Pie in the Sky
Birds of a feather, headline from nypost.com: “Jeffrey Epstein visited Clinton White House at least 17 times: report.” Money talks, especially to Billary.
Hmmm. From NYP: “Wait a meow-ment: Woman caught breastfeeding her hairless cat on Delta flight.” What’s the punchline? Johnny Carson would have come up with one as he did when Zsa Zsa Gabor asked if he wanted to pet the pussy in her lap, and he allegedly said: “I will if you move that damn cat!”
From an NYP article by Hannah Frishberg, edited by yours truly: “Last month Taylor Swift’s ten-minute version of All Too Well beat out Don McLean’s eight-minute 1971 hit American Pie (Parts I & II) for the title of longest song to ever top the Hot 100. This week the 76-year-old McLean announced that the 31-year-old Swift sent him flowers and a note. I’ve been disappointed by Swift’s political views, but this was a great gesture.
This beast, one of evolution’s mistakes, washed up on a San Diego beach. Photo by Jay Beiler via Storyful:
So the nationwide spike in crime is due to Covid and not foolish policy? How many people believe that?
I’ve read another highly praised novel that makes me feel as if I know nothing about what constitutes good literature. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid is the story of a couple who escape a war-torn country by going through a door. There are such portals all over the world. That’s the only sci-fi aspect of the narrative, which is otherwise grounded in real life. The two travel to a Greek isle, then London, then the hills of Marin County California. They join migrant communities in the latter two. Many natives feel threatened. Violence occurs, then seems to have subsided by novel’s end. There are intervals that portray characters far away that have no connection to the leads or the story. I don’t understand what those instances are meant to convey. The author does not reveal the home country of the pair. They appear to be Muslim, he devout, she not religious. Other nationalities are mentioned: Nigerian, Senegalese. I found the prose annoying, overwritten, redundant. I don’t know why I stayed with it. Fortunately it is only 231 pages, much less given the two blanks between each chapter. Despite the thousands of miles traveled, the book goes nowhere. Maybe that’s the point. On page 209, the last line of the chapter is “We are all migrants through time.” If only a bit of the rest was as wonderful as that. And now the counterpoint. Exit West, published in 2017, is Hamid’s fifth and latest work. It was dubbed Book of the Year by both the NY and L.A. Times. 3300+ users at Amazon have rated it, forging to a consensus of 4.2 on a scale of five. I side with the four-percent who rated it one. It is the second straight disappointing novel I’ve read, the other Homo Zapiens by Russia’s Victor Pelevin. Hamid was born in Lahore, Pakistan. He has a residence there and in several other countries including the USA.
My thanks to the ladies who donated a bunch of media, and to the one who delivered two cook books and a beautiful Picasso pictorial. It looked like that was going to be the extent of today’s business but, as has happened so often, the Latino gentleman pulled up on his bike and bailed me out, overcompensating me for a bunch of the new arrivals, including The Doors (1991) and Serendipity (2001). It was the second straight day he bought stuff. Muchas gracias, senor. I am so blessed.
My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vic-Fortezza-Author-118397641564801/?fref=ts
Read Vic’s Stories, free: http://fictionaut.com/users/vic-fortezza
