Levi: It is always a good habit to admit when one is wrong. I am wrong about something or someone almost every day. This afternoon, I blushed when a quite beautiful woman seemingly flirted with me on the subway. Minutes later, her boyfriend arrived behind me. Through the power of mathematics, the woman’s gaze and the boyfriend’s position lined up almost exactly. And I was more than a bit embarrassed. But there was a great sense of relief in knowing that I was wrong. And I’m man enough to admit it. So apparently are you. Let us both establish a secret society.
Sometimes, my wrongs almost make me want to see how much blood I can draw upon repeatedly stabbing myself with a spork. It is indeed a maddening and all too human feeling to be wrong, but also quite liberating. (The answer, incidentally, to the spork scenario varies from person to person. You do have to be quite patient. But I’ve found that it takes approximately 136 downward stabs, all aimed at the same spot, before one draws a near microscopic, but nevertheless evident burst of red. Of course, the last time I carried out this experiment, it was more than two decades ago.)
But here are a few facts you may wish to consider. In a six month during 1975, Americans bought five million Pet Rocks. To cite a more apposite technological example, the Sinclair MTV1 is, to my mind, a sleek-looking device. I like its black rectangular frame and the way that you tune into the channel as if trying to pinpoint a radio station. Its inventor thought that it would become a commonplace form of watching television. Three decades later, who has one?
Of course, it’s just possible that the Kindle may prove to be of stronger stuff. But 240,000 units doesn’t represent a paradigm shift. Let us wait this out like gentlemen before offering lofty conclusions. And then we can begin a series of spork tests.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (