Author Archives: bookshelfbattle

Aug 27 2014
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Writing

Writer’s Battle – More Expressions

HAPPY AS A CLAM – – Really? I have found every clam I have ever met to be downright morose.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE – This means “to be in a difficult situation with no visibly correct answer.” To be more accurate, the expression should be, “Stuck between a rolling boulder and a hard place.” Because really, if the rock is already there and the hard place is right next to it, and there’s enough room between them, and assuming the rock is immobile and the hard place aka a wall isn’t going anywhere, then you should be able to walk between the two with great ease. Just be careful to not end up like that guy from that movie that had to cut his arm off after a rock fell on it.

TAKE IT WITH A GRAIN OF SALT – I had dinner once with a newcomer to the country and used this phrase. He thought I was trying to tell him to put salt on his food. I had to explain that it was an expression that meant “to be skeptical of a statement that has been told to you.” I assume the connotation is that if you have a piece of steak on your fork, it might look deceptively tasty, but you might want to put some salt on it just in case. Of course, this expression was invented before people realized too much salt is bad for you.

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE – In other words, people always assume that others have it better than they do. You think your grass stinks but your neighbor’s grass looks all lush and green. It could be you are paranoid because at the end of the day, grass is grass. Or, it could be you are absolutely right and your neighbor is an expert gardner, astute in the art of watering, mowing, and fertilizing grass to give it that beautiful emerald glow whereas your grass looks like a dried up hay field. There are sometimes when the grass is actually greener but rather than hate on a person with greener grass, you should try to learn from him.

YOU CAN’T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO – Wrong. I have literally been the rightful owner of every piece of cake I have ever eaten. I go to a party. The host hands me a piece of cake. The host has transferred ownership of the piece of cake to me. I now have it. And now I eat it. Mindblown.

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Aug 26 2014
1 Comment
Writing

The Writer’s Battle – Expression Challenge Continued

Just a few more, in no random order:

LIKE WATER OFF A DUCK’S BACK – Has anyone ever poured water on a duck to test this? Last I noticed, ducks still get wet. I’m not aware that ducks have a teflon coating.

I DON’T GIVE A RAT’S ASS – Well, if the point is to convey you don’t care, then I suppose this would qualify. By saying this, you’re actually saying that you don’t care enough about something to even give the butt of a verminous rodent for it. Even so, I’m trying think when in our history were rat butts ever considered a form of currency.

IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE – Please, like rocket science is that hard. If you had a degree in rocket scientology, you could build those things all the time.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT – People usually say this right before they say something disrespectful. “With all due respect sir, you smell like the business end of an elephant on a hot August day.”

YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU – Used to convey the message to people they should spend their money now because they can’t spend it when they’re gone, i.e. “you can’t take it with you.” Although, that’s not really accurate because Egyptian Pharaohs took their stuff with them all the time.

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Aug 25 2014
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TV Based on Books

Fangs for the Memories

OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING

As wacky as True Blood became in recent years, the show wrapped up tonight with a fabulous finale. Loose ends were tied up. Fans were not left with any major unanswered questions. Sookie did not move to the Pacific Northwest to become a lumberjack ala Dexter. The screen did not fade to black and cut to Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. There were no stumbles. There were no cop-outs.

All in all, fans who invested the past several years on what is best described as a equal parts horror/drama/and extremely dark comedy were rewarded.

REPEAT- SPOILER WARNING

The Sookie/Bill romance came to er, uh…well, a bloody conclusion. Jason found a love that didn’t depend entirely on sex. Ghost Tara and her mom reconciled in a prior episode. Hoyt and Jessica tied the knot. And last but not least, Eric and Pam are TV infomercial pitchmen. Their product? New Blood – which apparently does not suck as bad as the previous synthesized blood substitute, “True Blood,” which was despised by many a vampire, causing them to wreak havoc in search of the real thing.

All in all (with Bill excluded) the cast of characters each end up with plausible happy endings of their own – in a world where for most of the series, happy endings seemed impossible.

True Blood what can I say about you? You tried to be as funny as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and as dark and exotic as Anne Rice’s L’estat novels and in the already chock full vampire genre, came up with something new that held our attention for six years.

When this show walked in, the air went out…

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Aug 25 2014
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TV Based on Books

Fangs for the Memories

OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING

As wacky as True Blood became in recent years, the show wrapped up tonight with a fabulous finale. Loose ends were tied up. Fans were not left with any major unanswered questions. Sookie did not move to the Pacific Northwest to become a lumberjack ala Dexter. The screen did not fade to black and cut to Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. There were no stumbles. There were no cop-outs.

All in all, fans who invested the past several years on what is best described as a equal parts horror/drama/and extremely dark comedy were rewarded.

