String Quartet Tribute to John Mellencamp by the Vitamin String Quartet

Does it work? Yes, oddly enough it does!

Released in 2003 by Vitamin Records

I am a dyed-in-the-wool Mellencamp fan and I have been since American Fool came out in 1982. Fans like me could either love projects like this, or absolutely hate them and view them like a desecration. The attitude taken towards the project has a lot to do with it and this album has taken a respectful attitude towards Mellencamp's work.

The songs have been adapted for String Quartet but have not been radically altered - you can sing right along with them if you'd like. Most have been thoughtfully chosen - for example, if it featured a strong fiddle component, such as "Paper in Fire" than it was worked in to this album.

"Peaceful World" is achingly beautiful in this adaptation. "Small Town" has a more melancholy tone than the original song, but it is not at all inappropriate. It is also quite beautiful and it is respectful reinterpretation of this anthem to small town life.

John Mellencamp

The only duds in the group are "Hurts So Good" and "Jack and Diane." Unlike the other songs which seem to have been carefully chosen for their string quartet friendliness, these had to have been chosen because they are two Mellencamp standards - you cannot have a collection of his work without them. Heck, the first song I cued up was "Jack and Diane". It just did not translate well.

 Most are strong, two are tremendous, two are weak.

If you are a true Mellencamp fan (a Mellenhead, if you will) this one is one to pick up. I rate the entire collection 4 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: String Quartet Tribute to John Mellencamp.

Reviewed on July 20, 2007.

What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank

Entertaining but fails to live up to the title

Published by Metropolitan Books in 2004.

Thomas Frank's stated purpose in What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America is to tell how Conservatives won the hearts of the working class, the middle class and the rich all at the same time. His answer is that rich, Republican elites throw up red herring issues (abortion and gay marriage are two that he mentions frequently) that bamboozle the working poor and the middle class into supporting them and their greater cause of Free Market Capitalism and International Free Trade even though Capitalism and treaties such as NAFTA inevitably beat the little guy into a pulp (his thought, not mine).

Thomas Frank

Yep. That's about it, although Mr. Frank says it much better than I just did. He also never goes into detail about why Capitalism and Free Trade are both evil (he just assumes you agree, I suppose), although he is very critical of Bill Clinton for supporting NAFTA throughout the book. Big business, especially Wal-Mart, are also to blame for de-populating the Kansas countryside. Apparently, Wal-Mart has some larger agenda in which they plan to drive their customers away from the stores they build in the country...

Seriously, the book would have been helped by further explanation as to why Mr. Frank is such an opponent of Capitalism. He has another book on just that subject, according to a tiny bit of research on my part. It might be a help if readers read that book first, especially in light of Mr. Frank's view that all politics is based in economics: "Most of us think of politics as a Machiavellian drama in which actors make alliances and take practical steps to advance their material interests." (p. 121)

Mr. Frank's fails to properly tell us "How conservatives won the heart of America" because he does not really believe, deep down, that people will vote in ways that he sees that are economically disadvantageous (Free Trade, etc.) unless they are tricked into doing so. People really believing in other issues, such as abortion,  and voting for them are foreign to his way of thinking. Frank may be from Kansas but he certainly does not understand his state and he demonstrates precious little respect for its inhabitants, treating them more like cultural oddities to be put on display.

Thomas Frank really fails to adequately address the thesis of the book, as expressed by the title. Interesting reading, nonetheless.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank.

Reviewed on July 7, 2007.

Windtalkers DVD

Directed by John Woo.
Released in 2002.

With the title Windtalkers you'd think it would be centered on the Windtalkers, those Navajo Code Talkers who served in the Pacific Theater of World War II. I'd purposely ignored this movie until I had the time to watch it since I was interested in the topic and have an interest in the Navajo culture, having visited the Four Corners area several times and having read a bit about them.

