Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good by Kevin Smith
Posted: July 17, 2012 Filed under: Books, Documentary, Non-fiction | Tags: Books, English, Filmmaking, Kevin Smith Leave a comment
Smith is one funny bastard, that I have to agree. The guy who brought Clerks less than 20 years ago on an unbelievable $27k budget, having passed through the guts and glory of show biz, he still hasn't lost it. Well, hasn't lost it entirely, at least.
The book is about him – well, who else? Childhood in NJ, convenience store clerk job, Clerks, Sundance, Harvey Weinstein, bigger budgets, go-go-go.
Key highlights of the book – Kev's way into the movies, Bruce Willis who turned out to be a total primadonna jerk (reading Cop Out shooting notes was fun fun fun), and Kev's true story about Too Fat To Fly incident.
While going through the book I realized I had missed Smith's last movie, a messy action thriller called Red State – watched it immediately, gripping stuff. Smith claims Quentin loved it. I'm not surprised.
To finish, a small piece of wisdom from our one and only Silent Bob
People need to be regularly reminded that they began as cum. Not to diminish or cut 'em down to size – quite the contrary: I tell people they were cum once as a gesture of my awe at their very existence and to pat 'em on the back. There are no losers in life because every one of us who is born is a huge fucking winner.
Whenever someone tells me I'm fat, I tell 'em I wasn't always: Apparently, at one point in my life, I was fit enough to out-swim a legion of sperm. And now, like any past-their-prime athlete, I'm enjoying the good life: I hoisted my Cup already, so at this point, fuck off and lemme enjoy bacon and brownies (maybe even together).
Fooling Some of the People All of the Time by David Einhorn
Posted: July 4, 2012 Filed under: Books, Documentary, Non-fiction | Tags: Books, David Einhorn, English 1 Comment
I came by David Einhorn's Don Quijotean saga of a 6-year long fight by pure chance.
All I knew was that Einhorn was a hedge fund manager for Greenlight Capital, a prominent short-seller and critic of Lehman a year prior to their demise.
As usual, I didn't read the description when I bought the book – so I was quite surprised to find out that it was not about Einhorn shorting subprime bonds in late 2000s (which apparently he never did), but about his 2002 short position in a midcap public PE and SME lending outfit called Allied Capital. Now, who the F are Allied Capital and why read 400 pages about them?
Turned out, it didn't matter that much. Allied was the villain, or so it seems – but the book is not about that at all. Or not only about that. The book is about extreme example of acute shareholder activism – and from a guy who shorted the stock! Our very own enfant terrible Alexey Navalny should envy the level of detail, attention, investigation efforts and time invested in this position. I seriously doubt most fund managers do anything close to that kind of thing – the guy is simply amazing.
Greenlight's fight against Allied started from an investment idea speech (quite an interesting and funny one!) at a charity investor conference. Essentially, Einhorn claimed a company misstated accounts. As a result, he endured a 6-year long libeling campaign by Allied and a number of government authority investigations only to prove he was right in the first place! He even had his phone records stolen by his corporate adversary – not in Russia, no Nemtsovgate – in the US! I am struggling to remember whether I heard about Navalny in 2006. 6 years is a lot!
On the reading side, the narrative gets boring from time to time as Einhorn is extremely methodical in putting all arguments in an exhaustive fashion, never missing a beat. Not a single shady disclosure on page 87 of the appendix to the quarterly report is missed. Basic accounting knowledge required, huh.
Still, a great find and a great read. Proves 2 things: (a) governments are malfunctioning everywhere, and (b) talent won't suffice, you need persitance. True indeed.
More on Einhorn's website: http://foolingsomepeople.com/
The Byrne performance reminded me of something Warren Buffet once told me about the difficulty of shorting the stocks of companies run by crooks, because they'll fight dirty to save themselves. “The crook's life depends on it,” – Buffet said.
Arguably, the biggest difference between Allied and Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme is that Allied went through the motions of actually investing the customer money while Madoff didn't even bother.
American Vampire Vol. 1 by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque and Stephen King
Posted: July 2, 2012 Filed under: Books, Comic, Fiction | Tags: Books, English, Scott Snyder, Stephen King, Vampire Leave a comment
What pushed Stephen King to co-script a comic book, I don't know. This ain't the Shining, if you ask me.
For my taste, the book is mediocre – not because of art, but due to clumsy text and action. Winner of the Eisner award? Hm. Eisner wouldn't have liked it if he were still alive.
Too little to write home about, really. Roger out.
Posted with BlogsyAre You My Mother? A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel
Posted: June 25, 2012 Filed under: Books, Comic, Documentary | Tags: Alison Bechdel, Books, Donald Winnicott, English, Virginia Woolf 1 Comment
Alison Bechdel just had a new autobio comic book out, a follow up to her immensely successful Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic masterpiece, probably one of a dozen most critically acclaimed comic books of all time.
