Author: Brian J. Noggle

Right-Wing Polemic Books Are Pornography; Left-Wing Polemics Are Michelangelo’s David

Brian J. Noggle

Broad-minded St. Louis Post-Dispatch blogger compares Obama Nation and Unfit Command to pornography, building a facile syllogism to support his metaphor.

No comment on McCain or Bush hatchet jobs, and the author says he doesn’t read the books because he doesn’t like peep shows, either.

Except that, of course, the books offer ideas instead of naked pictures. But the Post-Dispatch intelligentsia doesn’t need to actually read books to tut-tut the wrong thinking within them, doesn’t need to actually answer arguments when –hey! Look! Straw man!

I don’t care for the books myself because they tend to be facile and unconvincing. Kind of like Post-Dispatch analysis.

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Good Book Hunting: August 13, 2008

Brian J. Noggle

Oops, I did it again.

Today, the J had its book fair in the same room as in past years, but this year the room seemed dimmer. The books certainly were in great disarray, making it hard to browse quickly in the near-dark. However, I managed to find a few just fine:



J 2008 book fair results
Click for full size

I got:

  • The Good War by Studs Terkel, memories of men who served.
  • Back to the Future Part II, the movie tie in. I think I have the first already, but given this pile of books, who knows?
  • A CSI television show tie-in book. It’s a surprise gift for my mother. Don’t tell her.
  • True Grit, the novel upon which the movie was based or the novelization thereof. I just read Rooster Cogburn, don’t forget.
  • The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, the source for The Sound of Music.
  • Bill McCllellan’s book. He’s a communist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Oops, did I slip Freudianly?
  • Wilderness Survival and the U.S. Army Survival Manual because that Georgia-Russian War is making me nervous.
  • World of Shakespeare: Plants, a book that alphabetically lists plants and their references in Shakespeare. You know you would have bought it, too.
  • History of the Franks, a paperback about the forebearers of the French.
  • The Wall by Sartre, a collection of short stories including the title piece.
  • Ontological Relativity and other essays, a couple of lectures by a philosopher I’d never heard of.
  • Two Essays on Analytical Psychology by Carl Jung. Since I’ve had another thin volume by Jung on my shelves for a decade, I thought maybe I’d get it company for the next decade.
  • Life in Medieval Times, one of those books that tries to tease out the day to day in a historical epoch.
  • An uncorrected proof of The Septembers of Shiraz, a book set in Iran near the revolution. Its, not ours.
  • Weeds of the North Central States so I know what I’m pulling.
  • This Way To The Stars, a juvenile book from the 50s or 60s talking about space. Probably launched many a dream and a couple of scientists or astronauts.
  • Foxfire 2, a book in the series about crafts and olden times. See Georgia-Russian War above.
  • Barton Fink and Miller’s Crossing, the screenplays by the Coen brothers.
  • Gracie: A Love Story by George Burns. I hope I don’t already have this one. With so many, I’m losing track.
  • Monarch of Deadman Bay, a book about an Alaskan Kodiak bear. As opposed to the Californian Kodiak, I suppose.
  • Free Market Environmentalism, a book about applying actual economic thought to environmentalism. Never heard of it? I suppose that means its arguments are valid.
  • In Search of History, Theodore H. White’s personal story of being an intrepid reporter.
  • Anglo-Saxon England. It leads right up to the conquest.
  • George F. Kennan’s Memoirs. I read his book American Diplomacy 1900-1950 in September, 2005.
  • The Wisdom of Confucious.
  • The Morning After, a collection of George Will columns from 1981-1986.
  • Frontiers II by Isaac and Janet Asimov. Asimov’s last nonfiction work details scientific breakthroughs ca. 1993.
  • Always the Young Stangers, prose by Carl Sandburg.
  • The Way Things Work volumes one and two.
  • Relativity by Albert Einstein.
  • Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts.
  • Extraterrestrial Civilizations by Isaac Asimov. Musings on the likelihood of others being out there.
  • America: What Went Wrong. As its title suggests, it will probably offend me.
  • Jefferson Himself, a sort of autobiography of Thomas Jefferson.
  • Anybody’s Bike Book, a book about bike repair.
  • Dictatorship of Virtue, which takes multiculturalism to task.
  • America’s First Civilization, a book covering the Olmecs.

