Posted by El Spaniard on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 @ 11:17 AM
Blog Post by SLAYER - Montana-based SCORP and all around tough guy
Being a true Scorp is somewhat like being a true Fu-Schnick; you may not know what it is but you definitely know it when you see it. Not too long ago I was having dinner at a little restaurant in Livingston, Montana when I noticed a picture on the wall of author Jim Harrison. Now, Harrison is a local and well-known eater so it wasn't that the picture was on the wall that caught my attention. No, it was the visage staring at me from the wall. There is no ignoring that unkempt mane, his weathered face and the stare that juxtaposes one piercing eye and one blind one. All of it reads Scorp.
Obviously you can't judge a book, or an author, by its cover, so that there has to be something more, a story behind that lived-in face. Am I right? I mean that bad eye. Harrison lost sight in it when a girl shoved a broken bottle in his face when he was seven-years-old. SEVEN! From there he, like all good Scorps, melded a blue collar upbringing in rural Michigan with the cerebral undertakings of being an English professor and writing poetry. With his 1978 publication of Legends of the Fall, a collection of three novellas including the title piece, Harrison came into his own. Not only did it bring him to the attention of the literary world at-large, but it also brought him a boat load of cash, thanks to the film rights of all three stories being snapped up by Hollywood . From there Harrison did what any self-respecting starving artist, or Scorp, would do - he blew his windfall on booze, coke and strippers. Can I get an Amen from the Congregation! After carousing with the likes Jack Nicholson and writing the severely disappointing screenplay for the Jack's film Wolf, Harrison thankfully ditched L.A. before his heart exploded. He headed back to Michigan and then to his current home in Montana 's Paradise Valley, where he hunts and fishes and eats that which he catches and kills. Somehow he fits in time to write.
And it is Harrison 's writing that defines him as a Scorpion par excellence. If you only know him from the movie adaption of Legends of the Fall, don't be dismayed. His characters are no pretty-boy Brad Pitts. They are rough and tough guys who have, in the words of author Barry Hannah (Geronimo Rex; High Lonesome), "savage grace." Because he comes from the Midwest and writes about guys that fish, hunt, fight, eat, drink, screw, wander, love nature and generally live on the edge of society, Harrison often gets compared to Hemingway, but the real men in Harrison's books are the characters who you always wish would who show up to beat up the wanna-be, Ivy League tough guys that Papa always wrote about.
More importantly, Harrison,unlike Ernie, loves women. I mean llllllllaaaaaaahhhhhhhhvvvvvvvvssssssss ‘em. I haven't read anything this side of Penthouse Forum that celebrates the female ass like Harrison 's work. For instance, in his recent novel The English Major, even the 60-year-old Cliff gets some from a younger woman ("...her panties drawn up fetchingly in her butt crack. This was a fanny that could start a war and I was felt blessed that I had use of it.") And the chicks aren't only there for fun. Harrison best novel, Dalva, has a woman title character that is every bit as tough as any of Harrison 's male character but still maintains a likability and femininity that Hemingway never developed in any of female leads. Women, men, dogs, birds. It doesn't matter. Whatever Harrison writes about comes to life.
So Harrison covers all the bases - looks, life, literary legacy - needed to give him the Scorp seal of approval. And if all this doesn't make you want to go out and read one of his books then, unlike Jim, maybe you aren't Scorp material.
(Harrison 's most recent collection of novellas The Farmer's Daughter was published in December.)
Posted by El Spaniard on Thu, Jan 14, 2010 @ 09:19 AM
While the rest of the Scorpions are battling with the shit-on-the-bottom-of-your-shoe mess of Inherent Vice I used some holiday cash to stock up the bookshelf with some new reads that I thought I'd share with our loyal reader base (of 4 people):
Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon - Epic fiction around the lives of the guys who lined the border between PA and MD and a handful of other states. Actually bought this one in tandem with Inherent Vice, but haven't got into it too much. Pynchon wrote this one in 18th century dialect before venturing into stoner speak for IV. Almost 800 pages so going to be a long one. Compare it to Shantaram which I've been reading for like 3 years off and on.
Suffer in Silence by David Reid - Fiction set around Navy SEAL BUD/s and Hell Week.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Everyone and their mother is reading this but I liked No Country and Blood Meridian so finally going to take this down.
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham - I'm one of the few SCORPS who reads non-fiction more than fiction. Heard good things about this one and he's tougher than any other President we'll see again.
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power by Dan Yergin - Geopolitical nonfiction about the most important element of the global economy written by an energy consultant with deep industry ties
The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway - Been wanting to read more of his since Have or Have Not
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell - Orwell went to Spain to cover the civil war and instead ended up joining the fight against the Facists. Would Dan Brown do that?
Posted by MC Trouble on Wed, Jan 13, 2010 @ 08:30 AM
After 120 pages of Thomas Pynchon's book, Inherent Vice, I am completely underwhelmed. To be honest, I don't think I can possibly make it any further. In my estimation, this is the worst book the Scorps have selected to date - worse than McMafia and worse than Youth In Revolt. Here are a couple of reasons why this book failed to capture me:
1. The main character is a loser: Doc is such a f'n tool. If I'm going to get excited about a book I need to be rooting for a badass. Right from the start Doc came across as a waste of space. I like the whole stoner detective thing but so far he is getting owned by everyone he interacts with.
2. Too many characters to remember: Like all (Editor's Note: just him) Scorps, I drink and watch TV while I read. Thus, I don't have the memory space for all these stupid characters (Editor's Note: The rest of us may). Normally, upon confusion, I would go back and re-read to remember a name. There are so many people in this book that I can't even tell you who was murdered or who has disappeared.
3. Lame portrayal of the sixties: Starting with the cover art, this book tries too hard. I'm sure it's difficult to write sixties fiction without being overly cliché, but I just couldn't accept this attempt. What put me over the edge was when the entire Wavos coffee shop shouted "wipeout" in unison.
Because of the above, I have not been properly engaged by this book and now I have no clue what is going on.
What do others think? Is anyone going to finish this?
- MC TROUBLE
________________________________________________
UPDATE
THE SPANIARD AND SCORP #8 have both finished Inherent Vice but it was definitely a losing battle. The ending somehow managed to tie everything together with some gratuitous sex scenes, but there were so many different plot threads it barely made any sense. I also picked up Pynchon's book Mason Dixon and am willing to give him another try in a couple months after my brain recovers from this. Groovy.