Jon WinokurBesprekingen

Nonfiction book that looks at irony. There is a little bit of explanation, but mostly quotations as examples.

I still don’t understand. By definition, it still sounds like sarcasm to me. Examples didn’t help. In addition, there are about 50,000 different types of irony, apparently. (OK, slight exaggeration.) A few examples were amusing (Billy Joel’s 11-year old daughter asking him not to sing – is this ironic?), but still didn’t help me understand. It started with explanations of the different types of irony, then a history of irony (all with examples). There were various examples of authors using irony, irony in pop culture (Alanis Morissette’s song, of course, mentioned more than once that those things aren’t ironic; The Simpsons, and other examples). At least it was fast to read. I liked that there were a number of Canadian examples. But I still don’t “get” it. Honestly, with all the various different types of irony, I’m probably more confused than ever.

Like the actor himself, this autobiography is charming and smooth, self-effacing and witty. Like most of his film roles, there is not a whole lot of depth involved. He does touch on some emotional points, step-mother was evil on almost a fairytale level and his father a feckless alcoholic, but they are not dwelled upon. For the most part we are left with his love for almost everyone he worked with—even when they had problems he managed a positive spin. For example, Garner got the better of fellow race car driver Steve McQueen who for a long time held a grudge. Garner doesn’t fault him for it. Just waited for years for him to come around and he finally did. Impressive is that prowess as a driver—shown off doing most of his own driving in the movie GRAND PRIX and on his ground-breaking TV show ROCKFORD FILES. Despite being a long time fan, I didn’t know about his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement joining in on the 1963 MARCH ON WASHINGTON or about his potentially personally costly lawsuit battling “creative accounting” in Hollywood. Self-effacing on both subjects but I would certainly have liked to know more. Overall a pleasant ramble through an ultimately charmed life. (one extra * for being a fan)

'There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.'-Gertrude Stein

'The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.'-Robert Pirsig

'You cannot think your way to right action, you have to act your way to right thingking.'-Devid Milch

Zen to Go serves up bite-sized bits of wisdom from the East and from the West, from the Buddha to Yogi Berra. These spiritually delectable sayings and quotations convey the essence of zen, to light up the mind and nourish the soul.

Jon Winokur is the author of nmerous books, including The Portable Curmudgeon, Encyclopedia Neurotica, and Ennui to Go.

Contents

Introduction
Zen abuse
Zen-Zen; Action; Art
Illlusion-Illusion; Attachment; Self; Time; Kife; Death; Reality
Enlightenment-Nature; The way; No-knowledge; Meditation; Satori
Mind-Beginner's mind; Ordinary mind; No-mind
Not-two-Nothingness; Oneness
Select bibliography
Index

4/19/22

One of my favorite actors and a really stand-up guy. This was a fun read.

I don't usually read ghost written autobiographies of actors and television stars but I always liked the work of James Garner. He just seemed to come across on the screen as human and real. That was what he was trying to do according to himself in this book, The Garner Files. I found the parts of the book about his political views and his auto racing experience to be the most interesting. James Garner was a committed liberal and member of the Democratic Party. He was at Martin Luther King Jr.'s I have a Dream speech in Washington DC and except for Eisenhower in 1952 never voted for a Republican. He really was a great race driver. The racing scenes in the movie Gran Prix were really him. The car chase scenes in the Rockford Files were Garner as well. The producers didn't like it but Jim was a much better driver than any of the stunt drivers on the set. The parts of the book about playing golf with other celebrities didn't interest me as much. However the when he wrote about his fighting back against the studio executives my interest was held. Garner died in 2014, just three years after this book was written. I spotted it on the self at the library and took it home to read. Glad I did.

My late father-in-law attended Norman, Oklahoma High School with James Garner. So I just read the first chapter of this book out of curiosity. Then, liking a good war story, I read the greater part of the second chapter too.

