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August 25, 2008
Subtitle Titles (and their subtitles)
I readily admit that I don’t read nearly as much as I’d like to or should. Fortunately, books these days seem to have long subtitles that tell me what the book is about that I don’t need to bother reading the book.
It seems to occur mainly with non-fiction books so, although in the old days you never saw a book such as Oliver Twist: The story of an orphaned British boy and his journey through a cruel childhood of exploitation by the British government charity agencies and a series of street people during Victorian times (or was it Edwardian?), you also don’t see Stephen King’s Misery: The story of a mentally disturbed woman who holds her favorite author hostage after rescuing him from an automobile accident and forces him to revive her favorite character from one of his books. By the way, if you haven’t read the latter book or seen the movie…sorry for the spoiler.
A look through the non-fiction section of a local book store gives us In Justice: Inside the scandal that rocked the Bush administration by David Iglesias.
Okay, that’s pretty simple but the award for the longest title goes to Fleeced: How Barack Obama, media mockery of the terrorist threat, liberals who want to kill talk radio, the do-nothing congress, companies that help Iran and Washington lobbyists for foreign governments are scamming us…and what to do about it by Dick Morris. I’m guessing it took him nearly as long to write the title of the book as the book itself. “Fleeced” could also describe anyone who spends $26.95 to buy this book.
That title length is rivaled by Makers and Takers: Why conservatives work harder, feel happier, have closer families (perhaps referring to many Republican congressmen’s first, second or third marriages), take fewer drugs (I guess he’s excluding Rush Limbaugh), give more generously, value honesty more (for rebuttal, see: White House), are less materialistic (despite the average CEO pay of $14.2 million), whine less (ignore what former congressman Phil Gramm says)…and even hug their children more than liberals (not sure how he’s backing that up with statistics) by Peter Schweizer. The title is much shorter without my commentary.
Let’s take a look at some of the other books currently on the shelves and on the New York Times bestseller list that have either shorter or no subtitles:
There’s Life With My Sister Madonna by Christopher Ciccone. No, Madonna has not become a nun, but is in fact the sister of Christopher Ciccone.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. Hopefully, he talks about something more interesting than the title.
Stori Telling by Tori Spelling. If her writing ability is the equivalent of her acting ability, the title might be the most clever thing about the book.
When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris. This is a collection of essays from the humorist and not a public service manual on what to do during a fire emergency. It is important to know, however…to “stop, drop and roll.”
Certain titles were always pretty self-explanatory and didn’t need a subtitle. Let’s give them one anyway, shall we?
The Dictionary: A collection of words and phrases that explain their proper pronunciation, meaning and spelling for people who are uncertain of the spelling, pronunciation and/or meaning of said words or phrases.
Certainly, the best-selling book of all time doesn’t need a subtitle, but that won’t stop me from adding one.
The Bible: The story of how God created the earth in seven days and of his son Jesus’ death and resurrection for our sins.
While I suppose that atheists would consider this particular book as fiction, this book is really in fact two books: The Old Testament and The New Testament. If you think about it, these books are sort of like the movies The Godfather and The Godfather II. As The Godfather II is Michael’s story, The New Testament is Jesus’ story, although Jesus doesn’t have anybody “whacked.”
Let’s hope the Evangelists don’t get their way for a third book, or The Even Newer Testament in which The Rapture occurs and the world ends. That would be even worse than The Godfather III.
As a writer, I find myself watching authors on C-Span II’s Booknotes on occasion, sometimes out of professional curiosity and sometimes out of a need to find something that will put me to sleep at 3 a.m.
I should definitely spend more time reading but when I can get all the info on books that I need from book reviews, C-Span and subtitles, I really don’t need to read more.
Perhaps I can start working soon on my memoirs. I already have the title picked out: The Other Shoe: a look at one man’s struggle to write funny things and more importantly, fill up space in his hometown newspaper while trying to make sense out of a crazy world.
Posted by dmargarita at 2:04 PM
August 11, 2008
In The News...
In a White House press conference today, President Bush denounced the Russian invasion of Georgia. The president assured the American public, however, that the Atlanta Braves baseball team was in no immediate danger.
A military tribunal convicted Osama bin Laden’s former chauffer, Salim Hamdan, on charges of supporting terrorism. Bin Laden’s former stable cleaner, Hassan bin Sober, is currently awaiting trial on charges of "crimes against humanity."
Former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, Sen. John Edwards, admitted publicly to having an affair in 2006. Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer said today “It looks like I’m not the only one who paid $400 for a trim.”
Posted by dmargarita at 6:10 PM
When The Worst Seat Is Best
There are certain things in this life that I find life-affirming. Among them are: love, mint chocolate chip ice cream…and a Bruce Springsteen concert.
Less then a week after my father’s passing, the Boss came to town to play at Gillette Stadium. I really needed some life-affirming intervention at that point. “Love” wasn’t an option that day and mint chocolate chip ice cream is bad for my cholesterol. As fate would have it, on the day of the show a friend hooked me up with someone looking to unload two tickets for the concert. I had to think that a higher power was at work, whether it was God or my Dad, looking down on me to give me this much needed break. I just have to wonder why He or he had to accompany it with such crappy weather.
I took my sister Mimi to the show and the traffic wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but that might have been because it looked like most of the concert-goers had been there for three hours, drinking beer and grilling burgers.
As we found our seats, we discovered that we were on the complete opposite end of the stadium and those beings that we could make out setting up the stage were barely visible. Luckily for us, we were underneath the upper deck so that if it did rain, we were not going to get wet. The show was scheduled for 7:30 and I was informed that Springsteen normally took an hour after that to start his shows. With skies darkening however, it was clear that they were going to delay the start of the show well beyond that time.
Then thunder erupted, lightening bolts cracked the sky and torrential rains descended upon the stadium. My sister screamed and said “What did you take me to!?” Suddenly, it appeared that having lousy seats was a blessing. The patrons on the field in the “good” seats scrambled for cover. Perhaps they were trying to avoid getting drenched, although that was no longer an issue by that point. More likely, they didn’t want to be standing on the temporary aluminum floor put over the field surface while lightening bolts that would’ve please Dr. Frankenstein appeared repeatedly in spectacular fashion.
At 9:20 p.m., Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band took the stage. Starting with a cover of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” the Boss ran through songs old and new as well as a few other cover songs.
Springsteen frequently went to the front of the stage to sing to/with the crowd, but being so far away, I could only watch the show on the large TV screens on each side of the stage. It was on several shots of the crowd taken from the stage that I could clearly see that a former girlfriend of mine was in the front row. Sure, she got a close glimpse of the Rock icon and maybe got to shake hands with him…but she probably also got soaked.
Springsteen may be 58-years-old, but he is in great shape and puts out more energy that most artists half his age could probably manage during a show. At one point he sprinted across the stage and hit his knees, sliding about 10-12 feet. If Manny Ramirez had put in that kind of effort, he’d probably still be wearing a Red Sox uniform.
Bruce apologized for the late start but made up for it, extending the show past curfew. That was made clear by the folks at Gillette Stadium turning on the lights in a “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here” manner. Springsteen ignored the not-so-subtle hint and played on. At one point he told the crowd “This one’s for ‘The Coach.’ I know he’s out there somewhere.”
While he was certainly referring to New England Patriot’s Coach Bill Belichick, my sister and I wanted to believe that he was talking about Dad.
Since our seats were near the exit and close to Route 1, we were able to get out of there quickly and be home in just over an hour, while those in the “good” seats likely sat in traffic for hours.
That turned out to be just another benefit of having lousy seats.
Posted by dmargarita at 1:55 PM