Today's movie: Win Win, 2011 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)

Why I added it to my queue: Because this is one of many movies coming out on DVD right now these days to have made a lot of critics' best-of lists last year, which is why I'll be taking a look at as many of these movies as I can here during the current awards season. (Coming up next, for example, the indie hit Another Earth, then Terence Malick's Oscar frontrunner The Tree of Life, and then the highly anticipated Drive.)

The reality: Raves Jason Pettus -- "The feel-good tearjerker of the year!" Because man, despite the studio's misguided efforts to promote this as a quirky indie comedy along the lines of Wes Anderson (I mean, c'mon, just look at that poster), this is actually more like a 21st-century Say Anything, in that it's an entire cast of surprisingly likable people whose problems stem from them sincerely all liking each other too much, the conflict coming not from the usual head-on collisions of most three-act stories but rather from the external forces that threaten this happiness. Set in a genteel small town where nearly everyone is experiencing hardship from the Great Recession, the story basically revolves around a lawyer and happy family man (Paul Giamatti) who takes on legal guardianship of one of his elderly clients literally for the extra thousand bucks a month in government money it brings in; this then forces him to deal with the man's teenage grandson when he shows up out of the blue one day, who has just run away from home because of his mom being in drug rehab and him literally having no way to take care of himself. The kind-hearted family takes him in out of a sense of duty, of course; but what surprises everyone (and what the movie's title is mainly referring to) is that the seemingly troubled kid turns out to be a boon to everyone's life simply from being around, a sensitive and funny born leader of his peers who turns out to be so great at the wrestling that Giamatti's character coaches, it quickly becomes clear that he has a good chance of making the state finals and possibly securing a college scholarship, all of which is constantly threatened by the question of when his mother will be getting out of rehab and demanding him back. This then lets director Thomas McCarthy (of the revered cult hit The Station Agent) cleverly examine the ethical question of nature versus nurture, which is yet another bigger theme running through the stories of all the characters; how all these skills this kid turns out to have laid dormant back when he was in an environment that didn't specifically encourage them, or even worse were sometimes cancelled out by acting-out behavior, the cause as well of a heartbreaking scene near the end of the movie that keeps this melodrama just dark enough to be palatable to the NPR crowd. A sentimental yet very smart movie that is surprisingly mainstream and even conservative in its attitude and message, it'll have you rooting by the end not for a specific character but for humanity itself, and it's no surprise that it quietly made so many critics' top-ten lists at the end of last year. It comes strongly recommended.

Worth your time? Absolutely

A Higher Court: One Man's Search for the Truth of God's Existence
The Covert Element: A James Becker Thriller
By John L. Betcher
Self-published

I recently received not just one but two new books from author John L. Betcher, so thought I would do a review of both of them at once too; and this is unfortunately easier to do with A Higher Court, a wispy, extra-silly examination of basic theological questions (and by "basic" I mean "teenage") couched as a literal court trial to determine whether or not God actually exists, the kind of eye-rolling exercise that one would normally expect to find as filler at the end of a church newsletter or an issue of Reader's Digest, a waste of time for most that does not come recommended. But this is a tougher call when it comes to the other book, aptly named The Covert Element: A James Becker Thriller because of it being the third book in the series; for while these kinds of tech-heavy military thrillers featuring a former-military bureaucrat-badass as its reluctant central hero are far from my usual cup of tea, I have to admit that I found this to be no better and no worse than the various Tom Clancy novels I've randomly read over the years as well. And so that means either that this really is as good as Tom Clancy, or that I find both it and Tom Clancy to be not very good at all; so as a compromise I'm giving it a middle-of-the-road score, and encouraging you to instead consult online reviewers with a lot more experience with this genre, if you want a better objective idea of how this stacks up against other military technothrillers.

