Stages & Pages

While describing the obsessiveness that Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music tends to inspire, music journalist Amanda Petrusich lets the curtain slip and reveals her own nerdy nostalgia, “I empathize: there are days when I want nothing more than to tote the Anthology around New York City, stroking its cover and feeding its contents into my disc-man, behaving ridiculously, using scratchy old folk songs as a romantic crutch, pouting and trying to remind myself that there is life beyond taxicabs, expensive purses, investment bankers, and blank-faced commuters -- and that, perhaps ironically, all of this music was compiled here in this ridiculous city.”

Erudite meditations like this litter It Still Moves as Petrusich hops into a dented Honda Civic and flees from New York. She heads south, to the fertile fields of American musical history, wrapping herself in a safety blanket woven from all types of cultural ephemera, not just scratchy banjos and gospel choruses.

Meandering stops in Graceland, Music Row, Cracker Barrel, Sun Studios, Appalachia, tacky hotel rooms and seedy roadside cafes with bad coffee link this synthesis of history, criticism and rumor into a personal love letter to whatever it is we can call Americana.

At its heart, It Still Moves is a travelogue, and Petrusich’s search for musical details becomes a tireless consideration and reconsideration of what American music is, from its roots in arcane Delta Blues through the supermarket ready sheen of Nashville country. Every stop breathes with significance: even the hotel kitsch comes from a different place, signifying a more idealistic time.

Petrusich navigates with her ears from musical landmark to musical landmark, but finds deep American symbolism nearly everywhere. On the road between twin music capitals Nashville and Memphis, “bits of cotton swirl into tiny tornadoes, fueled by highway wind and blasts of exhaust. Cotton gathers everywhere, collecting into speckled white puddles on the side of the road.” Cotton becomes a metaphor of commerce, a regional commodity that, like the music, is rich with both beauty and profit-potential.

The prodigal journalist traveling back through Dixie, righting the previous generation’s wrongs, has become a bit of a career cliche.Though Petrusich’s journey may have been taken by many others who have done a much better job cataloging the history they found, she uses her trip to finally bury an unsettling history of exploitation and capitalism that digs a sinister undercurrent beneath the songs she loves.

When noting A.P. Carter’s notorious habit of stealing songs from mountain families and never offering rights or money, Petrusich finally resigns herself to uncomfortable truth that, “These songs, sung this way, tangle themselves up in our subconscious, becoming part of our skeletons, spooning up to our DNA, settling in for good.”

It’s a sobering thought, that the dirty deals are as ingrained in the culture as the music, but Petrusich tries to move beyond indictments. Making culture can be a very dirty process, and there’s a hint of naivete in Petrusich’s voice as she pulls back the curtain.

At certain points, the book becomes heavy with nostalgia as she rehashes old stories about Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Merle Haggard. Petrusich tends to get lost in the mythology, and ultimately never uncovers anything truly new among the back roads and music halls, always following American music where it has been, but unaware of where it may be going.

Still, this looking back and reanalyzing is a tender exercise, striving to reconcile a deeply personal love of the music with its deeply commercial aspirations.

Headlining comedian Billy D. Washington said that missing Chinese people should go on the back of eggnog. The elderly get evaporated milk. Bisexuals? Half and half.

Washington, who has appeared on BET’s “Comic View” and HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam,” also has a joke about deaf people, another about rooting for the Ku Klux Klan over the Florida Gators, even though he is African American, and yet another about domestic violence.

Why then was he the best of four performers in the University of Georgia’s last installment of its Dawghouse Comedy Series on Nov. 5?

For one, his stand-up show was immersive. He spoke against the giant red curtain of the Tate Theater without seeming enveloped by it, and he was dynamic enough of an entertainer to occupy the space usually held by movie screenings.

Washington stood only a few feet from the front row and engaged the audience throughout his show, though not always nicely. A former police officer, he made specific guests the butt of jokes, including the bike cop in the back of the theater, a cameraperson and one of the only people who admitted to being a Republican. No subjects were taboo, and no people were exempt from criticism.

“Too small for me?” he said, holding one of University Union’s T-shirts and responding to a comment from a muscular man up front.