I was hoping for a movie that focused on the Windtalkers themselves - why they fought for a society that had conquered them and now scorned them, what their motivations were, how their culture dealt with the separation from the Navajo lands, the death and destruction of the war (briefly touched on) and so on. That would have been much more interesting and important.

Instead, we get a movie that should be called Messed Up In the Head Windtalker Babysitter - a movie about the white guy who minds the Navajo Windtalkers. A movie full of cliche characters and soliloquies that just does not work. 

For that matter, neither do most of the action scenes. The first rule of a war movie is to make you love the character and then put him in all sorts of dangerous situations so you can worry if he's going to die. It's simple - the viewer is emotionally invested in the story. It never happened for me in this one, despite the massive amounts of explosions. War stories are not about the amount of explosions - the great ones are about exploring characters (and by extension, you and me) during a time of extreme duress.

I was glad to see Christian Slater get some work, though.

This one will not be staying in my collection - it is just not good enough.

I rate this movie 2 stars out of 5.

This movie can be found on Amazon.com here: Windtalkers. 

Reviewed on July 25, 2007.

Saint Patrick's Battalion: A Novel by James Alexander Thom

A disappointment

Published by Ballantine Books in 2006.

To start, let me establish my bona fides as a fan of Mr. Thom's work. Three of his novels sit on a shelf less than two feet from this computer. I have the featured review on Amazon.com one of his novels ("The Red Heart"). One of his books is on my Favorite Books List on my profile page. I actually designed a long-term project for my world history classes using historical fiction with his books in mind, and I told him so when I met him at a state-wide conference for social studies teachers.

So, I approached St. Patrick's Battalion with much hope. Instead of his usual quality, I found this book to be simplistic, with less detail and bent on beating two points home time after time: the Irish were treated brutally and shamefully by the U.S. army during the Mexican War and the Mexican War was an unjust war.

James Alexander Thom

Thom makes it clear in the opening dedication and acknowledgments that he is against the Iraq War and quite clearly he is drawing analogies between the two. However, Thom never really gets off of his twin focuses on the unjust war and the unjust treatment of the Irish. He never gets to his real strengths in his other books - bringing the reader into another world and teaching us about larger movements in history, but also about the day-to-day lives and goings on of our ancestors. Thom rarely gets beyond the superficial and develops the characters and that is a shame - and a loss to Thom's loyal readers because when his books are good they are fantastic.

Thom's format is the main cause of the failure of this book to be as excellent as his others. His chosen format is a diary of a 10-12 year old Irish-American boy (Quinn) with the U.S. Army and the remembrances of a Mexican man (Juvero)about his experiences during the war as a young boy 16 years later. The diary entries are the better of the two, but are often sketchy. The remembrances are very repetitive and full of Spanish phrases that must be annoying to readers who don't know any Spanish. He often comments about Manifest Destiny, the Irish and America's arrogance. It gets old - not that he wasn't right, but he made his point early and often - it's time to move on. I must admit that I started skimming his sections. I think that Juvero says it best on page 256: "Que Rollo! My preachings are a bore!"

So, to sum up: not his best work. I recommend you read any other Thom book before this one.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Saint Patrick's Battalion: A Novel by James Alexander Thom.

Reviewed on July 30, 2007 (edited June 24, 2012).

The Gospel According to The Simpsons: The Spiritual Life of the World's Most Animated Family by Mark I. Pinsky

An interesting premise and lots of fun
  
Published by Westminster John Knox Press in 2001.

Google this book and you will find some criticism from people that have entirely missed the point of the book. The point of The Gospel According to The Simpsons is NOT to tell how the Simpsons preach the Gospel. They don't.

The Simpsons

Even though The Simpsons always goes for the sarcastic and biting joke, it is also a remarkably spiritual show. It is the only show in which the main characters go to church on a regular basis. No one thinks it strange that people pray. Prayers are answered. God exists and he acts. From time to time, organized religion is skewered with their wickedly clever satire. Then again, so is everything else, from rock stars to public education to family life to just about everything else. Pinsky's point is that religion is treated remarkably well on the show that has a bad reputation.