Out of 10, A Higher Court: 4.9
Out of 10, The Covert Element: 7.5

The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind
By Barbara Strauch
Viking / Penguin

I'm about to turn 43, so I'm particularly interested these days in learning more about how the middle-aged brain works, and especially if there is any proven advice yet about ways to stave off the dementia and Alzheimer's that might come later in life, here now in my forties when I can still do something about it; and now we have this entertaining and informative book, which looks at all the recent developments in this field to show us that just within the last ten years, the scientific world has started profoundly reassessing what it knows about the way the brain actually works. Written as a series of magazine-style profiles of both industry leaders and experimenters, journalist Barbara Strauch shows for example how recent studies have shown that the human body in fact keeps growing new neural cells over the entire course of its life, directly countering the assumption the medical world has had for over a century; that physical exercise is hands-down the number-one way to stimulate brain cells into more and more efficiency; that taking on a challenging new mental activity in one's fifties, like learning a new language, may have an actual physical effect on your chances of getting Alzheimer's; and that our brain literally starts rewiring itself biochemically starting in our early forties, much like going through a second puberty, the negative effects long ago turned into cliches (like the increasing frequency of forgetting names, which actually does have a biological basis), but with this also being the biological cause of a lot of new good things too, most of which we've mistakenly attributed over history to the cultural process of "gaining wisdom" (like being more patient, having the ability to look at the world in a complex new way, and even just a general proclivity for being happier, possibly as a literal chemical response to such typically overwhelming experiences in those years like losing our parents or developing cancer). Not really a quick-fix how-to book, although containing a bit of that kind of advice (for example, fish really does turn out to be "brain food," as do grapes, olive oil, asparagus tips, and many of the other items in the so-called "Mediterranean diet"), this is instead a smart, plain-written look at all the new actual scientific theories being proposed by the medical community these days, neither pollyannish nor cynical but simply presenting the findings for what they are. Balanced and sensible, this is a great read for my fellow middle-agers who are in the mood for a little good news about their rapidly crumbling bodies, and it comes strongly recommended to that particular audience segment.

Out of 10: 9.3

Escaping From Reality Without Really Trying: 40 Years of High Seas Travels and Lowbrow Tales
By Robert Jacoby
Cloud Books

This clever book is a good example of what I perhaps like best about what comes from the world of basement presses; for while it's ostensibly the memoirs of a forty-year career sailor, with just as many salty, amazing stories as you would imagine someone in his position would have, it's actually written as a series of direct transcripts of oral conversations conducted with him, giving the whole thing this very idiom-based, Studs-Turkel-like feel. As such, then, some will naturally tire of its Mametesque clipped rhythm and coarse language; but since basement presses are already targeting a small, niche crowd, they can afford to put out books like these with a very specific audience, a title which its fans (like me) will find flabbergasting and delightful in equal turns. It comes recommended in that spirit.

Out of 10: 8.6

Apologia: A deliberately all-positive critical essay, usually designed to convince others of a specific opinion

Why I Signed 'Get Up Tim' -- An Apologia.

I always love telling the story of how Chicago author Sally Weigel and I met, because to me it shows one of the things I like best about being a small indie organization; because the fact is that Sally first came to my attention because of regularly commenting here at the blog way back when she was seventeen, and sometimes mentioning the blog where she was posting her own story snippets at the time. That eventually led to convincing her to write her first full-length manuscript, which eventually led to the well-received 2009 novella Too Young to Fall Asleep; and then since then she's been a celebrated literature student at DePaul University, getting published at a series of admired literary journals and even spending a summer in Spain studying foreign literature in its native environment.

And it's clear in her latest story collection for CCLaP, Get Up Tim, that Sally has become a profoundly better writer because of these experiences; for while the things I've always liked about her work are still there -- the probing characterization, the surprisingly gleeful embrace of prurience, the yearning to examine the human condition among a wide variety of settings and people -- in her newest work she is really hitting the nail on the head a lot more when it comes to these subjects, much more mature stories that really transport us to those environments a lot more than they have before. After all, this is one of the things I've always liked the most about Sally, is her ability even at a young age to really inhabit characters and places that are sometimes radically different than her own, and I'm pleased to see that college has done nothing but strengthen and hone these skills.

For example, take the title story, about a genial but weak-hearted professor in 1970s Manhattan, coming to grips with both his growing alcoholism and his recent breakup with a closeted Latino boy toy destined to one day marry a good Catholic girl and take over his father's diner, mostly by turning to yoga at a time when it was still considered fairly exotic in the US, flip-flopping between meditation and binge drinking sessions at Bukowskiesque dive bars; in this case, Sally really nails a Postmodernist look and feel to it all, the exact kind of laid-back, character-oriented story that was so popular among this real group of people back then. But then in "Sing You a Tune," she suddenly veers into a very different world, telling a Jennifer-Egan-like tale of a famous middle-aged rock star, slowly having a nervous breakdown in a posh Mexican hotel while being kept in a news blackout by her nervous team of handlers; or for a different take on the music scene, check out the exquisitely done "The Hand Jobs" (my favorite story of the entire book), about a punk teen who quits his band just a year before they accidentally break the Top 40, and whether it's this experience that has led to him becoming a shifty burger-flipping twentysomething anti-villain slacker or whether it's being a shiftless slacker that led to him prematurely quitting the band.

