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Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware

A masterpiece by graphic novelist Chris Ware. Both the best book I've ever watched and the best movie I've ever read. Deeply felt, observant, and funny.

Ware (and Jimmy) seems puzzled by life and by other people, and this work seeks to put some pieces of that puzzle in place and make sense of life. That's what great art does.

This book broke my heart and gave me hope for mankind. Very slick, Ware!

"Gilda" (1946, Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford)

Putting aside my crush on Glenn Ford -- one of those regular-guy, low-wattage but high-charisma stars I'm so attracted to, like Gene Hackman and Ross Martin (it's a mystery to me why those Victorian ladies were attracted to Jim West when Artemus Gordon was right there. Must've been the tight pants) -- I was enthralled by this movie. It's grown-up storytelling at a high pitch, a story about adults and their complexities that is made by and for adults. Rita Hayworth was in her 20s at the time, but she plays Gilda as a full-grown woman aware of the consequences of her risky manipulations and willing (even eager) to take responsibility for them.

What a shock that is after being inundated with today's reductive version of womanhood; girl-stars and their coy, teasing, woman-child antics. Woman afraid to grow up. Desperate Housewives trying to freeze themselves in their own pasts. And too often these women are paired with grown boy-heroes who just want people to say, "Yes, Harrison. You've still got it."

Our heroes, Gilda and Johnny (of course, "Johnny"), are unscrupulous, self-absorbed, and compromised, but they're also vulnerable, loyal, and driven by love. They're drifting along riding on the coattails of questionable people, and they pay for their dissolution. They accept the consequences of their own actions and learn from their mistakes. Like adults. No phony fairy-tale ending where the Pretty Woman lets the wealthy prince whisk her away from all this – "all this” being the running of her own life and her growth as a person. What kind of shitty fairy tale is that?

I prefer Gilda, the beautiful heroine who seems to be a manipulative slut, and Johnny, the handsome young prince who works as a goon for a mobster. They're in love. They hurt each other terribly. I won't tell you whether they live happily ever after or not, but what a great ride it is to get to find out.

"Gilda" is funny, tense, suspenseful, intriguing, and entertaining. It was made in 1946. Maybe World War II made Americans temporarily smarter about themselves and about the perils of the worlds both inside and outside your door. They didn't look for easy answers; "Gilda” certainly doesn't provide any. Too bad the Iraq War hasn't done the same for us.

"ABC" by the Jackson 5

Michael Jackson is the ultimate test of the question, "can I separate the art from the artist? Can I go to my co-worker's swank party even though he's an arrogant prick who doesn't need more sops to his ego? Can I accept that branch of my relatives even though they're dopey and dull? Can I buy a Starbucks latte without worrying about fair trade and Third World farmers?" These are the conundrums of daily life.

The Jacksons are a family of greedy, waxen, manipulative liars. Not a nice thing to say, but molesting poor kids and fleeing to Bahrain is not a nice thing to do. ("Allegedly!", as Kathy Griffin would add.) How utterly unfair that they possess musical genius.

I can't figure out how their music (the stuff they've done both individually and collectively) can express such effortless joy and warmth when they themselves express the opposite.

"ABC"is pure joy. I feel lucky to be alive when I hear it. Isn't that a son of a bitch?

Maybe the Jacksons need to put the love into their songs because that's the only place they can find it. Maybe music is in their tell-tale hearts. Maybe they're just lucky assholes.

Other joyous Jackson songs:

"Someone to Call My Lover“ -- Janet
"I Want You Back" -- the 5
"PYT (Pretty Young Thing)“ -- Michael

It's the Jacksons, if you're nasty.

"Eat It" by Weird Al Yankovic

"Yo, Ding Dong, man. Ding Dong."

"You ain't fat. You ain't nothing!"

Weird Al at the top of his game (which is saying a lot). What a peculiar talent this guy has. Thank god he was around to keep a check on the excesses of the 80s and deliver this perfect parody song and video.

An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser

This is one of the most boring books I've ever read. It's the only book it's ever taken me literally years to read.

My mom picked it up for me at the supermarket (and no matter how much I ponder the idea of this book on the rack at the A&P, I can't figure it out) the summer before I went to college. It's a brick of a book in extra tiny, elderly-reader-taunting typeface. I started to slog through it, went away to college for a few months, came back for vacation, found it sitting on my bedside table, jeering at me, read some more, and kept this up until I finished it. Seriously, it's dull and takes forever to read.

And yet. I have a terrible memory for plot and couldn't possibly put most books down for more than a few days before I'd have to start over at the beginning to know what's going on. But I was easily able to pick this one up months later. Dreiser is boring for the same reason that he's memorable: he describes things in such sharp, intricate detail that he imprints them on your memory for forever.

I think this is one of the handful of Great American Novels because it's so authentically perceptive about and descriptive of the character of post-Civil War Americans. The hero of the story wants money and respect, and he knows he'll get respect by getting money. He wants to be a big shot. He ends up in the middle of a triangle -- devoted, simple, dull shop girl he impregnates versus glamorous, wealthy boss's daughter he pursues. He accidentally (except in the sense that he planned it) drowns his unsuspecting pregnant girlfriend in order to rid himself of his inconvenient past, but of course, you can't escape your past no matter how far down a river you put it.

Once you know this story, you see it everywhere you look, from Ted Kennedy to O.J. to Iran Contra to Watergate. Just push your dirty little secrets out of the boat and no one will know, will they?

It's the flip side of the American Dream, the true story to the Horatio Alger mythology. It's about our lust for privilege. We in America believe the privileged deserve better than the rest of us, as is evident from our health care system to our first class cabins to our Hummers and our love of casinos. If only we can figure out how to step on each other to claw our way up to the ranks of the privileged; then we'll be happy!

The movie adaptation A Place in the Sun, starring the perfectly cast and excellent Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters (gee, guess which woman played which character), is damned near perfect itself.

But before you see the movie, set aside a few years to read the book. The news, your neighbors, and your own seething ambitions will make more sense when you do.

"Tears of a Clown", Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

This lyrically intricate and layered song is pure emotion swaddled in an undeniable beat. The tension-filled lyrics are fun to say and fun to sing along with.

Smokey's peculiar, robotically-reserved interpretive style perfectly fits this song of secret passions hidden beneath bland exteriors. It's Smokey to a T, isn't it? -- the hard-bargaining, egotistical songwriting genius lurking like a troll beneath the bridge of his breathy tenor.