I’m going to do a little hacking around with the “books” portion of the left column. I’ve grown tired of seeing the “Unreadable Culls” titles and will repurpose the category to “Soon To Be Read.” As you might guess, I picked up a few books on the trip, which will eventually released via Bookcrossing

I got a “buy 2/get 3” deal at the Maui Borders, plus I got another book at the Borders Express next to the Kihei Safeway.

Read

Be Cool, by Elmore Leonard
A fast, fun read. Not as original as “Get Shorty”, of course but still breezy and light, with dialogue as bright and sharp as a razor’s edge. I wasn’t so interested in how the wimmin still wanted to be with Chil, but at least his new love interest sounded interesting (though for the movie they’ll probably make it Uma Thurman’s character and not whoever plays the mature female movie executive, Elaine).

This time, Chili Palmer takes on the music establishment while living out the plot of his next movie. And it had better be a hit, because the sequel to his first movie tanked because he let the studio talk him into letting someone plot it. It also probably tanked because nobody got taken out while taking a meeting with him.

Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, by James Bradley

Absorbing, fascinating, and quite shocking; I’d read bits and pieces about the kind of atrocities committed on prisoners by the Japanese during WWII and had dismissed them as holdovers of wartime jingoism. Well, not so much now. Guess what happens when you instill your young people with fanatical devotion to an authority figure and discourage independent thinking? Bad, very bad, very evil things.

On The Bookshelf

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire

I started reading this to give myself a break from the horrors of the “Flyboys” atrocities. It’s fascinating as fiction and also as social commentary: a very strange looking, prickly and unconventional girl isn’t inherently evil or wicked, but she’s certainly going to become just that.

And all because she has green skin and a beaky hooked nose, they make her out to be a witch or something. It’s exploring something that I’ve long wondered about – the tyranny of beauty in society, where the accident of one’s facial structure, skin, hair, and body type determine almost everything important in their lives.

Pretty? Good, nice, popular, successful, sympathetic, loveable, attractive.
Ugly? Bad, nasty, unpopular, unsuccessful, unsympathetic, unloveable, unattractive.

See that? The ugly often gets defined as what it’s not, rather than what it is. Why? Maybe because an alternative word that avoids the negative construction is just too.. negative itself for people to want to use it.

Anyway, “Wicked” is beautifully written. Elphaba, the girl who would be Queen (of those evil scary flying monkeys and the “oo-wee-oh” guys) is not yet evil herself. In fact, she’s likeable in spite of her best efforts to put people off – she has a sarcastic wit and a certain elegance of form that contrasts with her, er, less attractive facial features and startling complexion.

But even as a baby she was instinctively and dreadfully afraid of the water.

Soon To Be Read

The Good Wife Strikes Back, by Elizabeth Buchan
Haven’t read this one yet, it’s up next after I knock off the two big ones I’m still reading. I’m slowly making my way through Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which is a rich, satisfying, but challenging read. I haven’t read any of these kind of books that have the cute covers and tell of how someone ran off somewhere picturesque (Tuscany, Provence, what have you) and learned to live like a local and grow their own olives or grapes or whatever.

It sounds like a nice escape for my next book.

UPDATE

: “Revenge of the Middle Aged Lady” was the wrong title. It’s really “The Good Wife Strikes Back.” I get the feeling that the next books in the series will be “The Phantom Merry Widow,” “The Attack of the Crones,” and “Return of the Ladi.”

Music and Whatnot

Oh, this is weird. I’m sitting here listening to the Radio@AOL Hawaiian channel (a similar thing is found on Radio@Netscape, pretty much), and I’ve heard 2 performers and 2 songs so far whose concert we attended on Maui – Dennis Kamakahi (as a member of the group Hui Aloha) singing “Steal Away,” and George Kahumoku, Jr singing “Laupahoehoe Hula.” I think the latter was the one that George’s nephew did a fun young man’s hula about fishing, surfing, eating, and hanging out. Both within the last 10 minutes.

And as it’s late, I’m going to bed at last. Dammit, it’s a little too late to read before turning the lights out.

They seem to have a lock on this channel, too. The next track shows a “Kahumoku Brothers” song, and then there’s another Dennis Kamakahi song after Keola Beamer.