Heather’s 4 books are to the right and on the bottom of the stack. Apparently, the top 3 are not hers; instead, they were a stack on the checkout table too close to the gravitational field of our stack and came home with us.

Depicted to the left is my new copy of Conquest, which I am almost finished reading in a library copy. I liked it so much, I ordered one online.

Man, the book fair next week will probably be about all the books I’ll ever need. I was afraid of going to the J because I’m running out of space, seriously, on my shelves. My fears were well founded. I’m going to have to develop modular book-based furniture to fit more books into our home.

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Sang-Froid and Roy

Brian J. Noggle

Sorry, no post, but I just saw the expression sang-froid in a book and thought of all the wonderful puns I could use as post titles if possible. Since it’s looking impossible in the near term, I’ll just do a post dumping them for you:

Sang-Freud
Sang-Fraud

And rest assured I will use it in a sentence today. And a two-year-old will parrot it back, much to my delight.

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Good Book Hunting: August 9, 2008

Brian J. Noggle

So I was saying something about not taking children to book fairs or something, and suddenly I read that the People for the Ethical Treatment of People or the St. Louis Ethical Society or whatever the secular humanists, the moral subgroup of the loft people, call themselves was having its book fair. Last year, it was a pretty small affair but fruitful according to my acquisitive nature. This year, it proved smaller, small enough to go through before the children got too many stroller sores, but fruitful enough:



Ethical Society Book Fair II
Click for full size

I got:

  • Several volumes of the History of Philosophy paperback set. I already owned a number of them but couldn’t remember which ones I lacked, so I bought them all. Turns out I only added one to my collection and a large number of duplicates. Gimlet, if you want the dupes, they’re yours.
  • Reflections of Friendship, kind of like Be Happy!, but with only landscapes and not 70s people to mock.
  • Countdown to Super Bowl, a book about the time the Jets went to the Super Bowl with Joe Namath at the head. Uh oh, ultimately, this might be a heartbreaking harbinger.
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde.
  • Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, the movie paperback. Because, well, you know me.
  • The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, even though Mrs. Noggle has assured me that it’s included in the compendium of C.S. Lewis writing that she gave me which I’ve obviously not paid enough attention to.
  • Thereby Hangs a Tale by Charles Earle Funk, a fun etymology book.
  • The Outsider by Colin Wilson.
  • My Cat Spit McGee, a book about a guy’s pet cat. Masculinity–.
  • Love Poems by Anne Sexton.
  • What’s the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank.
  • Piers Plowman.
  • One Way to Reconstruct the Scene. A slender volume of poetry, if I recall correctly.
  • Letters Volume I by Matthew Arnold. Brother, if you can buy a 100 year old book by a poet for a dollar, you just do it.
  • The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. A second printing, it might replace another early printing if I can figure out which is older.
  • Murder at the ABA by Isaac Asimov. I read this, probably in middle school. Still, the man wrote himself into one of his mysteries, but only as a minor character. Amusing.
  • The Elric Saga Part I by Michael Moorcock. I think some people have said this is good. It has to be better than The Black Corridor or An Alien Heat. Doesn’t it?
  • Invisible Prey by John Sandford.
  • Dumbth by Steve Allen. A book about how America is dumbing down. By Steve Allen. So you know this isn’t a new concern.
  • Looking Good in Print and Publication Design text books about designing for print.

Additionally, I got The Three Amigos and Fletch Lives! on videocassette. Mrs. Noggle scored 15 sets of records in the Beethoven Centennial series, some Cooking Light magazines, another record with trumpet music, and some cassettes.

A good trip again this year, and brief, but not brief enough, really, for J2, who thinks the car seat is a torture device.