Of course, in a lot of these stories Sally does stick close to the young hipster middle-class crowd that she knows well, and it's here where the astute reader will find some of the most intense pieces of all; check out "The Quiet One" for example, in which a shy teen with a substance-abuse problem contemplates life while on court-ordered community service, or "Gambling," in which Sally cleverly conflates the waiting for an HIV test with the waiting for a college acceptance letter for one particularly snarky, particularly overanalytical high-school senior. Whether it's the homeless drifter of "Flower Punk" or the feminist-friendly but sex-crazed suburban boy of "Sometimes It's Hard to Say," it's when Sally examines her own generation that her writing really shines the most; and despite her well-known wish to break out of the "coming-of-age ghetto" as much as possible, I admit that I'm glad to see so much of her new collection concentrated among her Millennial peers.

Sally is a living example of the type of person I opened CCLaP specifically to support -- young, smart, wise beyond her years, who needs a welcoming environment to help her grow into the master storyteller she will one day be -- and I'm as proud to offer this new book of hers to you as I am of the first one, a short but powerful one-two punch that I encourage you to read in a row, if you've never tackled the 2009 volume. As always, the electronic copy of Get Up Tim is available completely for free if you so choose, so I encourage you to stop by and download a copy right this second.

Hooray! CCLaP's newest original book, the story collection Get Up Tim by Sally Weigel, is now up and live at the Amazon Kindle Store! Those who were going to pay for a copy anyway can skip all the hassle of downloading it and transferring it to their device if they want, by purchasing a copy there for a flat $5 (3 pounds, 4 euros) and having it wirelessly sent straight to their Amazon if they want. Don't forget, in just another couple of weeks the same thing will be able for the first time at the Apple Store as well, for a special new version enhanced specifically for iPads. Anyway, just stop by amzn.to/getuptim to purchase a copy for yourself right now.

By the way, I recently had a chance to finally make Amazon shortcut URLs for all ten of CCLaP's books available there, so just click below to check any of them out, especially all you lucky new Fire owners from this previous Christmas...

amzn.to/reppat
amzn.to/fallasleep
amzn.to/tanzer99problems
amzn.to/lifeaftersleep
amzn.to/saltcreek
amzn.to/amsterdamned
amzn.to/americanwasteland
amzn.to/seenmebook
amzn.to/sodifferentnow
amzn.to/getuptim

Yippee! It's release day for CCLaP's newest original book! And that just happens to be the latest book by local author Sally Weigel, the story collection Get Up Tim, which is now officially ready for your downloading and ordering pleasure. Regular visitors will remember that Sally put out her first book through CCLaP as well, the 2009 youth/war/Radiohead novella Too Young to Fall Asleep, a popular title here at the center which she unbelievably wrote the first draft of when still in high school; and now as she enters her last semester of college, she has this new collection of dense character studies ready to share with all of us, which interestingly jumps from one disparate situation to another in order to study the basic humanity underlying them all -- from a gay professor in '70s New York lamenting his closeted ex-lover, to a sullen teen with a DUI contemplating life during court-ordered community service, a famous middle-aged rock star having a nervous breakdown at a posh Mexican hotel, even such magical-realism tales as the one about the suburban girl who slowly turns into a tree. It's a definite flowering of Sally's talent and scope that you're seeing here in this collection, and fans of her first book are really going to love the more expansive look at humanity she takes in this newest volume.