REPEAT- SPOILER WARNING

The Sookie/Bill romance came to er, uh…well, a bloody conclusion. Jason found a love that didn’t depend entirely on sex. Ghost Tara and her mom reconciled in a prior episode. Hoyt and Jessica tied the knot. And last but not least, Eric and Pam are TV infomercial pitchmen. Their product? New Blood – which apparently does not suck as bad as the previous synthesized blood substitute, “True Blood,” which was despised by many a vampire, causing them to wreak havoc in search of the real thing.

All in all (with Bill excluded) the cast of characters each end up with plausible happy endings of their own – in a world where for most of the series, happy endings seemed impossible.

True Blood what can I say about you? You tried to be as funny as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and as dark and exotic as Anne Rice’s L’estat novels and in the already chock full vampire genre, came up with something new that held our attention for six years.

When this show walked in, the air went out…

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Aug 24 2014
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Music

Lyrics to Tito Puente’s Senor Burns

As a comedy aficionado, I am really enjoying the “Every Simpsons Ever” Marathon on FXX. One of my favorite songs from the show is Tito Puente’s “Senor Burns.” The Setup – in the “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” episodes, oil is discovered at Springfield Elementary School, causing Principal Skinner to spend lavishly, including hiring Tito Puente as the school music teacher. But, when Mr. Burns blocks out the sun to force everyone to buy more energy from his nuclear power plant, everyone in town has a grudge against Mr. Burns, as well as a motive to shoot him. Tito is cleared as a suspect when it is learned that he chose to get his revenge on Mr. Burns, not with violence but through an insulting salsa song:

LYRICS TO SENOR BURNS BY TITO PUENTE
Wounds won’t last long, but an insulting song
Burns will always carry with him.
So I’ll settle my score, on the salsa floor
with this vengeful Latin rhythm.
Burns! Con el corazon de perro!
Senor Burns! El diablo con dinero!
It may not surprise you, but all of us despise you.
Please die and fry. In hell, you rotten
rich old wretch!
Adios viejo!

By the way, my Spanish is rusty but I believe the palabras en espanol translate roughly into “Burns you have the heart of a dog!” and “Mr. Burns you’re the devil with money!”

Literally, with no exaggeration, every few years, I’ll catch this episode on TV and end up singing the song for at least a year after. I haven’t even caught the episode on the marathon but it popped into my head and I can’t stop singing it.

Random thought – Are they going to show the Simpons Movie? They can’t really call it “Every Simpsons Ever” if they don’t show the Simpsons Movie, can they?

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Aug 23 2014
3 Comments
Writing

The Writer’s Battle – Expression Challenge – “It is what it is.”

EXPRESSION: It is what it is.

MEANING: A situation that is difficult yet must be accepted as is, for it is unchangeable.

EXAMPLE: MARGOT: Hi Becky. Just wanted to say I am sorry to hear that your lousy husband stole all your money, ran off with your sister to Paraguay, and started a folk music jazz fusion band together. Moreover, I was chagrined to hear that their new hit single, “Becky Sucks in Every Conceivable Way,” which is basically just a list of all of your faults set to a melody, has not only gone triple platinum but has had a Sirius XM channel devoted to playing it on a continuous loop 24/7.

BECKY: It is what it is.

COMMENTARY: I really despise this one. These days, I mostly see it posted all over facebook, social media, etc. People trying to be cool about a situation by saying the obvious – “It is what it is.” Of course it is! What else could it be? Unfortunately, we live in a society where everyone is so sensitive about every little thing that if you complain about something negative in your life people start to become amateur psychologists and try to diagnose you with depression. No one can just take two seconds to complain about a crappy situation without everyone getting all flustered. “Oww! I hate that I stubbed my toe! That really bugs me!” “Really? Sounds like you are well into the advanced stages of the early onset of clinical depression! Get ‘ye to an insane asylum posthaste!”

So to avoid people making a big deal about something, people just say “It is what it is.” It sounds negative without being negative. It lets someone complain without complaining.

ORIGINS: “It is what it is.” Surely, that has to be a grandiose philosophical statement of epic proportions. I can see Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato all sitting around in their togas, pondering the mysteries of this phrase.”

PLATO: What is it?

ARISTOTLE: It is something, surely. Something it must be.

SOCRATES: It is what it is.

ARISTOTLE AND PLATO: Whoa!

Over time, various philosophers and political movements got their grubby mitts on this expression and twisted it to suit their own ends:

COMMUNISM: If it’s yours, it should be ours!

FACISM: If it’s theirs, it should be ours!

CAPITALISM: Screw you! It’s mine!

EXISTENTIALISM: It is to the extent you believe it is.

NIETZCHEISM: There it is…enjoy it while it lasts.

