Lanier > Recent Status Updates

“The yellows weren’t yellows; but white stained. The grays weren’t gray either, but black. Black with the stuffing knocked out of it.” Nothing is what it seems, and everything is blotched, blotted and broken.

Must read to better understand “Ironic Floss” ~ “Indifferent Unscapes” and the “Twilight World of Expedient Operations”. Getting better with every page!

Witty. Real. Love to hate characters. Hate to lose others.
So I saw Emma Thompson on The Graham Norton Show and immediately downloaded novel. The character she plays is only tangential in this 1st novel. PLUS “Slow Horses” since it’s by the same author. (Different Series)

I only had this for 14 days, I could’ve finished, but it was so depressing. Vitally important to know all the places globally where toxins are a daily part of many communities’ waking (and sleeping) lives. Fraser’s connections to this and the growing numbers of extremely violent people is not to be taken lightly. The saddest part, like micro-plastics, another man-made horror, there’s truly NO WHERE to hide.

Six Degrees of Separation from Evil Thomas Midgley, Jr.
“Sometimes bad things are engineered by engineers.” And they’re locking up petty Dime Bag Pushers? This FUCK created at least two of the most carcinogenic substances on earth; responsible for millions of ruined lives; killers, defective humans that otherwise could have contributed greatly to societies!
Fraser shows us how close we are to it all.

More than anything Chicago yearned…

14%
2:25.20
“There’s something incomplete about this city and its people, and it fascinates me. It seems to urge one on to completion. Everything, here still seems possible.

I love the air of newness, of expectation around me.
Yes, I want to stay.”
László Moholy-Nagy

These from previous days’ reads! I can’t find most recent notes?

Loved to live there one day?

"The illiterate of the Future will be the man who doesn’t understand photography,” Walter Benjamin - Moholy - in his 1931 Essay “A Short History of Photography”
&
2:45.35
Charles Morris' Letter of Intro to John Dewey - Progressivism Philosopher - with driving sense to: Experience, Experiment and Connections to Jane Addams [Hull House 1889] in her Academic Theory with Social Reform collaborating movements.

So much I’m learning about Chicago. Elizabeth Wood ~ Japanese American
who actually brought Pride to the Projects; gentrifying them for those who needed them the most.
She provided clean and safe homes with playgrounds and clinics on each property. - “Fear of tenants becoming snobbish.”
and
Gwendolyn Brooks’ 1944 “A Street in Brownsville” ~ “…challenging Langston Hughes as Premier Black Poet.”

A bit juvenile-HSy with all the in house jealousies reading more like a Soap Opera in many respects. Unless one of the Creepers ends up being a Perp in this or another subsequent mystery? Or perhaps even a victim? The actual Detective Work, historical and cultural fictions are intriguing so I hope it finishes firmly rooted in a Rankin Culmination.

The irony is that Richard — the child in Richard — still believed in the transforming power of television. "One hundred and twenty-seven million people watch television every night," he said at the time. "One week of truth on TV could just straighten out everything." (190)
Lily Tomlin’s 1973 “Opal and Jake” groundbreaking TV ~ far more than just that interracial kiss [peck].
Since “Laugh-In” she ROCKS!

“Riddle Me This!”
Siobhan Clarke’s cyber thriller, rising to the top. Less a Rebus book, though ALL the most witty lines and great investigative work lies within. And let’s not forget the sprinkling of sexual tensions. So far Rankin’s attempt to remain relevant with intrigue, realistic character development plus some colorfully quirky new ones is clicking on several cylinders.

Monologuing and The Birth of Stand-Up ~ Charlie Case. Dusty Fletcher’s Dick Gregory’s influences and more TRUTHS dealing with "fairly horrifying subjects: abject poverty, extreme alcoholism, spousal beating, homicide, and other rib ticklers.” - Critic Jake Austen noted. Think of today’s very best Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Tina Fey, Wanda Sykes (Esther Roll) and Ricky Gervais.

While Siobhan will be the star of this novel, I’m loving everything about Bev Dobbs “I was born in Bristol, spent more years than I care to remember in London. Divorce sent me scampering, and this is where I ran out of breath.”

