March 22, 2020 (In The Year of the Trump Virus)

March 22, 2020 (In the year of the Trump Virus)

I woke up at 7:00 A.M. and made myself some coffee. I've been having nightmares since the Trump Virus hit Los Angeles. Now on top of that, I have been dreaming of Nazis. Late afternoon I watched a show called "The Hunters" with Al Pacino, who heads a super team of Nazi killers who kill Nazis who live in America in 1977. Since we are in the 21st-century and surrounded by brutality, this shows violence is truly sickening. Nazi throwing darts at a young man's chest and a chess game with living people who kill each other if they are checkmated. Do I need to see this now in the crisp of total economic and health horror? Revenge is pleasing to watch only when everything in your world is OK. Things are not OK in my (our) world at the moment. 

My amusement this morning with my first cup of coffee was reading the Good Reads website. I list my entire library here and keep it up, not only because I'm obsessive, but also to keep track of the books I have or want. Even though the evil Amazon owns it, it is an excellent site for that purpose. I rarely use it for social connections, except as an author with three books published, I do push the product on their website. 

I was looking over the reviews for my book, "TOSH: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World," and notice that there is a one-star review by Raymond Delvaux. This is what he wrote:

"It is a bit pathetic when the child of a celebrity has nothing to trade on but the fame of their parent. It is doubly pathetic when that fame is minor at best. Mr. Wallace sees to think that his father name, that of a justifiably minor artist on the fringes of the beat scene, will help him sell this tedious, aggressively aspires to middlebrow, memoir. Why anyone would be interested is beyond me, as the whole thing is the most shallow wallpaper observations peppered gratuitously with counterculture names much better known than his mediocre parent. Mr. Berman seems to think that this is enough to hold our interest and if trainspotting minor cult figures submerged in a mess of literary instant oatmeal is your thing, maybe it is. Otherwise, give this a hard pass and read something written by the real thing."

This is my first bad review. I was curious to know who Mr. Delvaux is, and when I went on his Good Read page, he had very little information on it. Except that he joined up this March 2020, and so far read only three books, which are: "Sparks-Tastic" by Tosh Berman (One Star), "The Plum in Mr. Blum's Pudding" by Tosh Berman (One Star), and of course, last but not least, "TOSH" by Tosh Berman. And that, obviously, is One Star as well.  

The way I look at it, I write the book, and then it is the critic's job to acknowledge or not to acknowledge the work. I'm happy that I take part in the conversation. I then went back to my reading of "Stockhausen Serves Imperialism"  by the late British composer Cornelius Cardew as well as the biography on surfer Miki Dora. This late afternoon we went to Gelson's, but there was a line to get in, as well as Trader Joe's. It started to rain, so we decided to go on a different day. If one eats slowly, food lasts longer.