“Too small for your fat a–,” Washington said, before including this “titty boy” in other jokes. His material meshed, he used the same punch line in dramatically different jokes in ingenious ways and he incorporated reactions from the crowd seamlessly.

Most impressive of all was his absorption of the inferior comics preceding him into his own act. He reduced student Matt Slotten, for example, to a scatological, unfunny story, and that jab was fair.

Slotten, the second of four comics that night, bombed. He overstayed his welcome, and his timidity clashed with the tight deliveries of the more professional veterans. He said that working as a janitor would “be a sh– job,” crapping in the urinal was “funny as sh–” and “sh– goes down in the bathroom.”

One hand pushed deep into his sweatshirt pocket, Slotten said a hushed “damnit” into the microphone after every failed joke, and his discomfort filtered into the audience.

Opener Eric Slauson’s timing was better than Slotten’s—Slauson deferred his punch lines so that what initially sounded like a platitude or clichéd sentiment turned raunchy.

“I really just want someone to hold,” he said. “My penis in their vagina.”

Sex jokes, as a rule, are funnier than poop puns. Sex involves fumbling, naïveté, dialogue and nudity, and not having it can be just as humorous as having it. Everyone goes to the bathroom in a similar way, and hearing Slotten’s story about hiding in the shower while his father squatted on the toilet was traumatic for both him and his captive audience.

Mark LaMotte, the last man up before Washington, fell between these two supporting comedians. An advisor at the University of Georgia, he wore a red hat with the university logo and shared stories about children he has mentored. His bit was inoffensive, short and chuckle-worthy, about women being gobbling turkeys, men being gullible monkeys and kids just saying the darndest things. LaMotte was a good transition into the main act, in part because he had met Washington long before the show.

If the first part of Washington’s performance was a crude buildup, then his musical portion was the innocent comedown, allowing people to forget jokes that could have rubbed them the wrong way. He went to his keyboard and sang Soulja Boy’s “Crank Dat” as a slow jam, invented reggae nursery rhymes and pretended to be a stuttering classical pianist, extending the most recognizable part of Für Elise.

“I didn’t say take the spotlight off me,” Washington said when he returned to the microphone and invited LaMotte back down.

You really shouldn’t. He’s more intelligent than some of my favorite comedians (Patton Oswalt is awkward and unfunny on the fly, for example), and he’s obviously hungry. So shine that spotlight brighter.

Just hope he doesn’t point it at you.


Venue Web site: Tate Theater

*Editor's note: The following video contains offensive language and crude humor

Comedy and horror do not make a happy couple, but the actors at Relapse Comedy Theatre in Atlanta attempted to marry the two on Halloween night.

As I was ushered into a small, darkened room with what appeared to be old airplane seats, I was unsure of what I’d be seeing. The tiny theater fits about 20 people and on that night would only house six. But the small turnout did not seem to faze the three Cineprov! actors as they began their interpretation of a pitch meeting for a horror film.

“OK, picture this: We’re making Halloween III, only without Michael Myers,” said an actor clad in a Philadelphia Phillies baseball uniform.

“Ah, yes continue,” said the female actor dressed as Bristol Palin, baby bump unmistakably visible.

“That’s it. We’re just going to sell them on the ‘three’ alone. That’s all we need. It’s genius!” said the third actor, holding up three fingers and grinning like a mad man.

Then Halloween III: Season of the Witch began playing on the makeshift sheet screen. This was no ordinary movie viewing, though. As the actors said before the show, if you’d like to actually see the movie then you’ve come to the wrong place.

The actors at Relapse uniquely perform their improv comedy routines. In a Mystery Science Theater 3000 type of way, the actors mock what they consider to be awful movies. From beginning to end the three actors spoke over the movie, finding ways to make fun of the film.

The implausible plot line and awful script made this film an easy target for the improv actors.
The tiny theater created an intimate, though sometimes awkward, experience. Actors revealed crude humor with no limitations on subject matter.

Sexualized humor ran rampant during a provocative scene and any other time the actors could think to include it. But with only six in the audience, if a particular joke did not resonate, the silence was a little uncomfortable.

