Ben Marcus's books The Age of Wire and String and Notable American Women were considered "experimental" fiction because of his unconventional use of...
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Stalking: unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person., February 9, 2012
Stan Talbott has polished the concept of writing terse suspense novels by abiding by the code that there are many sides to every situation. His subject matter in this immensely readable book is divorce and the spectrum of events that the termination of a marriage can present. He is careful not to make his characters black and white, he allows us to understand motivations and the by-products of deeds, and he remains cognizant of the importance to the reader of a propulsive storyline. In short, Stan Talbott writes well.
Billy Freeman and Diane Downer were married at one time but when we meet them they have been divorced for some time: Diane had been a burden in her addiction to drugs and alcohol. We meet Billy returning to the US from a time in Australia and we are allowed some insights into his personality by a jovial cab ride with a Pakistani cabby as they witness a man on a bridge bearing a sign stating 'Please Help My Kids' and 'Kids First', a clever entry point for the information that follows that Billy is accused of 'stalking' his former wife after a misunderstanding o f sorts: Diane captures their grandson Trystan from the couple's alcoholic daughter Faith and her illegal alien husband and unilaterally decides to place the child in first grade as opposed to the intended kindergarten. This seemingly minor incident raises issues of the pattern of stalkers - an apparent recurring situation in the Freeman family that the author develops very well. How Billy copes and deals with the label of 'stalker' is at times comic, at other times tragic, and at all times carries a dollop of truth that makes us all more attuned to the implication of the meaning of stalking.
Talbott is a fascinating man in addition to his new-found skills in writing. He is a triathlon competitor, has been a successful coach for basketball, even founding a 3-on-3 outdoor basketball tournament project throughout Oregon, he has taught Journalism and English and has been a sports reporter. All of these attributes provide Talbott with a palpable energy as a writer: his novels speed along like a long distance run with plenty of side excursions to capture the imagination of every reader. Talbott seems to have a solid career ahead of him as a writer of note. Grady Harp, February 12
‘Don’t debate who you are; be who you are’: The Right to Unconditional Love
'My objective in writing this book was to encourage us all, at a minimum, to realistically examine our beliefs - especially how and why those beliefs came about. It's fair to say that the choices we're never given are the choices most will never make. Government and religion are intent on laying the ground rules for us to live by, and our mob mentality to be like others creates a false sense of acceptance as if society's values are our own.' This quotation is not the opening of this extraordinarily sensitive book/memoir by Aaron Anson, MIND YOUR OWN LIFE: THE JOURNEY BACK TO LOVE, but after reading this book several times it seems to be the essential core form which the rest of the book was drawn. Aaron Anson bravely goes where few others will tread in public light, sharing his own journey in coming to grips with a world that seemed to reject him, and in doing so he provides a Gilead in a narrative of love, acceptance, freedom, and happiness. With the publication of this book he steps into the role of a significant contemporary philosopher redesigning our concept of socialization and even civilization. But who is this erudite writer, this man who courageously seeks to break down barriers of prejudice?
Investigation into his background reveals the following: Aaron Anson is an inspirational writer and new thought coach who is married and lives in Washington, DC with his partner Oliver, where they operate a small computer technology firm. He is currently at work on another book and has appeared on several radio shows and spoken at a number of literary events around the country. MIND YOUR OWN LIFE, his first book, began as a journal of his life and eventually unfolded into a book. Before then he did not consider being a writer and accepted the creation that his writing instead chose him as a vessel for those with muted voices longing to be heard and those striving for an authentic affirmation of self-love. Raised a devout Christian in the South and endeavoring to uphold indoctrinated beliefs, he struggled to suppress his nascent sexual attraction hoping to escape the ambiguity of being gay with Christian beliefs. After a stint in the military he married and fathered two children before accepting that he was inherently a gay man. His fascination with the arts, world cultures, and all of humanity has led him to travel six continents. Anson is passionated about empowering teenagers gay and straight alike who struggle to find their place amidst the bombardment of excessive political and religious rhetoric. He has participated in relief efforts around the world and several missions that address homelessness.'
