BEA:

I'm at the Big Ole Book Conference this weekend. Back on Monday, ya'll.

Remembering Sydney Pollack:

Just the other night, I was showing my girlfriend Tootsie, one of my favorite movie comedies ever, and raving about the scene above where the film's director Sydney Pollack, holds par with Dustin Hoffman, playing the legendary actor's agent.

In one of those wild coincidences, I woke up the next day to find out that Sydney Pollack has died from cancer. He was 73.

I'd lone known Pollack as "the anti-love director" because the main characters in his films (Absence of Malice, Tootsie, Out of Africa) never ended up together. But looking closer, he was a director and actor that eschewed flash, knew his limits and chose quality projects. Some more than others yes, but you'd have a hard time scanning his filmography and singling out the movie that was ego run amok or a valentine to some actor or pet cause.

No, Sydney Pollack was an Acura: Solid, dependable, understated integrity. Even in a business like Hollywood, I'd call that the stuff of a life well lived.

Mr Pollack leaves behind his wife of 50 years, Claire Griswold and two daughters, Rachel and Rebecca.

Notes:

• NY Times obit.

• Assessment in Slate.

• June 2nd salute to Pollack on Turner Classic Movies.

• Thoughts from David Dylan Thomas.

• Sketches of Frank Gehry. A sweet little documentary Pollack did about the legendary architect.

One Sentence Movie Reviews: "Cloverfield"

Cloverfield (2008): "It's now gospel that the best 9/11 movies are only metaphorically about that day."

Seen: On an iPod on an airplane, on the way back to San Francisco.

Clever White Guy Humor:

I have nothing to add to the dialogue about the world's most overexposed music video save this: Clever White Guy Humor (CWGH)* leaves me cold. Especially when its laughs come from an endless loop of references to other funny white guys.

Odd, because I'm usually big on something that can be summed up and understood in a sentence (Alien was famously pitched as "Jaws in Space" which I think is brilliant). But this is less than a sentence. It's a bunch of half-sentences  with the bottoms falling out, like a used coffee filter.

"Internet memes! And we're a big famous rock band so you didn't think we've have time for this stuff. But we do! Get it?"

Er yes, I do. Is there more? Or is it guys dancing on treadmills? Clever yes, but self-contained clever like Rice Rice Baby. Its no more a cultural milestone than say, a very good knock knock joke.

*But that's the essence of Clever White Guy Humor: The inflated value of a celver, soulless exercise. It humor made of seeming to take nothing seriously all while taking yourself deadly seriously. Or posing as a goofball while tacitly implying that no one in the room is as funny as you. Borne from the world view that all of life's experiences are a version of a latenight freshman dorm conversation at an east coast liberal arts college. Offenders abound mostly in film (Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, Zach Braff) and music (Weezer, Flight of the Conchords, Tenacious D) but I'd take suggestions on their counterparts in television (David Letterman is their patron saint) and literature.

What say you?

Reinterpreting Rich:

Like Senor Anderson, I too would love this set up if I were stinking rich. But only if it came with a highspeed bullet train to the arcade.

Thought of the Day: "We are..."

"Remember it well we we we are the world we are what makes it go round we make bread and cloth and guns we are the hub of the wheel and the spokes and the wheel itself without us you would be hungry naked worms and we will not die. We are immortal we are the sources of life we are the lowly despicable ugly people we are the great wonderful beautiful people of the world and we are sick of it we are utterly weary we are done with it forever and ever because we are the living and we will not be destroyed."

--Dalton Trumbo (via this new documentary)

What I'm Doing This Late Spring...

A quick update on some professional this's and thats...

• Just finished a book review for The Chronicle. Have another one due in June

• Am prepping a quick piece for Magaziner.

• Just finished an essay for Nextbook and am pitching another next week.

• After BEA next week, (where I'm speaking on two panels), I'll have an armful of catalogs for the upcoming book publishing season and will be pitching more reviews and essays.

• All is well with Booktour.

If you've chatted with me this month or inferred from Twitter, you'll know I'm in the middle of some big career decisions. They're too embryonic to say much more than that. For now, it's just great to feel like a writer again.

One Sentence Movie Reviews: "The Life of Emile Zola" (1937)

The Life of Emile Zola (1937): "The true test of our courage can come when we think we are too comfortable to be courageous."

Notes: Seen in Ann Arbor as part of my ongoing quest to watch the entire AFI 400. Also will probably send me on a little Paul Muni kick, who knocks it out of the park as Zola. He's got two other films on the list.

Back home...

Hey friends. I'm back home now and powering my way through a book review for the SF Chronicle. More in a day or so.

Thought of the Day: "Singing"

"I shall keep singing!
Birds will pass me
On their way to Yellower Climes—
Each-with a Robin's expectation—
I—with my Redbreast—
And my Rhymes—
Late—when I take my place in summer—
But—I shall bring a fuller tune—
Vespers—are sweeter than Matins-Signor—
Morning—only the seed of Noon—"

--Emily Dickinson (via The Writer's Almanac)