Before the show, the actors commented that they normally do not view the film beforehand, so they will rely purely on improvisation techniques. It was obvious many times throughout the film that some of the actors were a little squeamish, because there were never any jokes told during gruesome scenes.

Relapse has only been open for one year, but the actors all seemed to work well with one another. The six-member audience enjoyed many laughs, but some of the comedy seemed forced. For the $5 student rate, it was well worth the money and is worth checking out if you're in the Atlanta area.

Watch out Romeo and Juliet; George and Emily might just take your jobs. Never have I seen a more endearing play about love and life than in the University of Georgia’s Department of Theatre and Film Studies’ rendition of "Our Town," written by Thornton Wilder. Nearly 150 people filled the seats of Morton Theatre for the two-hour production.

"Our Town" follows the everyday life of fictional small-town Grover’s Corner, N.H., during the early 1900s. When I say everyday life, I am talking about the most menial activities.

Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb, who are next door-neighbors, make breakfast each day, the kids leave for school, their well-to-do husbands leave for work, and the occasional town worker comes through with the milk, the paper, or just passing on the way to church. Everyone cordially interacts and discusses the happenings of the town.

Wilder’s early exposure to the idea of minimalist settings by Chinese actor Mei Lan-fang is evident in his minimalist settings in the three-act production. The actors, with the help of sound effects from time to time, used this simplistic prop approach flawlessly, leading the audience to believe that there really was a cow being led on stage or that strawberry sundaes were truly sitting on the bar as George Gibbs and Emily Webb sipped them at the general store. Ladders alone gave the idea that cast members were on the second story of a building.

The plot becomes interesting when George and Emily fall in love. Though the lifestyle of Grover’s Corner seems monotonous, these characters bring it to life and create moments that will make you laugh, cry, fall in love with them, and simply get caught up in their lives.

The two lovebirds lead us through their lives and the trials and triumphs they face. Each actor was more than aptly chosen for his or her part and played quite convincing roles. On occasion the accents seemed to channel Jersey and Deep South dialects more than those of New Hampshire, but never enough to ruin the scenes.

Throughout the play a narrator interrupted scenes to give background information about the town and its people. Though helpful in understanding the overall play, it was often distracting for him to pop on stage to interrupt and even interact with the other characters.

I think it was so distracting because of the ability of the actors to draw the audience into their lives. The interruptions took the audience back to reality and out of the simple but charming life of Grover’s Corner.

When actors speak from the graveyard about life lessons in Act III, the audience is left in awe, wondering about their own views on the little things in life. To me, it says a lot about a play if it can go beyond pure entertainment and persuade someone to think deeply.

With strong characters and a lesson about the importance of cherishing the small things embedded in the plot, it is no wonder that Wilder won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938 for this play. With all due respect, the credit of this particular performance is not entirely due to Wilder.

The gifted young actors, actresses and production staff of UGA brought the characters off the paper and on to the stage. They gave them life and brought every emotion out of the crowd. Between Wilder’s words and the UGA production staff, they made for an outstanding play. I admittedly was brought to tears by the death of a main character and I laughed out loud at the quirky characteristics of each character.

I’d venture to say I would react the same way regardless of how many times I saw the play. And that is something Romeo and Juliet never came close to.

Venue Web site: The Morton Theatre

"The Human Comedy" only left me laughing at myself as I tried to understand and appreciate the paintings of Philip Morsberger, on display in the Lamar Dodd School of Art gallery.

Morsberger's work displays a rich use of color combined with a haphazard, almost unfinished style of painting. He uses heavy layers to convey depth and expression on the many faces throughout his work. Those faces have a comical, "cartoony" image about them, with wide, bulging eyes and angular noses.

Some faces even appear transposed onto the body of an animal, such as a turtle. Along with the expressive faces, Morsberger suggests a strong theme of hands, with large hands pointing and waving and shaking hands with other bodiless hands in several of his paintings.

Other random themes appeared to be hats, specifically Fedora-style hats, which donned the heads of many lively faces or merely floated somewhere on the canvas, with no apparent purpose; planes, also sporadically flying over the heads of a few subjects, never seeming appropriately placed; and boots, the third symbol which would also blatantly pop up in the corner of a canvas splashed with color and faces, looking out of place.

