Deliberately Distorted Social Commentary as Entertainment
922972
Wrapped in a cloak of poetic license, Michael Creighton violates his own principle counseling against the politicization of science.  As ever, Creighton exhibits his enormous capacity to weave plausible scientific theory into a thrilling tale of predictive exploitation.  The immediate target of his criticism is the environmental lobby and its dire predictions of global warming, a claim Creighton urges us to defer until science overtakes rank speculation.  Creighton, however, exceeds this cautionary note by depicting environmental extremists to be high tech versions of their anti-abortion cousins who occasionally engage in mayhem and murder in emphasizing their point of view.

He's quickly mired in an overly simplistic exaggeration in characterizing environmentalists as either simple minded believers or self serving zealots devoted, first, to creating and then exploiting fears of environmental disasters.  The imminent threat of global warming is the foundation on which Creighton's environmentalists seek to raise money for the ostensible benefit of all mankind.  Unfortunately, the data defining global disaster is highly suspect, ambiguous and, therefore, subject to interpretive distortion.

For me, the tale loses its initial claim of plausibility when Creighton describes the impossible antics of a junior level associate in a large law firm who serves as its primary contact with an important, wealthy client while casually disregarding basic protocols of partner supervision.  Creighton, who evidently dislikes attorneys, depicts this young naf as the uncritical pawn of impulsive, highly irresponsible environmental extremists.  Ignoring bright line ethical constraints and exposing his own superiors to certain disbarment, at least in a plausible world, the associate collaborates with trial attorneys who manufacture evidence in order to launch  lawsuits bereft of prima facie substance.  In legal jargon, they eviscerate the concept of "colorable grounds" for making legal claims and blatantly violate provisions in the U.S. Code which cannot withstand political scrutiny, much less the legal scrutiny of judicial oversight.

Creighton completely ignores the far more immediate and deleterious impact of air pollution and industrial waste on human health, much less the wanton destruction of ecological balance and species of both plant and animal life we know to be essential to a self-sustaining environment.  Instead he depicts unseen industrial leaders as sober realists whose free market efforts, with the assistance of selfless federal agents and a few enlightened PhDs who serve as highly trained combatants, sustain the human fabric of our society and economy.

