A while ago - several years in fact - one of my sons gave me a gift card for the Keswick Theater, one of the major concert venues in the Philadelphia area, which happens to be down the street from my house.

I don't go to that many shows and, frankly, there hasn't been much at the Keswick that I particularly wanted to see lately.  But I noticed in today's paper that one of my favorites, Randy Newman, is going to be there in late September.  So I went down to the theater, gift card in hand, to buy my tickets.

When the guy swiped the card he said "This card has nothing left on it."

Seeing my perplexed look he said "Well, how long have you had it?"

Me:  "Quite a while - a couple of years, I guess."

Him:  "Well, it says right here on the back that if you don't use it within 12 months, it loses $2 per month in value until it reaches zero."

Now at that point I should have just turned around and walked away but, you know, I really wanted to see Randy and, after all it wasn't this poor guy's fault that they have such lame policies and that I never bothered to read the back of the card. I've heard of this happening with gift cards before and I should have been more diligent but, hell, when one receives a gift, reading the fine print is not the first thing that comes to mind.  I mean, Jesus Christ, what?  -- it costs them $2 a month to keep my hundred bytes of data in their freakin' database??

As far as I'm concerned it's out and out thievery.  Nice way to treat your customers, Keswick
 

SYKMbanner

An interesting site for mystery lovers, recently 'tweeted' by Citizen Geek.

Not very deep - it mostly just links to Amazon - but lots of good lists of award winners, upcoming releases, authors, characters, etc.

www.stopyourekillingme.com

From Reuters:

Sen Shelby Pushes For Stronger Fannie Regulator

Will these politicians ever stop meddling in people's private affairs?

Capitolbldg

Here's an interesting article about a controversy 'revolving' around the famous Capitol Records Building in Hollywood.  I have a vested interest.... my boy works in this building.

Lately I've had no ambition to do anything but sit on the patio with a pile of books and read. No movies, no music, no blogging, and definitely no work around the house. (Well,truth be told, a bottle of Stoly and some ice are always welcome companions.  Maybe that has something to do with the ambition thing.)

Here are a few things I've been reading lately:

The Scarlet Letter (Penguin Classics)

The Scarlet Letter - a Novel 100 read - Finished up Vanity Fair, which I loved, and decided to go with something a little less ambitious.  This was a quick and easy read full of snappy passages like this one, where Hester and her daughter Pearl, who is dressed in scarlet, walk into Boston:

As the two wayfarers came within the precincts of the town, the children of the Puritans looked up from their play - or what passed for play with those sombre little urchins--and spoke gravely one to another.

"Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter: and of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!"

Crazy kids!! 

Currently reading:  Wuthering Heights.

Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith

Child 44 - this first novel by screenwriter Tom Rob Smith was heavily promoted by Barnes and Noble, with a prominent display in the front of the store.  It was already discounted 30% for members and I had a coupon for an additional 30% off so I figured how bad can it be for a buck two ninety?  Turns out is was well worth the hype.  It's the story of a Stalin-era Russian policeman who is trying to track down a serial murderer of children in a society where, officially, crime does not exist.  Smith really captures the through-the-looking-glass paranoia and terror that pervades every aspect of his characters'  lives.  A first class mystery with a fascinating historical context.  This novel really piqued my interest in the history of that time, and today I found a copy of Robert Conquest's Harvest of Sorrow: A History of Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine  for sale in our local library's Book Cellar.  It's one of the histories that Smith used in his research for Child 44.

The Last Refuge and Two Time are two excellent mysteries by Connecticut ad-man Chris Knopf.  The setting is the Hamptons on Long Island and I worried a little that they were going to be novels about rich people.  In fact, they're more centered on the real locals and on the destructive influence the influx of so much wealth has had on their world.  Sam Acquillo is a former corporate executive, sometime amateur boxer, and all-around tough guy who lives in a ramshackle cabin built by his brutal father on the shores of the Peconic Bay, one of the few original dwellings left standing in a sea of mammoth grotesqueries erected by the big money types who have invaded the island. Having escaped the corporate world (by means of punching one of his company's top executives in the face) and following an ugly divorce, Sam is content to sit in his Adirondack chair with a book and a large tumbler of Absolut and to watch the light and the weather work their magic on his beloved Bay.  (Why do I like this guy so much?)

