Glenn Beck as prophet

Glenn Beck went on stage at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday (Aug. 28, 2010) in the role of prophet before an audience of 87,000 to 500,000 fans, an unknown number of whom are true believers. Beck told the gathering: “America today begins to turn back to God. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness."
In inflating his role from television/cable/radio performer into one entrusted by God to bring about a new American religious revival, Beck fulfills the vision of Budd Schulberg in “A Face in the Crowd” (1957) in which the leading character, Larry (Lonesome) Rhodes, played by Andy Griffith, blossoms from an insignificant wandering small-town entertainer into a television personality with a massive, hypnotized following.
Lonesome Rhodes’ downfall resulted from the foolish mistake (repeated by so many politicians since) of laughing in the presence what he thought was a dead mike at his audience as a bunch of hooples.
On the other hand, Beck’s bubble may never burst, instead lifting him ever upward towards heaven or the heavens.

A suggestion: My novel, THE PENCIL ARTIST is available as an e-book on Smashwords, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble; as a paperback on Amazon.

Obscure Novelists like me

I ordered a Kindle today (Aug. 23, 2010) with the intention of using it to review novels by obscure indie writers like me. Two years ago, I set out to review such novels buying paper versions or printing them from online sites but only managed to do a couple before being hit by shingles in my left eye, which ended that undertaking for over a year.
Unfortunately, several of those novels proved to be dreadfully unreadable. Since I have a policy of only reviewing obscure novels that I enjoyed or could recommend, I didn’t bother writing about those.
I assume having a Kindle will make the reading of obscure novels a lot easier; I plan to focus my obscure novelist effort on free eBooks or those costing .99 cents or thereabouts.
Of course, I’ll continue to read and review the traditional novels that come into my possession either through purchase or gift. In the case of the traditionals, I usually focus on a particular aspect of the book—a great character, an interesting plotline, etc.—rather than providing a full fledged review since the usual newspaper, magazine and online reviewers are fulfilling that need.
As with everything, I Googled various takes on obscure novels to see what others might have written. The Googley results: 57 hits in “best obscure novels;” 24,000 in “obscure novels;” and 985 “obscure novelists.”

A suggestion: My novel, THE PENCIL ARTIST is available as an e-book on Smashwords, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble; as a paperback on Amazon.

Substantially wrong

On Aug. 21, 2010, in a front page story about the upcoming film, “The Social Network” two New York Times writers offered staggeringly erroneous conclusions about the substance of two great films: “The Godfather” and “Network.”
The Times story said, “If ‘The Godfather’ was about family and ‘Network’ about rage, ‘The Social Network’ appears to be mostly about emptiness.”
I wondered if the writers had seen or thought about either "The Godfather" or "Network." So here are my corrections of their analyses:
“The Godfather” (1972) is about a criminal warlord, a Machiavellian figure who has made himself a prince of the underworld through murder, bribery, and political skills. Don Corleone is not the head of a family, but the leader of a coterie of vicious, lethal, cruel outlaws.
Paddy Chayefsky’s masterpiece, “Network” (1976) deals not with rage, but forecasts the corporatization, the corruption, the dumbing down of a significant segment of today’s television and cable shows that pretend to be delivering news, but in reality are shallow entertainments and political propaganda.
I hope that “The Social Network,” inspired by Facebook, turns out to be worth watching for substance rather than emptiness. So many films of modern times are nothing but special effects and chase scenes.

A suggestion: My novel, THE PENCIL ARTIST is available as an e-book on Smashwords, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble; as a paperback on Amazon.