As always, an electronic copy of the book is being offered on a "pay what you want" basis, with "pay nothing" a perfectly valid option (and in fact the choice that 80 percent of our readers make); it comes in an EPUB version for most mobile devices, MOBI specifically for Amazon Kindles (transfer it to your device via USB cord), and both an American (8.5 x 11) and European (A4) PDF, for printing out to a home laserprinter or reading on your computer screen. (And don't forget that a version at the Amazon Kindle Store will be coming soon as well, to wirelessly purchase for a flat $5; and for the first time, this time we'll also soon be offering a special iOS-enhanced version that will sell at the Apple Store for a flat $5 as well, including fancier graphics, a hyperlinked table of contents, and all the other improvements that come with their new "iBook Author" software.) But for those of you who want a more traditional reading experience, and who wish to own a cool art object at the same time, and who wish to help make up for that 80 percent of the audience who are reading it for free, as always CCLaP is offering a special handmade paper "Hypermodern Edition" as well, US$20 (12 pounds, 16 euros) for recycled paper or $25 for cotton sheets, plus differing costs for shipping depending on where you live; as you can see in the above photo, although some things like the size have stayed the same for the new 2012 series, I'm completely changing the way the covers are made from the old 2011 series, this time now hiring an illustrator to do a new commissioned piece for each title coming this year, then "carrying through" the design from the front cover to the back using hand-drawn gold ink on the black fabric making up the spine. (The illustrator for this title is the great Grace Blevins, which I'm also thinking of turning into some print-on-demand merchandise at CafePress like posters and refrigerator magnets, if there seems to be enough interest. Don't forget, illustrators, I'm looking for three other artists to do various covers coming later this year, so just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com if you'd be interested in one of these paid commissions.)

Then in the meanwhile, we have a new podcast episode featuring a half-hour talk with Sally, all about how school has been treating her and how this new collection came about; and don't forget our usual "Passing the Torch" essay, in which the author of CCLaP's previous book talks about what they like regarding the new one, in this case that being Katherine Scott Nelson of the soon-to-be-Lambda-Award-nominated (fingers crossed) Have You Seen Me. (And yes, I'll soon be posting my own long essay about the book as well, and specifically why I signed the title in the first place.) Don't forget, my fellow members of literary social network Goodreads.com, the book has its own page over there as well; so I especially hope that all of you will have a chance to add it to your library there, and to post a few words about what you thought after you get done reading this short and sweet manuscript. More coming throughout this week, including lots more shots of the paper edition; but for now, I hope you'll have a chance to hop right over to the download page this second and check out the book for yourself. Happy reading!

(On a newer browser or an iPhone? If so, you should be seeing the HTML5 streaming version of this podcast directly above; and if not, I hope you'll take a moment and let me know [cclapcenter {at} gmail.com], as well as what platform/device you're on, and what browser and version you're using.)

It's Monday Tuesday, which means it's time for another episode of the CCLaP Podcast. Today: It's a half-hour talk with local author Sally Weigel, on the occasion of the release of her newest book with the center, the story collection Get Up Tim. Also featuring the music of Coco Bryce/Jon Lemmon and Earlimart. And don't forget, if you download the enhanced MP4 version linked to below and listen on an iPod (or simply subscribe to CCLaP's iTunes channel), chapters and links and images will be at your disposal too!

Links to the things and people mentioned in today's episode:
Sally Weigel
Get Up Tim
Too Young to Fall Asleep
Jonathan Messinger's Hiding Out
Grace Blevins
Coco Bryce / Jon Lemmon
Earlimart

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It's Sally Weigel Day at CCLaP! But of course, even as we're celebrating the release of her new book, Get Up Tim, that means that the previous book by the center will now sadly be entering the dreaded back archives, in this case the runaway coming-of-age novella Have You Seen Me by Katherine Scott Nelson. (But don't feel too bad; Katherine's book has turned out to be the biggest selling title in CCLaP's history, was the first book by the center to get reviewed by Kirkus, and might even be nominated in a few weeks for the prestigious Lambda Award for LGBT literature, so keep your fingers crossed.) As always, to give the book one last hurrah here on the blog's front page before it enters the back catalog, I asked Katherine if ze might give us a few thoughts about Sally's new book; here's what ze had to say.

When Sally Weigel's novella Too Young to Fall Asleep came out in 2009, it was praised for its striking ability to slip inside the inner lives and thoughts of characters whose experience could not be further from the author's own, to the point where several sympathetic readers asked if Weigel had recovered from her injuries in Iraq.

In Get Up Tim, Sally Weigel brings that same luminous, finely tuned prose, artful sense of detail, and naturally authoritative voice to the short story -- and rocks it.

The world these stories inhabit is a cityscape that bleeds into and out of the imagination, where the extraordinary can burst through at any moment. In the title story, a heartbroken college professor revisits the two-year love affair he had with a closeted line cook. A girl watches as her older sister literally sprouts roots and leaves. A precocious kid discovers the Land of What If in the face of a family tragedy. There are no B-side stories in this collection -- they're all hitmakers.