In the first novel, The Last Refuge, Sam is drawn into a whirlwind of money and corruption when he discovers the body of an elderly neighbor.  In Two Time, Sam and a lawyer friend are injured when a local investment advisor is blown to bits in a car bomb explosion.  Sam is recruited by a local cop to clandestinely investigate the case.

These books are full of great characters and smart, funny dialogue worthy of Bogie and Baby.  On the basis of only two novels, Knopf has earned a place pretty high in my pantheon of favorite mystery writers. I just discovered that the third novel in the series Head Wounds, came out in May.  I'm all over it.

Now here's some damn useful information from the Boston Globe.

Here are some recent reads:

The Glass Castle: A Memoir

The Spellman Files: A Novel - Lisa Lutz

 
The Glass Castle - Jeanette Walls's memoir of growing up with two wildly dysfunctional parents. From the desert Southwest to the hills of Southern West Virginia, dodging bill collectors, sometimes scrabbling for food, Walls and her siblings somehow survive. Hilarious and heartbreaking at once.

Empire Rising -Thomas Kelly's novel of Depression era New York is in part the story of the Empire State Building and the men who built it. It's also a story of Tammany Hall and of the corruption, bribery and deal-making that were part of Jazz Age New York politics.  Michael Briody is a WWI veteran, recent Irish immigrant, steelworker, semi-professional boxer, and sometimes IRA gun runner who loves his new city and proudly works the high iron.  Briody is not only entagled in the political complexities of the Irish 'Troubles'; he also becomes romantically involved with fellow immigrant Grace Masterson, an artist who is the mistress of Johnnie Farrell, Mayor Jimmy Walker's corrupt bagman. Kelly's love for New York and his respect for the working men shine through. If you're as afraid of heights as I am, you'll certainly experience some moments of stomach twisting terror reading about these brave men, casually going about their work as the building rises further and further into the sky.  (I was in our library's Book Cellar the other day - where they sell used books to raise money - and came across a copy of one of Kelly's earlier novels The Rackets which I picked up for 25 cents.  Sweet!)

Lush Life - It's no surprise that Richard Price was hired to write for The Wire. His novels have always covered the same gritty urban territory.  In this, his latest, Eric Cash manages a restaurant and is coming to the realization that his dreams of becoming a screenwriter or novelist will probably come to nothing.  One night, after a round of bar-hopping, Eric and his companions are accosted on the street and someone is killed.  Eric is initially a suspect but even after he is cleared he has difficulty dealing with the repercussions of the event and his life slowly begins to unravel.  Lush Life is populated by the same crowd as The Wire - cops, perps, politicians, victims, project dwellers, citizens.  A good one from one of my favorite writers.

Madame Bovary - At #7 this is the highest I've gotten on Burt's Novel 100 list.  A bit slow but worth the effort. Emma's romantic fantasies and her efforts to escape the banalities of rural life lead to her doom.  Flaubert handily skewers the clergy and the bourgoisie.  The novel was controversial in its time because it deals with - gasp! - adultery.  In fact Flaubert was dragged into court on obscenity charges. From Wikipedia:

Madame Bovary, on the whole, is a commentary on the entire self-satisfied, deluded, bourgeois culture of Flaubert's time period. His contempt for the bourgeoisie is expressed through his characters: Emma and Charles Bovary lost in romantic delusions; absurd and harmful scientific characters, a self-serving money lender, lovers seeking excitement finding only the banality of marriage in their adulterous affairs. All are seeking escape in empty church rituals, unrealistic romantic novels, or delusions of one sort or another.

Vanity Fair - currently reading - I knew relatively little about this book before I started it.  I'm only about half way through at this point, but I'm already sure it'll be one of my favorite Novel 100 reads.  Thackeray injects his wry wit and sarcasm into the proceedings in a thoroughly modern way.  Very funny.

The Silver Swan - John Banville wrote one of my favorite novels of the past few years, The Sea, which won the Man Booker prize in 2005.  The Silver Swan is Banville's second mystery written as Benjamin Black, a follow up to last year's excellent Christine Falls.  Set in 1950's Dublin, the novel marks the return of the crusty pathologist Quirke, who can never seem to leave well enough alone and who, once again, finds himself investigating the death of a young woman, an apparent suicide.

The Spellman Files - Recovered screenwriter Lisa Lutz (Plan B) has written a delightfully wacky novel about a family of crazed private detectives.  Just hilarious.  Can't wait to read the next installment, The Curse of the Spellmans.