I have to admit that, as much as I love abstract art and the intellectual journey some artists force to figure out their intentions, I hate to look at art that isn't exceptionally pretty and is also confusing to me. Had Morsberger's paintings shown more artistic skill in the areas of brushstrokes or realism I may not have cared whether or not I understood his message.

Sometimes I just like looking at attractive art. The paintings in "The Human Comedy" were entertaining, sure, with the loud colors and funny-looking faces, but nothing I'd like to stare at for too long. This combined with the random, distracting objects that appeared misplaced on several pieces left me with my jaw open and a blank stare.

I kept looking around, hoping someone would walk in so I could ask them, "What's going on here?"

Morsberger's work, in my opinion, lacked any kind of underlying theme except his color palette and the faces he seems so fond of doodling. I don't regret walking into the gallery, I'm always up for a new artistic experience, but this particular one left me feeling dumb and uninformed. I felt as though I needed a long summary of Morsberger's thought process.

I left with the common, and sometimes ignorant, thought, "Well, I could've done that."

Every time I go to the grocery store, I forget where I park my car, so I can’t even begin to imagine the stress of forgetting a few years of my life. In her latest novel, Remember Me?, New York Times Bestselling author Sophie Kinsella takes us into the newly complicated world of London native and Deller Carpet’s employee Lexi Smart.

Twenty-eight-year-old Lexi wakes up after a severe injury to the head to find that she has suffered from retrograde amnesia and has forgotten the past few years of her life. After panicking about the situation, she quickly learns that her newfound glamorous life is nothing like she remembers.

As a girl who was once awkward, dating losers, and in a low-end job, Lexi now finds herself thrown into a storybook marriage surrounded by wealth, power and high-end living with not the slightest clue of what to make of it.

Every day she learns more about her current life through the people she meets and supposedly knows already. She can’t help but wonder what events she has forgotten that have molded her into the drastically different person she is now.

Every page is more enticing as she draws closer to regaining her lost memory. The people of her past give her clues that help her unfold, and unravel, the life she once had.

Lexi’s Cinderella story is jolted by confessions of “strangers” and deceitful actions of family, co-workers and “friends” seemingly set on bringing her down from her high-power profession and posh lifestyle. Her frustration builds as the people closest to her expect her to know everything about her life. She finds herself struggling to understand what is really true, who her real friends are and what has made her become someone she is not proud of.

Through heartbreaking realizations she finds the strength to overcome her family’s clouded past, a failing job, out-of-touch friends and a tangled love life. Her progression throughout the story is not only unpredictable, it is inspiring.

In the end, Lexi’s life becomes everything worthy of a modern-day fairy tale, only this was one fairy tale she couldn’t have dreamed up if she tried.

Kinsella’s ability to capture the struggles of amnesia through the life of a well-intentioned young woman is enough to make any heart bleed with sympathy. Her witty and sometimes crude British jargon may be unfamiliar at first, but never hinders the pace or the reader’s understanding of the novel.

She is able to interject relatable humor into Lexi’s stark realizations about pop culture (“I can’t get over this. Jennifer and Brad are divorced. The world is a different place,” “I can’t help gasping. ‘There’s a sixth Harry Potter?’”) as well as her awkward reintroduction into refined environments (“The sound of breaking glass interrupts my thoughts. I stop twirling in horror. Somehow I accidentally caught my hand on a glass leopard that was leaping through the air on a display shelf. Now it’s lying on the floor in two pieces.”).

Don’t be surprised if you find yourself day dreaming about even the smallest things that you would miss from your life if you were the one in Lexi’s shoes.

I was gripped by each page, hoping and praying that Lexi’s amnesia would be gone and all of her confusion would be cleared. I felt for her as she went through all her ups and downs. When her husband Eric was compassionate, I felt her excitement and when mystery man Jon entered a room, I felt her tension.

I wanted to yell and cry with her when her co-worker Byron was overheard bad mouthing her in the hallway. Every word drew me into her chaotic life more, which I feel is a great talent on behalf of the author. I could barely drag myself away from the pages as each chapter ended with a dramatic turning point or a new glimpse of truth. Lexi was just that girl everyone wants to be, the ugly duckling turned beauty queen.

