Dow Jones > Recent Status Updates

The first quarter of the book was pretty absurd even for Dahl standards, but at some point became more enjoyable. President Gilligrass is the best character by far. Grandma Georgina wasted millions of dollars with her greedy pill distribution. I can only imagine how bad they all smelled. The Knids were weird. Wonka’s alien language was funny. Great medicine morals. Pretty fun overall but not as good as the first.

Yessss “The House of Gaunt” is one of, if not, my favorite chapters in the whole series. Merope & Morfin w/ crazy eyes and Marvolo’s violent aggression. Trailer trash wizard “royalty”. Starts the deep lore into Voldy’s background.

Tonks finds Harry on the train & escorts him back to school where Snape’s happy to receive & torment him. Hermione fixes the blood & Harry tells Ron what happened. Hagrid makes small talk & says he’s looking forward to their first lesson tomorrow but no one is continuing his subject. Slughorn is intro’d & everyone gossips about Snape finally teaching DADA.

Townspeople ferry around the river & island shooting the cannon to make Huck’s body float up & they come close to seeing him on the island. Jim is also on the island & meets Huck after Huck’s had to dodge detection for a few days. Jim ran away to avoid being sold & tells how he escaped & the town’s talk of Huck’s murder. Lots of black & boy superstitions that are amusing.

Huck fakes his death in grand fashion with ax cuts, pig blood, drag marks, and trails of food. He sets off for Jackson’s Island in the night after his dad passes by in the skiff after selling driftwood in town.

Huck panics from superstition and gives Judge Thatcher his $6k, but I hope the judge didn’t really go through with taking all his money. Huck’s dad waits in his bedroom & kidnaps & beats him regularly out of jealousy for schooling and the widow’s care. Now they’re in a cabin & dad regularly gets drunk & abuses him & Huck reverts to liking homelessness. Don’t take after your dad!

Skipped Prince for Huck. Picks up where Sawyer ended and it’s perfect. The robber gang and imagining Sunday school kids as an Arabian parade. Huck can’t get used to Widow Douglas’s rules or sis Miss Watson’s religion. Huck is growing out of imaginary games that Tom plays & only goes along since they’re besties. Glad I have context from the first book to fully appreciate this one w/ characters and events.

Absolutely incredible book and really glad to read it in full. I love the style of narration w/ quips & long descriptions like the water dripping from stalactites in the cave since the dawn of time. This is a must read for everyone and it’s a masterpiece in humor, suspense, and adventure for all ages. Now I’m gonna start Huck Finn & see what I can remember.

T&B make it out, rescued, and are showered w/ love while Huck recovers. Tom tells Judge Thatcher Injun Joe’s in the cave & hes found dead @ the new gate. Huck thinks the treasure is gone but he and T sneak back a secret robber’s way in the cave & bring back over $12k to split. Judge loves & supports Tom. Huck’s adopted by Widow but can’t stand civility. Huck wants to run but Tom makes him stay to be friends.

Huck awakens to find out Injun Joe & pal got away & the town was bursting to know the story but the Welshman kept his promise & didn’t include Huck. That Sunday Thatcher and Auntie found out Tom & Becky hadn’t returned from the cave & no one could find them. T&B wandered the cave & got lost without any light but shared some cake. Tom alone sees Injun Joe & runs away to hide the secret from Becky.

Tom tells Muff Potter’s lawyer what he saw and it’s a weight off his shoulders but Injun Joe escapes & T&H are afraid of revenge. They play robbers and dig up treasures only to find Injun Joe’s hideout, his cash, and haunted house bonus treasure. Their detective work pays off and Huck rushes to tell someone he’s out planning to hurt the Widow Douglas. Great suspense writing!

Tom takes the blame for Becky ripping the schoolmaster’s copy of Grey’s Anatomy but gets revenge by having a cat steal his toupee in the middle of their big exam in front of everyone. Lots find religion while Tom’s down w/ measles but that trend dies quick enough, just like joining the sobriety cadets.

The boys get tired of pirating & wanna go home but are afraid to say so. Huck teaches them to smoke but they get sick and “look for a lost knife” to throw up. Tom escapes to town to see what’s up & hatches his funeral resurrection secret plan. Auntie finds out & is disappointed but finds his bark note in secret & forgives him. Tom & Becky play hard to get jealousy games & poor Alfred being used & rejected.

