Holiday Break from Politics--Good Books

After reading about the recent melee in GOP politics, decided I needed a break with some new Holiday Books. I'm reading from back to front Herbert Leibowitz' "Something Urgent I have to Say to You",the Life and Works of William Carlos Williams, perhaps most famous for his Paterson Trilogy. The book is better than the New York Times' review and makes you want to re-read Williams' later work as he grappled with seizures and aphasia. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the poor Times critic screamed that they got the formating of one poet terribly wrong, which would have offended the poet, who made his fame on his modernist experiments with form and lettering. I generally enjoy the way the author combines Williams' life as a doctor with his drive to write poetry in his attic. The book is also a nice way to relive American history through the life of a very special poet, who only was lionized near the end of his life.

I don't know what has gotten into musical artists these days but Patti Smith should watch out. City Lights Noir has published a paperback by Ry Cooder entitled Los Angeles Stories. The stories cover the 1940s and 1950s in L.A. in the Mexican community and feature a Mexican musician, who is constantly avoiding major problems with the police. Cooder recreates the roots music of the time and gives these stories active atmo as we used to say. Really good read.

From the summer, William Todd Schultz An Emergency in Slow Motion:the Inner Life of Diane Arbus. This is the first bio since Patricia Bosworth and features first-time interviews with her psychiatrist and the subjects of her photos. Trivia question: What child was photographed by Diane Arbus who has become a television figure? Answer: Anderson Cooper.

From the makers of Jackson Pollack, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White bring us Van Gogh-The Life (Random House). This almost 1,000-page biography examines every word written by Vincent and Theo van Gogh as well as all the family papers. Van Gogh experts are divided by its controversial epilogue, which contains an account of Van Gogh being shot by French farm boys by accident, instead of committing suicide. Naifeh and White make a very strong case for their thesis using contemporary records and memoirs of townspeople published years after Van Gogh's death. It takes away from the mystique of the suicidal artist but lends a grit to Van Gigh's last days. The bio is something to dip into now and again as we see Van Gogh move to becoming one of the world's greatest painters.