We Californians believe in the absurd. But it's a pleasant surprise when the absurd reciprocates.
Lowell Darling, artist and prankster, campaigned to be Governor of California back in 1978. He captured the spirit of the times. The people called for "taxpayer revolt", and Darling promised to replace taxes with Incredible Good Luck. Instead, the public voted in Proposition 13, which replaced taxes with Incredibly Poor Schools. Darling's position was obviously close to that of the Californian people; it doesn't make sense that he didn't get elected.
One Hand Shaking is his campaign diary, full of wine and hippos. It was a light-hearted campaign, and this is a light-hearted book. It was just the right thing to read after How to Hack a Party Line.
If you read this book, see if you can spot the brief Ruth Reichl cameo!
Tags: book | absurd | promises |
[Update March 26 2006
A little mail exchange:
From: Lowell Darling To: web+comment@lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us Subject: ??????? Can you guess all the cameos?*~*~*~*~*
From: Larry Hosken To: Lowell Darling Subject: ??????? > Can you guess all the cameos? Perhaps. The first challenge would be: spotting the cameos. There are several fleetings mentions of people: monks wandering by the side of the road; a man from Minneapolis. Which of these people are cameos? It's easy to dismiss those monks, mentioned in passing. But what one of them was the Dalai Lama and this fact was omitted due to its unimportance to the narrative? There seem to be at least two people identified as "Maria", but perhaps it is just one. A former wrestler who is now a fortune teller? Unlikely, but stranger things have happened. Anyhow, detecting all of the cameos seems like the tricky part. Given a list of cameos, the guesses are easy. Guesses are guesses. They don't have to be good guesses. We learn a lot about "Ilene", but it doesn't ring any bells with me. I try searching the web, hoping to dig something up--with no success. But it is easy to guess that this is Ilene Tetazoo, an obscure sculptor. That guess is probably not correct, but it was easy. I wish you good day, sir. -Larry H.*~*~*~*~*~*
From: Lowell Darling To: Larry Hosken Subject: ??????? Larry, You are close with ilene because she is an artist. Most of the rest are artists and movie people, a few comedians, early Saturday night live people, directors and now studio heads. One of the maria's is maria tortuga a porno movie star and the other a retired wrestler who doubled for the actress alexis smith, but that is not the alexis in the book, that is the artist who uses her name. the dalai lama is not in but perhaps his weather man is, I can't recall, but the monks beside the highway were a couple of hare krishnas crawling north, who knows where. Anyway, thanks for the kind words on the book, it was fun to see it mentioned after being published so long ago. Best luck lowell
What a great guy. I'd vote for him. If he ran against Arnie, I'd vote for him twice.]
Labels: book