Nov 05
AndrewPeople author
Michael Crichton’s legend was probably cemented with the release of Jurassic Park, but he was extremely accomplished writer. The author died at age 66 in Los Angeles from cancer on November 4. His bestseller credits also include The Andromeda Strain and Sphere, both of which eventually spawned film adaptations, as did Congo. Altogether, he published 25 novels, with a new one reportedly set for publication this winter. He also wrote 4 non-fiction works and is credited on ten films, of which Jurassic Park is likely the most well known (notably, he has director credits on several films in addition to writing credits.) Over half of his own novels have been adapted for film.
Crichton also created the TV series ER and served as long-time executive producer. He was honored with a Peabody, an Emmy and a Edgar Allen Poe award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay for the 1980 film The Great Train Robbery.
Jul 22
AndrewPeople Actress
Estelle Getty, the actress who played Sophia on Golden Girls, died at 84 this morning in Santa Monica, CA. Getty was originally turned down for the role of Sophia because she didn’t seem old enough (Sophia was in her 80’s during the show). She won a Golden Globe in 1986 for Actress in a Leading Role in Golden Girls. She also won an Emmy for the role in 1988 and was a comedic force of nature during the show’s seven year run.
Although her film career was sparse, she did have appearances in some of the iconic films of the 80’s Tootsie, Mask and Mannequin. Her last major role was Stuart Little in 1999 as Grandma Estelle Little.
Jul 17
AndrewMusic, People
Stephen Page, a member and lead vocalist of Barenaked Ladies, is expected to appear in court today on charges of possession of a controlled substance following his arrest last Friday. Page was in an apartment in upstate New York with two unidentified women when he was arrested in the possession of cocaine and marijuana. The singer posted bail after the arrest.
Barenaked Ladies finished up a tour in support of their children’s album Snacktime and have on tap to play the Disney Music Block Party Tour in Eisenhower Park on Long Island. The event is August 22-24. The band is also reportedly going back into the studio to record a new, non-kids album this fall.
Apr 12
AndrewPeople Kurt Vonnegut, Writing
Kurt Vonnegut passed away yesterday at 84 years old. As one of the authors that molded my literary perspective as a teenager – and at the top of that list no less – I feel the need to honor his impact.
Vonnegut had a vision and more than anything, I think that is what people respond to when they read Slaughterhouse-Five or Cat’s Cradle. He also had an enemy (culture, history, society – take your pick.) People empathize when there is someone to punch, and in his novels, no matter how twisted and non-linear they could be, there was always someone to punch. And Vonnegut had an agenda, that could probably best be described as “how soon are humans going to destroy the world?”
All of those elements made his stories superb even though Vonnegut the author danced to a decidedly different drummer. He wasn’t a particularly prolific novelist. He only wrote a handful of books each decade, and later in his career focused mostly on essays and public speaking. His best known work, the aforementioned Slaughterhouse-Five, was a synthesis of his time spent in Dresden during World War II. When they firebombed Dresden, Vonnegut and other POWs hid inside an underground meat locker called slaughterhouse-five.
I was too young to really appreciate Slaughterhouse-Five when I first read it, and I read Cat’s Cradle at 14 and it scared me shitless. Basically, the world ends because of an invention called ice-nine. I failed to see the humor in it. So it goes that the two novels of his I liked the most as a teenager just happened to be the two published while I was a teenager, Hocus Pocus and Timequake. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that part of the reason I didn’t connect with the other novels early on was because I had never lived through a world war – the closest I got in my teens was the Gulf War, which wasn’t so much a war as the United Nations deciding to beat on Iraq.
As Vonnegut tells us, Hocus Pocus was written on scraps of paper and pieced together by Vonnegut to make a somewhat cohesive narrative. The book asks the question, how much of what happens to us is by our own initiative, and how much of our lives is a random sequence of events leading up the inexorable moment when it finally forms a coherent sum? As Vonnegut suggests it, the answer is self-evident.
He used humor in his novels to shield some of us, those who don’t want to face the truth, from the reality of war, and the repercussions of science, and our own damning lifestyle. He had no doubt we were going to destroy ourselves, it was only a matter of how it happened. Humor in his novels wasn’t meant to soften the blow – it was more of a nervous reflex.
