The odds of thorougly enjoying three Xmas books is about the same as Bradley getting the Bills to cover on the third game of a 28-1 parlay- not fucking good. Amazon delivered on time and with high quality. Here is the Trinity of My Reading Victory, covering the three major elements of life (and you can screw the spiritual).

The Personal- Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking briefly appeared here in review form before being whisked away into the cyberether where more important opinions lie. What to do when the ones close to you drop dead and nearly dead? Will the platitudes hold? Will the mind allow the fragility of all things, or will it force you to wash away the polite truths and shove you face first into the void? The most moving account of grief I've read in ages.

The Political- George Packer's The Assassin's Gate is the first big book to bring the narrative of the pre-war buildup, the immediate aftermath of Shock and Awe and the beginning of Now What?, the view from various grounds and the lives bleeding and crying on them, and the scramble to deal with the contingencies of insurgency that Cheney and Rumsfeld never anticipated. It's powerfully compelling and ultimately demoralizing, but it will help you get your mind around the narrative, at least from one man's perspective.

The Social- Theodore Dalrymple's Our Culture, What's Left of It is a relentlessly erudite, thoughtful and eye-opening attack on all the things ye olde 60's have wrought- unbridled sexuality, rampant drug use, poor grooming, bad art and just about anything else that a lack of restraint and the diminishing of standards breeds. You don't have to agree with the man to admire his work, which forces you to confront your lazy ass assumptions about freedom and responsibility. His piece on not legalizing drugs is the first essay to shed new light on that subject for me in ten years, and it is very difficult to combat. If the neocons had Dalrymple on their domestic team, the Left would be playing for even fewer scraps than they are now.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is shutting down the system that creates movie recommendations on its shopping Web site after it linked a "Planet of the Apes" DVD to films about famous black Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr.

Blue State Blues

Richard Rodriguez has a great essay in Cal's alumni rag on the state of all things literature in California. Take a look, and try to remember he's the west's Naipaul, and recall that some of us spent our mispent youths as wards of Cal alumni at the Lair of the Bear, instilling a lifelong hatred of all things urban, suburban and comfortable.

"Mwa-AAAA-aaaaa-Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Yeahhhh!"

Rhino has just issued their 3rd T. Rex reissue (following EW and Slider). First one to download Zip Gun gets a hubcap diamond star halo, a knock down sabertooth dream, or a changeless angel.

Late in Martin Scorsese's fascinating 4-hour documentary on Dylan, there is a sequence of press conferences Dylan endures that tell you everything you want to know about why he was nearly destroyed before the motorcycle accident nearly killed him. The questions come from a variety of European reporters, and to describe them as inane would be generous. Dylan refuses to answer any of the questions seriously, delivering shoulder shrugs and eye rolls and one-liners instead. That footage is interwoven with Dylan today commenting on the events, and his exasperation remains pungent. Each reporter after the next, working from cribbed notes from other publications, demands that Dylan explain himself as spokesman of a generation, or what the hidden messages of his songs are, or why his earlier records are so much better than his latest ones (a French guy, naturellement). Some become outraged at his glib replies to their stupid queries and begin to attack him, and Dylan just lights up another smoke. One photographer asks him to suck on his sunglasses so he can capture that shot. Those twenty minutes of film turn fame into a Felliniesque circus in which the dancing elephants go misunderstood by the fat, cat-calling, drunken crowd. If you haven't seen it, look to fill your next rainy Saturday afternoon with this eye-opener. Oh, and poor Joan Baez. Poor Joan.

And if the band you're in starts playing a different tune...

Rejected by the Publishers

By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER
Published: January 4, 2006

Submitted to 20 publishers and agents, the typed manuscripts of the opening chapters of two books were assumed to be the work of aspiring novelists. Of 21 replies, all but one were rejections. Sent by The Sunday Times of London, the manuscripts were the opening chapters of novels that won Booker Prizes in the 1970's. One was "Holiday," by Stanley Middleton; the other was "In a Free State," by Sir V. S. Naipaul, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature. Mr. Middleton said he wasn't surprised. "People don't seem to know what a good novel is nowadays," he said. Mr. Naipaul said: "To see something is well written and appetizingly written takes a lot of talent, and there is not a great deal of that around. With all the other forms of entertainment today, there are very few people around who would understand what a good paragraph is."

La la la la la la la la

Bereft of creative content, the clowns at the Chronicle's Datebook section picked their favorite road music in and around the city. I am deeply offended by the selections of Geary Boulevard, having driven, cabbed, and walked that stretch for 15 years in all states; shame, intoxication, anger, lust, and pride. Herewith is the essential road music to counter that beast and all its vile ethnics and 38 behemouths:

Iggy Pop, The Passenger -- For some reason after a dozen pops with warz we thought it was fine to drive home from edinburogh castle. Iggy came on and we sang like idiots. cops probably thought we were just in high spirits.

Nirvana, Smells like teen spirit -- I no longer abide Nirvana, but when the record first came out, my college roomy ditched his Rush records and became born again grunge. We had just made some wonderful girls at tim simon's 12th night house party, and we put the top down in his convertible, blasted this, and made it home in one piece.

the Jam, Going Underground -- warz called me one morning a couple years ago when i was on the drive of shame; ie, taking a girl out for breakfast after a wild night of pornography. i couldn't talk with the girl alongside, but he knew what was up and laughed like satan as i tried to be upstanding. kusf saved the morning and explained everything except the hickey i had to walk around with for a week.

mazzy star, look on down from the bridge -- last week of june 2005, angling out of the city with joss en route to WA. a picture perfect morning, maudlin, moving, and misty eyed.

bush, glycerine -- like nirvana, completely stupid song and band, but it set off the finnish girl like nothing else in the world. car sex near 3rd ave is not underrated.

the busted lives, dirty alcoholic -- a theme song for the dot com years. 6th ave and perhaps some ton kiang dim sum to assuage the dog. what a riot.

led zeppelin, that's the way -- for the early SF years, the theme song of morning beers at the Pig and Whistle, then a 10am bar (now 11am). Coupled with that english breakfast of theirs (including beans and toast) it worked its magic.

danny boy -- always ready for the rendition piped out of o'keefe's juke. hanging a right on 5th ave to retrieve whatever leave behinds from the night before; wallet, keys, a girl or two. annie would simply nod when we'd come in and say, 'aye, me boys are back. welcome!'

rod stewart, gasoline alley -- early morning/afternoon rod is always appreciated on the ocean bound stretch. it makes one wonder what the hell happened to him and to you.