3/15/20 review of the film The Secret Life of Bees, directed by Gina Prince-Blythewood

Here is the link to my March 15, 2020, Twitter thread review of the film The Secret Life of Bees, directed by Gina Prince-Blythewood.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

2/29/20 review of the film Medicine for Melancholy, directed by Barry Jenkins

Here is the link to my February 29, 2020, Twitter thread review of the film Medicine for Melancholy, directed by Barry Jenkins.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

2/26/20 review of the Spike Lee joint Crooklyn

Here is the link to my February 26, 2020, Twitter thread review of the Spike Lee joint Crooklyn.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

1/31/20 review of the book We Were Eight Years in Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Here is the link to my January 31, 2020, Twitter thread review of the book We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

1/28/20 review of the play Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare

Here is the link to my January 28, 2020, Twitter thread review of the play Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

9/16/19 review of the book One Nation Under God, by Kevin M. Kruse

Here is the link to my September 16, 2019, Twitter thread review of the book One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, by Kevin M. Kruse.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

9/14/19 review of the book Fault Lines, by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer

Here is the link to my September 14, 2019, Twitter thread review of the book Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974, by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

 

7/25/19 review of the novel Tipping the Velvet, by Sarah Waters

Here is the link to my July 25, 2019, Twitter thread review of the novel Tipping the Velvet, by Sarah Waters.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

7/19/19 review of the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Here is the link to my July 19, 2019, Twitter thread review of the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, and illustrated by Ellen Forney.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

7/8/19 review of the novel Nana, by Émile Zola

Here is the link to my July 8, 2019, Twitter thread review of the novel Nana, by Émile Zola and translated by Douglas Parmée.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

4/28/19 review of the novel Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself, by Judy Blume

Here is the link to my April 28, 2019, Twitter thread review of the novel Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself, by Judy Blume.

Twitter's platform has twisted each of my threads through 2018 and 2019 out of chronological order. This thread is affected, but is still moderately coherent. My apologies.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

12/12/18 discussion of how I used the library to research for my fanfiction

Here is the link to my December 12, 2018, Twitter thread discussion about how I used Colorado's Jefferson County Public Library to do a lot of the research for my 2018 fanfiction Paranoia Gotham.

Twitter's platform has twisted each of my threads through 2018 and 2019 out of chronological order. This thread is affected, but is still mostly coherent. My apologies.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

1/15/17 review of American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the book American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell, by Deborah Solomon.

The thread gives some background on the book, Norman Rockwell, my experience with Rockwell's work, and how Rockwell's work has influenced my own work. The thread discusses Solomon's ideas about Rockwell's artistic intentions and relation to commercial art; the psychology and sexuality or Rockwell's work; the social aspects of Rockwell's work. It also discusses some Rockwell paintings that surprised me in Solomon's book.

Here is the link to Macmillan's web page for American Mirror.

I checked this book out from the Jefferson County Public Library in Colorado.

10/28/14 review of novel Lost Pueblo, by Zane Grey

(Image: Biblio.com)

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the Zane Grey novel Lost Pueblo.

The review gives a summary of the story. It discusses why I like Zane Grey in general. It talks about how the relationship drives the suspense of the story. I discuss why I like the character of Janey. I also mention some sexy moments in the story. And I compare the novel to Taming of the Shrew.

I checked this book out from the Jefferson County Public Library system in Colorado.

5/26/14 review of book Pinball: The Lure of the Silver Ball

(Image: Amazon)

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the book Pinball: The Lure of the Silver Ball, by Gary Flower and Bill Kurtz.

My Twitter review discusses how I like the comprehensive story the book tells of pinball's development. It discusses why I like designers like Greg Kmiec and Steve Ritchie and artists like Dave Christensen. And I mention some of the stories, innovations, and games that Pinball describes very well.

It looks like you can find this book on Amazaon. But it doesn't look like new copies are in print.

I would probably guess I checked this book out from the Jefferson County Public Library system in Colorado.

1/19/13 review of the book The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry

(Image: Amazon)

Here is my January 19, 2013, review of the book The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry, by Kenneth Bilby.

Unlike my later Twitter reviews, I did not post this all in one thread. Instead, I posted each tweet separately.

