The worst book I ever read was an Oprah pick, Cybertruck is a bigger-than-Edsel cyberflop, Poetry Month, new music, old music, F’s Christmas stockings, more…

It’s beginning to look a lot like C--------.

What begins with C, has ten letters and means festive and very accomplished? Creativity. Freddie’s boundless Creativity. In her “spare time,” she sketches and makes museum-quality silver and precious stone jewelry, takes beautiful pictures of the Wise Acres owl, sunsets, plants, and makes stuff. Other than jewelry. She has astounded me since the first day I met her.

These Freddie-made Christmas stockings appear as if by magic, ready for stuffing. Thick, good yarn. One or two a day, lately. They are crocheted, is all I know. How she does it is a mystery to me as I’m usually asleep—I just see them in the morning. Looks like a great side hustle, but she gives them to family, full of gifts. Sometimes they even contain Freddie-made jewelry.

It’s a gift, this making of beauty. But I’m going to try and convince her to share them with a wider public. Any takers out there? Let me know at g@wisesculpture.com or in the comments below.

 

Books, the good, the bad and the meh.

In a world beset by hyperbole and excessive over-blurb at every turn, the publishing business and its breathless assurances that this book, whatever it is, is the pinnacular, blue ribbon, kickass ONE to read, well…caveat frigging emptor. The metaverse has turned into clickbait and BS, so here’s a Reader Beware: “Didion and Babbler” by Lili Anolik.

Why? It’s Moronic, cap M. I can only guess she put Didion in the title to sell books. Oprah said it “…reads like a propulsive novel.”  Well, my copy was propulsive; it sailed through the air like a clumsy rocket, half read. I want my money back. You can read my review in the Amazon one-stars.

Then comes a breath of fresher air; “We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine” by Alissa Wilkinson. (Link)

Megan Abbot says it’s “A vital new take on Joan Didion’s work, exploring the ways Didion traced the gradual, and increasingly dangerous, merging of Hollywood and its gorgeous fictions with politics, with the uppermost ranks of power, and, perhaps most sweepingly, with the way we understand the world and ourselves.”

A fitting description for a very good book.

I read it in a couple of sittings, and recommend it five stars worth with honors. You know the feeling you get when you’ve read a book that made you think? This one does that.

I’ll leave the meh for next time. But it’s not Graydon Carter’s book; “When the Going Was Good” (Link) is a revealing, and, yes, rollicking, look at publishing in the golden age. I’m enjoying it.

Poetry month; two books and an anecdote.

R.I.P. Val Kilmer. Both books are favorites and one of the authors is an old friend…

For the tail end of April (Poetry Month) two books of note; “Some Of This Is True” by Jim Carns, (Link) and “Cowboy Poet Outlaw Madman” by Val Kilmer. (Link) Both are memorable shelf-worthy keepers and well-designed, full of deeply felt poems that illuminate each author’s essence.

Carns’s collection includes lovely illustrations by Maureen Kenny and a triptych by Evan Lindquist, owned by the author. These two books exemplify why there is a month set aside for poetry.

The anecdote. About 70 years ago I went to Rockhurst College to see and hear Robert Frost. (I wasn’t all hot rods, beer, lukewarm grades and girls) It was a thrilling evening. At the end, the college spokesman, a Catholic dignitary, perhaps a cardinal, said, before the last poem, “When the program is over, I will pass out first, Mr. Frost will pass out after me, and the rest of you are to pass out in orderly fashion, after.”

Robert Frost leaned over to the mic and said, “It must be all that communion wine; I usually pass out first.” Rim shot please. The crowd loved it.

 

  We thought Edsel was a dud. Then came Cybertruck.

The 24-hour news cycle looks like The Onion makes it up. RFK as the health guy. Hegseth. Trump tariffs. But Musk takes a special cake. A really rich guy should probably be anonymous, a what’s-his-face in the shadows. Certainly not alienating 50% of the country by choosing up sides on either end of the playground. Elon is so rich he could stand to shelve Cybertruck and sort of let it fade. He is far from alone in auto industry misfires. But, no, he plants his flag and lightning rods firmly where they can’t be missed and DOGEs off to work each day to shut down another widows and orphans fund. Wow. I mean it does seem that way.

Yep, it’s a Tesla. Re-badged.

A small industry has sprung up around re-badging Teslas so people won’t think you’re taking a political stance by owning one, and then keying it. Even Cybertrucks have been seen with big TOYOTA letters on the back. Just the attempt might keep weirdos from damaging such a truck, giving the owner an A for amusing. It’s supposedly still a free country, so you can own and drive what you want. There’s a thin line between vandalism and hate crimes. Just to be safe, don’t do either.

And that’s probably all that needs to be said on the Elon matter. Maybe you’ve noticed it’s pretty well covered elsewhere.

Time for some music. Goodie. Oldie. And fun to watch.

Click this link right here, (not up there on the visual) turn it up, sit back and smile. Lots of beauty and joy floating around the piazza in this video. I had chosen some new electronica but this just knocks it outa the park for me. Until next time. XOXX G-man.







March: Free art, books, road music, crystal (base)ball, more…

March. Weird, windy, wonky, watery, winter advisory.

Murder mystery instrument. He was hoist on his own bill spike petard. Ouch…

Well, my laptop went kablooey. Got a new one. This is a long story but it will not be told here, or anywhere, because it’s dumb, boring, and old. I hope that’s not a description of me, and I don’t think it is since you very good and loyal readers spike metrically (sounds painful) every time this blog comes out. Meaning, at least you open it and read some of it, often most of it. I thank you, metric spikers. Makes me think of those dangerous-looking things office people used to impale bills and receipts on. Maybe each other. They went the way of eye-shades and sleeve garters.

