Inappropriate Content: 50 in 05©

I realized this morning with a start that I cannot remember the last time I sat down and finished a book. A wave of panic overcame me as I realized that I have devoted so much time to work, and blogging, and watching film and TV that it has been weeks—literally weeks—since I have been able to devote any serious amount of time to the act of reading, which is to me the single most fulfilling act there is, spiritually and intellectually, and, hell, physically as well, when there's a nice comfy chair and a good mocha or something involved.

Well. Just as soon as I finished writing that, I realized that in the last month or so, I've read two very good books and three excellent collections of comics—excuse me, graphic novels. No reason to panic, but by my standards that's something of a disappointment, so I must make a mental note to get it into gear.

What have I been reading?

#22 – Anno-Dracula Kim Newman

Ah, yes. I've read this before, several times. In fact, Anno-Dracula makes it on all my top-ten lists and discussions o my favorite books. It's really that awesome.

The 19th century is drawing to a close, as is Queen Victoria's long reign, and England is racked with changes that rock the core of Britian's empire. Great, sweeping changes that herald the coming of a new age and the dawn of the twentieth century, filled with peril and promise. Specifically, vampires.

Newman changes the ending of Bram Stoker's novel, allowing Dracula to triumph over Van Helsing's little band. The changes snowball into a new world of Newman's devising: Dracula, Prince Consort to the Queen, sits on the throne in Buckingham Palace; Van Helsing's head sits on a pike outside said palace; the consulting detective, Mr. Holmes, is imprisoned in a camp called Devil's Dyke, along with others who oppose the new regime; characters from Dracula, along with Mycroft Holmes, Inspector Mackenzie, Dr. Jekyll, Mrs. Stoker, and others wander London, dealing with the changes as best they can; and in Whitechapel, a killer stalks the streets, murdering vampire prostitutes with cold precision, and his name is "Jack the Ripper."
#23 – The American Presidency Gore Vidal

This little book, only 88 pages, is the transcript of a television program aired some time ago on the BBC, with additions throughout and an afterward. It was basically Vidal's three half-hour episode summary of American history. As you might expect, there's not much you don't already know. But is there an over-arching clarity that ties it all together as the great history books do? Dunno: I only got it out of the Library of Congress forty-five minutes ago (right after I finished writing the bits on Anno-Dracula) and I haven't had a chance to digest it yet. So instead of a review, here's a few particularly good quotes:
- "Life" and "liberty" are two cherished old friends when it comes to political rhetoric, as they always make a nice contrast to death and slavery, two conditions most human beings would rather avoid.
- [Andrew Jackson] was the people's president to such an extent that those who supported him called themselves the Democratic Party. He even invited "the people" to the White House on the day of his inauguration. They wrecked the place, and he had to spend his first night as president in a hotel. Personally, he never much liked the folks.
- [On T.R.] Give a sissy a gun and he'll shoot everything in sight.
- Starting in 1964, I used to go on television and debate what seemed to be the entire American establishment. I did this for eight years. I thought the war was perfect folly. And I used to ask the president's advisors, on air, "What is this war about? Why are we in Vietnam?"
  
  At first they said, "To contain China, forever on the march." When I pointed out that the Vietnamese and the Chinese were ancient enemies, the subject would mysteriously change
- [So easily rewritten.]
  
  Starting in 2004, no one used to go on television and debate what seemed to be the entire American establishment. No one did this for far too long. No one used to ask the president's advisors, on air, "What is this war about? Why are we in Iraq?"
  
  At first they said, "To contain Terrorism, forever on the march." When no one pointed out that whack job terrorists and tin-pot dictators are natural enemies, the subject would mysteriously change.
- "Hello, Neil and Buzz, I'm talking to you from the Oval Room at the White House, and this certainly has to be one of the historic telephone call ever made from the White House."
  
  Why was [Nixon] so pleased with himself? Well, Teddy Kennedy had just gone off the bridge at Chappaquidick, so Nixon's chief political rival was out of the picture and re-election was a certainty.
- When I asked Katherine Graham, owner of the Washington Post, why her brave journalists had not demanded Reagan's impeachment over "Iran Contra," a criminal conspiracy quite as mischievous as Nixon's dark plottings, she said, "Oh, we couldn't go through all that again just fourteen years later."
  
  The media flourishes on the hundreds of millions of dollars that must still be spent at election-time four television ads which carefully steer clear of anything political, like health care, while indulging in ever more daring character assassination. Pedophiles now face off necrophiles. Toss a coin.
- As I ended the program, I meditated on Nixon's "silent majority"—not the fierce bigots that he had in mind, but the dead—specifically those dead in our wars. The camera then showed Washington—a city crowded with funerary monuments, from Arlington Cemetery to the Lincoln Memorial.
  
  And now, my home city of Washington has become nothing but a vast memorial to those dead in wars that have glorified the odd president, enriched the military-industrial complex, but left the rest of us—we the people, the nation—with this:

I have, in addition to Vidal's book, the collected letters of George Santayana, and there are far too many to read before hunger gets the better of me and I head off for lunch. In fact, I simply flipped through the index looking for names I recognized and saw only a "thank you for your letter" letter to Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Well: I am hungry, so I will get to the comics—graphic novels—and the other book, Senator Robert C. Byrd's Losing America, later on.