MACHIAVELLIANISM: Make it yours before the other guy makes it his.

1960’s HIPPY-ISM: It is like whatever, man.

DARWINISM: If it is the best, it lasts longer than the rest.

PREPARE TO HAVE YOUR MIND BLOWN: That’s right. You heard me. I’m about to tilt the world’s philosophical axis, right here on a dorky book blog website. Check out my own flawless philosophy:

It is what it is.

If it is what it is, then —> Is it not what it is not?

BUT —> If it IS NOT what it IS NOT…

THEN—> IT MUST BE WHAT IT IS NOT!

AND THEREFORE:

The transitive property teaches us that IT is both what IT IS *AND* what it IS NOT!

I know! I should have told you to sit down for that one, right! Are your heads ok? Did they blow up? Did I just lose half my readership? Am I down to only six readers now? I’ll have to make it six more to make it an even dozen.

You may scoff, but if you think about it – is a person not defined by a) what he is and at the same time b) what he is not? Is a person who is a) a good person also b) not a bad person? Is a person who is a) a dentist also b) not a race car driver?

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Go tell it on the mountain! It’s the Expression Challenge now till Labor Day on bookshelfbattle.com where once in awhile, the proprietor actually does review a book!

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Aug 23 2014
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TV

Hi I’m Troy McClure…

…and you might remember me from such book blogs as “Bookshelfbattle.com” and “Return to the Valley of Bookshelfbattle.com!”

In honor of the Simpsons Marathon on FXX, “Every Simpsons Ever!” I’m posting the following filmography of everyone’s favorite Hollywood hack, Troy McClure. Voiced by the late, great Phil Hartman, the character was a mockery of celebrities who have fallen from stardom and are forced to take part in lame projects they view as beneath them. In Troy’s case, he was always featured in some movie, film, TV special that was incorporated into the Simpsons’ plot and he’d introduce himself by saying, “Hi I’m Troy McClure! You might remember me from such films as…” and then he’d go on to list two hilariously titled films.

Without further ado:

Hi! I’m Troy McClure! You might remember me from…

1) …such films as “Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die” and “Gladys the Groovy Mule.”

2)…such educational films as “Smoke Yourself Thin!” and “Get Some Confidence, Stupid!”

3) …such films as “The Greatest Story Ever Hula-ed” and “They Came to Burgle Carnegie Hall!”

4) …such driver education films as “Alice’s Adventures through the Windshield Glass” and “The Decapitation of Larry Leadfoot.”

5) …such cartoons as “Christmas Ape” and “Christmas Ape Goes to Summer Camp”

6) …such educational films as “Lead Paint: Delicious But Deadly” and “Here Comes the Metric System!”

7) …such Fox Network Specials as “Alien Nose Job” and “The Five Fabulous Weeks of the Chevy Chase Show!”

8) …such telethons as “Out with Gout 88” and “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House”

9) …such films as “P is for Psycho” and “The President’s Neck is Missing”

10) …such TV spinoffs as “Son of Sanford and Son” and “After Mannix.”

There’s plenty more where that came from. What’s your favorite Troy McClure movie title? Or, for that matter, what’s your favorite Simpsons quote?

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Aug 22 2014
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Books, Writing

The Writer’s Battle – Expressions

Expressions – you hear them all the time.  They’re those pesky figures of speech that everyone says but no one knows where they came from.  And sometimes, when you really sit there and think about them – they’re kind of weird.

Here’s some that are on my mind:

EXPRESSION:  “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

MEANING:  It is possible to achieve the same end through various means.

EXAMPLE:  “Hey Fred!”  Pete said.  “I ran out of glue and now I can’t finish my collage of 17th Century Prussian Warlords!  What the hell should I do know?”

Pete stroked his beard in a thoughtful manner and replied, “Why don’t you try some chewed up Grape Bubbalicious?  After all, there’s more than one way to skin a cat!”

COMMENTARY:  When you think about it, this expression is sick.  Apparently, based on the expression’s continued existence in the modern lexicon, there was at one point in the world’s history a booming cat skinning operation.  Whether people skinned cats for industrious profit or leisurely sport I am unaware.  Yet, cat skinning must have been prevalent at some point for people to have coined this expression.

GUESS AT HOW IT WAS INVENTED:  Two cat skinners, 1 and 2, were discussing a vexing problem in 1’s life.  2 suggested a variety of possible methods of solving 1’s problem, adding “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”  1, a veteran cat skinner, keenly aware of and experienced in a wide range of cat skinning techniques, devices, and methods, knew instantly that 2 was attempting to convey the message that there was more than one way to remedy his conundrum.  Thus, a new expression was born.