Young Radicals
Artist Margaret Taylor ~ equal parts, Nina Simone and Frieda Kahlo, befriends Gwendolyn Brooks.

Mahalia’s Median Music:
The OG MJ epitomizes the marriage between South despair and desire with the new Dorsey sound.

Wildcard Wright:
RW’s biggest WIN; “Native Son”, ON HIS OWN, without the help of any of the handful of organizations usually associated with Black Artwork seeing the light of day.

Another potential gem left at the OneDerz Hostel (Phnom Penh) above the boxes where we keep our shit under the key.

Back Cover Blurb:
“When a student goes missing in Edinburgh…” that was all I needed to read to put it back down and know that once I’m done with two or three other books I can start this one.

“Furious Cool” Richard Pryor Bio will barely compete…AND WIN on nearly every gauge!!!

Swapped out outstanding “Go As a River” for this one in Onederz Hostel, Phnom Penh about eight hours ago. So funny, heartbreaking and LOUD from The Jump!!

We knew Richard as we did and felt not a racial but a human kinship to his fears and desires, triumphs and failures. Like Dizzy Gillespie said of Charlie Parker, "Bird's music was a gift, and if you could hear it you could have it." [Author’s Note]

The Clinton Blunder Years: Erasing The Gorbychev-Bush Accord

Afghan War was a major War Crime

NATO has not had any function after WWII ended.

US using NATO as a Force around the world.

Starvation as Weapon ~ The Purposes of Starvation: Historical and Contemporary Uses
Bridget Conley , Alex de Waal
Journal of International Criminal Justice, Volume 17, Issue 4, September 2019,
Pgs 699-722

Some things never change.

Things I’ve learned this week: UNASUR and The “Georgetown Declaration”
Bolivias elections have been far more Democratic than anything the U.S. has staged in decades
…and…
n the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Struggle Between Jews and Zionists in the Aftermath of World War II by Yosef Grodzinsky. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2004. First published in the Journal of Palestine Studies, winter 2006.

No other story has been better than the worst of the last three.

“Why did I believe I could survive here? Because my eyes had traced these distant ridgelines all my life? Soaked and quaking with cold and fear, I understood that horizon is not home. I did not belong to this place.” [118]

“…love is a private matter, to be nurtured, and even mourned, between two beings alone. It belongs to them and no one else, like a secret trea-sure, like a private poem.”

Swapped out the amazing “False Witness“ (and outstanding Hostel/AirBnB trade-in) for this book that’s was at the Aloha Saigon Hostel, my return home here in Ho Chi Minh City.
Getting a great feeling about this novel. As it was left behind for trade, I didn’t bother reading the back cover. I don’t normally read covers because I just get verbal (written) recommendations.

Great assortment of varies crimes; “Insufficient Evidence” by Frances Hegarty, a bit predictable was great. “The Missing Romney” by Edgar Wallace was like a female “Lupin” (Netflix, based upon Maurice Leblanc’s 1905 Serialized novels). “Loopy” by Rendell was pretty good. More to come: especially looking forward to, Graham Greene and “Arsene Lupin in Prison” by
Leblanc
AND ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

“Chicago is the city from where the most incisive and radical Negro Thought has come. There is an open and raw beauty about that city that seems to kill or endow one with the spirit of life.” - Hughes

Architect Mies
and
Brooks’, “In the Mecca, we’re murder, loves, lonelinesses, hates, jealousies, hope occurred and charity, sainthood, glory, shame, despair, fear, altruism, theft, material, and moral.”

Chomsky is always 100%. From references to David C. Korten’s 2006 “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community” to The Great Neoliberal Experiment this 2010 discussion is a Master Course in Cause and Effect going back a century.

Such a great work of Chronological History and insights.

Struggling to finish this piece of crap. I’m hoping there are huge A-has!!
But not very hopeful. A prime example of “LOSING it!!” as you’re nearing the end of your career.
Better to BURN oUT…
Wish she’d left well enough alone.
It almost feels like a pile of Shiet for the purse?

My fascination with all things Chicago, this book has valuable insights to a city I’d love to live in for a few years. I’d have already been there had it not been so friggin COLD six months of the year!