Just a heads-up that the new issue of LITnIMAGE contains a great new comics adaptation by Nathan Holic of Ben Tanzer's story "The Gift," which can be found in the 2008 CCLaP collection Repetition Patterns, for anyone who'd like to take a few moments here on a Friday afternoon and check it out. Don't forget, all of CCLaP's books are released under Creative Commons licenses precisely so adaptations like these can be freely made, as well as things like student films, calligraphy projects, translations into other languages and more. Nice job, Nathan!

Today's movie: 25th Hour, 2002 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)

Why I added it to my queue: Because when this first came out, it was supposed to have been Spike Lee's big comeback film -- based on a well-regarded novel, with a mostly white cast, starring such usually reliable stalwarts as Edward Norton and Philip Seymour Hoffman, shot in New York literally in the aftermath of September 11th -- and I've always been curious as to why it was instead such a huge bomb.

The reality: [Long sigh.] Well, I'll give Lee this, that he's certainly a man of ambition, who always throws himself feet-first into whatever situation he finds himself in; but in the case of 25th Hour, that's simply not enough to save this uneven film, a noble effort to be sure but that like a lot of Lee's other movies, quickly gets lost in Lee's schizophrenic ideas about what exactly he wants to do. Essentially the tale of a genial white drug dealer enjoying his last 24 hours of freedom before heading upstate to serve out a seven-year sentence, the unspoken thought between him and his cohorts is that this might very likely be the last time they all ever see each other, since this pretty-boy was not really made for federal prison and the chances are high that he will either quickly be killed there or quickly commit suicide; and while I bet its shambling, loose style works well in the context of the original novel, where our darkly charming narrator sort of shuffles from place to place and peer-group to peer-group over this last day of freedom, freely jumping between past and present to philosophically reflect on the unspoken greater issues going on around him, this doesn't make for very compelling cinema, leading to a badly paced script that is sometimes too fast, and much more often too slow. Now add the needless and often awkward shoehorning of 9/11 into the adaptation, because of Lee literally setting up this shoot in New York right before those events took place and so including ground-zero footage simply because he could; plus an unwise decision to put too much emphasis on the partying student of one of our hero's childhood friends turned teacher, who accidentally ends up at the same club as the group this last night they're all getting together (a nice chance to show off the then-blossoming hotness of Anna Paquin, but not serving much else of a purpose at all); plus a bizarre reliance from Lee here on just throwing in weird camera shots and the like on a seemingly random basis (and seriously, what's up with that freaky moving platform thingie that Lee keeps using to wordlessly follow his characters in the VIP room as they stare vacantly into the camera?); and you're left with a film with great but unrealized potential, one that accidentally devolves into unintentional laughter in the most inappropriate places (including that ludicrously cartoonish ending). A good choice for Lee purists, but not really anyone else.

Strangest piece of trivia: Norton went to the trouble of wearing an artificial widow's peak throughout this movie, to stay more in character, although writer David Benioff has confessed that he doesn't even remember adding that detail in the original book.

Worth your time? Not really

Today's photo of the day is entitled "sitting nicely for the camera!" and is by Haley Redshaw. Haley doesn't mention anything about herself at her Flickr profile, nor anything about this particular shot, other than that it was accomplished by waving a candy bar in front of both dog and child. Do make sure to stop by her main photostream for a lot more great images.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

Today's movie: Whitechapel, Season 1, 2009 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)

Why I added it to my queue: Because this quickie British crime drama boasts a premise that's hard for Anglophiles like me to pass up: based on the idea of a modern serial killer recreating the crimes of Jack the Ripper, the three-part show uses this as an excuse to do lots of location shooting in this once notorious Victorian slum, showing off its new role as the latest trendy creative-class neighborhood in the city, and site of many of the events of the coming 2012 Olympics.

The reality: Oh, okay, I suppose, although you should definitely not rent this for the lackluster actual story; because for being based on such an original idea, its execution is much more like any random generic episode of Law & Order, and I suspect will not hold a lot of appeal for actual Brits who live in London themselves. But still, for non-locals this is a great look at a rapidly changing neighborhood, which for those who don't know was bombed nearly into rubble during World War Two and then sat dormant for decades, which is why this area of the city seems to be the go-to place now for any of London's new glimmering 21st-century skyscrapers; and to be fair, the script itself will be of interest to Ripperologists as well, as it enfolds the debate over competing theories into the actual plot of catching this particular serial killer. (Depending on which theory the serial killer believes, his last kill will take place in any number of places, so the police must figure out which theory he believes in by examining the subtleties of his previous murders.) Just now finishing up its third season in the UK, this is a not-terrible show the same way that NCIS or Bones is a not-terrible show, and it comes moderately recommended in this specific spirit.

