Performers by Irvine Welsh and Dave Cavanagh
Posted: October 18, 2021 Filed under: Theater / Drama | Tags: Books, Dave Cavanagh, English, Irvine Welsh Leave a comment
A tiny play about a couple of neighborhood hard-men inadvertently auditioning for Don Cammell and Nick Roeg’s Performance movie in 1968. Welsh, as usual, is the master of lowlife poorly educated street folk dialogue, and it is exactly this, a chit-chat with a twist and a bit of blackmail and nudity. Funny, eh
Liquid Memory: Why Wine Matters by Jonathan Nossiter
Posted: May 16, 2021 Filed under: Non-fiction, Uncategorized | Tags: Books, English, Jonathan Nossiter, Wine Leave a comment
Jonathan Nossiter’s candid and passionate travelogue and a book of reflections about authentic wines was published about five years after his famous documentary, Mondovino, polarized the wine world.
An ardent proponent of true and unadulterated, of artisanal and not mass market, of historic terroir and not a rootless invented brand name, Nossiter, who previously brought forward his message via a brilliant documentary (and the series), immortalizing Hubert de Montille, Aubert de Villaine and Aimé Guibert, and mockingly demonizing Robert Parker, Michel Rolland, and the likes, now takes a huge step forward, changes his smiling grin for a displeased smirk of indignation, and braces for a huge spat of poisonous words of wisdom.
A crusader against all he sees as artificial and superfluous, against US and Spanish preudo-artisanals and against the motley crew of international wine critics, he nonetheless recognizes that tradition is not something inmutable, cast in stone and not subject to any change. Nossiter shares a glass of wine and his thoughts with Burgundy’s undisputed wine stars like Christophe Roumier, Dominique Lafon, and Jean-Marc Roulot, vignerons who brought fame and fortune to their domaines well above that of their fathers, but who took it with dignity and humility of those entrusted to behold great historic tradition and modestly innovate but not forsake it.
A brilliant book for those in love with good wines, but it requires a certain foundation, a bias for understanding – as it openly despises quite a number household brand names and commercially ultra successful winemakers, producers of sweet sugary alco-driven fruit bombs. It can be eye opening, but if you haven’t watched Mondovino before, this is where you should start.
P.S. … and it it full of fantastic quotes, I wanted to copy every page here – but then I thought better of it.
Tasting Victory by Gerard Basset
Posted: March 21, 2021 Filed under: Documentary, Non-fiction | Tags: Books, English, Gerard Basset, Wine Leave a comment
I was long overdue with writing a short summary of my thoughts about Gerard Basset’s posthumous autobiography Tasting Victory, yet watching a part of the Best Sommelier of Russia 2020 yesterday as YouTube live stream reminded me that I owe it to one of the greatest wine professionals.
Mr. Basset, likely the most known sommelier of all times, holder of both Master of Wine and Master Sommelier titles, the winner of the Best Sommelier of the World and multiple winner of the Best Sommelier in the UK, was a humble but determined Frenchman, who moved to Britain in his youth, accepted his new homeland and embraced his wine profession, and strived to become best in business, in service and in competition. While I initially hoped that the book would have a bit on his wine knowledge and wine travels, like Kermit Lynch or Neil Rosenthal s books are – well, it has none of that. This is a book of determination and achievement, of setting targets and milestones to get there, be it wine or something else. No stories of fraternizing with top Burgundy vignerons, or getting drunk with Gianfranco Soldera. Sadly.
Yet, the Russian competition yesterday and its panel of top contenders, all three already retired from the actual sommelier work, forced me to put a quote here. Here it goes, from the man himself, and not me.
Following the test, I talked a lot with Nina, and in her very rational manner she reassured me about my sommelier ability. We came up with the idea that for the last two months I would work “on the floor” at TerraVina and be the sommelier. From the opening of Hotel TerraVina I had always been involved with the wine service, but rarely fully, as I had some talented sommeliers working for me. Indeed, my role was to greet the guests and work with Nina to supervise the overall service.
Therefore, I told my two sommeliers, Laura and Laurent, that each evening I would do the wine service at Hotel TerraVina and they would be there just to back me up during very busy periods in a reversal of the roles. It turned out to be a great idea, as I put myself under a lot of pressure. Regular guests wanted to talk to me, but I had to find polite ways to keep the conversations with them short and not get behind, in order to accomplish the wine service with minimum help from Laura and Laurent. On the whole I managed well, and in fact I really enjoyed it.
In addition, I did two very short stints in top restaurants. Diego Masciaga, the managing director of the three-Michelin-starred Waterside Inn, the restaurant owned by Michel and Alain Roux in Bray, kindly let me spend two days working as a commis sommelier there. I explained to Diego that it was important that I was treated no differently from any of his employees. Those two days were extremely beneficial as I was serving at the top end of fine dining, which I had not done since working at Chewton Glen.
3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man by Matt Kindt
Posted: June 24, 2020 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, Comic, English, Matt Kindt Leave a comment
Matt Kindt’s short and very poetic story of a modern life Gulliver, a fictitious gentle ever-growing giant lost in the post-war 50s, 60s and the 70s in the US is very nostalgic, melancholic and even somewhat sad. A tale of three women – his single mother, widow of a WWII vet, his wife, shrinking and diminishing by the day, locked in a tower of glass and steel, and his daughter who grew fatherless – all of whom eventually lost him, gave up on his deformity – or rather, they were finding ways of coping with it, which included, inter alia parting ways.
