Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Rather than some reprisal of Dazed and Confused, as often reported, this felt to me more like director and writer Richard Linklater in a Damsels in Distress mood. Although I see the point. Baseball is involved in both, and all the characters in Everybody Wants Some!! are dazed and confused. But then, everybody in Dazed and Confused also wants some. The new one, at any rate, takes place over a few days in the late summer of 1980 as students gather on a small campus for the fall term. It's focused specifically on a group of baseball players—jocks, not to put too fine a point on it. By day they furiously compete at games of all kinds. At night, they careen from one subculture of the time to the next, from a disco, to a honkytonk inspired by Urban Cowboy (did I mention this is set in Texas?), to a punk-rock show. These scenes are animated by the soundtrack and are very exciting. They're the best part, but it's also pretty funny. As comedies go, you're likely to laugh, as long as you're OK with a bunch of adolescent horseplay. Linklater chases the mindset down with a look at the bunch of them constantly competing: playing ping pong, video games, gambling on stunts, and more. There's even a game that involves abusing one another's knuckles. It's all high-spirited with a sweet late-summer romance theme playing out as well. It switches up on expectations by going off in such unexpected directions. What does a bunch of post-adolescent baseball players at a small college in Texas have to do with anything? That's the beauty part of it, or one of them. It's more focused on getting certain period details right, exactly right, such as the state of men's facial hair, which ranged a bit but focused mostly on mustaches. The music is perfect, all of it, and things like the punk-rock show are unexpectedly vivid (and right). I don't know much about any of the players—they're young and fresh-faced and often very good, at least as an ensemble. Justin Street takes it right over the top as a Napoleon Dynamite style social maladapt who thinks a flaming fastball is going to be his ticket to everything he's ever dreamed of. He is otherwise randomly spastic and out of control. The group stoner turns out to have a totally unexpected secret, though it somehow seems familiar to Linklater, or perhaps that is Texas. Everybody Wants Some!! is mostly awkward male bonding, falling all over one another like colts. It's a poignant historical moment, just months before Ronald Reagan's first election, about which it wisely has nothing to say. I think this movie is counting on you to bring your own baggage, although it's possible this is aimed at a youth market? I don't know. Somehow I doubt that. It feels more like late baby boomer nostalgia, but it's done effectively and is fully entertaining surprisingly often.

"Sonny's Blues" (1957)

Read story by James Baldwin online.

James Baldwin's classic meditation is made up of equal parts brooding memoir, artful fictional devices, and, perhaps most surprising, a turn toward music criticism. Sonny is the younger brother of the first-person narrator by seven years, a jazz musician and on-and-off heroin addict. Their parents died before either was 25. They were raised in Harlem. The carefully unnamed narrator is a judgmental moralist, a high school algebra teacher embarrassed by indigenous African-American culture such as jazz. Interestingly, Sonny, who is a Charlie Parker follower, is embarrassed by the mention of Louis Armstrong, in one conversation where the narrator tries to connect with and understand him. "No. I'm not talking about none of that old-time, down home crap," Sonny retorts about Armstrong. The relationship between the two brothers is complicated as all family relationships are, with the additional burden of the African-American context. Here is where Baldwin is at his best in this story. He has concocted a voice for his narrator that balances delicately between stuffy erudition, reflexive contempt, and rage, dictating his words with an icy clinical precision. He's ashamed of Sonny's heroin addiction and legal troubles, but he made a promise to their mother the last time he saw her alive (a promise he hasn't kept very well) that he would look out and be there for Sonny when Sonny needed him. To the narrator, it's one more aggravating responsibility in a life of drudgery and frustration. Though he has a happy and good marriage, the narrator and his wife recently lost their 4-year-old daughter to polio. In the end, however, grudgingly and mostly against his will, he agrees to step into the nightclubs he detests to see Sonny perform. That performance is a revelation for the narrator and reader alike, as the music connects with the narrator in extraordinary ways. It's a wonderful voice in that moment, full of its own intelligence but with barely a vocabulary for the way the music moves and plays and develops. As he describes what the musicians are doing and the various elements of the song and arrangement, it evolves into as effective a description of real-time jazz as I've encountered anywhere. It's shorn particularly of Mezz Mezzrow hipsterism, because that is exactly the kind of thing the narrator loathes. In turn, that leads him to understand Sonny and fully see him for the first time. Really good stuff.