Simply stated, if you can suspend any critical thought whatsoever, this might prove to be an enjoyable escapist undertaking.
106040
It's a collection of transcriptions of conversations/debates on various subjects between Derrida and other scholars. Sometimes I laughed out loud at the ridiculous statements and non-sequiturs.
540445
The true brilliance of this DVD comes from its unintentional hilarity when watched with R. Kelly's commentary feature turned on.  While the PC side in me cries when I watch the most heinous stereotypes reinforced by the artist, it is easily subdued and beat up by my ironic side which was gasping for air after laughing so hard at the genius stupidity of R. Kelly's insight.  To be watched with many friends.
1297757
It is telling commentary and often a good sign when a book receives some 5 star reviews and a lot of 3 or less. There are a lot of readers who just "don't get it" books like this with levels of meaning and commentary that underlie the story.  For all of the reviewers highly critical of the plot, and the main character, and for those who found it "depressing"; this is fiction people! Moreover it is dark humor. Lighten up. For those readers lacking the sense of humor to grasp the author's wit, and wry commentary here, I suggest you stick with the more straight forward fiction typical of Walmart's offerings.
 "Heroes of the Frontier" is much, much more than the plot or the characters on the surface. The narrative is interlaced with brilliant social commentary. Eggers skewers many targets in dire need of his "Emperors New Clothes" wit including human nature, consumer culture, marriage and relationships, and etc. The book is hilarious for readers who "get it". Based on our current "culture of the aggrieved" the protagonist imagines a detailed outline for a play entitled "Disappointed" that covers the last three pages of chapter twelve. I am tempted to quote the whole thing here it was so hilarious and dead on. By the time I finished my sides hurt. If you're considering reading "Heroes of the Frontier" go to your local library and read pages 135-137. If you aren't given the bums rush for creating a disturbance of laughter the book probably isn't for you.
3040280
Somewhat autobiographical tale about a young man w/ an encyclopedic knowledge of international film.  This robotic young man's fascination w/ film is shared only by him, as he swiftly spews forth the info on varied popular and esoteric films and directors.  He irritates people, though he means no harm.  He actually is a "nice" guy.  Alas, he loses his job as a clerk at a video store.  Now he's faced w/ greater social isolation and the challenge of building a life outside of film alone.  This film will appeal to anyone who's ever been on the outside, considered a geek or nerd, or who loves film.  The Film Geek (Scotty) is worse off than Napoleon Dynamite because, unlike Napoleon, Scotty doesn't have ANY friends or family.  Film is set in Oregon, shot on location, in a documentary type style, but well-produced.  Bonus features: interesting notes about the cast and crew in a making of feature, and a hilarious spoof starring Malkasian (who played Scotty).  In the spoof (referred to as a short film in the menu), Malkasian shows off his acting skill playing an Italian porn film director who's giving the DVD commentary for one of his films.  Funny because such shallow material is treated w/ such seriousness.  Worth your time.  Trailers for 3 other indie films: most noteworthy: Mongolian Ping Pong (drama about what happens when children in an isolated tribe of Mongolian indigenous people find a ping pong ball), and Agnes & My 4 Brothers (German comedy about a sex-addict)
655020
I have always found Jon's commentaries entertaining and informative. as such, I was looking for something with a comedic edge to make history  more interesting for kids/ students.  There are some interesting elements/slants on historical events in the "text" but I was disturbed by the profanity. As a result I won't leave it lying around for kids to pick up and read themselves. That is the shucks part!

The layout is hard to follow with all the side notes, crossouts, etc..

but, that is just my opinion. Iget the jist of it.
4306856
To me, Joe Queenan is the Thomas Poling of contemporary commentary.
Let me explain. Tom Poling is a booking agent in Nashville. I first met him through my work; the work relationship, as occasionally happens, developed into a friendship. This was due in large part to the fact that Thomas is a veritable Bartlett's of colorful expressions, many of which I have unabashedly and unashamedly appropriated as my own. Another related factor is that I am unable to complete a conversation with Tom without at some point finding myself on the floor, laughing and unable to catch my breath at some acerbic comment he has made.
The same is true of Joe Queenan. Queenan is the anti-Barney, a keen observer of all those things that prick and irritate the human spirit, of those things that drag us down as a species. It is impossible to read anything he writes without experiencing at least a twitch, if not a full-blown seizure, of painful self-recognition. You'll be laughing so hard, however, that you won't care.
Queenan's books are either collections of essays or treatises on a particular subject. TRUE BELIEVERS is a treatise dealing with sports fans. If you have absolutely no interest in sports, don't fear; I am not by any definition of the term a "sports fan" (this, only because mud wrestling is not yet considered a sport) but, like most people, I am well acquainted with a multitude of individuals who are. They are all in TRUE BELIEVERS, pinned to its pages like butterflies twitching on a fourth grader's science fair project display. The chapter titles tell it all. They include: "Fans Who Love Too Much", "Fans Who Just Enjoy It", "Fans Who Are Short" (a chapter for the kids) and my personal favorite, the one that I have read verbatim to several formerly close friends, "Fans Who Misbehave."
Queenan, in the latter chapter, describes in great detail and with laser-accurate viciousness the escapades of a couple of individuals at a baseball game. You can feel the heat, smell the mix of stale popcorn and rapidly warming beer, and experience the tedium broken by the antics of the people a few rows in front of you. And it is more than hilarious. It is breath-catching, heart-stopping, call-911-I'm-comin'-Elizabeth hilarious. Queenan provides a laugh like this every page or so. TRUE BELIEVERS should probably come with a warning label. You don't want to read it within a half hour or so of consuming a bag of White Castles, one of those new Enchilada Bowls from Taco Bell, or the Reuben Platter at the Tick Tock Diner on Route 3 in Clifton, New Jersey. Your laundress won't appreciate it.
TRUE BELIEVERS is for sports fans, the people who live with them, the people who love them, and the people who can't stand them. It is, in other words, the ultimate book for everyone. Very highly recommended.
  --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
2090233
Right off the bat, I'd like to welcome anybody who just came to post angry things about Zoe Quinn. Hi! It's blatantly obvious that you're trying to sink the rating of a book you haven't actually read! Then again, being completely ineffectual in tactics and obvious in ideology is so utterly Gamergate that there's no real point in complaining about it. Oh well!