Pinsky focuses on each of the main characters (Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa) and also on Ned (evangelical Christian), Apu (Hindu)and Krusty (Jewish) in order to show how religion and morality are treated in the show.

He also details several plotlines - two or three of them are explicitly based on a religious theme -and shows how they relate to his overall thesis. He backs it up with several interviews and quotes from the creators and writers of the show.

I saw this book's author interviewed on PBS's Religion and Ethics Newsweekly in conjunction with the premiere of The Simpsons Movie. I'm glad I saw it and I'm glad I picked this book up.

Note, the show has managed to put about many, many more years more worth of shows out since this book was written in 2001, but this fan thinks that the premise of this book is still correct.

Note: since this review was written the book has been expanded and a Bible study has been created.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Gospel According to the Simpsons.

Spare Change (Sunny Randall #6) by Robert B. Parker

A strong addition to the Sunny Randall series

Published in 2007 by Putnam

In Spare Change, Sunny joins with her retired cop father on a serial killer case that went unsolved 20 years before. It seems the killer has come back again after a hiatus and the elder Randall is chosen to head an all-star task force to catch him. Sunny is brought in as his assistant since she's a former cop and her father trusts her instincts.

As the jacket liner tells you, Sunny gets noticed by the serial killer and he starts to send her notes in the mail...

Just to be clear, this is not a police procedural. The reader does not have to read through the drudgery of endless questioning of possible witnesses, etc. Sunny still acts as a private detective and the smart comments and witty dialogue prevail throughout.

Sunny makes a lot of progress with her psychologist (Susan Silverman) in this book and a great portion of it is about her numerous issues and the progress she makes towards resolving them. She makes so much progress that I wonder if this is the last Sunny Randall book. I hope not, because this one was a fast-paced, witty. welcome addition to Parker's lengthy list of books.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Spare Change (Sunny Randall)

Reviewed on August 7, 2007.

Live from Middle America: Rants from a Red-State Comedian by Brad Stine

 

Up and Down throughout the book

Published in 2006 by Hudson Street Press

In Live from Middle America Stine comments on any number of popular culture items, including tobacco, abortion, God in public schools, baseball, Las Vegas, banning guns, bumper stickers and Wal-Mart. Each little rant comes in short chapters averaging around 4 pages each.

Now, my review:

I wanted to love this book (since I am  the exact target for this book: a Christian, a conservative and I am a proud resident of Indiana - a red state since LBJ in 1964 with the exception of Barack Obama in 2008) but I could barely get myself to like it.

Brad Stine

First and foremost, I quickly grew tired of the publisher's decision to pull little tidbits out of the text and highlight them with a box right next to the text that contains the exact same sentence? What was the point of that?

Secondly, Stine blames everything in the world on liberals (even for bumps in the road). He assumes that liberal automatically means atheist (well, I guess my dad, the church elder is not going where he assumed when he dies) and assumes that conservative automatically means Christian (what about Milton Friedman?).

Thirdly, Stine seems to confuse "Red State" with "Redneck" at many points, saying things like Red State parents make their kids smoke and they eat animals they run over with their cars. I think I've heard all of this before and it the routine always ends like this, "...you might be a redneck."

I've never seen Stine in person, so perhaps knowing his act really would juice up a lot of this - I don't know. His funniest comments are about Trick-or-Treating on Halloween, "God is my co-pilot" bumper stickers, turn signals, gay marriage (he's remarkably middle-of-the-road on this) and abortion. The abortion commentary isn't particularly funny but it is a much more coherent argument than the rest of the book presents and really is the best piece in the book. On the other hand, his commentary on foreign-made goods is not terribly coherent nor is it conservative.

So, I give this one 2 stars out of 5. It would have been worse except for the strong section on abortion.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Live from Middle America : Rants from a Red-State Comedian by Brad Stine.

Reviewed on August 8, 2007.