Sometimes the Review is Better than the Book...

From Leon Wieselter's review of Martin Amis' "The Second Plane", NYT Book Review 4/27/08

-He [Amis] writes as if he, with his wrinkled copies of Bernard Lewis and Philip Larkin, is what stands between us and the restoration of the caliphate. He is not only outraged by Sept. 11, he is also excited by it. "If Sept. 11 had to happen, then I am not at all sorry that it happened in my lifetime." Don't you see? It no longer matters that we missed the Spanish Civil War.

-In Amis's account, the Islamist terrorists are guilty not only of slaughtering people. They are guilty also of proliferating "cliches" and "inherited and unexamined formulations" -- and in this respect they are "like all religions," which were exposed as "fossilizations of dead prose and dead thought," were they not, by "one of the greatest novels ever written, 'Ulysses.'" Why can't they just read "Ulysses"?

-Pity the writer who wants to be Bellow but is only Mailer

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/books/review/Wieseltier-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=the+catastrophist&st=nyt&oref=slogin

Today's good stuff stolen from dailykos.com because I never have any original material so I have to steal everything...

Looking for "Tough, fair, relevant, and appropriate" questions
by BarbinMD
Fri Apr 18, 2008 at 04:18:56 PM PDT
Appearing Sunday on This Week With George Stephanopoulos is Senator Straight Talk McCain, and now that Stephanopoulos has set the bar for what constitutes tough and relevant questions for a candidate for the presidency:

If you look at the fall campaign, there are some clear signals from Senator Obama's opponents that all of these issues are going to be put together in a general argument.
...we can of course assume that McCain will be held to that same journalistic standard. After all, according to Stephanopoulas, we're not looking for "who will be the best president, but who has the best chance of winning." And in that spirit, here are a just a few questions that might help the American people judge McCain's "credibility and honesty."

Senator McCain, some have suggested that you take on Mike Huckabee as your running mate to offset the mistrust many Christian voters have of you given your support of stem cell research, which as you know, they consider to be murder. So my question to you is, will you ask Mr. Huckabee to join your ticket and can you explain why destroying unborn children isn't murder? After all, this viewpoint can be found on the internet.

It has been widely reported that you told Senator John Cornyn to "fuck off." Given your famous and self-admitted temper, should the American people be concerned that you may use the same sort of language to world leaders?

Let's move on to religion. You have "proudly" accepted the endorsements of Reverend John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Do believe and accept their belief that the Catholic Church conspired with Hitler to exterminate Jews, that Hurricane Katrina was a righteous punishment from God for the sins of New Orleans, and that a part of our American destiny is to destroy the false religion of Islam? If not, why haven't you publicly disassociated yourself from these remarks?
Keeping on religion for another moment; 20 years ago you began attending a Baptist Church, yet you refused to be baptized into that church. Why?

Do you believe that commiting adultery should disqualify someone to be the President of the United States? Why or why not?

It's been noted that you don't wear an American flag on your lapel. Do you believe that wearing one proves ones patriotism and conversely, does not wearing one mean that you don't love your country? In other words, is this an issue that the American people should be concerned about?

Now of course these questions may seen petty and trivial, and there are many real issues that McCain could be asked about, but hey, Stephanopoulos will only have about 44 minutes to uncover who will be the best candidate in November so there won't be time for pesky issues like health care, the economy, gasoline prices, and so on. But if he can squeeze in 30 seconds to talk about Iraq, maybe George can ask exactly how long McCain is willing to let Americans be attacked and killed in Iraq. Right now we only know that it's less than 100 years. Inquiring minds want to know.

Leave your suggestions for other "tough, fair, relevant, and appropriate" questions for George to ask McCain in the comments.