Anyway, I was there when it happened. I remember when the first reports came out with scarce information, and I briefly joined the dogpile without knowing any better. What dogpile? The thing they called Gamergate--the waking nightmare that this book is about. Chances are, you know something about that trash fire if you're here reading a review. Maybe, like myself, you've been following it from the beginning. Maybe you heard about it on NPR, or through any of the other usual author circuits.

Crash Override doesn't have a "normal" structure, as far as these things go. It's partially a memoir, sure, but it's partly a guide to the way internet harassment works and to surviving it. Sure, it begins where you'd expect it to--with the first shots fired by Quinn's creeper of an exe--but it flashes back and forth between Quinn growing up, the dawn of the campaign against her, and the present weirdness of her life. It's about harassment, sure, but it's also a personal piece on growing up creative, queer, and pissed off on the internet.

Surprisingly, it's also very funny. Quinn got her start making goofy video games on the internet, and that sense of comedy shines through in her narration. While sometimes that comedic sensibility works against the dark subject matter, mostly it helps make the horrors she and others suffered a lot more bearable. To paraphrase Twain (badly), humor is one of the great weapons against evil.

And there's a lot of evil in this book. Even with the humor, Crash Override is a hard read. I'll never understand the callous disregard GG had for the personhood of their targets, for all of Quinn's efforts to try and contextualize it. The disconnect social media brings can only explain so much. My point here, I suppose, is that while the prose is breezy and sometimes even fun, the subject matter is not. At times, this book is exhausting.

If Crash Override has a flaw, it's in the drier sections towards the middle of the book. Despite Quinn's efforts to inject a little dark humor into her book, parts of it become a bit of a slog. A related problem is that sometimes the humor simply falls flat. That's not surprising either--laying jokes around a group that regularly calls the cops on people in an attempt to get them shot is going to get difficult after a while--but it's worth mentioning all the same.

Quinn ends the book by discussing her return to game design and her decision to move away from activism, and I can't blame her at all. Frankly, I would've ducked out a lot sooner or just snapped entirely. It's framed as a victory for Quinn and a return to normalcy. No one should have to refocus their entire life around fighting harassment, I'll agree with that, yet it left me with an odd sense of foreboding. Zoe Quinn wrote this book to give us the tools to fight this battle ourselves. There's beauty in that, but it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Who's next? It could be anyone, and they'll convince themselves it's all okay.

It's just somebody on a screen, after all.

We're not talking about real people. Because if Zoe Quinn was real, Gamergate, if you ever let yourself take her words at face value, if you entertained a single doubt, then...well.

You'd be monstrous.

And that's why August never ends.
2193990
Claims to Fame.

What is at stake in the contemporary society of spectacle is the struggle for controlling the impact of the "signs of the real" (p. 7) over the mass of consumers and their possible resistance. The question of authenticity and realness has been present since the early celebrity consumer culture. Once a text is recognized as public and drowned into the flow of the social circulation, its ambivalence of being readable either in logical or mythological ways  shapes it with an `inconvenient' edge; but in contemporary culture this problem is framed by the omnipresence and awareness of a third agent: the machine (p. 34) which is un-detachable from the celebrity-text. The industrial machinery increasingly is drawn into the narrative it produces, making the industrial process less a vehicle for the product and more a part of it, in a similar way as brands do to the commodities they label.