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Book Report: Phantom Prey by John Sandford (2008)

Brian J. Noggle

A bad John Sandford book is better than any Ridley Pearson book I’ve read. Of course, I’ve only read one Pearson book, and this isn’t a bad book, just not Sandford’s best. However, I got to deploy hyperbole, and that’s what matters to a Web log.

This book delves into Goth subculture, something mocked on Saturday Night Live when Will Ferrell was still on it, for crying out loud. When I founded a magazine in 1994, my art editor was a Goth. So he’s not exactly delving into a cutting edge subculture here. Now, death amongst the Disco Revivalist Cults, that would be cutting edge. So an old white dude delving into a subculture of whom I’ve known members sort of made me wonder if he knew what he was talking about in writing it. Then, of course, I thought maybe he knew more than I did since I only knew goths a long time ago.

Ah, well. I figured some of it out early, clued in by the fact that the person above suspicion and the suspect both had really good asses. Yes, that’s how they were described. This book struck me as more tawdry of Sandford’s work, wherein he enters Parkerian territory of the main character being irresistable to all attractive members of the opposite sex, he imagines it, and then he goes home to his significant other (wife in this case). But the discussion of sex and the bawdy talk sort of sticks out in this one.

So there looks like there’s going to be a plot twist, but ultimately it takes the Chandlerian plot turn into interconnected crimes of the rich and the insane, and the one saving twist I was expecting wasn’t there. Finally, we get to the end, where someone who could have gotten clear decides to kill Davenport, leading to the ultimate climax that also makes a major unrelated subplot relevant in that it explains how Davenport survives.

So it’s not the best of Sandford, but it’s good enough. It moves along and works in ways that Pearson does not, and sometimes an attempted writer (me) ought to see the good and the not good in stark relief like this.

And this book, since I got it from the book club, is fresh and it only cost me $.20 plus $30 shipping and handling, so it was a steal so long as I don’t do the math.

Books mentioned in this review:


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Slightly Adulterated

Brian J. Noggle

You know the song “Love Machine” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles?

It just doesn’t sound right to me without sighing hens.


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It Would Shock You If You Didn’t Expect It

Brian J. Noggle

Terry Teachout on Raymond Chandler’s speaking voice:

Only one recording of Raymond Chandler’s speaking voice survives, a BBC interview conducted with Chandler in 1958 by none other than Ian Fleming. You can listen to it by going here. If you do so, you’ll be staggered to learn that the creator of Philip Marlowe sounds…well, wimpy.

Not if you’ve read any of his letters or his biography. Fellow was a total anglophile prone to wearing gloves and not shaking hands because he thought it was barbaric. That he sounds more Capote than Hemingway is not surprising at all.

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She’s Tired Of It Now

Brian J. Noggle

My wife is tired of my all-purpose punchline/rejoinder If President Obama lets us..

If she’s tired of it now, just think how she will feel once it’s our (and everyone else’s) lifestyle.

Meanwhile, I guess I’ll have to switch to If it makes Reid money in an obscure land deal or If its good for the Pelosi canneries.

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Great Moments in Police Professionalism

Brian J. Noggle

Wellston police scuffle; guns drawn:

A brawl between the newly chosen city police chief and his ousted predecessor resulted in guns being drawn on Friday and the mayor requiring medical attention for trying to intercede, police said.

The new police chief was named about four days ago, said Pine Lawn Police Chief Rickey Collins, whose department is investigating at the request of the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office.

The two men began pushing and shoving each other about 3 p.m in a meeting room inside Wellston’s City Hall. Collins said he did not know what they argued about, though he said the former police chief recently had been demoted to assistant chief.

Guns were pulled during the scuffle, but no shots were fired, Collins said.

Respect for law and order takes another hit.

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Good Book Hunting: July 30, 2008

Brian J. Noggle

Yesterday (yes, Wednesday), my beautiful wife and I sneaked off to a church rummage sale alone together, so we had some prime browse time and a chance to pick up some books. Here they are:



Pile of books from a church rummage sale

Click for full size


Among my purchases, you’ll find:

  • The Battle of Midway Island, a paperback history of the World War II battle.
  • Nine To Five, the paperbackization of the movie. I saw that movie within the last two years, I think. Maybe three.
  • A Russian/English/English/Russian dictionary. True story, in the middle 1980s, while in middle school, I tinkered with teaching myself Russian. Just in case they invaded, I wanted to have wisecracks they’d understand as I partook in the street to street fighting in my trailer park. This was before my physics class that would teach me that street to street fighting in a trailer park would not leave much time for the scrappy Wolverinesish middle schoolers to make cracks. Still, I got one now because I didn’t yet have one.
  • Wisconsin: Off the Beaten Path just so I can see where I’ve been and where I should go.
  • Cotswold Mistress a novel about something. It was a fifty cents, that’s my excuse. Also, I’ve been jonesing for some acquisitions, I guess.
  • See, I Told You So, another copy of Rush Limbaugh’s second book, ca. the middle nineties. Funny that he hasn’t written more, but I guess book royalties might not be a good return on his investment vis-a-vis other things he can do.
  • Buckley: The Right Word, a vocabulary builder, I think, based on the work of William F. Buckley, Jr.
  • Complete Works by William Shakespeare in the Walter J. Black Classics Club edition. Note that I paid fifty cents for it. You Google searchers who inherited a pile from your predecessors and want me to tell you they’re worth a lot of money, take note that you can get them for fifty cents each or a dollar each at garage sales and book fairs and about five bucks at used book stores that bother to stock them. They’re not old, they’re not rare. Get a job.
  • Excessive Joy Injures the Heart. I think it’s one of those chick novels. It had a cool title and it was a ha’buck.
  • Bruges and Its Beauties, a guidebook to some city somewhere. I’d better set a bit from a suspense novel I write in it sometime, or I will have wasted this quarter.
  • Several Sunset paperbacks about fixing up your home. I got something about decks, something about wiring, and something about painting and wallpapering.
  • The Great Lakes and Florida, two photographic journey coffeetable books because I’ve been to both places and because I can probably browse them during baseball games.
  • Five CDs of artwork, including 2 Renaissance collections, 1 Impressionism collection, and the Vatican’s collection. I think they might be art history things. They were like a buck each, so probably worth it.

So there I have them. A bunch more books to read when I’m done with 600 page academic history library books.

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Crossing Over, With Brian J.

Brian J. Noggle

As some of you might be surprised to learn, I have crossed over from time to time when it comes to voting, particularly for state races. Actually, “crossing over” is a bit of a misnomer; I tend to vote for Democrats, Libertarians, and Republicans based on a strange algorithm that only I understand.

This year, I cannot cross over to vote for Al Liese (Dem.) for state representative just so I can see which member of the family runs next time when Liese, who replaced his son using very similar signage for his run, gets term limited out. I thought it was a neat trick, but I was a neophyte in that scam even though I saw The Distinguished Gentleman. Now, though, I realize that Missouri politics is a full employment program for the Carnahan family as well as the other microdynasties-they-hope in the Blunt, Loudon, McNary, et al families.

Still, if Katherine Bruckner (her “blog”) somehow gets nominated for state rep, I’d vote for her in a heartbeat. I mean, she’s a Democrat proud she’s got her concealed carry license? That’s tougher than the Republicans vying for the spot on the ballot, word.

Additionally, I’m kicking around voting for Jay Nixon for governor if Kenny Hulshof is elected. I have a new motto: I trust a Missouri Democrat more than a Washington Republican. The difference, of course, lies in that anyone elected to or running for a national office is now a national servant, not the servant of the Missouri people. The money for the race comes from the outlying states, and suddenly the candidate espouses the national party’s opinions. It’s why I could have tolerated a Governor McCaskill but am not too pleased with Senator McCaskill.

Of course, once I start seeing the Jay Nixon ads and he starts making me sick of him, I might end up going Hulshof after all. Reluctantly.

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