American Short Story Masterpieces, ed. Raymond Carver and Tom Jenks

Ax (1964)

It's bloody murder in this edition of the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals by Ed McBain. And no surprise, the murder weapon of interest features a blade, as anyone reading the entire series should know well what a fetish knives grew to be for McBain. This is not the first he's used them, but the lumberjack's tool of the trade takes the story well beyond the pale. It's another shorty, under 200 pages, so it mostly focuses on the one case, a tenement janitor found in the basement of his building brutally slain (yes, there are details). Of more interest to me are the civil rights undertones to the action, which fit with the time frame. But it's still dated. The novelty is manifest in the attempt to view Negro characters as fully equal and deserving of respect, which slides over too easily into displays of patience and indulgence. The characters mean well but I'm less sure about the author, who somehow conveys the idea it's all a bit ridiculous. This made me wonder if McBain, like his and my hero Jack Webb, wasn't at bottom a right-wing crank. I suspect it's so, based on his treatment here of civil rights as vaguely comical and other factors across the series. But a cursory Internet search didn't turn up much and in a way I don't want to know. With an uneducated Negro in Ax as one of the "obvious" suspects, and his treatment that way by characters such as Steve Carella (as usual, the main detective), attempting to show equality, it's too often slightly wince-worthy. The story is ridiculous too, with shady hoods and crap games, a family of extreme eccentrics for the victim's family, and some sort of scam involving firewood (and fireplaces?!) for tenants in the tenement. Carella is out front, with Cotton Hawes loose-limbed at his side. For as silly as it is, it's a reasonably tight story. It's #18 overall in the series, a point at which McBain and everyone was beyond counting, but I thought I'd mention it. A lot of what makes McBain good is there in place. The month is January—he knows how to elaborate and use the moods of the weather. The case is brutal, and hard to solve ("hard to solve"). And the detectives are good men—actually, there is a bad cop in this one. Carella can't stand him, of course. On the personal side, we get a scene or two in the warm Carella household, with Teddy and the twins. A good man, a good home, but a cold and brutish world, into which he must go. Careful with that ax, Eugene.

In case it's not at the library.

The Empty Hours (1962)

The Empty Hours is a collection of three long stories (or novellas)—one of the things I like best about Ed McBain, author of the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals, is a kind of restless, experimenting, creative energy that drives his work. These stories feel churned out in some kind of frenzy, chasing down the spasms of ideas. The first, "The Empty Hours," is a smoke-and-mirrors mystery story involving insurance claims and mistaken identities, featuring Steve Carella and the usual gang of detectives. It probably could have been woven into more typical 87th Precinct novels, as either a main case in its own right or one of the smaller ongoing side cases, a strategy that became more common as the novels became fatter in the '70s and especially the '80s. There's not a lot to it but it's done efficiently. (It also seemed familiar, which means either I read it before, or it was incorporated somewhere else in the series, maybe even ported over to the Matthew Hope series, the other main McBain series, which I'm probably not going to deal with.) The second story, "'J,'" could also have been integrated into a typical 87th Precinct novel, though it might not have been so easy to work with. It seems better designed to be a stand-alone. Also, the mystery-story aspect in this one turns out to be a bit of a cheat. But it has particular resonance for the character Meyer Meyer about his Jewish identity. Meyer Meyer is known in the series for being bald, Jewish, and with a father with a strange sense of humor. The third story, "Storm," focuses on Cotton Hawes on a skiing vacation, and is probably the most obvious stand-alone of the three. In many ways it strikes me as emerging from character sketches on Hawes, who remember was intended as a late addition, insisted on by the publisher—a swinging bachelor type to replace Carella after Carella got married. Hawes was always one of the weakest characters in the series, largely because McBain's heart may never have been in it, and he's even weaker going solo without the others (babe in arms or no, and of course there is a babe in arms—he's a swinging bachelor on a ski vacation). The mystery story is not bad, however, and I like the ski resort setting pretty well too. The Empty Hours is a bit of a change of pace for the series, but also deeply characteristic and interesting in many little ways.

