Thursday, May 26, 2005
50 book challenge department:
Ladies and Gentlemen Lenny Bruce! is starting to get pretty good.
A couple years ago I wrote here about a book about disraeli, which dragged on and on, until finally around p 400 there was this scene where disraeli, as prime minister, makes a long speech about the budget, and 4 hours into the speech gladstone stands up and takes him on - and from there the book was high drama, and unputdownable.
The Bruce book got a little better after that first chapter, but has been slow going. I havent read the system of the world trilogy for those sorts of reasons.
p. 468 I laughed out loud.
It took a long time to check 300 ID's. The cops got irritable about this dumb job. When the last guy in line said he "didn't believe in identification" one of the blues grabbed him by the back of the neck and the seat of the pants and hustled him down the stairs and into the patrol car..."Whatta hell are -you- doin here?" cried Lenny when George Carlin was pushed inside... carlin quote about bruce, and albums for sale.
The next chapter, trials and errors, is courtroom drama and a good read. The inside front and back covers of the book feature lenny's mug shot, which I have here somewhere. So it ends up being not just a book about annoying jewish junkie, but a fight for free speech and against the conformity of the 50s, dropping names, naming names, a history of the times as well as the man. So it's getting better.
In the bath just now - which is where i do my reading, and in bed - I mentally composed a paragraph which I won't be able to transcribe.
But it went like this.
I recently read an article, maybe in wired, about george lucas as a film school rebel. His influences included this one guy, canadian and crazy, now dead, who made colleges out of bits of film. No no, not colleges, collages. Bruce, too, was an experimental filmmaker. Bad movies, but making bad movies helped him make his comedy albums.
His live stuff was bits from the albums, stuff that had happened to him that day,
bits being worked up for future albums, and he'd splice it together, sampling himself. The author several times goes into this metaphor about Lenny's show as being like little bits of film spliced together. So if somebody wanted to push this further, Lenny Bruce could be a precursor of George Lucas.
Somehow I spent all day online again. It's what I usually do. Haven't so much as put away the groceries, much less say wash the dishes. The alarm is set for a thing tomorrow. A bit more time to read in bed.
- which means, read all night, fall asleep a few minutes before the alarm rings,
try to swill first cup of coffee without tripping over the cat.
Aha a plan. I'll bring the book to the thing. Thing = continuing legal education class. I have to be there in flesh but not in spirit.
So far I'm over an hour late, alhough I don't need all 6 hours of credits.
Ladies and Gentlemen Lenny Bruce! is starting to get pretty good.
A couple years ago I wrote here about a book about disraeli, which dragged on and on, until finally around p 400 there was this scene where disraeli, as prime minister, makes a long speech about the budget, and 4 hours into the speech gladstone stands up and takes him on - and from there the book was high drama, and unputdownable.
The Bruce book got a little better after that first chapter, but has been slow going. I havent read the system of the world trilogy for those sorts of reasons.
p. 468 I laughed out loud.
It took a long time to check 300 ID's. The cops got irritable about this dumb job. When the last guy in line said he "didn't believe in identification" one of the blues grabbed him by the back of the neck and the seat of the pants and hustled him down the stairs and into the patrol car..."Whatta hell are -you- doin here?" cried Lenny when George Carlin was pushed inside... carlin quote about bruce, and albums for sale.
The next chapter, trials and errors, is courtroom drama and a good read. The inside front and back covers of the book feature lenny's mug shot, which I have here somewhere. So it ends up being not just a book about annoying jewish junkie, but a fight for free speech and against the conformity of the 50s, dropping names, naming names, a history of the times as well as the man. So it's getting better.
In the bath just now - which is where i do my reading, and in bed - I mentally composed a paragraph which I won't be able to transcribe.
But it went like this.
I recently read an article, maybe in wired, about george lucas as a film school rebel. His influences included this one guy, canadian and crazy, now dead, who made colleges out of bits of film. No no, not colleges, collages. Bruce, too, was an experimental filmmaker. Bad movies, but making bad movies helped him make his comedy albums.
His live stuff was bits from the albums, stuff that had happened to him that day,
bits being worked up for future albums, and he'd splice it together, sampling himself. The author several times goes into this metaphor about Lenny's show as being like little bits of film spliced together. So if somebody wanted to push this further, Lenny Bruce could be a precursor of George Lucas.
Somehow I spent all day online again. It's what I usually do. Haven't so much as put away the groceries, much less say wash the dishes. The alarm is set for a thing tomorrow. A bit more time to read in bed.
- which means, read all night, fall asleep a few minutes before the alarm rings,
try to swill first cup of coffee without tripping over the cat.
Aha a plan. I'll bring the book to the thing. Thing = continuing legal education class. I have to be there in flesh but not in spirit.
So far I'm over an hour late, alhough I don't need all 6 hours of credits.
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