All of which makes his works as important today as they were in the era he wrote them. American society reflects all of the foibles that Vonnegut was pointing out in the sixties on politics, science and society. If anything, his themes of self-delusion and self-interest are more poignant today. Society is inordinately occupied with the minutiae of every day distractions and egotistical celebrity at the expense of seeing a bigger picture. And that applies as much in politics and war as it does in entertainment. Vonnegut was a visionary, and he wasn’t afraid to speak up about it.
I did a presentation on Kurt Vonnegut in college. I don’t remember much of the specifics, but it is easy to see now that I only engaged his works on a very surface level even then. Now, as I read his writing, I can see a depth to his works that startles me. I’m still scared shitless, but now I can respond to his vision and maybe there is hope that I do have some impact on what happens in the future. Maybe that was his message all along?
Oct 16
AndrewPeople Authors, Books, Tanith Lee
For someone as prolific as author Tanith Lee, she is surprisingly invisible in the public eye. Her Wikipedia entry confirms that she wrote at least 54 novels, but there is a scandalous lack of detail for the usually reputable and thorough encyclopedia. The lack of recent information, the lack of a definitive biography of an established author, the lack of any speck of her work in the mainstream conscious is a strange mystery.
There is not a complete dearth of information. I know Lee was born in 1947, not she is yet sixty years old, and also that she is still writing (her website http://www.tanithlee.com/ confirms as much.) Her newest novels are listed on amazon.com but quite simply, she does not exist inside American mainstream bookstores.
I’m with you, that last sentence is the key. She is a British writer, so that might contributory, and she has been swept out of the mainstream, which is not the same as saying she has become invisible but we seem to have arrived at the same result.
My introduction to Tanith Lee was the Red as Blood collection of stories that recast Grimm fairytales in the sinister and seductive style of Lee. Her writing is decidedly twisted, and that is a compliment. Many of her best tales start with an enchanted young girl, who is twisted inside out. In Red as Blood, Snow White turns out to be the real wicked one, not the Queen and Sleeping Beauty is no charming princess herself. Her characters invariably walk the line between antagonist and protagonist, and the reader never quite knows what evil lurks in the heart of her people.
For instance, in the novel Louisa the Poisoner (1996), we know pretty much off the bat that Louisa is not such a nice person. She’s calculating, shrewd and manipulative. Louisa escapes the captivity of her aunt’s home in the March Mire (by poisoning her, no less) armed with the conceit of an aristocratic lady and a vial of potent poison. She finds her way quickly into the household of Lord Maskullance, and secures his affections. Assured of her share of his fortune when he dies, she quickly goes about killing off his other heirs.
Lee pays attention to detail in exquisite fashion, spending her time on describing a room minutely, giving us intimate feel of being there. She also doesn’t shy away from the grim, the deceitful and the downright horrific moments either. She delightedly describes each of Louisa’s attempts to destroy members of the household, some successful, some not. But has Louisa done all this without Lord Maskullance’s notice, or with his explicit permission?
The ambiguity of good and bad is a regular theme in Lee’s fantasy works. It is an interesting draw, sometimes the bad guy wins. We too often live in a society of happy endings, and it was refreshing to come across a writer who does not live by those rules, even if you close the book feeling a little wicked for having read it.
Such stories are just a portion of Lee’s work, but the template of hers that I am most familiar with. I am little disappointed that it is so damn hard to find the body of her writing. Even more frustrating is that this woman simply does not exist on the web. Every page I found was mostly a bibliography. I did stumble on an interview from 1998 where Lee talks about her invisibility as an author. “If anyone ever wonders why there’s nothing coming from me, it’s not my fault. I’m doing the work. The indication is that I’m not writing what people want to read, but I never did.” from Locus Magazine, April 1998
Although in my humble opinion, someone who is going to pick up an Anne Rice novel could do just as well, perhaps better, with Tanith Lee. So I bought myself a copy of one her most famous series of novels, The Secret Books of Paradys. If you can’t find the book out on the shelves, you can borrow my copy.
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