In case it's not at the library.

Lady, Lady I Did It (1961)

Here's another example, in the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals by Ed McBain, that highlights McBain's ability to work within conventional mystery story structures, serving up the clues fair and square and still managing to surprise with the resolution. It takes a few shortcuts along the way, such as a police hunch paying off. A bookstore is shot up and four people die. The police hunch—Steve Carella, as ever, with Bert Kling and Meyer Meyer mainly—is that only one of the four victims was the actual target. The rest are there to confuse the investigation. Well, OK. Interesting hunch. The case is further complicated by the fact that Bert Kling's girlfriend is one of the victims. Which is also convenient, because when it comes to Bert Kling and women, well, he just can't catch a break. This is a shorty, under 200 pages in mass market, so I'm willing to forgive some of this for the sake of getting on with it. There's blessed little dwelling on Kling's grief, though it's there. The victims and the case produce a number of interesting characters and situations. For the most part it's people just making their way in the big city, where it's well known that shit will happen. So some shit happens, and soon enough someone has an inspiration and the case is solved. But I love how scrupulously fair it is. The second-to-last chapter even lingers over the telltale clue, trying to help us see the course of things. But we don't, or I didn't, and so it's a pleasant flash of insight when it comes. The asides about the detectives' personal lives are running in place, especially if you're prone like me to read Kling's bad luck with women as ultimately an element of black humor on the part of McBain. Here it's early enough—though I believe Claire Townsend is already the second girlfriend Kling loses to violence—that it's less comic and more ham-fisted tragic. With Lady, Lady I Did It as #14 in the overall series, McBain has been at it long enough that he knows what he's doing and is comfortable with it: writing mystery-story police procedurals with a continuing cast of characters, some of whom are occasionally killed off. I think many of these short ones from the '50s and '60s can be effective and I'd call this one of them. There's a detective I don't remember seeing before—Di Maeo. Also Arthur Brown, Hal Willis, and Bob O'Brien, briefly. I haven't entirely made up my mind about the fairness of the title, in terms of the mystery story, but mostly I think it works and even gets away with the self-conscious tricksiness.

In case it's not at the library.

See Them Die (1960)

This short novel in the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals by Ed McBain offers up a one-day tick-tock of a simmering ethnic situation and a view of the precinct as a Puerto Rican slum, or barrio. We are also given to know, very early on, that on this day "two people will die on this street." Overall, this is a pretty good book from the series, focused on police procedures of community relations and managing explosive scenes of violence. McBain is on his game with a bunch of slices of life around the barrio: the cops, the kids, the gangs, the hookers, people passing through that day. It all takes place on a very hot summer Sunday, so church is peripherally involved as well. It also features Andy Parker more prominently than usual, though the attention is ultimately spent mostly on making him a caricature, which is a little unfortunate. Steve Carella is hanging heroically around as usual. These earlier novels in the series often seemed to dwell more on precinct brass, a captain and a lieutenant. Mostly I'm impressed with the pleasure McBain seems to take in identifying and sorting out the pieces, and telling stories. It's interesting to know two people will die, it adds an element of suspense and tension as a dozen and more characters wheel by. It's a hot kind of Do the Right Thing situation he gets going pretty effectively. I was reading this as news came in of the murder of Walter Scott in South Carolina, shot in the back eight times by a policeman. There was a lag between reports of the incident and release of a video of it, so we had an unusual opportunity to see the level of deceit practiced by police now, and the brutality, both of which have no doubt existed for as long as police authority has. I was outraged, of course, but I was also struck by how much I can still feel for the cops in this fictional 87th Precinct, who seem realistic enough. There's probably even more police brutality going on than McBain allows, but he doesn't shy away from what he acknowledges of it, and See Them Die is one place where he is particularly effective. But as usual what I like best about McBain when he's got it going on, as here, are all the small observations and everyday events, working themselves out as we all try to get along. He's hit and miss with this, make no mistake. McBain is fully capable of egregious cliché. The reports of a 20th-century New York Balzac were overstated. But he's often very good in surprising ways.