The gang goes shopping in a deserted Diagon Alley. I love Wizarding Wheezes and their creative goods. The meeting at Madam Malkin’s was intense & Narcissa was calm while Harry dissed Lucius. I forgot if Draco was branded. The necklace & vanishing cabinet. The train ride is fun and Harry defends Luna & Neville against Romilda Vane. Slughorn’s meeting and Zabini’s gold digger mom. Harry’s poor face.

Tom gets hooked on codeine trying to overcome his lovesick blues. After Becky returns to school and shrugs him off, he resolves to run away, as does Joe and Huck, and they begin their life of piracy late at night and float a raft down to a small island. Very good and funny adventure imagery in this chapter and their morals and ideals often conflict but resolve in a manner only boys understand.

Tom and Becky get engaged and she promptly dumps him with a slight mention of his previous engagement to Amy. Cute! The Robin Hood fight was cute too. Huck Finn arrives to bury the cat and they witness Injun Joe kill the young doctor & they sign a silence pact in blood. Kids are so superstitious and I love the little incantations. Tom suffers guilt for a long time.

Incredible. Tom seeks an ailment to stay home from school and resorts to his toe and tells Sid he’s dying, then switches to his loose tooth Auntie pulls, so he trades it to Huck Finn for a tick. Their talk of how to remove warts was hilarious as was how to catch ticks. Poor dog vs. beetle in church was funny. Tom finally meets Becky and he’s so charming and flirty. Boys talk like they know it all. Nostalgic.

I don’t know what I got out of this as a kid, but now, this book is everything! So many incredible lines and classic scenes that have shaped American culture. This book is hilarious in every way. Some paragraphs require rereading due to length, but Twain is nothing short of genius. Tom is an amazing character of wit and charm. The bath water, Bible tickets, fence, newcomer fight, just incredible!

These last ~8 pages would be better as an Afterword as its message is importance and clear. The chapter’s subtext is irrelevant. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I’m give 4 stars because there should be more album/songwriting details and the final chapters had so many years lumped together lacking details included earlier. I hope it’s not his last one!

Damn, this final chapter of 2020- says nothing of Covid struggles, his super deluxe box sets, brief Tea redux album, or anything about these years like previous chapters. The tone is more serious and preachy where most of the book contained the same messages already, so I wish there were a lot more details or explanations behind the songs and recordings like the 33 1/3 series.

Now we get closer to modern day. He really skips over his first two US tours, which I attended, so that’s a bummer. Definitely not enough info on An Other Cup or Roadsinger. Tell ‘em I’m Gone is only mentioned once in passing. The book is definitely rushed here at the end once moving to UAE and nothing about reviving the Red Room Fan Club.

I wonder why he didn’t go back to the original producer who’d invited him to make an album instead of later getting the visa and going elsewhere. The No-Fly List incident was so sad for his daughter. The bank temp who caused trouble for his eldest daughter should’ve been fired and the bank should’ve made reparations. Such a dramatic life leading up to Yusuf’s Cafe. Gotta watch that again now!

I never knew he was on VH1 Behind the Music! Music continues to pull him in and he releases a box set but then 9/11 happens and Muslims are globally hated. His first daughter gets married beforehand though. But NATO agents raid a charity office as all Muslim places got searched. What a horrible time!

Hearing about his newborn’s death was tragic and then losing his mom about a month later from brain cancer and dementia. He was kind of trapped by Saddam Hussein in a hotel & never got to speak to him about peace. Yusuf gradually feels pulled back into music w/ his audiobook & a Bosnian tape. Next opens the year 2000.

I’d never grown up knowing about the Salman Rushdie incident and googling certainly painted Yusuf in a bad light as well as the YouTube edits, but his side of the story here is so important in explaining the context of the 2 situations and his rationale behind what he said. People have always been blinded by headlines. How depressing!

Yusuf was snubbed from appearing on Live Aid because Elton John ran late. Their Muslim organization sent them to see the Palestine-Israel conflict and even though they’d rehearsed some, a few members went rogue off script w/ answers and it fell apart at the press conference. But they still experienced a lot and helped who they could.