Kinsella above all teaches an important life lesson to women of every age about finding the things in life that make you happy while still allowing you to stay true to yourself. As for me, I may not be finding my car in the parking lot anytime soon, but I will undoubtedly find my way back to the bookstore to indulge in more of Sophie Kinsella’s captivating work.

I never thought I would enjoy reading a romance novel, but Lisa Jackson’s Left to Die gave me a reason why.

As I searched the suspense section of a local bookstore for a novel about a serial killer targeting women in the mountains of Montana, I was disappointed that it was nowhere to be found.

My genres of choice are horror and suspense, and I particularly enjoy a good Stephen King novel. But I wanted to venture outside my King comfort zone and explore something different, which led me to Jackson’s New York Times best-selling book.

I decided to use the in-store computer system to find the book and to my disbelief, it was in the romance section. Approaching the check-out line and handing the book to the cashier, I felt the flush of embarrassment spread across my cheeks.

Yes, I admit I am one of those readers who scoffs at “trashy romance novels.” Never had I imagined finding myself purchasing a novel with a cover depicting a woman in the throes of passion.

Once inside the privacy of my apartment, I began to lose my preconceptions and give Jackson’s work an open mind. Nearly 200 pages into the 484-page-novel, I was ready to admit that reading a romance novel was not the worst thing I could do for my intelligence.

But I was still unsure why it was a bestseller. The writing is simple and in many cases unimaginative. Jackson’s use of “damned” to make a point gets particularly annoying after a couple hundred pages.

Stephen King’s Misery meets an episode of Law & Order in the story of Jillian Rivers, an unsuspecting woman pulled from her mangled car in the middle of the snow-laden woods by a suspicious man after nearly becoming the victim of a psychotic female-stalking serial killer.

But despite the predictable plot line, Jackson threw me for a loop as I strained to determine if Jillian’s rescuer, Zane MacGregor, was the much-alluded-to serial stalker. Jackson uses the thoughts of Jillian to plant seeds of doubt in my mind about Zane, and I will admit that it worked.

Jackson cleverly hides MacGregor’s intentions and keeps me wondering if he is a threat to Jillian. I do not find out the truth until Jillian does, our suspicions in sync throughout each turning of the page.

During the course of Jillian’s debacle, two female detectives search for the person leaving naked women to die, tied to trees in the woods with mysterious messages etched above their heads. Though it is commendable that Jackson makes the characters in her novel predominantly assertive female figures, I felt a lack of emotional connection. I was unable to truly identify with Jillian Rivers or the two detectives, Selena Alvarez and Regan Pescoli.

The women’s problems seemed trivialized and in many cases served as filler. Pescoli’s problems with her children and ex-husband should create a sense of reality to her character, but Jackson misses the mark and makes Pescoli just seem whiny and irresponsible.

Alvarez and Pescoli work well together, exemplifying the idea that opposites attract. Pescoli is something of a sex-pot, chasing after emotionally unavailable men, whereas Alvarez is reserved, hiding a secret which keeps her from pursuing romantic relationships.

Jackson’s obsession of referring to her characters in various ways made creating a character connection and keeping up with who was being depicted a difficult task. Jackson refers to each of her main characters by first name, last name or in some cases both. This makes it difficult to remember which character is which, especially in the beginning of the novel when we are still being introduced to the protagonists.

Perhaps the most unfortunate part of this novel is that Jackson intentionally ends it with many questions unanswered. For readers who want everything wrapped nicely in a bow by the final page, disappointment awaits.

Closure will not come until August 2009 when Chosen to Die is released. If this novel is any indication, I am unsure if even then Jackson will reveal all the secrets and questions of Left to Die. But if you can get past sometimes unimaginative writing and predictable plot lines, then Jackson’s novel is worth the read.

Book trailer:

The young adult pop-culture sensation Twilight and its subsequent series of three more vampire romance novels may seem silly and sad to any novice.

I, too, was once a naysayer, but I succumbed to the intrigue of frenzied young readers. How could anything that made so many teenagers want to actually pick up a book and read rather than play video games or watch TV be anything less than exciting?

