Simply Dreadful / Great Book

Simply Dreadful:  this weird show on NBC right now called 'Hit Me Baby One More Time.'   It's a twisted competition between singing stars of the 80s and 90s who aparantly not sung a note in years.  They do one of their hits then follow it up with a cover of something more contemporary.  The winner each week gets a donation to their favorite charity.  Tonight's show features Wang Chung, Cameo, Howard Jones, Irene Cara and Sophie B. Hawkins.  It's half over -- which means that each has done one of their hits; the covers are yet to come.  It was so bad I had to retreat to my computer!

None of these people sound like they've sung in ages.  Their voices are atrophied and old, petrified and incapable of any kind of subtleness.  Even Irene Cara, probably the best real singer of the bunch, sounds like a wounded dinosaur.  Oh, Gawd!  Wang Chung is now doing that 'It's gettin hot in here, so take off all your clothes' song.  Talk about surreal. 

It's really Karaoke:  there's not a live instrument in the place.  Even the audience's wild enthusiasm is overdubbed.  But the vocals are live and  . . . really:  they are what ought to be pre-recorded.  Bad, Bad, Bad.  It's too bad.  There are so many acts from this era who can really still sing, who still have it.  Where are they?  What is this hideous display of public humiliation?  And how did they talk this pack of once-stars into this kind of degradation? 

To give you an idea of how really bad this show is, last week, Vanilla Ice won out over Arrested Development, The Knack, and others.  Vanilla Ice. 

So much for that. 

The last book I finished was 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time' by Mark  Haddon.  It was wonderful.  I know:  every book I write about is wonderful; but that's only because I don't write about the bad ones.  For example:  I'm not going to write a word about Erick Burdon's 'Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood.' 

'Dog in the Night Time' is a first person account of the murder of a dog by an autistic 15 year old boy.  The language is simple and straightforward:  it's what you'd expect from a 15 year old autistic boy.  In the process of investigating the terrible murder of Wellington - he was discovered with a pitch-fork sticking out of him - he uncovers closely held secrets about his own mother and father . . . secrets that change his life forever.  This is one book I won't talk much about because I don't want to spoil the many surprises it holds. 

But it is delightful and sad, fun, funny and tragic.  And, I believe, it is an excellent portrait of how a 'special' child might see the world.  I read it in two sittings.