Holy Hullabaloos, The Blog

Booklist Calls HH "Entertaining" and "Enlightening"

From what I understand, there are four major trade magazines that review books about to be published: Publisher's Weekly; Kirkus Reviews; Booklist; and Library Journal.  These are key reviews because they are read by the publishing industry, bookstores, libraries, etc.  So it's great to have good reviews from at least a couple of these.  Of course, Publishers Weekly gave HH a starred review last week, and now Booklist has come through with a strong review as well.  Most of it simply summarizes the book, but the last line calls it "an entertaining ramble that is also thoughtful, even enlightening."  Yay, Booklist!  I'll link to the review when there is a link, but right now there isn't a link, so you just have to take my word for it.

My Hot Little Hands, I've Got Them In

So, the Holy Hullabaloos books came off the press on April 25, and I now have two copies of the final version in my hot little hands, whatever that phrase means.  They're lovely looking.  They're much fatter and book-like than the bound galleys.  They're so nice that Karen might even actually finish reading the book.  She doesn't usually read anything I write, but she did promise to read the book, and for a while she was reading the bound galley of HH, but then she stopped, claiming that the book had a "weird hand-feel" because it was a weird shape or something.  My wife, in case you don't know her, is bananas.  Good bananas, but still.  Anyway, now that the beautiful new book is out with all the blurbs all over it, there are so many blurbs, if there were any more blurbs they'd have to be written on the spine of the book like that one story David Foster Wallace once wrote for an early issue of McSweeney's, and also the cool and crisp picture of Uncle Sam and Jesus with lightly painted hair on it, I think Karen might finish the book, and that is good.  Also I should point out that the book is cheap.  Did you hear that?  It's cheap.  Because it's a paperback.  Ordinarily a Beacon book would come out first in hardcover, but Helene Atwan, the editor and Director of the press, decided that since the book should be attractive to younger people and students, it would be a good idea to have it come out in paperback so they could afford it.  I thought it was a good idea.  Who wants to pay $26 for a book anyway?  And this decision was made before the economy went completely into the toilet, so now her judgment looks like pure genius.  If you're looking for a book to read this summer, then, consider that you will be able to get my book for like $14 on Amazon, while it might cost you $87 to buy some hardcover piece of crap that isn't even as good as my book.  Why would you pay $73 more to buy a worse book?  I don't understand it.  Why???  Anyways, the book will be shipping from the warehouse in Iowa or somewhere on May 6, that's next week, and it should be making its way to Amazon and B&N and the bookstores in late May sometime, although the official publication date remains early June.  Have a nice day, thank you.

Holy Hullabaloos, the Blog, Gives Starred Review to Publishers Weekly's Starred Review of Holy Hullabaloos, The Book

Here at Holy Hullabaloos, the Blog, we do not give out starred reviews to just any review of Holy Hullabaloos, the Book.  For example, remember that review from Foreword Magazine that called HH "irreverent" and "obnoxious"?  Well, we kind of liked that review, but we didn't give it a star.  But there's no doubt that the recent starred review from Publishers Weekly should definitely get a star.  We love that review and it makes us happy and dance.  In fact, word has it that the Houston office broke out in a spontaneous version of the dance that all the actors did at the end of Slumdog Millionaire when word of the review made it down to east Texas.  So, thank you Publishers Weekly for calling HH "superb . . . laugh-out-loud funny . . . a rare treat."  You, too, are a rare treat.  Mmmmmm, Publishers Weekly.

Tomorrow: some comments on the one vaguely negative but really kind of interesting thing from the review (now that classes are over, we foresee returning to a regular posting schedule here at the blog).

Holy Hullabaloos Gets Starred Review From Publisher's Weekly!

This is about the best review I could possibly have hoped to get for Holy Hullabaloos.  Yay, Publisher's Weekly.

Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars Jay Wexler. Beacon, $16 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-8070-0044-1

Boston University law professor Wexler is also a published humorist. This felicitous combination of talents is put to good use as he visits the towns and cities where the always controversial cases concerning separation of church and state arise. Wexler’s lucid explications of difficult constitutional concepts and the vagaries of Supreme Court rulings are superb, providing readers a deeper understanding of the First Amendment and Supreme Court jurisprudence. But that’s only half the story. Wexler is laugh-out-loud funny as he narrates his odyssey through battleground sites from rural Wisconsin through Texas to the chambers of the U.S. Senate. Along the way he happily and with a usually generous spirit skewers Supreme Court justices, legislators, educators, law school professors and pretty much anyone else, including himself, who has ever taken a position on the enduring American controversies surrounding prayer in schools, religious displays on public property, or the teaching of evolution. This is a rare treat, a combination of thoughtful analysis and quirky humor that illuminates an issue that rarely elicits a laugh—and that is central to the American body politic. (June)

Link is here (HH review about 12 reviews down).

