Savy Fav, and nothing about Frenchkiss Records.  Boo.

The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English by Lynne Murphy

Another book that's more rewarding as a sort of browse-as-you-go collection of interesting bits and bobs, Lynne does a terrific job of blending history and cultural norms to try and figure out just how British and American English got so twisted up over the centuries.  Even a simple discussion as to how we differ in our usage of "please" (British people think you're a brutish asshole if you don't use it, Americans tend to think you're a groveling asshole if you use it too much) turns into something funny and weird and even a bit tense.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies In a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

I've been morbidly fascinated all along by the saga of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.  A Stanford dropout/tech hype wunderkind, she built a nine billion dollar company on the medical lab equivalent of vaporware.  She got some of the richest and most "important" people in America (Kissinger ffs!) to serve on her board of directors.  And it was all, at the end of the day, a pretty transparent grift.  From intentionally deepening her voice in interviews to dating the CFO, a creepy guy 20 years older than her, this is a story that pretty much defines where we are as a global economy in the throes of late capitalism, eating our own tail and running on the the fumes of bullshit MBA talk and the insane belief that another Steve Jobs-like tech Messiah will save us all.  In fact, the next one will probably murder us.

Dhalgren by Samuel Delany

A torpid but intense headache manifested as an 800 page novel, where nothing much happens until the last 30 pages.  Also, lots of rapey bits.  Worth the effort and confusion and, frankly, utter discomfort?  Surprisingly, yes.