Sure, the books aren't literary inspirations, but the story lines and the characters are entertaining; shouldn't those be qualities of a great book?

Sometimes I don't feel like deciphering a Joycean stream of conscious. Sometimes I just want to escape real life, and what farther place is there than the romantic plight of a mortal girl and her vampire boyfriend?

Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final installment in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Her first three, Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse all sat pretty on best-seller lists and this one followed suit. The hype alone was enough for critics to compare the series to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books.

I, for one, was ready to read through the book as quickly as possible so I could embrace a social life once again. But to Twilight fans everywhere, prepare to be disappointed.

I don't know if by this point I realized how far-fetched the plot was, or if I just craved a little bit of realism, but Breaking Dawn finally made me embarrassed to say, "I like the Twilight books."

Without giving too many surprises away, which there are a lot of in this book, Meyer addressed several topics which I no longer cared to experience vicariously through Bella Swan, her main character and narrator of the series. Bella has met her soul mate vampire, Edward Cullen.

She's met and survived his entire vampire family, as well as several close encounters with other more dangerous vampires. She's been heartbroken and left alone, become best friends with a werewolf, and then reunited with her one true love, and now fiancé.

That's the juice I like to read. The sensational fantasy filled with action scenes and topped off with an innocent, young-love story. Breaking Dawn moves beyond everything Meyer's written about thus far and all of a sudden Edward and Bella are adults, dealing with adult problems, problems I'm trying to escape from.

You're not helping me out here, Meyer.

I found this book much easier to put down than the others, almost as if it were intended to ease me back into normal society life. But to give credit where it's due, Meyer wraps up the series nicely with the ending of Breaking Dawn.

She reverts to her tried and true method of nail-biting conflict, a method perfected by fantasy writers because they can essentially create any outcome with the invention of characters and powers that would be impossible for the reader to predict, thereby increasing the thrill. But beware; the thrill doesn't come until about 500 pages into the book. The first chunk focuses on weird vampire "problems" that I'm not sure I wanted to consider.

The bottom line is that Twilight fans will read this book regardless of even the most scathing review. And if you haven't read the Twilight series yet, only curiosity or an obsessed friend will drive you to read it now, and then you'll be sucked in and have to finish the series.

But for the fans, the ones who choose to escape with a guilty pleasure of teen-romance, mystery and fairy-tale-monster-turned-prince charming, Breaking Dawn might not be what you expected, or hoped for. If you're looking for your Twilight fix, re-read the first book and call it a day.



Interview with the author:

Something is off.

Surely, a chapter must be missing from my book. I fervently flip through the 205 pages of "The Last Lecture" again to make sure. Nope, all pages are intact, as is my untouched box of Kleenex next to me.

Could it be? Is it possible to read about a dying professor's final reflections without losing it?

47-year-old Randy Pausch proved me wrong – it is. The Last Lecture is based on a poignant talk given at Carnegie Mellon University, where Pausch taught computer science. Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal and The Last Lecture co-author, attended the 70-minute speech titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams."

Inspired, he quickly passed on Randy's tale to his column readers. With the aid of Zaslow's publicity, Pausch's lecture became an overnight YouTube sensation. A month and a half later, the book version was in the hands of a publisher.

"My father always said if there's an elephant in the room, introduce it," Pausch said in his Sept. 18, 2007 talk, in front of an auditorium packed with students, colleagues and his wife, Jai. The elephant in the room: Pausch is dying of pancreatic cancer, and will die in three to six months. He stopped teaching months ago, but returned to Carnegie Mellon for his "last lecture."

Professors are often asked to give the talk under hypothetical pretenses, so when he was asked to do it post-diagnosis, he knew it would be a hefty emotional investment. He accepted, however, using the video-taped opportunity to pass on a lifetime of advice to his children – Dylan, 6, Logan, 4, and Chloe, 2.

The Last Lecture isn't about dying. It's about living. Like the similarly plotted Tuesdays with Morrie, I read the book prepared to cry and mope, but instead felt incredibly rejuvenated by its finish.

Pausch is not in denial – he knows he's dying. But he's not dead yet. He's simply squeezing the most joy out of each remaining day without a second wasted.