RBG Symposium Now Online

Hi.  How are you today?  Good to hear it.  If you're interested, the symposium on the jurisprudence of Justice Ginsburg that I participated in last month at New England Law Boston is now online here.  To watch it you click on the big "f" on the right of the screen right under where it says "Watch."  My talk starts at about 52 minutes.  Enjoy!

A List

Reasons Why Playing "Revolution 9" on a Jukebox at a Bar is a Bad Idea, Even if You Think it Will Make You Seem Clever

The song is long and unpleasant

People do not like to listen to Revolution 9

The bartender may get irritated

Your ears will hurt

If Charles Manson happened to break out of prison and is in the bar at the time you play the song, he may dismember you

People will start talking about whether Paul is dead

The topic of Yoko Ono might come up

Playing this song in a bar is actually not that clever

You could have used that quarter to play Sweet Child o'Mine!

Did You Know?

that you can access all of my posts from PrawfsBlawg over the past few months here?  You didn't, did you?  YOUR'E WELCOME.

Sorry I Suck So Much

Those of you who check Holy Hullabaloos: The Blog for updates every ten minutes or so know all too well that I've been a blog slacker in the past week or so.  Sorry about that.  I don't know, lots of forces converging here. The school year is reaching the end, and I'm tired.  Turning 40 on Sunday and looking forward to that with a bit of terror and despair.  Somewhat mitigated by new cholesterol numbers that are well within healthy limits.  But then again, ate maybe 600 calories of cheese at L'Espalier on Saturday night, including one piece that I swear smelled exactly like the shoes I bought 6 years ago.  I think it's currently stuck in my left ventricle.  Is that OK?  Holy Hullabaloos the Book is coming out in a month and a half and I'm nervous about it.  No reviews seem to be popping up.  Maybe it's too early to expect them, but still it's close enough to the pub date that I feel that any second something could come in.  This is exhausting.  Also, April is the worst month of the year in Boston.  Yes, February is much colder, and March lacks all holidays (though my son was born in March, so his birthday makes it better), but April is the month when if you live in a regular place the weather starts getting nice but if you live in Boston the weather continues to suck on a daily basis, with only an occasional bit of beauty peeking through the sky like last Sunday when the kids were playing frisbee on the Common and the dogs were shitting wildly on the city streets.  Plus I haven't written anything in a while--keep meaning to start a short story called "Pet Hotel" about a hotel where every room comes with a pet.  Yet, I haven't gotten around to it, and this too wipes me out.  I did get my Russian Visa however and am looking forward to traveling with Karen to Moscow for about a week on April 18.  Have some talks to give there about religion but should be a lot of time for caviar eating, so much eating of caviar, I might swim in a pool of caviar and bathe in caviar and get dressed in a suit of caviar if this is at all possible.  I bought two gospel CDs for the first time in my life.  Not bad.  Weirdly not interested in U2's new album and haven't bought tickets for their shows.  Partially this is because the shows are in Foxboro, but also it's because I'm just not interested.  Strange, given that I saw their last show four times.  Anyway, I promise that once school starts winding down and I return from Russia at the end of April, the blogging will again take on the Tasmanian Devil-like qualities it began with back in December.  Don't unbookmark us, please.  As I like saying on occasions such as this: May all your dreams come true, unless one of those dreams is a nightmare, in which case, I hope that that particular dream doesn't come true.

My Dream Two Nights Ago

Don't hang up--I know that hearing about somebody else's dreams can be incredibly monotonous, but this one I promise won't be, maybe.  It was 3 a.m. and I was dreaming that I was playing right field in a baseball game.  There was a runner on second base.  The batter hit a base hit to the right field corner.  I knew I was going to have to sprint to the ball and then spin and throw it as hard as I could if I was going to have any chance of getting the runner at home.  I ran to the ball, picked it up, spun around, and threw it as hard as I could into the infield.  But what I really did, in real life, was that I punched my alarm clock as hard as I could, catapulting this really heavy Tivoli model onto the floor, causing a huge racket, waking my wife up, and making my knuckle bleed.  As my mother used to say: "Jay, you're a fucking idiot."