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Bush in the Headlights
By Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (all rights reserved, or whatever). Outstanding.
February 23, 2004 in Current Affairs | Permalink
Reading
- Stendhal: The Red and the Black [BIO]
Studs Terkel: Working [BIO]
Listening
- Elliott Smith: "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" [BIO]
Writing
- "Conned and Bruised"
(A Twist of Noir) - "One Son Resists"
(Green Lantern Press) - "Clean and Bright"
(Joyland) - "Button"
(Shoots and Vines) - "Alleys Are the Footnotes of the Avenues"
(Shoots and Vines) - "Moonlight"
(decomP) - "Quit These Hills"
(Big Pulp) - "Mercy Day"
(RAGAD) - "Deep in the Northwoods"
(Wheelhouse Magazine) - "Howard Holds Court"
(Birmingham Arts Journal) - "Waiting On a Train"
(RAGAD) - "Power"
(The Clarity of Night) - "Guaranteed"
(Spillway Review) - "Big Question"
(Boston Literary Magazine) - "This Time"
(55 Words) - "Immortality"
(THE2NDHAND) - "Freewheeling"
(Dogmatika) - "The Fixer"
(Gapers Block) - "Ralph's Last Call"
(The Angler) - "Can't Be Happy Today, But Tomorrow"
(Skive Magazine) - "Mighty Casey"
(Zisk) - "Ectoplasm"
(Storyglossia) - "Captions Without Photos"
(Gapers Block) - "Blown"
(Writer's Resource Center) - "Have A Pleasant Commute On Metra"
(This is Grand) - "The Retreat"
(monochrom) - Published Here:
"The Copper Responds"
"One Evening in St. Paul"
"The Lovely Miss Underwood"
"Insomnis"
"We Do Not Approve"
"The Ghoul's Evening Visit"
Various Microfiction
More Me
- Self-Deprecating Bio
- Photo Gallery
- Old Home Page
- Email Me: pete_anderson [at] comcast [dot] net
My Women
Friendly Links
- Brown Bear Software
- Beth Janicek
- Gapers Block
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- Maud Newton
- Return of the Reluctant
- Bookninja
- Books for Breakfast
- Ben Tanzer
- Nick Ostdick
- Richard Grayson
- What To Wear During an Orange Alert?
- Murmurings to the Masses
- bighappyfunhouse.com
- Fading Ad Campaign
Distant Worthies
- Last Plane to Jakarta
- Ben Katchor: Hotel & Farm
- The Onion
- Salon.com
- Center for American Progress
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- Tom Tomorrow - This Modern World
- Ted Rall - Political Cartoon
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Recent Reads
- Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Good but less than essential novel of African tribal life, tradition versus modernity. -
- Alan Sillitoe: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Entertaining comic novel of youthful irresponsibility. -
- Patrick Hamilton: Hangover Square
Disturbing portrait of alienation, obsession and mental illness. -
- Ian McEwan: Amsterdam
Two men strive to make their mark and when thwarted then seek revenge, but a third gets the biggest revenge of all. -
- Tarjei Vesaas: The Birds
Relentlessly sad novel of helplessness and not belonging. -
- Pär Lagerkvist: Barabbas
Beautiful and quietly powerful story of an unrequited longing for faith. -
- Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels
Brilliant, angry, timeless satire of the entire human race. -
- John McGahern: Amongst Women
Strong novel about what happens to revolutionists after the revolution is won. -
- William Trevor: Fools of Fortune
Lovely novel of revolution, revenge and self-imposed exile. -
- Gabe Durham: The Complete Genealogy of Everyone, Ever
Whimsical and very funny collection of stories about well-meaning losers. -
- Eric Bogosian: Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead
Outrageous, obscene, bitter, provocative - and laugh-out-loud funny. -
- Arthur Koestler: Darkness At Noon
A powerful, thoughtful and ultimately tragic discourse on revolutionary politics. -
- Kent Haruf: Eventide
Another lovely novel of the fictional small town of Holt, Colorado. -
- Matt Bell: The Collectors
Inventive and sadly beautiful fictionalization of the tragic Collyer brothers. -
- Tim Hall: Full Of It: The Birth, Death, and Life of an Underground Newspaper
Lively and funny novel of a New York rag sheet and the misfits who created it. -
- Nelson Algren: Chicago: City on the Make
Algren's classic, bitter love song to his city. -
- Nelson Algren: The Last Carousel
Fine collection of memoirs and stories from late in Algren's career. -
- Michael T. Fournier: The Minutemen: Double Nickels On the Dime
Thoughtful and passionate discussion of the Minutemen's great album. -
- Flannery O'Connor: A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
