We've moved

Grinwout's content is now located at Coachean Life. Same great flavor, great new address.
.

Nero Wolfe

Like any serious reader, when I find an author I really really like, I read everything that author has written. This is sort of like a love affair between author and reader. The author gives you as much as you want; the casual date takes a kiss and moves on, while the serious lover takes it all, sometimes even repeating a book when once isn't enough. This is not casually liking an author, or even loving a particular book. This is absorbing everything until there is nothing left. For most readers, this doesn't happen very often, just as with lovers in real life it doesn't happen very often. Who has the energy? But every now and then...

I've read a lot of mysteries, and enjoy a lot of mystery authors, and have even read the full works of some of them like Hammett or Chandler. But none have been such feverish affairs as the one I have had with Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe. I remember my first Wolfe novel, The Doorbell Rang. It comes in the middle somewhere of Stout's total output (48 Wolfe books altogether), but that doesn't really matter, because the first thing you notice about the series is that you can pretty much start anywhere. Most mystery authors nowadays, if you don't read their books in the order in which they were written, you're lost: they're one giant epic in serial parts, rather than stand-alone installments. This may be fine for committed fans, but it's murder on newbies who may pick up the latest and be immediately lost. You're never lost with Nero Wolfe, though. Still, there are occasional plot developments from novel to novel, and it doesn't hurt when you get serious to read them in order. But to start, pick any one at random. Then go back and do the rest. In other words, a real easy buy-in.

The novels are narrated by Wolfe's amanuensis, Archie Goodwin, and as Annabelle Mortensen points out in The Genius of West 35th Street, he is the perfect foil to his boss. Archie is hardboiled, while Wolfe is drawing room. They are from completely different traditions in mystery writing, yet they blend perfectly, and as some would have it, uniquely. No one else ever pulled off this mix like Stout. What you learn early on in any of the stories is that Wolfe has very specific rules about how he spends his time and where. One of the real joys of the series is seeing if those rules will broken. They often are, but they still remain as rules. Stout pulls this off beautifully.

If you don't know the Nero Wolfe books, I would recommend that, first, you read one. As I said, any one. Then take a look at Mortensen's fine article, to give yourself a sense of where these books fit in the genre. Then read the rest of them. Just to keep in with the spirit of things, I'm immediately going to put Fer-de-Lance on my Kindle. I need to read this book again real soon. It's been a couple of years since my last Wolfe. I need to rejoin the pack.
.

Hello. My name is John. I'll be your hitchhiker this evening.

The idea that you would be driving along and would see John Waters with his thumb out on the highway was, shall we say, a little bizarre, except with John Waters, calling something bizarre requires a lot of thought beforehand. But there he was, hitching away, and one of the cars that picked him up was carrying a bunch of indy rock musicians, and the rest is history. And also fodder, apparently, for an upcoming book.

That's the thing. Waters is a writer, and a good one. His Role Models is undownputtable, and rather undescribable aside from saying that it is, indeed, about some of his role models. It was the first book I bought for my iPad: a baptism of trash, you might say, provided that you are the sort of person who values trash.

Waters is also a talker, and in addition to recommending his book, I recommend his film John Waters: This Filthy World. It's just Waters talking, and he's a great raconteur as he talks about his filmmaking roots. And of course, he is a filmmaker, with varying results. You've probably seen Hairspray (not the musical); if not, do so now. Or Cry-Baby, with Johnny Depp. Neither is for adults only, if that's a concern. They're certainly his most accessible works.

You're on your own after that.

BigThink.com has a bunch of Waters videos (and a lot of other people as well). I picked the two below as representative. Watch them, and then ask yourself, if you saw Waters hitchhiking, would you pick him up? I would, in an instant.




.

The greatest fashion show ever

In photographs, the Pantheon seems toweringly prepossessing. In fact, it is squeezed into a busy Roman street, or more to the point, a busy Roman street has sprung up around it, and this building that should be on a majestic hill is just plopped down in what is now the middle of the city. I point this out because it was on my way to visit the Pantheon that I first consciously realized that priests have to buy clothes too. And bishops and cardinals and nuns (oh my!). In a small but smartly appointed shop directly behind the Pantheon is a store where, presumably, the church elite does its shopping. There were miters and crosiers and chasubles all bejeweled and shiny in the window, fancier than anything else you might see in this fanciest of dressy cities. It was reading this article that brought it back to me, and then I remembered Fellini's Roma and the scene below, which simply is one of the most amazing pieces of film he ever shot, which is saying a lot. It's also the most amazing fashion show ever imagined, by any measure. Alexander McQueen had nothing on this.


.

Today's science videos: Nao

If you were looking for a personal robot, we've got one for you. They're about $15000, but there is a discount if you purchase in bulk.

We were originally intrigued by this first video, where each dancing Nao (pronounced "now") is responding to a central computer. This article explains how; it's something called quorum sensing, which is how many bacteria coordinate. (You learn something every day.)



After watching this, via Mental Floss, I got curious about these little suckers, and went to the Nao website. This is their promotional video:



Apparently it does not come with rocket launchers to get revenge on the dolt who knocked it over without so much as a "Pardonnez-moi." I would suggest such weaponry as a future enhancement.

There are other videos out there on various versions of Nao and the different things it can do. After watching them, all you'll need to do to get one for yourself is to dig up that spare $15000.
.

Italian Spiderman

In honor of The Avengers taking over the number 3 slot on the list of all-time money-earners, we present a film, in its entirety, that is not on that list. [Via Dangerous Minds]


.

And then there's the Beach Boys

They're in the middle of their 50th anniversary tour. Unlike the Beatles, they didn't change music. Their role in the popular culture was to capture the California sun, surfer girls, and Thunderbirds in a musical simulacrum of adolescent angst that absolutely did that job, turning everyone who listened to it, gender notwithstanding, into a sixteen-year-old boy at the edge of beach almost having a girlfriend. In reality, the girls on the beach only seem to be within reach...

The music itself is a number of things, but most of all it's Brian Wilson. To call Wilson a genius is easy: he's the one who put all that stuff together, first in his head, then in the studio. But he didn't have an easy go of it. Brian Wilson may be a lot of things, but a quintessential beach boy isn't one of them. His mental sufferings have not made his life a particularly happy one, except, it seems, when he's doing the music. He hears voices, and doesn't want to. Sometimes it's been crippling, but now he's back on stage with the remaining Beach Boys and a big backup ensemble, and they have a new record coming out tomorrow that I have previewed and have no choice but to purchase immediately. Then again, I've bought every Brian solo album over all those years, the good and the bad, and some of them occasionally take off where only Brian can go.

The Beach Boys’ Crazy Summer is the best thing I've read on the reconstituted Beach Boys, and Brian, and the history of the group. At this very moment I'm listening to "Surf's Up" from Brian's solo reconstituted "Smile" album.

I've got to find a video!

poke poke poke

This one will do. Brian is looking awfully good on stage here. Not the Boys, but it does the job.



The Beach Boys are hitting their 70s. No, they're not boys anymore, by any stretch of the imagination. But music is still music, and we can only hope that there's more good music to come.
.