The tweets are below for your convenience.

***

Tweet 1. Finished reading The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry, by Kenneth Bilby.

T2. Sarnoff interested me as a character after I'd read Tube: The Invention of Television. T3. In Tube RCA's success in TV seemed to me to be the result of David Sarnoff, the businessman, and Vladimir Zworykin, the inventor, as a team. T4. I was eager to learn what kind of businessman Sarnoff was. So I checked out The General from @JCPL.

T5. Sarnoff was part inventor. His mentor was Marconi. His development as a businessman was furthered by Owen Young, more of a statesman.

T6. Sarnoff's career epochs are in my opinion political and inventive epochs: spotting, developing, and standardizing innovations. T7. The ability Sarnoff had to guide his company up through the color TV years had to do with his willingness to partake devoutly in politics. T8. But the dynamic of Sarnoff versus inventors is often portrayed as one of a David versus a Goliath i.e. with Farnsworth, Armstrong, etc.

T9. And obviously the RCA/GE/Westinghouse patent pool battle versus indie radio makers would be spurned by many contemporary anti-patent people. T10. The battle of RCA v AT&T over radio stations was a Goliath (as David) versus Goliath battle on principles similar to the indie radio battle. T11. But AT&T cornered the radio market through advertising. RCA's Sarnoff wasn't an advertiser but a merchandiser. He hated advertising.

T12. Sarnoff ran his RCA as a means for the development of widespread, standardized technology, but with the heart of a flamboyant inventor.

T13. The greatest relationship in the book is between Sarnoff and Bill Paley of CBS. The innovative merchandiser v the programming advertiser. T14. Sarnoff's oligopolist match, Paley remained friend & rival of Sarnoff from the talent raids of radio through to Sarnoff's final days.

T15. Sarnoff's RCA was a company of men, not charts, in an era where corporations were becoming entities of their own. T16. RCA fought for individuation but became an entity as a human-like hybrid. Naturally it'd be re-engulfed by GE, a less hybrid corporation.

***

I should mention I checked this book out from the Jefferson County Public Library system in Colorado.

1/5/13 review of The House in Good Taste, by Elsie de Wolfe

(Image: Rizzoli New York)

Here is my January 5, 2013 Twitter review of The House in Good Taste, by Elsie de Wolfe.

Unlike my later Twitter reviews, this was not posted all in one thread. Instead, I posted each tweet separately.

The tweets are below for your convenience.

***

Tweet 1. Finished reading Elsie de Wolfe's The House in Good Taste. The classic work of high-class interior design for those not fabulously wealthy. T2. For such a short book, of which I understood so little, de Wolfe's House in Good Taste was greatly inspiring to me and gave me many ideas.

T3. For de Wolfe, each room entails a balance between the social and personal, the reserved and intimate, and is designed/decorated accordingly. T4. The House in Good Taste is at least partly in the tradition of Thoreau's diary, van Gogh's letters, and Goethe's Theory of Color.

T5. The House in Good Taste is built on three formulae. Number one: suitability, simplicity, and proportion. T6. The House in Good Taste, formula two: light, air, and comfort. T7. The House in Good Taste, formula three: harmony of purpose and harmony of effect.

T8. The House in Good Taste moves through the various rooms of a large house, exploring their purpose, and matching purpose with decoration.

T9. De Wolfe includes a chapter on the apartment, which has often been ridiculed as ignorant of real working-class families with children. T10. But  de Wolfe's chapter on apartments is really aimed at young professionals, or at roomie/companion couples, kind of like Barbie houses. T11. The best part of the apartment chapter is de Wolfe's recognition of modern living rooms as multi-purpose, expressing interests/occupations.

T12. A great thing in The House in Good Taste is de Wolfe's history of Isabella d'Este and Madame de Rambouillet.

T13. But the real star of The House in Good Taste is -- color! Creams, blues, greys, greens, rose, in so many shades! Close to 50 shades, I bet. T14. My favorite is de Wolfe's gentian blue, rose pink, and buff. It's a variation of red, white, and blue. Eat your heart out, Jasper Johns!

T15. Just wanted also to say that the edition of The House in Good Taste I read was published by @Rizzoli_Books. A very lovely printing, overall.