The still broadly accepted assumption in media studies  stating that emancipation from authoritarian media depends on "demystifying" processes, achieving awareness by unveiling the machinery of production is challenged by Gamson when he demonstrates that alienation (production/consumer) is not overcome with information because information is immediately reconverted in entertainment. This finding invites further analyses to understand why and how Celebrity-watching audiences "bracket" evidence for the sake of maintaining their consumption not as endings but as instrumental mediations for their everyday ritualizations.

Audiences simultaneously play voyeuristic and performing roles (p. 139) making the axis of the watcher and the watched a superficial layer (a pre-text) "serving" underlying and ongoing conversations (both private and public).
A commonality in all sorts of interpretive communities is their joyful engagement in the decoding and reading of texts. Hermeneutic pleasures attired with playful attitudes are fully consonant with other meaning-making experiences where media consumption is used as a pre-textual resource, even in practices deemed as "serious" as religious practices . As seen with the "game players", there is an ability of decreeing at will the realness of an event, in spite of being acknowledged its fictitiousness. This contempt to what is real or fictional makes the former an irrelevant factor, as long as the story is kept as a sufficient resource for maintaining the social conversation. Hence, belief is self-consciously perceived as a matter of choice based on how much a belief suits ones' needs, since the text itself has no particular authority (p. 179).

Skepticism (truth and reality as undeterminable) is not a belligerent statement but a strategy to keep the conversation ongoing. In doing so, the text's original intention of being consumed as reliable information is subverted and reconverted into an ironic tool of resistance. The original alienation (the gap between the production and the consumer) and the implicit one-way communication model are not overcome, but this condition starts playing in favor of the consumers. In other words: consuming texts and playing games of truth with them reverse the dominating and objectifying relationship that traditionally texts exert upon readers, instead it is the reader the one who subjects the text in a way that what really matters is that the text doesn't really matter (p. 184). A social cognition implication of this is that open-coded consumption evidence a degree of distrust of the public and institutional selves (institutions of truth and social hypostasis, as Peter Berger likes to refer).
Juan Carlos Henriquez
PhD Program in Sociology
Boston College
693304
Perhaps "The Taliban Shuffle" is a slyly disguised prophecy.  If the ongoing and insoluble disasters of the Middle East can radiate enough despair to the world outside, they may eventually exhaust the supply. And perhaps the void of spent hatreds and failed hopes will be filled by a rediscovery of humor as a first step toward sanity.

Don't hold your breath waiting for such a thing to happen.  But you can at least sample some resurgent humor as if it had.  Former Chicago Tribune journalist Kim Barker has chronicled a harrowing and ditzy romp through the heart of Islamic darkness which is sharply different from every other book I've read about the region: it is actually funny.  Her wordplay is witty, her prose moves like a breathless personal letter.  She wields a flippant attitude like a razor, treating press interviews with warlords, presidents and power brokers like blind dates, obsessing over her clothes and make-up like the comic strip character, Cathy.

The brutality of Afghans toward one another (particularly their women) is subtly contrasted with their paradoxically sincere hospitality toward strangers (particularly if they're women). The customary regional indignities of being female (the endless propositions and butt-grabs) are treated less with righteous indignation than comic exasperation: one misogynistic overreacher gets punched in the nose.

Her narrative focus is quintessentially feminine: relationships--family, fellow journalists, translators, drivers, interviewees--are analyzed in excruciating detail, and we read more about what people are wearing than any guy would tell us.  Her humor has just enough self-parody to suggest some of it may be unintended.  Her musing about potential war-zone romantic candidates reminded me of the clueless letters usually addressed to Dear Abby.