What Anson brings to the reader's attention is a book well written and obviously experienced that has many topics to examine - prejudice, religious intolerance, government intolerance, hypocrisy - all made the more poignant because he relates these conundrums to his own sexuality. The struggles this man has suffered he refuses to quantify or maintain as smoldering embers of a past. Instead he has become a spokesman for human rights - be those rights race based, sexual identity based, or defining how God should be interpreted - the right to be ourselves. His message is one of 'minding our own lives', taking responsibility for being the person we were created to be instead of the droid society and religion and government has designed as the standard. In Anson's words: 'If we choose to take our minds and lives here on earth and turn them over to others for the handling, and disbursement of information, that to me is religious. If I seek my own awareness and explore my uniquely personal connection to the Universe, then that is spiritual, and this is where I choose to operate.'
Aaron Anson has provided a handbook for young people who are confused and for adult who have lost direction in society's maze designed to define us. This is a smart, informing, and profoundly moving book.
Grady Harp
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(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
VITUS is a film from Switzerland that has garnered many accolades and nearly won an Oscar. And yes, it is that good! Written by Fredi M. Murer, Peter Luisi, and Lukas B. Suter and directed by Murer, VITUS explores the life of a child genius, a lad who from the age of five is obviously gifted in that he can play Bach et al after only a few months lessons and is able to read books and understand concepts that make his stance in a regular kindergarten class untenable. But the film is less about the gifts of a child prodigy than it is a story of how a genius child longs for a normal childhood. It is in the telling of the story that the audience is privileged to discover the joys and trials in a child's view of being extraordinary.
Vitus - played at age 6 by Fabrizio Borsani and at age 12 by Teo Gheorghiu - is referred to as a little Mozart by his parents Helen (Julika Jenkins) and Leo (Urs Jucker), and by the family friends who are amazed at Vitus' gift as a pianist. But as is often the case with gifted children, they are overprotected, not allowed to engage in the normal activities of being a kid. Vitus finds consolation in his grandfather (a brilliant Bruno Ganz) whose creative energy includes Vitus in his longing to fly and to build complex machines. While Vitus continues his love for the piano he also takes risks with his beloved grandfather. Vitus' intelligence serves him well in analyzing the complexities of his father's job and his grandfather's role in that position, and it is his genius that leads the family in a direction no one thought possible. And of course with every story of an extraordinary young lad adapting to a puzzling world, there is also a love interest: Isabel at age 12 (Kristina Lykowa) is his fun-loving babysitter and at age 19 (Tamara Scarpellini) is the queen of his inexperienced heart and fill a void in Vitus' life that otherwise would be empty. Fitting all of these subplots together is made magical by Vitus' constant playing of classical music - a feat the young actor is capable of performing on his own!
The cast of this film is not only gifted but is also endearing. Bruno Ganz is a brilliant actor and he is matched by both of the young actors who play Vitus. The story is tender but avoids bathos. It simply is an uplifting, inspiring, entertaining film. A Must See! Grady Harp
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(11 of 15 readers found this comment helpful)
The Simple Things: Reminders That They Are Still Here
As each of us daily boots up the computer to go shopping on the internet, intending to avoid leaving the house, or seeking the best bargain without having to drive to the stores, walk the aisles, chat with the clerks or perhaps the store owner - remember the socializing while shopping for things that begged to be picked up and thought about and discussed before taking out the wallet and paying? - or in other words, consuming as electronic parts replace the human interaction, there is that tiny twinge of memory of the 'old days' without the computer/cellphone/instant messaging with video depersonalization. That is what this little, beautifully crafted, tender and well-designed book is all about.
Jennifer McKnight-Trontz has provided a pathway to a quieter time, that period when new objects were viewed in decorated store windows or in Montgomery Ward catalogs, and simply turning the pages of this treasure house gives a second look at the solid things, the memorabilia of a slower time: PRODUCTS FOR A HAPPY LIFE. In simple single color drawings on contrasting color pages are items that range from slip joint pliers, pocket knives, toasters, clothes pins and willow clothes baskets, tricycles, home floor fans, rolling pins, scooters, women's and men's underwear, hangers, hairpin/bobby pin/rollerpin, steel crib, steering sled, to the basic broom - among countless other items.
The drawings are accompanied by succinct descriptions of the items without ballyhoo or noxious sales tactics. These are the items from our past and the author/designer simply places them before our eyes as gentle prods to reminisce about the products for a happy life, products that signify a time before our current chaotic computer driven existence. It is a pleasure to visit this little book: it is the perfect bread and butter gift to leave behind the next time to pay someone a visit (remember that?....) Grady Harp
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(12 of 19 readers found this comment helpful)
A Very Important New Novel about the Eccentricities of our Society
BORDERLINE is a book that works on so many levels that it is almost unclassifiable. It is a genuinely warm, tender, humorous coming of age story while at the same time being a novel that is smart, informative and illuminating in the fields of genetics, autism as an increasingly proliferating condition, fast food and obesity as national crises, and the overemphasis of pill-popping for invented childhood and adult disorders. Sounds like too much information to compress into one book? Not in the deft hands of author Bonnie Rozanski! For all of the intelligent and interesting information the book contains, the story itself is an amazingly fresh novel, written with great style and sensitivity, a novel than will appeal to just about everyone no matter the age group.
