Read: Early Books, 2025

A bit of a change here people. Instead of individual books on individual posts, I’m lumping the first few books of the year in one post with brief explanations. I’m doing this to save time. Today is Sunday. It is 5:10PM. Tomorrow begins a crazy pursuit of numerous to-do’s, and I just don’t have time to do the individual posts, nor will I have time to do many of the other things I normally do. But don’t you worry about me my little creative Oompa Loompas. I am doing just fine.

I’m teaching a workshop in Berlin in early March. This book was background for me. While I can’t say this book was exciting I would say it provided me with a load of information about the history of the city and why it looks and operates the way it does now. For those of you on this workshop, just know it’s looking REALLY good. Not only do we have our class but we also have the ongoing EMOP which is loaded with exhibitions, lectures, etc. And, if all things play out nicely, we will have some special visitors to our class. Folks who will add interesting conversations while sharing their work and lives.

Fantastic book. Loved it. Wonderful writer, easy to read, and created a mental picture I’m still thinking about. This is about New York at the turn of the century, Coney Island to be specific, and the culture of unusual humans living and working in the early “freak” shows. Wife loved this book too.

Before you dismiss this book, hear me out. Yes, this is the book that spawned the Rambo movies, but this book is more than the films. I missed the entire point of this book when I first saw the movie First Blood. I was enamored with the story of a special operations veteran tearing up a small town sheriff’s department, and yes, I had the Rambo knife. All ten inches of it. The handle was filled with compass, fishing line, matches, etc. I was all in on Rambo. I ditched school with my friend Eddie to see Rambo: First Blood Part II the day it arrived in theaters. But I missed the point. The point of First Blood was a combat veteran returning to America with PTSD, before it was labeled as such, and being mistreated by the folks at home.

When First Blood arrived, I snuck into the theatre and slowly crept into the darkened room hoping to get the best seat only to find myself in the middle of the final scene of an earlier showing, a scene where Rambo breaks down in front of Colonel Trautman. Rambo is crying. He is a broken man. In charge of million dollar equipment while in Vietnam, part of a special unit, with men who were his brothers, only to return home unable to even hold a job. “What the f&^% is this?” I remember thinking. “Rambo can’t cry!” And for those of you wondering, the book is VERY different from the movie. VERY different. The ending is a complete right turn that would have basically made it impossible to make a sequel, and would have not worked with American audiences who need things to work out in the end.

We all have Iain to thank for this book. Iain of Prime Lenses podcast. Iain who is too stylish and cool and smart and interesting and makes us look like schlubs. Ya, him. He wrote me and said “Hey, this is a keeper.” The journal has become the most important creative outlet in my life. Period. Not even close. So, a book about the history of the notebook, well, momma said “Bring me home.” The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper is like oxygen for me, and a book that taught me many, many things. Thanks Iain. I bought this book and it is already out on loan with two more people waiting for it. I’m like my own little library now. My late fees are stupidly high.

As you will read in my next post, a post about mobile phone photography, I mention I was intending to launch a film about how to win at parties. One of my strategies at parties is to always search out the bookshelves of the host. A goldmine. Which is precisely where this book came from. A Christmas party. And man did I love this book. I can’t do shit with my hands other than flip people off, make shadow puppets and flick things at my nieces. This book was about building for the one percenter New York crazies, but it was about so much more. Loved it.

I do not know a single human being who could do what these men did. Not even my friends in the military. We hear talk of the Greatest Generation, and I believe the was something different about people of this era. I am so damn soft it’s embarrassing. I hurt my neck, spend a month in intense pain, rehab myself for three months, wake with pain and feel like I’m being treated unfairly by life. These guys, a core of a half dozen, are British spies, warriors and diplomats who see action in Albania, Algeria, Congo, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Turkey, Jordan, Oman, Cyprus, Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Egypt. You simple can’t believe what they did and what they survived. Plane crashes, assassination attempts, disease, failed marriages, mortar fire, machine gun fire, tank fire, mines, tigers and the wrath of a myriad of other nasty little entities. When the clock finally struck midnight for one of our heroes, his offspring summed him up like this. “I’m proud that some of my father’s exploits may go down in the annals of military history; and of course I’m proud of his bravery. But I think I’m proudest of all of the simpler virtues of his life: his disarming modesty, his uncomplicated patriotism, his down-to-earthness, his instinctive decency, above all his absolute straight-as-a-die honesty.” Compare this to the total human shit we have running things today. This book is a bit dense, but if you are interested in history, it’s a roadmap to so much more.