My father-in-law would only say that James Garner was vain. He certainly was handsome and I am sure having a full Cherokee grandmother didn't hurt in that regard. Garner tells how he was being heckled as a showboat and pretty boy while playing in a high school football game. So he charged into the stands creating a ruckus that resulted in several arrests but not his. Perhaps my father-in-law was one of them but I will never know since he died before this book was published.

Garner appears to have had a casual attitude towards education and with all his perambulations and work I suspect he fell behind a grade or two. My father-in-law on the other hand graduated from the Naval Academy, retired from Air Force Systems Command and then was a professor of mechanical engineering at a state university. So likely they did not move in the same social set.

Garner says he enlisted in the Merchant Marine as soon as he turned sixteen (April 7, 1944) and V-E Day (May 8, 1945) occurred thirteen months later. Go figure.

I like the photo on the front endpaper. It is from "The Great Escape" one of my favorite movies. Steve McQueen is shirtless on a motorcycle and bears a passing resemblance to Vladimir Putin on that horse.

I bought this book from the Quality Paperback Book Club in 1983 or soon thereafter. Ever since, its highlights have been an important part of my brain, such as Winston Churchill's comment to Lady Astor regarding his tea or Gore Vidal's thoughts on success. This book contains some of the absolutely most profound and funniest statements ever made by men or women, and its focus means it gives more pleasure per page than a larger book of quotations.

On the other hand, it hasn't always aged well. The editor has a particular hatred for punk rock, which he brings out for some unknown reason during at least two of the interviews with curmudgeons that break up the quotes by alphabetical subject. The book also directs a lot more vile against women than men, although a few of the observations about men may make up for several of the ones about women. Still, most of the curmudgeons, past and present, are men, so it isn't that surprising. All the usual suspects are here--W.C. Fields, Oscar Wilde, George S. Kaufman, Groucho Marx, and on and on and on. This is still a book everyone should have. Be prepared to be insulted, disgusted, and made to laugh out loud.

I mostly enjoyed this memoir, being a fan of James Garner's work. But I found some of it to be off-putting. Throughout the book, he talks about what a bad temper he has and how many people he has hit. It really sounded more like bragging than admitting to a character flaw. Also, the chapters on auto racing and golf were way too long and detailed. It struck me as a bit hypocritical how he portrayed himself as a Hollywood outsider, an ordinary guy, all the while talking about travelling the world, racing cars, playing golf at exclusive clubs, and dropping the names of his very Hollywood pals. Can you really be a member of the Bel Air country club and still be a man of the people?

A book of quotations by curmudgeons on a variety of topics. Some sparkle with brilliance, some with humor. A few are malicious, even nasty. Many are keepers worthy of your notebooks.

This book resembles Ambrose Bierce’s “Devil’s Dictionary” but is derived from a variety of authors, not just one. They range from Voltaire and Oscar Wilde to Woody Allen and Johnny Carson. From Ben Jonson to Al Capp, arranged alphabetically by subject matter.

Included are interesting short bios of prominent world-class curmudgeons. They were a neurotic bunch, but brazenly outspoken. Their zany antics are amusing to read about.

It is not necessary to hate mankind to enjoy this book, but it would help. There is something here to please everyone except Pollyannas, to whom it is not recommended. But if you are in a sour mood or lean toward the cynical or pessimistic, you can’t go wrong with this one.

A good book for a writer to obtain.

I listened to his audio book read by Jim Garner. Love his voice. .......After suffering physical abuse at the hands of his stepmother, Garner left home at fourteen. He became Oklahoma’s first draftee of the Korean War and was awarded with two Purple Hearts before returning to the United States and settling in Los Angeles to become an actor. Working alongside some of the most renowned celebrities, including Julie Andrews, Marlon Brando, and Clint Eastwood, Garner became a star in his own right, despite struggles with stage fright and depression. In The Garner Files, this revered actor and quintessential self-made man has stories about Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, breaking Doris Day’s ribs, having a “heart-to-heart and eyeball-to-eyeball” with Steve McQueen, being “a card-carrying liberal—and proud of it,” etc. I enjoyed learning about James Garner, an actor I've always enjoyed. He seems to have earned the respect of Hollywood. ...........A couple of the chapters on auto racing and golf I had to fast forward through. Way to boring for me but someone else may really enjoy listening to specifics on those subjects.