Guy Ritter is a twelve-year-old son of a geneticist father, an activist mother, and Guy happens to have a five-year-old brother Austin who is an autistic child. Guy feels extraneous in this family whose focus is on controlling autistic Austin, he has little tolerance for school, and finds some consolation in his obese best friend Matt. Guy's father runs a lab of genetics research, the current project being how to breed wolves to become like docile dogs, and when Guy is finally invited into his father's work life, Guy falls in love with animal # JX104 whom he gradually wins over as a friend and changes his scientific name to 'Wolf' - his new best friend. Guy's life is complicated by his mother's blind devotion to autistic Austin (she is convinced the autism is due to a vaccination!), by Matt's broken home and Matt's grossly obese father who is addicted to junk food from Hamburger Haven (a habit that results in a crisis), and by a distant father whose concerns are dedicated to his scientific work which nearly excludes Guy from existence.
The story builds very coherently with mounting tensions on multiple levels (each level a significantly important social malady) until Guy coerces Matt into freeing the soon to be exterminated Wolf from his father's lab of cages. Then with the unexpected help of Austin and the courage to do what is 'right', a completely new beginning to Guy's dissociative life comes into focus. It is the manner in which Rozanski relates her story - through the eyes and experiences and perceptions of a 12 to 13 year-old boy that makes this a novel of consuming interest. It is beautifully constructed, insightful, sensitive, and entertaining, all the while addressing many issues that are puzzling the public today. It has all the earmarks of a lasting and successful novel. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(8 of 10 readers found this comment helpful)
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The Appeal of Stalking by Stan Talbott
Grady, February 9, 2012
Stalking: unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person., February 9, 2012Stan Talbott has polished the concept of writing terse suspense novels by abiding by the code that there are many sides to every situation. His subject matter in this immensely readable book is divorce and the spectrum of events that the termination of a marriage can present. He is careful not to make his characters black and white, he allows us to understand motivations and the by-products of deeds, and he remains cognizant of the importance to the reader of a propulsive storyline. In short, Stan Talbott writes well.
Billy Freeman and Diane Downer were married at one time but when we meet them they have been divorced for some time: Diane had been a burden in her addiction to drugs and alcohol. We meet Billy returning to the US from a time in Australia and we are allowed some insights into his personality by a jovial cab ride with a Pakistani cabby as they witness a man on a bridge bearing a sign stating 'Please Help My Kids' and 'Kids First', a clever entry point for the information that follows that Billy is accused of 'stalking' his former wife after a misunderstanding o f sorts: Diane captures their grandson Trystan from the couple's alcoholic daughter Faith and her illegal alien husband and unilaterally decides to place the child in first grade as opposed to the intended kindergarten. This seemingly minor incident raises issues of the pattern of stalkers - an apparent recurring situation in the Freeman family that the author develops very well. How Billy copes and deals with the label of 'stalker' is at times comic, at other times tragic, and at all times carries a dollop of truth that makes us all more attuned to the implication of the meaning of stalking.
Talbott is a fascinating man in addition to his new-found skills in writing. He is a triathlon competitor, has been a successful coach for basketball, even founding a 3-on-3 outdoor basketball tournament project throughout Oregon, he has taught Journalism and English and has been a sports reporter. All of these attributes provide Talbott with a palpable energy as a writer: his novels speed along like a long distance run with plenty of side excursions to capture the imagination of every reader. Talbott seems to have a solid career ahead of him as a writer of note. Grady Harp, February 12
Mind Your Own Life: The Journey Back to Love by Aaron Anson
Grady, May 16, 2011
‘Don’t debate who you are; be who you are’: The Right to Unconditional Love'My objective in writing this book was to encourage us all, at a minimum, to realistically examine our beliefs - especially how and why those beliefs came about. It's fair to say that the choices we're never given are the choices most will never make. Government and religion are intent on laying the ground rules for us to live by, and our mob mentality to be like others creates a false sense of acceptance as if society's values are our own.' This quotation is not the opening of this extraordinarily sensitive book/memoir by Aaron Anson, MIND YOUR OWN LIFE: THE JOURNEY BACK TO LOVE, but after reading this book several times it seems to be the essential core form which the rest of the book was drawn. Aaron Anson bravely goes where few others will tread in public light, sharing his own journey in coming to grips with a world that seemed to reject him, and in doing so he provides a Gilead in a narrative of love, acceptance, freedom, and happiness. With the publication of this book he steps into the role of a significant contemporary philosopher redesigning our concept of socialization and even civilization. But who is this erudite writer, this man who courageously seeks to break down barriers of prejudice?