 Back to March. Wonky is covered with computer crash. Most of us know that awfulness. Windy is a given, but climate troubles may make that worse. 60 mph a couple of nights ago. Since that Punxsutawney weasel, Phil, saw his shadow in February and sentenced us to more crappy weather, we got it.  Thanks, Phil. More winter advisories right on up to spring. Wind, rain, snow, change clocks, blizzard forecast.

If it’s MOMA wall art you don’t need to change it, especially in Hawaii…hard to read, anyway.

 And that change of clocks, boy do I have plenty to say about that. I think we’ve been doing this clock thing since I was a kid, but why?  Health experts (maybe even RFK Jr.? God only knows) tell us that it’s bad, and stats say deaths happen because of it, and congresspeople do nothing about it. Just change back to time time is all I ask. Arizona and Hawaii said to hell with it and don’t change any clocks anymore. I’m all for that. Seems weird not to make it all one deal, just saying. Maybe DOGE “efficiency experts” can do something? Nah. They’re already a bureaucracy siphoning off funds to who knows where. Sigh. Well this is getting us nowhere.

Next item please. (It’s much more pleasant.)

Free art.

 That butterfly with the retro-gents? Free as a bird. And thousands more freebies. You can use them to emphasize your next Ted Talk, or Harvard classroom lecture, or congressional hearing when they ask for your opinion on how they’re doing. Book covers, story prompts, package design, note cards, or just browse through the stacks for inspiration, amusement, education—it’s a trove and it’s ours. Here are four links:

The Met. Colossal. Public Domain Review. NY Public Library.


What I’m reading, and what I think of it.

 I alternate between several books at once; maybe it’s a matter of poor attention span, I don’t know, but it works for me. Among others, I am now reading (and each bold title is an Amazon link), Didion & Babitz, by Lili Anolik, Cabin by Patrick Hutchison, and Why We Love Baseball by sportswriter Joe Posnanski.

Anolik’s Didion & Babitz first: Anolik is clearly besotted with Eve Babitz and not with Joan Didion, and that’s a problem. BIG problem with me, as Didion’s writing is compelling magic, and Babitz’s is…well, not. I read one of Babitz’s books a couple of years ago and that was plenty; it was kind of TMZ gossipy and Chateau Marmont-y “in.”

I even use a Vanity Fair bookmark to commemorate yet another Babitz book by Anolik…she looooves her some Babitz.

Anolik, herself, is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and has written for Paris Review, Harpers and Esquire. She also created the podcast Once Upon a Time at Bennington College, which I intend to tune in on, if only for word of Bob Shacochis, the masterful author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul and Easy in the Islands, two books well worth reading. Classics.

Anyway, Anolik seems to want to “expose” Didion and carve an epitaph of greatness into Babitz’s headstone. Fine. To each their own. And I’m only 80 pages into her book. Somewhere along the way Eve and Joan had a falling out, and I can guess why. Not crazy about this one, got to admit.

Cabin is a lively, DIY revelatory diary of faking and making a home in the woods. As Hutchison himself says, of his lack of purpose, “My long term plans ended at knowing when the leftover Chinese food would go bad.” So he bought a “cabin” on Craigslist. Of course. This book is fun, well-written and a balm to the craziness of the “real” world. (Subtitle: Off-the-grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman)

Why We Love Baseball, A History in 50 Moments is a keeper, a reference book and one to be taken from the shelf, opened at random and re-read when spring training arrives. That’s how I’m reading it now, randomly. Legends pop up. Casey to Kiner (a boyhood hero when I was a kid in Tulsa) to George Brett’s pine tar melee.

I recall a sunny spring day in K.C. when I, brash 17-year-old, tried out for Folger’s (Coffee) team at a field not far from my home. It came to nothing, quickly, and I walked home, baseball spikes shoelace-tied over my shoulder, contemplating the summer jobs I might apply for. That was in 1956. Haven’t seen those shoes since. Or my Ralph Kiner glove.

Waterford crystal. Fitting reminder of when the Kansas City boys of summer played hardball.

And I recall the summer of 2015 when Freddie and I watched the Kansas City Royals edge closer to greatness. Then The World Series. What a magical time. Eric Hosmer’s game-tying steal to home. Indescribable.

Freddie was so enthralled she wanted a token, an amulet memento, something that would enshrine the feeling properly; she found us a Waterford crystal baseball inscribed with the time, the accomplishment.

It catches my eye now and pours sun colors from that summer and that day at me. I pick it up and It reminds me, again, why we love baseball.

 

And, as is sometimes the custom, I’ll leave you with music.

Two new Joe Ely songs, one is “Odds of the Blues” with him and The Boss chiming in. And another, “Driven to Drive” sung by Joe and Donald Elwood Dykes. Nice! Pretty good visuals, too—hope you enjoy ‘em. Go to the No Depression music review link and catch both of them. Here’s the link. (Thanks, No Depression!)

And this: “The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.” Robert Earl Keen wrote that song, Joe Ely sang it circa 1992 and I love it. Old favorite, look it up sometime.

 And thank you. If you think someone you know might like this blog, send it to them. https://www.wisesculpture.com/blog/

Best March ever to us all. Gman xoxxx