Not overly well written but interesting. He seems to have been an all around nice guy in the sense that he stuck up for the downtrodden. He also had a temper, which you'd never know from his TV shows and movies. He stayed out of the limelight and was married to the same woman for 50 years, both rare in Hollywood.

In his own words James Garner talks about his childhood, time in Korea, his love of Formula One racing and his golf game. He got into acting more or less by chance and started in just wanting to make money to support his family. He was the type of guy I would have loved to have coffee with unless he was having a bad day. He says to the effect that he had a long fuse but once lit WOW. He seems to have been generous to other actors, loyal to his friends, and even though gone a lot a father who was involved with his kids.

Quotes etc from various famous people. A bit on the quippy side and fun to read overall.

Honest and frank autobiography by James Garner. He details the terrible conditions in which he grew up (absent father, abusive stepmother, poverty) and his stints in the Merchant Marine and Army and his service in Korea. He is very frank about some of his fellow actors (Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Bruce Willis) but details his hard work and his inclination to do his own stunts. He also was someone who stuck to the lines as written and intended to have other actors working with him do the same. There is only a small amount on his wife of 57 years and his children. There is a section where his wife, children, co-stars, friends, writers, etc. provide comments about Garner which is very good. However, the best is the filmography where Garner himself provided ratings and comments about his films. This is one of the best filmographies I have ever read.

James Garner is an actor and producer best known for “Maverick” and “The Rockford Files.” He writes in a plan and forthright fashion about his life. Garner starts with his childhood growing up during The Great Depression in Oklahoma. He was wounded twice during the Korean War and then was reassigned to a base post office where he became a “dog robber” like the character he played in “The Great Escape.” After the war he drifted around for a while until someone suggested he try acting. He never formally studied acting and learned from observation.

Garner comes across as a strong personality who shuns the “Hollywood lifestyle” for a private life with friends and family. He doesn’t like awards and is afraid of public speaking. He is a manly sort who played football when he was younger, raced cars, and did most of his own stunts. He is an admitted “bleeding heart liberal” who fought injustice. Along with Charlton Heston , Sidney Poitier, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, and other celebrities he participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Garner confesses to be an old curmudgeon; hard on the outside and soft on the inside. He is an interesting man and this book is worth reading if you are a fan.

Interesting read for fans. I enjoyed the name dropping. JG explains near the end of the book how Jon Winokur to be his co-author and choosing him to write an autobiography still didn't make sense to me. The writing style was choppy but, for all I know, better than JG would have done on his own. If the publisher had suggested someone else, JG probably would have decked him.

James Garner has always been one of my absolute most-favorite television actors. Though I was born a little too late to have enjoyed him in Maverick, I consider The Rockford Files to be, perhaps, one of the most perfectly-constructed television series ever made. And James Garner deserves the lion's share of the credit for that. He puts out the impression of gruffness or, as he mentions in his biography, "crochetyness", but underneath it, he's got a warm personality. His autobiography is definitely written in his voice -- he shares anecdotes, both positive and negative, from throughout his career. He's blunt but honest about the people whom he has issues with, but cordial and sentimental about the creative types whom he respects. He spends about equal time on his TV and movie careers, but also a large amount of the book covers his personal life outside of the show-biz trappings -- his hard-scrabble youth, his love of both golf and racing cars, and the issues of growing older. I very much enjoyed this book, and recommend it highly to anyone who's a fan of Garner's extensive body of work on screen.