***

Here is the link to the Rizzoli edition of The House in Good Taste.

I should mention that I checked this book out from the Jefferson County Public Library system in Colorado.

12/30/12 review of films Berserk!, Carousel, and Lola Montes

Here is my Twitter review of three movies: Berserk!, Carousel, and Lola Montes.

This is one of my earlier Twitter reviews. I did it on December 30, 2012.

Unlike most of my Twitter reviews, I did not post it in a thread. Instead, I posted each tweet separately.

The tweets are copied below for your convenience. As a note, I corrected a few misspellings of "Montes" I'd made on Twitter.

***

Tweet 1. Good weekend for movies. Watched Berserk!, with Joan Crawford, Rogers and Hammerstein's Carousel, and Max Ophuls' Lola Montes.

T2. Interesting similarity between Carousel and Lola Montes. Both films are about characters who look back on their lives. T3. In Carousel, the main character has died and is in heaven. In Lola Montes, the main character relives her life as a circus act every night. T4. But Carousel is more of an Our Town meets noir story, while Lola Montes is more like the story of a self-made society woman.

T5. The plots of both films are broad, though Carousel is breezier and more flowing, while Lola Montes is more ornate and formalized. T6. Carousel has that anti-Orphic theme of a dead man coming back to visit his living woman. But Lola Montes drops from heaven and survives.

T7. Berserk! and Lola Montes both involve a plot element of performers risking their lives at great heights. So does Carousel, kind of.

T8. Berserk! shows life in the trailer homes of circus stars. Lola Montes gives views of sumptuous chaises, including that of Franz Liszt.

T9. One feels all the time while watching Berserk! that one is watching Joan Crawford as an absurd society woman, not a ring leader. T10. Absurd is the key word for Berserk! I love the comic-book-like absurdity.

T11. For Carousel, I love the dresses, the petticoats, the blue sky and cherry blossoms, and the fantastic pas de deux near the end.

T12. For Lola Montes I love almost everything. Some mise en scene seems way ahead of its time. The jump scene anticipates Blade Runner, I think.

***

I am pretty sure I checked all these movies out from the Jefferson County Public Library system.

11/24/12 review of Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

Here is my one of my earlier Twitter thread reviews. This is a review of the Agatha Christie mystery novel Cat Among the Pigeons.

I did this review on November 24, 2012.

Unlike many of my Twitter reviews, I did not post all the tweets in one thread. Instead, I posted them separately.

I have reproduced the tweets in this blog for easier reading.

T1. Finished reading Cat among the Pigeons, by Agatha Christie. The mystery of multiple murders at an elite girls' school.

T2. Cat Among the Pigeons is an interesting mix of the "who's after the jewels" motif with the "who wants the glory of succession" motif.

T3. Cat Among the Pigeons also seems to have interesting undercurrents having to do with the rites of passage from girlhood to womanhood.

T4. But the most interesting theme of Cat Among the Pigeons is that of the effects of an increasingly interwoven world on traditional Europe.

I'm pretty sure, not totally sure, that I checked this book out from the Jefferson County Public Library system in Colorado.

Here is the link to the Agatha Christie website page for Cat Among the Pigeons.

11/6/2012 review of book The Power of Style

This is my Twitter thread review of the book The Power of Style, by Annette Tapert and Diana Edkins.

I wrote this review on November 6, 2012.

Unlike many of my Twitter reviews, this was not written in thread form. Instead, I posted each thread in the review separately.

So I have reproduced each tweet into this blog post for easier reading.

T1. Finished reading The Power of Style, by Annette Tapert and Diana Edkins. The stories of fourteen fashionable women.

T2. Women from Power of Style who most interested me were Elsie de Wolfe, Diana Vreeland, Millicent Rogers, and Pauline de Rothschild.

T3. Also interesting to see how people like Cecil Beaton, Mainboucher, and Elsa Schiaparelli are part of the life stories in The Power of Style.

T4. Elsie de Wolfe was my favorite in The Power of Style. A career arc from actress/hostess to world-renowned interior designer -- and inventor!

I checked this book out from the Jefferson County Public Library system in Colorado.