cwl's reviews
261 reviews

 World Travel is essentially an alphabetical list of some 43 locations which is then drilled into and described as destinations. Intercut between Bourdain's quotes are stories from those who knew him. The book includes details about IATA airport codes, restaurants, transportation and some basic sights. By no means is this a Lonely Planet book, so you can relax. There are a few words about Toronto too. Shout out to Tony calling Toronto ugly once again (hey, we've changed a lot since then!).  

The full text of my review can be found at https://travel.cwl.cc/world-travel-an-irreverent-guide/ 

 Graphic novels are the perfect vehicle for some stories. Sandcastle proves this with its moody high-concept story. More of my non-spoiler thoughts here: http://go.ecwl.cc/6 

The Real James Bond - The story of Jim Bond, the person whose name was used for 007. My thoughts > http://url.cwl.cc/zyhfe 

This book was just incredible. I couldn’t put it down and read it in a day. My full thoughts- > http://url.cwl.cc/zanan

If you like reading about reading, you’ll like this. My full thoughts- > http://url.cwl.cc/imdiy

Truth or fiction? This is the question I started with. Even before reading a word of the prologue, I thought - what if it’s more about finding the truth in the fiction instead of figuring out what is true or not? By the time you read the name “Georgie DeBusschere,” you’ll be well-acquainted with the fiction Carrey’s book. The truth, however, seems to be another matter. The key to Memoirs and Misinformation will be to unearth something true in all of this fictional tale of a maybe-fictional actor named Jim Carrey. Gosh, just reading that must make it seem like it's gone off the rails immediately.
 
 With lines like: “She moved toward him like a heat-seeking credenza,” you kind of know the flourishes about to be unleashed. I think of that line being constructed by Vachon with the idea of Carrey’s manic subconscious.
 
 I think much of this is close-to-true or hyper-real or as false as streams of consciousness can become. The “Hungry Hungry Hippos in Digital 3D.” is very likely cross-connected to "Sonic: The Hedgehog," but in no way that we mortals can connect directly.
 
 I loved it all. This felt so much like what might be one of Carrey's riff on society and fame today. The meaning will be always be left to the reader.

Right from the beginning, you know this is about Trump. From using his catchphrase as a title to labelling him the “conspirator in chief ” in the introduction. So, yes very critical of Trump, but are we going to also get a deeper examination of hive mind conspiracies? This is my hope.

The point about Red Sox fans and their ambulance to The Yankees hit well:
“With respect to the Yankees, the question of justified belief does not arise for RedSox fans, at least not in a philosophic or scientific way. It arises from a tribal context, where validation comes from repetition by those in the relevant community—in this case, RedSox Nation.“

Conspiracism is not skepticism.

The problem isn’t that he does not know this or that, or that he does not know this or that. Rather, the dangerous thing is that he does not know what it is to know something.” This is dangerous in a president, Will observes, for it “leaves him susceptible to being blown about by gusts of factoids that cling like lint to a disorderly mind.”1 And when that mind demands that its reality be accepted as how things are, we are embattled by an assault on our sense of what it means to know something.

So, even with this book, we don’t have a definitive answer on how to face this scourge. I do wish it delved deeper into the beginnings of some of the more crazy theories such “Pizzagate,” but as a short look at these problems we now face regularly, this book does well.