Shameful end of the year post

This is usually the post in which I copy and paste the list of what I read for the past year. This is going to be the first year I have not done that for awhile.

Let me explain with a picture.



I subscribe to the New Yorker. The magazine on top is the one I'm working on. The rest of the pile is unread and in chronological order. The date on that issue is January 11th......2016.

So I am about a year behind in that magazine, alone. And if I'm a year behind in one magazine, imagine how many books I've read.

It's embarrassing. I do not read, what I write suffers. This year, it really has. Sure I had a couple of poems published earlier in the year. After that, zip. A few deserved rejections and here we are.

What's keeping me from writing is often the objects that are right in front of me, or in my hand, or in my pocket.

I have to do better in 2017. Have to.

Did see plenty of movies in the last year. Averaged a bit more than one a week, which is acceptable to me. I did watch 100 movies a couple of years ago, just to see if I could, and I did. Know what? All I did was watch 100 movies in a year.

So here's that list.

Brooklyn
Sleeper
David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
Autism In Love
The Little Fugitive
Galaxy Quest
Stagecoach
Design For Living
Peter Pan (1953)
Much Ado About Nothing (2003)
Room
The Wolfpack
A New Leaf
Cabaret
Hail Caesar!
Where to Invade Next
The Odd Couple
Dirigible
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
The Story of Temple Drake
Viva Las Vegas
Finding Vivian Maier
The Wrecking Crew
The Art of Love (1965)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Captain America: Civil War
Sounder
Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon
Purple Rain
All the Light in the Sky
After the Thin Man
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Min and Bill
Simply Irresistible
Blazing Saddles
Lost in America
Ghostbusters (2016)
A Hard Days Night
Sharknado 4
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me
Koch
A Fistful of Dollars
Ball of Fire
Golden Age of Comedy (1957)
Sons of the Desert
Under the Skin
Bananas
The Little Prince (2015)
Speedy (1928)
Rockabye (1932)
Blonde Crazy (1931)
Airplane!
Drunken Master 2
Moonlight
Where You’re Meant To Be
Meet Me in St. Louis
Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Rogue One
Krampus
After the Thin Man (yup, again)
Possession
Scrooge
The Omega Man
The World, the Flesh and the Devil

I do not go to the theater much these days. Most of what I watch is on Netflix or TCM. And I'm fine with that. So I will maintain my resolution to watch a movie a week, it's been doable. The reading though, oy.

Revisionist discord from a rock and roll pariah

It's always hard to determine how people will react when fame comes to them suddenly and at a young age. The story of the Beach Boys has been told from many angles and by many different people. All seem to agree that Murry Wilson was an unrepentant tyrant, Dennis was a split personality with demons, Carl was a good soul who got caught in addictions and Al is, well Al.

Brian Wilson's troubles are well documented and often told with the man on a pedestal. A musical genius who became brain damaged through drug addiction and pressure to produce masterpieces. Brian's story often puts his cousin, Mike Love, in the role of tormenter and adversary.

It's time Mike Love has told his side of the story and he has with his new book. Love writes about how he was manipulated and cheated out of lyric credits by Murry and Brian and is rather convincing with his side of events.

There are some fascinating stories about Dennis and his situation with the Manson family. His relationship with the Bush/Reagan families does not go into politics but into genuine concern about the planet.

Sure he comes across as a bit of an ego maniac, but he is rather honest about his flaws and I thought less of him as a villain and more of him as a bit of a ass who got screwed by his Uncle. Love and James S. Hirsch have assembled an entertaining and informative read about one of rock music's most misunderstood and controversial members.

As Mary Wells sang, You Beat Me to the Punch

When you do half assed work on a project for years, you cannot be upset when someone else beats you to the publishing press. Such is the case with Claire Prentice, who has recently wrote a book called Miracle at Coney Island: How a Sideshow Doctor Saved Thousands of Babies and Transformed American Medicine.

It's about Martin Couney, the man who saved many, many lives of premature babies by keeping them in infantoriums, an early form of a modern neo-natal unit disguised as a carnival sideshow.

Her research is sound, and it makes some fantastic discoveries about Couney, primarily about his early background (which is still very murky) but also reveals that he never earned any kind of medical degree. A rather amazing accomplishment considering the work he was doing. Prentice does say, correctly, that Couney never administered medication, his techniques and innovations in neo-natal science did not really use it. Plus, although there is no paper trail, he claims to have had a very high success rate at saving lives.

After my son was born premature, I came across Couney through the work of William Silverman a noted neonatalogist, who was one of the first American doctors to do any research into Couney's life. He died in 2004, but Prentice was able to interview one of Silverman's colleagues, but did not give Silverman any credit.

Prentice did find and interview several of Couney's patients (I found one) and gives us a good look at how the infantorium was run. She also mentioned the patients proudly displayed photographs of themselves at the infantorium but the book has no photographs. A missed opportunity to humanize them, and Couney.

Overall it is a slim volume, only available on Kindle, that cracks a few mysteries about the life of Martin Couney save one. I'm still trying to find out what happened to Couney's Daughter Hildegarde, who became one of his nurses. No trace of her seems to exist. I think the paperwork of the Couney estate and infantoriums went with her.