Review: I'd Like To Apologize To Every Teacher I Ever Had By Tony Danza

First, the title. This thing is Fiona Apple long. I'd Like To Apologize To Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year As A Rookie Teacher At Northeast High. That's like, 19 words. Let's just call it My Bad and move on. You know, the way one of Danza's students tells him her name and he thinks "Oh, I'll just call her Nick." (But Black Nick cause we already have White Nick.) My Bad is kind of awesome. It sidesteps most of the Rich Man Teaching pitfalls to deliver a straightforward look at what standardized testing has done to American's teachers and students. Of course Danza's students need more resources, better home lives and a more supportive system. But Danza doesn't condescend. When he encourages his kids to grab the opportunities they do have he never comes off as above them. Danza speaks to the students and the reader directly, as an imperfect man in an imperfect world.

In doing so he does the teaching memoir a great service. People who would never read a book about schools (unless it had recently been made into an uplifting Oscar film) will read My Bad because Tony Danza wrote it. His celebrity will illustrate that the grades given your child's school are not an indication of the passion or performances within it. His writing style is open and engaging. While nothing in the book is particularly surprising, the journey is pleasant. Danza admits that he struggled greatly with 20% of the average teacher workload and far more resources. He illustrates how the tasks we are asking our teachers to perform are impossible. As well, he doesn't fall for the One Teacher Who Cares myth that many teaching memoirs do. He recognizes that the teachers care. It is our society that does not.

My Bad is imperfect, like the subject it covers. Danza is a product of his times. While he works to keep race out of the book there are times he slips. Faced with a racist parent he blames "the culture" of the other children. A student on a downward slide demonstrates her unhappiness through the "extreme hairstyles" of an afro or cornrows. His good old days are of a certain tiny slice of American life. These things appear to be based more in ignorance than bias, as Danza otherwise presents himself as an open and rational man. Danza admits his imperfections to the reader, often harsher on himself than we would be. As a result he comes across as sincere and charismatic. Working in the story of a failed reality series (the excuse for his year at Northeast) Danza is desperate not to fail his students. He certainly doesn't fail the reader. My Bad is well worth checking out.

Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

This book was sold by it's cover. I had no idea who Mindy Kaling was. I don't watch her show. (I'd heard conversation about Matt & Ben but assumed it was a Tony & Tina's Wedding type thing.) This is a book selling cover. Love the tones, love the pose, love the title, love the composition. (Great design, cover dude. Take a victory jog.)

I found I loved this book. Mindy Kaling is walking a comedy tightrope here - self deprecating without being self pitying, self aggrandizing without coming across as overbold. She's trying too hard in all the right ways. There's a bit of the charmed life to Mindy, but she knows it. There's a lot of the serious work ethic to Mindy and she knows that too, even as she downplays it. A slacker doesn't finish and produce a two woman play much less a serious college degree.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? is part memoir, part humor, part celebrity vanity project but it is completely enjoyable. This is up there with David Niven's Hollywood books. She's not burning any bridges or settling any scores, she's just telling you a few amusing stories over drinks in a stylish lounge. Kaling's stories are so compelling that one drove me to Google. After reading about a People photo shoot (in a land where a size 8 is anything but very slender) I had to see the photo that resulted. If I liked the book with no investment in her career, then this would be a home run gift for fans of The Office: American Edition.  (I seem to be reading quite a few Crown Archtype books lately. Nice job, marketing and acquisition. Get your sneakers out too.)

Books I Cast Aside: Erik Larson And David King

I have read far too many WW2 books. I know about Hitler's dog, Hitler's niece, Churchill's second cousin twice removed and the American position on all of it. I've read things I can never remove from my brain (blocked the title out, white cover, Ukraine, lost village memoir, highly recommended except for ever sleeping again) and things that made me roll my eyes. I get obsessive about certain time periods and WW2 appears to be one. It probably has something to do with the epic death toll on all sides of my family. Anyway. I'm a sucker for a WW2 book. I'm also a sucker for books that contrast different realities. Erik Larson set the benchmark for this style of non-fiction with The Devil In The White City. Now I wish he hadn't.

Too many books since then seem to be walking the same ground in a different field. I currently have a ten book nonfiction backlog due to the bottleneck created by two such books. Despite both of them dealing with WW2, I am moving on. They've kept me from other books for far too long. David King's Death In The City of Light would be an exceptional book if he edited half of it out. It's daily life in occupied France, it's a serial killer preying on desperate Jewish refugees, it's a police procedural, it's an exhaustive look at an investigation. Unfortunately it's also about Camus, Sartre, Picasso and their crowd. It's just too much. Our party people add nothing to the narrative and it's exhaustive detail is not well served by the breaks the reader takes to discover Simone was moody. I want to finish this book so much that I just started skipping all the sections with the artists. It was still overloaded. King has a fantastic book in here, but it's not the one that went to press. People with more patience for info dumps and backtracking expository will adore it. I'm shelving it for that rainy day where excessive ruminations appeal.

The other log in my book jam is Erik Larson himself. A look at the society and diplomacy around pre Pearl Harbor Germany? Well hell yea! Except it's boring. Don't get the wrong, the political stuff is interesting, the man on the street stuff is interesting, but the subtext of Martha Dodd is troubling. Every attempt is made to portray her fairly and sympathetically. Which is sort of a problem. She would be all over TMZ if she were alive today. A woman who parties with the German government, considers dating Hitler and goes on to end her days as an expatriate? Wanted in America for spying on behalf of the Soviets, not wanted by the Soviets, she let her high ideals (such as they were) lead her to a fairly unpleasant life. Judgement was never Martha's strong suit be it politics or men. If I had approached this book as a look at Martha, perhaps I would enjoy it more. If I hadn't tried to read it at the same time as Death In The City of Light I might be raving about it now.  It too is being shelved for a rainy day where I feel more tolerant of her foibles, less annoyed at her willful indulgences. After all, this is probably seconds away from becoming a Tom Hanks film.