Originally reviewed for my local library's website: http://www.lincolnlibraries.org/depts/bookguide/srec/staffrec12-01.htm½

James Garner and Jon Winokur have written and engaging account of Garner’s life in Hollywood and the difficult childhood that set him on the path to a life as an actor. This is no shocking expose: Garner tells no tales out of turn (although his relationship with Steve McQueen seems to have been a little odd). He shares his thoughts on golf, politics and the qualities of curmudgeons. He discusses, at length, several of his film and television projects, which I particularly enjoyed. I’m a big fan of the film “The Americanization of Emily” (based on the book of the same name by William Bradford Huie) and was delighted to learn that it was in fact his favorite movie. I also enjoyed the stories of his two risky lawsuits against the studios – and who knew the man had such a temper? The book closes with a list of his work, both TV and film, personally annotated.

I’ve never read many entertainer biographies or memoirs, but The Garner Files has encouraged me to give some others a try.

An excellent memoir by James Garner and Jon Winokur. So nice to read a book that doesn't dwell on how many people the 'star' slept with or how he had to beat addictions. I think golf was his only real addiction. He comes across as a person that would be there for you in heartbeat as long as you never lied to him.

The Garner Files: A Memoir by James Garner and Jon Winokur is an excellent celebrity memoir. It reveals Garner to be a man of integrity. He is socially conscious, politically liberal, very opinionated, and he doesn’t hesitate to voice his opinions when they matter. Although he has been very successful in television and movies, he came from a dysfunctional family that struggled to provide a home for him. His mother died when he was very young and his father was not very attentive to him and his brothers. In fact, his father was not even around much, and James had to work odd jobs and take care of himself when he was very young. Garner was the first Oklahoman drafted for the Korean War, and he was awarded two Purple Hearts for wounds sustained during the First Spring Offensive in 1951 when he was one of 30 men who survived from a company of one hundred thirty. However, Garner doesn’t claim to be a hero in any way. He was wounded twice, but he states that he was only trying to save himself during that war. Of course, most of the book focuses on his work as an actor and producer. Most people (at least people of my age) know his television work as Maverick (1957-1961) and as Jim Rockford (1974-1980). However, he was also in 44 feature films, 23 made-for-television movies, and three miniseries. He worked with a long list of very famous and accomplished actors and directors, including Julie Andrews, Marlon Brando, Doris Day, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, William Holden, Lloyd Nolan, Natalie Wood, Randolph Scott, Angie Dickinson, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, Sidney Poitier, Lauren Bacall, Sally Field, Jodie Foster, Jack Lemmon, Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, and many others. He also produced The Rockford Files in addition to some other television shows and movies in which he performed. This book provides much information about many of his movies and TV shows, including fascinating information about the people he worked with. However, this is not a tabloid-gossip book. Garner focuses on his interactions with his family, friends, coworkers, directors, and studio magnates. While most of his stories present positive images of those people, it is not surprising that he includes some very interesting negative opinions of some. He also does not portray himself as perfect in any way. He discusses his drinking problems, his use of marijuana, and his bad temper on the golf course, which also manifested as fights in other settings. Garner is serious about his profession, and he discusses his philosophy of acting, which does not include researching the parts he plays and includes saying the lines exactly as they were written by the writer. This book provides a very candid portrait on Garner’s life, work, and passions, which include golf and race cars. Instead of an ego trip, he provides a revealing description of himself that caused me to respect him even more after reading the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed Garner’s movie and/or television work, and it would also be of interest to any avid fan of movies or television shows from 1956-2000.½

I love this book! Here's a review I wrote in 1996 for a now-defunct newsletter.

FLBs: Something to Chew On

Funny little books (FLBs) of one sort or another have been around for some time. Captivated by Charles Schultz’s Happiness Is a Warm Puppy back in the sixties, the public has devoured a steady stream of impulse-counter miniatures, from cute sentiments and pocket wisdom to humor and satire. Regardless of the specific subject matter or theme, the marketplace appears to have a big appetite for attractively packaged tidbits that nearly anybody can read all the way through. The recipe seems simple: just gather a few witty brevities that appeal to some personal or professional interest, add a liberal helping of charming graphics (optional), and publish. Voilà: an FLB.

In general, I haven’t been much of a consumer of FLBs, with or without clever illustrations. I like big books, the thicker the better, and I prefer to distill their essences myself, without the aid of a cartoonist’s interpretations. So I’ve resisted tiny volumes about cats and angels, palm-sized anthologies of political one-liners and snappy comebacks, and even comical instances of fractured English from around the world.