In case it's not at the library.

Give the Boys a Great Big Hand (1960)

I like to think this entry in the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter, which wasn't his real name either) started originally as an outrageously bad pun and from there McBain made up a case. It may be the first time for him but it wouldn't be the last—there's a Matthew Hope novel from 1996, for example, called Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear. Attend now closely: McBain is more heavy-handed than usual referring to the detectives of the 87th precinct squad as "the boys," awkwardly calling attention to it through repetitiveness. The case starts out with the grisly discovery of a dismembered human hand in a travel bag left at a bus stop. The fingertips have been severed to prevent fingerprint analysis. But the lab soon determines that it is the hand of a very large man, being great and big itself, and so, you see. Er, yes. There you have it. Steve Carella is our main dude, with Cotton Hawes riding shotgun. It's a pretty good procedural in terms of developing suspects and trailing down the leads. It has sailors, sob sisters, and strippers. On the personal side, an interesting conflict develops among Carella, the ever-repugnant Andy Parker, and a Puerto Rican officer. Parker is not offensively racist here—or I didn't loathe him as often, put it that way—so maybe the issue is considered sufficiently raised at this point in the series. Actually, in all my reading so far, Parker seems more a kind of cipher, not even there in many of the books. There's a little more here on Carella's wife Teddy too. This is very much of its time, with some racial awareness but less so on gender issues. Women are taken for granted as sexual objects, and chiefly judged and treated that way. It's equally important, for example, that Teddy copes with her loss of hearing well, that she looks good and has a healthy sexual appetite, that she's a capable and loving mother, and that the nanny regards her highly. The nanny, yes. Never mind. I mean, what do you expect? It's about a bad pun. It's 1960. The story is pretty good, the characters are in motion, and it's 1960.

In case it's not at the library.

King's Ransom (1959)

In 1959 and 1960, Ed McBain published six novels in the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals. Approximately third in that run, King's Ransom is a short novel about a big case—a kidnapping, which you better believe it, the 87th Precinct cops and detectives take more seriously than anything but murder, the way we see them swing into action. As someone who never had children, my mystification over the urgency, even the occurrence, of kidnapping is probably explained that way. A lot of juice from scene to scene is taken for granted because a boy is in peril, invoked routinely. There's a neat twist to this one: the kid that the bad guys have snatched is actually the son of the chauffeur who works for the business tycoon targeted, Douglas King ("King," get it?). There's some nice Dreiser-style big business shenanigans going on before the kidnapping goes down, which continue to exert influence on the action. Really, this is probably one of McBain's better stories, and stories are what he's good at. Unfortunately, the motivations and outcomes go somewhat murky in the end, but it's a pretty good ride getting there. There's some overly researched business about radio communications worked up by the bad guys. It's a good plot point, just overly explained, and already dated and weird in a world concerned about things like texting while driving. There's very little of the personal stuff in this one. Steve Carella is front and center as usual, with Cotton Hawes and Meyer Meyer just behind over his shoulders. Andy Parker is his usual lout and gets an ugly episode. If I was relatively unaffected by the drama of the kidnapping, I was more intrigued by the developing dynamic between the tycoon and his chauffeur as decisions are made, and actions taken. Interesting issues of class play out there, with varying degrees of success. A knife—a switchblade—makes an appearance in this McBain tale, to the surprise of no one, I'm sure. This is a popcorn novel—chews up nice, goes down well, and you want more. A good place to see McBain as a straight-up writer of thrillers, which he does quite well here. The police are key, of course, but play a slightly different role than usual, which also recommends it on McBain's range.