Beautifully scripted and drawn, it requires a certain slow-food like approach, savoring it bit by bit – otherwise you speed though those bare 200 pages, chew on them and digest, and zas, the story (well, the third story) ends. Don’t rush.
Нью-Йоркская азбука Александра Флоренского
Posted: June 15, 2020 Filed under: Art / Photo, Documentary | Tags: Alexander Florensky, Art, Books, English, Russian Leave a comment
Одна из одиннадцати книг питерского художника Александра Флоренского в серии Азбука, его карандашно-угольно-графические зарисовки-травелоги из разных городов. Нью-Йорк близок моему сердцу, раз два лета (2017 и 2019 я провёл там) – хоть и не со всеми выборами букв у Александра я согласен.
Patience by Daniel Clowes
Posted: June 13, 2020 Filed under: Comic | Tags: Books, Daniel Clowes, English Leave a comment
Patience, Daniel Clowes‘ 2016 story on travel in time, a hectic run to save a pregnant girl from imminent murder, 2012, 2029, 2006, 1985, and 2012 again, is a colorful and witty tale, which, sadly, reeks of its background liberal and socialist agenda, aiming to solve all the injustices in this world by violence and even more injustice.
Clever and fast-paced, without doubt, but there are way too many science fiction novels on the matter that could easily best it. Say, All You Need is Kill is a great example.
The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March and Art Spiegelman
Posted: June 12, 2020 Filed under: Theater / Drama | Tags: Art Spiegelman, Books, English, Joseph Moncure March, Poetry Leave a comment
Wow, such a wholesome, rhythmic, totally jazzed-up poem from the roaring twenties, a true gem by Joseph Moncure March, then managing editor of the recently established The New Yorker magazine, spiced up with Art Spiegelman’s black and white drawings of 1994.
First published in 1926, two years before Bertolt Brecht’s similarly tuned Three-Penny Opera hit the stage, in those careless final years of laugher and prosperity before the Great Depression and War, this short barely a hundred-page long smashed up, sexed up, and cocked up narrative drama of a lovers’ fight, seduction, jealousy and vengeance in a bubbling new New York apartment, propped against a totally Gatsbian wild party atmosphere, is definitely the best piece of frivolous poetry I’ve read in a while.
Queenie was a blonde, and her age stood still,
And she danced twice a day in a vaudeville.
Lip-smacking, invigorating, well ahead of its time, and quite contemporary today.
Reflections of a Wine Merchant by Neal Rosenthal
Posted: June 7, 2020 Filed under: Books, Non-fiction | Tags: Books, English, Neal Rosenthal, Wine Leave a comment
Following in tracks of Kermit Lynch’s spectacular Adventures on the Wine Route, probably the best wine book ever written, out almost a decade and a half before Reflections, Neal Rosenthal shares this colorful memoir of his early days as an NYC wine importer and retailer, traveling across France and Italy in times long gone, when no-one knew who, for instance, Hubert Lignier or Paolo Bea were.
A funny read, riddled with anecdotes and full of tales about a handful of cult producers, yet it is also a brilliant discussion on the shortcomings of the modern wine trade, about a battle between quality, tradition and legacy with sales, vogue and technology, putting a wedge between classic and natural wines vs their commercial and rather soulless adversaries.
Be prepared – Neal is not hiding his resentment, he is blunt and straightforward, no words are spared for growers and distributors who favored an additional buck at the expense of filtering, over-sulfuring, raising alcohol level or otherwise diluting true drops of gold. And as all wine is perishable, and renown wine families may also come to an end (a few lamentable examples are described in great detail) – it is also Neal’s tribute and a way of remembrance of some former treasures long surrendered and lost.
Essential reading for passionate wine geeks.
When the Wolves Bite by Scott Wapner
Posted: February 28, 2020 Filed under: Books, Documentary, Non-fiction | Tags: Bill Ackman, Books, Carl Icahn, English, Herbalife, Scott Wapner Leave a comment
A quick and rather superfluous read, a story of Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn’s fight over Herbalife, an MLM dietary supplements producer accused by Ackman of being a pyramid-like Ponzi scheme. Ackman lost his fight, Herbalife survived, though in a somewhat crippled way – and this story, frankly, bears no moral whatsoever – it is just yet another Wall Street popcorn read you can devour in a few hours on the beach.
The Netflix movie on the same subject, Betting on Zero, is a much more candid thing, though siding entirely with Ackman in this struggle – it has certain honesty about it, determination, candor. Though somewhat socialist and anti-aynrandian, you inadvertently sympathize Ackman, posing as a Don Quixote for the poor defrauded Latino communities (sic!).
Yet, if you want to read a true activist book, don’t read this CNBC summary report by Wapner, glorifying again and again the harsh talk he had with both investors on live TV. Better read David Einhorn’s Fooling Some of the People All of the Time – a short-seller’s tale in his own words. Or bloody read The Big Short, definitely a more wholesome read.
Mary wept over the feet of Jesus: Prostitution and religious obedience in the Bible by Chester Brown
Posted: July 3, 2019 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, Chester Brown, English, Religion Leave a comment
Given a hell of controversy this may spark, I’d rather leave this review intentionally blanc. The title is self-explanatory. Read the book and decide for yourself.
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