Potluck Quote of the Day/Night (6 of 10): George Carlin on an Olympic Sport

Before we start with our blog entry for tonight, we would like to congratulate Turkish free-style wrestler Soner Demirtas for beating out an opponent from Kazakhstan with a long, difficult name to win bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics; British boxer Joe Joyce won his bout over Ivan Dychok, also from Kazakhstan, to win bronze for his country. We promise that we have nothing against Kazakhstan.

Earlier tonight, we read Chapter 8 of the Chuck Palahniuk novel "Invisible Monsters Remix" at a local Waffle House (so you figured out we don't live in New York). I thought of tweeting Mr. Palahniuk about the experience, but we somehow doubt he would care that much.

While putting this together, we briefly listened to WXDU, the college-run radio station for Duke University in Durham, NC, put as cool as "The Soul Kontrol Show with DJ Miz" is, it is ultimately challenging for a middle-aged white man to blog while listening to hip hop......to be fair, we were also listening to the BBC World Service; they were not gloating about Joe Joyce.

By the time you read his, Zeynep Tufekci will likely have already been interviewed on NPR's "Morning Edition," scheduled for broadcast on Saturday morning, about cultural trends resulting from America's presidential election. It should perhaps be noted that like Tufekci I am of Turkish heritage, but we admire her work on an objective level. Hopefully, one or two of you believe that.

Earlier tonight, 2012 American Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney had a cameo on the sitcom "Superstore," but we missed it as to be completely honest with you we are suffering from Olympics fatigue.

But, we will congratulate American swimmer Katie Ledecky for winning four gold medals and one silver medal in Rio, as she has now won more gold medals than Kazakhstan, which will likely leave Brazil with three gold medals. Ok, so we like making fun of Kazakhstan.

At long last, here is our quip from the late stand-up comic George Carlin:

"Swimming is not a sport. Swimming is a way to keep from drowning."

Ok, so now I guess we need to apologize to Katie Ledecky as well........good luck at Stanford, kid!

http://www.wxdu.org/

https://www.duke.edu/

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/

http://www.mckaylamaroney.com/

http://technosociology.org/ (Zeynep Tufekci's web site)

http://georgecarlin.com/

Celebrating International Literacy Day with Stephen King

Greetings to our blog readers in Italy, Ukraine, and Sweden.

We are thrilled to see that someone from the coastal African nation of Gabon has checked out our blog!

Today is International Literacy Day, so we thought we'd post a random list of ten novels we need to read again as we listen to Depeche Mode:

1) Misery. Stephen King. 1987 (pict. top)

2) Choke. Chuck Palahniuk. 2001 (pict. center)

3) Bright Lights, Big City. Jay McInerney (pict. bottom)

4) The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald. 1925.

5) The Chosen. Chaim Potok. 1967.

6) The Hours. Michael Cunnigham. 1998.

7) The Breakfast of Champions. Kurt Vonnegut. 1973.

8) Netherland. Joseph O'Neill. 2008. (The author is half-Irish, and half-Turkish)

9) Deliverance. James Dickey. 1970. 

10) Chilly Scenes of Winter. Anne Beattie. 1976.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com

http://www.internationalliteracyday.com

http://www.jaymcinerney.com

http://www.hplct.org (Hartford Public Library; McInerney was born in the Connecticut capital)/

Random Ten Contemporary Novels to Read for Summer

Today, we are finally getting to our random ten books to read for summer list, which seems appropriate given that I am in a public library in New Haven, Conn., where we have a heat index of 110 degrees today (I am actually in North Carolina, but it is really that hot up there, and down here as both Raleigh and Charlotte are 'code orange' in terms of heat index today).

We are also including a list of ten random classical novels worth reading on our other blog, and we thought we's include books on each list that were the basis for Tim Burton movies as is the case with "Big Fish" here.

Our apologies in advance to some of my favorite writers like Jay McInerney, Tom Perrotta and Barry Griffith who did not make the cut here.

I will put indicate which books I have actually read with an asterix (*).

Four of the books on this list had films based on them, including Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" that became an Oscar-winning movie for the Coen Brothers.