"I won't let go of the Tigger inside me," he wrote, citing the jubilant "Winnie the Pooh" character. "I just can't see the upside in becoming Eeyore. Someone asked me what I want on my tombstone. I replied: 'Randy Pausch: He Lived Thirty Years After A Terminal Diagnosis.' I could pack a lot of fun into those thirty years. But if that's not to be, then I'll just pack fun into whatever time I do have."

Pausch radiates a goofy, childish enthusiasm in all aspects of life. His trademark energy pushed him to achieve his childhood dreams, which he describes in enjoyable storytelling detail.

As a child, he wanted to become a Disney Imagineer, write a World Book Encyclopedia entry, meet Captain Kirk from "Star Trek" and play in the NFL. He didn't quite make it to the NFL, but worked on Disney World's "Aladdin: The Magic Carpet Ride," authored the World Book entry on virtual reality, and eventually did meet Captain Kirk.

His book is punctuated with what I like to call "Pausch-isms." They're simple, but highly useful tidbits of advice to use in everyday life. Each epithet is backed up with personal life experiences, adding to its impact in the reader's mind.

"Loyalty is a two-way street," he said, describing past colleague relationships.

Pausch's personality is a mix of practicality and passion. It leaps right off the page. He has a sound logical side that competes with a booming, often nerdy personality.

"During my cancer treatment, when I was told that only four percent of pancreatic cancer patients live five years, a line from the Star Trek movie 'The Wrath of Khan' came into my head ..." Just when I'd be ready to reach for the tissues, I'd laugh out loud.

The last thing Pausch wants in The Last Lecture is the reader's tears. Instead, he aims for his audience to make the most of life, regardless of circumstances.

"We can't change the cards we are dealt," he said, "just how we play the hand."

Interview with the author:

I have a wicked sweet tooth, and there is little else in the world that I like more than a hot-fudge sundae. With the creamy, the gooey, the crunchy, the warm, and the cold all in one simple glass, a sundae really satisfies all of my sweet cravings with one fell swoop.

Sloane Crosley’s witty new collection of essays, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, is just such a perfect sundae: a heaping scoop of New York City spirit, covered in witty sarcasm with a sprinkling of unabashed girliness, topped off with a cherry that has long since been popped.

I Was Told There’d Be Cake is a sampler tray of some of the more awkward moments of Crosley’s quirky journey through life. It’s a delightful read that can be consumed in chapter-long tastes or one sitting.

She smacks of fellow essayists David Sedaris and Dave Barry, with a self-deprecating, helplessly blunt approach to storytelling and an ability to find the sweeter side in even the grittiest of situations. But unlike the Davids, she makes her audience somewhat narrow; this is a feminine book with a feminine cover that talks about feminine things like girls’ summer camp and being a bridesmaid. She is genuinely clever and talented, but some of her material might not connect with Y-chromosomed readers.

This bubbly debut seems to be really representative of her personality, showing a whimsical imagination but also firmly planted feet. Crosley isn’t afraid to be a little crispy around the edges, and certainly doesn’t shy away from asking someone “why [they] had to be such a f– face.”

Imagine a younger, shorter, and more jovial female Larry David. Even the cover – extreme close up of a flower-patterned mattress circa 1970 – is a Monet-like reflection of Crosley: from far away, it’s pretty and girly and nice, but up close, you can see how a painfully average suburban existence brought out the sardonic in her.

Now after reading this book, I realized that I am unfairly predisposed to Crosley’s work. We come from exceedingly similar suburban areas, with the same kind of religiously apathetic, dysfunctional (but unbroken) upper-middle class families.

We have the same hair and college major, and are both frequently told that we “don’t look very Jewish.” We failed at being legitimately vegetarian, but love to bake and share a burning desire to have a cultural heritage other than American.

I am admittedly biased, because I feel like these laughable and embellished memoirs could have been my own if I were 26 years old and writing a book.

But biases aside, I Was Told There’d Be Cake is a really enjoyable read. Her essays, creating a Ben Stiller-like comedy of errors in the end, are hilarious and intelligent from the very first page.