One soon realizes that wisdom and incisive judgment are not prominent facets of Kim's mind.  Unlike say, Sara Chayes in "The Punishment of Virtue" she offers no original perspectives, practical policy critiques nor shows any notable passion for seeing improvement in Afghans' lives.  If she met any locals she admired or thought constructive, they aren't in this book.  Locals seem mostly a dysfunctional backdrop for anecdotes, a career in journalism and a livelier Facebook persona.

I don't mean that it's a lousy book.  It delivers on readability, but the tone is more personal and gossipy than informative.  I did enjoy seeing a splash of bright humor fall on such a dismal subject.  Humor can be a potent weapon in the conflict of ideas and it's one of the few nobody's tried in the Middle East.
1974283
As a voyueristic peek into the minds and lives of the ethically challenged throughout history, the 48 Laws of Power is as entertaining as it gets. However, beyond that, it's only real value, is as a means of categorizing,  recognizing, and hopefully thwarting, the tactics of the sleazebags among  us. It seems to me that what the authors have given us is an updated and  expanded Baltasar Gracian (The Art of Worldly Wisdom), without the charm.  It's still a fun read, but one senses a certain shallowness that is not  entirely compensated for by the wealth of historical allusions. Enjoy it  for what it's worth, but certainly, take it with a (large) grain of salt!
389525
Channel Blue kept me turning pages - and laughing - through a gentle social commentary of continual twists.  In a somewhat bawdy romp, surprises keep coming one after another,  down to the very last paragraph. Deft with words, Martel ends with a sly glint of hope, a relief from laughing at our culture's incongruities.
3420959
Written by Ryu Murakami(AUDITION), I knew I was in for a dark excursion into counter-culture madness.  KARAOKE TERROR is the satirical tale of two groups of societal misfits waging war against each other.  These battles are all set to a soundtrack of retro karaoke hits.

It's the group of young slackers, content on doing nothing but play video games and writing Amazon reviews.  Oops, I mean play video games and scoping out the ladies.  After one kid gets insulted by a middle-age divorcee, he retaliates by slitting her throat.  Her lady friends unite and devise their plans for revenge.

This movie starts off excellent, with some startling and stylistic murders that I totally loved.  It delves into the idiosyncratic tendencies of the two different generations, with a spiritual unrest and mounting feelings of insecurity.  The Showa-era songs and the violence seem to unite them within their own groups.

