KC Blogger Book Group reminder:

We’re meeting on Tuesday at Harry’s County Club in the River Market (112 Missouri Avenue) around 7ish to discuss the book.

Hope to see you there!

Quick Survivor finale thoughts:

As always, the best player didn’t win, and even more so this season, since between Parvati and Amanda, Amanda clearly was the better overall player.

Amanda lost it, I think, at the final tribal council, where she was exhausted and her focus was obviously lacking. She didn’t make her case for victory at all, never mentioning her several challenge wins and the only successful use of the hidden immunity idol in the game, qualities which should have easily secured her the million dollars. She seemed like she just wanted the whole thing over with, only showing signs of life when Ozzy declared his love for her on national TV.

Parv, on the other hand, won mostly because of her flirting skill and her hand in voting Ozzy out. She sucked in challenges and rode coattails the whole way through. I haven’t seen the reunion show yet, but I can only assume it’s either an hour of Ozzy/Amanda lovefest or an hour of raking poor, naive, deluded Erik over the coals for his staggeringly boneheaded play.

Sex With Kings - Elanor Lipman

I’ve had my eye on Sex with Kings for a while - I became a huge fan of history since the first week of Western Civ as a college freshman when I realized that history isn’t just tedium comprised of names and dates. History is a living thing, made up of people like you and me, just in different cultures, circumstances, and outfits. One of my all-time favorite history novels is A World Lit Only By Fire by William Manchester, who de-mythologizes the Renaissance and makes history into something fun and vibrant. And he goes into detail about all the orgies the popes had at the time, too.

Along that same line is Sex with Kings by Elanor Lipman. Here, the author goes into the royal bedroom and writes about the lives of royal mistresses across a broad range of European history. Since kings had that aura of divine right - up until around the time of the French Revolution, anyway - the taking of mistresses was considered a royal perk, a bit distasteful but necessary, something to be tolerated by the queen and for the court to snicker about behind her back. Lipman refers to official documents and diaries of the time, making it an exhaustively researched book instead of simple titillation. The stories of kings and courts of nonexistent nations does get a bit overwhelming at times, but Lipman goes beyond an encyclopedic listing of affairs and writes about the life of a mistress, what was expected of her, how queens and court reacted to them, what the mistresses’ husbands got out of the deal, and how the position of royal mistress - no pun intended - changed over time.

If you’re a fan of history, it’s fascinating stuff. And don’t worry, ladies, Lipman wrote a sequel chronicling the other side of the bedroom in Sex with the Queen.

Iron Man review:

A nearly flawless summer popcorn flick that actually lives up to expectations, Iron Man is the most fun I’ve had at the movies for a good long while and easily one of the highlights of the young summer season.

(Minor spoilers ahead, obviously.)

I’m not going to add much to what’s already been written about the flick: due to the slick visual style supplied by director Jon Faverau, an excellent script that keeps things humming along, and solid supporting work by Oscar veterans Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, and Gwyneth Paltrow, Iron Man didn’t need Robert Downey Jr to carry the film, but then he went ahead and put it on his shoulders anyway. His performance is cracking with energy and life at every step. It’s been said elsewhere that Iron Man will do for RDJ what Pirates of the Caribbean did for Johnny Depp: take a talented and respected niche actor and elevate him to the top of the A-list. Go ahead and bank on it - RDJ’s been one of Hollywood’s best-kept secrets for a long while.

Besides the acting talent, what impresses be about the film is that Iron Man really isn’t a superhero movie, even though it clearly is. The reason why superheroes took so long to get the Hollywood treatment is neatly summed up by my parents, who have thus far refused to see a movie adapted from a comic book because of what I call the Union Suit problem: no matter how you portray it, it all boils down to someone putting on a funny-looking costume to fight crime. People like my parents can’t overlook that. Even Batman Begins, which treated the Batman origin story with care and style, still had the hero end up in a funny-looking costume.

Iron Man doesn’t have this problem: Tony Stark, tech genius and military weapons manufacturer, sees the error of his ways and builds the suit not to fight crime, not to uphold truth, justice, and the American way, but to personally undo the damage his weapons have caused. The creation of the suit is the ultimate expression of the character’s personal change through the course of the film and makes perfect sense given the character.

