Recently, I completed Peter Hessler’s trilogy on China: River Town (about his two years teaching English in Sichuan); Oracle Bones (the best of the three; snapshots of folks aimed at capturing the spirit of the Chinese); and Country Driving (more of the same).

I’m two-thirds of the way through a Saturday Night Live trio. Re-read Tom Shales and Andrew Miller’s epic and excellent edited oral history of the first 27-28 years of the show (Chevy Chase was/is a jerk; Janeane Garafalo is exactly like how her last name sounds), and just finished Jay Mohr’s Gasping for Airtime (summary: I’m funny, I should be on the air, I should be a star, but I’m not because of politics and/or political correctness, therefore I’m not going to wait my turn and will have a panic attack instead). I hope to finish it off with Tina Fey’s Bossypants.

Finishing Bossypants would also get me two-thirds of the way through a Hollywood Funny Women trio, with Bossypants sandwiched between an unfunny, sucky book called Suck It, Wonder Woman! by Olivia Munn and Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? I hear Rachel Dratch is coming out with a book, too. I wish I could go back in time and un-read Wonder Woman and replace it with Dratch.

Other books I’m considering…

Presidential Assassination Attempts: (1) Destiny of the Republic (James A. Garfield); (2) The President and the Assassin (William McKinley); and (3) Rawhide Down (Ronald Reagan). This was prompted by reading Ronald Kessler’s In the President’s Secret Service, which was not particularly well-written.

Sports Figures: (1) Kareem (my favorite Laker of all time; about his last season as a player); (2) Shaq Uncut (wanna see if he mentions the time I almost singlehandedly destroyed the Lakers dynasty in the early aughts; as it turns out they did a pretty good job of it themselves… Argh, Detroit 2004!); and (3) Tebow’s Through My Eyes. I hear there’ a new book about Jeremy Lin coming out, too…

Lyndon B. Johnson: Robert Caro’s epic multipart biography, which is now a quadrology after the recent release of The Passage of Power.

Any other thematic threes I should consider?

It wasn’t surprising that rural people had little understanding of maps, but this was also true for educated Chinese. Even professional drivers with years of experience could be hopelessly confused by a simple atlas. Maps simply aren’t part of modern culture, despite the fact that the Chinese have an impressive ancient history of cartography.

…

Atlases play little role in Chinese education: open an elementary school geography textbook and you see mostly words. Students might be encouraged to write about their environment, but they never sketch it. Like many practical skills of the new economy, map reading hasn’t yet become part of the curriculum, and people can spend years in school without learning how to handle an atlas.

I found it surprising that Chinese aren’t taught how to read maps in elementary school. But I suppose there are rudimentary skills that the Chinese would be dumbstruck Americans don’t learn there, either. Like math…

• Solomon Corbett, 23, is the Gunman; he pleaded not guilty, alleging self-defense, and is awaiting trial.
• Shanell “Sweetz” Crute, 26, was the Victim who was on her way to buy marijuana in the Bronx when she got into an argument with five men, one of whom shot her nine times in the head and chest.
• Capt. Richard Dee, of the Police Department’s Gang Division, is the Police Captain.
• Waka Flocka is the name of a Rapper (of course!), but is also the name of the community gun used to kill Ms. Crute.
• Jaquan Layne is the Gang Leader of the 137th Street Crew, which sells crack in Harlem.
• Afrika Owes is the Gang Leader’s Girlfriend, who acted as a “holster” for a another community gun (not Waka Flocka, but a 9-millimeter pistol referred to as “the big old nine”).
• Lt. James Ruane, 44th Precinct, is the Police Detective.
• Malcolm A. Smith is the State Senator. I think the middle initial gives it away.
• Ed Talty is an Assistant District Attorney in the Bronx.

Chung CHUNG.

• Solomon Corbett
• Shanell Crute
• Richard Dee
• Waka Flocka
• Jaquan Layne
• Afrika Owes
• James Ruane
• Malcolm A. Smith
• Ed Talty

Here, also in alphabetical order, are descriptions for each of them…

• Assistant District Attorney
• Gang Leader
• Gang Leader’s Girlfriend
• Gunman
• Police Captain
• Police Detective
• Rapper
• State Senator
• Victim

Can you match the names with the descriptions? Show your work. Answers tomorrow…

1776 by David McCullough

David McCullough does his thing. A good-then-bad-then-okay year in the history of the Confederation. Retreat to win.

Hong Kong Film, Hollywood and New Global Cinema edited by Gina Marchetti and Tan See Kam

Uneven grab-bag collection of academically-oriented essays on Hong Kong cinema. Some I liked, some I disliked, some I skipped over because they seemed boring.

In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks by Adam Carolla

I like Carolla. Here, the ranter/rager/crank caller writes (i.e. dictates) a book. I hear the audio book, which he performs himself, is quite different since he simply uses the text as a guide and goes off on various tangents. BTW, he calls the Koreans “the angriest people in the world.” And if he’s calling them angry, then you know they must be really angry.

John Adams by David McCullough

Started this book when it first came out; finally finished in 2011. More McCullough. Lots of quotes from the Adams’ letters and diaries. It was okay.

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain

I enjoy Bourdain, but I keep mixing this book up with his other book, The Nasty Bits. Which is which? No idea. It’s pretty much all the same: essays on food and the food industry, written by a wry, hard-boiled, alcohol-soaked New York ex-chef with a pen dripping duck fat, sarcasm, irony, humor, and just a little bit o’ love.

Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen by Gordon Ramsay

After I finished watching a season of Hell’s Kitchen, I picked up Ramsay’s autobiography. It was alright. Largely forgettable. Soccer, hates his father, brother’s a druggie, ragey.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Re-read it for the first time since high school. Why? No real reason, just because. Maybe I was in the mood for an American classic; I read this right before To Kill A Mockingbird. BTW, I hate Tom Sawyer. I wish he were roasting in Hell’s Kitchen instead of Mark Twain.

The Dark Side of Disney by Leonard Kinsey

An interesting, alternative travel guide to Walt Disney World in Florida. How alternative? It’ll tell you where the best places to have nookie are. Uh, yeah. More practical are the money-saving tips, some of which will also apply to Disneyland in Cali.

The Disneyland Encyclopedia by Chris Strodder

Kinda interesting. Instead of picking and choosing entries, I just read it straight through like a regular book. I don’t recommend this method. Refreshed my memory of some long-gone attractions.

The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain

See Medium Raw, above.

The Secret of Terror Castle

This is the first book in the Alfred Hitchcock/Three Investigators mystery book series for adolescents. Kind of like Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys for the 1970s and 80s. Not very good, but this was more of a nostalgia trip. Jupiter Jones is as annoying as ever.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Read this around the same time as Huck Finn and Mockingbird. The only reason I chose this book is because it was mentioned by the host of a sports talk radio program, who noted the insane, possibly lethal, amount of drinking that takes place within.

With Justice for All by John Perkins

Read it as part of JASF. It’s about Christian community development.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

An occasionally—very occasionally—humorous child-raising memoir by a Yale Law School professor of Filipino Chinese/Fujian ancestry. She’s not as hardline as the excerpt published in the Wall Street Journal made her out to be. And she’s not as hardline as the Chinese father who published a similar memoir titled “Wolf Dad” (he beat his kids).  It’ll be interesting to see how the second daughter turns out (the first has enrolled at Harvard). But the meaning/significance the author draws from her sister’s fight with cancer seemed a tad forced and incompletely digested/developed. But life’s messy like that, I guess.

China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

Nice, short, and to the point. Organized by topic, and utilizing a question-and-answer method. Biggest takeaway for me: these days, the Chinese Communist Party ain’t about ideology, it’s about self-preservation at all costs.

Fifty Key Christian Thinkers by Peter McEnhill and George Newlands

Very interesting to see how Christian ideas, creeds, and doctrines developed over the past two millennium and who was responsible for which ones. “Oh, that’s Barth. This is from Augustine. That’s Tillich. This is Calvin.” Made me realize that for the past century and a half or so, the Germans have been bringing it (mostly in a good way, but sometimes bad—lookin’ at you, Feuerbach).

Heat by Bill Buford

Great book about the author’s experience as an amateur cook working his way up in the kitchen of Mario Batali’s Babbo Ristorante. I used to live nearby, but couldn’t really afford to eat there. The second half of the book, about his apprenticeship with a now-famous butcher in Italy, felt extraneous and tacked on.

Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis

Book about the author’s experience as a bond salesman at Salomen Brothers. Pretty good for learning about how mortgage and junk bonds work, and how they came to be. Also offers a nice snapshot of Wall Street in the 1980s.

Open by Andre Agassi

One of the best autobiographies I’ve ever read. He hated Michael Chang.

