This week's Arkansas Weekly column...
I went to the Fayetteville Barnes & Noble this morning, picked up a couple of magazines, the local paper and the New York Times.
I also thought I could use a good book, so I took some time to browse. I haven’t read a decent novel or non-fiction title in a while because nothing in the literary world has really sparked my interest. I thumbed through political humorist Stephen Colbert’s I Am America (And So Can You!), but nothing really cracked me up. I was halfway interested in buying the biography of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, but I’m not really into learning that Snoopy’s mastermind was a deeply depressed individual for most of his life. I thought about picking up Harlan Coben’s 2001 mystery Tell No One because word has it that it’s been turned into a terrific French film, but then I thought I could just wait and see the movie.
And then it hit me: I was obviously looking for reasons not to buy a book. Those were three perfectly acceptable titles, yet I was trying to find some small and insignificant fault in them. Which was silly because the bookstore was stuffed with books I would never purchase in my life. In fact, just for fun, I started mentally compiling titles of books that I would never buy.
Books like Donald Trump’s latest masterpiece: Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life. Would someone please slap this man? And while you’re at it slap that Dog Whisperer guy, Cesar Millan, who also has a new book. Why do people fall for stuff like this? Dogs have no idea what we are saying, all right? They are dogs. They do not understand English, Spanish, Hindu, Klingon, etc., etc. They ain’t gonna respond to Donald Trump, the Dog Whisperer, or Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Speaking of Dog the Bounty Hunter: I’m never going to buy his book, menacingly titled You Can Run But You Can’t Hide. Seeing that, as of this writing, Dog might be out of a television gig due to some racist comments he made, there’s a good chance people aren’t going to be running to the bookstore to buy this title.
I generally enjoy reading Christopher Hitchens as well as listening to his sarcastic commentary on some of the news programs, but I’m going to ignore his latest book, God Is Not Great, because God is great, and I’m quite sick of The Man Upstairs being ridiculed as well as the act of believing in Him. Shut up and have another scotch, Christopher.
I know I will skip Lyrics by Sting. I like The Police and some of Sting’s solo stuff, but paying $28 to read “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” is like buying a book by a man who whispers to canines.
Any book by Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Ann Coulter or Glenn Beck can be scratched off my list. Blowhards, they all are. (That last comment, coming from me, is somewhat like the pot calling the kettle black, no?)
I am quite certain that I won’t be reading The Heroin Diaries by Motley Crue musician Nikki Sixx. True tales of a drug abusing heavy metal musician hitting rock bottom by waking up in his own defecation really isn’t my cup of tea.
Finally, any book by L. Ron Hubbard won’t end up on my bookshelf, but if I’m in the mood for a good laugh someday, I might change my mind.
I did purchase The Rejection Collection, Vol. 2; it’s a set of cartoons by various artists that were rejected for being too crude for the esteemed weekly magazine, The New Yorker.
My wife bought the first volume of The Rejection Collection for me last year, knowing I have a truly demented sense of humor. The new book contains such jewels as a little boy coming home with bloody stumps where his hands were, excitedly proclaiming to his mother in the kitchen, “Look, ma!” Look, ma, no hands indeed.
Other twisted contributions: a sad-looking little girl finding her doll house burned to a crisp and her three little doll house family members laid outside with blankets covering their bodies; a nurse standing over an obviously dead patient, reading his temperature and excitedly proclaiming: “Oh my, your fever’s way down!”; and shocked partygoers giving the Heimlich to a witch while a man stands in front of her mouth, exclaiming, “Keep pushing – I can see the baby’s head!”
Tasteless, but hilarious stuff, no?
I went to the Fayetteville Barnes & Noble this morning, picked up a couple of magazines, the local paper and the New York Times.
I also thought I could use a good book, so I took some time to browse. I haven’t read a decent novel or non-fiction title in a while because nothing in the literary world has really sparked my interest. I thumbed through political humorist Stephen Colbert’s I Am America (And So Can You!), but nothing really cracked me up. I was halfway interested in buying the biography of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, but I’m not really into learning that Snoopy’s mastermind was a deeply depressed individual for most of his life. I thought about picking up Harlan Coben’s 2001 mystery Tell No One because word has it that it’s been turned into a terrific French film, but then I thought I could just wait and see the movie.
And then it hit me: I was obviously looking for reasons not to buy a book. Those were three perfectly acceptable titles, yet I was trying to find some small and insignificant fault in them. Which was silly because the bookstore was stuffed with books I would never purchase in my life. In fact, just for fun, I started mentally compiling titles of books that I would never buy.
Books like Donald Trump’s latest masterpiece: Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life. Would someone please slap this man? And while you’re at it slap that Dog Whisperer guy, Cesar Millan, who also has a new book. Why do people fall for stuff like this? Dogs have no idea what we are saying, all right? They are dogs. They do not understand English, Spanish, Hindu, Klingon, etc., etc. They ain’t gonna respond to Donald Trump, the Dog Whisperer, or Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Speaking of Dog the Bounty Hunter: I’m never going to buy his book, menacingly titled You Can Run But You Can’t Hide. Seeing that, as of this writing, Dog might be out of a television gig due to some racist comments he made, there’s a good chance people aren’t going to be running to the bookstore to buy this title.
I generally enjoy reading Christopher Hitchens as well as listening to his sarcastic commentary on some of the news programs, but I’m going to ignore his latest book, God Is Not Great, because God is great, and I’m quite sick of The Man Upstairs being ridiculed as well as the act of believing in Him. Shut up and have another scotch, Christopher.
I know I will skip Lyrics by Sting. I like The Police and some of Sting’s solo stuff, but paying $28 to read “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” is like buying a book by a man who whispers to canines.
Any book by Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Ann Coulter or Glenn Beck can be scratched off my list. Blowhards, they all are. (That last comment, coming from me, is somewhat like the pot calling the kettle black, no?)
I am quite certain that I won’t be reading The Heroin Diaries by Motley Crue musician Nikki Sixx. True tales of a drug abusing heavy metal musician hitting rock bottom by waking up in his own defecation really isn’t my cup of tea.
Finally, any book by L. Ron Hubbard won’t end up on my bookshelf, but if I’m in the mood for a good laugh someday, I might change my mind.
* * *
I did purchase The Rejection Collection, Vol. 2; it’s a set of cartoons by various artists that were rejected for being too crude for the esteemed weekly magazine, The New Yorker.
My wife bought the first volume of The Rejection Collection for me last year, knowing I have a truly demented sense of humor. The new book contains such jewels as a little boy coming home with bloody stumps where his hands were, excitedly proclaiming to his mother in the kitchen, “Look, ma!” Look, ma, no hands indeed.
Other twisted contributions: a sad-looking little girl finding her doll house burned to a crisp and her three little doll house family members laid outside with blankets covering their bodies; a nurse standing over an obviously dead patient, reading his temperature and excitedly proclaiming: “Oh my, your fever’s way down!”; and shocked partygoers giving the Heimlich to a witch while a man stands in front of her mouth, exclaiming, “Keep pushing – I can see the baby’s head!”
Tasteless, but hilarious stuff, no?
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