THE BOOKSHELF BATTLE EXPRESSION CHALLENGE – In an effort to motivate myself to engage in more bloggery, from now until Labor Day I will be consulting with Expression Scientists all over the globe to explain to you, the noble reader, not only how our most prevalent expressions were invented, but also, how they are pretty weird when you think about them.

Have an expression you’d like to see decompressed?  Post it in the comment section below.

As always, thank you for stopping by.  Stop by more often, will you?  I’ve seen cholesterol numbers higher than my stats. 

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Aug 17 2014
9 Comments
Poetry

What Will Your Verse Be?

All week long, I have wanted to write something about Robin Williams. With his zany, madcap energy and mile-a-minute comedic riffs, he was the very last person you would expect to check himself out early, wasn’t he? Much has been speculated on as everyone tries to figure out the why of it all – depression, drugs, a Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis. Truth be told, only he knew why and he didn’t choose to share with us the reason.

And that’s ok. He shared with us so much else.

For several months now, I’ve been trying to figure out my own voice on this blog. It is primarily a book blog, to share with you my thoughts on the latest novels I have been reading. Alas, life often gets in the way, weeks go by and I find that before I know it, much time has passed and the next book I planned to read and talk to you about is just sitting there on my shelf, growing dusty. Work, family commitments, general duties of taking care of myself and others – the business of life, it more often than not comes first.

For as long as I can remember, I have always dreamed of being a published author. Double Alas, it has yet to happen. Such is life. I find myself often wishing that I could go back in time – back to the days when I was picking a college major – and become an English teacher. That way, at the end of my life, if my dream of getting published never pans out, I could at least say that I spent my time on this planet being involved with something I love – reading books and talking to people about them. Maybe in a smaller way, that’s what I’m doing here.

Robin, you were an alien, a genie, a wacky doctor, an unconventional President, a down on his luck shrink, a DJ in Vietnam, and yes, you were even a divorced man who had to stoop to the level of dressing up like an old British nanny just to see his kids. But for the purposes of our little online community of literature lovers, your stint as an English teacher is what I’ll leave my readers with today:

The “What Will Your Verse Be?” Speech from Dead Poets Society (1989)

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love – these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, ‘O me! O life!…of the questions of these recurring, of the endless trains of the faithless..of cities filled with the foolish, what good amid these, O me, O life?’ Answer: that you are here; that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

As always, fellow Bookshelf Battlers, thank you for reading. I wish you the best of luck in finding your verse.

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Aug 09 2014
1 Comment
Books

James Patterson Weighs in On Amazon vs. Hachette Battle

Exceptionally prolific book writing machine James Patterson has weighed in on the Amazon vs. Hachette Battle. Check it out here on CNN.

MY TWO CENTS: Frankly, this is one of those complicated issues that leaves a bumpkin like me cross-eyed. I think I get it. For both sides, it’s about money. On the one hand, you have Hachette and authors arguing that they should be rightly compensated for their work – that a lot of time and effort goes into producing these stories that we all enjoy and they should be paid for it. Why would anyone sit themselves in front of a computer screen typing away for twelve hours a day unless there’s just compensation coming? For the love of the artform? Well, that would be nice but hey, you know, money would be nice too. After all, authors need to pay their bills and need an income to survive on so they can focus their efforts on churning out more books. Without that income, they’ll have to get day-jobs and who feels like writing when they get home from work?

On the other hand, you have Amazon claiming that the demand for books priced too high just isn’t there. They may have a point. Think for a moment the veritable explosion of entertainment at your fingertips that has arrived on the scene in recent years. I can remember living in a time where if you wanted to watch a movie, you drove to a store and rented a physical copy, brought it home, watched it, forgot to bring it back, got charged late fees. Today, you can pop on your iPad, rent any movie you want and it is instantly on your screen. I can remember a time where if you wanted to buy a book you’d drive to the bookstore. Today, you again pop on your iPad, download it and start reading. Sadly, the movie and book stores are bygone relics, which is kind of sad as I used to enjoy wandering around them, finding books and movies I’d never heard of before.

The point is though that if you are any kind of entertainer – an actor, a singer, or even an author – you have a ridiculous amount of competition these days for the limited dollars people can afford to spend on your entertainment product in today’s garbage economy. If your book price reaches over a certain level, people will just watch a movie on Netflix instead.

It’s one of those difficult debates where both parties aren’t entirely right or wrong. I suppose in the end, we live in a free market and the publishers/authors should be able to price their products as they choose. If they price them too high, in an age where there is an abundance of options, the consumers will be the ones in the end who will let them know whether or not their product is worth the cost.

One last shameless plug for James Patterson (not that he needs it) – he’s one of the most successful authors in history for a reason. His books are pretty great and you should read one today.

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