Powerful but bitter and bleak story collection that I will not be reading again. -
- Aleksandar Hemon: Love and Obstacles
Strong story collection from one of my favorite writers. -
- Jack Conroy: The Disinherited
Fine account of working-class Midwest life in the treacherous 1920s and 30s - but more of a documentary than a novel. -
- William E. Leuchtenburg: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940
Very fine and highly informative study of FDR, the New Deal and the Great Depression. -
- Edmund Wilson: The American Jitters: A Year of the Slump
Very fine collection of essays from 1930-31 on the early days of the Great Depression. -
- Mark Costello: The Murphy Stories
Devastating portrait of a man and his family, marriage and unfaithfulness. -
- John Cook: Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records
Excellent history of the indie rock label. -
- Matthew Sharpe: The Sleeping Father
Well-intentioned but less than successful novel of family dysfunction. -
- William Walsh: Questionstruck
Unique compilation - just the questions from Calvin Trillin's books. Oddly compelling. -
- Eric Schlosser: Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
Interesting studies of three underground economies, albeit more of a compilation than a unified book. -
- Greg Kot: Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music
Brisk, informative and entertaining account of how musicians and fans are taking back control of music. -
- Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
Overlong and unsympathetic portrait of an unhappy woman and those around her. -
- Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The great American tale of epic quest. Funny and still relevant. -
- Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
Comic but ultimately sad tale of a controlling, conforming society. -
- George Orwell: 1984
Brilliant, compelling, sobering. Orwell’s masterpiece is every bit as relevant today as the day it was written. -
- Henry David Thoreau: Walden, or Life in the Woods
Truly great narrative on simplicity, self-sufficiency and communing with nature. -
- Barbara Kingsolver: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Wonderful narrative of a year spent farming one's own food, eating locally and saving the planet. -
- Muriel Miller Branch: The Water Brought Us: The Story of the Gullah-Speaking People
Informative account of the Gullah culture of the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. -
- Virginia Woolf: A Room of One's Own
Compelling discourse on the critical need for freedom and privacy for women fiction writers. -
- Ander Monson: Neck Deep and Other Predicaments
Inventive essays on the writer's intriguing past and mundane commonalities of his everyday life. -
- C.S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Lewis recounts his battle with grief and loss, somehow emerging with hope. -
- Michael Harrington: The Other America: Poverty in the Untied States
Passionate 1962 study on the state of poverty in the richest country in the world. -
- Richard Matheson: I Am Legend
Purported classic with a fascinating premise which doesn't quite deliver. -
- Patrick McCabe: Winterwood
Promising but ultimately disjointed and disappointing story of love, kin, home and myth. -
- William Trevor: Death in Summer
Lovely, understated novel of loneliness and a quest for belonging. -
- Isaac Bashevis Singer: Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories
Charming collection of Old World tales, of life and piety and death. -
- Budd Schulberg: What Makes Sammy Run?
Devastating portrait of ambition and success in 1930s Hollywood. -
- Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House on the Prairie
Classic account of 19th Century pioneer life. -
- Charles Simmons: Wrinkles
Innovative and fascinating telling of an otherwise ordinary story. -
- Pär Lagerkvist: The Dwarf
Powerful and furious novel of war, religion and humanity. -
- Nathanael West: Miss Lonelyhearts
Odd, bitter, angry - might be a classic, but I'm not quite sure. -
- Stona Fitch: Give + Take
Offbeat caper novel of crime and philanthropy. -
- Erich Origen and Gan Golan: Goodnight Bush
Quietly brutal satirical sendoff to the worst President in U.S. history. -
- Nick Hornby: A Long Way Down
Four strangers consider suicide but together somehow find reason to go on. -
- READINGS 2001-10
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Member since 07/2003
Member since 07/2003
