Word: shelfful
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Paper is something of an ostentation these days. All the information we need jumps off a screen and is abstracted back into electrons when we look away. "Books" are the gilded volumes that crown the achievements of the canonized. "Books" are placed strategically on a conspicuous shelf to bestow a semblance of weathered intellectualism. "Books" gather dust...
...text has this mystifying effect, transforming what we see and hear and what we feel. A collection that demystifies the texts has explained too much. One that leaves a reader inundated with text has explained too little, and belongs where it can be of some use: back on the shelf...
...conversation stirs because in his latest crime novel, Comeback (Mysterious Press; 292 pages; $18), Westlake has reached high on his shelf to blow the dust off a memorable badman. About 35 years ago, at the beginning of his career, he turned in a manuscript starring an armed robber named Parker. That was it; if Parker had a first name, you didn't want to get close enough to know it. He was tough, mean and distinctly unfunny; a sullen bad guy who drank whiskey, smoked cigarettes and cuffed both men and women around. Parker got caught...
...attempt to assess the danger, a few dedicated astronomers have been scanning the skies, borrowing time on large telescopes, building their own detectors out of off-the-shelf parts and barely scraping by on the $1 million or so that NASA contributes annually to the total effort. Their goal is to identify and determine the orbits of the still undiscovered "near Earth" asteroids. That would enable them to predict, sometimes many years in advance, the possibility of a disastrous encounter. Those predictions and knowledge gained from missions like Clementine II would give Earth's defenders time to mount the appropriate...
...have done is what the nation's appetite for what ska sound demands. If you find that type of music at all appealing, go out and buy Redlight, because it represents everything that is good about ska music. As for the Pietasters' new album, leave it on the shelf. Although they bring with them a much bigger reputation and fan base, the Pietasters should scrap their tunes on Willis and give a listen to the Slackers. They just might learn how to make a great ska album...