Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution
by Sara Marcus
The title say’s it all--- it’s a lot more about the experience if girls during the late 80’s and early 90’s. Members of Gen X coming of age in a post sexual revolution, post - Title 9, post - Feminist age. There is a lot of anger about boys bubbling underneath the surface. Often I have trouble with that, as the anger is directed at those who inherited the culture, not those who created it and allowed it to persist. At any rate I liked that it did document some of the things like Rape Lists on college campuses that people don’t acknowledge happened, on the other hand the exclusive nature of the movement and the fact that many of the young women are now wives and mothers wasn’t addressed….
Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut by Rob Sheffield
I didn’t really think about the connection but following all that Riot Grrrl history is a different take on roughly the same time, only this time the focus is music and the life of the author relating to that music. The book is more like a collection of short stories with each chapter somehow related to a song from the time the story takes place. Some of the stories are better and more engaging than others, some are just ok. The book is worth reading just for the chapter (I disremember which one is it) where the phrase ‘no worries’ having supplanted ‘Whatever’ as thee dismissive of out times.
The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark
I don’t think that I really need to say any more about how amazing the Richard Stark books are…. I do however think that my FFB post on this one was one of the best of my FFB post of the year.
Songs of Innocence by Richard Aleas
This was my Hard Case Crime book for the month, and it was a good one. I had been putting off reading it for some reason, I’m not sure why. It’s a great tale of a former PI who looks into the suicide of his lover and finds, well let’s just say that if you know James Ellory’s one word summary of Noir, you can imagine what happens in this one. It’s a solid, tight, engaging read and the ending while I saw the reveal coming is not for the faint of heart.
I am still working on my John D MacDonald for November and expect to have two of his titles on my December list….. along with the latest from James Ellroy, and a few other books that I have been collecting dust atop my too be read pile.
As has been noted by many Friday Forgotten Book posts in the past, Richard Stark (a.k.a. Donald Westlake) is hardly forgotten.... at least by us, and assorted comic book fans who are currently discovering the world of Parker via the Darwyn Cooke graphic novel versions of the Parker series. The latest installment The Outfit just hit shelves and while I have my copy I haven't read it yet. I even mentioned Parker in my last FFB post..
Recently I have been tripping through the undiscovered [by me at least] past. Inspired by blogs like House of Self-Indulgence, Podcasts like The Gentlemen’s Guide to Midnight Cinema, The books of Hard Case Crime and a pile of punk rock and oi! Reissues I think that I am set for a while in feeding my information addiction.
All this is the say that this weeks forgotten Friday book isn’t a older book, but, well a new book that is a collection of stuff from the past.
When I was a student back in the mid 90s at Michigan State University I hung out at a local pop culture emporium, Gen X where I bought comic books, graphic novels and magazines. I also rented videos and generally chatted with the staff about music, films and all that stuff. One of the magazines that I got in the habit of picking up was Cashier’s Du Cinemart, a somehow Michigan zine related mainly to film. I picked up issues here and there; they used to occupy shelf space with my long gone collection of Psychotronic and Shock Cinema collection. At some point I either stopped buying them or I stopped seeing them. I think it's most likely that when I left E. Lansing I no longer had a place to buy them. Somewhere along the line they seemed to all vanish; I am going to blame the purge of 2002 for that.
Anyway, the recently released Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers Du Cinemart Collection appealed to me, but not because I wanted to relive the face off between CDC main man Mike White and Quinten Tarantino about the whole City on Fire/ Reservoir Dogs thing. It was a reviewer (whom-- I don't recall) that noted there were articles about film adaptations of the works of: David Goodis, Charles Willeford, James Ellroy and the attempts to bring John D MacDonald’s Travis Magee to the screen. There was also an article called The Four and a Half Worlds of Parker, about the film Payback and the history of Richard Stark’s (Donald Westlake for those not in the know) most enduring creation in film. All of those names are of course FFB gold.
One of the magazines that I still pick up these days it the music obsessive’s dream, Ugly Things, with its yearly OD of info. There were years when I would have a headache from the overload in it’s pages and as I looked at Impossibly Funky I have a feeling that it’s going to leave my brain exploded and my body in the fetal position as I recover from the ingestion of the information, opinions and thoughts contained with in.
More Friday forgotten books over at Patti’s on line home HERE
Edited: cause my last draft just didn't cut it.
I recently saw this title on a list of feminist books and was reminded how good it is. It's a very readable academic work exploring gender roles in what at the time were modern horror. 