Stephen King's "Misery," a book which came from a dream that King had on airplane flight to London has been made into both a play and a film.

"The Shipping News" by E. Annie Proulx is the other film that became a movie, and I was surprised to see it on a reading list of novels to read by King in the back of his book for would-be writers called simply enough "On Writing," which is quite brilliant.

Here is the list:

1. "Tell All" (2010) by Chuck Palahniuk. He is actually my favorite novelist, but I have to read his most current novel.

2. *"Imperial Bedrooms" (2010) by Bret Easton Ellis. This sequel to "Less Than Zero" is yet another quirky, witty book from Ellis who was a published writer by the time he was 25!

3. "Libra" by Don DeLillo (1988). This controversial novel about the John F. Kennedy assasination seems like it would be quite a unique read. It was criticized by many people, including conservative pundit George F. Will, who also thinks global warming is somehow not happening?!

4. *"The Big Fish" (1988) by Daniel Wallace. When I heard that novelist Daniel Foster Wallce had committed suicide a few years ago, I thought they were referring to this Daniel Wallace who is very much alive and teaching writing at The University of North Carolina. This is a nice feel-good story which can actually be read in one reading.

5. "The Museum of Innocence" (2008) by Orhan Pamuk-Amazingly enough, I have yet to read the latest offering from Turkey's most acclaimed novelist.

6. "Misery" by Stephen King (1987) by Stephen King. At 325 pages, this King novel will make for a quicker read than the new unedited version of "The Stand" which has cracked the best-seller list.

7. *("No Country for Old Men" (2005) by Cormac McCarthy. Along with "Trainspotting" by Irvine Welsh, this is an example where both the book and the film work well together.

8. * "Super Sad True Love Story" (2010) by Gary Shteyngart- The author made my long names list. This novel proved that his prior novel "Absurdistan" was no fluke.

9. "I Am Charlotte Simmons" (2004) by Tom Wolfe. This novel, which is set in the fictional DuPont University that is partly based on Duke University, is about the sexual practices of college students. Amazingly enough, Karen Owen, the infamous sex columnist who outed many, many BlueDevils she made love to, including at least one lacrosse player, may have proven the story to be unsettling true.

10. "The Shipping News" by E. Annie Proulx_ As we said earlier, Stephen King recommended this prize-winning novel, so it must be good!

Quote of the Week- Chuck Palahniuk

Today's quote actually comes from Chuck Palahniuk's novel "Lullaby." He is also known for his famous novels "Fight Club" and "Choke," both of which were made into films.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can hurt like hell."

Chuck Palahniuk ('Fight Club" author) on JD Salinger

During the last winter storm last weekend, I was able to reread Chuck Palahniuk's novel "Choke," which was made into a film last year, but he is best known for penning "Fight Club." (His other novel "Diary" is also a favorite of mine).

The film version of "Fight Club" will be playing this weekend at the Criterion Cinemas in New Haven, Conn., and at the Collidge Center Theatre in Brookline, Mass., presuming they don't get snow (as we are supposed to get in Virginia and North Carolina yet again!).

Palahniuk had this interesting comment on his web site chuckpalahniuk.net about the passing of author J.D. Salinger ("Catcher in the Rye") last week:

"J.D. Salinger is responsible for the creation of one of America's most beloved rebels and antiheroes, Holden Caufield. I read 'The Catcher in the Rye' many times throughout my life.

always found it a comfortable book to return to, whenever I'd be suffering from a reading drought. It was also one of the first books that I can recall truly speaking to me as a youth."

Quote of the Week- Benito Mussolini

I have just finished reading Chuck Palahniuk's ("Fight Club") newest novel "Pygymy," which looks like one of those works which will demand a second reading.

In the novel, Palahniuk frequently quotes cruel dictators, so this week we have two respective quips from two henchmen on our blogs (Fidel Castro is on "Politics, Culture, and Other Wastes of Time).

Here we have Benito Mussolini who ruled fascist Italy with an iron fist until he was overthrown and hanged. But, he did have a way with words:

"Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy."