I finally finished Oscar Hijuelos' The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, a lush, pungent, detailed, all-night, euphoric novel, written in a sinuous, tipsy style. It is about two Cuban-born musician brothers who move to New York City in the late 1940s and start a mambo band. The brothers are a contrast in temperament and personality; Cesar, the oldest, the vocalist, is a ladies man, a warm-hearted sensualist, a hard-working hedonist; younger brother Nestor is sad-souled, eternally longing, equally talented, the composer of "Beautiful Maria of My Soul," a modest hit that catches the attention of Desi Arnaz, a lifelong friend, and gets the brothers a guest appearance on I Love Lucy. The book spans about thirty years in the life of Cesar, and there is lot of sex in it; Cesar's life is saturated with it, and such an emphasis on the physical, at times graphic, wantonness of Cesar might turn some female readers off - and, in truth, gets a bit monotonous. But Hijuelos doesn't throw away any of the characters; they're all detailed and multi-dimensional. As a look at particular time in America, as a sympathetic, even-handed account of an immigrant's experience, as a loving, heavily-researched tribute to mid-century Cuban popular music in America, the book hits its marks. A rich, rewarding novel, one that arouses your interest in the subject.
I was glad that Zooey Deschanel was rewarded with a Golden Globe nomination for her flaky, post-ironic loopiness in The New Girl because she is the whole show, despite the other cast members all being pretty funny - and equitable, well-matched guest work from Justin Long and others. Although, I guess it's fair to say that if you don't like Descahnel, there's no reason that you would like the show.
The American art work of the week is The Scout: Friends or Foes? (1902-1905) by the western artist Frederic Remington. A painter, sculptor, author, and illustrator, Remington studied at Yale and the Art Students League of New York, before heading west to try his hand at technically reproducing the beauty of the American West, dynamically representing the frontier, the cowboys, the cavalrymen, the Indians. He did a lot of illustration for magazines such as Harper's Weekly, and was probably most famous for these western-themed illustrations, though he did hundreds of paintings, and was a fine reporter and sculptor as well. In the above landscape painting, we see how Remington's early twentieth works tended to pose, rather than answer, questions. The Indian is watching the distant dwellings on the horizon, unsure whether the dwellings house allies or enemies - if indeed, they're even dwellings, for the distant mass is hard to make out, and could be even an oncoming force. Remington expresses sympathy for the lone Indian, and the viewer can't help but notice the sheer whiteness of the snow, and what must be a characteristically brutal winter.
Today's bird? No bird today. Just a kinda-interesting article:
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/12/the-city-bird-and-the-country-bird/
It is me and Julia's 5th anniversary tomorrow! Can you believe it? I love my wife, love her, love her, love her, love her, love her, love her!
Beaufort! Beaufort!
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