With a snarky irreverence Crosley is able to point out the comedy in everyday tragic situations of work, roommates, sex, drugs, college, weddings, family, and favorite childhood computer game Oregon Trail. She tosses in a fun (but tasteful) little helping of bathroom humor and shows a real talent for wit and metaphor.

Crosley includes wonderful little nuggets of insight in her work: “You can’t pick your girlfriends’ teeth, but you can sure as shit pick your girlfriends.”

I loved her points about our “universal desire to avoid being the asshole” and how she had to “cut the pink wire” after being in an over-the-top fairy-tale wedding. She comically notes how “being vegetarian in New York is not unlike being gay. Veggie restaurants and options abound [...] but being Vegan, of course, is like the dietary equivalent of being a transsexual.”

My favorite was her wistful recount of a moving day in which she locked herself out of two different apartments. Her descriptions are spot on without being superfluous; I laughed out loud and had a smile plastered on my face throughout the entire book.

I Was Told There’d Be Cake is a rollicking good and easy read, and is a perfect little comedic treat to pick up and read again. It might be a little on the girlish side, but this book is genuinely funny and well written, and shows real potential for Crosley as a writer.

It is a sweet and whimsical delight, and I bet Crosley could venture to a darker, heavier side; think chocolate ganache. I can’t wait to satisfy my craving for her next book.

Interview with the author

After inhabiting various South Pacific islands for his previous two bestsellers (Getting Stoned With Savages, Sex Lives of Cannibals), J. Maarten Troost heads to Asia in search of the answer anyone planning to live in the 21st century is looking for: what’s the deal with China?

Troost humorously sets the record straight with his latest novel, Lost in Planet China. With witty intellect, a touch of political sarcasm and a knack for boiling down complicated history, Troost, who claims not to be a travel writer, brings the profession to an impossible standard with his raw perspective and brutal honesty about traveling through “the America of Asia.”

For Troost, it seems China is first and foremost one gigantic nightmare for the Environmental Protection Agency. Indeed, most of the twenty-four chapters are replete with interjections of “apocalyptic smoky haze” and “the foulest air this side of Venus,” no matter where he is, be it Beijing’s choking highways or the barren mountains of Tibet.

Along with the mega-factories, the phlegm-hawking locals and lack of basic sanitation (children freely excrete into street gutters), one gets the sense that China does not bode well for the future world.

While these events do not help China’s image, they are gold for an exceptionally entertaining read, whether one desires to go to China or not. The half-Czech, half-Dutch, Canadian-passport-holding, California-residing author holds the worldly perspective and rare non-journalist trait in being able to sift through the piles of mundane material to turn up just enough diamonds for a stellar piece of work.

There is not a base that Troost skips over with China: the rapid economic development, skewed government (are they Commies? Are they not?) extraterrestrial cuisine (Fried Tiger Penis, anyone?), seething Japanese sentiment, a booming sex industry, its relations to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet, and the long-awaited glory of the Olympics.

The sheer volume of information that Troost covers within 379 pages is nothing short of impressive and speaks its own decibels on how complex the People’s Republic of China is.

Why does the government claim to be for its people, yet they cannot vote?

Why do the cities flash so much wealth, yet more than half the country lives under $200 a month?

And for God’s sake, why is the country so damn polluted?

Troost begins in Beijing, where the traffic, crowds and omnipresent face of Mao Zedong wreak havoc on his senses. As he makes his way from city to city, he meets characters of all kinds: Meow Meow, the prostitute/tour guide outside a Shanghai hotel; senile grandpas who start fights in the middle of a Nanjing street; reefer-smoking Western hippies in Dali, etc. All point to some aspect of the country that Troost uses as clues in his quest to find the real China, which he pieces together bit by bit, painting a portrait that is both complex and intriguing, but most of all, unresolved.

After all, how do you package a land 1 out of 5 humans on the planet call home, 10,000 years of history, and endless menus of everything from Chicken Brain to Ox Larynx?

With comical anecdotes tinged with history lessons that even the average Joe can comprehend, Troost takes the reader on a wild ride through the looming empire of the coming century. If he was able to keep his wits about him through consuming live squid and being stranded on Putuoshan during a typhoon, there’s hope for the rest of us in surviving the veritable planet that is modern China.

Interview with the author: