Funny Girl by Nick Hornby

Several of Nick Hornby's books have been adapted into movies (High Fidelity, About a Boy, A Long Way Down, and Fever Pitch), and he's written a few screenplays himself. Funny Girl (no relation to the Streisand musical) is his first novel to not take place in the modern age, deals with the act of writing itself, and in my opinion would make a good film.

In the mid-1960s, Barbara Parker wins the beauty pageant in her hometown of Blackpool, England, but would rather be known for her sense of humor over her looks. She takes off for London with the goal of being a comedic actress like her idol, Lucille Ball. Her agent encourages her to change her name, and they settle on Sophie Straw. She soon gets an audition for an episode of BBC's Comedy Playhouse, which has long been a springboard for full-series orders of sitcoms.

When the writers of the episode, Tony and Bill, ask Sophie what she really thinks about their script Wedded Bliss?, she prompts them to throw the whole thing out, and on the spot they decide to write a new version based around her. Ironically, they decide the female character should now be named Barbara and hail from Blackpool. Then they change the name of the show to Barbara (and Jim), the parentheses (or "brackets" in Brit-speak) indicating the dominance of Sophie's character over her husband, which does not please her vain co-star, Clive.

Barbara (and Jim) becomes successful enough to run for four 16-episode series (seasons). The lives of the writers and stars are used for inspiration for the show's plots. Sophie and Clive begin a relationship and eventually become engaged. Tony is in an uncomfortable marriage until he has a baby with his wife around the same time that Barbara and Jim have one in the show. Co-writer Bill is a closeted homosexual who writes a novel based on his outsider status, and producer Dennis gets a divorce and realizes he's in love with Sophie. There is some intersection with real events, like when Lucille Ball is shooting Lucy in London, Sophie gets an underwhelming conversation with her idol.

The last couple chapters jump forward to present day, but I won't say any more since you should discover the circumstances for yourself. Funny Girl is a purely entertaining book that explores whether entertainment itself should have a deeper purpose, or if it's "enough" to be writing something that people enjoy.

Penn & Teller on Broadway

I've admired magicians Penn and Teller for a number of years, from their appearances on talk shows, their own TV shows, and movies they produced, so I had always wanted to see them in their natural environment, at the theater named after them in Las Vegas. A few months ago I noticed they'd be doing a limited run on Broadway, and figured, "That's a much shorter distance to travel and will be unique from the Vegas show." As of August 16, P&T have left the Marquis Theater, so this review is written for posterity rather than a recommendation for something you can seek out.

Penn Jillette (the one who does all the speaking) explained that this show became a de facto celebration of the duo having performed together for 40 years, starting in August of 1975. Penn saw Teller performing a needle-and-thread-swallowing trick (which he performed for the Broadway audience of course) and immediately decided he had to work with this silent sleight-of-hand master. Penn and Teller share a disdain for those who profit from lying and fooling the vulnerable, and when performing magic the pair will always remind the audience that almost nothing they see is as it seems. I had seen a few of the tricks during their many television appearances, but seeing the illusions live in a theater is comparable to the difference between listening to an MP3 and going to a concert. Even when I know what they're about to do, hell if I know how they do it.

At the risk of giving away the game, I'd like to give a specific example. Liz and I arrived late to the show (due to poor planning on my part). As we were seated, Penn and Teller were in the middle of a trick where they make an audience member's phone appear inside a dead fish, within a box, in the back of the auditorium. I had just seen this trick on their CW show Penn & Teller: Fool Us, so I told Liz we could watch that part on Hulu to see the part of the routine we missed. Now, I had been certain that Teller was palming the phone and then pulling it out when he cut open the fish, but when we watched closely on the TV show, the plastic in which the phone was contained can be seen peeking out from the fish guts, so... there must be some other method used. These guys keep one guessing.

My favorite routine involved a man being chosen from his seat to use a camcorder on stage, the feed from which was shown on a large overhead screen. This was allegedly to demonstrate why Penn and Teller choose not to use displays throughout their act, saying they distract from what is actually happening on stage. Indeed, they made the trick occur very differently on the screen from what was seen on stage, and I'm pretty sure this could not have been replicated on a TV show. And even though Teller warned us (via written signs) that the trick we thought they were doing was not what they were really doing, the outcome was incredibly surprising.

Penn & Teller do the classic magic tricks like pulling a rabbit out a hat and sawing a woman in half, but with their patented style. They also have tricks involving items as diverse as a metal detector, joke books, and a length of polyester fabric, that I've never seen any other illusionist do. Their sense of humor and skepticism is unmatched in their field, and here's hoping they keep it up for decades to come.

Fresh off the Boat by Eddie Huang

ABC's Fresh off the Boat is the first show about an Asian American family since Margaret Cho's All-American Girl from the mid-90s. The earlier show gets a nod when the Huang family is watching it in their season finale. Overall, Fresh is a cleverly funny show that deals with the struggles of the Huang family to fit in with American culture. However, being on a broadcast network like ABC prevents it from being as direct and biting as Eddie Huang's memoir of the same name.

Huang himself narrates each episode, a tactic comparable to The Wonder Years but maybe closer in tone to Everybody Hates Chris, for which Chris Rock narrated stories based on his own childhood. Eddie Huang is a unique personality, proclaiming himself a "rotten banana" because of the way he relates to hip-hop music and black culture. He always felt ostracized in school for being Asian and for eating "stinky" Chinese food for lunch, and ever since hearing Dr. Dre's album The Chronic, he has felt affinity for the struggles expressed in rap. Huang never shies from discussing racism and stereotypes; after all, his title is a phrase commonly used derogatorily toward immigrants.

The TV series focuses on Eddie at the age of 12, when he and his family have just moved from DC's Chinatown to Orlando, Florida, when his father Louis wanted to open a restaurant. Of course the book has a much longer view of his life, reaching to the present day when Eddie opened his own eatery. What the show captures well from the book is Eddie's preoccupation with being cool, from getting the latest music and shoes (Jordans) to wanting his mother to pack more American food for his lunches. But of course the series, being an ongoing sitcom, has to flesh out the rest of the family and include more humor, which is where it strays from Eddie's real life/memoir.

In Fresh off the Boat the book, there are details like the physical abuse Eddie sustained from his father, which will certainly never be depicted on ABC. I cannot see the network allowing a "very special episode" involving Randall Park's Louis beating his son, on a show that is mainly focused on comedy, as much as Eddie Huang may want to see that topic addressed.* It is readily apparent that the show was created by the same woman who helmed the off-the-wall Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23.

This is another book that I feel benefits from hearing the audiobook, read by the author, if you can get your hands on it. Since the slang-and-metaphor-heavy prose is very much written in Eddie's "voice", hearing his actual voice helps to understand his intended meaning, as well as getting the proper pronunciations for the sprinklings of Chinese. Although he dabbled in standup comedy, it's clear that he was always meant to become a chef, since his strongest memories are tied to food, and his descriptions of meals are as evocative as any Michael Pollan book. His is a unique and compelling point of view, and even if the show waters down the events of his life, it's worth watching for a perspective that is underrepresented by the media as a whole.

To buy the book, related merchandise, or to learn more about Eddie Huang himself, check out the website for his Manhattan restaurant BaoHaus.

*Eddie Huang Gives 'Fresh Off the Boat' a "B"; Pushes for Domestic Violence Arc

Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee

Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960 and I do not think she expected (or even hoped for) the amount of attention the book has received. It won the Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. The author herself is an enigma: she does not make public appearances nor communicate with fans and has stated she will not publish another book. So it seemed weird when her lawyer, Tonja B. Carter, discovered a manuscript in the safety deposit box and Lee consented to publish it.

Go Set a Watchman reads like it was not given a professional edit which, given the circumstances, makes sense. I don't mean to suggest it is full of typos and such, but it does lack the polished tone found in Mockingbird. The novel follows Scout, now an adult living in New York and going by her given name Jean Louise, visiting Maycomb and being shocked by all that has changed. I think it reads like a logical sequel; Scout now sees through adult eyes what she thought she understood as a child and the reality disturbs her. That being said, if Watchman had come first I don't think we would be discussing it in English classes across the country. I don't think people would re-read it as often as they do Mockingbird. I don't think Monroeville would have Watchman-themed everything and be thriving on tourism like it is with Mockingbird.

My verdict is: do not go out of your way to read it. And my main reason? Because I still do not believe that Harper Lee ever intended that book to be published, in her lifetime or posthumously. I think, like a lot of people out there, that Tonja B. Carter is taking advantage of her elderly, famous client. When she dies, it will be interesting to see what happens to her estate.