Investigation into his background reveals the following: Aaron Anson is an inspirational writer and new thought coach who is married and lives in Washington, DC with his partner Oliver, where they operate a small computer technology firm. He is currently at work on another book and has appeared on several radio shows and spoken at a number of literary events around the country. MIND YOUR OWN LIFE, his first book, began as a journal of his life and eventually unfolded into a book. Before then he did not consider being a writer and accepted the creation that his writing instead chose him as a vessel for those with muted voices longing to be heard and those striving for an authentic affirmation of self-love. Raised a devout Christian in the South and endeavoring to uphold indoctrinated beliefs, he struggled to suppress his nascent sexual attraction hoping to escape the ambiguity of being gay with Christian beliefs. After a stint in the military he married and fathered two children before accepting that he was inherently a gay man. His fascination with the arts, world cultures, and all of humanity has led him to travel six continents. Anson is passionated about empowering teenagers gay and straight alike who struggle to find their place amidst the bombardment of excessive political and religious rhetoric. He has participated in relief efforts around the world and several missions that address homelessness.'
What Anson brings to the reader's attention is a book well written and obviously experienced that has many topics to examine - prejudice, religious intolerance, government intolerance, hypocrisy - all made the more poignant because he relates these conundrums to his own sexuality. The struggles this man has suffered he refuses to quantify or maintain as smoldering embers of a past. Instead he has become a spokesman for human rights - be those rights race based, sexual identity based, or defining how God should be interpreted - the right to be ourselves. His message is one of 'minding our own lives', taking responsibility for being the person we were created to be instead of the droid society and religion and government has designed as the standard. In Anson's words: 'If we choose to take our minds and lives here on earth and turn them over to others for the handling, and disbursement of information, that to me is religious. If I seek my own awareness and explore my uniquely personal connection to the Universe, then that is spiritual, and this is where I choose to operate.'
Aaron Anson has provided a handbook for young people who are confused and for adult who have lost direction in society's maze designed to define us. This is a smart, informing, and profoundly moving book.
Grady Harp
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
Vitus
Grady, November 29, 2007
Giving Back the Gift: The World of the ProdigyVITUS is a film from Switzerland that has garnered many accolades and nearly won an Oscar. And yes, it is that good! Written by Fredi M. Murer, Peter Luisi, and Lukas B. Suter and directed by Murer, VITUS explores the life of a child genius, a lad who from the age of five is obviously gifted in that he can play Bach et al after only a few months lessons and is able to read books and understand concepts that make his stance in a regular kindergarten class untenable. But the film is less about the gifts of a child prodigy than it is a story of how a genius child longs for a normal childhood. It is in the telling of the story that the audience is privileged to discover the joys and trials in a child's view of being extraordinary.
Vitus - played at age 6 by Fabrizio Borsani and at age 12 by Teo Gheorghiu - is referred to as a little Mozart by his parents Helen (Julika Jenkins) and Leo (Urs Jucker), and by the family friends who are amazed at Vitus' gift as a pianist. But as is often the case with gifted children, they are overprotected, not allowed to engage in the normal activities of being a kid. Vitus finds consolation in his grandfather (a brilliant Bruno Ganz) whose creative energy includes Vitus in his longing to fly and to build complex machines. While Vitus continues his love for the piano he also takes risks with his beloved grandfather. Vitus' intelligence serves him well in analyzing the complexities of his father's job and his grandfather's role in that position, and it is his genius that leads the family in a direction no one thought possible. And of course with every story of an extraordinary young lad adapting to a puzzling world, there is also a love interest: Isabel at age 12 (Kristina Lykowa) is his fun-loving babysitter and at age 19 (Tamara Scarpellini) is the queen of his inexperienced heart and fill a void in Vitus' life that otherwise would be empty. Fitting all of these subplots together is made magical by Vitus' constant playing of classical music - a feat the young actor is capable of performing on his own!