Fun Home, which I read around 3 or 4 years ago (and loved it!), revolves above Bechdel’s realization that she is a lesbian, her subsequent and dificult coming out, especially to her family, her slow understanding that her father is also gay – and different events in her life leading to her father’s suicide – all seen through the prism of a number of major literary works. At least, that’s the way I remember it – and I tend to forget things easily.
In Are You My Mother?, the style is heavily repeated – not an easy book to flip through, it is a non-linear maze of sorts – but here the key theme is psychoanalysis. It is structured as deconstruction of seven Alison’s dreams, the discussion of these with a number of analysts/shrinks she goes to, her relations with her mother in light of Fun Home publication – all seen thorough her reading of Freud, Jung and, most importantly, Donald Winnicott, a paediatrician and psychoanalyst she seem to hold in most esteem. Plus, not unexpectedly, Mrs. Virginia Woolf – to my shame, haven’t read a single book of hers – after this one, I know where to start at least. To the Lighthouse.
How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale by Jenna Jameson and Neil Strauss
Posted: June 22, 2012 Filed under: Books, Documentary, Non-fiction | Tags: Books, English, Jenna Jameson, Neil Strauss 1 Comment
Kindle sometimes pushes you (well, me) to read some, ehem, funny stuff, not usually found on my home shelf – like bad girl Jenna’s 2004 autobiography in whopping (as I realized far too late) 600 pages – ghost-written by Neil Strauss, whose book with Marilyn Manson has been on my shelves for years (unread to this date – mommy, promise, I will read it someday).
This book, in spite of a suggesting and rather provocative title, is in fact a Cinderella story in the adult world – well, adult in you-know-what-I-mean sense ;-)) Far too many bad things happened to poor Mrs. JJ – or so she claims – but you need at least a few big bad wolves for the Red Riding Hood to pass through the woods and find her way home, to her darling porn-director-turned-second-husband prince. Well, after one porn-director-failed-first-husband folly and quite a few non-husband ones.
And in the end, “rags to riches” is spun as porn starlet to “porn CEO”, as she proudly calls herself. Oh well.
I’ve never told anyone about either the Montana experience or the one with the Preacher [no mires’ note: rapes in her teens] because I don’t want to be thought of as a victim. I want to be judged by who I am as a person, not by what happened to me. In fact, all the bad things only contributed to my confidence and sense of self, because I survived them and became a better and stronger person for it.
The Accidental Investment Banker by Jonathan A. Knee
Posted: June 13, 2012 Filed under: Books, Documentary, Non-fiction | Tags: Books, English, Investment Banking, Jonathan A. Knee, Michael Lewis 1 Comment
The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade that Transformed Wall Street turned out to be a book I would strongly recommend all junior bankers to read. And senior bankers. And clients – umm, maybe.
A dear old friend and revered former boss ZS suggested it to me back in November 2007 in London, during a roadshow, at the height of the IPO craze – back in the good old times, as now they are called in bankers lingo.
Not as sensational as House of Lies – an image-shattering tv show about consulting powerhouses, especially in the eyes of less sophisticated Russian clients – but quite educational indeed for those not too familiar with the i-banking industry.
The fact that it is not as funny and as politically incorrect as Liar’s Poker or Monkey Business, both of which tended to hyperbolize trading floor and i-banking paranoias respectively, is a strong plus. This book, written a couple of years ahead of the Too Big To Fail drama, gives a much more balanced and candid view of what banking was and what it evolved into. All the conflicts of interest, hidden agenda, internal politics, tricks and treats of the trade, sugar and spice and all things nice, you name it.
In total, it has been one of the most gripping reads recently. Get a copy indeed.
Some bankers were famous for getting revenue credit for a wide range of transactions to which their connection was obscure at best. Referred to internally as “velcro bankers,” because they would stick their name on any deal in the general vicinity, it was said that they engaged in “hoverage” rather than “coverage” of accounts. These bankers consistently managed to get revenue credit on deals even where there they would fail my own “police- lineup” test for awarding secondary revenues: if the client could pick the banker out of a police lineup, he gets secondary credit.
В Сырах Эдуарда Лимонова
Posted: June 7, 2012 Filed under: Books, Documentary, Fiction, Non-fiction | Tags: Books, Limonov, Russian Leave a comment
Дочитал в самолете последний художественный (не псевдонаучный) труд состарившегося, но не сдающего позиции неунывающего революционера (жуть-жуть-жуть) и плодовитого писателя и поэта Эдуарда Савенко. В хорошей традиции всего того, что у Эдуарда Вениаминыча читать нужно обязательно (а список сей литературы известен и охватывает большинство его трудов до конца СССР и тюремные мытарства после), книжка эта, как и следовало полагать, о нем самом – ну а то! Ну и о женщинах его, конечное (тут нельзя не вспомнить Укрощение тигра в Париже, да-да-да).
Не могу сказать, что жизнь лидера гонимой партии, еще до абаев кунанбаевых вступившей в неравную борьбу с буржуинами и их приспешниками и предводителями, стала интересней для прочтения – я бы сказал, наоборот. Книга эта – обязательная программа для любителей Лимонова-писателя (как я) – но для незнатоков жанра, она далеко не первом десятке его трудов к употреблению. Резюмируя – писатель есть, язык прежний, злой, но как-то подскисло всё немного, а вот поэт – поэт расцвел!
