Gravier House http://www.gravierhouse.com/ Gravier House en-us Winter's Tale http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=113 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=113 Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:03:33 PST Winter’s Tale was about, I don’t think I would have read it.

Written in 1983, the plot is three parts Gangs of New York, two parts Age of Innocence , with a dash of Dickens and a pinch of Lord of the Rings.

A turn-of-century “period piece” set in and around the city of New York, with swash-buckling swamp dwellers and flying horses.

Two strikes.

But Peter Lake is such a compelling character, who finds himself in such classical literary circumstances, that ...]]> The Recognitions http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=112 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=112 Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:53:06 PST
As a would-be writer, Gaddis has had no direct influence on me. And yet, pretty much everything I have done, or planned to do, or started to do, as a writer, which I genuinely thought to be fresh or innovative, I have come to discover has pretty much already been done by Gaddis. The invasion or interruption of action or speech with sounds, voices, lyrics, television programs, or signs ( J.R. ), the depiction of dialogue which is more competition than cooperation, ( J.R. ), t ...]]> The Unbearable Lightness of Being http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=111 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=111 Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:49:08 PST Milan Kundera begins with a somewhat abstract and philosophical exposition on the unbearable lightness, or weight, of being. It is pretty much all tell, and no show. And yet I loved it. I thought it was pure genius.
Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing. W ...
]]> A Frolic of His Own http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=110 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=110 Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:41:50 PST A Frolic of His Own has some of the funniest passages I have ever read.

I’m not sure whether, if I were not a practicing attorney, I would have appreciated them less, or even more.

But the formal pleadings and deposition colloquies, for example, were exaggerated enough to bring out the comedy, yet genuine enough so as not to be absurd.

As in JR , I found the legal aspects of the novel very authentic, both in substance and in form. It is surprising that Gaddis did not go to law school, at t ...]]> Greatest Hits http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=109 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=109 Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:07:22 PST I was at Starbucks the other day and saw a Dylan greatest hits type collection which seemed to be mostly a compilation of eighteen songs from the Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits Vol. 2 records, along with a few more recent tracks like Hurricane.

For some artists, the Greatest Hits are pretty much the only songs you would ever want to listen to. In fact, for many bands, even the Greatest Hits would only “hit” your turntable, or i-Pod, around 2 or 3 times out of 10.

But for our favorite artists, ...

]]> The Road http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=108 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=108 Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:04:13 PST
At the beginning, McCarthy pretty much tells you, flat out, what the dilemma is. (Will the father be strong enough to do what’s necessary, when the time comes?) Which, at the time, I thought was fairly “on the nose” and unnecessary.

Yet I wonder whether, absent the explicit set-up, the rest of the narrative would have held its dramatic tension. It might have just felt like a ...]]> Herzog http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=104 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=104 Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:15:02 PST Herzog more had I read it a long time ago.

I read Philip Roth’s introduction, and noted his comment that Herzog was like an American Leopold Bloom, except that “in Ulysses, the encyclopedic mind of the author is transmuted into the linguistic flesh of the novel, and Joyce never cedes to Bloom his own great erudition, intellect, and breadth of rhetoric, whereas in Herzog Bellow endows his hero with all of that.”

My “criticism” of the book, I gu ...]]> B.S. or BCS? http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=102 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=102 Sun, 17 Dec 2006 11:09:51 PST
But there seem to be several reasons, aside from money and tradition, to favor it over a play-off system.

First of all, it’s generally pretty clear who the National Champion is. There is sometimes a lot of debate about who should get to play for the title in the No. 2 spot, but usually, things shake out and you have a clear No. 1 team.

(Parenthetically, let’s note t ...]]> A Taste of Reality on "Top Chef" http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=99 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=99 Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:52:20 PST Lawyer Advertising http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=93 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=93 Mon, 04 Dec 2006 08:54:46 PST
To the Honorable Members of the Rules of Professional Conduct Committee of the Louisiana State Bar Association:

I am a partner in the firm of Herman Herman Katz & Cotlar, LLP, located in New Orleans, Louisiana, and in the national firm of Herman Mathis Casey Kitchens & Gerel, LLP, with central offices in Atlanta, Georgia. I handle litigation for both plaintiffs and defendants in commercial, personal injury, complex and other cases. I am the author of America and the L ... ]]> A Thanksgiving Song http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=92 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=92 Mon, 27 Nov 2006 17:45:14 PST A Child's Christmas in Whales from a record store on Wisconsin Ave, which I listened to while falling asleep at night. A paid intern at the DSCC, I had some time on my hands during the day, and started composing some prose/poems in that vein. Nov. 22, 1989 was done on or around my birthday, shortly followed by Thursdays in Late November and a few other "Work Songs". Obviously no comparison to Dylan Thoma ...]]> Nov. 22, 1989 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=91 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=91 Mon, 27 Nov 2006 17:39:00 PST A Child's Christmas in Whales, I starting typing this out, followed soonafter by Thursdays in Late November. Obviously no comparison to Dylan Thomas, what I find interesting, as several of these words come up red on the Spell-Check, is the "Impressionistic" meaning they retain, (at least for me), separate and apart from the formal definitions you would -- or, more to the point, would not - ...]]> Photography http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=90 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=90 Thu, 03 Aug 2006 13:11:28 PST
Yet I find photographs themselves aesthetically pleasing and, (in an "artistic" sense), have the potential to change the way in which you l ...]]> The Long Tail http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=89 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=89 Tue, 01 Aug 2006 08:14:28 PST The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, in the Economist, the New Yorker, Newsweek and BusinessWeek, all at the same time.
From the perspective of a store like Wal-Mart, the music industry stops at less than 60,000 tracks. However, for online retailers like Rhapsody the market is seemingly never-ending. Not only is every one of Rhapsody’s top 60,000 tracks streamed at least once each month, ...
]]> American Pastoral http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=87 http://www.gravierhouse.com//engine/blog/viewpost.aspx?id=87 Tue, 01 Aug 2006 07:09:24 PST
“What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?”

I love the Swede Levov character.

I don’t know if I have ever identified with a fictional character (or even another real person) in the same way I identified with Levov.

(Who, whether coincidentally or by design, is a literary alter ego of sorts to the Rabbit Angstrom character.)

As a reader, I like this book.

But the way this book is written makes no sense.

You start out with I guess what ...]]> Tue, 01 Aug 2006 07:09:24 PST