If you were asked to name every president who was assassinated, would you remember James Garfield? He was president for only a matter of months, part of a generally undistinguished cohort that served between Grant and McKinley. There is no great legislation that we credit to Garfield, no famous speeches or charismatic wife. On the surface, Garfield was nothing more than a generally decent man, a loving father, a good husband–an ineffectual president, although to be fair he spent a third of his term in office dying of a […]
We will recognize each other, and see ourselves for the first time the way we really are
“We all subscribe to preposterous beliefs; we just don’t know yet which ones they are.” Why do bad things happen to good people? Has there ever been a satisfactory answer to that question? The people of Salem thought they had one–bad things happen to good people because bad people–witches–make them happen. Cow suddenly dies? Lightning strikes your house? Child is stricken with a mysterious illness? Without a solid understanding of veterinary medicine, electricity, or germ theory these may well seem like magical events. Is it […]
I am Healthy, I am Whole, but I Have Poor Impulse Control
Laurie Notaro calls herself a “Pointer-Outer of Extraordinary Acts of Incredible Foolishness and, on Occasion, Rudeness.” I find that the older I get, the more I become one of these Pointer-Outers myself. Although I’ve never yelled at an old woman for walking too slowly through a Costco (only to discover she was walking that way because she was on oxygen), or lectured the characters at Disneyland for not wearing pants (Notaro does both), I fear the day may come, if I don’t learn to keep my mouth […]
Further Misadventures of an Idiot Girl
Laurie Notaro’s background is in journalism. Her first book, The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club, was a collection of columns originally written for an Arizona newspaper. Autobiography of a Fat Bride, her second book, continues in that same vein, with a collection of short essays. They focus mainly on meeting and marrying her husband, and their first few years of marriage. I can’t help but compare it to another one of her books, a later one, The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, which I read and reviewed […]
The sea will tell, if it can get a word in edgewise
Vincent Bugliosi sure did think a lot of himself. And he had every right to–he’s the guy who put Charles Manson away. He won almost every case he tried, whether as prosecutor or defense attorney. He wrote Helter Skelter, a fantastic book that enthralled and terrified me in equal measure. And the Sea Will Tell, however, is a bit of a different story. Covering the Palmyra murders case, the book starts off promisingly enough with the tale of two couples sailing separately to the distant island of Palmyra, both hoping […]
The Misadventures of an Idiot Girl
For my first Cannonball 8 review (and my first book review. . .ever!), I reread one of Laurie Notaro’s essay collections. I own all of these and love to revisit them from time to time. This summer, however, during a move-induced purging frenzy, I accidentally sold my copy of the Flaming Tantrum of Death. I borrowed it from the library to see if it was worth buying again. While there are a couple essays in here that fall flat for me (or maybe I’ve just reread them too […]
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