But I suppose it was just a matter of time until I happened onto an FLB that suited my own taste. The subject matter was Zen, and I didn’t even know I was interested in it until after I’d read this FLB, which must have turned up at just the right moment in some internal process of which I was completely unaware. Zen lends itself especially well to the FLB treatment because so many Zenlike things can be said in brief, high-impact statements and so many Zen stories conclude with a punch line that invites illustration. So even though these books look funny, and probably are funny, and are certainly little, they are not the empty salt and sugar you find in most FLBs. There’s plenty of meat in them. I was fooled the first time, to be sure, but not after that. I now have a small but substantial FLB section on my Zen bookshelf, and I regard it quite seriously. Even a nibble can take a long while to digest.

The FLB that moved me from a spiritual window shopper to a Monday night regular at a zendo was Zen to Go, compiled and edited by Jon Winokur (Plume, 1990; $7.95). This modest-looking offering bills itself on the cover as “Bite-sized bits of wisdom from the East and West—from the Buddha to Yogi Berra.” I bought it because it was displayed cover-out on the bookstore shelf and the whimsical picture of a pretzel in the shape of a yin-yang caught my eye. I thought it would be a lightweight, easily digestible Buddhist snack that would please my philosophical palate without demanding any investment—not effort, not thought, scarcely even attention, and certainly nothing like commitment.

That should give you a pretty good idea of how much I knew about Zen, which thrives on short, cryptic statements that can enthrall a mind for years. I’d heard of “one hand clapping,” but, with my own education firmly rooted in the Western tradition, I never guessed that anything that nonsensical was serious business to anybody; I thought it was a parody of something.

So, all unawares, I took the hook with the bait before I even realized I’d swallowed anything. Not only had I become a consumer of FLBs after all but I had also had my first solid helping of Zen teachings—and was about to become a guest at the banquet.

I read the book through, made little of it, and read it through again, this time with a glimmer of sense here and there. The quotations, all short, are arranged under general topics (“Action,” “Illusion,” “No-Mind”) in a sequence that has a felt logic to it even if not a readily analyzed pattern. Interspersed among them are occasional brief explanatory passages and traditional Zen stories that add a dimension and a larger context to the quotations. I like the editor’s introduction, which is one of the nicest short explanations of Zen I’ve encountered. The concluding paragraph of the introduction, in truth, is what made me want to know more:

Zen is simple and unpretentious. It’s friendly. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. It doesn’t sit on its behind in some shrine, it gets out and mingles. It’s flexible and portable, but it isn’t junk food for the soul, it’s hearty spiritual nourishment. It has dignity, a sense of humor, and a gritty, iconoclastic spirit. This book is meant to convey that spirit.

Fairly frequently, I still like to read this book all the way through from the introduction to the bibliography.

Two years later, I am still bringing a vigorous appetite to the Zen table. I’ve partaken of some rather heavy fare in that time, working my way through Suzuki, Humphreys, Conze, Beck, Aitken, Kapleau, and others, as well as several books on Sanskrit (an interest that predates my Zen study) and two Zen and Buddhism dictionaries, cover to cover. I have scarcely begun to touch the masses of scholarly works. I know that reading and study will not sate the appetite. But they do show me how to take nourishment where it can be found—sometimes even in just a single bite, a pretzel for the mind.

A good collection of some of the great quotes from notable (and not so notable) critics, commentators, and grumps. The sharp humour in most of these keeps the collection from bringing you down, but I wouldn't recommend reading this all in one sitting.

Os.½

A helpful and funny guide to irony for the popular masses. Winokur is an excellent researcher and archivalist. I found that I had a very enjoyable time reading through the snippets of the history of irony. For what it is, this book is great. However, more serious ironists should check out Linda Hutcheon, Claire Colebrook, let alone the master in Soren Kierekgaard's doctoral dissertation itself.