Review: Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This grab=bag of Vonnegut as avuncular American wit and curmudgeon contains some of the addresses to convocations found in If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young, sad words on the bigot-shadow of Jack Kerouac, lauding reviews of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, self-reviews which gives wthis a "C" (I agree) and much too much, IMO, genealogy material on the Vonnegut forebears.

View all my reviews

Review: June 16-17-18-1967

June 16-17-18-1967 by Sandy Gibson
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

This LP-sized 96-page cassette box set insert makes the case that The Monterey International Pop Festival was the jewel in the crown of the 1967 Summer of Love with lavish photographic evidence and testimonials. John Phillips, as co-founder with Lou Adler and visionary of festival-as-foundation is quoted heavily along with Derek Taylor. Highlighted is artist witnesses of performances by The Association and others. Lou Rawls points out his "monologue songs" "Dead End Street" and "Tobacco Road" were proto-rap. Janis Joplin triumphing over the shaking butterflies and the triumphs of Butterfield Blues Band, The Electric Flag, and an out of place Ravi Shankar are highlighted. This marked the emergence of Jimi Hendrix Experience at an event remarked even by the mayor as about peace and love.

View all my reviews

Review: The Last Coyote

The Last Coyote by Jack Olsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't know why the intro here extolls this a "historical novel", it is plainly a nonfiction account of the excessive use of the The M44 cyanide device (also a 'coyote-getter', 'cyanide gun' or a 'cyanide trap') used for the elimination of coyotes blamed for the loss of profits. It lures predators with an attractive smell, often from a small piece of bait, then uses a spring to propel a dosage of sodium cyanide into the predator's mouth. The sodium cyanide combines with water in the mouth to produce poisonous cyanide gas.

This work documents the manipulations of disingenuous sheep herders to over-report such loss and harangue a spineless Fish & Wildlife agency to over-use of this poisoning device. Here is a litany of unintended victims, including people, pets and endangered species. This is an important message and something to confront and something within the greater subject of agricultural subsidies (should dairies be reimbursed for soured milk?) for us as a society to consider carefully.

A poor narrator and frequent re-reads detract from this audiobook.

View all my reviews

Review: Clash of the Titans

Clash of the Titans by Richard Hack
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Both Murdoch & Turner are such cartoonish caricatures, that this is a for-sure entertaining read. The narrator launching into the Australian and Atlantan accents with such gusto adds to the entertainment. The moguls' arcs of lives is fascinating; Rupert from shallow rebel to neo-con going from printing boobs and airing car chases to Fox News' bastion of conservatism. Ted Turner from reactive Southern gentleman seems to have emerged from the salt spray of competitive sailing to be a Lorax trying to save the world.

View all my reviews

Review: The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe

The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe by Peter Godwin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mugabe is the current President of Zimbabwe, serving since 31 December 1987. As one of the leaders of the rebel groups against white minority rule, he was elected as Prime Minister, head of government, in 1980, and served in that office until 1987, when he became the country's first executive head of state. He has led the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF) since 1975. Born in the Rhodesia now called Zimbabwe, journalist Peter Godwin returned to his homeland in 2008 after three decades of Robert Mugabe’s brutal economic and human destruction. Hoping to “dance on Mugabe’s political grave” in the wake of the tyrant’s narrow 20008 defeat at the polls, Godwin instead risked his life to secretly chronicle Mugabe’s ruthless backlash of torture and terror locals call “The Fear". Mugabe subsequently won the run-off election in a landslide after his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew; Mugabe then entered a power-sharing deal with Tsvangirai as well as Arthur Mutambara of the MDC-T and MDC-M opposition party. This uneasy balance saw no peace due to the Mugabe party militias executing the military plan given the code name of "CIBD", which stood for: "Coercion. Intimidation. Beating. Displacement." Godwin ended up chronicling a history of violent repression and torture and a coda of the same theme. The near 400 pages becomes a litany of cruel abuse almost too much to bear...

I was surprised at the South Africa angle since ZANU was influenced by the Africanist ideas of the Pan Africanist Congress in South Africa and the countries border each other with spill overs of violence for political and xenophobic reasons.

View all my reviews

Review: Robots and Spaceships

Robots and Spaceships by Taschen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A beautiful little book of photographs of space-themed tin toys of the 50s & 60s. Seeing so many causes some themes to develop: robots are generally humanoid but our most common real robots (Roomba, drones, bomb handlers) are not. Lots of space tanks were spawned by the Cold War era. These Japanese toys have Western astronauts, often blond.

View all my reviews