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Я подумал, что мне нужна девка. И что я возьму первую попавшуюся. Когда меня спрашивали, где моя жена, я со смехом говорил, что сбежала в Индию и что я теперь «соломенный вдовец». Подожду месяц, говорил я, и буду считать брак недействительным. Так ведь было принято на Руси в старину. Если супруг либо супружница отсутствовали без уважительной причины (война, болезнь и т.д.) более месяца, брак считался расторгнутым.
Я даже прибавил ей три дня сверху. 16 февраля, ровно через 33 дня, приехала из Питера девочка Наташа, 1990 года рождения, ей было ещё семнадцать лет, и я выспался с Наташкой и стал с нею совокупляться то в Москве, то в Петербурге.
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Заговариваю ей зубы, что-то о литературе: «То Генрих Манн, то Томас Манн, / а сам рукой тебе в карман / Папаша, папа, ой-ой-ой / Не по-отцовски вы смелы / Но тот к кому вы так милы / Видавший виды воробей / Спустилась шторка на окне / Корабль несётся по волне»,― приходят мне на ум строки Кузмина, в момент, когда вдруг инстинктивно глажу её колени в брюках. И вдруг вспоминаю, что прошло пол столетия, и девка из художественного училища приехала ко мне из Петербурга, сознательно ожидая, что я привезу её, раздену и употреблю по назначению. Это девочек 1960 года нужно было уговаривать, медленно подводить к моменту. За полстолетия нравы облегчились, какие нафиг поглаживания, папаша, папа, ой-ёй-ёй!
My Life as a Russian Novel by Emmanuel Carrère
Posted: June 3, 2012 Filed under: Books, Documentary, Non-fiction | Tags: Books, Emmanuel Carrère, English, Limonov 1 Comment
In anticipation of the upcoming translation (I hope) of Carrère's recently published and acclaimed Limonov book, I have picked up his Un Roman Russe to try. Unexpectedly, it was a real page turner, a memoir (unless he lies) depicting a few years of his life – last page finished near 2:30am in the morning, my poor kindle afraid of the bubbling bathtub.
Covers three subjects, predominantly.
Firstly, his vertiginous relationship with his partner Sophie, a true Santa Barbara styled saga of sorts with such unexpected twists and ambushes that one can't but suspects a pinch of fiction spicing up real events. I googled Le Monde story – you would too. Also, the beginning of the book especially, I couldn't but compare it to Limonov's Taming the Tiger in Paris, the book I adore. That Sophie theme, I felt, as key to the book.
Reheated Cabbage by Irvine Welsh
Posted: May 30, 2012 Filed under: Books, Fiction | Tags: Books, English, Irvine Welsh Leave a comment
No buts – Welsh is my fave pulp fiction writer for the past I dunno how many years – guess from late high school or so. This may not be his best book – after all, this reheated cabbage is nothing but a recollection of old and not so old stories published in various mags and multiple author volumes – but still quite nice music to my ears.
Starts off with A Fault on the Line, one of his most cruel short pieces, which I found online ages ago with some help from my friend Mac – a must read in our sick world – published ages ago in Barcelona Review – if you haven’t read it, you just try. Mere 3 or 4 pages long, it’s the jist of cynicism.
Other than that, some stories hit the button more than others. Typical Welsh as I love him – crude, brutal, disgusting at times, a spit in yer face. Plus I definitely loved I Am Miami, a short follow up to 2001 Glue novel, which is the only new story here.
This burd kin fairly gab n it’s aw borin shite aboot crappy modellin jobs, promoting aw sorts ay pony perfumes in malls n the like, but life’s taught ays thit ye huv tae gie fanny a bit ay air time n pretend tae be interested in thair obsessions (them) if yir gaunny be drawin open they beef curtains later oan.
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
Posted: March 11, 2012 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Josh Neufeld Leave a comment
A short non-fiction graphic novel on the US Katrina disaster, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge is a one hour long read, tops. Nice work, but has its deficiencies – while brilliantly drawn, it lacks the unique tension of a kind that makes your jaws clutch, like, say, Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde does.
From pure documentary standpoint, it definitely loses out to Spike Lee’s deeply moving TV classic When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, a meticulous look into Katrina disaster and its aftermath.
Here, the Katrina events are more circumstantial as they relate to the five families Josh picked as his subjects. Some of them are actual Katrina survivors – some are its refugees, evacuated before the wind and the subsequent floods – and the story follows them in a patchy manner, starting from the week preceding the storm and later in the week that followed – plus a glance at how they are coping a couple of years down the road.
The only moving moment in the book, imho, is the depiction of armed looters and thugs by one of the survivors, Denise, taking refuge in the Convention Center. As opposed to the mainstream image, where non-Caucasian thugs looted and raped the weak and the meek, here they are presented as a people’s militia of sorts, restoring order in the abandoned center and administering food and water rations. Well, each coin has two sides, I guess.
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