A quick note: you might have read about a special bonus scene at the end of the closing credits - it’s really not worth your while unless you’re a die-hard comic book fan. It lasts only about twenty seconds and can be found out by a quick Google search. All it does is set up the sequels, when you know will be coming. And I’ll certainly be looking forward to them.

Going to see “Iron Man” tonight.

And after a rough-ass semester, really, that’s all that needs to be said.

Posting, which has been pretty much nonexistent ’round these parts except for the KC Blogger Book Group stuff, will resume shortly. Until then, check out Kissing Suzy Kolber’s rare foray into politics, which is seven kinds of funny and should be done more often.

Also, I’ve recently become a huge fan of Todd Alcott, a screenwriter who blogs about the film industry. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together can tell you that Raiders of the Lost Ark is a good film, but folks like Alcott can tell you why it’s a good film, which is what makes his blog fascinating. He’s done recent postings on Stephen Spielberg and the Coen brothers that are absolutely worth your while - just keep scrolling back.

KC Blogger Book Group: Game On!

The first book we’ll discuss is Crossing California by Adam Langer. A Chicago tale that takes place in the waning days of the 1970s, this looks to be a coming of age novel featuring several families in a Jewish neighborhood. It’s a first-time author, which I figure is appropriate, and landed on several year-end best-of lists.

Plenty of copies available at local libraries, so no excuses. We’ll get together and discuss at a site to be determined next month on Tuesday, May 20th. (I originally wanted to make it a full month, but that puts us into Memorial Day Weekend, and I figure all of us will likely have other things going on.)

Hope the book doesn’t suck. And if it does suck, at least we’ll have something to talk about. Enjoy!

KC Bloggers: let’s get lit! No, wait, that came out wrong….

Are there any other KC bloggers out there who would be interested in starting up a book group?

Bloggers are people who, almost by definition, read a bunch, keeping up with dozens of blogs in a week, if not in a day. We also are people who are good at organizing their thoughts for posting - two qualities that make ideal book group participants. Throw in the fact that there are a bunch of crazy, diverse, and intelligent folks that blog in the area, and I think we’d get a great group together. I was thinking of trying it as a one-time thing, meeting at a centrally-located bar for drinks and discussion. And if the response is good, it could then develop into an ongoing thing. And it’d be a great excuse for a blogger meetup, if nothing else.

And if you’re interested but can’t make the book group for whatever reason and want to play along at home, you can post your thoughts on your blogs. We all can than comment back and forth, prompting further discussion, expanding the conversation.

So if anyone’s game, leave a comment or email me at the gmail at gregg dot winsor and mention what kinds of books you like to read. Anyone who has a blog in the KC area is welcome. And if you’re already in a book group that might need a new member, keep me in mind.

(I’m sending out extra special guilt vibes to some of the KC librarians who I know are out there. You guys game?)

Where I’m at….

I’ve recently cleaned house on the social networking front - I’ve nixed my Facebook and my MySpace accounts, as I wasn’t really using either and dislike them for various reasons. But if you want to catch me elsewhere on teh interwebs:

My Goodreads. (Which needs updating.)

Twitter. (Trying this out.)

Flickr. (Cute baby photos!)

And, y’know, here.

Rock chalk, gunfire.

The wife and I were exhausted Monday evening after a long weekend, so after putting the little guy down we decided to crash early. During the night, Gav started to fuss, as he’s an incredibly light sleeper. I went in to hold him for a little bit and turned on the television to watch the college basketball championship with the sound off and the closed-captioning on. I (or Gavin) happened to have excellent timing, as I got to see the entirety of the KU comeback, down eight with just a handful of minutes to play in regulation. I went back to bed after KU forced overtime.

About a half hour later I was awakened by a loud boom, which I assumed was a severe thunderstorm that was supposed to be coming our way. On the second boom, I wondered if there was a rolling gun battle in our neighborhood. After the third, I realized it was local KU yahoos shooting off weaponry in celebration of the win.

So congrats, KU! I just wish that at such a late hour you would have been more respectful of families with kiddos.

Google Mail failed me.

Someone out there on the internets wrote me a nice email about my blog, however I couldn’t read it as it was routed into my spam folder. I caught just the barest glimpse of the subject header right after I clicked the “delete all” button. Gone forever, alas.

(Please don’t take this as a slam against the Almighty Google, whose applications and search engines I use every day, praise be to the nice folks over at Mountain View, California.)