In case it's not at the library.

Killer's Wedge (1959)

This is an ultra-shorty novel in the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals by Ed McBain. It's short even for the times, well under 200 pages in mass market size. But there's still room for both an A story and a B, and some pretty fancy whodunit plotting as well. In the A story, a woman shows up at the precinct station and takes all available detectives hostage with a gun and (maybe) a bottle of nitroglycerin. I know—it's unbelievable—you have to move through the skepticism. She's there to kill Steve Carella, who is out investigating the B story, which is nothing less than a classic locked-room mystery. A rich man has hanged himself in a room with no windows and a door that can only be locked and unlocked from the inside. Even so, Carella has a hunch that it's murder. Meanwhile, back at the police station, the detectives try to outwit the woman holding them. They tend to come up short a lot. The real point of these scenes is the chance to see how the squad works together (doggedly) and also to show the events that happen in a typical day around the 87th Precinct headquarters. Even though it's an extraordinary situation the detectives are still capable of easygoing banter. The hostage-taker does what she has to in the face of the various attempts by the detectives to foil her. At one point she guns one of them down, and he's on the floor awaiting the end of the siege and medical attention from then on. As an exercise, it's pretty neatly done, balancing the two stories off one another. High marks for the juxtapositions. Still, the hostage scene is just a little too Andy of Mayberry in terms of how easily the detectives are taken control of. As for the locked-room mystery ... wut? It's just crazy. There's even a butler—it's in the wealthy section of the 87th Precinct, you see. Honestly, as mystery fiction goes, these puzzle box situations can try my patience. At the same time, as mystery fiction, they're pretty well done. I can't quite follow along with the technical aspects of the crime as committed—because, yes, Carella's hunch about the locked-room is on the money. A man found hanged in a room locked from the inside was not actually a suicide. Who knew? Steve Carella, that's who. Yes, as always, he is the hero. On the personal side, this is the one when Steve and his wife Teddy first learn of her pregnancy. It's such a good marriage, the one that they have.

In case it's not at the library.

"A Passionate Pilgrim" (1871)

This longish story bears interest because it's a very early example of one of the themes Henry James is known for, the contrasts between Old World and New. It focuses on an impoverished American, an elderly gentleman, who has traveled to London to seek claim to an estate for which he may be legally entitled. It's told in the first-person by another American, who intuitively believes in the justice of his cause. Fortified by this support, our hero, Clement Searle, pays a visit to the site in question, with a fine old mansion on spacious grounds. He meets the brother and sister who presently occupy it and are distant relatives. The sister is unmarried and immediately falls in love with Clement somehow, but the brother furiously resents Clement's legal actions. At first he is polite and almost friendly, but finally erupts with his grudges. Then, because it's a bad scene around the mansion after that, Clement and the narrator travel to Oxford for a visit, which they find so wonderful they decide it must be the very epicenter of the known universe. I suspect that's James. This overwhelming response to England adds up to the "passionate" of the title. The "pilgrim" should be self-explanatory. I enjoyed this but rarely believed any of the action—I will let you find the ludicrous resolution for yourself, on grounds it would be "a spoiler." In many ways it's fun to find the theme of worlds in collision in early form. It almost feels like an accident, as if James were working out the setting and character as he went, and ended up with this strange American in London. Clement Searle is not the kind of American Christopher Newman would be (in The American), but more of a loyalist in sympathy with the crown, etc. That makes him less interesting, which is something James appeared to figure out relatively quickly. Also interesting in this story is that for once it's barely at all about marrying. The element of the chemistry between Clement and the sister is just weird and feels forced in more than anything, perhaps for commercial reasons or maybe just because James often had the impulse to turn things in that direction. It's a strange and interesting piece, with a real sense of discovery propelling it.

"interlocutor" count = 0 / 40 pages

In case it's not at the library. (Library of America)