True Grit by Charles Portis

Anyone with electricity has seen the John-Wayne movie version of "True Grit" and, although I probably wouldn’t switch TV channels from “Untold Stories of the ER” to watch it (again), it’s a pretty good version, winning Wayne an academy award in 1970 for his portrayal of one of the main characters, Rooster Cogburn.  

Now we have the 2010 version with Jeff Bridges playing Cogburn. Neither John Wayne nor Jeff Bridges float my boat, but the Cohen brothers do. They produced the new version of the movie as well as "Blood Simple", "Raising Arizona", "Fargo" and "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Love them.

But what I really want to talk about is Charles Portis’ book True Grit, which is a story about Mattie Ross, who in 1875, at the age of 14,  hired Rooster Cogburn to catch or kill Tom Chaney, the man who murdered her father.  Although there’s nothing particularly outstanding about the story, two things about this book are: Mattie and Portis’ writing.

Portis’ writing is minimalist like Cormac McCarthy, and wry and clever unlike anyone I’ve read before. Here are a few choice examples.  Dying outlaw, about his partner who’d just shot him:  “He never played me false until he killed me.”  Rooster Cogburn challenging an outlaw threatening to draw on him: “Fill your hand you son of a bitch!”  Texas Ranger complaining when Mattie insulted him: “A little earlier I gave some thought to stealin' a kiss from you, but now I'm of a mind to give you five or six good licks with my belt.” Mattie’s response: “Well, one would be as unpleasant as the other.” Mattie, as Rooster and the Texas Ranger gallop off, trying to lose her: “Those horses can't get away from Little Blackie. They're loaded down with fat men and iron.”

When my book club read True Grit, all we could talk about was how unique and entertaining Mattie’s character was. Her argument with a horse trader is one of the best dialogues I’ve ever read. How an ex-Marine journalist like Portis ever came up with and wrote so charmingly about a 14-year-old girl is an entrancing mystery. Oh, and for the record, Portis' book isn’t about Rooster Cogburn, John Wayne or Jeff Bridges’ “true grit”; it’s about Mattie’s, and I loved it.

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 67

#67 - Check all the fluids in the car every time you fill up with gas.

 Photo is of my dad, in the 30's. Check out that strong chin! No wonder he robbed my mom from the cradle!

This is one of those things mom tried to teach me that just never stuck. As a result, I buy a new car every two years.  OK, my logic is a little convoluted, but just stay with me. The reason I buy a new car every two years is because if my car is still in warranty, I know that the minute anything is wrong with the car the little light on my dash will come on that says, “needs service.” That annoying little message will insist that I take my car in to get the regular tune up, wheels rotated, “fluids” checked and replaced, etc. So I take it in. Not because I am responsible or  love my car and want to take good care of it, but rather because I hate that irritating little message lit up on my dash, and the only way I can be rid of it is to take it in for the freaking service!

Back in the days (old people say that a lot) when you pulled up to a service station (gas station to you whipper snappers) and 2-3 spiffily uniformed little guys dashed out to pump your gas, wash your windows and check you oil, it was comparatively easy to keep your car in good shape. However, I think the car and fuel industry guys (smell a conspiracy theory yet?) got together and screwed us (again.) I suspect that their meeting in the 1960’s went something like this: Click on Read More Below...

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Could author Sam Kean get any nurdier looking? And this photo was probably the result of a couple of hours with a stylist. However, check out his laryngeal prominence (Adams Apple). You know what they say about prominent laryngeals! But I digress.

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, is about science from the perspective of (you guessed it) the periodic table of the elements, and as one reviewer put it, “its relation to medicine, money, poisons, explosive weaponry, temperature, tools of measurement, gold rushes, human insanity, misguided science, artistic output, and the politics of the Nobel prize.” I would just call it a pretty good science soap opera, lots of drama and gossip.

Honestly, I found it difficult to stay focused on the book until Kean pulled out zingers. Like the fact that coins, handrails and water pipes are primarily stainless steel, copper, silver and nickel, because those metals are self-sterilizing; and the fact that the term “computer” was coined when the wives of Manhattan Project scientists were put to work doing zillions of calculations. Oh, and did you know that Marie Curie was almost denied her Pulitzer because she was having an affair with a married man? Then there was the famous poet who went on Lithium to regulate his Bi-Polar Disorder and then couldn’t write jack. OK, I admit it. My zinger threshold for science is pretty low.

If you have an absurd affection for science and "People" magazine, you’d probably like The Disappearing Spoon.