The cast of this film is not only gifted but is also endearing. Bruno Ganz is a brilliant actor and he is matched by both of the young actors who play Vitus. The story is tender but avoids bathos. It simply is an uplifting, inspiring, entertaining film. A Must See! Grady Harp
(11 of 15 readers found this comment helpful)
Products for a Happy Life by Jen Mcknight Trontz
Grady, October 23, 2007
The Simple Things: Reminders That They Are Still HereAs each of us daily boots up the computer to go shopping on the internet, intending to avoid leaving the house, or seeking the best bargain without having to drive to the stores, walk the aisles, chat with the clerks or perhaps the store owner - remember the socializing while shopping for things that begged to be picked up and thought about and discussed before taking out the wallet and paying? - or in other words, consuming as electronic parts replace the human interaction, there is that tiny twinge of memory of the 'old days' without the computer/cellphone/instant messaging with video depersonalization. That is what this little, beautifully crafted, tender and well-designed book is all about.
Jennifer McKnight-Trontz has provided a pathway to a quieter time, that period when new objects were viewed in decorated store windows or in Montgomery Ward catalogs, and simply turning the pages of this treasure house gives a second look at the solid things, the memorabilia of a slower time: PRODUCTS FOR A HAPPY LIFE. In simple single color drawings on contrasting color pages are items that range from slip joint pliers, pocket knives, toasters, clothes pins and willow clothes baskets, tricycles, home floor fans, rolling pins, scooters, women's and men's underwear, hangers, hairpin/bobby pin/rollerpin, steel crib, steering sled, to the basic broom - among countless other items.
The drawings are accompanied by succinct descriptions of the items without ballyhoo or noxious sales tactics. These are the items from our past and the author/designer simply places them before our eyes as gentle prods to reminisce about the products for a happy life, products that signify a time before our current chaotic computer driven existence. It is a pleasure to visit this little book: it is the perfect bread and butter gift to leave behind the next time to pay someone a visit (remember that?....) Grady Harp
(12 of 19 readers found this comment helpful)
Borderline by Bonnie Rozanski
Grady, September 26, 2007
A Very Important New Novel about the Eccentricities of our SocietyBORDERLINE is a book that works on so many levels that it is almost unclassifiable. It is a genuinely warm, tender, humorous coming of age story while at the same time being a novel that is smart, informative and illuminating in the fields of genetics, autism as an increasingly proliferating condition, fast food and obesity as national crises, and the overemphasis of pill-popping for invented childhood and adult disorders. Sounds like too much information to compress into one book? Not in the deft hands of author Bonnie Rozanski! For all of the intelligent and interesting information the book contains, the story itself is an amazingly fresh novel, written with great style and sensitivity, a novel than will appeal to just about everyone no matter the age group.
Guy Ritter is a twelve-year-old son of a geneticist father, an activist mother, and Guy happens to have a five-year-old brother Austin who is an autistic child. Guy feels extraneous in this family whose focus is on controlling autistic Austin, he has little tolerance for school, and finds some consolation in his obese best friend Matt. Guy's father runs a lab of genetics research, the current project being how to breed wolves to become like docile dogs, and when Guy is finally invited into his father's work life, Guy falls in love with animal # JX104 whom he gradually wins over as a friend and changes his scientific name to 'Wolf' - his new best friend. Guy's life is complicated by his mother's blind devotion to autistic Austin (she is convinced the autism is due to a vaccination!), by Matt's broken home and Matt's grossly obese father who is addicted to junk food from Hamburger Haven (a habit that results in a crisis), and by a distant father whose concerns are dedicated to his scientific work which nearly excludes Guy from existence.
The story builds very coherently with mounting tensions on multiple levels (each level a significantly important social malady) until Guy coerces Matt into freeing the soon to be exterminated Wolf from his father's lab of cages. Then with the unexpected help of Austin and the courage to do what is 'right', a completely new beginning to Guy's dissociative life comes into focus. It is the manner in which Rozanski relates her story - through the eyes and experiences and perceptions of a 12 to 13 year-old boy that makes this a novel of consuming interest. It is beautifully constructed, insightful, sensitive, and entertaining, all the while addressing many issues that are puzzling the public today. It has all the earmarks of a lasting and successful novel. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
(8 of 10 readers found this comment helpful)
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