Update on THAT Restaurant

I'm occasionally asked what is going on with the Stinson Beach Grill. My knowledge of same is restricted to hearsay and rumours (good stuff!), but what I really have enjoyed are the online reviews:

Tony S.
Chicago, IL
3 star rating
04/07/2008
This place was OK for Lunch but I don't know why we had two courses, I must speak to my other half about this. I mean its lunch one course is sufficient and our starter was awful.I had a calamari but it was one of those calamaris that aren’t really fully battered. There were bits of batter or covering on most of the calamari and it was very greasy, tepid and bland. I am not quyite sure why I ate it.I completely forget what I had for an entree.It was nice to sit outside but the outside is pretty ropey. They need to spend some money putting in a decent deck and clean the chairs please. They had loads of these white plastic chairs which is fine but most of them had ground in dirt from many years I think. Someone really needs to smarten the outside up as it really is in need of some TLC.It looks nice enough on the outside, and the inside looked nice enough too. Service was OK although my partner’s bacon and avocado salad arrived with no avocado. We eventually got the servers attention she said oh then vanished never to be seen again until the end of the meal. She took $2 off for no avocado.underwhelming, I wouldn't go back but I have been to far worse places.

Michael W.
Pleasant Hill, CA
1 star rating
04/13/2008
If I could give negative stars, I would...We went there last Saturday, one of the first amazingly wonderful summer / spring days at Stinson beach left us very happy, mellow and to some degree hungry, looking for some food. Stinson Beach Grill seemed like a good choice since it was right there, they had heat lamps on the patio, and a small live jazz trio that was truly wonderful. Unfortunately the staff was not up to the task. It started with us being in line for being seated for 20 minutes - not because there were no open tables, but just because they did not make it a priority. Once we were seated got a waiters attention to order, we thought everything was on track. We were enjoying the music, and after a while noticed that the family next to us had bread+butter. We asked how they got it and they said they had to go and beg for it at the kitchen door. So my wife did the same and after a while came back with bread and butter. It was getting colder and no food was coming. We tried to get a waiters attention to maybe turn on the heatlamps but at that point the waiters where avoiding people’s eyes. Some guests got up and tried to put on the heatlamps themselves. My wife was joking that this must be a do-it-yourself-kind-of-place. It got worse from there. Some more outspoken (to put it nice) people at the next table where starting to demand their food, having waited more than half an hour, using strong language, and the waiter told them to get the f*** out of his restaurant but pay up for what they got so far first. So they started yelling and cussing at each other, pulling whatever stereotype they could, calling the waiter a nazi simply because of his bald top head - never mind the beard that gave him more of a cowboy/harley look, but I guess it gave them a simpler aim to look at him that way. The family next to us decided to leave because the kitchen apparently forgot about the food for the children and had only prepared the adults food, and seemed to get increasingly uncomfortable with the tension. We finally also told them that we are going to leave (waiting almost two hours by then) and the waiter seriously wanted to charge us the $2.11 for the milk he brought in the beginning. My wife had already gotten the go ahead from the manager to leave without paying and so we did. When we left a fireman showed up and asked about the shouting, and we told them it was the waiters yelling at rightfully unhappy customers - which he did not seem to be too surprised about.I agree with Angie R.'s review of the staff, I have the very same impression. What a miserable place.

Angie R.
San Francisco, CA
2 star rating
03/03/2008
I think that the Stinson Beach Grill pulled their floor staff out of a halfway house. Either that or life in Stinson Beach is incredibly rough on the locals. I haven't seen such a collection of sunken cheekbones, broken blood vessels and abnormally slow reaction time in one place since I worked down at 6th and Mission. I suppose you can surmise by now that the service we received was not good. We must have waited 15 minutes to get water, and probably close to 30 before we actually placed our order. There were several servers, busboys and assorted staff shuffling around the patio where we were sitting, and there were only a few other tables, yet we sat there, invisible. At one point a server looked at us and said "You haven't placed your order yet, have you?" then proceeded to ignore us and an entirely different server took our order a good 10 minutes later. I guess I should have suspected something when we were put on a wait list at 2:30 p.m. when there were about 10 empty tables on the patio. Honestly though, the floor staff looked so rough that I really believe this was the best they could do. I ordered the veggie sandwich which was not memorable at all, even after a strenuous 5 mile hike, when hunger generally would have made anything taste good. The fries were excellent, though, and they have Lagunitas IPA on tap. The atmosphere is great- you can't really go wrong with an outdoor patio in the sun on a gorgeous spring afternoon, surrounded by the Marin Headlands and breathing the fresh ocean air. If you can be Zen about the zombies who are serving you, it's a decent place to grab a beer and a bite after a hike or an afternoon at the beach. Stinson really doesn't have a lot to choose from in the way of eateries. Normally I would ask myself where the locals go, but in this case I think I am scared to know.
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