Unfortunately the battles escalate into some comical buffonery that I didn't really care for.  It felt like a Miike rip-off.  It isn't believable in the least, with bazookas and homemade atomic bombs.  Some might enjoy it, I just lost interest after the first half of bloody, realistic murders.  Still not bad.
1462510
If you are looking for deep reading, this is not the book for you.  If you are enjoy reading about the stupidity of others, and enjoy mind-numbing shows such as "World's Dumbest...." then this IS the book for you.  This book contains page after page of the dumb and idiotic actions of others.  Fortunately for society on the whole, many of the individuals will not be pro-creating, so in a sense it also reads like one of the "Darwin Awards" series.  Also included are examples of unintentionally funny newspaper headlines, ironic names of criminals (ex. a woman arrested on drug charges has the last name of "Smoker.")  Let me repeat, this is not high-brow literature, but for the price ($0.00) this is pretty funny bathroom worthy reading.
2182902
Review Summary:  Balsamic Dreams is both social commentary and satire.  As social commentary, I thought the book was a three-star effort due to its primary focus on lifestyle.  As satire, I thought the book was well-written, witty, and engrossing.  The book is a five-star effort in that perspective.  I averaged the two ratings to arrive at the above four-star summary.
Review:  The best satires are ones that cause you to see things differently than you did before.  Balsamic Dreams is superb from that perspective.  As one example, Mr. Queenan takes a look at rating the Baby Boom cohort in terms of its public good deeds as compared to other generations throughout modern history.  Whether he's right or wrong in placing the Baby Boom low, it was a perspective that I had never thought about.  Another remarkable section was one where Mr. Queenan described how the most extreme and idealistic Baby Boomers would have liked to have recreated history.  The results are predictably absurd and well worth reading.  Another good section is his description about how Baby Boomers approach funerals.
As social commentary, the book is seriously flawed.  Mr. Queenan is picking on a stereotype that is so extremely drawn that the reader will have a hard time connecting it to very many people.  I could only think of one person I know who fit the model Mr. Queenan was describing.  And, I agree that this person is extraordinarily self-aborbed in creature comforts and trivia.  But every generation has probably had such people.
Also, the description of a shift from youthful idealism to self-absorbed me-ism lacks focus.  Not everyone was a youthful idealist in the 1960s.  Not everyone is less idealistic now than then.
The book curiously avoids looking at the most significant impact of the Baby Boom generation:  Its expansion of knowledge.  This was the first group in history to benefit from lots of education after high school.  What did they do with what they learned?  I cannot help but guess that much of the scientific advances of the last 20 years have come, in part, from Baby Boomers.  I would be very interested to see what the net social impact has been of this new knowledge.  Has it made things better or worse?
In the end, any reviewer has to address Mr. Queenan's main proposition that Baby Boomers are "the most obnoxious people in the history of the human race."  Personally, I find few people obnoxious.  The quality that does it for me is to be obsessed with something, and to keep rubbing my nose in it.  Frankly, racists I met when I was young who went on and on about how terrible this or that minority group was were vastly more obnoxious to me.  I just can't get as upset about people who obsess about food, furnishings, fashion, entertainment, and self-realization.  They strike me as lightweights, not as obnoxious.
I certainly agree that much of the culture provided by Baby Boomers is superficial and commercial.  But popular culture often has that quality.
I do recommend this book to you if you liked BoBos in Paradise.  Balsamic Dreams has more funny material, and will give you more new perspectives even though it isn't as good as a social commentary.
After you finish reading this book, I suggest that you honor its thesis by thinking about ways that you can make a greater public contribution.  How can your special gifts and resources be employed to do the most good while you have a lot of fun helping?
1625106
In this online world of LOL and LMAO, the notion of actually laughing out loud has become cheapened and reduced to clich. "I just dropped my fork LOL!" "Time to walk the dog LOL!" Let me be the first to take back this expression from the Tweeters and Bloggers and say that Drew Friedman's new book literally made my mouth open and emit short, uncontrolled bursts of noise in the "ha-ha-ha" sequence. Yes, I laughed out loud.

You probably will too when you see the hilariously distorted yet at the same time brutally accurate portrayals of contemporary political figures. All my favorites are in here. The people I like and those I love to hate. They're depicted in Drew's trademark style of warts and all (or liver spots and all, wrinkles and all - take your pick). The expressions on their faces and the way Friedman has exaggerated their features causes that involuntary response mentioned above. Great stuff.

The second part of the book is a loving look at show biz personalities and my open-mouth reaction was less about laughing and more about reverent, slack-jawed awe. The way Drew captures these faces shows how much he genuinely likes comedians, singers and actors (especially compared to politicians and candidates). Although the same brutal ugliness is omnipresent, it's done with a palpable love for the subject. Many of the celebrity portrait are suitable for framing and daily ogling. (A good reason to buy a second copy of the book.) That having been said, some of these are also laugh-out-loud funny.

This kind of book is often called a coffee table book because you can leave it out and leaf through it at your leisure. I highly recommend that approach. I tried to consume the book all in one sitting in an effort to give a fair review and was amazed at how often I chuckled, chortled or guffawed at these wonderful paintings. It was exhausting! I wish now I'd saved a few for a rainy day, although I'm sure I'll come back to the book again and again when I need a snicker or two.

Highly recommended for lovers of laughter and admirers of fine art.
3692077
Cards against Humanity is a rude card game, designed to enable its players to joke about a variety of "taboo" topics. That's fine. It suffers from poor design and a dated sense of offensiveness. It comes off as a poor copy of a real joke. Worth a chuckle, buy nowhere near as funny as you would initially expect