Worth your time? Kinda

Today's photo of the day is untitled and is by James Scott. James is dually based out of London and Zurich, although this particular shot is from the South American city of Buenos Aires. Do make sure to stop by his main photostream for a lot more great images.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

Portnoy's Complaint
By Philip Roth

Regular readers will remember that I'm in the middle of a long-term literary project right now, to read all eleven novels making up Philip Roth's autobiographical "Zuckerman cycle" in order to better understand the Postmodernist Era they discuss, from its start (right around Kennedy's assassination) to its end (9/11); but since so many of at least the early novels in the series concern themselves so directly with Roth's first big mainstream hit, 1969's filthy and funny Portnoy's Complaint, I thought it would be instructive to read that as well, to better understand the way that Roth's life changed because of it. For those who don't know, after an early start as a traditional, academic-style Late Modernist writer who was getting published in The New Yorker in the early '60s, this hilarious look at the sexual dysfunctions inherent in the New York Jewish lifestyle, and its inherent clashes against the prevailing "let it all hang out" countercultural mood, was exactly what mainstream America needed at the exact moment they needed it, just like Woody Allen was providing in cinemas at the same time; and so not only was it a hit with the usual intellectual crowd, but it broke through to become a massive general hit, an eventual Hollywood film, and even a tittering codeword among the culture at large, right at the same time that his fellow young New Yorker author John Updike was doing the same thing with his saucy novel Couples (the very first mainstream book to discuss the topic of suburban wife-swapping, after obscenity laws in the US getting relaxed just a few years earlier).

And to be fair, this is still a dirty, dirty book, with it easy to understand why merely carrying a copy around back then was enough to signal to anyone else that you could "dig it," which much like Woody Allen takes the image of the nebbish, self-deprecatory Jewish city boy and almost accidentally turns it into a new type of nerdy sex symbol, as we follow poor Portnoy's adventures as first an onanistic teen and then a goy-obsessed young man, flailing about in the high-minded hippie atmosphere around him but still managing to have crazy sex on a regular basis anyway. And it's easy to see why so many older Jews got so upset by this book too; because not only does it lay out a lot of the quiet little dysfunctional moments of the Jewish community to a large Christian audience, a direct predecessor to Seinfeld that I've discussed in more depth in my Zuckerman write-ups, but indeed a lot of its humor derives explicitly from all the neurotic hangups that were created among Roth's generation by all their uptight, obsessed-with-appearances, Holocaust-surviving parents, making it not just a funny sex comedy but an astute look at the first generation of Jews to grow up after World War Two, and the clashes that occurred when they first came of age in the countercultural '60s, which I'm sure made it even more of a must-read among the young hipsters of the time. A great, moving, blush-inducing novel that still holds up really well to this day, read it to understand what was getting your parents all squirmy in the years that they were having you.

Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses
By Claire Dederer
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

As part of my regular reading schedule throughout a year, I like to throw in some completely random choices sometimes just to shake things up, sometimes titles that have barely any connection to my own life and that I would normally otherwise never pick up; this book was the latest such random pick, and like a lot of others of this type, I found it okay for what it was, while acknowledging that those it's more designed for will probably like it a lot more than that. A former indie-rocker who still pals around with the founders of Sub Pop, Dederer's late pregnancy and other issues were adding a significant amount of stress to her life in the creative-class bohemian-bourgeoise neighborhoods of North Seattle where she lives; the rest of this book is a look at Dederer's attempts to add yoga to her cynical, black-jeans-wearing life, offering up plenty of comments along the way about her growing sense of "Enlightenment Lite" concerning the transition into motherhood and middle-age. But alas, this is too badly paced to appeal to a big general audience -- for example, the parts that describe the actual yoga positions go on way too long, and the book is filled with the kinds of pointless digressions (a ten-page description of an entire dinner party from start to finish, for example) that feel like they were added specifically to bump up this glorified magazine article into the size of a full-length book -- plus I have to admit, given that one of the main points is for Dederer to dish on her New-Agey-but-secretly-draconian eco-liberal neighbors, there came a point quickly where I started asking over and over why she didn't just, you know, move the f-ck out of North Seattle instead of writing a 300-page story about how much she hates it there. (And of course we all know the answer -- because she proves in this manuscript to be just as hypocritically guilty of this liberal-fascist behavior as all the people she's complaining about, yet another aspect of these types of "It's Everyone Else's Fault But Mine" memoirs that drives me in particular a little crazy.) But still, like I said, I suspect this will appeal more to those who find themselves in similar situations, which is why it's getting a high middle-of-the-road score today instead of the low middle-of-the-road score I usually give such books. It comes recommended in that specific spirit.