Poorly Made in China by Paul Midler

This book, authored by a China-based consultant/middle-man, illustrates just some of the shady ways that Chinese suppliers and factory owners lie, cheat, and steal from Western companies who hire them to manufacture goods. Very interesting, and a good reminder of the importance of a good contract when dealing with the Chinese. They/we are shifty.

The Korean War: A History by Bruce Cumings

For some reason, in the last few years, I’ve become mildly fascinated with the Korean War. This book is by the foremost leftist American historian on Korea. Pretty interesting. For all his criticisms of America’s role in the Korean War, the takeaway point for me was this: Kim Il-Sung started it.

The War for Late Night by Bill Carter

I actually listened to the audio book, a behind-the-scenes chronicle of how Conan O’Brien won, then lost, The Tonight Show. Interesting portraits of all the late-night players including Letterman, Leno, Kimmel, Fallon, and Stewart, and (to a lesser extent) Ferguson and Colbert, as well as all the network brass, producers, managers, agents, and lawyers involved.

To Kill a Mockingbird allegedly by Harper Lee

A classic, so why not read it, right? Very well-written. By Truman Capote.

Don’t know, but that last possibility seems the most likely outcome to me.  Apparently Kim promoted his twenty-something son, his sister, and a longtime pal-y to various senior military and political posts.

(What?  Kim Il-sung’s giant neck cyst wasn’t available?  Look it up.  That thing was massive, possibly sentient, and likely as smart as Pudge, himself.)

Kim Jong-il also promoted his son, Kim Jong-un (Un- what?  Un-prepared?), to a four-star generalship.  Four stars!  The dude is in his late-twenties.  Even Mao Zedong’s grandson, Mao Xinyu, was only recently elevated to the two-star rank of major general at the advanced age of 40.  A rank he earned, by the way, as a result of his daring exploits as…a military historian!

(He looks like a military historian, too.  The only thing Major General Mao may have led an attack on is pizza; and the only think he’s invaded lately is the buffet line…)

Yes, I’m sure that promotion to four-star general will earn Kim Jong-un(ready) the confidence of the military higher-ups when he takes over for pops.  It’s not like military men value experience and achievement or anything.  I have no doubt that they will fall right in line when Kim Jong-un(steady)’s turn comes, especially because he may have attended a Swiss military boarding school.

A Swiss military boarding school?

From a military perspective, Switzerland may be the last place I’d want someone who will be responsible for national defense trained.  Doesn’t Switzerland have, like, a foreign policy of neutrality?  Don’t the Swiss, like, guard the Pope and Vatican City?  Doesn’t its army’s knives come with, like, a corkscrew?

(Now from a more global perspective, a North Korean twenty-something four-star general steeped in a policy of neutrality, and not Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, would be awesome.  Better neutrality than the country’s current position, which is build nukes, sink ships, act crazy, and then beg the Chinese for money.)

Kim Jong-un(sane) is supposedly a chip off the old block, which should bode well for North Korea and its people…

Kim Jong-il also promoted Kim Kyong-hui, who is his sister, confidante, and the woman closest to him now that his mother and wives are dead.  The best part of the article is its description of her:  “rumored to have a drinking problem and a fiery temper.”

Awesome!

So many ways to go with this…

A “drinking problem and a fiery temper”?  Really?  In a Korean? Does she also have black hair and brown eyes?  Does she like kimchi, too?  Until I know for certain that the opposite is true, I pretty much assume every Korean, whether North, South, East, or West, has a drinking problem and a fiery temper…

Or does the article mean that Lady Kim’s alcoholism and anger issues are even more notable than the average Korean’s?  If that’s the case, then lookout, that’s gonna rock for North Korea and its people, right?

Yikes…

Recently, Kim Jong-il went off to China to introduce Kim Jong-un(likely) to them, and maybe to get their okay.  Apparently, North Korea’s continued existence and stability is of paramount importance to the Chinese since the Hermit Kingdom acts as a buffer to South Korea and American influence.

But if that’s the case, then the Chinese should have encouraged Kim to re-examine his plan of succession:  his twenty-nine year old four-star schlub of a son and his angry alcoholic sister?  That’s the plan of succession??  For a country perpetually on the brink of chaos and armed with nukes whose intermediate- and long-range delivery systems have a history of failing?  That’s the best option available?  Really?

There is no question in my mind that North Korea, as an entity, a theory, a reality, is going to end very badly, and I hope I’m not in its blast radius when it does.