I’m happy to share my current night table reading with you. It’s nice of you to ask.
The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III imagines the meeting of a 9/11 hijacker and a stripper. He knows from the investigation of the men who took over the planes that they visited strip bars while they were living in Florida. It was part of their cover. He tells the story by shifting the point of view, always third person, from one character to another, Basaam the hijacker, April the dancer, her landlady, AJ, a customer in the club, Lonnie the dyslexic bouncer, but while some of the characters are real everything that Dubus writes is his own imagination. He also manages to make the third person feel as intimate and connected as a first person voice. It’s an excellent book.
The Dumbest Generation or “Don’t Trust Anyone Under Thirty” makes an frontal assault on you, my students, and your general ignorance. In particular how digital technology has dumbed you down in to what the author calls “pancake people” who have broad knowledge of trivia but who lack depth. It’s an interesting if offensive, to you as I am WELL over thirty, argument.
Everyone from Aristotle to Homer Simpson makes a contribution to Thank You for Arguing. I looked at this as a supplemental text for our AP Language class but it really looks more at verbal rather than written approaches to persuasion. It is a easy read, or skim, and would help with your study of rhetoric.
As for periodicals every one seems to be doing a Micheal Jackson retrospective but here are a few interesting things I’ve come across. If you’re into politics take a look at Vanity Fair’s article on Sarah Palin then contrast it to the cover story on last week’s Time. Esquire’s regular feature “1000 Words About Culture” is still offering great and entertaining writing. Every one that I’ve read has been excellent. This month’s is about vengeance.
I don’t see it very often but Adbusters magazine, there’s a picture of Spongebob Squarepants on the cover, has two articles I liked quite a bit. I can’t remember the title but one article was written by Roland Kelts who wrote the book Japanamerica, another good read, and is about current Japanese culture. The other is The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics by Steve Keen. My favorite part of this is where he revokes Nobel Prizes from economist’s like Milton Friedman who got it all wrong or whose theories have completely failed.
That’s all for now. Be safe and do good work.
RK