Out of 10: 7.9

First Cause: A Novel About Human Possibility
By Paul West
Self-published

It's extremely rare that I will bump up the score of a book here at CCLaP merely for its earnestness, the proverbial "A for effort" that I usually feel is just not deserved; but today is one of the few cases where I'm going to do exactly that, in that I found myself with a lot of respect for what author Paul West is trying to accomplish here, even if he mostly fails in these goals. A sprawling sci-fi epic that has a great New Agey conceit at its core -- that throughout history, a growing proportion of humanity has quietly come to realize the secrets to the next step of evolution, and that this group actually managed to invent space travel in the early 1900s, quietly shuttling off millions of believers to a nearby moon during the World Wars when they wouldn't be missed -- our tale takes place roughly a hundred years later, when some of the advanced quasi-humans decide to touch base again with their Earth relatives, with certain members of this group wanting to see if humans are enlightened enough yet to voluntarily join them, and certain others simply wanting to take the Earth over by force for their own purposes, the resulting chaos being a way to examine the current state of human morality Terence-Malick-style.

But that unfortunately turns out to be the biggest problem with First Cause, that West is not prepared to make the kinds of grandly fascinating statements about humanity that makes a story like this work; his conclusions are instead simply a series of easy cliches, delivered by a collection of sometimes badly cartoonishly cardboard characters, the melodrama so high at points that I kept waiting for a man in a top hat and long mustache to tie a blonde to some railroad tracks and then start singing about how she must pay the rent. Now combine this with way too much of a reliance on expository writing, so that it's more like reading a Wikipedia entry about the events that took place instead of just reading about the events taking place, and you're left with a book that I would normally give a thumbs-down to; but like I said, today I'm adding a bit to the score for sheer earnestness, with West currently having an ambition that's bigger than his writing skills, but with that certainly being better than the opposite situation. It takes quite a bit of forgiveness, but perhaps you'll enjoy First Cause as well for what it's aiming to be, maybe a little more than for what it actually is, and will encourage West to keep at it and turn in the better future work I'm sure he has in him.

Out of 10: 7.0

Today's photo of the day is untitled and is by Jon Hudak. Jon doesn't mention where he's from at his Flickr account, nor any of the details behind this particular shot! Nonetheless, you can stop by his main photostream for a lot more great images.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

Uh-oh! IT'S TIME SOON FOR ANOTHER CCLAP ORIGINAL BOOK! And you know what that means, CCLaP Army, that it's time to start sharpening your blue pencils again; because since I cannot afford the team of proofreaders and other editors that mainstream presses have at their disposal, I instead ask the readers of this blog to help crowd-source the project, basically you getting a chance to read a sneak-preview copy of the book for free in return for letting us know of any mistakes you might find. This particular book is called Get Up Tim and is the new story collection by local author Sally Wiegel, her first book since her admired debut novella about teens, Radiohead, and the Iraq War, 2009's Too Young to Fall Asleep; and it's pretty great, too, I have to say, an expansive collection that among other things looks at a closeted gay middle-aged professor in '70s New York, a famous female rock star in the middle of a nervous breakdown, a sullen teen doing community service to work off a DUI, and even such magical-realism tales as the one about a suburban girl who turns into a tree, and a nine-year-old Chicago kid who is literally transported to a dreamlike alt-universe for a night.

Remember, you do not need to be a particular expert at grammar and the like to be of big help; when it comes to simple mistakes like misplaced commas and misspelled words, it's always the total number of people looking at the manuscript that is the name of the game, not how specifically trained any of these particular people are. (Of course, if your idea of a fun time is to read through random sections of the AP Stylebook, I especially welcome your interest, and you should feel free to make your comments as specific and fussy as you want them to be.) The book officially comes out exactly one week from today, so if you're interested in helping us get it up to a professional standard, drop me a line as soon as you can to cclapcenter [at] gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you!