Review: Everybody Loves Our Town by Mark Yarm

Of course it's Kurt. It's still a great cover. Kurt turning away from the adulation he has sought says everything you need to say about him. Even the audience seems uncertain about their evening. Are we enjoying ourselves? Is it okay to enjoy ourselves?

Once, quite a few years ago, I was sitting in a bar attached to a small nightclub waiting for a show to start. I can't remember who was playing. After a while, it blurs together like a merry-go-round with a few bright moments standing out. So we're waiting for this band and a big screen is playing music videos. (It's what they did, once upon a time.) I'm in Connecticut with a girl from Indiana. I don't know why she's there. She hates concerts, music and those who play instruments. (I know she arrived suddenly and in some emotional distress so I assume I already had the tickets and just took her along instead of leaving her in my apartment with my razor blades. Go with it.) There we are, two friends. A Blind Melon video comes on and we both sigh. I say (truthfully) that I saw Hoon play shortly before he died and it's a damn shame. She says she didn't know I was a fan of Shannon Hoon. She wishes she'd known. We could have gotten together.

At this point I have known this girl close to a decade but we don't discuss music. She tells me she and Shannon grew up together. The Very Bad Things that happened in her life happened while she was in that scene. (None of it involved him.) Her brother worked for Axl Rose's parents. She was in the center of a number of music circles and I had known her for years without knowing a thing about it. The rest of the evening was a fascinating conversation we never repeated. None of it mattered to her. These were the people she knew and the things they did. It was exactly the same as the people I know and the things they've done. Why would I mention any of it? Who cares?

This is the brilliance of an oral history, when well done. Everybody Loves Our Town is exceptionally well done. If you've read this far and wondered why I told you about one night in a bar in the 90's, then it won't be the book for you. If you're wondering what she said to me, what I said to her, you will adore Everybody Loves Our Town as much as I did. This is the definitive history of a time and a place that affected a generation of young adults. (Stuck in a small town after growing up in a big city, it was Andrew Wood's voice that reminded me escape was possible. He was already dead.) Hearing the participants tell their story in all it's overlapping contradictory nature is like that bar conversation in the 90's. Free from music theory, free from obvious editorial direction, Mark Yarm lets the reader sit back and enjoy the conversation.

Starting when everyone is young and stupid (as we were all once) and moving through the Very Bad Things that always happen (when you go from young and stupid to slightly older and not much brighter) and then to the bright morning of After (where you realize you grew up somehow), Yarm tells the story of a specific scene with universal meaning. As close as you can come to a bar conversation with each of the participants, Yarm's oral history has all the power of Patti Smith's Just Kids. I hope it does just as well in the market. I recommend pairing this book with a basic knowledge of the Seattle sound and a viewing of Pearl Jam: Twenty. It will remind you your youth was never misspent, it was squandered on things you still love. (And if we're ever in a bar I might tell you my Kurt Cobain story, but I'm afraid the Shannon & Axl stuff isn't mine to reveal.)

Review: Notes From The Night by Taylor Plimpton

Amazon asked me if I wanted to review this book through their Vine program.

Well, they didn't exactly ask me. 

Ok, it was more like they lined a bunch of books up against the wall and let me take a look at them to see if anyone caught my fancy. I know, it makes us both feel cheap. (In fact, it makes them feel free since I receive an advance read copy in exchange for a review.) The blurbs were fantastic - read this one and tell me what you think!

"This clear-eyed, touching, irresistible account belongs somewhere in with Kerouac, Jay McInerney, and J.D. Salinger."

—JAMES SALTER 

Right? After I got over McInerney being bookended by Salinger and Kerouac, I gave Notes From The Night (A Life After Dark) a closer look. Then something shiny caught my attention and I forgot all about it. I'm like that. Amazon asked me again. Was I sure I didn't want any of these fine fellows they had for my consideration? I took another look. It had one lonely review, and that review assured me the book was a waste of time, profanity laden filth, and worse than a romance novel. 

Profanity laden romantic filth? I'll take three! 

I should sue. Not only did Taylor Plimpton fail to waste my time, at no point was I deceived into thinking I was reading a romance novel. Human relationships in all their complexity were absolutely present, but no one had a secret baby. Nor is he a Greek Shipping Magnate or a Billionaire Boss. He's not even minor English nobility! As far as the cursing goes - I have to honest with you here. I use more profanity placing my lunch order than Plimpton used in the entire book. Instead of what I was promised, there was a beautiful ode to the New York Club Scene and the people who populate it. Plimpton goes out much too late much too often with his friend Zoo, where they stand amidst the beautiful people and wait.  Check out this blurb.

"Plimpton has perfectly captured the elusive something that makes the nocturnal animals slide through the bright lights and dark alleys in search of the moment where everything falls perfectly into place and we belong. The moment where the too tight jacket loosens, the too loud crowd softens, where the feeling of the evening picks you up and takes you somewhere you can't go alone. You're a surfer and the evening is the perfect wave." - Me

It's so good I forgave the use of wife material as a descriptive phrase. I like it. You should too.